and your ilk
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Ilk is a higher register word. You won't find it in normal conversation.a. I hate you and people of your ilk.
b. I hate you and your ilk.
Didn't know that. I thought it was a quite normal word. I mean, neither formal nor informal.
A) is not correct usage. If you want to use 'ilk' instead of 'people like you', or 'your sort', go ahead and do so. You're not going to endear yourself whichever you use. The word 'ilk' sounds a bit upper-class to my mind, or pretentious, or something.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I think BLUEGLAZE means it's generally used when talking down to people in disdain, not in everyday conversations.Didn't know that. I thought it was a quite normal word. I mean, neither formal nor informal.
"Ilk" is reasonably common, but it doesn't really fit in an insult. Insults usually have to be simple and direct to be effective, and you don't want the other person to be left wondering what "and your ilk" is meant to mean.
May I know your idea about option (a), pops? You agree with MS Golightly or perhaps of a different opinion?
I think it comes off as high-minded.
A is grammatically correct but doesn't sound like an insult.
B sounds like an ineffective insult.
I agree that it's not really a conversational word for most people. It sounds more like something you'd read in an essay or something, describing a certain type of person.
"People of that ilk don't understand the benefit of..."
B sounds like an ineffective insult.
I agree that it's not really a conversational word for most people. It sounds more like something you'd read in an essay or something, describing a certain type of person.
"People of that ilk don't understand the benefit of..."
Does it really? So you mean that there is a negative connotation about the Scottish clan chiefs' use of "of that ilk".
Of that Ilk - Wikipedia
What is my ilk? What is your ilk? Have you ever met an ilk? I haven't. "Your ilk" means something similar to "like you", but different. Different in what way? What does it actually mean?
Occasionally I see it written (usually in an 1800s novel).
What does this mean? What kind of people do you hate? Tall people? Blond people? Overweight people? People with the surname Peabody? Sailors? Blacksmiths? Some ethnic group? Citizens of some country? "Ilk" does not say. So it has no meaning. Maybe that is why I've never used the word, or heard the word.
Occasionally I see it written (usually in an 1800s novel).
It does in the U.S.
It generally does in Britain too. "Of that ilk" is a very special use that few people who aren't from Scotland have heard of.
How very well put.
The Scottish clan chiefs' use doesn't seem to have a negative connotation, but in the US I think it has a very faint negative or slightly facetious connotation that becomes stronger with a negative tone of voice or a more strongly negative context.
Four-year-olds and their ilk will love Brandon Bumblefitch's new movie "Toilets R Us."
Quack doctors and their ilk dupe people into believing that they can avoid Covid by drinking an elixir of brandy and kale juice.
Who are "their ilk"? They are not quack doctors (that is already in the phrase "quack doctors"). What people (that are not quack doctors) dupe people into believing that they can avoid Covid by drinking an elixir of brandy and kale juice?
Just because you haven't heard of it before doesn't mean it's not used that way. It's by definition not specific. It's equivalent to "their type". Context determines the meaning, just as it does with "type". The difference is type doesn't have an inherently negative connotation the way ilk does. If you want "ilk" to have a very specific, defined meaning then you are asking for the impossible. "Ilk" isn't used that way and neither is "type". It requires a bit of reading comprehension and life experience (not spoon-feeding) to understand it.
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I agree with Blueglaze at #2. If you use it, you are instantly putting yourself up as the listener's superior. Fisticuffs may ensue.
The idea is that "and your ilk" is used when the person (in the given context) has been informed by your manner and/or word of the low esteem in which you hold them. Sort, type, and kind are close synonyms.
Yes. I’m struggling to think of a scenario in which anyone would instinctively use the phrase “of that ilk” if all they wanted to do was refer in a benign/innocent way to a particular type of person. But in the unlikely event that they used it about things rather than people, that would probably not apply.
Yes, that makes sense. But of course the vast majority of people would say “or someone like that”.
In this hypothetical and unlikely scenario, bloggers, vloggers, and influencers on social media who claim to know secrets to good health.
I think we need to make a social distinction between:
*NOTE: I believe that Lady Hussey may have meant "people" in the old upper-class sense of "parents", but she was still insufferably rude. The innocent insidiousness of "Where are you from?".
- "Quack doctors and people of that ilk... a fairy godmother or someone of that ilk." Here the meaning is very clear and not intrinsically derogatory: it simply means "someone like that"; AND
- "You and people of your ilk." It is hard to see how this would not be insulting. To refer to a person in conversation as if they are merely one of a category, and a category which you do not even deign to name, is belittling. Said by a white person to a black person it calls for a formal complaint. The same proviso would go for "You and your people", as we have seen in a recent Buckingham Palace row*.
*NOTE: I believe that Lady Hussey may have meant "people" in the old upper-class sense of "parents", but she was still insufferably rude. The innocent insidiousness of "Where are you from?".
As regards the OED examples of Kerouac, Thompson, and Atwood (#18), their use of 'ilk' is not intrinsically derogatory, but it is used in a derogatory context. And I think that in the US (and apparently Canada, if 'Atwood' is Margaret Atwood) it's used that way: not derogatory per se, but not used outside of a context that's to some extent derogatory.
'You and your ilk' and 'you and your people' are very far from the same : if Susan Hussey had said 'you and your ilk' she would have actually deserved the abusive treatment she has received.