MISCHIEVOUS, adj. Now that I’ve put this word in the title of a novel that will be published on Tuesday, I have to come clean: I can’t ever type it right on the first try and I was pronouncing it wrong (sorry, as good descriptivists, we say “in a nonstandard way”) until like two days ago.
Meaningwise, it’s a relatively simple word: in current usage, as the adjective form of “mischief,” it means either “characterized by acts of childish naughtiness or petty annoyance; inclined to mischief” or “In more positive sense: charmingly roguish; playful, teasing” (that’s the Oxford English Dictionary in quotes there). Historically, “mischievous” had more of a sense of harm, damage, or even disaster and misfortune. One of the older OED citations includes the phrase “mischievously ended his life,” which clearly doesn’t mean “playfully.” Over time, the more serious connotations have faded. That’s good for me personally—I didn’t intend them.
I also never intend to misspell or mispronounce this word, but if you ever want to feel better about misspelling a word in English, history is a great comfort. Here are some of OED’s listed forms for the word we now write “mischievous”:
[Middle English] mescheffus, mescheuous, meschevous, meschievous, meschyevous, mischeues, mischevouse, mischuos (transmission error), myschefous, myscheues, myscheuos, myscheuouse, myscheuows, myscheuus, myscheves, myschevess, myschevos (in a late copy), myschevose, myschevouse, myschevus, myschews, myschievouse, myschyvys, myshevouse [Middle English-1500s] myscheuous [Middle English-1600s] mischeuous, myschevous [Middle English-1900s] mischevous [1500s] mescieuous, mischeeuous, mischefous, mischeiuous, mischeous (transmission error), mischeuus, mischevos, mischevus, mischiefous, mischiuous, mischivous [1500s-1600s] mischieuous [1500s; 1900s (Irish English)] mischeevous, mischievous [1600s] mischeifous [1600s-1800s] mischeivous
English spelling is, as ever, a silly thing.
As for pronunciation, in the standard form, the stress falls on the first syllable and—forgive the lack of IPA here—it’s usually something like “MISS-chiv-uhss” (UK) or “MISS-chuh-vuhss” (US). Regarding that pesky four-syllable pronunciation, the OED says it probably developed by analogy to more common words like “devious” and “previous,” and then pointed me toward this note in Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1989):
A pronunciation \mis-'che-ve-3s\, and consequent spelling mischievious, is of long standing: evidence for this spelling goes back to the 16th century. Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers of the islands of the Chesapeake Bay to Herbert Hoover. The pronunciation and spelling must be considered nonstandard but are in a somewhat special category, as they may be used deliberately and humorously, not to make fun of someone else's speech, but because the folksy sound and the echo from devious often add an appropriate flavor to the semantics of the word. See also grievous, grievously.
Sure, sure. That’s definitely what I was doing. Conscious affection, deliberate humor, folksy sound, echo from “devious.” Absolutely. Not “saying it wrong” and “not knowing any better.” Just doing a little mischief.
Here’s what I’ve read lately in small-r romance:
With Love, From Cold World (bi m/het f, both cis, contemporary) by Alicia Thompson. Disclaimer: I am averse to Christmas-themed books, films, etc. This book has Christmas in it, but I read it anyway because it has a bisexual hero and great reviews. As it turns out, it earns those reviews with beautiful characterization and delicious tension. A lonely, uptight, spreadsheet heroine pairs perfectly with a friends-with-everyone (except you, spreadsheet heroine!), slacker hero, and they both work at a quirky, shabby winter/Christmas theme park in perpetually warm Florida. I don’t really like to call any romance where the characters aren’t actively trying to murder each other “enemies to lovers,” but these coworkers and their years of small provocations and miscommunications piling up into real dislike felt believable to me. Lauren, our spreadsheet heroine, has good reasons for keeping to herself and being a perfectionist—she’s a foster child who lost her mom to drug addiction early in life. Likewise, Asa needs to find and nurture his own family of queer friends because his pastor father kicked him out for kissing another teenage boy. When these two do finally start talking—when they get locked into Cold World, the titular amusement park, overnight—they have a lot in common, and it’s genuinely touching to see them open up to each other. Plus, the spreadsheet heroine is bossy in bed, so what’s not to love there? Anyway, I rooted for them and the writing kept me turning the pages.
If I Were A Weapon (f/f, both cis and bi, sci-fi) by Skye Kilaen. This novella is the start of a series following two women who both gained superpowers in the wake of mysterious, dying alien ships arriving on Earth and infecting a small fraction of people with nanites. Both women are wary—for very good reason—of being captured, experimented on, and exploited, so they have a hard time trusting anyone. This is a slow burn, and I loved it. Deneve has visions of the future that she can’t understand or control, and she’s wandering across the US, following the mysterious compulsions her powers give her while trying to stay free and anonymous. Jolie, on the other hand, is staying put and keeping to a rigid, solitary routine in the hopes that no one will find her—and that she won’t accidentally hurt anyone else with her pyrokinesis. They come together when Deneve has a vision of Jolie. Neither of them wants to be around the other, but Deneve’s nanites won’t allow her to leave, which is a brilliant way to do forced proximity. I loved this book’s setting and how it shows the unequal nature of society’s collapse—some people have become homeless and lost contact with their families, but others are living just as they were before, insulated from the effects. And even for those who were affected by the alien nanites, they still need food and shelter and shampoo. Normal life feels paradoxically unavoidable and precarious—as it is for us too. Tense and action-packed and simmering. I look forward to seeing Deneve crack Jolie’s icy shell.
Red Blossom In Snow (m/f, both cis and het, historical) by Jeannie Lin. Both characters in this mystery romance set in Tang Dynasty China (850 CE) insist that they have no aptitude for poetry, yet they’re always quoting Li Bai to each other and thinking about the fog lying low over the river in their anguished yearning and I love it. They also solve a murder. In my usual readerly way, the murder was only of interest to me in that it brought Our Heroes into strained, sexy proximity with each other. That’s not to say it’s not a well-written murder mystery! It is. It all came together in the end. But if you want someone to write intelligently about mysteries, I’m not your guy. Never have I ever noticed a clue. I was too busy thinking about how every sentence of this book is so stately and sparing and yet they all slice right through you. Such powerful, elegant prose. The romance in this is, as I said, full of anguished yearning, as the heroine, Song Yi, is a courtesan who doesn’t trust easily and the hero, Li Chen, is a rule-bound magistrate trying desperately not to have feelings for her because he’s so aware of the power he wields. They’re both convinced they can never be together and both still reckoning with deep grief and wounds from the sudden deaths of their fathers in their youth (one of the deaths is a suicide, just as a content note). A rarity in romance and a delight to see, Song Yi is a sex worker heroine who actually does her job—gets paid for sex—and it’s simply treated as a normal part of her life, not used to shame her or as an excuse for the hero to have a jealous fit (Li Chen would never!). Her life as a courtesan is not easy, and certainly not as glamorous as the illusion makes it seem, but the book explores the loving, familial relationships she has with the other women in her courtesan house, and the skills she’s developed as a musician, a conversation partner, and a reciter of poetry. This book is part of a series, but I read it as a standalone and understood it fine—though I will now be going back to the others in the series so I can find out more about Gao and Wei-wei.
That’s all for this Sunday. I’ll be back in your inbox in two weeks!