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shibboleth
A shibboleth ( or 〔(【引用サイトリンク】Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ">title=shibboleth )〕), in its original signification and in a meaning it still bears today, is a word or custom whose variations in pronunciation or style can be used to differentiate members of ingroups from those of outgroups. Within the mindset of the ingroup, a connotation or value judgment of correct/incorrect or superior/inferior can be ascribed to the two variants.
In contemporary usage the word has acquired an extended meaning which is often cited first (and sometimes even exclusively) in shorter dictionaries, namely, an old belief or saying which is cited repetitively or unreflectively but which is, or may be, fallacious or untrue.〔''Concise Oxford Dictionary'', 8th ed, (Oxford University Press, 1990), 1117.〕〔''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', shibboleth, accessed online 22 September 2015, ().〕〔''Collins English Dictionary'', shibboleth, accessed online 22 September 2015, ().〕〔Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, shibboleth, accessed online 22 September 2015, ().〕 As an illustration of this usage the ''Concise Oxford Dictionary'' cites "() must abandon outdated shibboleths".
==Origin==
The term originates from the Hebrew word ''shibbólet'' (), which literally means the part of a plant containing grains, such as an ear of corn or a stalk of grain〔Wahrig Deutsches Wörterbuch, Sixth Edition and (【引用サイトリンク】title=Schibboleth )〕 or, in different contexts, "stream, torrent".〔(【引用サイトリンク】American Heritage Dictionary, also sometimes rye, Fourth Edition ">title=shibboleth ) (【引用サイトリンク】Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ">title=shibboleth ) (this latter meaning is not in use in Modern Hebrew)〕〔Cf. Isaiah 27:12.〕 The modern use derives from an account in the Hebrew Bible, in which pronunciation of this word was used to distinguish Ephraimites, whose dialect lacked a phoneme (as in ''shoe''), from Gileadites, whose dialect did include such a phoneme.
Recorded in the Book of Judges, chapter 12, after the inhabitants of Gilead inflicted a military defeat upon the invading tribe of Ephraim (around 1370–1070 BCE), the surviving Ephraimites tried to cross the River Jordan back into their home territory and the Gileadites secured the river's fords to stop them. In order to identify and kill these Ephraimites, the Gileadites told each suspected survivor to say the word ''shibboleth''. The Ephraimite dialect did not contain the "sh" sound and so those who pronounced the word as ''sibboleth'' were identified as Ephraimites and killed. In the King James Bible〔Judges 12:5-6.〕 the anecdote appears thus (with the word already in its current English spelling):
And the Gileadites took the passages of Jordan before the Ephraimites: and it was so, that when those Ephraimites which were escaped said, Let me go over; that the men of Gilead said unto him, Art thou an Ephraimite? If he said, Nay;
Then said they unto him, Say now Shibboleth: and he said Sibboleth: for he could not frame to pronounce it right. Then they took him, and slew him at the passages of Jordan: and there fell at that time of the Ephraimites forty and two thousand.
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