Brute-force them. Just keep using them the right way - sooner or later context will have the readers figure it's the actual meaning. It's the way several of my vocabulary misconceptions were cleared up in the first place, and I'm glad people "brute forced" the right meaning. - - - In essence, I think this topic is similar to the "too realistic to be real" trope. When Hollywood and pop culture build a certain "picture" that is so deeply ingrained people might refuse to believe otherwise. When it comes to vocabulary / word usage, I mostly see the issue pop up with nobility, titles and styles (likely because it's a topic I'm familiar with).
If I didn't know better, I would say most people were just wanting to criticize my book instead of offering helpful advise, because the context of my story is not that important. It's basically this is the situation my character finds himself in, there is no existing word to describe that situation. This is the word that was used for that situation, but the word isn't understood that way by modern audiences. How do you reconcile that? Simple. But everyone is like "What's your book about?" Why? So you can go on a tangent about some of the decisions I'm making? It's in rough draft. I don't even fully know what it's about yet!
No, it really wouldn't help. But if you insist on those details, which of the twelve stories I'm having this problem in do you want to start with? They're also low concept, so, I hope you have a lot of time to sift through dry, boring summaries. One of them is in first draft, so I'm not even fully sure what it's about yet.
For Outlaws, you could just have a magistrate or somebody make a proclamation about outlaws. Proclamations tend to be very official and formal, he could explain basically what it means, or somebody talks to their friend about it. Maybe somebody is concerned because they know somebody who's an outlaw, and they're afraid for them. However you do it though, I think you'll need a little reminder every so often or people will forget and revert back to today's meaning. Somebody could say something like "He's under no protection from the law—his kind are outlaws." And then a little discussion where she (or he, whatever) protests, like "But everyone should have protection under the law! How is he going to survive?" Something along those lines anyway. In a brief discussion you could say it all so it's understandable.
You don't 'reclaim' them. The point of writing is communication. We communicate by conveying meaning. It isn't the meaning you want that determines the word to use, or even the meaning of the word technically, but the meaning the reader gets out of it. So that's all that matters. What meaning will the reader derive from a word? And if they won't assume the correct one, such as the 'outlaw' example, you'll need to explain it. Language evolves. Old meanings fall by the wayside. There is no more use for the old term Outlaw, and anyone who reads the original meaning over the new one is an exception. Without explaining to modern readers when using Outlaw that you intend it to mean the original use, you will only confuse them. In many dictionaries, literally now literally means figuratively.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/literally https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/109061
Exactly! It is the audience having a certain picture in their mind of an outlaw being a fugitive from law or a prince being the heir to the throne and that's what they're going to think when they read that. It really is that "too realistic to be real" that I constantly am struggling with. My problem is that I heard different ways the word "prince" was used or someone told me what the origins of the term "outlaw" was and I thought, "Oh wow. That would be a great thing to put in a book." It's original and we all want originality, right? Another example was when I was making a sheath for a high carbon sword I bought. To make a sheath, you have to wet leather and then wrap it around the blade and let it dry that way. If you don't, the leather won't shape correctly. Well, I learned that high carbon steel rusts very, very fast. Within an hour of that must exposure to moisture. Well I put that in a book and guess what all the feedback was, "mETal DoEsN'T RuST tHaT FaST." And they would not believe me when I said it does, it's just that the metal they're seeing on construction sights is an alloy that is resistant to rust. I kind of like the "force" idea that you're bringing up. Just run with it and hope they catch on.
It probably won't help, but there's no way I know because I have no idea what century it takes place. Going back to your example of the ancient Rome, imagine writing a story that takes place during the Roman Republic and there is a scene involving decimation of an entire legion, or cohort, whatever. Obviously 'decimation' means something totally different today, so you will probably need to take a few sentences explaining what it is (actually, if it's a specific genre like that, perhaps you don't, but the average reader might need it). But if you were writing a story that takes place in Space hundreds of years from now, and there is something similar to the punishment of decimation in a starfleet, you could just make up a new word. It would least be a possible solution, although maybe not the best one (maybe something like 'Cleansing'). Personally, I think this thread should be in the 'word mechanics' section, but that's just me. Not saying it's not an interesting topic, just that's where I'd put it. By the way, do you 'loose' an arrow before gunpowder? Obviously you don't 'fire' it, that would make as much sense as to 'water' it.
