CHOICE OF WORDS

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 72, 26 March 1921, Page 17

CHOICE OF WORDS

J "SOVIET" AND "SABOTAGE."' ENGLAND AS SHE IS GLOZEB. In connection with existing maritime troubles, we have heard not only of "jobcontrol," but of 'Soviets" and "sabo- [ tage," writes Professor T. G. Tucker, in It ho "Sydney Sun." Whether these mongrel terms have a precise meaning for those immediately concerned is extremely dubious, "it i.» at least certain that they convey no luminous notions to the wider world which bandies them about. In all probability this is the reason for choosing them. As Aristotle ' observes. the plain straight word ■ "brings home the full grossness" of ugly U-r nauseous thing*, and those who seeic I to camouflage them must select or invent some other. A "deviation from he truth" is a lie. but somehow it hardly seems 30. It would never do to speak of "committees of cons-piracy." and therefore we must talk of "soviets." Not that thifl ts the proper meaning of "soviet."' But accuracy is the las-t thing in request. The silly borrowed term has an up-to-date Bolsheviky sound, and, since those who pick it up have never (they may thank their stars) been in immediate contact with the blessings of Bolshevism, it passes for whatever sense happens to be. attached to it. Xor must we speak flatly of "corruption of service anrt malicious injury to an employer's property." Such language brings home the naked grossness of criminal conduct such as no decen: man would avow and no sane community tolerate. The equivalent . "sabotage" sounds almost respectable in comparison. DISGUISING REPELLENT FACTS. The power of language to disguise, rei pellent facts is but another proof of ■the imperfection of human intelligence. 1 if we- say "the committees of conspiracy I are recommending malicious injury and ] dishonest service." we shock the hearer. :Dut if we were to put it, say, "the : Soviets are encouraging diaphthoric methods," thousands wrntld "take, fcho words as denoting some shrewd but perfectly legitimate line of policy. The very , language suggests that we are dealing With economic philosophers. Yet "diapliI thoric" would mean nothing else but ."destructive and corrupting," and terms ' so distinct would betray the fact that we Jare dealing with economic rogues. It is I words, not thoughts, which do the trick. i The mysterious potency of words is ! so great that they nee.l have no moaning ! at all, so long a-s they sound sufficiently ' imposing. The Billingsgate fishwife who wa> denounced as an "asymptote to a hyperbola" was silenced more hopelessly than if s-he hud been addressed in any terms intelligible to her class. It might have been the same if she had been styled an Araucaria or a IJrontosfiUrus. .Science has quite a wide field of usefulness open to it for such purposes. I As it is alleged that once a patient suffering from nothing in particular was satislied to lind the malady diagnosed as "aphasia of the duodenum." so there are antagonistic sections of society who would find entire satisfaction in styling each other "■Crustaceans" and '■ Polypods' , respectively. And, as f'alverley hath it, "as for the meaning, it's what you ■please."' There are thrwe who regard it as a • huge, merit of the English language, that ii lius 200,000 words in its dictionary. The fact would perhaps be one upon '. which to congratulate ourselves if each ■ word meant, something peculiarly definite, [ if it kept steadily to its exact meaning, ; Kivl if everyone employed if as he phoul I. ! But iv point of fact tl:erc is scarcely a

word of more than one syllable wWcUji means precisely the same to Brown as it < I .Uu-s to Robinson. Where a speaker em- j ploy* a word with an intended meaning which we- may represent as sixpence, while liiu hearer accepts it with one ; amounting to iiinejience, or only to fourj |ii-!:ce-iiM.li|n-ii!iy, it is impossible to ad- j MUM our intellectual accounts correctly; J with one another, it is for this reason ■. that scientists, whose language must be : either absolutely definite or else worse : than useless, arc driven to invent alleged,; Greek compounds, of which the meaning t is as incorruptible as that of "ten per cent"' or "a right-angle triangle." I LANGUAGE OF LOVE. I it was to meet the same difficulty 1 that, an ingenious Frenchman. M. Bolacq, devised an artificial language on scientific principles. Thus -love" is itself . a sadiy vague word. What do you mean by itV How much* How little? With what intensity? In the Bolaeq language, to represent ascending degrees of the feeling, you must use different forms of the verb, namely, "lova," '"lovi," "lovo." "iovu." To "lova" was to be wildly in love: to "lovi'' was to be considerably so: to 'Iovu" was to be desperately afflicted, lie even suggested that still more precision might be achieved by borrowing figures fro-m the thermometer. Thus "1 lova 1") degrees," "I lovi 61 dc- . grees."' "1 lovu XXI degree?." Where, after thiri, is Krfperanto? * It is possible that, before the millennium, language will reach its true ends by n process loss mechanical than . this. There can then He no wriggling pleas to the effect that, "you roust have misunderstood mc. ,. But as things are, Kmrlish is :i most splendid instrument for either disguising a meaning or concealing the absence of any meaning at all. Itu very richness makes the matter worse. The only corrective lies in a merciless habit of converting "words, words, words" into definite thoughts. The first question to ask of a pretty or ' profound-looking phrase is, "What exactly does it mean?" The second, "But is it so'!" will then tind the easier answer. Thi*. of course, would spell - jruin to may a writer ajid many a talker. i But. as with the cooling of the sun, the j prospect is too remote to be very disconcerting.