English is a fashion item

For a long time, I’ve written down my thoughts about and reactions to the way the English language is used or misused today and it’s time I drew a conclusion or three. I’m not a collector of things. The only collection I have is one of words and languages and usage. To come across the following is a moment of discovery, of pleasure: “It's thought that one in 50 people may have prosopagnosia, or face blindness.” (BBC 010716). The OED defines it as: “An inability to recognize a face as that of any particular person.” What a marvellous word; fancy that, somebody gave it a name, a psychiatrist, of course.

I’ve spent a lot of time expressing horror about things like: “Does the living wage mean less jobs?” (Press Association, 30 Sept 16) or gobbledygook such as: … your back story, rather than your ideas, is of greatest importance.” (Spectator 15.10.16). I used to panic when I saw words like: salacity, to critique, religiosity; they seem to be American creations but they go back a long way in English history. Dangerosity, I always used to think it was an invention of George W. Bush and indeed it must be; the OED doesn’t recognise it. George W. is the President who wanted to do away with all taxes, including syntax. “Rallies of this scale are unusual in Morocco. (BBC).

A major complaint of mine has been that we don’t have any discussion of language and grammar in our media, written or spoken. The one exception I can think of is a weekly column in the Spectator by Dot Wordsworth (sic), my apologies to her; it’s an interesting column, if a little abstruse. Le Figaro published an interview with Julien Barret on 01.11.16, entitled:  «La langue française est discriminante», discriminatory because Il y a une tyrannie du bon usage, there is a tyrannical concern with correctness. Mr Barret says there are several types of French, some more correct than others. Of course, he’s right. He cites the example of those who say, wrongly he claims, une pipe en écume de mer which is a corruption of the popular French expression une pipe de Kummer. Whereas, in fact, écume de mer is literally sea foam or meerschaum in German, which gives us our Meerschaum pipe. Zoologists know this substance as sepiolite. It doesn’t matter that this detail is incorrect; what counts is the discussion about the French language. Le Figaro closes the article with an explanation of how to avoid mistakes with one of the French language’s most troublesome points of grammar, the agreement of the past participle. Most French speakers have problems with this. I take my hat off to them. If only we could have similar kinds of discussion in our newspapers.

I have come to the conclusion that the English language is now a fashion item. By talking about the numbers and going south you want to be identified with the financial community, to be part of a clique. Others talk about the bottom line and begin every sentence with so because they think the American touch is best. But, there again, it’s probably subconscious, like their taste in music, it’s simply just got to be fashionable, or what they take to be fashionable. Ah, well.

Literally speaking

Literally, adv. The OED recognises the following meanings:

†1.1 nonce-uses. a By the letters (of a name). b In letters or literature. Obsolete.

1593 R. Harvey Philad. 7 And yet I tell you me-thinkes you are very bookishly and literally wise.

2. a With reference to a report, translation, etc.: In the very words, word for word. b transf. With exact fidelity of representation.

3. a. In the literal sense. 3. b Used to indicate that the following word or phrase must be taken in its literal sense.

 Now often improperly used to indicate that some conventional metaphorical or hyperbolical phrase

is to be taken in the strongest admissible sense, e.g.   1863 F. A. Kemble Resid. in Georgia 105 For the last four years.. I literally coined money.

I have always been fascinated by the use of the adverb literally, both in English and in French. I was brought up, very firmly, to use this adverb to mean, and this would admit of no exception, in the literal sense, as in the OED’s definition 3 above. The note at the end points out an ‘improper’ usage: I literally coined money. It would never occur to me to say something like this, so effectively have I been trained not to. It’s like unique which must never be qualified; rather/very unique are not acceptable. If you do accept this, then you must also accept that someone can be a little pregnant. As an afterthought, I do like the use in definition 1 which is today unfortunately obsolete and has been replaced by literarily.

In France, the situation is more fluid.

Littéralement, adverb.  Larousse gives the following two possible meanings :

D'une manière littérale, à la lettre : Traduire littéralement. This is the same as senses 2 and 3 of the OED.  

Absolument, tout à fait : Il était littéralement épouvanté. [he was literally frightened/shocked]. Here we have the equivalent of the qualifiers absolutely or quite. But it is still parallel to English usage; one can be literally frightened.

Larousse goes on to make the following recommendations:

‘Littéralement au sens de «  à la lettre, dans un sens strict  » s'emploie dans tous les registres : traduire un texte littéralement ; au sens de «  très, à l'extrême  » (il est littéralement épuisé), le mot relève de l'expression orale non surveillée.’ It confirms that the adverb should be used as in the two French definitions, but suggests that this usage belongs to the register of spoken language, spontaneous, not careful French.

