![]() The misconception is so common that it has been given a name: the etymological fallacy. That’s why they insist, for example, that transpire can only mean ‘become known’, not ‘take place’ (since it initially meant ‘release vapour’, from the Latin spirare, ‘breathe’), and that decimate can only mean ‘killing one in ten’ (since it originally described the execution of every tenth soldier in a mutinous Roman legion). Many purists maintain that the only correct sense of a word is the original one. In their zeal to purify usage and safeguard the language, they have made it difficult to think clearly about felicity in expression and have muddied the task of explaining the art of writing. ![]() But the writers I have in mind are the purists –also known as sticklers, pedants, peevers, snobs, snoots, nit-pickers, traditionalists, language police, usage nannies, grammar Nazis and the Gotcha! Gang. Who are these writers? You might think I’m referring to Twittering teenagers or Facebooking freshmen. For these writers, language is not a vehicle for clarity and grace but a way to signal their membership in a social clique. Too lazy to crack open a dictionary, they are led by gut feeling and intuition rather than attention to careful scholarship. They have a tin ear for its nuances of meaning and emphasis. These writers are incurious about the logic and history of the English language and the ways in which it has been used by its exemplary stylists. There is a kind of writer who makes issues of usage impossible to ignore. It’s not hard to see how these worries arose. Their concern is correct usage – rules of proper English such as these: the word less may not be used for countable items a modifier may not contain a dangling participle the verb aggravate does not mean ‘annoy’, it means ‘make worse.’ They write books and articles deploring it, fire off letters to the editor and call in to radio talk shows with their criticisms and complaints. Many people have strong opinions on the quality of language today.
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