I Don’t Speak So Good the Englishes

“Thanks to words, we have been able to rise above the brutes; and thanks to words, we have often sunk to the level of the demons.” - Aldous Huxley

Before getting to my main bugaboos, let’s get one thing out of the way: hopefully. It’s over. We who actually care about parts of speech and proper syntax lost. Just surrender if you are one of those who understand that “hopefully” means “full of hope”. Your day has passed. “Hopefully” now means “I hope”. Sigh.

Okay, to a near, but not yet complete, defeat:

Three times in the past two days I have heard reporters tell me that “A” begs the question “B”. Of course they meant “A” gives rise to the question “B” or “A” makes one ask the question “B”, but apparently they just can’t force themselves to use simple language when something so heady as “beg the question” is at hand. I’m reminded of a supposedly learned friend once pointing out how “picaresque” the scenery we were viewing was, and later how something was the “penultimate” in footwear or whatever, and again, how he disliked the way certain feminists forced men and women into “apposition” with each other. In my friend’s case the pretension may have been laughable but was excusable; he can say whatever he wishes in personal conversation. In the cases of reporters for billion dollar news organizations it is indefensible.

In the unlikely event you do not know, I will explain. “Beg the question” is a term used in debating and formal logic to describe a logical fallacy. It is very simple. It means that the argument being made in a statement is a premise of the statement. “Clearly the tax cuts will not help the poor because only the rich benefit from them.” The argument: the poor are not helped. The premise: only the rich benefit. They mean the same thing. My favorite real-life example is one I take mischievous pleasure in teasing my Christian friends with: “I believe in God because the the bible, which was divinely inspired, tells me to.”

Of course I am being persnickety in ranting about this. Who cares, really? Does it matter? After all, the viewers and listeners know what the reporters mean. Isn’t that all that really matters? No autopsy; no foul. Language is about communicating meaning, not adhering to rules. True. However, aside from my own unreasonable expectation of excellence from news media I have another concern. This one is not about harmless misuse of language.

Mass media change reality. Debates are won most often by the side that can control the language used in that debate. Remember, for example, that decades ago the two opposing forces in one still-ongoing debate were “pro abortion” and “anti-abortion”, not the more euphemistic and misleading “pro choice” and “pro life”. Control of language, for many major issues of the day, is in the hands of the people who control the media. This is not news. Propaganda has been based on this simple fact for decades. So, while “beg the question”, “hopefully” and others like them might not be worth getting upset about, the same creeping distortion of meaning through mass media usage can in some cases be sinister. One in-progress example is profound. I use it, not to express any opinions about the subject matter, which opinions I will no doubt get into in a later post, but to illustrate what I see as the danger of sloppy, irresponsible, use of language by the media. The example: antisemitic /antisemitism.

The meaning of “antisemitic” couldn’t be simpler: “jew-hating”. But observe carefully to how the term is now used widely. Over the past few years it has taken on a new meaning. “Anti-Israel” and “anti-Israeli government policy” statements are now routinely described as “antisemitic” by supporters of the country and its policies. I have yet to hear of one of those supporters or apologists being taken to task or corrected by interviewers or newscasters for their abuse of language. It is now even offered as a definition in one dictionary. (I cannot remember which dictionary that is but will track it down and post it here.) This is not amusing. When even objective, scholarly works such as “The Israel Lobby” by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt can be dismissed out of hand by waving the “antisemitic” wand at them one must fear that the debate is over, or more accurately, that no debate is even possible.

Agree with it or not, public airways are just that - the property of the public. The Rupert Murdochs of the world have stewardship, not ownership, of them and it carries with it obligations. Chief among them should be uncompromising accuracy in language, methinks.

Words matter.

The next time you meet a print or broadcast journalist, ask him or her what “beg the question” means. If they don’t know, hopefully you will punch them in the nose for me. Thanks.