SECRETARIAL LANGUAGE

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 17

SECRETARIAL LANGUAGE

Addressing a meeting of the Incorporated Secretaries’ Association in the Albert Hall, Manchester, several weeks ago, on ‘All Sorts and Conditions of Secretaries,’ Mr P. M. Oliver said secretaries ranged from the four great British Secretaries of State to the secretary of a slate club, and between those extremes there wore all manner of grades. Originally the secretary was the trusted man. the confidant. One of the first times that the word was used in the English language was in an MSS. of 1400, when Peter, James, and John were called the three special secretaries of Christ. Owing to the absurd caricature of a Victorian farce. Mr Oliver continued, tho private secretary had often become a sourse of jest. Personally, he had profound respect for the private secretary. “ Secretaries are the artists and historians of modern commerce,” said the speaker. “ They have invented a language of their own, and not a lovely language. To the secretary, last month is always ‘ult.,’ next month ‘pros.’; he is continually ‘ adverting ’ to something or other, every letter is a ‘ favour,’ and every order is ‘ esteemed.’ ” Mr Oliver appealed to secretaries to recover in their business correspondence some of the simplicity of the AngloSaxon tongue. As an historian, he said, the records of tho minute book illustrated history reduced to its barest bones, A minute book was like a play of Shakespeare with all the dialogue cut out, and only tho stage directions left. And yet with what impartiality everything was recorded! “Bead letter from chairman resigning from the board.” Undertbose eight words there might bo a tragedy of misundertsanding and the ruin o" a life’s work, hut tho secretary, true to his confidence, recorded only the fact an I veiled all the rest from tho prying eyes of posterity.