Mind your language
ON 17 DECEMBER, in front of his Christmas tree in Downing Street, Mr Tony Blair gave an airing to what sub- sequently became a favourite word in discussing the war against Saddam Hus- sein. 'Our objectives in this military action are clear,' he said: 'to degrade his capability to build and use weapons of mass destruction.'
Degrade was also used that night by military spokesmen in America. Mr Al Gore, the Vice-President, used it too. It is a military word, and was keenly taken up next day by Mr Paddy Ashdown, for- merly of .the Marines, and Mr George Robertson, the Secretary of State for Defence.
It is strange that men take so easily to this military usage after so many years when we have been used to seeing inde- cent posters scribbled over with the slo- gan 'This degrades women.' Degrade derives from gradus, 'a degree' or, more basically 'a step', in the old Latin word-book for schoolboys Gradus ad Pamassum. Though to degrade someone from a rank was a normal way of speaking in the 14th cen- tury, the more common word for a for- mal degradation was disgrade.
There was much talk of degrading men in the disputes during the years of the Oxford Movement, from the 1830s. Dons voted in the Sheldonian in 1845 on whether W. G. 'Ideal' Ward (nick- named from his book The Ideal of the Christian Church) should be degraded from his MA; the opposite of graduat- ing.
At the same time, economists spoke of falling prices being degraded, geolo- gists of rocks degrading with wear and tear, painters of pure colours degrading through bad mixing, biologists of species degrading through bad breeding. That was before biodegradable became a mark of approval for carrier bags.
`Those who are diminished and degraded were not the Iraqis but us,' said Mr George Galloway angrily before the Commons went off for their Christmas break. Women and children civilians being killed or bombed out of their homes came as part of the long campaign to take Saddam down a peg, or a step, or two, by degrading his arms capability. Happy New Year.
Dot Wordsworth
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