atw: Re: pet hates

Terry D:
On Wed, 25 May 2005 14:58:38 +1000 (EST),  you wrote:

> Enough of this word racism!! :) Having never studied
> Latin, or maybe just becasue I'm lazy, I can't be
> bothered finding out if words are Latin-based to work
> out whether I like them or not.
>
> Out of interest, do you hold similar disdain for words
> of other origins? I mean, do I have to say "I ate rice
> rolled in seaweed", or do you accept 'sushi'? Can I
> "run amok within the maelstrom"? Granted, these aren't
> likely to show up in my technical docs, but we have
> been talking about the language of teenage girls. But
> then, can I call myself a 'technical writer' or
> 'communicator'?
>
> Certainly*, if* you* take* out* the words* from
> French, Greek, Latin... origins*, English would* be a
> pretty* bare* skeleton*. [* indicates words with
> origins in other languages, according to M-W
> dictionary]
>

Agreed, but the point about the problems of Latinate and 
Frenchified word choices is usually raised in the context of 
trying to counter an existing and very common prejudice in 
their favour. 

I won't traverse the entire history again, but briefly 
consider that there was hardly a monarch of England between 
William the Conqueror and Henry VIII who could converse with 
their (ROYAL PLURAL!) subjects in English.   And this was 
reflected down to the ruling aristocracy and the church of 
the time. This tended to set up a nice little social context 
for different languages. 

Listen to a pompous manager and a politician today and find 
them using Latinate or Frenchified phrases as though this 
makes them more "important", when the fact is that it often 
makes them incomprehensible to most of their audience.
Although it can lead to a bit of a laugh, particularly when, 
pretension is overcome by its own ignorance:

"The more Henry VIII cogitated and masticated, the more 
alternatives he saw to divorce."

What is wrong is not that the words are Latinate or 
Frenchified but they are not the words easily understood by 
the majority of English speakers (including some who use 
them!)

Pause for a moment and consider that fornication and 
copulation and coition and similar "educated" works are 
"acceptable"  but the simpler and much more commonly-used 
word of Anglo-Saxon or early Germanic origin isn't ?  

Of course there's no alternative really for sushi or yum-cha 
and the thousands of "foreign" words borrowed, imported and 
embedded into modern English.

But why shouldn't we prefer "get" to "obtain" or "acquire" 
(in spite of what many teachers -- wrongly -- told us) or 
"have" to "possess"  ? 

Not so much "word racism"  as a pressure to opt for the 
simple when the "fashionable" complex doesn't work.

And so it goes...


--Peter M    

 



  



**************************************************
To post a message to austechwriter, send the message to 
austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

To subscribe to austechwriter, send a message to 
austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with "subscribe" in the Subject field.

To unsubscribe, send a message to austechwriter-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 
"unsubscribe" in the Subject field.

To search the austechwriter archives, go to 
www.freelists.org/archives/austechwriter

To contact the list administrator, send a message to 
austechwriter-admins@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
**************************************************

Other related posts: