shibboleth

I've also heard it used to mean general behaviors (such as wearing a baseball cap backwards for 80s hip-hop kids), and not just phrasing.

It arises naturally, but it is used deliberately to distinguish between the groups.

Yah, the WeirdNet definition is again a little off. I think a shibboleth isn't a deliberate difference or idiosyncrasy within a group, but something that arises naturally.

I always imagined a shibboleth to be some kind of monument. A standing stone, a plinth, a cairn for the dead ancestors of the Shibbites. Alas, no :-(

The Biblical passage reminds me of a kind of practical joke in Italy which involves offering a Coca-Cola to a Tuscan. Most Italians can pronounce Coca-Cola perfectly well but in the Tuscan dialect the pronunciation comes out as Hoha-hola which sounds hohahilarious.

Got to quibble with the definition given at the top. It seems the extra sense of shibboleth (which comes out in the etymologic story) is that it is some idiosyncrasy of speech which enables one to tell one group from another.

The careful parsing of terms in the abortion debate is a good example. The use of choice is a shibboleth of the pro-choice crowd. The distinction between baby and fetus is also a good example from the same context.

I have encountered it used in the sense of examples of exaggerated fastidiousness in stylistic questions, like refusing to use a preposition to end a sentence with or to boldly attack split infinitives.

I found it. The West Wing got it from the Book of Judges (though not directly, I suppose). There was a war between two Israelite groups, the Gileadites and the Ephraimites. The Gileadites held the passes across the Jordan River, and if someone wanted to pass they would ask him to say "Shibboleth", but the Ephraimites gave themselves away because they couldn't pronounce the "sh" properly. With dire consequences, I might add. Here's the passage:

"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." – Judges, Ch. 12, vv. 5-6.

I learnt it from The West Wing.

it's biblical isn't it?

This is an awesome word. I totally thought it was an H.P. Lovecraft creature when I first heard it.

THAT MAKES IT EXTRA AWESOME