A Metaphorical Litany ?

This blog has often warned of the dangers, especially to those who speak or write publicly, of misunderstanding 'long' words.

The same might be said of metaphors. Metaphors liven up our language wonderfully - so long as their original significance is recognised. 'Skating on thin ice' is obvious enough; but what about 'sailing close to the wind' ? If we want use this kind of 'specialist' metaphor, then it's best to know just what the original meaning was.

So when a journalist wrote a few months ago of the troubles experienced by those working on the improvement and development of the Hospital at Cromer, in Norfolk, that they had experienced 'a whole litany of setbacks', had he (or she) any idea what that metaphor implies ?

Our English term 'litany' literally means a formulaic religious prayer, one that was (or is) repeated word for word to ensure in particular that no sins are omitted from the list of offences for which one is asking for forgiveness. Rather than try to remember all one's sins in a home-made prayer, it seems best to add one's personal signature, as it were, to the official list.

The church's word 'litany' is derived from the old Greek word lite (two syllables pronounced 'lit-ee') meaning a prayer.

True, the term implied an official list: but to speak or write of 'a whole litany' of setbacks' is to miss the whole significance of the word - the journalist was just seeking a fancy way of indicating that there were a whole lot of setbacks. The metaphor was being stretched beyond any intelligent comparison: but imaginative and appropriate comparison is what metaphors should be about; otherwise they die.

A Metaphorical Litany ?

That Deadly Trove again

Solecism: the technical term (used in our language since the time of Queen Elizabeth I) to denote wrong use of language. This assumes, of course, that there is such a thing as 'wrong use of language': there are those who deny it*.

The ancient Greeks devised a word 'soloekismos' to describe the way that Athenian ex-pat settlers at a place called Soloi in Silicia evolved a dialect that the folk back home at Athens considered sloppy and inaccurate. So 'solecism' originally denoted 'bad Greek'. The Romans borrowed the word into Latin, and eventually it became used widely in Europe (among the middle and scholarly classes, no doubt) for any linguistic misuse, in whatever tongue, of grammar or pronunciation or vocabulary. It has also been used metaphorically for 'bad manners' - social solecisms, as it were.

So the concept of 'bad' English is centuries old. Which is why even good-natured pedants are entitled to complain if people who ought to know better - and that includes all those who use the English language professionally - speak or write of a 'trove'. This blog has moaned about this matter often enough.

Our English phrase 'treasure trove' was (and should still be considered, even when used metaphorically) a legal term adapted from French trésor trouvé, meaning 'treasure found'. Trouvé and 'trove' are past participles of verbs; 'trove' is not a noun.

So the Editor of Radio Times should not have sanctioned a reference by one of his staff to Bob Monkhouse's archival 'trove'. It's enough to make even the best-natured pedant squirm.

* "When I use a word", Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

That Deadly Trove again

Some sympathetic pedantry

There may have been people who once 'followed' this blog, but by now have given up, after many months of dissatisfaction. I can only apologise for many months silence, and explain that in the interim my energies, such as they are, have become increasingly diverted into matters musical - or, more specifically, choral. (The music too is likely to emerge sooner or later in the form of a blog or website or both.)

But what has stirred me to resume this series of mini-essays in pedantry is a slip of paper that I have just re-discovered on which I noted in faint pencil the mild solecism of a broadcaster who referred to three different schools, and remarked that of the three, "the latter is the favorite".

The adjective 'late' has a curious history; whether as an adjective or an adverb. In the early middle ages it meant 'slow', 'behindhand', and the comparative form was spelled either 'later' or 'latter', and the superlative either 'latest' or 'last'. After a long while the forms 'latter' and 'last' came to be associated with adverbial use, 'later' and 'latest' with adjectival - though most English-speakers would find it hard to spot the difference. But we would always refer to 'the latest' news rather than 'the last news', and would not say 'three weeks latter'.

The term 'the late King' or 'the late Albert Higgins' is an idiomatic use: it might once have implied that His Majesty or his humble subject Albert was slow to act, or 'slow on the uptake'. More recently it could have implied that he (or Albert Higgins, MP) had not arrived on time for the opening of parliament. More recently still, it would imply that the one referred to had recently died. 'Late' meaning 'recent' has the adverbial form 'lately', equivalent to the phrase 'of late'.

Back to this choice between the three schools. Among pedants it is an axiom that "you can't have a latter of three". Theoretically the comparative form of an adjective should only be used when 'comparing' two things. So you can't correctly speak of more than two 'alternatives'*. Nor should you speak of 'the bigger of the three' any more than you would (or should) say ''the biggest of the two'.

* The very word 'alternative' is derived from the Latin adjective alter meaning 'the other of two'.

