Here's another example of an editor (professional, presumably) of a weekly mag who acts a bit wild with the English language. The issue* was in mid-June this year, and his 'editorial' mentioned a meeting of the "Bilderberg Group of business and political big hitters" in Watford. Since the details of their meetings remain secret, they are "open to accusations of being part of a shadowy illuminati keen to usher in lizard-people dominance".
Now the term illuminati is a Latin word, and it is plural, and we use it to mean (whether straightforwardly or sarcastically) "those who are enlightened". You could (grammatically) have a single illuminatus, but several together must be, plurally, illuminati. Just as we speak and write in English of 'one man' or 'many men', but not 'a single men'; so "a shadowy illuminati" is plain wrong**. This is another (see the previous post below) apparent instance of a writer not completely at home with the terms he is using.
But that's not all. In his next paragraph the editor writes "Big data is controlled by several big businesses". If he wants the term 'big data' to represent the name, whether actual or implied, of something, then it should have capital initials ('Big Data') to indicate the fact. In which case it would be OK to write "Big Data is controlled". But "big data" are plural. Data is the plural of Latin datum, meaning a 'given thing', a given fact. Data are facts supplied to enable decisions or actions to be taken.
Once again, beware of unusual or foreign words: they can be stumbling blocks for linguistic non-illuminati.
* In one of its standard older meanings
** Illuminatus /-i is derived from Latin lumen/-ina meaning light: so 'a shadowy illuminati' is a mix of metaphors as well as grammatically wrong. Mind you, 'shadowy illuminati' could be a deliberate wry joke; but I doubt that it is intended here.
Are you Verbally Enlightened ?
Showing posts with label English from Latin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English from Latin. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 July 2013
Monday, 4 June 2012
Comprehending Comprehension
We all utter accidental - or deliberate - solecisms (qv in blog of next date, above) in our spontaneous conversation. We may even commit them in letters, or, for a joke or for special effect, in text intended for publication. But on the whole it is reasonable to expect that in what we might call 'informative literature', what an author publishes should be written as 'correctly' as he or she can manage. Especially if he or she happens to have a degree in English.
I have just read an interesting and probably well researched book on the life of the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, written over thirty years ago, but without much imagination, by such an author. The facts may well be accurately given, but the style is a trifle dull. But the author's training for an English degree should have ensured that he could not write ". . . the music [now in a library in Budapest]. . . comprises of La Marchesa di Nespoli . . . *"
"The music is comprised of . . . " would be grammatically correct but not suitable in the context; "The music comprises . . . " would also be correct. But "comprises of " is wrong".
Note also that 'comprise' (correctly used) is not the same as 'include', but is closer to the sense of 'consists of **''. It is this latter correct usage that probably accounts for the unacceptable phrase 'comprises of '.
Linguistically correct but geographically awry is the statement that in the 1790s Haydn "went with a boating party down the Thames from Westminster Bridge to Richmond, where they had a picnic on an island". But that is the kind of mistake that anyone (including this pedant) might make absent-mindedly.
Pedantry should not become just an excuse to pick holes in other people's speech or writing. If it is to shake off its bad name, it should be concerned with explaining certain characteristics of language as they have been in the past and as they are now, and why certain modes of expression are, in certain contexts, more appropriate than others. But you can't do this unless you make distinctions between various ways of expressing ideas, and this means quoting some inappropriate usages and explaining why they could be better re-phrased.
* The title of a musical, composition by Haydn.
** The term 'comprise' is derived (via French) from Latin comprehendere, signifying 'to grasp all together'.
Compare English words 'apprehend', 'prehensile'. The Latin 'com-' means 'with' or 'together'. Our term
'composer' consists of L 'com-' with L element pos- from the verb ponere meaning to place or put. So
Haydn was a person who put sounds together.
Comprehending Comprehension
I have just read an interesting and probably well researched book on the life of the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn, written over thirty years ago, but without much imagination, by such an author. The facts may well be accurately given, but the style is a trifle dull. But the author's training for an English degree should have ensured that he could not write ". . . the music [now in a library in Budapest]. . . comprises of La Marchesa di Nespoli . . . *"
"The music is comprised of . . . " would be grammatically correct but not suitable in the context; "The music comprises . . . " would also be correct. But "comprises of " is wrong".
Note also that 'comprise' (correctly used) is not the same as 'include', but is closer to the sense of 'consists of **''. It is this latter correct usage that probably accounts for the unacceptable phrase 'comprises of '.
Linguistically correct but geographically awry is the statement that in the 1790s Haydn "went with a boating party down the Thames from Westminster Bridge to Richmond, where they had a picnic on an island". But that is the kind of mistake that anyone (including this pedant) might make absent-mindedly.
Pedantry should not become just an excuse to pick holes in other people's speech or writing. If it is to shake off its bad name, it should be concerned with explaining certain characteristics of language as they have been in the past and as they are now, and why certain modes of expression are, in certain contexts, more appropriate than others. But you can't do this unless you make distinctions between various ways of expressing ideas, and this means quoting some inappropriate usages and explaining why they could be better re-phrased.
* The title of a musical, composition by Haydn.
** The term 'comprise' is derived (via French) from Latin comprehendere, signifying 'to grasp all together'.
Compare English words 'apprehend', 'prehensile'. The Latin 'com-' means 'with' or 'together'. Our term
'composer' consists of L 'com-' with L element pos- from the verb ponere meaning to place or put. So
Haydn was a person who put sounds together.
