The prologue was written with two motives:
- To expose linguistic incompetence among those who represent themselves as professional communicators.
- To encourage all writers to be more careful with language. All writers, including myself.
The discussion of language is relevant not only because it is the most basic tool of a writer, but because the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches [ 1 ] deems correct usage so important it will not certify candidates unless they demonstrate competence in this area. Apart from the desire to promote excellence, the association takes this stand because in a recent survey, over 80% of employer respondents stated they would reject a resume if it contained even a single grammatical error.
How Language Is Changing
Language has rules. So does logic. We live in an age wherein people despise rules. They want freedom to do as they wish, not rules to constrain them. People argue, "Who cares if language is not used correctly?" The important thing is that we understand each other, and we do. Linguistic correctness, like political correctness, is a bogus issue.
It is true that people usually do understand each other, at least factually... if not emotionally. But understanding is useful only to the extent that meaning is conveyed, and the capacity of language to convey meaning is on the decline, for two reasons:
- Our language is losing words
- This phenomenon was brought to light in January 1999, when the word "niggardly" was used by a top Washington, D.C., aide [ 2 ]. He was pressured to resign because uneducated persons confused the word with a pejorative one referring to black people. The aide was subsequently rehired.
- To be fair, the word that created the fuss does sound like the other word and perhaps should be banished in order to avoid unnecessarily hurting people's feelings. On the other hand, it shows how quick some people are to forfeit the basic building blocks of our language.
- Valuable words are losing their unique meaning
- One such word is "venue." The best way to understand this phenomenon is to consult an old dictionary, for example, Random House, 1973, which defines venue as "the place of a crime or cause of action." It is a legal definition, as are the next three that follow. The fifth definition is "the scene or locale of any action or event." That is the meaning most often attached to the word today.
- A similar definition is given by the Canadian Oxford, which was introduced in February 1998 and has already gained wide acceptance as the standard for English in this country. The first definition for the word venue is "an appointed site or meeting place, as for a sports event, meeting, concert." The Oxford gives two legal definitions, but they are pushed back to the end of the list. Thus, the unique sense of the word has been lost.
In truth, dictionaries like Oxford no longer set the standard for English. People set the standard through casual usage. Dictionaries pander to the majority [ 3 ] and apply the seal of approval to their unwitting choices.
This is not to imply that dictionaries like the Oxford are useless or bad. On the contrary, they do much more good than harm. However, there was a time when dictionaries were pre scriptive, not merely de scriptive, i.e., one could look to them for judgment as to good or bad, right or wrong. In fact, according to
English Plus, the first dictionaries in England and America were prescriptive. (As of July 2006, the article on this topic was located here.)
English Plus cites Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755) and Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language (1828) as prescriptive works. As for the Canadian Oxford, it is evident from the preface of the 1998 edition that its mission is not to preserve standards, but to reflect contemporary linguistic usage.
Whether the populace at large have the capacity to make good linguistic decisions is moot, because they haven't the slightest interest in the subject. People use words and phrases they think will appeal to those with whom they associate. They hear the word venue used in legal context and think it means "location."
Most do not look up the word to discover its nuances, not because they're stupid or don't know how, but because the question is at or beneath the bottom of their priority list. "Venue" sounds better than "location," and for this reason alone — not because it is linguistically more appropriate — people prefer it. This is how the decision is made and the language destroyed.
I use the word "destroyed" advisedly. We now have two words that mean exactly the same thing, that is, "location." Previously, we had a word with a unique, legal context. When that word was spoken, educated people knew a legal matter was being discussed. Now they don't. The meaning is gone; once gone, it is unlikely anyone will be able to revive it.
Footnotes
- The world's first such association, est. 1990, with several hundred members.
- The Washington aide was David Howard, head, Office of Public Advocate.
- The pandering process is indirect. Dictionaries do not necessarily conduct surveys or public opinion polls. They consult published works. However, these works are broad in scope. E.g., the Canadian Oxford included newspapers, theatre programs, grocery store flyers and Canadian Tire catalogues among its sources.
NoBlock.com