All of which complex waffle is really just a preamble to two important observations. The first is that we adapt the way we speak to the situation we find ourselves in. We may twitter in a different style to the way we compose a letter applying for a job; a poet will write a poem in a different style to that in which he writes to his bank manager to ask for an extension of credit. The Prime Minister will address Parliament in different language to that in which he chats to his family at home. There is no across-the-board 'right style'. But in every situation and for every purpose there will be an appropriate one.

The second point (obvious enough) is that word usage is constantly evolving, so that terms that are well understood in one generation may gain a new significance - or lose it altogether - in the next. If we find some of Shakespeare's language hard to follow, it is not because either we or Shakespeare speak or write badly. But it is important to remember (in case this little essay seems to be an invitation to verbal anarchy) that speech and writing are tools that we always use in order to achieve something: and if they aren't clear, then we fail in our purpose; and we need either to sharpen the tools or to use them with greater skill.

Some sympathetic pedantry

Bring back the slums ?

It is often very difficult for an investigative pedant to be sure just how a new usage insinuates itself into our language, or even whether such a usage is indeed new at all. One that disturbs this particular pedant whenever he encounters it is what we might call the 'false double-as'. The 'true double-as' may be a simple phrase like 'as plain as a pike-staff' (though not all of us will be aware what a pikestaff actually is), or 'as cool as a cucumber', or 'as many as you like'.

In these instances, A is being likened to B.

There are also many uses of the 'single-as': 'As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives. . .'; 'Our daughter went to the fancy dress party as a milk-maid'; 'As an independent adviser, I have a special responsibility . . . ' The notion that lies behind all these is the simultaneity or co-incidence of two facts or factors: I and the man with a big family meeting en route to the Fair; the daughter and her costume; the independent advice and the consequent obligation to the truth. Another usage of the 'single-as' (meaning 'in the way that') is the well-worn phrase 'life as we know it'. The idiom 'as if' is similar.

But how about the usage 'Much as I would like to see Windsor Castle, I'm afraid I'm not free that day'; or 'Clever as he is, I don't think he's the person we need for this particular job' ? Here we are using 'as' to mean 'though'. It's a well-established idiom, in which two concepts are being not likened, but contrasted. Yes but no.

The disturbing new (mis-)usage is to introduce a 'double-as' into this last category of 'single-as' idioms.

Many people are now doing just this. You hear it on the telly or radio, you read it in articles by sloppy journalists. Here's a sample from the Radio Times this week:

"As dire as slums may appear, they represent a huge improvement."

What the writer means (we must assume, or his ideas must be very weird indeed) is "Dire though slums may appear, they represent a huge improvement". His mistake is that is that he used a 'double-as' construction to signify contrast, when traditionally it has been used to signify coincidence or similarity. What he has written can only mean 'The slums, as they appear to us, represent a huge improvement'. Whereas the sentence with a single-as, "Dire as slums may appear to us, they in fact represent a huge improvement on . . .", makes the sense which (judging by the context) I believe he intends.

Bring back the slums ?

The Trove that the Founding Fathers Hid

Oh dear, another trove (which is not a noun but an adjectival past participle of the French verb 'trouver', meaning to 'find') has reared its head. This 'trove' appears in an editorial paragraph about a film , National Treasure, in Radio Times, in which (so illiterate editorial staff tell us) a "family has been charged with protecting a treasure trove hidden by the Founding Fathers of America". So the 'trove' has been 'hidden', has it ? That's back to front: 'treasure trove' is treasure that was once hidden, but now has been found. Remove the rogue term 'trove', and the editorial sentence makes perfect sense.

The Trove that the Founding Fathers Hid

My Dear, I Feel Totally Decimated

For years I had always assumed that Clive James was little more than a witty and amusing TV entertainer - which shows how foolish it can be to make assumptions. Then, a few months ago, I read his autobiographical Unreliable Memoirs (pretty frivolous), and Falling Towards England and North Face of Soho (a little more serious), which gave hints of greater depths; and more recently At the Pillars of Hercules, where James displays his alter ego, the erudite (but always readable) literary critic. Now I am half way through another of his books of criticism, The Meaning of Recognition - a title which seems a bit pretentious until we find that Clive J is pulling our legs, for in this, the title also of the first chapter of the book, the 'recognition' is not some abstract philosophical concept but the phenomenon of being physically recognisable due to exposure on the TV screen. (Another chapter, 'Great Sopranos of Our Time' turns out not to be what its title seems to suggest, but is about the TV 'Sopranos' gangster series compared with the Godfather films.)

What resonates with the pedant in me is James's lament at the deterioration of the English language in the media. "Among ordinary pens for hire", he writes, "it is no longer common to write without solecisms; even those who can are likely to bolt phrases together with no real attention to their derivation, and in too many cases their language is utterly emptied of the history that brought it into being".

