After his indictment last week, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social, “These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America.”
We know he meant “indicted,” and that the typo is typical of his bed-head version of public language. However, on a certain level, one understands the cause of the slip. The “c” in “indict” is confusing because it’s silent, and there is a semantic overlap between indication and indictment — both are about pointing out, pronouncement. It’s because they began as highly similar Latin words with those meanings: “indict” from “indictare,” and “indicate” from “indicare.”
The sire of “indict,” “indictare,” lost its “c” in French, and that’s what Middle English borrowed to create “indite.” We still pronounce it closer to that way, but some underoccupied pedant around 1600 decided that the word needed to salute its history and have the Latin “c” jammed back in. It’s similar to the reason “island” isn’t spelled “iland.”
“Indicate” was borrowed centuries later than “indict,” directly from Latin, complete with that original “c.” Hence, we have variations on, essentially, the same Latin word. And on top of that, the word still exists in English with its original spelling: the word “indite,” which means “to put in writing.” Or at least the dictionary says so.
Is all of that mess really necessary? It’s ultimately a symptom of the unnaturalness of writing. Writing rankles me in endless ways despite the fact that my life and livelihoods are couched in it. I haven’t a shred of pity for Trump specifically, but if English were only spoken, the indict/indicate muddle would not have happened.
“Indict,” without its “c” confusing us on the page, would never be confused with “indicate.” Plus, without the permanence of writing to preserve in amber words long lost to living minds, there would be no zombie words like this “indite” word that props up, in fact, the earlier meaning of “indict” from several centuries ago. The dictionary is full of words like this, existing more as puckish abstractions than actual words. They remind me of the 32-inch-waist herringbone pants from the 1980s that I have never been able to bring myself to get rid of, along with my compass and my protractor.
And don’t get me onto the way randomness in writing starts jumping the rails into the way we think we’re supposed to pronounce things. I’m not aware of anyone saying “indict” with an audible “c.” But then, quite a few people feel that the “t” in “often” must be pronounced — despite the fact that no one would pronounce the “t” in “whistle” or “listen.”
Then there is the general idea that written varieties of language are the only “real” ones. It’s not only in English. A Sinhalese American once told me that she spoke Sinhalese but not “the real language.” She meant that written Sinhalese preserves much of the way the language was a very long time ago, while spoken Sinhalese has been allowed to undergo normal processes of language change. It’s as if we thought pronouncing “indict” as “in-dite” were a kind of everyday shorthand while the linguistically well-dressed person should say “in-dikt.”
Or the idea that Yiddish is dying is based on the fact that it isn’t used in writing as much as it once was, despite that in the United States alone about 200,000 people speak it. Our brains are “on writing,” and thus a language legions of children are being raised on decade after decade can seem moribund just because it lives in mouths rather than on paper.
Of course, writing spares the memory and allows for the amassing of vast quantities of information. Writing allows extended argument in a way that speech wields less easily. Many say writing focuses their thoughts; I am one of them. Writing can save time, too. I am mystified these days by how many organizations’ procedures require live phone and Zoom communication when the purpose would be served perfectly by a few quick volleys of email. And writing lends its own kinds of beauty.
But its arbitrary dictates too often make innocent people look dumb, especially when it comes to spelling and punctuation. I once saw a flier in a restaurant window advertising a lovely Valentine’s Day prix fixe meal for a reasonable price. However, because the owners were busy immigrants, their spelling wasn’t professional, and hence the flier advertised things like “stake,” “artichocks” and “chocolate mouse.” I happen to know from emails as well as a rather tragically under-edited book of his that a leftist literary lion I will leave unnamed is not great at spelling. In the book that unwittingly reveals it, this blunts the power and passion of his arguments despite having nothing to do with his intelligence.
Or: Since we write “the dog’s tail,” just why must we write “its tail” instead of “it’s tail”? And if the reason is to distinguish “its” from “it is,” then how often would context not make it instantly clear what we meant? This is a useless convention. Since the use of even a period can change in just 100 years or so, as I wrote about here, the new “Cinema’s First Nasty Women” DVD set of silent films includes a 1920 film that takes place in the Old West, where almost every building sign has a period after just a name or a description.
In my mind, speech is language; writing is a marvelous but frustrating and bug-ridden something else. A modest proposal: I wish spelling and punctuation rules were as loose as the way people actually play Monopoly or make recipes or dance, the way things were before standardization set in starting in the 16th century. If there are infinite ways to make Brunswick stew, then why must spelling and punctuation rules be so strict?
Imagine a world where those hard-working people’s Valentine’s Day menu wouldn’t be funny-looking; where it would be OK to say “it’s own way” just as you’d write “the girl’s own way” and nobody would put up with saying “indite” but writing “indict.” People could even write in their own dialects as long as there was no threat to clarity. It’d be the way we accept that people will spell names differently: Cornell or Cornel? John or Jon? Indite or indict? Imagine there being a choice!
It’s not going to happen, I know. Conservativity is baked into writing. It fetters the fleeting quality of speech into a static representation on the page, which, for all of its handiness, then develops conventions only vaguely connected with meaning or context, overshooting the requirements of clarity (looking at you, Oxford comma).
