Degrees of keyness

If the (indispensible) Radio Times provides a large proportion of the solecisms and linguistic infelicities that fuel this blog, that other necessary weekly publication The Week provides a useful extra helping.

“Most environmentalists claim that changing the way we travel - better timetabling for public transport, car sharing, etc - is just as key as altering car technology”, we read in the current issue of The Week.

We’ll overlook the otiose comma after the phrase ‘car sharing’ (after all, it doesn’t much spoil the flow): but the phrase ‘just as key’ is poor English, jargon of the kind favoured by the lesser orders of journalists and publicists. You can’t compare ‘keyness’. You should think again if you find phrases like ‘more key’ or ‘very key’ creeping into your speech.

If we speak of a ‘key point’ in (say) legislation, we use the term ‘key’ not as an adjective, but as a ‘noun in apposition’. You might speak of a ‘landmark decision’: but would you ever suggest that a particular decision is ‘landmarker’ than another ? Is a projected ‘gala concert’ intended to be ‘more gala’ than others ? And (as this pedant has whinged before) could you reasonably assert that your village jumble sale is ‘just as mammoth’ as that of that of your neighbours ? Or even that an entertainer’s ‘star performance’ is ‘the starest ever’ ?

Degrees of keyness