Another confusion I now see cropping up regularly. To clarify:
lose (pronounced looz) - a verb meaning to mislay, fail to win, rid oneself of... there are many variations on the theme
loose (pronounced loos or luce if you prefer) - mainly an adjective meaning wobbly, imperfectly attached, opposite
of tight (sometimes a verb meaning to let loose)
Such a small thing to learn...
Language Abuse II: 'Close Proximity', 'PIN Number' and other Tautologies
I can't think why I haven't included this before as it's been a bane for many a year now. Examine the first 2 definitions from Dictionary.com for 'close':
1. "Being near in space or time."
2. "Being near in relationship: close relatives."
Now look at the entry for 'proximity':
"The state, quality, sense, or fact of being near or next; closeness."
Doesn't that say it all? Well I'll say it louder - IT'S SAYING THE SAME THING TWICE! If you want to emphasise 'proximity', use the qualifier 'extreme' or some such. Dictionary.com itself has a link to 'Redundancy':
"Some locutions, such as close proximity, have been so well established that criticizing them may seem petty."
It isn't. And then there's 'PIN number'. 'PIN' is an acronym standing for 'Personal Identification Number'. Would anyone really say "personal identification number number" - I think not.
Just two examples of the thoughtless, moronic, sloppy way in which most people use the language. And this is just one facet of a much deeper malaise, the loss of cultural interest. I read Stephen King's 'The Tommyknockers' as a subtle indictment on the future of humanity - a culturally primitive and somewhat barbarous race that had an instinctive grasp of using technology, but no idea of how things worked. How many people could explain, in broad principle, the technology behind, for instance, the mobile 'phone? As a percentage, few would offer sufficient detail.
I've rambled rather from the original gripe, but that was just the tip of the iceberg; and I've a horrible suspicion that the whole thing is going to rise right out of the water!
Language Abuse I: Misuse of Apostrophe’s
There, that’s exactly what I mean – the one in the title, that is. As a nation, it would seem, we have become semi-literate over the last 10 years or so, all aided by texting, computer spell-checkers and no doubt ‘progressive’ educational policies that are satisfied when a word is presented in roughly the correct shape – spelling doesn’t matter.
But why can’t people distinguish between the hugely differing notions of possession and plurality? So I state it bluntly: an apostrophe before an ‘s’ indicates possession, none suggests a plural (with one notable exception – see below). Hence:
The boy was playing with his toys. (NOT toy’s)
The boy’s toys were being utilised.
But note what happens with plural possession:
The boys were playing with their toys. (NOT boy’s OR toy’s)
The boys’ toys were being utilised.
Get the picture? Good. So, to confuse, the exception is the impersonal pronoun ‘it’ – the apostrophe is omitted for possession (Its colour was a murky brown) and IS used to replace the missing ‘i’ as in ‘It’s going to be a lovely day’.
And while I’m at it, why has one particular supermarket been singled out for separate treatment? I refer, of course, to Tesco, NOT Tesco’s. It’s not Asda’s and it’s not Safeway’s or Somerfield’s, so why Tesco’s? Perhaps it’s something to do with Sainsbury’s – this is an acceptable construction as it’s actually someone’s name.
No doubt I’d be called a pedant (assuming the people who favour this usage knew the word!), but I consider myself a ‘careful user’ – of our consistently inconsistent language, that is!
The Apostrophe Protection Society
One of the comments frequently levelled at those who speak up for others less able is that they are "anti-choice", that is they support some goody-goody neo-puritan movement that seeks to reduce pleasure and lifestyle to a quasi-religious homogeneity. This is crap.
1. Because I don't eat meat, it is taken as read that I am anti-smoking.
2. Because I care about about suffering in other countries caused by Western
Capitalism, I must be anti-business.
3. I care about environmental issues, therefore I am a Luddite.
The careful thinker will examine the above pairings and see that there are some serious flaws:
1. Absolutely no connection whatsoever.
2. The kind of reasoning that would label a 2-pints-a-night man a drunkard.
3. How many of such critics have created their own website?
This conflation of unconnected ideas is either due to complete ignorance (the majority) or more sinisterly, cunning (the greed-obsessed elite). The motivation is simply to discredit by association with genuine anti-choice and extremism.
Where's the choice to life for the creatures raised for slaughter? Where the choice for people living in poverty, trying to survive? What the braying "pro-choice" brigade will never acknowledge is that it is THEY who are anti-choice - for all but themselves.
Why is compassion so difficult?
This is the question I had to ask myself after watching a program about, as the Americans call it, '9/11'. It took photographs of real people in real distress and bewilderment to get many people to actually feel compassion; it took a shared terrible experience to make them understand what somebody else might be going through. Why? Why cannot people simply THINK about these things without the necessity of this monumental stimulus?
The next time people complain about "bloody asylum seekers", it would do them good to consider the dreadful experiences which led them to seek asylum in the first place. When they next tuck into a lump of cooked flesh, let them meditate upon the life of confinement and fear that brought it to their plates.
But if it takes September 11th to inculcate compassion for one's fellow countrymen, what will it take to cross the culture- or the species-barrier? As Janga so wonderfully put it, "Everyone has a story".
"Money, so they say, is the root of all evil today" - Pink Floyd, "Money"
Not the everyday desire for ownership of "nice things", but its more rapacious cousin. For example, when someone is judged not on personality traits or intellectual attainments but on their car, where they live and where they choose to holiday. The all-consuming hunger for more money to buy more and more expensive treats very rarely leads to happiness (witness some lottery suicides), yet happiness is always cited as the goal for this behaviour.
This reaches its apogee, and indeed finds sublimation in the "miser mentality" - the amassing of vast amounts of capital, usually tied up in shares and the like, with no actual translation into anything tangible - what IS the point?
This sounds rather obscure, but in its commonest form translates as what is all too prevalent in politics and business - what seems to matter most to people is HOW something is said, sometimes just THAT it is said at all; whether anything actually gets DONE seems to carry little weight. Another way of stating this would be that the packaging is more important than the product.
I lay the blame at thedoor of the "instant" mentality - few have the attention span to follow through on medium- to long-term plans, so don't bother to check whether a promise has actually been fulfilled. In such a climate, bullshit will always rule!