Wilson Follett, who prepared an manuscript on our language, did so I believe as pleasurable musings. When he encountered at random, stretches of the rules in acceptable English (and termed Modern American Usage in the book edited and completed by Jacques Barzun), he recorded them with his interpretation of the right and proper. His writings are incomplete as surely as they would have been had he lived to see the book published. Follett had a particular passion for pedantry, metaphors, educationese and scientism. Especially as used and abused by writers and those who should know better and find themselves quoted in the press. Never have I found an example where he belittled someone, who lacking education(?), failed in the practice of "proper" usage of English.
Pedantry -
Coleridge, Biographia Litereria (X), said it best, "Pedantry consist in the use of words unsuitable to the time, place and
company." Or, Steel, Tatler, No 244, "Pedantry proceeds from much reading and little understanding."<1) Or, "more learning without judgement or discrimination, conceit or unseasonable display of learning or technical knowledge."<2)
Follett approached pedantry from an interesting standpoint, His thesis is; when one leaves the colloquial and attempts to enter the realm of the learned, "he must take pains over trifles." As example, when one says, "As sure as eggs are eggs", he has moved from the rural expression, "As sure as eggs is eggs", and entered the world of the pediatrist. He argues that practice and company of people to whom good speech comes as if by nature and if miraculously unspoiled by school and society only then will one escape from the trap of pedantry.
Fowler in Modern English Usage says, pedantry is obviously relative, "my pedantry is your scholarship, his reasonable accuracy, her irreducible minimum of education, and someone else's ignorance."
It is easy to forgive those that stretch their vocabulary by inclusion of new words. It is more difficult to accept those using a foreign phrase or term to impress. Even forgiveness is possible for those that "dumb down" their speech or writings, either in good humor or to make understanding easier. And even the user of acronyms that burdens the reader/listener with an endless string of meaningless "words" can be forgiven (although at some business meetings a practice has been incorporated where every time the presenter uses an acronym, he or she has to give each attendee a dollar). But to forgive the pompous asses that talk down to the audience is impossible.
Metaphors
This from our President: Clinton eulogizes Justice Brennan, Washington (AP), July 30, 1997. "Throughout our history, a
few powerful ideals have transformed the lives of our people. And throughout our history, there have been a few
individuals so devoted to those ideals they could hammer them on the anvil of history to reshape the land and our future.
Justice Brennan ...time and time again... stepped into the breach to hammer them on the anvil of history, saving us from our
darker impulses,"
Now I don't know about you, but when one talks about shaping history it sounds as though you are really trying to change
the way in which history has been recorded. You just can't change that which is past. Or perhaps what the President is
trying to say is that Mr. Brennan took hammer and tongs to our Constitution pounding it to fit the new "politically correct"
interpretations. That's not changing history but it sure is changing the future.
And, "stepping into the breach"; that's quite a task since most guns accept only a small "bore".
Follett said, " metaphorical style is characterized by a steady reliance on images which are buried in abstract words, which therefore do not strike the speaker or writer as figurative, but which often leave the hearer or reader perplexed as to the meaning. At the turn of the century there lived in Scotland a workingman's wife named Amanda Ros, who wrote and found a publisher for several novels written entirely in this metaphorical mode. A sentence from her fiction will show, through her exaggerated example, how she joined images without analyzing them and managed to give an impression of meaning where none is to be found. _Every morning, at the same hour, mistress and maid were at their respective post, the former, with brightened eye, mounted on her favorite pedestal of triumphant account and gazing intently on the object of rescue; the later, casting that grave and careworn look in the direction of the niched signboard of distress, stood firmly and faithfully until she received the watchword of action and warning_". Sounds not unlike a White-house press conference.
Educationese -
Follett says of educationese, " One would imagine that the profession of teaching, presupposing in the practitioners more
knowledge than is usual in the laity, as well as a greater sensibility to meaning, accuracy and logic, would have produced an
admirable technical vocabulary. One would be wrong to so imagine. The language of education is the worst of all trade
jargons, perhaps because it is one of the most recently contrived. For a number of quotes on education, or the lack thereof;
Education
The faults of educationese are excessive abstraction and intentional vagueness, coupled with a naive faith in the power of
new terms to correct old abuses. Examples; (a) substitution of branches of the tree of knowledge for fields, then changing
this to areas, (b) learning became subject matters then disciplines, (c) focus became nuclei which in groups became core
curriculum, (d) lessons became units, became learning situations, (e) classrooms became clinics, then workshops.
"By the end of this ordeal teaching and instruction had well-nigh disappeared. All that was left was education." Am
reminded by a saying at a land-grant institution, "Last week I couldn't spell ingineer, now I are one."
Scientism -
Follett says of scientism, " The deserved admiration in which science and technology are held today has had the effect of
making the lay world want to share in their reputation by borrowing their trappings. ... To be trusted, everything must wear
the technical, the scientific look. The frame of mind and the feeling that produce and reproduce these imitations, crude or
subtle, are properly scientism.
Whether crude or subtle, scientism has a harmful effect on language, simply because it is not the product of genuine need or
thought; it is by definition affected, and affection in an advanced culture is the chief agent of linguistic corruption."
Actually, it isn't just the scientist vocabulary that is borrowed, used and misused, it is from any and all the professions and
trades; law, banking &c;. As example, The Senate Minority Leader, Tom Daschle said, "In the 1980s we mortgaged
America's future. Today we are making the last down payment on that mortgage." Having borrowed from the banker's
vocabulary, Daschle makes the point that we are in the process of making a "last" down payment, which puts Congress in
the same classification as the loan shark and shady shop owner that continues to extract payments from the unwary
customer by finding yet another bill to be paid thus keeping him/her constantly in debt. You can bet that there will be yet
another "last down payment" in our future!
May I recommend Follett's Modern American Usage, not as a replacement for the Fowler's Modern English Usage and the King's English, but as a desk companion.
***
(1) Century Dictionary, Volume 4, The Century Company, 1890.
(2) Oxford English Dictionary