officious

When most people hear the word officious used today, they hear it to mean the following: "unduly forward in offering one's services, or in taking business upon oneself; doing, or prone to do, more than is asked or required; interfering, intrusive." The OED tells us that this is the "usual sense." It has also accreted a meaning of pompous or nosey intervention. Examples of this usage of officious are not tough to find. From Winston Churchill (1904) we have: "I waited for him in two streets until an officious pereson chanced along and threatened to take me before the Arcade." Or, from a more recent (2001) scientific publication: "It didn't take long for the officious dragon to declare that my diet was all wrong, that I needed to lose a stone in weight."

When I started law school in 1996, I learned quickly that law used the word officious in a context I had never imagined. An officious intermeddler is one who tries to be a "Good Samaritan" when someone is hurt but often either makes things worse or, if s/he makes things better, expects to be paid for his/her trouble. But I objected strongly to the term at the time for in no way could the Good Samaritan, from the parable, be characterized as "officious" in the "usual" meaning of the term. A Good Samaritan, out of the ethical value of love to neighbor, intervenes when another is in trouble. By calling such a person "officious," law give the impression that the act of helping is an intrusive and improper act. Another reason why lawyers are plummeting in people's "prestige ranking" of the professions, in my judgment...

Looking at the Development of the Term

Actually, however, the definition of officious given above is only the third one in the OED, and the first attestation of its "usual" meaning was in 1597--"Wolsey, that slye, officious, and too Lordly Cardnall." But the word has two other definitions attested earlier than 1597. The first, from 1487, is "of persons or their actions: active or zealous in the exercise of an office; dutiful." "Dame Ceres...made to hym evydent expsicion how he sholde demene hym-self in thoffycyous admynystraction.." Well, let's move to Shakespeare, who anchors the meaning of words pretty precisely. Three years before the "usual" meaning of officious arose, he wrote, in Titus Andronicus, "Come, come, be every one officius/ To make this banket." Thus, the origin of the term, as should probably have been expected, is very positive. An officious person is one who does a good job in his "office."

The OED's second definition is likewise positive: "Doing or ready to do kind offices; eager to serve, help, or please; attentive, obliging, kind." The first attestation is from the 1560s. From Stapleton's 1565 translation of the Venerable Bede's history of the English Church, we have: "She..came to the table, shewed her selfe very officious in caruinge (caring)...to the bysshope and all the hole table." Johnson could write, in the late 18th century, the following about the death of an aquaintance, that he was "officious, innocent, sincere, Of ev'ry friendliness name the friend."

Changing the Meaning

What I don't know precisely, and what I would love to know, is how and who changed the meaning of this wonderfully useful term from a positive to negative attribute. Here, however, is my theory. As we saw, as early as 1597 officious could have a negative connotation. I think, however, it wasn't until the early 19th century that the negative meaning began to win the day. Why? Well, an 1826 quotation from Disraeli may give us some help: "One of those officious, noisy little men who are always ready to give you unasked information." What began to happen in the early 19th century in Britain? You got it, they began to develop a colonial administration, whose tentacles reached around the world. Of course they had colonies before this time, but the full efflorescence of the concept of British bureaucracy didn't happen until the 19th century. What do you have when you have over-eager officers and subordinate officers abroad who want to enforce His Majesty's rules? Well, you need a new word for it. Though the administrator may be conscientious and scrupulous, the temptation would be to "overadminister" the provinces, principally because you were so good at it. You had, however, no word for a person who "overadministered" things, who was overly scrupulous, who just had to make sure that all the forms which were in triplicate were perfectly lined up with each other. You have all the makings of an officious person.

Granted, there were other English words that already existed that might have sufficed to describe this person, such as meddlesome, but I think that since the person who thus meddled in the colonial administration was always in an office, whether or not he was wearing a pith helmet, the word officious seemed to lie nearer at hand. Thus, a good word began to take on a negative connotation.

Conclusion

You know me well enough by now to realize that I want to recapture the "obsolete" meanings of the term. Granted, we still have meddlesome or overly scrupulous people in offices and relationships of all kinds, but what word do we have to describe someone who does things very well administratively? We have the word efficient or effective, but these words have been so overused in our culture that they lose their punch when applied to everything from workers to cars to planning processes. Why not bring back officious in a positive way? I think you would need to explain what you are doing, but let's just try. Maybe instead of giving secretaries roses next year on their "day," we can give them back a new, but very old, word.

I need one more essay to explore the phrase officious lie.

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