AN UNGUARDED CUSTODIAN
The media: Paul Johnson
investigates a new guide to good English
SO MANY words are now habitually misused not only by members of the public but also by professional writers, and la- mentable errors occur in such august places nowadays (Times, Guardian, Telegraph, books published by university presses etc), that any systematic attempt to improve the common use of English is welcome. So I do welcome Philip Davies Roberts's Plain English: a User's Guide, published earlier this year (Penguin, £2.95). He has a section on grammar, over a hundred pages on the correct use and meaning of words, and chapters on punctuation and style. He even tells you how to set about writing a letter.
Anyone who reads Roberts's book and follows his guidance will, on the whole, write better English. I say 'on the whole', however, because he gives dubious advice about some things and is wrong about others. For instance, on letters he writes: 'The standard complimentary close for both business and social letters is "Yours sincerely", though there are many others. ("Yours faithfully" is widely used in the UK).' The British, in fact, make a regular distinction between a strict business letter, beginning 'Dear Sir' (or Madam), and ending 'Yours faithfully' (or 'Yours truly'), and a less formal one, when you know the name of the person you are writing to, beginning 'Dear Mr Roberts' and ending 'Yours sincerely'. The rule has no intrinsic significance, but it is a rule and Roberts should have known it.
I am more concerned, however, by his mistakes in defining words, because that is what his book is chiefly about. One of the greatest virtues of the English language is its huge vocabulary, including many groups of words which appear to mean roughly the same but in fact convey distinct shades of sense. A familiarity with these vast re- sources and the ability to deploy them with precision are among the hallmarks of a good writer. To acquire these skills, con- stant use of the dictionary is essential. Evelyn Waugh was a tireless dictionary- rummager and as a result was always adding useful new words to his stock. Kingsley Amis, another master of 'our trade (he occasionally rebukes me for verbal solecisms in conversation), says he wears out a dictionary every three years, and I believe him. The trouble with Roberts, I fear, is that he doesn't use a dictionary often enough.
For instance, the first word to which I turned, 'oblivious', is wrongly defined by Roberts. He says it 'means unaware, un- conscious'. In fact it means 'forgetful'. The example Roberts quotes, 'She remained oblivious to her brother's pleas for help,' is wrong usage, unless she had originally heard the pleas and then forgot about them — in which case 'remained' is wrong. Surely using 'oblivious' to mean unaware is precisely the kind of common mistake Roberts ought to be correcting, and it is disturbing that he should have fallen into it himself. Again, he distinguishes between rebut, refute and repudiate, and quite rightly points out that refute does not mean reject or deny; it means to demonstrate error, to disprove. But he then goes on to say that repudiate 'means simply deny'. Not so: it means to divorce or reject (of a husband, wife), to disown, cast off, and hence (of opinions) to reject with some force, rather than 'simply deny'. The pre- cise origin and meaning of the word, and therefore its pecular value, is lost in Roberts's definition.
'Blatant', Roberts says, 'means obvious'. It does not. I don't know whether the OED is right in saying it was apparently coined by Spenser 'as an epithet of calumny', but it certainly implies noise: the word means loud, loud-voiced, clamorous. Roberts is misleading about 'epitome', another pre- cise and useful word. He says it 'means representative example' and quotes: 'Picas- so epitomised the Bohemian artist'. This may be common usage now but I would have preferred to use 'type' or even 'archetype', unless one meant that Picasso was the Bohemian artist in miniature, writ small, for an epitome is a summary, an abridgement or abstract, a condensed re- cord, a miniature representation. Roberts is wrong, too, about 'holocaust', another much and misused word. He says 'its literal meaning is fiery destruction'. In fact it is a combination of two Greek words meaning 'whole' and 'burnt' and originally meant a sacrificial offering which was entirely con- sumed for the honour of the god. It implies completeness and Jews use it of the Nazi genocide in Eastern Europe because it was intended to (and almost did) wipe out the entire Jewish population. If you want a word from the ancient sacrifices meaning a very large number of victims, then a good one is 'hecatomb' (strictly speaking it means sacrifice of a hundred oxen). Leader-writers should note: Stalin's heca- tombs, Hitler's holocaust. Roberts's use of 'literal' in this context is a warning: never use 'literal' unless you are absolutely sure of your information; never say 'literally true' unless you are certain you don't mean the opposite, 'metaphorically'.
Roberts thinks 'jargon' is non- pejorative, a 'specialist dialect', 'words and phrases peculiar to any group'. It is often used this way now but the term ought to imply contempt (like 'cant'), since it comes from an old French word meaning the twittering of birds, and refers to meaning- less or barbarous talk (as opposed to correct speech), used by inward-looking groups. Jargon should not imply legitima- cy; for that I would prefer 'vernacular', but perhaps I am fighting a lost battle. Howev- er, the battle is not yet lost over the distinction between 'irony' and 'sarcasm', which Roberts confuses. He says sarcasm is 'a manner of saying one thing but clearly implying the opposite'. In fact that is close to a definition of irony, where the intended meaning is the reverse of the words used. Irony is often used sarcastically but sar- casm itself, which comes from the Greek words meaning to tear flesh, has a more general meaning of sharp, bitter or hurtful speech. From this I turned to see what Roberts had to say about distinguishing between simile and metaphor, but perhaps wisely he avoids the topic. (Simile, in case you've forgotten, is simply a comparison of one thing with another; metaphor is a more elaborate figure in which a name or quality is transferred to a quite different object.) I have other complaints about Roberts (he gets a little unsure over chaste/celibate, pedagogue/pedant and even flaunt/flout). On the other hand, I enjoyed and bene- fited from his book, and the rummagings it inspired. He reminded me (or perhaps I never knew) that 'meticulous' is 'not com- plimentary'; it comes from a Latin word for fear and originally meant timid, hence over-careful about small details. My old tax-adviser, the great Mr Rapkin, used to commend me for my 'meticulous accounts' and I basked in his approval, but perhaps he was having a joke.
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