Q: Why is the word “preternatural” so commonly used, especially in The New York Times? It seems to be more prevalent there than in other publications. What’s the story behind this word’s resurgence? I had to look it up!
A: The term “preternatural” (meaning extraordinary, unnatural, supernatural) has been around since the late 16th century. It was widely used in the 1700s and 1800s but gradually fell out of favor. By the early 1900s, it had become relatively rare, only to make a comeback towards the end of the 20th century.
According to Google’s Ngram Viewer, which tracks word usage in digitized books, the use of “preternatural” began to increase in the 1990s. While The New York Times uses this term frequently, both as an adjective and adverb (“preternaturally”), it can also be found in many other publications.
The first recorded instance of “preternatural” in The Times was in an editorial from March 24, 1860, discussing the joys of journalism, nine years after the newspaper’s establishment in 1851.
The editorial titled “An Oratorical Windfall” highlights that despite the mundane nature of reporting everyday events, journalism can offer glimpses of “an almost preternatural absurdity which it is at once a pleasure and a wonder to pursue.”
A recent example of the use of “preternatural” in The Times is from an article on Dec. 12, 2023, about Shohei Ohtani, a talented player for the Los Angeles Dodgers and his former team, the Los Angeles Angels:
“For Angels fans, Ohtani brought more to the ballpark than just his preternatural, comic-book-like talent at swatting home runs and striking out batters.”
Here’s another example from a Times article on Jan. 2, 2024, discussing how American skier Mikaela Shiffrin views Taylor Swift’s career as a blueprint for navigating fame and challenges:
“That long-distance tutelage began when the preternaturally gifted Shiffrin, nurtured in the Colorado mountains and at a venerable Vermont ski academy, won three World Cup races and a world championship gold medal as a high school senior.”
While The Times is known for its use of “preternatural,” other publications also make use of this term. Here are a few recent examples from various sources:
“Martin Scorsese’s career-capping Killers of the Flower Moon likely never would have happened without David Grann, the New Yorker writer with a preternatural knack for unearthing astonishing, dramatic stories from history” (Slate, Oct. 22, 2023).
“Padres Expert Pleads Fans to Not Forget Juan Soto’s Preternatural Talent” (Sports Illustrated, April 29, 2023).
“15 preternatural podcasts to ring in spooky season” (The Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2021).
The term “preternatural” is derived from the post-classical Latin praeternaturalis, which comes from the classical Latin phrase praeter naturam (beyond or outside nature), as stated in the Oxford English Dictionary.
The earliest documented use of “preternatural” in English dates back to the late 1500s. An example from a letter by the Cambridge scholar Gabriel Harvey to the poet Edmund Spenser discusses a 1580 earthquake in the Dover Straits, the narrowest part of the English Channel:
“an Earthquake might as well be supposed a Naturall Motion of the Earth, as a preternaturall, or supernaturall ominous worke of God” (from Three Proper and Witty Familiar Letters, 1580, published anonymously, apparently by Harvey).
According to Merriam-Webster, throughout history, “preternatural” has been used to describe both exceptionally good and unnaturally evil phenomena. In the 1500s, it often emphasized the strange or foreboding, but by the 1700s, it was used more benignly to refer to fascinating supernatural or heavenly occurrences. Nowadays, it is commonly used to describe the exceptional abilities of extraordinary individuals.
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