Plain Words Page 9

  Circumstances

  It used to be widely held by purists that to say ‘under the circumstances’ must be wrong because what is around us cannot be over us. In the circumstances was the correct expression. This argument is characterised by Fowler as puerile. Its major premiss is not true (‘a threatening sky is a circumstance no less than a threatening bulldog’) and even if it were true it would be irrelevant, because, as cannot be too often repeated, English idiom has a contempt for logic. There is good authority for under the circumstances, and if some prefer in the circumstances (as I do), that is a matter of taste, not of rule.

  Compare

  There is a difference between compare to and compare with. The first is taken to liken one thing to another: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ The second is to establish that the resemblances and differences between two things are about to be weighed. Thus: ‘If we compare the speaker’s note with the report of his speech in The Times …’.

  Consist

  There is a difference between consist of and consist in. Consist of denotes the substance of which the subject is made: ‘The writing desks consist of planks on trestles’. Consist in defines the subject: ‘The work of the branch consists in interviewing the public’.

  Depend

  It is wrong in formal writing, though common in speech, to omit the on or upon after depends, as in: ‘It depends whether we have received another consignment by then’.

  Different

  There is good authority for different to, but different from is today the established usage. ‘Different than’ is not unknown even in The Times:

  The air of the suburb has quite a different smell and feel at eleven o’clock in the morning or three o’clock in the afternoon than it has at the hours when the daily toiler is accustomed to take a few hurried sniffs of it.

  But this is condemned by orthodox commentators, who would say that than in this example should have been from what.

  Doubt

  Idiom requires whether after a statement of positive doubt, and that after one that is negative or rhetorical. ‘I doubt whether he will come today’ implies an active state of doubt as to whether or not he will come. ‘I doubt that he will come to day’ implies that there is no expectation that he will come.

  Either

  Old-fashioned purists argue that either means one or other of two. But it has been used to mean each of two throughout its history, as in Tennyson’s lines:

  On either side the river lie

  Long fields of barley and of rye

  or in, ‘The concert will be broadcast on either side of the nine o’clock news’. As this usage (each of two) remains common, there does not seem to be any good ground for Fowler’s dictum that it is ‘archaic and should be avoided’.

  First

  There used to be a popular rule that you must not write firstly; your enumeration must be first, secondly, thirdly. It was one of those arbitrary rules whose observance was supposed by a certain class of purist to be a hallmark of correct writing. This rule, unlike many of the sort, does not even have logic on its side. Of late years there has been a rebellion against these rules, and I do not think that any contemporary commentator will mind much whether you say first or firstly, or indeed first, second, third.

  Follows (as Follows)

  Do not write ‘as follow’ for as follows, however numerous the things that follow. The OED states that ‘The construction in as follows is impersonal, and the verb should always be used in the singular’.

  Got

  ‘Have got’ for possess or have, says Fowler, is good colloquial but not good literary English. Others have been more lenient. Dr Johnson, in his Dictionary, said:

  he has got a good estate does not always mean that he has acquired, but barely that he possesses it. So we say the lady has got black eyes, merely meaning that she has them.

  When such high authorities differ, what is the ordinary person to think? If it is true, as I hold it to be, that superfluous words are an evil, we ought to condemn ‘the lady has got black eyes’ (for ‘the lady has black eyes’), but not ‘the lady has got a black eye’ (someone hit her). Still, in writing for those whose prose inclines more often to primness than to colloquialisms, and who are not likely to overdo this use of got, I advise them not to be afraid of it.

  Hard and Hardly

  Hard, not hardly, is the adverb of the adjective hard. Hardly must not be used except in the sense of ‘scarcely’. Hardly earned and hard-earned have quite different meanings. Thus ‘their reward was hardly earned’: they were rewarded but did little to deserve it; ‘their hard-earned reward’: the reward they went to great lengths to earn. (Hardly, like scarcely, is followed by when in a sentence such as: ‘I had hardly begun when I was interrupted’. Sometimes than intrudes – ‘hardly begun than I was interrupted’—from a false analogy with ‘I had no sooner begun than I was interrupted’.)

  Help

  The expression ‘more than one can help’ is a literal absurdity. It means exactly the opposite of what it says. ‘I won’t be longer than I can help’ means ‘I won’t be longer than is unavoidable’, which is to say, longer than I can’t help. But it is good English idiom. Sir Winston Churchill writes in The Gathering Storm: ‘They will not respect more than they can help treaties extracted from them under duress’. Writers who find the ridiculousness of the phrase more than they can stomach can always write ‘more than they must’ instead.

  Inculcate

  One inculcates ideas into people (as one might urge ideas upon them), not people with ideas. Imbue would be the right word for that. A vague association with inoculate may have something to do with the mistaken use of ‘inculcate with’.

  Inform

  Inform cannot be used with a verb in the infinitive, and the writer of this sentence has gone wrong: ‘I am informing the branch to grant this application’. This should have been telling or asking.

  Less and Fewer

  The following is taken from Good and Bad English (1950) by Whitten and Whitaker:

  Less appertains to degree, quantity or extent; fewer to number. Thus, less outlay, fewer expenses; less help, fewer helpers; less milk, fewer eggs.

