Plain Words

by Rebecca Gowers

  There is no hope that ‘begging the question’ will ever again be reserved for the censure of petitio principii (reserved, that is, for condemning the logic of a remark such as ‘mercy killing cannot be condoned because it involves the taking of a life’). Yet even a liberal ear, happy to accept beg as meaning ‘raise’, might baulk at how beg the question is itself now regularly mangled. In the Daily Mail we find, ‘the question begs: when should you give in … ?’; a correspondent for The Times writes, ‘But as your question begs: where and how?’; and in a sociology journal, an academic throws out rhetorically, ‘The question begs of why?’ It is tempting to respond, in the words of a writer for the Guardian, ‘The whole thing beggars several questions’. ~

  Comprise

  A body comprises, or consists of, the elements of which it is composed, or constituted. It is wrong to speak of the ‘smaller Regional Hospitals which comprise a large proportion of those available to Regional Boards’. Here, the Regional Hospitals form or constitute a large proportion of those available.

  The OED recognises comprise in the sense of ‘compose’, but calls it ‘rare’. Once again, in the interests of precision, it should remain so. The difference between comprise and include is that comprise is better when all the components are enumerated and include when only some of them are.

  Note. Perhaps it was a general anxiety about the distinction Gowers outlines above that gave rise to the garbled form ‘comprises of’. This phrase is a particular favourite of estate agents in their descriptions of houses for sale, though it is made to vie for place with ‘boasts of’: ‘the accommodation comprises of three bedrooms, generous lounge, separate dining room …’. Though comprises alone (or even boasts alone) would be correct here, has is all that is really needed. ~

  Definitive

  This word differs from definite by imparting the idea of finality. A definite offer is an offer exact in its terms. A definitive offer is the last word of the person who makes it.

  Dilemma

  Dilemma originally had a precise meaning that it would be a pity not to preserve. It should not therefore be treated as the equivalent of a ‘difficulty’, or, colloquially, a ‘fix’ or a ‘jam’. To be in a dilemma (or, if you want to show your learning, to be ‘on the horns of a dilemma’) is to be faced with two (and only two) courses of action, each of which is likely to have awkward results.

  Disinterested

  Disinterested, according to the OED, means ‘unbiased by personal interest’. It is sometimes wrongly used for uninterested, i.e. ‘not interested’. A minister recently said that he hoped an earlier speech he had given in Parliament would excuse him ‘from the charge of being disinterested in this matter’. But people in such positions, dealing with public business, can never be ‘charged’ with being disinterested, as if it were a crime. It is their elementary duty always to be so.

  i.e. and e.g.

  These are sometimes confused, especially by the wrong use of i.e. to introduce an example; i.e. (id est) means ‘that is’ and introduces a definition, as one might say ‘we are meeting on the second Tuesday of this month, i.e. the tenth’; e.g. (exempli gratia) means ‘for the sake of example’ and introduces an illustration, as one might say ‘let us meet on a fixed day every month, e.g. the second Tuesday’.

  Infer

  It is a common error to use infer for imply: ‘I felt most bitter about this attitude … it inferred great ignorance and stupidity on the part of the enemy’. A writer or speaker implies what a reader or hearer infers. ‘If you see a man staggering along the road you may infer that he is drunk, without saying a word;’ explains Sir Alan Herbert, ‘but if you say “Had one too many?” you do not infer but imply that he is drunk.’ There is authority for infer in the sense of imply, as there is for comprise in the sense of compose. But here again the distinction is worth preserving in the interests of the language.

  Leading Question

  This does not mean, as is widely supposed, a question designed to embarrass the person questioned. On the contrary, because it is asked in such a way as to suggest its own answer, it may be one that helps the person. ‘You never meant to damage the Department’s reputation, did you?’ is a leading question. ‘What did you do?’ is not. In court, lawyers are barred from putting leading questions to those witnesses whom they themselves have called.

  Majority

  The major part and the majority ought not to be used when a plain most would meet the case. They should be reserved for occasions when the difference between a majority and a minority is significant. Thus ‘most of the members have been slack in their attendance’, but ‘the majority of members are likely to be against the proposal’.

  Maximum

  It is curiously easy to say the opposite of what one means when making comparisons of quantity, time or distance, especially if they are negative. A common type of this confusion is to be found in such statements as ‘Meetings will be held at not less than monthly intervals’, when what is meant is that the meetings will be not less frequent than once a month, that is to say, at not more than monthly intervals. Maximum and minimum sometimes cause a similar confusion, leading to one being used for the other, as has happened in the following sentence taken from a passage condemning the wounding of wild animals by shooting at them from too far away: ‘It would be impossible to attempt to regulate shooting by laying down minimum ranges and other details of that sort’.

  Mitigate

  Mitigate for militate is a curiously common malapropism. An example is: ‘I do not think this ought to mitigate against my chances of promotion’.

  Note. Though Gowers saw no need to explain further, he could have added that the expression ‘mitigate against’ is not only curiously common but also simply curious. To militate against is to ‘counter’ or to exert a negative force on something, but to mitigate means to make more bearable or to ‘appease’. ‘Mitigate against’ ought therefore to have a sense akin to ‘alleviate against’, which, if it means anything at all, should cancel itself out. All the same, when a former Chief of the General Staff, in an article on combat in Afghanistan, explains that ‘an unlucky shot by a rocket-propelled grenade or a machinegun at close range remains a hazard that is very hard to mitigate against’, this does somehow carry the ring of truth. ~

  Practical and Practicable

  Practical, with its implied antithesis of theoretical, means ‘useful in practice’. Practicable means simply ‘capable of being carried out in action’, should anyone wish to do so. Something that is practicable may nevertheless be impractical (such as hoisting a loose giraffe on to the deck of a ship).

  Protagonist

  This word is not the opposite of antagonist (one who contends with another). The pair must not be used as synonyms of supporter and opponent, the pros and the antis. Protagonist has nothing to do with the Latin word pro: its first syllable is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘first’. Its literal meaning is the principal actor in a play; hence it is used for the most prominent personage in any affair. It is not necessarily associated with the advocacy of anything, although it often happens to be so in fact. When we say that Mr Willett was protagonist in the movement for summer time, we are not saying that he was pro summer time. We are saying that he played a leading part in the movement. Protagonist should not be used in the sense merely of ‘advocate’ or ‘champion’.

  Resource

  There is much pardonable confusion between resource, recourse and resort. The most common mistake is to write ‘have resource to’ instead of have recourse to or have resort to. The correct usage can be illustrated thus: ‘They had recourse (or had resort, or resorted) to their reserves; it was their last recourse (or resort); they had no other resources’.

  Transpire

  It is a common error to use transpire as if it meant ‘happen’ or ‘occur’. It does not. It means to ‘become known’. An example of its wrong use is: ‘I was in Glasgow, attending what transpired to be a very successful series of meetings’.<
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  Note. The misuse described here dates from the eighteenth century. If nowadays you were to write that something had ‘transpired’ when you meant no more than that it had happened, you would still annoy a purist (if you could find one), whereas if you wished to suggest in a public document that something previously secret had leaked out and become known, and so correctly wrote that it had transpired, your precise meaning would escape all but a very few. ~

  Wastage

  Wastage should not be used as a more dignified alternative to waste. The ordinary meaning of waste is ‘useless expenditure or consumption’ of money, time, etc. The ordinary meaning of wastage is ‘loss by use, decay, evaporation, leakage, or the like’. You may, for instance, properly say that the daily wastage of a reservoir is so many gallons. But you must not say that a contributory fact is the ‘wastage’ of water by householders if what you mean is that householders waste it.

  Note. Though Gowers’s distinction here is no longer fully supported by the OED, some may still find it interesting. In modern professional jargon, waste is frequently referred to as ‘arisings’, but that is another matter. ~

  NOTE. SOME NEWER EXAMPLES

  Behalf

  A person who acts on your behalf is your agent or representative. (It used to be that someone who defended your cause or sought to further your interests acted in your behalf, but this distinction is now largely forgotten.) Just as it would make no sense to say that you acted ‘instead of’ yourself, so it is wrong in correct English to use the formula, ‘It was a bit of a mistake on my behalf to eat that pie’. The error here is easily amended by saying ‘It was a bit of a mistake on my part to eat that pie’, but the misuse of ‘on so-and-so’s behalf’ to mean ‘on so-and-so’s part’ (or even ‘by so-and-so’) is increasingly common.

  Impunity

  The OED defines impunity as meaning ‘exemption from punishment or penalty’, but it is starting to be used as though it means roughly the opposite. Thus a Guardian journalist can write that ‘The committee was charged with examining how a Times reporter … had managed to fabricate and plagiarise dozens of stories without impunity for so long’; and a reporter for the Independent can explain that ‘A series of legal actions will mean that the millions of users … can no longer post their comments without impunity’. Both examples require impunity to mean ‘fear of punishment’—unless perhaps without is to be thought of as meaning ‘with’.

  Incredulous

  Incredulous means ‘disbelieving’, or more loosely, ‘amazed’, ‘thunderstruck’, and so on. In an academic paper on information display systems, discussing the real case of an aeroplane whose fuel line ruptured in flight, it is stated that the pilot found himself faced by the ‘sudden and unexpected presentation of apparently anomalous and incredulous information’. Information somehow capable of feeling disbelief would indeed be an anomaly: though the information may have seemed incredible, only the pilot could have been ‘incredulous’.

  Infinitesimal

  An early press release for the Visitor Centre at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider advertised an exhibition that would plunge people into the fascinating world of particles, including ‘infinitesimally large’ ones. It is no longer unusual to find infinitesimally used as though it somehow has more to it of the infinite than infinitely does, but in correct English infinitesimally is only ever used to qualify what is very small.

  May

  The difference between may and can is that if you may do something, you are permitted to do it, but to say that you can do it is to say no more than that, if permitted, you would be capable. Those who can build a bomb have the knowledge and wherewithal to build a bomb, but not necessarily the permission that says they may.

