Re: 3Ds and "resonates"

[barbara wolf <lupa@biddeford.com>]

At 05:01 PM 3/2/96 EST, Nancycoe Bailey wrote:
 Could someone -- Barbara, Bethany? --
>give a definition for "resonates" in the sense it has entered
>recent, popular usage? And better yet, does anybody know who
>first used it this way and got things, well...resonating?

Well, Barbara has no idea who started using the word "resonance" to mean "an
underlying or pervasive quality of a particular type" (Webster's New World
Dict., 3rd coll. ed.).  My 1962 Shorter OED sticks to physics, but anyone
with a ref. more up to date would be able to pinpoint the expansion of
meaning.  I think most people use "resonate" as they would (perhaps)
"echo"--and "echo with over- and undertones", perhaps, the "tones" being (in
a usage such as mine) connotative rather than specifically denotative.

But Bethany--if she catches this--will probably have better answers.  My
hunch is that this broadening of meaning probably comes from some literary
critic or other.
Barbara Wolf

        "But we've got to be careful not to reduce people by cramming
        them in the limits of our understanding, haven't we?"

                                                Reginald Hill