Larousse goes on to recommend that in careful speech and in writing littéralement should be replaced by completely, extremely etc. ‘Dans l'expression soignée, en particulier à l'écrit, préférer les équivalents : complètement, extrêmement, au plus haut point, au plus haut degré, etc.’

Here is an example of the use of this adverb which is typical of its use in current French. The caption accompanies a photo of an object under water: Cet élément qui appartenait au Titanic a été littéralement pulvérisé lors du choc.[This object from the Titanic was literally pulverised on impact].

It’s all the more improbable as the concepts of underwater and powder are incompatible.

This leads neatly onto the verb pulverise which behaves in a similar way to literally and derives from the Latin pulver for powder. In French, pulveriser has these definitions [from Larousse]:

Réduire une matière en poudre : Pulvériser de la craie ; du charbon. {pulverise chalk]

Projeter un liquide en très fines gouttelettes : Pulvériser de l'eau sur une plante. [water, spray]

Réduire quelque chose en miettes, en morceaux : Les bombes ont pulvérisé l'objectif. [smash]

Anéantir quelqu'un, un groupe, le vaincre de manière écrasante : Pulvériser l'ennemi. [destroy]

In English, we have the same meanings as in French, but the reference to liquid in definition 1b is now rare and has been superseded by spray.

1. trans. To reduce to powder or dust; to comminute, to triturate. Also refl.

b. techn. To divide (a liquid) into minute particles or spray.

2. fig. To demolish or destroy, to break down utterly; to ‘smash’. “ The four battalion were pulverised... “ [The OED favours the spelling with ‘z’. I prefer the ‘s’ spelling].

In French, we find: Le gel du 18 août et celui qui est survenu début septembre ont littéralement décimé les récoltes. [The frosts … literally decimated the crops]. Here again we have this particular French usage of literally  and decimate. English would not say literally decimate, although it often uses this verb to mean destroy as in French. Both English and French agree that the careful use of this verb means:

To kill, destroy, or remove one in every ten of, but accepts the meaning, rhetorically or loosely, to destroy or remove a large proportion of; to subject to severe loss, slaughter, or mortality. (OED)

In French, décimer, (Latin decimare) has the same values as in English. Words mostly share the same meanings in different languages, but can differ hugely in the way they are used, especially in the spoken idiom.

Information fatigue

Modern technology has allowed everything to be captured, structured and stored. Artificial intelligence, including machine translation, in both theory and practice, has made extremely rapid progress. The Turing test, to tell from a screen and keyboard interaction whether you are communicating with a real person or a computer, is likely soon to show that it is no longer possible to make this distinction. A project has recently been identified the aim of which is totally to eradicate all diseases within the next few years, showing the power of computing and the ambition of scientists.

Virtually all information is now available, legally or illegally, and language is no exception. If you are in the habit of checking via your web browser that an expression is correct in this or that form, you are certainly going to find examples which justify anything you wish to say. Someone, somewhere, will have used it rightly or wrongly. Vocabulary and usage are therefore expanding incessantly and the user ends up not knowing what to say or write. This expansion takes place often by the adoption of formerly specialist, technical terms.

This leads to information fatigue: too much information, too much choice, too little discrimination. And this leads to communication which is difficult to understand from people who are confused about what they want to say. Lack of discrimination plus a penchant for following fashion means we often don’t understand what some people are talking about.

In addition to ‘different’ or ‘several different’ we now have information from multiple sources provided by multiple people. The problem, or should I say issue, is not the use of ‘multiple’ which until now has been reserved for more technical circumstances like ‘multiple fractures’ but that ‘different’ is going to find itself not sufficiently sexy, too simple, and will become relegated to history.

The bottom-line (net profit or loss to accountants), used with the meaning of anything from ‘result’ to ‘what I mean’. Definitions include ‘the fundamental and most important factor’, ‘the most basic fact or issue in a situation’. Again this seems to be an Americanism and personally I find it problematic to distinguish whether the user means ‘the result’, ‘the required result’ or ‘what I mean is’. I first came across to second guess about thirty years ago. I didn’t know what it meant then and I still don’t know what it means to this day.

