Category: English

  • Word play: envisaged or envisioned?

    What can of worms have I opened with use of ‘envisaged’ versus ‘envision’ I wonder? Probably a debate over whether it’s best to UK English or American English!

    That’s because ‘envisage’ and ‘envision’ technically mean the same thing: to visualise something or make a mental picture of it. A future possibility if you will.

    Your choice between these two transitive verbs depends largely on whether you prefer the UK English ‘envisage’ to the American ‘envision’ – or whether to have a preference would be frowned upon (for example, do you work in America, or are you writing a piece for an English university?).

    The danger with either word is that they should not be used in place of ‘expect’, to which they are closely related. ‘Expect’ can be used in a context where you are more certain of the outcome (ie, ‘the government is expected to report a lowering of interest rates’).

     

     

     

     

  • Why I’ve gone off newspapers, part two: balance

    IN THE MAINSTREAM media there seems to be a trend towards scaremongering for an optimum number of clicks or sales. You may recall my earlier blog about the power of emotive language to frighten and depress us in newspapers. This post builds on that notion with a specific case study: coverage of Brazil ahead of the World Cup there next month.

    Until recently, focus on Brazil has been largely economic and broadsheet: its place was in the list of rising nations with an economy outstripping our own. But of course, now that our young soccer princes are bound for the Cidade Maravilhosa, words have turned swiftly to fear.

    Whereas reports of Brazil’s economic and social difficulties would usually be restricted to the international pages, now they have moved up the news agenda. But the debate about Brazil doesn’t continue in the usual way.

    As the kick-off draws closer, watch carefully as media outlets slowly but surely try to have us consumed by thoughts of those nasty favelas (tightly packed working-class districts that sweep up many mountain sides) and recent cases of violence in the city that have absolutely nothing to do with the majority of residents (including the large numbers who live in favelas).

    One recent report suggested executives were ‘freaking out’ because the hotel the England squad is to stay in will be near a favela. Never mind that Rocinha, being the largest favela in all Brazil, is pretty much visible from any number of angles in Rio. Incidentally, it’s not actually around the corner to the England squad’s hotel at all – it’s a couple of miles away. But unless you’ve been to Rio, or have the presence of mind to Google map it for yourself, why would you doubt what you are reading?

    Will any newspapers be reporting the fact that the Royal Tulip Hotel is located on the beachfront at Sao Conrado, by Avenida Niemeyer – surely one of the most stunning coastal roads in the world? Turn your head in the opposite direction of the favela and you get a wonderful view of the crashing azure Atlantic Ocean. I wonder which side of the hotel their rooms will be on? Incidentally, the district in which the team will be training, called Urca, is a wonderful place. All the panic about traffic? I expect they’ll be helicoptered in!

    Now, a genuine threat to safety is not something to be sniffed at. Brazil is a developing nation, and the divide between the middle class and the poor is quite stark. But rather than a wholesale rendering of the city as a no-go wasteland, how about a bit of balance amid scary statistics about a rise in muggings, and genuinely terrifying headlines like ‘Don’t scream if mugged’?.

    Where are the plain-speaking articles on staying safe, with a rundown of the kind of places to go that welcome tourists? How about a football fans’ guide to etiquette? It may be too early to request such articles, but I seriously doubt many will publish this kind of thing when it’s much more lucrative to show images of someone hurling a Molotov cocktail at police during clashes in a poor district.

    Here are some more article ideas: How about an in-depth piece about the whole spectrum of life in Copacabana (a massive area by the way, and not just a beach for tourists to get mugged on). How about some cultural insight into the people, and information about why it might be a good idea to buy your beach snacks from some of the wandering vendors who spend all day peddling refreshments? I’ve not seen anything like this out there yet.

    I dread to think ahead to the reporting that will take place during the World Cup, when we will doubtless continue to be exposed to a very narrow measure of what Rio de Janeiro/Brazil is all about. They will report heavily when some football fans get drunk and wander into a slightly iffy neighbourhood without their wits about them and get mugged or worse. They will use this kind of outcome as a means to level criticism at the World Cup itself (perhaps a legitimate target if news about organisational failures are to be believed), but more damaging they will use it as an excuse to further demonise the people. What I’ve read so far is hugely insulting to the majority of the people living in the favelas, who are only interested in getting on with life and earning their wages like we are.

    For what it’s worth, I recently went to Rio, travelling on their bus network with the ordinary Cariocas. I went to the main tourist attractions as well as a number of off the beaten track locations. If you don’t flash your cash, dress to impress or cause a scene, you know what? The people of Rio won’t give a stuff who you are and will leave you well alone. If you happen to interact with them, they’ll likely be incredibly welcoming, as I found.

    There is always a place for genuine concern about the welfare of a nation and its people – serious problems are afoot in Brazil that shouldn’t be ignored, and we’d be crazy to close our eyes to that.

    However, my hunch is that our mainstream media will close its eyes to Brazil once the World Cup is over. Brazil will have served its purpose: to shift some column inches. To find out what happens next you’ll probably have to go back to the broadsheets’ international pages. But I can live in hope for another outcome.

