Jess Cartner-Morley provides an insightful and witty history of the mercurial concept of “vibes” (‘It’s game over for facts’: how vibes came to rule everything from pop to politics, 14 December). “The story of vibes begins with the release of the Beach Boys’ Good Vibrations in 1966,” she writes, yet it might be argued that an earlier point of origin is Gwendolen Fairfax in Oscar Wilde’s 1895 play The Importance of Being Earnest.
In the first act, Gwendolen magisterially informs her beloved that his name – Earnest – is “divine”, “suits” him “perfectly”, “has a music of its own”, and “produces vibrations”. Her deceiving lover (real name John) remarks that “there are lots of other much nicer names”, such as “Jack, for instance, a charming name”, a claim she swiftly dismisses: “No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations.”
The Oxford English Dictionary lists this piece of dialogue as the first instance of “vibrations” in the sense of “[a]n intuitive signal about a person or thing” or “atmosphere”, and the dictionary includes similar uses in later literary works, such as Joseph Conrad’s The Arrow of Gold (1919) and James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922).
Richard Haslam
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, US
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