Another example is ‘to prink’ which means to groom, smarten up. You have to have a pretty extensive vocabulary to know this. Currently, there is also to prink, meaning to pre-drink, which itself means to drink alcohol, often at home or in a pub, prior to going on to a club with the aim of becoming seriously inebriated. Compare this with to pre-load which has the same alcoholic meaning as to prink. But ‘to preload’ relates in cardiology to the tension in the heart muscle, as opposed to ‘afterload’. I should hate to think that our cardiologists might end up confusing these terms as other people do with the verb ‘to smoke’: are we talking about tobacco or marijuana?

The BBC reported the following on 23^rd September: “playlists account for 31% of listening time across all demographics, while albums lag behind on 22%”. Do we have to have a term straight out of anthropology when we could easily use ‘audiences’? It’s a good thing to help improve people’s vocabulary, but this one reeks of “Look at me, I’ve just learnt a new word”. So far, we’ve been spared the term ‘cohort’ in this context, from anthropology and statistics again, but I predict that it’s on its way.

On the cusp of, the intended meaning being ‘on the point of’, “the cease-fire was on the cusp of being agreed to”; another technical term, from astrology, incorrectly used when a simple alternative exists. The 2005 annotated edition of the OED does not recognise this usage, but if you look for it on the web, sure enough, it’s there: I am sitting on the cusp of middle age;  X's behaviour is only on the cusp of acceptability; we're on the cusp of something really wonderful. Should you use this expression in your next conference paper? What exactly does it mean? It’s a wonderful expression to use when you don’t know exactly what you want to say.

Just out of interest, I saw an item saying that September 24 was “officially National Punctuation Day, and we’re sure that you’re planning to celebrate by wearing “period” costumes and tossing back a few exclamation “pints.” Thank you to Brad Tuttle of Money for that. Now, there’s a most laudable initiative. Punctuation is a matter of precision.

Confusion, all is confusion

Last time, I wrote about men’s and women’s language and since then I have come across some surprising items in the press. Instead of enthusiastic reporting, the following, published in The Express on 11th August, should have been roundly criticised: John Hennigan made the mistake of calling Judge Patricia Lynch, QC, a “c***” as she jailed him for 18 months. In measured tones, Judge Lynch replied: “You’re a bit of a c*** yourself. Being offensive to me doesn’t help.” Hennigan, 50, shouted: “Go f*** yourself!” Judge Lynch simply retorted: “You too.” Instead, the judge seems to have gained a reputation as a no-nonsense member of the judiciary who puts offenders well and truly in their place. Nonsense, she should be reprimanded and told to uphold the dignity of the law.

Not only language, but feminine matters are becoming invasive, too. There was also a detailed article about the clitoris in Le Figaro recently, not just text, oh no, but photos to boot. I know it’s a French publication, but… And lunch-time television adverts seem frequently to be about creams to relieve various irritations that only afflict women. This does nothing for my appetite and makes me think that soon Big Pharma may start to demonstrate the efficacy of their potions on ED, with graphic illustrations of course; now that would liven things up a bit at midday.

Another article in the Daily Mail related how a transgender woman found romance with a man who also changed sex. This really is a most confusing area. LGBT stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. The word ‘sex’ as an administrative category on forms seems to be destined to disappear and to be replaced by ‘gender’ which used to be a grammatical term. Sex and gender in grammar and sociolinguistics were used to refer to different things. The debate in the United States at both federal and state level about which lavatories should be used by different people depending on whether they were born male or female but also whether they felt they really belonged to the other sex or neither of those, is going to lead us where? Administrative forms, censuses for example, will they show in future Male, Female, Other (please give details)? What will these details be? What proof will be needed? What will happen to comparative statistics? Will there be universal acceptance of three, or more, sexes? Will same sex marriages become the new normal?

The BBC ran a headline yesterday: “Transgender soldier becomes first woman on Army front line”. The article goes on to explain that the soldier joined the Scots Guards as a man in 2012 but began hormone therapy in the last month, and has officially changed her name. The Army said it was delighted to have its first woman in a close-combat role. The Guardsman, who had official documents changed by deed poll from her birth name of Ben to reflect her new name and status, has now been informed she will be able to stay in the infantry, as a woman. The BBC uses neither the term ‘sex’ nor ‘gender’, but ‘status’. Confusing?

That George Sand was in fact the pseudonym of Amandine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin, a nineteenth century lady writer who fought for women’s independence, is well known. That Jan Morris was born James Humphrey Morris, historian, author and travel writer is perhaps less well known. Jan Morris is described as a trans woman who was published under her birth name until 1972, when she transitioned from living as male to living as female. These examples, in their day, were exceptional. There are new vocabulary items specifically created, such as “trans” woman and the verb to “transition”, which the OED dates to 1993. Nowadays, the sheer number of people involved, the various sexes, genders, statuses generated, leave many people unable to comprehend.

