Category: Language Matters
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Condign Punishment
There are qualifiers that occur only with the word they happen to qualify but not with any other word. A punishment and a remark can both be fitting or appropriate, but only a punishment is condign. One does not hear or read 'condign remark.' Is 'condign' ever used apart from 'punishment'? That is one question. A second: What…
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A Charming Malapropism
I heard a pretty lady the other day refer to a barista as a barrister. Barista is Italian for bartender. Bartenders here and abroad mix and serve alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages hot and cold. Entering English the word has suffered semantic shrinkage: a barista typically mixes coffee drinks only. Baristas and barristers ply their trade…
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A Checkered Past
Having recently compared two lunch companions to each other in point of having checkered pasts, but aware of recent shifts in the meaning of the phrase, and not wishing to give offense, I quizzed one of them on the meaning of 'has a checkered past' as applied to a woman and to a man. He…
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‘The Wrong Side of History’
I once heard a prominent conservative tell an ideological opponent that he was 'on the wrong side of history.' But surely this is a phrase that no self-aware and self-consistent conservative should use. The phrase suggests that history is moving in a certain direction, toward various outcomes, and that this direction and these outcomes are…
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Mark Steyn on Code Language
Thank God for Mark Steyn, a man of intelligence and courage and a resolute foe of liberal-left idiocies. He cites one Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of African-American studies at Princeton, who proffered the contemptible inanity that “language of personal responsibility is often a code language used against poor and minority communities.” Steyn comments: “Personal responsibility” is racial…
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On Writing Well: The Example of William James
From the mail bag: I've recently discovered your weblog and have enjoyed combing through its archives these past several days. Your writing is remarkably lucid and straightforward — quite a rarity both in philosophy and on the web these days. I was wondering if perhaps you had any advice to share for a young person,…
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An Inappropriate Use of ‘Inappropriate’
Too many people nowadays are afraid to use no-nonsense words like ‘wrong,’ ‘immoral,’ and the like. So they employ ‘inappropriate’: ‘Clinton’s behavior in the Oval Office with Monica Lewinsky was inappropriate.’ Sorry, but that is an inappropriate use of ‘inappropriate.’ Mr. Clinton’s behavior with his subordinate was morally wrong. The following sentence illustrates an appropriate…
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Digital Camera Warnings
My Canon PowerShot SD600 digital camera is a marvel of engineering. The amount of human intelligence embodied in this object the size of a pack of cigarettes — please forgive the politically incorrect comparison — is staggering to this old engineering student. All the more remarkable, therefore, is the ineptitude of the writing found in…
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A Punctilio Anent the Post Immediately Preceding
I just wrote, quite consciously, "There are expressions whose currency is due to no good reason . . ." Strictly correct would have been, "There are expressions the currency of which is due to no good reason . . . ." Since 'whose' is the possessive form of the personal pronoun 'who,' it ought not …
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On Being Impacted
There are expressions whose currency is due to no good reason, but simply reflects the suggestibility of people. Let someone prominently placed commit a linguistic howler, and you can be sure that others will fall in line. The perfectly good word ‘affect,’ used as verb, has fallen into desuetude to be replaced by the miserable…
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On the Correct Usage of ‘Infers’ and ‘Implies’
Within the space of a few days, I caught two TV pundits and an otherwise competent writer misusing 'infer.' Why do people have such a difficult time with the distinction between inference and implication? I will try to explain the matter as simply as I can. The test to determine whether a use of 'infer' is…
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On ‘Political’ and ‘Partisan’
People often use 'political' when they should use 'partisan.' A man appeared on C-Span some months ago whose name and the name of whose organization I have forgotten. The man headed an outfit promoting a strict interpretation of the U.S. constitution. Throughout his talk he repeated the remark that his organization was not political, not…
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Political Correctness in the U.K.
Is there no limit to PeeCee idiocy? Apparently not. Liberals will throw themselves into the arms of any incoherence. See this Times of London piece. 'Ethnic minority' is to be blacklisted as offensive. The same of course goes for 'blacklisted.' But if you are offended by these words and phrases, then your stupidity offends me! …
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‘Blog’ and ‘Blog Post’
I note that there are still people who confuse 'blog' with 'blog post.' 'Blog' is elliptical for 'weblog.' They are interchangeable terms. Presumably, no one will refer to weblog entry as a weblog. It makes as little sense to refer to a blog entry as a blog. A blog is composed of blog posts. It…
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Does the Left Own Dissent?
Battles in the ‘culture war’ are often fought and sometimes won on linguistic ground. Linguistic hijacking is a tried-and-true tactic, one sometimes found on the Right, but more often on the Left: a term whose natural habitat is some neutral semantic space is hijacked and piloted toward a Left Coast semantic subspace. An example is…