  But although ‘few’ applies to number do not join it to the word itself: ‘a fewer number’ is incorrect; say ‘a smaller number.’

  ‘Less’ takes a singular noun, ‘fewer’ a plural noun; thus, ‘less opportunity,’ ‘fewer opportunities.’

  Prefer

  You may say ‘He prefers writing to dictating’ or ‘he prefers to write rather than to dictate’, but not ‘he prefers to write than to dictate’.

  Prevent

  You may choose any one of three constructions with prevent: prevent them from coming, prevent them coming and prevent their coming.

  Purport (verb)

  The ordinary meaning of this verb is ‘to profess or claim by its tenor’ (OED), e.g. ‘this letter purports to be written by you’. The use of the verb in the passive is an objectionable and unnecessary innovation. ‘Statements which were purported to have been official confirmed the rumours’ should be ‘statements which purported to be official confirmed the rumours’.

  Unequal

  The idiom is unequal to, not for, a task.

  A FEW POINTS OF SPELLING

  Note. As well as discussing the use of ise and ize, Gowers gave a few examples of words that sometimes cause confusion because, though spelt differently, they sound the same (known as homophones). He did not cite pairs where the words are likely to be mistaken through sheer carelessness, such as here and there and hear and their, but ones where the distinct meanings of the paired words are not always understood. The list has been very slightly expanded. ~

  Ise or Ize

  On the question whether verbs like organise and nouns like organisation should be spelt with an s or a z the authorities differ. The OED favours universal ize, arguing that the suffix is always in its origin either Greek or Latin, and in both languages is spelt with a
z. Other authorities, including some English printers, recommend universal ise. Fowler stands between these two opinions. He points out that the OED’s advice over-simplifies the problem, as there are some verbs (e.g. advertise, comprise, despise, exercise and surmise) that are never spelt ize in this country. On the other hand, he says, ‘the difficulty of remembering which these ise verbs are is the only reason for making ise universal, and the sacrifice of significance to ease does not seem justified’. This austere conclusion will not recommend itself to everyone, and the round advice to end them all in ise is a verdict with which I respectfully agree.

  Complement /Compliment

  One thing complements another if it fulfils or completes it. A report on efficient new ways to kill rats might complement a report on the estimated number of rats infesting London’s Underground system. A compliment is an expression by which one offers praise (‘Both reports were excellent’).

  Note. These days to complement is often used as though it means no more than to ‘match’ or ‘go well with’: ‘She wore ruby earrings to complement her red shoes’. This dispenses with the word’s more precise meaning, which the following sentence preserves: ‘She wore rubies to complement her red outfit’. ~

  Dependant /Dependent

  In the ordinary usage of today dependant is a noun meaning ‘a person who depends on another for support, position, etc.’ (OED). Dependent is an adjective meaning relying on or subject to something else. Dependants are dependent on the person whose dependants they are.

  Discreet /Discrete

  Someone who is discreet is quiet, tactful, unobtrusive, circumspect. A discrete entity is one that is separate or self-contained. In the greater difficulty of selling an undesirable house, one might face the discrete problem of its having a leak in the roof.

  Enquiry /Inquiry

  Enquiry and inquiry have long existed together as alternative spellings of the same word. In America inquiry is dislodging enquiry for all purposes. In England a useful distinction is developing: enquiry is used for asking a question and inquiry for making an investigation. Thus you might ‘enquire what time the Inquiry begins’.

  Forego/Forgo

  To forego is to go before (‘the foregoing provisions of this Act’). To forgo is to go without, to waive (‘I will forgo my right’).

  Principal/Principle

  Principal means primary, leading or most important. Matters of principle are matters of fundamental moral belief. (‘The principal point at issue is not what he did, so much as that in doing it he broke his word. It is against my principles to accept this.’)

  Proscribe/Prescribe

  To proscribe is to ban or exclude. To prescribe is to authorise a course of action or lay down a rule. Doctors prescribe medicines, but a responsible person might proscribe the use of pills prescribed by a quack.

  V

  The Choice of Words (1)

  Introductory

  The craftsman is proud and careful of his tools: the surgeon does not operate with an old razor-blade; the sportsman fusses happily and long over the choice of rod, gun, club or racquet. But the man who is working in words, unless he is a professional author (and not always then), is singularly neglectful of his implements.

  IVOR BROWN, Just Another Word, 1943

  Here we come to the most important part of our subject. Correctness is not enough. The words used may all be words approved by the dictionary and used in their right senses; the grammar may be faultless and the idiom above reproach. Yet what is written may still fail to convey a ready and precise meaning to the reader. That it does fail on these grounds is the charge brought against much of what is written nowadays, including much of what is written by officials. In the first chapter I quoted a saying of Matthew Arnold, that the secret of style is to have something to say and to say it as clearly as you can. The basic fault of much present-day writing is that it seems to say what it has to say in as complicated a way as possible. Instead of being terse and direct, it is stilted, long-winded and circumlocutory. Instead of choosing the simple word it prefers the unusual. Instead of the plain phrase, it resorts to cliché.