Well, I'm glad to see at least 2 of those first list it the right way and then say it can also be used colloquially to mean, well, literally the opposite. That Collins dictionary is troubling though, it seems to show only the colloquial usage, unless I missed something.
Context is important. That definition of the word is fairly intuitive. And it's not like outlaws weren't fugitives from justice; outlawry was a punishment for various criminal acts. It really was a death sentence by another name, relegating the application of the sentence to society at large instead of to an agent of the government. The difference between the two definitions is further broken down if your society doesn't have a very highly developed system of law enforcement. There was no Scotland Yard to track down Robin Hood using modern investigative techniques. I believe the sense of the original meaning remains today, even if the specific legal ramifications have disappeared.
Beautiful example. English doesn't have a word for the German term "Fürst" and denotes that rank as "prince". While the word in German originates from prince (princeps) it grew to define a regional ruler with imperial immediacy. Languages that historically interacted with the HRE (Slavic languages, Hungarian language, Dutch language) have their words for Fürst, whereas more distant languages (English, Asian languages) either note them as "prince" or "king". Both titles existing on their own in the HRE! I would prefer seeing the actual definition. It's historical context and a chance for learning! All the better. Just imagine all the fantasy worlds where goons and criminals are locked up for vandalism. "John Mercer, I hereby sentence you to three days in the oubliette for vandalising the Lormian King's statue." "What is vandalism?" "I don't know man, sounds like a German tribe that may have sacked a city in an alternate dimension."
A long time ago I took a week long seminar on a topic that had nothing to do with writing. The instructor had, at some time in his varied past, been a student of Zen. He was very fond of reminding us that, "What is ... is. It is your resistance to what is that causes your unhappiness." In this case, "what is" is that the old, original meaning of "outlaw" no longer applies. Ergo, you have two choices: either rail at how unfair that is, or just deal with it. I don't know what genre you write in or what genre(s) you like to read. Me, I like Anne McCaffrey's sci-fi/fantasy books -- especially the Dragon Riders of Pern series. One of the later books in that series is titled, IIRC, The Renegades of Pern. I mention this because I think it serves as an example of your dilemma. If you aren't familiar with the series, it's about people from Earth who colonized an uninhabited planet. As a result of some sloppy survey work, once the colonists were landed and established on the planet they discovered a natural menace that they had no easy answer to. Over the course of several generations, their society lost pretty much all technology and their lives reverted to an agrarian system not unlike feudal Europe. The major land masses were divided up into six major territories, each governed by a "Lord Holder" -- roughly the equivalent, I would guess, to a duke or a baron. In The Renegades of Pern, there is a group of outlaws (in the old sense for which you mourn). Anne never uses the word "outlaw" (that I can recall). The outlaws are referred to as "holdless," meaning that they are not under the protection of any of the lord holders. I would have to re-read the book, which I haven't seen for years, to reconstruct how long it takes Anne to establish in the reader's mind the concept that these "holdless" people are, indeed, outlaws. It wasn't done in a word, it wasn't done in a sentence, and it wasn't done in a paragraph. At a guess, I'll go out on a limb and guess that it took a chapter or two to set the stage with that concept, and only then did she proceed to tell the tale. Basically, since she had created the world and the society about which she wrote, when she needed a word for "outlaw" she simply made one up and then spent the time to introduce it to the reader.
Just one thought you might also consider, didn't those wanted posters in the old west also state "Dead or Alive"? Meaning you could sneak up and slaughter these outlaws in their beds and not face prosecution. I also ask a question and I don't know the answer and you lot are more informative than Google, but was the cowardly whatisname that killed Jesse James ever prosecuted? While the term Outlaw may have come to describe their criminal behaviours, these Outlaws did not have protection of the law when someone decided they should die. I'm really not looking to complicate this any more than it already seems but the mass understanding of the word outlaw may not be quite as different as you perceive. Prince also is used in many contexts, such as industry, denoting position and not necessarily lineage. Good luck with your writing. I'd suggest readers respond to coherence and consistency. If you use terms with specific meaning to you as writer, those terms will be justified within the broader context of your stories and accepted by the reader. Orwell's 1984 created a whole bunch of terms with specific contextual meanings that readers saw fit to both accept when reading the book and adopt into general language. Maybe don't underestimate the intelligence of your readers.
