Mind your language
I HAVE just put down the telephone with a realisation of something that I had not registered in the last 100 or so times I had dialled 1471. The strangely inhuman voice (I think it is primarily something to do with the pauses and intonation) had just told me that 'the caller withheld their number'. It is, I suddenly noticed, an example of their used as an indeterminate singular personal possessive — instead of his or her.
I know that this is a pet hate of some readers. I have mentioned it before; I have even used it myself — usually when I do not want to specify the sex (or, as people say these days, the gender) of the person I was referring to. But I did not think it was so far ingrained in our langue that it could be used habitually without my noticing. There it is.
And here's an old friend, the wideawake Mr Tony Lawton (a solicitor, so watch it), whom I quoted in this column in 1993 — in the days when Veronica was interested in stamp-collecting and not in dieting, boyfriends and the inappropriate use of ethanol. (I mention her in the sure and certain knowledge that she never reads what I write.) Eight years ago, Mr Lawton had his post delivered at someone else's address, and, in apologising, the great powers at the Royal Mail told him that the 'delivery office manager' had declared that 'the officer responsible for this inefficiency has been suitably counselled'. I hope that learned him. This year, Mr Lawton's correspondent is an 'assistant team manager', no less, at 'the City of London Account Management Unit' of the NatWest bank, who told him that 'the facility for the issue of cheques on the Premium Reserve has now been disbanded'. Is this the first time a facility has been disbanded? Talk about care in the community.
Finally, a snowballing (or escalating; I speak metaphorically) catachrestic usage. I heard a man on Any Answers repeatedly using cynical CI am cynical about politicians') to mean 'sceptical'. It is also widely used to mean 'callous' Ca cynical disregard of customers' hardships'). Seldom is it used to mean 'cynical'. Or am I being too cynical?
Dot Wordsworth
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