Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter.
Let us travel back to those thrilling days of feudalism, when lords were lords and everyone else paid high taxes to the lords. (OK, maybe not so long ago.)
Back then, land was owned only by the very high up (think royalty), who would in effect grant a lease on it in gratitude for services rendered: plundering, conquering, or running amok upon an enemy, for example. That land was held in âfee,â and it came complete with whatever forests, streams, deer, villages, or serfs happened to be there at the time. The man who was granted the âfeeââand it was only menâdidnât own the land, but collected goods or taxes from the people upon it. He could pass the land on to his son, as long as all stayed in the good graces of whoever had granted it.
These grants were also called âfiefs,â and for hundreds of years the term was sufficient to refer both to the grant and to the land itself. (âFiefâ is pronounced like âfeeâ with an âfâ at the end, though itâs sometimes heard as âfieâ with an “f,â rhyming with the flute.)
Then someone apparently decided that English could use another word, and, perhaps to make it sound more stately, added the suffix âdom.â The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of âfiefdomâ to 1814.
While some countries still do have a form of âfief,â the words âfiefâ and âfiefdomâ now are used mostly to mean a personâs sphere of influenceâone news report referred to school principals as âkings of their fiefdom,â something of a contradiction, but you get the point. Lately, the realms of the Treasury and Energy Departments have been referred to as âfiefdoms.â
One way that language changes is through the invention of new words that mean the same as words that already exist, often by adding a prefix or suffixâweâre already discussed the uselessness of âirregardless,â not that it has slowed the spread of that nonstandard usage. âFiefdomâ is another in the group of words that Garnerâs Modern American Usage calls âneedless variants,â which âshould be dropped from the language.â
Fat chance.
âFiefdomâ now is far more common that âfief,â probably because the similarity to âkingdomâ reminds one of the implied importance of the person who has a âfiefdom.â Most dictionaries include it, many with the sole definition as âfief,â so needless though it may be, it seems to have a long-term lease.
Has America ever needed a media defender more than now? Help us by joining CJR today.