Mind your language
THERE is no stopping folk-etymology, as the recent fiddle-faddle over fitly-gritty demonstrated. Policemen said that they had been forbidden to use it because it was deemed racist. Just as it seemed to have been established that this term has no reference to the bottom layer of a slave ship, as some had claimed, and therefore has no racial connotations, poor James Naughtie was handed an email to read out before Radio Four's 9 a.m. News, A listener had supplied the origin of the term, he said. It referred to the detritus of a slave ship.
Oh dear. This is the new email-Internet vicious circle of ignorance. Anyway, in a spirit of pure scholarship, may I turn to a political cliché: 'to spend more time with my family'? Here is a surprisingly early example I've stumbled across, from Tro[lope's novel The Prime Minister (1876), in the chapter called 'The New Ministry'. The Duke of Ornnium, after deciding to give up the prime ministership, is asked what he will do. 'I am a private gentleman who will now be able to devote more of his time to his wife and children than has hitherto been possible with him.' I should be interested to hear of an earlier example.
On a more modern phenomenon, is there any end to the idiotic missionstatement slogans that public and private enterprises show off? Some have claims to wit, such as 'Running water for London', from whoever it is who supplies fresh water — Thames Water, is it? But Surrey Police have the feeble 'With you, making Surrey safer', which begs the question, insofar as a good number who read it must be dangerous criminals. The most fatuous I have seen so far is 'Working for people', from the Muslim Aid charity. Perhaps there is an Internet site devoted to this nonsense. But why do corporations still pay to have such idiocy propagated?
Lastly, a usage that I had hoped was a flash in the pan: waitron. It is intended as a sexually neutral term for a waiter or waitress, supposedly useful in employment advertising circumscribed by legislation. Parallel word-forms do not supply sunny connotations: moron, neutron, Mekon. The place of origin is America, although it has been reported from Australia. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (the Node) lists it, so it has probably penetrated our island, like some winter vomiting virus.
Dot Wordsworth
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