Christmas Greetings from a previous century. Ali Bacon reflects on how words change

Fraught can be a good thing!

Once again a friend whose interest in early photography merges into all kinds of printed ephemera has sent me a very charming Christmas card, which I guess is Victorian or possibly Edwardian and reads May your Christmas be fraught with every pleasure. But popping it on the mantle piece I had to read it twice because of course it sounds a little odd to our ears.  Feeling fraught around Christmas is hardly unusual but that's not usually the source of pleasure. 

So off I went to do some googling of definitions. Oxford Living Dictionaries:

"fraught with (of a situation or course of action) filled with or likely to result in (something undesirable)"

Yes, as I thought, but I guess there must at one time have been a usage without the negative connotations and Merriam-Webster provides the information that 'filled with' is the key concept.  Originally 'fraught' meant simply laden, as in a ship laden with cargo. (In fact the word freight is of similar derivation). Then it began to denote 'loaded with' or 'abounding in' in a more figurative sense. From there  it was a short step to meaning loaded with something unwanted, or simply 'characterized by emotional distress or tension'.

So there we have it. Once fraught became fraught in a bad way, it looks like there was no going back. And here we are a few days before Christmas and unless you are super-organised (or maybe even if you are super-organised) you are probably feeling fraught with that unavoidable tension. (The cake! The cranberries! The crackers!)  So I hope this little relic of days gone by is a reminder that things can be fraught with pleasure. And as that other poem says:  may it happen for you!

Happy Christmas

Ali Bacon writes contemporary and historical fiction. Discover more on her website https://alibacon.com