Why “Alongside”?

Ben Yagoda has a post about the recent rise in frequency of the word alongside:

The American-born University of Sussex linguist Lynne Murphy recently remarked on her blog (Separated by A Common Language): “A few months ago, an American friend of my spouse asked him to ask me: ‘Why is everyone suddenly saying alongside?’”

That put the word on my radar, and within days I was asking the same question as Lynne’s friend. It seemed like I couldn’t avoid “alongside”! And a little research demonstrated that the two of us weren’t imagining things. […]

I hasten to say that “alongside” is an old word. Here’s the first definition in the Oxford English Dictionary: “Nautical. Close to the side of another vessel; side by side with another vessel. Later also: secured to a quay, wharf, etc.” This first citation is from 1704 and in 1798, there’s this from Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”: “The naked Hulk alongside came.” By that time the word had started being used in the non-nautical contexts we see today: first, to mean literally next to, and then more figuratively to indicate “together with” or “compared to.”

To get a sense of the current uses, here are a few examples from the New York Times, all posted today or yesterday, a couple with two in one article […]

The million-dollar question is why has the word become so voguish? Unfortunately, “why” questions are difficult to answer (well). But I will say that it fits in with a trend I’ve been following for some time: saying things with more words or even letters than used to be considered sufficient. I started noticing this fifteen years or so when the college students I taught inexplicably began to write “amongst” instead of “among” and “amidst” instead of “amid”; some even favored “whilst.” They and lots of others started adding a “t” sound in the middle of the word “often,” and sometimes replaced it with “oftentimes.” And they universally preferred “based off of” to “based on.” […]

One more point. You’ll notice that the first two Times examples I gave are from sports coverage, which is very much given to the wordiness mentioned above. “Fans” have become “fan base” […] And beyond that, I believe that athletic “alongside” has a very particular history. It starts with a late ’90s Aaron Sorkin sitcom called Sports Night, which centered on a double-anchored, smart sports news show on the model of ESPN’s Sports Center. Anyway, when one of the anchors intro’d the show, he always said “alongside”—i.e., “This is Dan Rydell alongside Casey McCall.” As Dan said it, it had a slightly ironic feel, similar to the way David Letterman would refer to “a “comedy television program.” The intro was so much a feature of the show that it’s quoted verbatim in this AV club piece.

A few years later, NFL announcer Joe Buck, started opening his coverage a particular way: “This is Joe Buck, alongside the Hall of Famer Troy Aikman.” Again, just a touch ironic, especially as it became ritualized: Buck used the same language for baseball broadcasts, subbing in John Smoltz’s name; on WNBA coverage, it’s “Ryan Ruocco, alongside the Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo”’; and in boxing, it’s “Bernardo Osuna alongside the Hall of Famer Timothy Bradley.” The line has even filtered down to local TV—see for yourself!

I’m dubious about linking it with things like “amongst” and “oftentimes,” but the Sports Night background is interesting and probably a genuine influence. (Click through for more examples and supporting video.)