So It Go by Dave Martins
A few weeks back, on a flight from Miami to Toronto, I ended up chatting with a Jamaican about the painful and often unintentionally humorous mangling of the English language that we see these days. It’s all over the place, not just in the region, and most of us seem to either not notice or not care. It’s in magazines and books, but it’s particularly bad on television where even the commentators, who are supposed to be the epitome of how we speak in public, are not immune.
Of course part of the language mangling we encounter these days is simply evolution – new words coming in, some words going out of fashion, and changes in the meaning of a word. An example of the latter is the use of the word “quality” which is a noun meaning “a standard or level” but is now being used as an adjective – “he is a quality individual”; used like that, the word “quality” actually means “high quality”. You would think English is confusing enough as it is, without us adding to the melee, but, as the Trinis say, “Well you know how it is padna.”
Another part of it is the impact of television where, because of time constraints, commentators are given to shortening phrases or giving you just the first letter in a phrase (the Americans are especially fond of this) such as “by the way” becoming “BTW” and “interception” in the NFL telecasts becomes “INT”. Another common one is the confusion between “principle”, meaning “essential rule” and “principal” like Father Scannell was at Saint Stanislaus College in my day. (Actually, as a principal, Scannell was a stickler for principle – as his delivery of ferulas proved.) This kind of general language mangling, or modifying, is actually rampant, and many of us seem to have pet peeves in this area; here are a few of mine:
*At this point in time. My English teacher at Saints, Fr. Feeney, used to preach “use the fewest words possible”. Since “at this point in time” actually means “now”, it’s obvious people aren’t paying much attention to Fr. Feeney. This particular expression actually comes from science, where it is used to differentiate between “a point in time” and “a point in space”, but people clearly are captivated by the sound of it at this point in time.
*Deteriate. First off, there is no such word as “deteriate” – what they mean is “deteriorate” – but it’s interesting that it’s usually written correctly but mangled when spoken; maybe it’s the Western inability to pronounce properly. Politicians, for some reason, seem especially prone to this mistake, particularly ones in opposition who are always primed to jump on examples of deterioration – excuse me, “deteriation”.
*Nucelar. For some reason, this distortion of the word “nuclear” seems to be prevalent far more with North American speakers. Even the former American President George Bush, in his most pontifical moments, would tell us of a “nucelar threat”. Mind you, Bush seemed to be instinctively aware that there was a pronounciation problem, because he often hesitated before saying “nucelar” and sometimes seemed to be trying to shake the “e” back into its proper place before the “l”, but he always lost the battle. Come to think of it, maybe that contributed to that stunned look he had in the last days of his reign.
*Consensus of opinion. The word “consensus” already means “a majority opinion”, so to say “consensus of opinion” is to say “majority opinion of opinion”. The excess has been pointed out before, but the phrase remains, so it would seem “consensus of opinion” is not going to disappear – that’s the consensus.
*Criteria: While it may sound like a singular form, “criteria” is plural; the singular is “criterion”. When, by comparison, someone says, “the buildings is…” it sounds wrong, and it is wrong. When someone says, “the criteria is…” while it may not sound wrong, it is wrong.
Many of the manglings are undoubtedly going to end up as part of Standard English one day, but some of them make you cringe. There is, for example, the North American tendency to insert the word “of” in sentences where it’s not needed, as in “it’s too good of a day to stay home”. That one really grates on me, thanks to Father Feeney. Even the famous CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer lays that one on us. Come on, Wolf; let’s tighten up.
In the Caribbean, a number of these things have migrated from our dialect into Standard English, so that in the middle of an erudite presentation, you will hear someone say he is going to “refer back”, and a Trini, guiding his wife out of the garage, will instruct her to “reverse back”.
There is also the widespread confusion between “prescribe” and “proscribe”, two words which have exactly opposite meanings, and the frequent reference in the Caribbean to “prostrate gland” instead of “prostate”.
Some of this stuff is just plain funny. Recently, for example, a newspaper in Grand Cayman reported on a court case where two witnesses, with contradictory testimony, were said to have “purged” themselves…with castor oil or cascara perhaps? Obviously the word they wanted was “perjured”. And I remember Mike Haysman, the one-time garrulous colour man on Stanford’s 20/20 cricket, telling us in pear-shaped tones in one broadcast that “in cricket, batting and bowling is important, but what is also crucial is the mental frame of mind.” He said it twice: “mental frame of mind”. As opposed to what Mike – “physical frame of mind”?
In the end, we may feel better grumbling about it, but the trend will probably continue. To sum things up: I understand the “principal” involved, but “at this point in time”, the “general consensus of opinion” is that this is too good “of” a day to get upset over the “deteriation” in this “criteria”; it’s not like a “nucelar” threat or anything.