  This sort of writing has been called ‘barnacular’,* and the American word for it is ‘gobbledygook’. Its nature can be studied not only in the original but also in translation. George Orwell, in his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, took the passage in Ecclesiastes about the race not being to the swift nor the battle to the strong,† and put it into ‘modern English’: ‘success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity’. It may be significant that many critics have found their greatest contrasts with barnacular writing in the Bible or Prayer Book. English style over the years must have been immeasurably influenced by everyone’s intimate knowledge of these two books, whose cadences were heard every day at family prayers and every Sunday at matins and evensong. Now family prayers are said no longer, and few go to church.

  The forms that gobbledygook commonly takes in official writing will be examined in the following three chapters. In this one we are concerned (if I may borrow a bit of jargon from the doctors) with the aetiology of the disease, and with prescribing some general regimen to help avoid catching it.

  Why do so many writers spurn simplicity? Officials are far from being the only offenders. It seems to be a morbid condition contracted in early adulthood. Children show no sign of it. Here, for example, is the response of a child of ten to an invitation to write an essay on a bird and a beast:

  The bird that I am going to write about is the owl. The owl cannot see at all by day and at night is as blind as a bat.

  I do not know much about the owl, so I will go on to the beast which I am going to choose. It is the cow. The cow is a mammal. It has six sides—right, left, an upper and below. At the back it has a tail on which hangs a brush. With this it sends the flies away so that they do not fall into the milk. The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so that the mouth can be somewhere. The horns are to butt with, and the mouth is to moo with. Under the cow hangs the milk. It is arranged for milking. When people milk, the milk comes and there is never an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realised, but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smell; one can smell it far away. This is the reason for the fresh air in the country.

  The man cow is called an ox. It is not a mammal. The cow does not eat much, but what it eats it eats twice, so that it gets enough. When it is hungry it moos, and when it says nothing it is because its inside is all full up with grass.

  The child who wrote this had something to say and said it as clearly as possible, and so unconsciously achieved style.* But why do we write, when we are ten, ‘so that the mouth can be somewhere’, and perhaps when we are thirty, ‘in order to ensure that the mouth may be appropriately positioned environmentally’? What songs do the sirens sing to lure a writer on to barnacular rocks? This question, though puzzling, is not beyond all conjecture. I will hazard one or two.

  The first affects only the official. It is tempting to cling too long to outworn words and phrases. The British Constitution, as everyone knows, has been shaped by retaining old forms and putting them to new uses. Among the old forms that we are reluctant to abandon are those found in State documents. Every Bill begins with the words: ‘Be it enacted by the Queen’s Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows…’. It ends its career as a Bill and becomes an Act when the Clerk of the Parliaments is authorised by the Queen to declare ‘La Reine le veult’. That is all very well, because no one ever reads these traditional phrases; they are no longer intended to convey thought from one brain to another. And none of us would much like the official to say, ‘That’s OK by Her Majesty’. But officials, living in this atmosphere, and properly proud of the ancient traditions of their service, sometimes allow their own style of writing to b
e affected by it—adverting and acquainting and causing to be informed of same. There may even be produced in the minds of some officials the feeling that a common word lacks the dignity that they are bound to maintain.

  That, I think, is one song the sirens sing to the official. Another they certainly sing to us all. Wells’s Mr Polly, from a love of striking phrases, speaks of ‘sesquippledan verboojuice’, and there is something of Mr Polly in most of us, especially when young. But any person of sensibility may be tempted by rippling or reverberating polysyllables. Evacuated to alternative accommodation seems to give a satisfaction that cannot be got from taken to another house; ablution facilities strikes a chord that does not vibrate to wash basins. Far-fetched words are by definition ‘recherché’. They are thought to give distinction, and so examples like implement, optimum and global acquire their vogue. A newly discovered metaphor shines like a jewel in a drab vocabulary: blueprint, bottleneck, ceiling and target are eagerly seized, and the dust settles on their discarded predecessors—plan, hold up, limit and objective.* But it will not do. Official writing is essentially of the sort of which Manilius said: ‘Ornari res ipsa negat contenta doceri’—the very subject matter rules out ornament; it asks only to be put across.

  Another song I am sure the sirens have in their repertoire is a call to the instinct for self-preservation. It is sometimes dangerous to be precise. Newman, in a severe passage from his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, characterises ‘Church-of-Englandism’ as a state of being in thrall to the idea that ‘mistiness is the mother of wisdom’. A figure whom he calls ‘your safe man and the hope of the Church’ is required to guide the Church through ‘the channel of no-meaning, between the Scylla and Charybdis of Aye and No’. If so, ecclesiastics are not in this respect unique. Politicians have long known the danger of precise statements, especially at election time. An astute American senator, asked to explain a declaration that ‘Americanism’ was to be the year’s campaign issue, is said to have replied that he did not know what it meant, but that it was going to be ‘a damn good word with which to carry an election’. Disraeli made the same point in his novel of 1844, Coningsby: