Gowers’s capital joke may now be a little dusty, but his warning against the excessive use by officials of nouns as adjectives is not. The Chief Executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England wrote recently that ‘concerns are beginning to be expressed that the level of widening participation activity delivered in future may decline’. What this seems to mean, ‘declines of level-delivery’ and all, is: ‘People are starting to worry that in future fewer students from wide-ranging backgrounds will be successfully encouraged to go to university’. (Perhaps, though, ‘activity’ refers to the actual effort put into encouraging them.) In the same vein, the Office for Fair Access wishes to know about the ‘access’ efforts of ‘School Centred Initial Teacher Training providers’. These appear to be schools that train teachers on the job. The Department for Education has seen fit to sponsor an ‘Emotional abuse recognition training evaluation study’; and so it goes on. ~
ABSTRACT ADJECTIVAL PHRASES
By this I mean using a phrase consisting of an adjective and an abstract noun (e.g. character, nature, basis, description, disposition) where a simple adjective would do as well. This too offends against the rule that you should say what you have to say as simply and directly as possible in order that you may be readily understood:
These claims are of a far-reaching type. (These claims are far reaching.)
The weather will be of a showery character. (It will be showery.)
The wages will be low owing to the unremunerative nature of the work.
The translation of the last example will present no difficulty to a student of Mr Micawber, who once said of the occupation of selling corn on commission: ‘It is not an avocation of a remunerative description—in other words, it does not pay’.
Proposition is another abstract word used in the same way:
Decentralisation on a regional basis is now a generally practical proposition. (Is now generally feasible.)
Accommodation in a separate building is not usually a viable proposition. (Is not usually feasible.)
The high cost of land in clearance areas makes it a completely uneconomic proposition to build cottages in those areas. (Makes it completely uneconomic to build cottages there.)
Basis is especially likely to lead writers to express themselves in roundabout ways. When you find you have written ‘on a … basis’ always examine it critically before letting it stand:
Such officer shall remain on his existing salary on a mark-time basis. (Shall mark time on his existing salary.)
The organisation of such services might be warranted in particular localities and on a strictly limited basis. (Scale.)
The machines would need to be available both day and night on a 24-hour basis. (At any time of day or night.)
Please state whether this is to be a permanent installation or on a temporary line basis. (Or a temporary line.)
A legitimate use of basis is:
The manufacturers are distributing their products as fairly as possible on the basis of past trading.
Note. The formula ‘on an X basis’ has not gone away. Thus permanently becomes ‘on a permanent basis’; individually, ‘on a case-by-case basis’; as we go along, ‘on a rolling basis’; all the time, ‘on a 24/7 basis’. In a recent internal review by the Ministry of Defence (of a ‘control framework’ that failed to prevent the waste of hundreds of millions of pounds) the authors declare, ‘we report on an exception basis only’, apparently meaning ‘we report only on what has gone wrong’ (which probably did take up a lot of space). The Department for Transport has revealed that a new Order will ‘enable local authorities and the Secretary of State to operate the statutory highway functions listed in the Order on a contracted out basis’. The ending here presumably means ‘using private contractors’, though whether functions can be operated is another matter. The document carries on, unhelpfully, ‘These functions include … street works functions’. But at last comes the explanation: ‘Street works are works carried out by, or on behalf of, undertakers operating under a statutory right …’, which brings to mind the unwelcome image of gravediggers plugging large potholes with unclaimed corpses. ~
CLICHÉS AND OVERWORKED METAPHORS
In the course of this book I have called numerous expressions clichés. A cliché may be defined as a phrase whose aptness in a particular context when it was first invented has won it such popularity that it has become hackneyed, and is now used without thought in contexts where it is no longer apt. Clichés are notorious enemies of the precise word. To quote from Eric Partridge:
Clichés range from fly-blown phrases (‘much of a muchness’; ‘to all intents and purposes’), metaphors that are now pointless (‘lock, stock and barrel’), formulas that have become mere counters (‘far be it from me to …’)—through sobriquets that have lost all of their freshness and most of their significance (‘the Iron Duke’)—to quotations that are nauseating (‘cups that cheer but not inebriate’) and foreign phrases that are tags (‘longo intervallo’; ‘bête noire’). (A Dictionary of Clichés, 1947)
A cliché, then, is by definition a bad thing, not to be employed by self-respecting writers. Judged by this test, some expressions are unquestionably and in all circumstances clichés. This is true in particular of verbose and facetious ways of saying simple things (conspicuous by its absence, tender mercies) and of phrases so threadbare that they cannot escape the suspicion of being used automatically (leave no stone unturned, acid test). But a vast number of other expressions may or may not be clichés. It depends on whether they are used unthinkingly as reach-me-downs, or have been deliberately chosen as the best means of saying what a writer wants to say. Eric Partridge’s Dictionary contains some thousands of entries. But, as he says in his preface, what is a cliché is partly a matter of opinion. It is also a matter of occasion. Many of those in his dictionary may cease to be clichés if used carefully. Writers would be needlessly handicapped if they were never permitted such phrases as cross the Rubicon, sui generis, swing of the pendulum, thin end of the wedge and white elephant. These may be the fittest way of expressing what is meant. If you choose one of them for that reason you need not be afraid of being called a cliché-monger.
