Devastated to discover this morning that, according to Buzzfeed’s ‘Which 90s Indie Band Are You?’ Quiz, I am Belle & Sebastian, for whose music I feel a deep, unqualified and undoubtedly irrational loathing. I think I may have selected one too many answers related to books… Obviously I really wanted to be the Make-Up, or Sleater-Kinney, or at the very least Pulp. And it’s in that spirit of political provocation that this blog is celebrating International Women’s Day by banning ‘history’. At least in this post – if someone can lend me a magic bit of code to change the spelling automatically everywhere else, I’d be very grateful – it’s ‘hxtory’ all the way.
I’ve always been very fond of the “history = his story” line. No, of course it’s not etymologically correct, but when did we all buy into the fallacy that Greek origins are absolutely determinative of present meanings? For all intents and purposes, at least until a couple of decades ago, the supposedly neutral ‘enquiry’ (istorie) into the past just happened, quite by accident and not in the least bit reflecting the patriarchal nature of dominant culture, to focus on kings, battles, politics, industrial production etc. If a bit of guerilla etymology can help us recognise that and reflect on our practices and assumptions, then that’s all to the good. Besides, istorie is much too Herodotean; I want to be Professor of Ancient Suggraphe.
Failing that, Professor of Ancient Hxtory, as allegedly – it’s reported in The Daily Beast, so probably we shouldn’t believe a word of it – activists in Western Washington University have proposed going beyond the replacement of History with Herstory, putting forward a fully inclusive alternative. Actually they’re arguing for Hxstory, which I object to not on etymological grounds – though the idea that the discipline is all about ‘story’ is mildly annoying, and much too Herodotean again – but aesthetics: ‘hicks-story’ has far too many sibillants…
Sphinx 
Pure huckstery.