  May may be used to express a future possibility: ‘tomorrow it may be stormy’. But it is incorrectly substituted for the post-conditional might: ‘they might have got married last year, had she not been stuck in prison’. A cricket correspondent for The Times makes this error: ‘Had it not been for India’s success in South Africa, the IPL may never have happened’. The Indian Premier League already had happened by the time these lines were written. (It is with us still.) The reporter meant that the IPL might never have happened.

  Reticent

  It is now common for people to use reticent, which means ‘reserved’ and ‘likely to keep quiet’, as though it has the sense of reluctant, or disinclined and unwilling. In a Daily Telegraph article about the heir to a banking family, the young man in question is described as ‘famously reticent about publicity’, which is then explained as meaning ‘somewhat backward in coming forward’. If the young man is truly reticent about publicity, he is not reluctant to step into the limelight, but keeps his own counsel in the matter of publicity itself.

  Up to Date

  To keep something up to date is to keep it current. The substitutes ‘up to day’ and ‘up today’ are starting to creep into the language. (The next step may be ‘uptoday’.) Neither version is yet over the barrier, but Private Eye is keen to help, saying of the MoD’s hospitality register that its details are ‘skimpy and not terribly up to day’. The notionally related phrase ‘out of day’ does not yet exist, but ‘sell by day’ does, bringing to mind darkened supermarket aisles haunted by revenant items from the meat counter.

  Other incorrect uses that seem ever more fashionable—ones that mangle what remain the prevailing meanings of the words they confuse—include the phrase to ‘make abeyance’ for make obeisance (to be in abeyance is to be temporarily dormant or in suspension; to make obeisance is to pay homage); ‘heart-rendering’ for heart-rending (the first suggests melting the fat out of a piece of meat; the second means ripping the heart asunder); ‘antidotal evidence’ for anecdotal evidence (an antidote is a medicine that counters the effect of a poison; anecdotal evidence is evidence flimsily drawn from anecdotes); ‘emerged in’ for immersed in (‘emerged in’ seems to blend immersed in with submerged, but strictly means something like ‘came out of in’); ‘lost in the midst of time’, which we all are, so that it hardly seems worth saying, for lost in the mists of time (i.e. ‘lost in the impenetrable past’); a ‘fool’s economy’ for a false economy (the second may be the first, but a false economy is specifically one where the pursuit of a perceived benefit will have unfortunate consequences that outweigh the desired advantage); and ‘from the offing’ for from the off (the offing is a nautical term for an area of sea that is visible from land but some way out from shore; the following job advertisement can therefore really only be aimed at a businesslike mermaid: ‘A calm and assertive individual with plenty of commercial acumen, you will be content to work without supervision from the offing and possess outstanding organisational abilities’). ~

  SOME POINTS OF IDIOM

  Idiom is defined by the OED as ‘a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from the meanings of the individual words’. When anything in this book is called ‘good English idiom’ or idiomatic, what is meant is that usage has established it as correct. Idiom does not conflict with grammar or logic as a matter of course; it may be grammatically and logically neutral. Idiom requires us to say try to get not ‘try at getting’. Logic and grammar do not object to this, but they would be equally content with ‘try at getting’. At the same time idiom is, in Otto Jespersen’s phrase, a ‘tyrannical, capricious, utterly incalculable thing’ (Progress in Language, 1894), and if logic and grammar get in its way, so much the worse for logic and grammar. It is idiomatic—at least in speech—to say ‘I won’t be longer than I can help’ and ‘it’s me’. That the first is logically nonsense and the second a grammatical howler is neither here nor there; idiom makes light of such things. Yet during the reign of pedantry, attempts were constantly made to force idiom into the mould of logic. We were not to speak of a criminal being ‘executed’, for ‘the person is prosecuted, the sentence executed ’; we were not to say ‘vexed question’, for ‘in our English sense, many a question vexes: none is vexed’;
nor ‘most thoughtless’, an expression ‘inelegant and unhappy’, for if a person is without thought there cannot be degrees in the lack of that quality; nor ‘light the fire’, for ‘nothing has less need of lighting’; nor ‘round the fireside’, for that would mean that ‘some of us are behind the chimney’. So, in his Imaginary Conversations, argued Walter Savage Landor, sometimes as himself, sometimes in the person of Horne Tooke, but in both guises a stout and undiscriminating defender of his language against the intrusion of the illogical.

  In spite of Fowler and Jespersen, some trace still lingers of the idea that what is illogical ‘must’ be wrong, such as condemnation of under the circumstances and of the uses of a plural verb with none. The truth, in the words of Logan Pearsall Smith, is that

  a language which was all idiom and unreason would be impossible as an instrument of thought; but all languages permit the existence of a certain number of illogical expressions: and the fact that, in spite of their vulgar origin and illiterate appearance, they have succeeded in elbowing their way from popular speech into our prose and poetry, our learned lexicons and grammars, is a proof that they perform a necessary function in the domestic economy of speech. (Words and Idioms, 1925)