The trouble is that writers often use a cliché because they think it fine, or because it is the first thing that comes into their heads. It is always a danger signal when one word suggests another and Siamese twins are born—part and parcel, intents and purposes* and the like. There is no good reason why inconvenience should always be said to be experienced by a person who suffers it and occasioned by the person who causes it. Single words too may become clichés, used so often that their edges become blunt while more exact words are neglected. Some indeed seem to attract by their very drabness.
Those who resort carelessly to cliché are also given to overworking metaphors. I have already said that newly discovered metaphors shine like jewels. They enable a writer to convey briefly and vividly ideas that might otherwise need tedious exposition. What should we have done, in our present economic difficulties, without our targets, ceilings and bottlenecks? But the very seductiveness of metaphors makes them dangerous. New ones, in particular, tend to be used indiscriminately and soon get stale, but not before they have elbowed out words perhaps more commonplace but with meanings more precise. Sometimes metaphors are so absurdly overtaxed that they become a laughing stock and die of ridicule.*
Another danger in the use of metaphors is that of falling into incongruity: for as long as they remain ‘live’, they must not be given in a context that would be absurd if the words used metaphorically were being used literally. By a ‘live metaphor’ I mean one that evokes in the reader a mental picture of the imagery of its origin. A dead one does not. If we write ‘the situation is in hand’ and ‘he has taken the bit between his teeth’, we are going to horsemanship for our metaphors; but to most readers ‘in hand’ will be a dead metaphor, unconnected to managing a horse, so that using it would have an impact no different from ‘the situ
ation is under control’. It is possible the second metaphor still has a little life in it, calling up for a few people, however faintly and momentarily, a horse that has taken the ‘bit’ under its own control. But ‘taking the bit between the teeth’ is probably close to dead also.
Almost all writers fall occasionally into the trap of using a live metaphor infelicitously. It is worth taking great pains to avoid doing so, because the reader who notices it will deride you. The statesman who said that sections of the population were being ‘squeezed flat by inflation’ was not then in his happiest vein, nor was the writer who claimed for American sociology the distinction of having always ‘immersed itself in concrete situations’, nor the enthusiastic scientist who announced the discovery of a ‘virgin field pregnant with possibilities’.*
OVERWORKED WORDS OFTEN USED IMPRECISELY
Among clichés and overworked metaphors represented by single words, the following deserve comment. We cannot but admit that there is no hope of checking the astonishing antics of target, and of bringing that flighty word within reasonable bounds. But we do not want any more metaphors getting out of hand like that.
Affect
Affect has won undeserved popularity because it is colourless—a word of broad meaning that saves the writer the trouble of thought. It is useful in its place, but not when used from laziness. It may be easier to say ‘The progress of the building has been affected by the weather’, but it is better to use a more precise word—hindered, perhaps, or delayed or stopped. I used to think during the war when I heard that gas mains had been affected by a raid that it would have been more sensible to say that they had been broken.
Alternative
The use of alternative for such words as other, new, revised or fresh is rife. It is generally regarded as pedantry to say that, because of its derivation, alternative must not be used where there are more than two choices. But it is certainly wrong to use it where there is no choice at all. For instance, the Ministry of Health announced one spring that owing to the severe winter the house-building programme for the year had been abandoned, and added that no ‘alternative programme’ would be issued. They might have said other, new, fresh or revised, but alternative must be wrong. There is nothing for it to be an alternative to: the old programme is torn up. Even in that popular phrase alternative accommodation, the adjective is generally incorrect, for the person to whom the accommodation is offered usually has no alternative to taking it. Innumerable examples could be given of this misuse. Here are two:
The Ministry of Transport are arranging alternative transport for the passengers of the Empire Windrush [which is at the bottom of the Mediterranean].
Billeting Authorities are requested to report any such cases as they are unable to rebillet, in order that alternative arrangements may be made.
Alternative must imply a choice between two or more things.
Appreciate
The ordinary meaning of appreciate, as a transitive verb, is to form an estimate of the worth of anything, or to set a value on it. It is therefore not surprising that it is useful to polite officials corresponding with members of the public who want more than they can get, as most of us do today. Refusals are softened by a phrase such as ‘I appreciate how hard it is on you not to have it’. But there can be no doubt that appreciate is being used by writers of official letters and circulars with a freedom that passes reason. It is often used merely by way of courteous padding, or where it would be more suitable to say understand, realise, recognise, be grateful, be obliged. ‘It would be appreciated if’ can usually be translated into ‘I shall be glad (or grateful, or obliged, or even pleased) if …’. ‘You will appreciate’ can often be better expressed by ‘you will realise’ or even ‘of course’. An effective way of curbing appreciate might be to resolve never to use it with a that clause (‘I appreciate that there has been a delay’), but always to give it a noun to govern (‘I appreciate your difficulty’).
Appropriate
This is an irreproachable word. But so too are right, suitable, fitting and proper, and I do not see why appropriate should have it all its own way. In particular, the Whitehall cliché in appropriate cases might be confined more closely than it is now to cases in which it is appropriate.
