The words we use

The town where I live has a good newspaper. From time to time, it gives advice to its readers for avoiding language mistakes and for speaking correct English. Today’s post has been inspired by a column by Gary Gilson the Minnesota Star Tribune published about two years ago. It is amusing to compare his advice and the advice I constantly give to my correspondents from all over the world.

Number One on his and my list is the use of buzzwords. People are formulaic creatures, they like cliches as much as being fiercely individual. Some phrases are unavoidable. We cannot substitute anything for Good morning, thank you very much, please sit down, don’t worry, and their likes. It is less obvious whether we should say have a nice weekend every time we part on Friday. But the real problem is with important-sounding phrases that once were new but have lost their freshness from overuse. When I am promised unswerving support or a thought-provoking story, I no longer expect either assistance or excitement.

Likewise, when I write letters of recommendation for my former students, I wonder whether I should say that their research is interdisciplinary. The epithet has been trodden to death and means nothing. Though it takes years for a budding scholar (sorry for this phrase) to master the chosen area and though not everybody succeeds, at twenty-eight, one is supposed to be a giant astride at least two oceans. But if I don’t mention the applicant’s interdisciplinary greatness, this will be noticed and remembered! Everybody is interdisciplinary, and everybody needs a job. I weep but walk in step. Rest assured: my recommendations are always thought-provoking, and I promise my proteges unswerving support.

Not only epithets like glamorous, fascinating, and mature have been worn thin. Even worse are some adverbs. One shudders at abominations like free gift, future prospects, final outcome, exact opposites, and the most precious gem of them all: honest truth. Those who cannot be smart often try to look or sound smart. One of the ways of impressing an interlocutor is to speak long and say little. At this point in time is of course weightier than now or at present, and utilize eclipses the modest monosyllabic use.

Language changes, and the avant-garde variety always sounds like an abomination to the cultured group. When all pedants die out, the “progressives” begin to guard their norm, which has now become conservative! Here is a curious example. In German, gut means both good and well, that is, adverbs lack a suffix like –ly. But I have heard someone saying on the radio: “She sings beautiful.” My neighbor suggested that we ride real quick. This is pure German. To be sure, fast is both an adverb and an adjective (we drive a fast car fast). Is English progressing in the direction of German? Perhaps.

One example I cited in some older post, but my students keep reminding me of this phenomenon. “The mood of the stories are gloomy.” Judging by this ineradicable feature of even graduate students’ style, American English has established a rule: make the verb agree with the closest noun, rather than with the subject. Should we bother? Yes, for the time being. But one day, this usage may become the norm. Incidentally, here is a sentence from a paper by a distinguished British philologist: “The small corpus of nineteen… epigraphical inscriptions… do not correspond very well, in either the date or their geographical distribution…” I understand the British collective in my family are early risers, and the couple were seldom seen together, but the corpus are? Yet I am more troubled by sentences like “They invited my wife and I,” because I cannot explain what analogy produces such phrases. However, we do say “Yes, this is me” and don’t worry.

One of the oldest chestnuts is: “I insist on Mrs. Smith appearing.” Obviously, it should be “Mrs. Smith’s.” But the tug of war between those construction has been going on for two centuries (at least). A grammarian will have no trouble parsing either variant. Yet the speaking community has never had any interest in linguists’ opinions.

A special problem is language and social engineering. Every time I write is not and does not, the computer suggests isn’t and doesn’t. Who programmed it to promote the conversational variants of such forms? I am immune to my computer’s bidding, but many others, especially insecure foreign speakers, will probably obey the command. I wince at constructions like “When someone asks you for help, never send them without assistance.” This usage was imposed on us for two reasons. “Him or her” is bulky,” and the older him is sexist. Yet I constantly see sentences like “It is the viewer’s opinion that matters, and we cannot ignore her reaction,” as though her is less sexist than his. Medication is expected to cure, rather than kill.

My final example has been trodden to death. Everybody fights the phrase very unique. The correspondent of the newspaper I referred to as an inspiration of this essay began his notes with the appeal: “Avoid very unique!” Some people don’t understand that unique means “one of a kind” and take it for a synonym of rare. The misunderstanding is sad, but in the history of language, such events cause astounding changes. Words for “bad” begin to mean “good,” and the other way round. Everything depends on whether any given speaker prefers to be conservative and resist change or is happy to swim with the current. If one day, unique loses its ties with the idea of uniqueness, the avant-garde usage will become neutral. Incidentally, the adverb very is rarely needed. It, too, has lost its freshness, and that is why people often say very, very. Ours is a community of overstatement. Editors used to call very a four-letter word, which it certainly is.

NOTE. During the summer months, the blog will keep appearing but not always with the same regularity as usual.

_{Featured image: sampling of types of dictionaries used in proverb studies by Pete unseth. CC-BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.}