I am afraid that this situation is largely due to the influence of Television, the medium through which James won his fame. Over and over again we hear presenters and news-readers and interviewed experts mangling the language, or adopting (presumably in order to be accepted as 'ordinary people') modern linguistic quirks, kerb-side idioms and popular cliches; all of which, if we stop to think about it, we can see do nothing to make their statements or opinions clearer or more authoritative: it merely makes the speakers seem superficially more 'ordinary' - so keen is their desire for 'street cred'. James himself is not above doing this sometimes - but it is always 'occasional' and in the appropriate place, somehow genuinely enlivening his prose without demeaning it. It takes a master of English language and literature to do this without vulgarity or bathos.

It was a genuine wildlife expert, I am sure, who told us recently on screen that the arrival in our country of the north American grey squirrel had 'completely decimated' the native red squirrel. Originally the term 'decimated' had the special meaning of 'eliminating one tenth' (thus leaving ninety per cent alive and kicking)*. Of course the word could be used metaphorically with less mathematical precision, to imply severely reducing a population. But phrases like 'completely decimated' and 'totally decimated' are self-contradictory.

The wildlife expert should not be blamed for not understanding the term; but why use long, latinate words when you don't really know what they mean? It is Television, as well as the Press, that has been spreading such misuses. And they really do weaken our language.

* 'Decimated' derives from Latin decem meaning 'ten'.

My Dear, I Feel Totally Decimated

Critical ramifications of aggravated panoplies

E'en Homer nods, occasionally slipping on a banana skin to reveal his Achilles' heel.

That is to say, even professional word-mongers sometimes use words or metaphors poorly. The term 'panoply', as I have mentioned in the related website (see at head of this blog), seems to have acquired spurious overtones of pomp and brilliance through its superficial resemblance to the word 'pageantry'. It really means 'complete set of weapons'*. Is this what Arnold Bennett intended when he wrote "Then a dark and elegant young man in full evening panoply appeared [in a dance hall] from the street"; or again, in the context of another social event, "The exit of Dr and Mrs Raste in full panoply . . . into the garden . . . took place at ten o'clock" ? No - I think Bennett was unaware of the meaning of the word: note how in both instances he uses the phrase 'full panoply': the word element 'pan-' already means 'full' or 'inclusive'.

* from the Greek word 'panoplia' ('pan-' = complete and 'hoploi ' = weapons). The translators of the King James Bible were interpreting St Paul's use of that word (if indeed he originally wrote in Greek) when they wrote "Take unto you the whole armour of God" - the breastplate of righteousness, the sword of the spirit, the shield of faith and so on.

"Are there likely to be ramifications between the USA and the British Government following this decision ?" asked a BBC News presenter recently. I guess he meant something like 'complex repercussions affecting relations between the USA and Britain'. But 'ramification' (from Latin ramus = branch or twig) means (literally) 'making branches' or (metaphorically) what we might think of as 'knock-on complications' spreading in the pattern of branches and twigs. 'Ramifications between two nations' is nonsense.

And we are often told that a person in hospital is 'critical'. A critical illness is one the outcome of which has yet to be judged or assessed. A person may be 'in a critical condition' (ie in a condition of uncertain outcome). But to say that a person him- or herself is critical means something quite different: it means that they are criticising. And strictly speaking (which we usually aren't) the word criticise (from the Greek word krit-es meaning a judge) means to assess, or to use one's impartial judgement, with no implication of carping or complaining or blaming or disapproving. 'Crisis' (from Greek krisis) means a judgement, a deciding moment.

As for aggravation, let us once and (wishfully) for all explain that it derives from the Latin stem gravis meaning heavy, and means 'adding weight to'. We use it metaphorically and correctly in the phrase 'aggravated burglary', implying that it wasn't just simple burglary, but burglary with violence added to it. We could say that 'adding insult to injury' aggravates the injury by making it heavier to bear. We can say that pneumonia is 'aggravated' (or made more burdensome) by exposure to cold air. But for that excellent journalist Andrew Rawnsley to write about "the government's growing aggravation about Whitehall's inability to keep secrets" is nonsense*. In this instance, it is not the government that is becoming more burdensome, but its problems. And Rawnsley's misunderstanding of the term 'aggravation' is betrayed by his describing it as 'growing': the sense of 'growing' is built into the term itself (by the Latin prefix ad-).

*I think Rawnsley meant 'irritation' or 'annoyance'. But because the passage quoted comes from a report (in The Week) of Rawnsley's article rather than from the original itself (in The Observer), it is possible that the fault lies with The Week's editor who may have paraphrased Rawnsley's words clumsily. Incidentally, I am aware that this misuse of the term 'aggravate' has a long history: but that doesn't make it right.

Critical ramifications of aggravated panoplies