This situation in society will have to be reflected socio-linguistically. What I started by describing as men’s and women’s language reflects social evolution that is not really very complicated, in fact it’s rather trivial; it’s simply a matter of standards, of gravitas. The sex/gender question by comparison is a sea-change. It will be interesting to see how society in general and the different generations cope with it.

Men’s language and women’s language

With thanks to Penguin Books
for this image..

There was a time, maybe fifty years ago, when English had a class of vocabulary known as “men’s language” as opposed to “women’s language”. This men’s language was a group of swear words and expressions which could only be uttered by men and then, usually, by men of the lower orders. Polite society never used them and did not recognise their existence, or would not admit to knowing them. I’m talking of course about the infamous trio:  f**k, c**t, t**t. Even now, with them all covered in asterisks, I find it shameful to write them. There are others, but these three are at the top of the tree and in ascending order of horribleness. Women’s language doesn’t exist in this context; the expression is used simply to countervail men’s language. Women’s language has the value of all that is correct, acceptable and pleasant to hear. Well, that’s how things were, Jane Austen-y I suppose.

The OED not only admits to knowing about this trio, but gives full-blooded definitions and etymologies. Even the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary shows them, with remarks like “taboo, slang” and “offensive” somewhere in the definition. Fifty years ago, these words would not have been published, anywhere, there would have been an instant hue and cry. How many, today, remember the prosecution of Penguin Books under the Obscene Publications Act for having published D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover? The trial was held at the Old Bailey in 1960 and a unanimous verdict of not guilty was returned. It was seen as a test case opposing modern progressive culture and public morals and decency. Modern cultural expression won and so began the Permissive Society. The result of this trial is the presence in dictionaries of this trio. Today, almost any vocabulary is printable. Philip Larkin recalls this case, with his inimitable “serious” humour, in his poem Annus Mirabilis:

“Sexual intercourse began

In nineteen sixty-three

(which was rather late for me) -

Between the end of the Chatterley ban

And the Beatles' first L.P.”

And in This Be The Verse his famous first line: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.” would never have been published a dozen years earlier, but both were published in High Windows in 1974.

Today, in the age of feminism and equality of everything for everybody, these “men’s” words are now used by everybody, men and women alike. Young women now share laddish behaviour and violence, get drunk and fight outside pubs on a Saturday night; why shouldn’t they use these words? They are now banal.

That being said, I should recommend that they not be used by learners of English. In fact, I should recommend that they not be used by anybody in normal, polite, conversation or writing. When learners use them, it doesn’t ring true; there’s a conflict between a lack of mastery of the language and the native-speaker ability associated with these words. One final indication or test of fluency is the native-speaker ability to insert f***king between an adjective and its noun or between two nouns: “I hate the noise of a Harley f***king Davidson” or “not warm f***king beer!" This takes skill and it’s not quite the same as “f***king warm beer”, so be warned!

As I often say, standards only go in one direction, downwards.

Advice on the kind of English to learn and use

The Complete OED

Below, there are two paragraphs. The first is written and inspired using the clichés and fashionable jargon of business and financial reporting. The second is the same paragraph rewritten in what I think is more usual, more acceptable English. Both versions have the same number of words.

Downside is quite a common expression, but the way it is used here makes absolutely no sense to me. Today, there is no Authority for English language usage. There never has been an English Academy like the French or Spanish ones, but in the past, there were Fowler, Gower, the Society for Pure English and the Committee on Spoken English of the BBC. Alas, they are no more. The BBC can no longer claim to set any standard. The Oxford English Dictionary is perhaps all we have left, and its standard is that of vocabulary, for which we should be thankful.

The challenge facing learners of English is whether to learn this type of buzzword and, if yes, whether to use it. Depending on your level, my advice would be to be aware of these words but not to use them in writing, and definitely not to use them in spoken English. Used by native English speakers, they offend my ear, used by non-native speakers they sound wrong, out of place, out of register. It’s better to concentrate on more standard usage and vocabulary in the early stages. When you attain mastery, you can do whatever you like. When you begin learning English, your teacher and your course books are the Authorities and I hope they are not using this style of English.