Comprehending Comprehension
Wednesday, 2 May 2012
Caution: Polysyllabicism operates here
"Caution: Operatives at work". So ran the announcement on the back of a heavy waste disposal vehicle that I found myself following the other day. In the old days the phrase was the straightforward "Danger, men at work". What, I wondered, is the difference between a man and an operative ? Easy - the term 'operative', like 'worker' is gender-neutral. It wouldn't sound right to say 'Danger, men and/or women at work', or 'Danger, workers at work', any more than it would sound right to say 'Danger, operatives operating'.
'Operative' and operation are derived from the Latin opus (singular) and opera (plural) - terms regularly used in English, especially in artistic and musical circles. To the Romans the term meant 'work', and we speak today of the works of Mozart or Tolstoy or van Gogh.
Perhaps* it is right to consider that waste disposal is an occupation as creative as writing an ode or a sonata. Conversely, we might** agree that it can take as much out of a person to write an ode or to perform a piano solo as it does to carry a loaded dustbin and hoist it up to pour the contents into the back of a truck. Only nowadays, of course, there is a powered hoist that automatically lifts the wheelibin up the back of the lorry and tips out the contents. So much easier for the refuse operatives. But - as yet - no such mechanical aid for the poor art operatives.
* I said perhaps. ** I said might .
Caution: polysyllabicism operates here
'Operative' and operation are derived from the Latin opus (singular) and opera (plural) - terms regularly used in English, especially in artistic and musical circles. To the Romans the term meant 'work', and we speak today of the works of Mozart or Tolstoy or van Gogh.
Perhaps* it is right to consider that waste disposal is an occupation as creative as writing an ode or a sonata. Conversely, we might** agree that it can take as much out of a person to write an ode or to perform a piano solo as it does to carry a loaded dustbin and hoist it up to pour the contents into the back of a truck. Only nowadays, of course, there is a powered hoist that automatically lifts the wheelibin up the back of the lorry and tips out the contents. So much easier for the refuse operatives. But - as yet - no such mechanical aid for the poor art operatives.
* I said perhaps. ** I said might .
Caution: polysyllabicism operates here
Saturday, 3 July 2010
The Usher and the Ostler
It was a wedding, earlier this afternoon in the ancient church just opposite our home, that made me think of the term 'usher'. How does one 'ush', and where does the term come from ?
To start with, one doesn't 'ush' - there is no such word. But we might well have guessed (correctly) that someone had used it by now: in fact SOED cites the 'dialect and colloquial' verb to 'ush', a 'back-formation' from the word 'usher'.
We have had the term 'usher' in our language, in one form or another, since Chaucer's day, when English adopted the French huissier to mean a 'door-keeper'. This French word derived from the medieval Latin ussarius, which in turn had evolved from the old Latin ostiarius.
This basis of this is ostium - Latin for a door; and the ultimate root here is L os meaning a mouth.
We can see how to the Romans the 'mouth' metaphorically became a door - a hole in the wall that we pass through. But it is curious how in modern use the 'mouth' metaphor can operate both ways, in and out. The mouth of Hell, I take it, is one that greedily gobbles up a regular intake of sinners: once inside, you stay there.
The mouth of a volcano may well swallow up any one unwise enough to stand on the rim; but it also is the mouth from which the lava is spewed. A mouthpiece for the government utters authoritative speech, which we simple people are expected to 'swallow' as gospel. The mouth of a wasps' nest and the mouth of a cave both allow ingress and egress - the 'door' metaphor again.
The mouth of a river, though, is really a one-way passage; true, a rising tide can, as it were, push water back into the estuary, but it is disgorging rather than swallowing that the term signifies.
'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . . ', runs the proverb; but nevertheless we can 'put words' in people's mouths (ready for them to regurgitate, of course).
Incidentally, although in days gone by you might meet an 'ostler' at the door of an inn, the term does not mean a door-keeper and is in no way related to ostiarius. 'Ostler' is related to 'host' and 'hotel', 'hospitals' and 'hospitality', all based on a quite different old Latin word hospis meaning a 'host'.
The Usher and the Ostler
To start with, one doesn't 'ush' - there is no such word. But we might well have guessed (correctly) that someone had used it by now: in fact SOED cites the 'dialect and colloquial' verb to 'ush', a 'back-formation' from the word 'usher'.
We have had the term 'usher' in our language, in one form or another, since Chaucer's day, when English adopted the French huissier to mean a 'door-keeper'. This French word derived from the medieval Latin ussarius, which in turn had evolved from the old Latin ostiarius.
This basis of this is ostium - Latin for a door; and the ultimate root here is L os meaning a mouth.
We can see how to the Romans the 'mouth' metaphorically became a door - a hole in the wall that we pass through. But it is curious how in modern use the 'mouth' metaphor can operate both ways, in and out. The mouth of Hell, I take it, is one that greedily gobbles up a regular intake of sinners: once inside, you stay there.
The mouth of a volcano may well swallow up any one unwise enough to stand on the rim; but it also is the mouth from which the lava is spewed. A mouthpiece for the government utters authoritative speech, which we simple people are expected to 'swallow' as gospel. The mouth of a wasps' nest and the mouth of a cave both allow ingress and egress - the 'door' metaphor again.
The mouth of a river, though, is really a one-way passage; true, a rising tide can, as it were, push water back into the estuary, but it is disgorging rather than swallowing that the term signifies.
'Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . . ', runs the proverb; but nevertheless we can 'put words' in people's mouths (ready for them to regurgitate, of course).
Incidentally, although in days gone by you might meet an 'ostler' at the door of an inn, the term does not mean a door-keeper and is in no way related to ostiarius. 'Ostler' is related to 'host' and 'hotel', 'hospitals' and 'hospitality', all based on a quite different old Latin word hospis meaning a 'host'.
The Usher and the Ostler
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