Language: the Gift that Keeps on Gifting by Griselda Heppel

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Apparently I had an idea for this month’s post, inspired by fellow AE writer Peter Leyland’s thoughtful musings on how powerful poetry can be in evoking lost friendships and past times, Looking Forward, Looking Back. Unfortunately whatever it was, I’ve forgotten it. Perhaps my theme for his month should be amnesia. 

New Year's resolutions... for others.





Instead, as it is yet early in the year, I shall make some resolutions for 2025. 

Oh no, not for me. 

I wish to make them on behalf of journalists, editors, all kinds of writers and in fact, anybody who occasionally puts pen to paper. I have several targets in mind but they all boil down to one thing: please, all of you, write words as they are meant to be used, not how you think they should be. Honestly, no one actually speaks like that. Or at least, they used not to, before you blazed the trail. 

Sorry for gifting you influenza.


1. GIVE. A perfectly nice, useful verb that has been with us since language began. 
Present gifting.


We give each other presents at Christmas, or tickets to a concert, or money to a charity. Suddenly ‘give’ isn’t good enough, it seems, and must be replaced with ‘gift’, its noun. Why? Is it because we can also give each other influenza, or a book to read, we can give way, or in, or up or any amount of other things, that when it’s a question of a precious item, it has to be gifted (which till now only meant endowed with great talent)? As if ‘give’ just hasn’t as much value as ‘gift’, though it means exactly the same and has the advantage of being grammatically correct. 

Years ago a friend explained the hideous ‘obligate’ to me as being needed in official usage because ‘oblige’ (which does the job perfectly well) is only fit for social, costume drama situations, as in ‘I’m much obliged to you, kind sir’. It looks as if giving/gifting is going the same way. 

2. MAY/MIGHT. I know I’ve banged on about this before but it really matters for meaning. Consider this sentence: 

If my brother found help, he may not have died. 

‘May’ in this context, is open, providing hope. My brother may still be alive, we don’t know for sure. 

But in newspapers now, the opposite is meant ie If my brother had found help, he might not have died. Since no help was forthcoming, he’s dead. If ‘may’ now denotes certainty in the past tense, what’s left to show uncertainty? 

3. WHO/WHOM. I despair of this one. Here's an example:

The woman fled from the man whom she feared was about to attack her. 

Take out the phrase indicating reported speech, she feared, and it becomes whom was about to attack her. Obviously wrong but no newspaper editor, no, not even the so-called upmarket ones, is able to see this. 

Never underestimate a mother's protective instinct.






4. UNDERESTIMATE. Listen, if you write:

A female elephant's protective instinct for her young cannot be underestimated

you’re not saying what you think you are. On a safari this might matter very much. The word you’re looking for is ‘overestimate’. You’re welcome. 

There you are, journalists and newspaper editors, your New Year’s resolutions. Fixed them for you.


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