It could be said that these buzzwords have value in the sense [note the correct use of sense here] that they add something to the meaning, they provide nuance. Sometimes this is true, but mostly it is not. Basis points adds nothing that standard fractions and percentages do not already have, and will, therefore, very probably disappear before long. It’s a question of training and experience, but data just screams plural. I have a suspicion that Latin plurals may be on the way back, owing probably to the many people interviewed on television using referendum-a after Brexit. Football stadium-a also seems to be making a comeback. Anyway, I hope you enjoy thinking about this and watching out for other examples in your daily life.

Paragraph 1

The government's numbers give no sense of the true numbers involved. There is an uptick, sure, but this is one of multiple upticks; there have also been multiple spikes and hikes. Stability is not about to return anytime soon to the markets. Investors will continue to be hit by this volatility until companies pivot their growth away from European markets and deliver value for money. Airlines that operate intra EU routes will probably be secure post Brexit but there are significant risks to the downside going forward. There is no chance the data over the next few weeks is going to suddenly improve and losses will continue to increase big time. Any increase over 25 basis points would negatively impact companies. (121 words)

Paragraph 2

The government's figures give no indication of the true numbers involved. There is clearly a slight increase, but this is one of several; there have also been numerous larger increases. Stability is not about to return to the markets in the near future. Investors will continue to suffer from this volatility until companies move their growth away from European markets and provide value for money. Airlines that operate routes within the EU will probably be secure after Brexit but there are significant future risks […to the downside???]. There is no chance the data are suddenly going to improve over the next few weeks and losses will continue to escalate. Any increase above one quarter percent would have a negative effect on companies. (122 words)

Pointless, Harry Potter and passports

A quiz program I watch regularly is Pointless. I like the concept of the game and I am an admirer of the presenter Alexander Armstrong and his “assistant” Richard Osman, both of whom are cultured and speak decent English. My admiration diminishes every time Alexander Armstrong says: “All of our questions were asked to 100 people…” and invites contestants to:  “...please step up to the podium”. I’m sure they’ve received countless tweets and emails about this:  …were asked of / were put to, would be better and a podium is generally a raised structure, whereas the prop they use is more like a lectern. If they don’t like this, they could simply say: …please step forward. I’m sure they’ll forgive me for this pettiness. Another thing that strikes me when I watch is that the majority of (younger?) contestants only know the answers to literary questions because they have seen the film based on the novel. Very few seem to have read the book.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

For some reason, this makes me think of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone versus Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone which is the title of the American edition. I have always thought that one of the most valuable aims of books for children was to introduce them to new words and ideas, to increase their vocabulary and knowledge. Is this not valid in America? J.K. Rowling, although agreeing to this change, is said to have regretted it later. The title change brought the following comments:

"Sorceror" sounds exciting, "philosopher" sounds boring, and nobody in America knows what a philosopher is.

Famous title changes to take account of the incredible ignorance of the average American include "Licence Revoked" which became "Licence to Kill", when over 70% of those polled didn't know what "Revoked" meant, and "The Madness of King George III", which had to drop the "III" because it was realised that Americans would be uninterested in the film since they'd obviously missed the first two films of the trilogy”, and

 “Perhaps it was thought that an American readership wouldn't pick up on the mystical connotations of "Philosopher's Stone", and

“American kids (and parents) are far less likely to have heard of the Philosopher's Stone”, thus depriving American children and their parents of the following information concerning the said Philosopher’s stone:

“A reputed solid substance or preparation supposed by the alchemists to possess the property of changing other metals into gold or silver, the discovery of which was the supreme object of alchemy. Being identified with the elixir, it had also, according to some, the power of prolonging life indefinitely, and of curing all wounds and diseases”. OED.

                                                                                                                          

In France, H P and the Philosopher’s Stone became Harry Potter à l'Ecole des Sorciers (HP at Wizard’s School). I’m not sure why as the French have la pierre philosophale  and the same historical references. The Spanish do much better with: Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal.

This then made me think of that statistic about the number of Americans who have a valid passport. According to the State Department, the answer to this, as of January 2014, was about 46%. So, all the stories about only 10% of Americans having a passport are false, but were true around 1994. That settles that, then.

To finish on a couple of my hobby-horses, Norman Smith, one of the BBC's finest, has now started to sprinkle the awful Americanism big time over his reports in addition to overworking his most favourite awful Americanism, …give us a sense of what’s happening in Westminster. Talking of Westminster, I was delighted to hear Mrs May saying at her first Prime Minister’s Questions: I'm going to meet Mrs Merkel... and not meet with. Perhaps we can now look forward to the English language being used more carefully, more elegantly, in Parliament at least.