Sort and Out of Sorts

Sort and Out of Sorts Sort and Out of Sorts Sort and Out of Sorts By Maeve Maddox A reader wonders if the phrase â€Å"out of sorts† might be worth a post. I think it is. The OED has four separate entries for sort as a noun. The first entry, marked â€Å"obsolete,† defines sort as â€Å"the fate or lot of a particular person or persons.† The word was borrowed from French, but it derives from a Latin verb meaning â€Å"to cast lots.† One’s sort was one’s destiny or fate. In Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, the pilgrims draw straws to see who will tell the first tale. The knight wins the draw: â€Å"[whether] by aventure [happenstance], or sort [fate], or cas [accident], the truth is this: the cut fell to the knight.† A related word is sortilege: 1. The practice of casting lots in order to decide something or to forecast the future; divination based on this procedure or performed in some other way; sorcery, magic, witchcraft. 2. An act or instance of divining, choosing, or deciding by the drawing or casting of lots. A second meaning of sort is â€Å"a measure of weight for figs and raisins,† not a use likely to be encountered even by a lover of early English texts. Computing has coined a new use for sort as a noun: â€Å"the action of arranging items of data in a prescribed sequence.† For example, â€Å"We decided to remove the umlauts before performing the sort.† The most usual modern use of the noun sort is in the sense of â€Å"a kind, species, or variety.† The meaning of sort as a noun has evolved from â€Å"what is allotted to one by fate† to such concepts as condition, rank, class, order, category, and variety. The expression â€Å"out of sorts† to mean â€Å"not in normal condition† or â€Å"irritable or peevish† appears frequently in the context of sports and celebrity-watching: The rehearsal went on for nearly seven hours, and the soloists were tired, hungry, and out of sorts. Madonna appears out of sorts as she leaves a Kabbala Centre with daughter Lourdes and sons Rocco and David in New York City on Friday. Beyoncà © looked a little out of sorts on Monday night as she watched the basketball game with husband Jay Z. Rory McIlroy seemed a bit out of sorts in the third round of the Barclays. Harrison Ford has a new movie on the way so hes out on the promotional trail- but it would seem he was a bit out of sorts when he was interviewed by Conan OBrien. As tends to happen with idioms, â€Å"out of sorts† is sometimes misused by writers unfamiliar with its meaning, as in this sentence about the running scene in Forrest Gump from an entertainment site called Cinemablend: Actually considering the CGI  that the film used, and what it must have cost in the mid-1990s, it seems a little out of sorts that the studio would be bent out of shape over the running scene. The writer seems to be using â€Å"out of sorts† to mean unusual. The phrase â€Å"out of sorts† means, â€Å"not in the normal condition of good health,† or â€Å"in a low-spirited, irritable, or peevish state.† Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:How Many Tenses in English?50 Idioms About Roads and PathsUsing Writing Bursts to Generate Ideas and Enthusiasm