This being the last day of 2008, it's customary to bring out my consultant Dr. Syntax and air his views about how none of you speak English properly. Indeed there are a number of stupid neologisms, platitudes, clichés, malapropisms and other linguistic transgressions I'm sick of hearing and you should be too.
It seems however, that academia has scooped old Syntax and released a more official list of awful verbal offal yesterday. Michigan's Lake Superior State University has taken it upon itself, or at least the English Department has, to ban a number of recent common usages, and although my cranky friend is a bit offended at the lack of respect and recognition he feels he deserves, he's used to it and he quite agrees with most of their condemnations.
Carbon footprint has been spewed forth from journalistic smokestacks all year and it deserves to be at the top of the list for many reasons, not the least of which is the inherent misunderstanding of basic chemistry. It's the compounds of carbon fouling the air and carbon dioxide is no more carbon than water is hydrogen, nor does either substance lend itself to having footprints. Find a better term, says my friend Syntax, or you may find his footprint on your you know where.
What else has brought forth the wrath of Syntax this year? Green: yes it's easier to type than ecologically advantageous and easier to attach to every trivial thing, action or policy the creativity of Madison Avenue and other enthusiastic simpletons can dream up. A thermos bottle isn't particularly green, for instance, unless it's made by Stanley, and virtually all things advertised as such wouldn't make a bit of difference even if most of the world bought them -- unless being green in the face from disgust counts. Algae is green and we could do with less of it in our rivers and ponds. Organic? Crude oil and snake venom are organic. Don't look for them at Whole Foods.
Syntax, you'll note I'm not calling him "the good doctor" because that's vapid cliché number 147 on his list, remains thoroughly opposed to a number of hackneyed metaphors, so overused that they have often obliterated more accurate and legitimate words. The now permanent fatwa on the carrion metaphor impact has been joined by ass kicking and references to suction to indicate incompetence or disapproval. These stopped being creative or even mildly humorous before you were born. Stop it.
Perhaps it will be another 4 years before we have to arrest anyone for using stumping and campaign trail, but please use the time to think of more direct replacements for these bits of verbal road-kill.
Syntax has nearly beaten efforting and texting to death, as he does with "verbed" nouns in general, but nearly isn't enough, is it?
Euphemisms such as right-sizing don't disguise the fact that your company is firing your department and it just makes your boss more of a jerk then you knew he was.
Changing the sign on your Chinese, Korean, Thai, Indian or Japanese restaurant to say "Asian cuisine" makes you sound like a moron and it's an insult to the ethnicities you're attempting to cover with some gluey "Asian sauce." There's no such category as Asian, Asiatic or Oriental food - or sauce, and yes all three words mean exactly the same thing. And while we're on the subject of food, what the hell is comfort food and what would discomfort food be?
Graphic doesn't mean scary, and issue isn't synonymous with problem or concern. A bowel movement is an issue -- constipation s a problem.
There's been nothing new in rocket science since Newton and as a metaphor for technical difficulty, you'd be better off talking about rocket technology. All you'd lose thereby is the association with the lemmings of language.
Warfighter. Did we really need that one and doesn't it serve to dehumanize a soldier? As the military ( right after the business school) is often at the forefront of promulgating misleading and opaque usage, I'm suspicious, although I will admit with some degree of guilty feelings that I've always liked Overkill.
So anyway, the old man is getting a bit tired of you and the thoughtless way you talk and of having to remind you of it every year. We both know you'll be eating double bacon cheeseburgers in front of the TV by next week regardless of all your resolutions and you'll still be using "fell swoop" and "control freak" as though you knew what you were saying, you reprobate you.
Whenever did "to step foot" enter the language? And when, pray, will it make its quietus with a bare bodkin? Go to, I'll no more on it -- it hath made me mad!
ReplyDeleteDrats, another "face-off" between prescriptive and descriptive grammarians. Here is a handy reference tool that combines rules for composition and auto mechanics in a single volume:
ReplyDeleteMichael Harvey. The Nuts and Bolts of College Writing. Hackett Publishing, 2003.
Of course, let us not forget our venerable Ogden Nash: Like goes Madison Avenue, like so goes the nation.
Well it's not only motorcycle mechanics that is saturated with satori, but I am, or rather Syntax is not a grammarian, only one who hates taking refuge in ignorance.
ReplyDeleteSpeech has no meaning should "descriptive" excuses be valid and it is his experience that those who take refuge in "descriptive" disrespect for language are simply hiding a disability in a bushel of babble.
That's Syntax of course. To me "Bop bopa-a-lu a whop bam boo" means whatever I say it does and therefore there's no difference between me and Shakespeare. Who could say otherwise? Not even Little Richard.
Captain Fogg, my biggest bugbear is the name “Joe” as in “Joe Six Pack” and “Joe the Plumber” because they represent to me the “dumbing-down” of our public life. The neologism, “dumbing-down,” resonates with me because the description is apt. Not all clichés get my goat.
ReplyDeleteDescriptive versus prescriptive can be argued both ways, and every generation has its gatekeepers and rebels. The historical approach is mighty Grimm. Looking for more structure in life? Try this. For something completely transformational, chomp on this. In the age of the Internet, we h8 rls.
Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for changing the rules. For instance, feminists argue that traditional usages of language discriminate against women, and feminists seek to replace male-favoring terms with gender-free substitutes. A legitimate argument that is worthy of attention, in my opinion.
Of course, technology brings new terms and usages into the lexicon. It has also been argued that prescriptivism leads to elitism, racism, and just plain awkwardness. When told not to end his sentences with a preposition, Winston Churchill said: "This is arrant pedantry, up with which I shall not put."
When Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language was first published, the New York Times panned it as vulgar and an assault upon noble English. In response, the editor, Philip Babcock Gove, wrote a letter to the Times stating, “Sirs: I don’t prescribe the grammar, and you shouldn’t prescribe the news.”
Sometimes grammar causes me to stammer. But heck, I'm just an aging 8pus.
It's not so much any prissy niceties or inflexible rules of of grammar I'm talking about, it's the habit of making all words that sound similar mean the same thing. Indeed insisting that they mean the same thing because Joe the Plumber doesn't know the difference. There's nothing more elitist in my opinion than the elitism of the uneducated.
ReplyDeleteThe ending with a preposition thing never was a rule, it was Dryden's insistence that we use Roman grammar - now that's true and pointless elitism, but still I'm not disturbed by charges of elitism. More often than not, it's an excuse for poor vocabulary and a bookless life.
If we let the least literate dictate, we have handed the prescription pad to the patient and it serves no one very well. It certainly doesn't serve communication any better than the silly business about prepositions. Have you noticed by the way, that "on" now replaces virtually all the others in our point and grunt language?
Frankly I think if we're going to dignify the merger of farther and further, imply and infer, torturous and tortuous and a vast host of others, we're hurting the usefulness of the language. If we're going to insist that wherefore now means where because it sounds similar -- and I've had that argument with people -- we're tossing away our culture and moving into a tiny bubble of what's happening now.
I'm no more easily convinced that language self-regulates than I am that the markets do and we're headed toward a society that doesn't read because it no longer has the vocabulary and can't put together a sentence that says what it was intended to say. Whatever one's attitude toward English teachers, "try and" and "try to" mean two different things. What good comes of allowing "the reason is because?" Do I have to admit that Liberal now means radical authoritarian or that there really is something called a Barista just to make it easier for someone to sell me things? Sorry.
It's going to be equally as hard to convince me that we should be uncritical of stringing together stale cliches, hackneyed, misunderstood metaphor and bloated, pretentious phrases in preference to creative use of language in new ways. If "tow the line" or "push the envelope" are acceptable and clear speech is elitist, than logic, mathematics and truth itself is elitist and I'm outta here. Mars or bust!
I understand your point, Captain. If I were to describe myself as a descriptivist, it would not make me ignorant, just slightly more aware of how language, among many things, change with respect to time. We no longer utter pure sounds deep within our throats; instead we speak in diphthongs. Of course, vowel shifts are inferred, and who can say with assurance since all eyewitnesses have been reduced to archeological artifacts.
ReplyDeleteTime to fess up. I see myself as neither gatekeeper nor rebel. Perhaps dilettante would be more appropriate, and the subject is no longer about linguistics but about leaving behind few accomplishments, notwithstanding a comfortable but otherwise dull life.
Neither gatekeeper nor rebel, the world belongs more to my offspring than to me, and my opinions matter less with each passing year. If anything, I am struggling with my own powerlessness. I am merely a link in a very long chain, more past than present tense, with an accelerated grimace. Bloggingdino and I have a mutual friend who once wrote this:
I don't know what's best to do about this, because a growing sense of failure and invisibility can be agonizing. I suppose one's life has to have meaning beyond the simple binaries of success and failure, fame and invisibility. Old people can form a secret society of quiet rebels, which to some extent they do (particularly poets).
More than anything, I wish I could help my friends who are struggling. If only my own struggle weren't so bitter and lonely, I might be in a better position to do so. I would love to be able to grant wishes, to loan capital, to do more than just tell this little truth: "You are not invisible, and you are not insignificant …
The same friend also said: If you are a holocaust survivor, a rape victim, or a person struggling with an illness from which there is no relief, you want to rebel against those terrible wounds. But if you dwell on revolt, you will assuredly drive yourself mad; so there must also be resignation. Revolt and resignation … memories from a person most precious and wise and sadly missed.
Yes, Captain, you are right. We certainly do not want to leave behind a more vulgar world, but realistically speaking: How much power do we really have as the candle dwindles?
Oh for heavens' sake - whose candle is dwindling? More past than present? Octopus, my dear friend of the deep - you aren't going any where fast unless you are trying to will yourself into an early, watery demise. I personally intend to be shooting my mouth off & actively participating in life until I'm at least 99.
ReplyDeleteAs for the present state of language, grammar, vocabulary - about the subject I have much to say, being on the front lines of the issue as it were.
To keep it short & simple, let's just say that I can personally attest to the fact that there are people in this country graduating with college degrees who can not write simple, grammatically correct English. The fine-tuning of vocabulary etc uses are a luxury - in that sense. I personally would settle for subject/verb agreement.
Why students manage to graduate from HS without these simple skills I do not know but from there the problem never fully corrects itself.
The fact that we have mass produced "street speak" in movies, tv, pop songs, country music etc only compounds & normalizes certain vocabulary, grammatical & syntactical uses.
I could go on and on . . .
Burning candles in an octopus' garden? Of course it's going out. Hey, if I cant keep saying AAARRRRHHHH, what good am I?
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that everyone needs basic language skills and I insist that without grammar, there is no language at all. I also insist that Orwell was right in saying that people trying to manipulate us prefer "long words and exhausted idioms like a cuttlefish squirting out ink" (nothing personal here - some of my best friends are cephalopods)
That's why museums "deaccession" donated objects - because selling them annoys the donors. "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity" sayeth the same fellow.
I used to work in an office where ending correspondence with "any questions call" was de regeur. "Please call me with any questions" was deemed too "elitist." That sums it all up, for me.
Apocalypses don't happen by themselves - we create them word by word.