Words without wisdom

The committee for Education, Sport & Culture seems to refer to all schoolchildren as students, even those at primary school.

I wondered if using a different word was an attempt to make the pupils feel more important, or more mature like… well… students.

I was careful, however, to avoid any comments about correct or incorrect grammar. I didn’t think the Open Lines page could cope with the onslaught.

And I was not referring to the use of words in elaborate or colourful descriptions which are deliberately used for effect, such as those in advertising.

In the world of cosmetics, for example, when did you last hear a face cream referred to as a face cream? You are more likely to have heard about a luxurious formulation lovingly created by dermatologists combining wonder ingredients to refresh and reinvigorate your natural epidermal beauty.

This linguistic dexterity is intended to entice rather than to deceive and in many ways deserves admiration for its lexicographic creativeness.

I mean, you could probably enjoy a luxurious pampering from a cleansing tablet created with fragrances of nature which invoke the aromas and exotic delights of tropical shores; if only the words could be fitted on the wrapper around the bar of soap.

My comments were aimed at people who ignore a perfectly good word in order to use one which sounds more impressive. What is wrong with calling schoolchildren pupils?

Why are shop assistants now called customer service advisors, without apparently any change to their role?

I have also noticed a trend of adding an extra qualifying word to increase the impact of the original.

For example when a company describes its employees’ qualifications these days, they are unlikely to be described as trained. They will almost certainly be ‘highly’ trained.

In a similar way, what view these days isn’t ‘stunning’? And what image isn’t ‘iconic’?

Is there a pop singer in modern times who isn’t a ‘legend’, even in their early 20s?

That description has been used so much that now they are sometimes described as ‘true legends’. But isn’t that a contradiction in terms?

Robin Hood is a legend. I don’t think Dua Lipa is.

This illustrates the way the original meaning of words can be lost by frequent use in inappropriate circumstances. Words like incredible and awesome have such a reduced impact from their original meaning that they now have to become ‘absolutely incredible’ or ‘truly awesome’.

In truth, of course, what they describe is almost certainly nothing of the sort.

Dua Lipa reaching number one is not really awesome, is it?

The media are not entirely blameless in this stretching of meaning, of course, particularly when writing headlines. After all, it is not enough to announce that the weather will turn hot. Or even that it will be a heatwave. It has to be a scorching killer heatwave set to roast the country.

It seems the headline writers have used superlatives to create attention-grabbing front pages on so many occasions, they are now struggling to find superlative versions of superlatives.

This then results in over-exaggeration, or hyperbole, so any difficulty is a ‘calamity’, unintended consequences are ‘catastrophic’. Remember the Brexit ‘cliff edge’?

I am of course aware that language evolves with time. And that sentence itself is a good example of the use of unnecessary words. After all, how can it evolve without time?

But if it changes in order to become easier to understand that is probably a good thing. Some ‘rules’ which seem to have lost their importance were rather obscure anyway.

For example, it now seems acceptable to start a sentence with the word ‘but’, as I have just done.

And even a paragraph with the word ‘and’, like this one.

That former bastion of linguistic precision, the BBC, even has presenters who can be heard splitting infinitives without fear of reprimand from above. You just have to casually dial into any station to hear examples. Like that one.

But I have now strayed into the fraught world of what is correct and incorrect grammar. And I was sat in my study the other day wondering how the start of this sentence could possibly be considered acceptable.

For I was sitting in my study. No one had sat me there.

There is a difference between being sat down by someone and sitting myself down. ‘I was sitting’ may have four more letters than ‘I was sat’, but two of the letters are repeated, so it’s not difficult to use those words, surely?

The same goes for the expression, ‘I was stood there’. I’m tempted to say if my English teacher were here now she would not stand for it.

Some might even say that expecting people to use the correct term is a big ask, but surely that’s another one to add to the collection. ‘Ask’ is a verb. When it did it suddenly become a noun? After all, one asks a question, one doesn’t ask an ask.

Perhaps that’s just evolution: the more these expressions are incorporated into everyday speech, the more they become used and in the end accepted.

For example, the word ‘divide’ is similarly a verb, not a noun, so you wouldn’t normally create a divide.

But then the North-South divide would become the North-South division and some football clubs might want to join.

Another practice becoming more commonplace is that of adding the word ‘of’ when talking about events outside Guernsey, or outside a building, or even outside one’s experience.

I always understood ‘outside’ to be a preposition, describing a location. It seems to me that adding the word ‘of’ turns the preposition into a noun.

So you would paint the ‘outside of’ your house and you might then invite your spouse or friends to go ‘outside’ your house to admire your handiwork. If you were that vain, of course.

That word ‘of’ appears in a number of settings, but when a professional journalist writes that a housing development ‘comprises of’ detached and semi-detached houses, that is surely incorrect.

And when a broadcaster announces that they would love for us to share our memories, what is the purpose of the word ‘for’?

But a difficulty these days is where to turn for guidance or for good examples. I have admitted that I am not an expert, and some things that I think are wrong or which annoy me, others might find acceptable.

In my case I find attempts by broadcasters to be casual or colloquial can sometimes be humorous, but can also be annoying. It happens when a presenter reads the news, or a particular aspect such as the sports news, and then tells me ‘that’s your sports news’.

But it obviously isn’t my sports news. It’s a bulletin they’ve put together, so it’s their sports news. Why not say that?

I particularly remember one morning when my car wouldn’t start and I had to call a breakdown service. While I was standing outside my house – not stood outside of it, note – waiting for help to arrive, I heard a broadcaster reporting on roadworks and aircraft arrivals, and adding, ‘that’s your travel news’.

It definitely wasn’t my travel news. My travel news was that I was not likely to be travelling anywhere for some time.

Even more meaningless, his announcement was followed by a jingle asking me to ‘share my travel news’. I was very tempted to phone and tell him my car wouldn’t start and to ask why he wanted to know.

Recently the informality has led to presenters on television or radio saying things like, ‘I’ll see you tomorrow’, when obviously they will not. But I fear now that I am becoming a little pedantic, when I firmly believe that language can be interesting, amusing, and fun.

I just feel it would be nice if we could rely on some of these bodies to set a good example in how to use standard English words and grammar when appropriate.

They are professionals after all, who are not just trained, but no doubt ‘highly’ trained.

That’s not too big an ask, is it?