MY DAY TO GROWL

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 6543, 23 July 1948, Page 5

MY DAY TO GROWL

ABOUT THIS AND THAT LIFE’S VICISSITUDES AND ITS PLEASANTRIES (By A. Growler) Everyone knows the old saying about fools rushing in where angels fear to tread, and being no greater fool than 95 per cent, of the population, I have no intention of rushing in to the family squabble that is going on between Federated Farmers (Auckland Province), once better known as the Farmers’ Union, and Federated Farmers (Waikato Province). It is, however, permissible, I think, to express regret that the farmers cannot agree, especially at a time when agreement among the primary producers is vital and essential to the internal economy of this fair land. It is regrettable in the extreme and surely the farmers as a whole, no matter to w’hat organisation they belong and favour, knows that the Government, who has never been very sympathetic to the farming community, are cackling with glee at seeing the farmers dividea as they are. It is hoped that the domestic troubles, being rather too freely aired in the public press, will soon be settled and that harmony will reign with resultant benefit to one and all. » ♦ ♦ *

There never was a time when clearer thinking was more urgently needed, and at the same time there can seldom have been a time when the correct use of words was more neglected. If clarity of language is desirable everywhere, Englishmen have a particular duty to use it. We have the greatest lyric poetry in the world, and a superb tradition of great writers of prose. In an enlightened moment the Treasury asked a distinguished civil servant, Sir Ernest Gowers, to write a book on the use of English by officials. The result is “Plain Words,” published by H.M. Stationery Office, on which both author and Treasury are to be congratulated. It will delight far wider circles than those to whom it is primarily addressed. The test to be applied, when a new word is suggested, or it is sought to give an old word a new meaning, is this. Does the change enrich, or does it impoverish, the language? A misuse that has made the language poorer is the misuse of “alibi” by illiterates who think it means “excuse.” A few years ago every child knew the meaning of “alibi.” To-day few journalists know it. A man pleads an alibi when he denies that he did an act and says that he could not have done it, since he was elsewhere (alibi) at the time. An excuse, on the contrary, admits the act. An excuse can never be an alibi, and an alibi can never be an excuse. The effect of saying “alibi,” when you mean excuse, is to impoverish the language by destroying the usefulness of a word which had a precise meaning. It is like spoiling a chisel by using it as a screwdriver. The author should add to his list of howlers. Politicians use “furore,” which means enthusiastic, admiration, under the impression that it means anger. Others use “sanguinary” when they mean “sanguine.” Doctors must learn that “hospitalise” cannot possibly mean “send to hospital.” An inexplicable new absurdity that has captivated journalists and is beginning to fascinate civil servants is “escapee,” meaning, apparently, “escaper.” It would be as sensible to call a diver a divee. What appals the lover of good English is the speed with which bad language, like bad currency, drives out the good. Only a few months ago some ass first wrote “disincentive” when he meant deterrent. In the Budget debate the word was in constant use. By next year it will have become a verb. No one will be discouraged or deterred, but thousands will be disincentived.

The latest threat to clarity is the use of “breakdown” to mean “analysis” or “classification.” When an official speaks of “the breakdown! of the European jservices of the 8.8. C.,” you must not conclude that these services have broken down. He is probably referring <to the r°lative numbers of broadcasts to different countries. Sir Stafford Cripps recently spoke of “a global target,” and regretted that it was “not possible to break that down,” which suggests a reveller attacking a Belisha Beacon. “Targets” will soon rival “bottlenecks.” Bottlenecks have now been described as drastic, vicious, serious, far-reaching, decisive, human, vital, aggravated, supreme, and—most surprising of all —world-wide. We have read the patriotic call, “Man the bottlenecks” and the poetic “Is a bottleneck approaching?” To assess the threat to our language try translating Mr Churchill into the jargon now in fashion. Would anything have happened if he had said “Donate us the implements and we shall finalise the assignment”?

