“Sorted,” Sorted

It’s always good to check my inbox and see an email from Nancy Friedman. One came last week and this is what it said:

“This is BrE, right?” she asked. “Have you spotted this trend?”

I answered “yes” to both questions–the first correctly and the second, not correctly at all. I was certainly aware of the term in British English, meaning, as the OED puts it, “Chiefly British slang. Of a state of affairs, etc.: fixed, settled, secure; arranged, prepared, dealt with.” And I had been seen the signs in British train and underground stations (as part of a campaign that started in 2016),

It’s a useful word, and my wife and I had actually adopted it around the house. And I thought–and I told Nancy I had–written about it on the blog. But in fact I hadn’t. The closest I’d come was a post on the similar but less forceful “sort out” way back in 2011. In truth, I wasn’t even aware that “sorted” had arrived on U.S. shores. But it has.

The British use is relatively new, I should say. The OED has a couple of examples of something or someone being “well sorted” from the 1980s, with the first case of the word standing alone being this quote from a 1995 Independent article: “They could be sensible with their life, financially sorted at 25, for example.” “Sorted” is listed as an adjective, and derives, of course, from the verb “sort.” And while I know that British people use the verb to mean deal with or handle or take care of (“Can you sort tonight’s dinner?”), the OED hasn’t caught up with usage: the only examples are cases of “sort out,” as in my 2011 post.

In any case, Google Ngram Viewer shows that up until the 1980s, British and American use of “sorted” was roughly equal, indicating the presence in both countries of the literal, traditional use of the word, as in, “I sorted the laundry by color” and the subsequent rise of the more general, slang, “taken care of” in the U.K.

Ngram viewer has a bit of a lag, and I expect the blue line will start ticking up soon: as Nancy noticed, “sorted” has hit U.S. shores. A few other recent examples:

• “So it behooves the three most consequential and compensated people in this particular build — Giannis, Bam and Spoelstra — to get all of it sorted as soon as possible.”–Sports Illustrated, referring to the Miami Heat basketball team.
• “I always have an iron sent to my room when I unpack, and I try to get that sorted from the beginning so it makes life easier on the trip.”–Gabriella Khalil, from Philadelphia, quoted in the New York Times.
• “Consider layering season sorted.”–US magazine.
• “Having to clean them twice a year is a small price to pay for the peace of mind I get from finally having this essential part of my emergency plan sorted.”–New York Times Wirecutter section, on water containers.

The OED has a couple of additional meanings for “sorted,” both listed as British slang and dating from 1991. The first is, “Esp. of a person: self-assured, emotionally well-balanced; streetwise, ‘cool’.” And the second, “Of a person: supplied with or under the influence of illicit drugs, particularly those associated with the U.K. club subculture.”

No sign of either one in the U.S. as yet.