Note. A new cliché is appropriate’s opposite, inappropriate. So imprecise has inappropriate become as a term of condemnation that it is often applied in circumstances where no ‘appropriate’ contrast exists (the ‘inappropriate’ disclosure of a jury’s deliberations, or an ‘inappropriate’ sexual liaison between a teacher and a schoolchild). ~
Blueprint
This word has caught on as a picturesque substitute for scheme or plan and the shine is wearing off.
Note. Blueprint started out as a Victorian photographic term for a white image printed on a blue background. Blueprints were usually used to reproduce plans. Other examples of vocabulary springing from the Industrial Revolution and quickly taken into metaphorical use are deadbeat, backlash, safety valve, gas bag, dynamo and powerhouse. The word cliché is itself an example: it was adopted from French into English in the 1830s, and was originally a printing term for a stereotype block. If the shine was wearing off blueprint in the 1950s, it is surely now a ‘dead’ metaphor, with no confusing blueness implied. But it is perhaps still worth remembering that, as Gowers noted, ‘in the engineering industries, where it comes from, the blueprint marks the final stage of a paper design’. ~
Bottleneck
Bottleneck is useful as a metaphor to denote the point of constriction of something that ought to be flowing freely. Its use as a metaphor is not new, but it has had a sharp rise in popularity, perhaps because our economy has been so full of bottlenecks. It needs to be handled with care in order to avoid absurdity. Examples recently held up to ridicule in The Times include the ‘overriding bottleneck’, the ‘drastic bottleneck’, the ‘worldwide bottleneck’ and the ‘vicious circle of interdependent bottlenecks’. A correspondent from America has written to me of an official praised for his ability to ‘lick bottlenecks’.
Note. Though we are now also detained by metaphorical pinchpoints, chokes and phases of gridlock (even where there are no grids), ‘bottlenecks’ have not gone away. ‘We should not’, wrote Gowers, ‘refer to the biggest bottleneck when what we mean is the most troublesome one, for that will obviously be the narrowest.’ This thought cannot have struck the correspondent for The Economist who wrote recently that ‘Most Nigerians are unlikely to receive more than a few hours of mains electricity per day for many years—the single biggest bottleneck in the economy’. ~
Ceiling
This is one of the bright young metaphors that are now so fashionable, and are displacing the old fogeys. Ceiling’s victims are maximum and limit. There is no great harm in that, so long as those who use the word remember to treat it as a metaphor.
Note. Gowers objected to ceilings being ‘increased’ rather than raised, let alone to them being ‘waived’, and added that ‘our normal relationship to a ceiling is to be under it, not within it’. He particularly despaired of metaphorical ceilings being mixed up with metaphorical floors (‘The effect of this announcement is that the total figure for 1950–51 of £410 million can be regarded as a floor as well as a ceiling’), or indeed with actual floors (‘In determining the floor-space, a ceiling of 15,000 square feet should normally be the limit’).
Those who use ceiling comparably freely today would no doubt argue that, with blueprint and bottleneck, it has become a dead metaphor. (The more particular glass ceiling is, by contrast, still live, continually being smashed and shattered, or not smashed and shattered but bumped against and longingly peered through.) But a metaphorical ceiling can still be abused in ways that risk suggesting ‘undesirable ideas to the flippant’. Another recent contributor to The Economist, writing about euro bonds, reported on the unconvincing suggestion that a ‘flexible ceiling would act as an automatic stabiliser …’, and on the belief that ‘the respective share of wayw
ard countries would be reduced as their ceilings were reduced …’ (presumably ‘lowered’), the counter view being that ‘if the ceiling was in any way perceived as being soft … the disciplining effect … disappears’. It is a fearful thought that anybody should seek to maintain discipline by emphasising the hardness of a ceiling. ~
Decimate
To decimate is to reduce by one-tenth, not to one-tenth. It meant originally to punish mutinous troops by executing one man in ten, chosen by lot. Hence by extension it means to destroy a large proportion. The suggestion it now conveys is usually of a loss much greater than a tenth, but because of the flavour of exactness that still hangs about it, it should not be used with an adverb or adverbial phrase. We may say ‘The attacking troops were decimated’, meaning that they suffered heavy losses, but we must not say ‘The attacking troops were badly decimated’, and still less ‘decimated to the extent of 50 per cent or more’. The following truly remarkable instance of the misuse of decimate, taken from a penny dreadful, was given in the course of correspondence in The Times: ‘Dick, hotly pursued by the scalp-hunter, turned in his saddle, fired and literally decimated his opponent’.
Note. Gowers’s account here is of the Roman origin of decimate. When the word was first imported into medieval English, it was used to mean taking a tax of one-tenth, and a ‘decimator’ was a tax collector. But its use in the imprecise sense of inflicting huge damage has been common in English for at least two centuries. Those who continue to believe that this meaning is incorrect because it defies the word’s etymology commit themselves, by the same argument, to insisting that a journey can last only one day, and a period of quarantine, forty. Nevertheless, enough people do know the strict meaning of decimate that to manhandle the word as Gowers describes above is still to risk seeming under-informed. ~
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