The next general election promises to be one of the most hectic and one of the “dirtiest,” using that word in a strictly political sense, that has occurred in New 7 Zealand for many years past. Already there are sufficient signs and potents offering to warrant that conclusion being reached. Mr J. A. Lee, who is so embittered about his expulsion from the Labour Party that there is never an issue of his fortnightly paper without gall-like references thereto, promises or threatens, to publish a booklet from reports of the Court trials that took place way in the days of the First World War, and which resulted in prominent members of the Government and the Labour Party being sent to gaol. While I hold no brief at all for the Party in power, and while I think that they have been more than foolish in stressing their loyalty in view of their past records, I do think that those trials could with advantage be forgotten. The Government have committed enough political sins during their actual term of office to hang .them, so to speak, without dragging up such ancient history. ♦ ♦ » ♦

While I am fully aware of the fact that it is fashionable to be a conscriptionist, and while I recognise the value of defence, I do think that the proposal to put all youths in the 18-year group into camp for 14 weeks, is an unwise one. I consider it unwise from an economic aspect and it is extremely

doubtful if the Dominion’s internal economy can be upset to that extent. Employers to-day could speak, if it would do them any good, of the comparatively poor type of service offered by the more youthful type of employee. Camp life can be unsettling in the extreme, and one does not have to have a very large number of friends and acquaintances to realise how unsettled were (and some still are) the soldiers who served overseas or even in the more sheltered bases in New Zealand. A gooa deal of talk is heard about the advantages 6f discipline, but after all, the proper place to teach discipline is in the homes of the young. The responsibility of instilling discipline into their sons is one dependent on the parents and if the would-be soldier lacks that parental training and background, all the military discipline in the world will fail. Having got that “growl” off my mind, I feel much better. I was very much impressed by the address that Mr Justice Christie gave to the Grand Jury when opening this week’s session of the Supreme Court in Hamilton. The learned Judge quoted the opinion of the Right. Hon. Sir Norman Birkett, one of the Judges of the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in England, as follows:

“The English people have always been great lovers of tradition and they are so still. As forms of government alter and modes and manners change, as old institutions outlive their usefulness and new institutions take their place, this desire to maintain and perpetuate the old traditions seems to grow in intensity. It springs, I think, from a sense of history, a pride in the continuity of the national life and a consciousness of a great inheritance.”

His Honour said he particularly wished to direct the attention of the jury to the following passage.— “Nowhere is this respect for tradition more strikingly shown than in the administration of law; nor with greater reason. For the supreme test of any civilised society lies in its respect for the law and its just and inflexible administration. For nearly twelve months it was my duty to sit on the international military tribunal at Nuremberg listening to a record of crime never surpassed in all the dark annals of human wickedness; and although the legal consequences of Nuremberg will 'doubtless be the subject of disputation for generations to come, one great truth has already been established.

“Nuremberg is a solemn warning to all peoples in all lands of the terrible fate that overtakes a nation when the rule of law is abandoned and justice is denied. The age of tyranny begins; the security of the citizens vanishes; the essential freedoms are lost, and fear invades the land so that the very knock on the door may be the sound of doom, the summons to the concentration camp, to torture, to exile and to death.” His Honor, Mr Justice Christie, said he had read this passage to the members of the jury not because he thought there was any need that they in particular should be reminded of the truth which it contained but he had read it because he felt that there were certain fundamental truths of which no one could be reminded too frequently. The whole purpose of our courts, both in their criminal and in their civil jurisdiction, was to ensure that justice should be done according to law. It behoved everyone, judges, jurors, lawyers and laymen alike to .see that the rule of justice in accordance with law would be maintained in New Zealand.

“It is a bad day when men begin to think that they are justified in substituting for the law their own ideas of natural justice and w’hen they allow sympathy or any other motive (good though it may be in itself) to take the place of the law,” said His Honor.

Sir Norman Birkett was associated with Lord Justice Lawrence at the Nuremberg trials. The remarks of both the Judges, quoted above, are worthy of consideration and of greater publicity, and it is in that spirit that the remarks are reported in this column.

All the fulminations of Mr Fraser and Mr Semple against Communists apparently have been but “hot air and vote-catching window dressing” seeing that the Government has appointed Mr Alex. Drennan, an avowed Communist, and the holder of an executive position in that organisation, to the Commission that is to enquire into the Auckland waterfront dispute. If Commlunists are such as painted by both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Works, surely a member of that organisation, largely blamed for the dispute, should not be allowed on any body, especially of a judicial nature. Still, votes are votes, especially when a government is dependent on a “mandate.”