  • Word play: Circumvented or circumnavigated?

    TWO WORDS THAT may get inadvertently mixed up are ‘circumvented’ and ‘circumnavigated’. Here is an example of misuse:

    ‘There was a business deal on the table with some tricky elements, but we managed to circumnavigate those to get what we wanted’.

    It is easy to see why the writer has chosen ‘circumnavigate’ by mistake instead of ‘circumvent’. Indeed, we still understand the intended meaning of the sentence.

    The tricky element here comes from the fact the two words (which are both transitive verbs) share a common prefix – circum.

    Circum- means round, or about, and comes via the Old French from Latin, to mean circle – hence, circus.

    ‘Circumvent’ would be the correct choice in the sentence above, as it means to find a way around a problem, especially by way of ingenuity, or using strategy to avoid an enemy. So, in the sentence we imagine ‘getting around’ the undesirable elements of a business deal to come out on top.

    ‘Circumnavigate’ on the other hand means to go around the earth, especially with reference to making a complete circuit of the globe. In the context of a business meeting? Nice work if you can get it!

     

  • Word blankness can last 25 years!

    IT’S QUITE COMMON, when you read ‘below the line’ comments on news media websites, to find a slew of criticism and contempt for the journalists (usually the sub editors), who have let slip a few typos and grammatical errors in their work.

    Of course, journalists ought to be committed to accuracy in their work, but it seems the public aren’t particularly forgiving of the fact that human error can easily creep in when you are revising many thousands of words a day to a tight deadline.

    No journalist who spots an error in their work after the fact is ever pleased about this! They are usually mortified, breaking out in a cold sweat at the thought someone may want to have a stern word with them at any moment. Because on the whole, the person responsible will genuinely not have been aware of the error they made at the time it occurred. Why? It’s a phenomenon I like to call word blankness.

    Word blankness (because word blindness is a recognised neurological condition) is a common affliction of people who handle vast volumes of words on a daily basis. This is where you see what you are expecting to read in a sentence, as opposed to what is actually there. Some people may rely on a computer spell-checker to help them out of these situations, and to a degree they are helpful. But what about the situations where you have used a word that can be spelt two ways, and you have used the wrong version? A spell-checker is not guaranteed to pick this up.

    I have to own up to a rather embarrassing example of word blankness, which has persisted for 25 years on the back of the pronunciation of a word I heard in a pop song! In 1988-89, as an avid fan of the singer Bobby Brown (please don’t judge), I sang merrily along to the lyrics of what I thought was ‘My perogative’. I read the sleeve notes on the album countless times. I have used the word in my everyday speech (though it is not, admittedly, one that comes up all the time). But until this year, I never had cause to write it down.

    So when I saw the spelling ‘prerogative’ in print, I was mystified. This must be wrong! Surely Bobby Brown never spelled it this way on his single or album cover? Ever the curious linguist, I looked it up in a dictionary.

    Lo, and behold, prerogative was the correct spelling. So, I thought – Bobby’s album cover is to blame for my error! Into the musty old vinyl storage cupboard I ventured, rummaging through the ancient cardboard sleeves until I arrived at the correct specimen.

    Oh dear. Bobby spelled prerogative correctly after all. It was me, hearing ‘perogative’ in his clippy, pop delivery that led me to believe this was the spelling. And I read it that way every time.

    So, what is the cure for word blankness? If there is one at all, it is to slow down. People are always in a hurry to meet a deadline, to get something published. And publishing quickly (from first draft, with no extra revisions) is all too easy in this digital age. But not taking the time to see something for how it really is presented can leave you feeling very silly indeed. Just as I do right now.

  • Spelling explained: adviser or advisor?

    One word that commonly causes spelling confusion is adviser. Or should that be advisor? Is one variant more common, or more correct, than the other? Let’s investigate…

    According to the New Penguin English Dictionary:

    “adviser or advisor, noun: somebody who gives advice, esp professionally in specialised field”

    Note that the spelling ‘adviser’ is listed first; this is usually an indication of the most common variant.

    Now take the example as featured in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (9th ed). Oxford is somewhat firmer:

    “adviser, noun (also disp, advisor): a person who advises, esp one appointed to do so and regularly consulted”

    In this case, disp. is used to mean disputed. The anomaly prompts a second entry explaining usage:

    “The variant form advisor is fairly common but is considered incorrect by some people. Its spelling is probably influenced by the adjective advisory”

    Adviser, taken from the Old French root aviser or the Latin visare, make it the older, and therefore more trusted variant.

    However, there is anecdotal evidence the North American preferred advisor is becoming more common. A familiar sight in the windows of the UK’s cafes and restaurants is the ‘TripAdvisor’ travel recommendation website logo. This is a company with American origins, hence the advisor spelling. How long before this spelling catches on in an even bigger way?

    The adviser/advisor argument is a good example of our language in flux, reflecting the notion that it is a fluid beast that reacts to outside influence. So, as long as you stick to one or the other for consistency’s sake in your work, you can choose the spelling you prefer.

    For the record, my preference is adviser.