Touchstones

The LT definition of touchstones, repeated on countless LT pages, implies the usage of the word as having been 'touched on' within a message. Surely this is erroneous. As the OED points out, the word relates originally to the use of a hard stone such as quartz or jasper in the 'proving' of gold and silver. Essentially you rub the metal on the stone and examine the colour of the resulting streak.

OED does allow a broadening of meaning, as in
"That which serves to test or try the genuineness or value of anything; a test, criterion."
but this is a long way from the LT 'touched on' concept, which is not envisaged by the OED.

The LT meaning would therefore appear to be a misuse, unless the LT powers-that-be can quote a trail of usage in this sense. I'm sure that the ever-vigilant custodians of the OED would be grateful to see such evidence.

With apologies for snarling at the hand that feeds us ...

>1 CliffordDorset:: Never thought about it before but having checked OED, Chambers and Collins you seem to be right. Still after so long I expect the term will stick.

I'm not a native speaker of English but that's one of the first things I noticed here.

It took me a while to understand that “touchstone” is used as a synonym of “link”, at least in reference to books.

Similarly “zeitgeist” is used as a synonym of “statistics” or at any rate for a certain meaning of statistics.

Seems to be an expression of creativity. Who wouldn't like to leave a permanent mark in our culture. Website owners have the opportunity to do that with language.

I always thought its use here on LT was in the sense of a measure against which other things are compared or judged. You reference a work when talking about ideas or other works. That's not too far from the basic figurative sense is it?

Non-native speaker here as well. I associated it with those old stones that have directions to the next town or villages.

>5 JerryMmm: That's actually a good comparison. The touchstones are pointers, links that take you to the work being discussed.

>3 Ravic: Zeitgeist is close to it's proper meaning though 'a spirit of the time' and the Zeitgeist page captures the current most popular works and authors through various different definitions. Which I think is a fair interpretation.