I personally agree with those who say don't seek to "reclaim" words. Take, for example, the words "queer" and "gay". These words originally meant "unusual" and "joyous". But nobody uses them in that context these days. You might have a character in a period piece use the words, but if you're aiming at a modern audience of readers, you're better off just not using them. "How queer," remarked Holmes. "Upon my soul!" Watson ejaculated.
Well, Kugelschrieber beat me to it, but I was going to say you might use a slightly odd formulation of the word Outlaw so each time the readers encounter it they're reminded it means something a little different from what they're used to (and as he points out, it does include the idea of not being protected under the law). I was going to suggest having people say "Outlawry". For instance "He was sentenced (or condemned) to outlawry, now he lives without the legal protections citizens enjoy."
outlaw... In America there was a period when law and order did not keep up with people. For example, there was the city of Deadwood. An ordinary city. Except that it had existed for several years and had no sheriff, no post office, no mayor, and it was not even attached to any state. It cannot be said that all of them were criminals. But there was no legality there in the usual sense. Therefore, they were called outlaw. After some time, the residents got tired of this chaos, and they chose Mayor, Sheriff and established contacts with the authorities, turning the city into an organized settlement. Now this word is synonymous with the word criminal, but in those days this word meant that a person simply lives in a place where there is no government organization in the surrounding territory. This did not mean that the person was automatically a criminal. They were also quite legal citizens: cattle beaters, hunters, missionaries, all sorts of Amish, etc.
I don't think you need to "reclaim" anything, honestly. Just make it clear through dialogue, world-building, etc that the term "outlaw" means what it's supposed to mean in this world, and that's that. How many of us have read sci-fi or fantasy novels that used words that don't exist in any real-world language, but through the author's use of them we intuitively accepted their meaning and usage? (Or appropriating certain Earth-based words in a culture that doesn't even exist in our world, such as the usage of "jihad" in Frank Herbert's "Dune".) It seems it could be the same here if you communicate well enough with your readers.
If you look up the definition of "outlaw" on Merriam-Webster, the definition you are using is literally the first thing listed: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/outlaw So, it's really not some "obscure" or "lost" definition, at least not to the extent you seem to think it is. This is why I disagree with Naomasa's comparison of "outlaw" to "queer" and "gay"; it hasn't really changed that much, and the original definition could still be understood by many people, especially if used in proper context. So that's your key: context. A brief explanation backed up with context clues in later mentions should be all that's needed, in my opinion. On that note, Bruce Johnson brings up a decent point regarding context: is your setting more similar to the settings in which "outlaw" was originally used, like a Wild West-style frontierland, or a feudal kingdom? The word "outlaw" is much more likely to be understood as intended in these kinds of contexts. But if your setting is vastly different, like a sci-fi future or a fantasy dystopia, you might need to explain the concept a little more. Regardless, in either case, a one-time explanation of the concept and some gentle context clue reminders later should do the trick. Xoic had a few good ideas on how to do this. It's not a hard word to understand, and this isn't that complex of a problem, in my view. If the reader still doesn't get it, then frankly I would say that their vocabulary is not advanced enough to be reading adult-level literature. By the time anybody reaches adulthood, they should be aware that most words have multiple meanings. It's not like you're making up a definition, you're literally using the first definition listed in the dictionary! If you provide a brief explanation and context clues, but the reader still doesn't get it, then at that point it's more the reader's fault than your own. Suggest they read Doctor Seuss instead. That is definitely, unfortunately, the prevailing culture on this website. You are not the first to notice it, and you are not alone in being frustrated with it. Your frustration is justified; this destructive culture is getting very tiring.
