For Better or Worse: Our Changing Usage
In the following extract from fanboys and overdogs: the language report, Susie Dent documents some of the changing trends in English usage...
Shifting senses: fortunate or fortuitous?
Fifty years ago, commentators objected to many substitutions that are now unremarkable, as for example in the use of claim for assert; of disincentive for deterrent; of feel for think; of sadism for cruelty; and of hairdo for coiffure (the former loathed for its casualness).
Below is a list of words and phrases that may also be in the process of acquiring new meanings. Some are so well established in their new roles that they already appear in this guise in modern dictionaries, though often with a brief note explaining their parvenu status.
mitigate for militate:
'Would it not be a good idea if British and US companies with the technology to establish energy plants in those countries could do so, to mitigate against the effects of fossil fuel pollution?' This question, posed by Conservative MP Nigel Evans during a parliamentary debate, confuses two unrelated terms. To 'mitigate' is to make something less severe or serious; to 'militate', almost always used with 'against', is to be a powerful factor in preventing something. Oxford's language databases suggest that 10% of current uses are incorrect.
on behalf of for on the part of, or by: the British parliamentary record Hansard quotes Lord McIntosh of Haringey as saying: 'The whole point of the Financial Services Authority is to stop people's careers, businesses and finances being destroyed by bad behaviour on behalf of those in the financial community.'
reticent for reluctant:
an Irish seismologist, credited with having foretold the March 29 Indian Ocean earthquake, was reported to have commented: 'We are very reticent to use the word "predict".' Examples of the confusion are in plentiful supply on the Internet.
fortuitously for fortunately:
'fortuitous' means accidental, without the added idea of good luck that 'fortunately' brings. The two are starting to be used interchangeably.
momentarily for in a moment:
'momentarily', in British English, means 'for a short time'. In US English it has the sense of 'very soon', a meaning which looks likely to establish itself in the UK too. For the time being, phrases such as the one used by airline staff 'we will be landing momentarily' can still cause consternation.
Stringing along
The tendency to string compound adjectives together is a notable pattern in current discourse, and much contemporary jargon relies on it. The Higher Education Policy Institute called modern universities client-focused, customer-centric, and outward-facing all in one take, while the tendency to pile up attributive adjectives, often without hyphens, is also striking. One example from the Internet speaks of a low cost easy to use web based document management system.
Changing the past
Some forms of the past tense which have hitherto been unique to the US are beginning to appear in British English. I snuck in round the back and he dove into the pool without asking are now relatively commonplace in British English (nosedived, meanwhile, persists in the US, although there is evidence of nosedove creeping in). Similarly, the misuse of the past participle is on the increase: so we hear I was stood at the bar rather than the correct I was standing at the bar, or - to use an example from Heat magazine - I was sat at home with my fat girlfriend having a Chinese.
Sloppy speech?
A number of further trends in speech are emerging. The use of the double 'is' is becoming increasingly frequent: the thing about it is, is that. The false splitting of words is also evident: a whole nother world being one example. Meanwhile the fairly old habit of replacing 'with' with 'of' is gaining further currency: people are fed up of tabloid sensationalism. 'Of ' also frequently occurs instead of 'have': 'I would of loved to give the PM a piece of my mind.' This last example is more contentious; its use, for now at least, tends to be restricted to speech rather than written prose.
Extra Fillings
'Fillers' such as y'know (a favourite of David Beckham and other footballers as well as the British PM), innit (now an all-purpose filler used at the end of a statement and without a question mark), and like, and intensifiers such as totally and literally, continue to proliferate in current speech. Such is their frequency, particularly in slang, that they are beginning to function rather like 'er', 'um', and 'uh': fillers which we may take to be verbal white noise but which, some psycholinguists claim, fulil an important role in helping the listener to process what they are hearing. 'Literally', for example, can deliver emphasis, comedy, and exaggeration depending on context.
Susie Dent
01/10/2005
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