But because it’s all we ever know, even its dings and flubs feel somehow right. My brain is as hopelessly “on writing” as anyone else’s. I spend my life writing, and in an unguarded moment you might get me to admit that even I cringe a small bit inside when someone flouts the its/it’s or your/you’re rules. But goodness, so much of this orthographical etiquette is the product of random morphings and half-baked decisions piling up over time, and that’s ultimately what happened in Trump’s little eruption.
One last example: “Doubt” only has a “b” in it because somebody about 500 years ago decided the word needed to salute its Latin ancestor “dubitare.” Yet how many of us are up for respelling it as “dout”?
Don’t all talk at once!
Source: Read Full Article
Home » Analysis & Comment » Opinion | Why Does Written Language Have to Be So Particular?
Opinion | Why Does Written Language Have to Be So Particular?
After his indictment last week, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social, “These Thugs and Radical Left Monsters have just INDICATED the 45th President of the United States of America.”
We know he meant “indicted,” and that the typo is typical of his bed-head version of public language. However, on a certain level, one understands the cause of the slip. The “c” in “indict” is confusing because it’s silent, and there is a semantic overlap between indication and indictment — both are about pointing out, pronouncement. It’s because they began as highly similar Latin words with those meanings: “indict” from “indictare,” and “indicate” from “indicare.”
The sire of “indict,” “indictare,” lost its “c” in French, and that’s what Middle English borrowed to create “indite.” We still pronounce it closer to that way, but some underoccupied pedant around 1600 decided that the word needed to salute its history and have the Latin “c” jammed back in. It’s similar to the reason “island” isn’t spelled “iland.”
“Indicate” was borrowed centuries later than “indict,” directly from Latin, complete with that original “c.” Hence, we have variations on, essentially, the same Latin word. And on top of that, the word still exists in English with its original spelling: the word “indite,” which means “to put in writing.” Or at least the dictionary says so.
Is all of that mess really necessary? It’s ultimately a symptom of the unnaturalness of writing. Writing rankles me in endless ways despite the fact that my life and livelihoods are couched in it. I haven’t a shred of pity for Trump specifically, but if English were only spoken, the indict/indicate muddle would not have happened.
“Indict,” without its “c” confusing us on the page, would never be confused with “indicate.” Plus, without the permanence of writing to preserve in amber words long lost to living minds, there would be no zombie words like this “indite” word that props up, in fact, the earlier meaning of “indict” from several centuries ago. The dictionary is full of words like this, existing more as puckish abstractions than actual words. They remind me of the 32-inch-waist herringbone pants from the 1980s that I have never been able to bring myself to get rid of, along with my compass and my protractor.
And don’t get me onto the way randomness in writing starts jumping the rails into the way we think we’re supposed to pronounce things. I’m not aware of anyone saying “indict” with an audible “c.” But then, quite a few people feel that the “t” in “often” must be pronounced — despite the fact that no one would pronounce the “t” in “whistle” or “listen.”
Then there is the general idea that written varieties of language are the only “real” ones. It’s not only in English. A Sinhalese American once told me that she spoke Sinhalese but not “the real language.” She meant that written Sinhalese preserves much of the way the language was a very long time ago, while spoken Sinhalese has been allowed to undergo normal processes of language change. It’s as if we thought pronouncing “indict” as “in-dite” were a kind of everyday shorthand while the linguistically well-dressed person should say “in-dikt.”
Or the idea that Yiddish is dying is based on the fact that it isn’t used in writing as much as it once was, despite that in the United States alone about 200,000 people speak it. Our brains are “on writing,” and thus a language legions of children are being raised on decade after decade can seem moribund just because it lives in mouths rather than on paper.
Of course, writing spares the memory and allows for the amassing of vast quantities of information. Writing allows extended argument in a way that speech wields less easily. Many say writing focuses their thoughts; I am one of them. Writing can save time, too. I am mystified these days by how many organizations’ procedures require live phone and Zoom communication when the purpose would be served perfectly by a few quick volleys of email. And writing lends its own kinds of beauty.
But its arbitrary dictates too often make innocent people look dumb, especially when it comes to spelling and punctuation. I once saw a flier in a restaurant window advertising a lovely Valentine’s Day prix fixe meal for a reasonable price. However, because the owners were busy immigrants, their spelling wasn’t professional, and hence the flier advertised things like “stake,” “artichocks” and “chocolate mouse.” I happen to know from emails as well as a rather tragically under-edited book of his that a leftist literary lion I will leave unnamed is not great at spelling. In the book that unwittingly reveals it, this blunts the power and passion of his arguments despite having nothing to do with his intelligence.
Or: Since we write “the dog’s tail,” just why must we write “its tail” instead of “it’s tail”? And if the reason is to distinguish “its” from “it is,” then how often would context not make it instantly clear what we meant? This is a useless convention. Since the use of even a period can change in just 100 years or so, as I wrote about here, the new “Cinema’s First Nasty Women” DVD set of silent films includes a 1920 film that takes place in the Old West, where almost every building sign has a period after just a name or a description.
In my mind, speech is language; writing is a marvelous but frustrating and bug-ridden something else. A modest proposal: I wish spelling and punctuation rules were as loose as the way people actually play Monopoly or make recipes or dance, the way things were before standardization set in starting in the 16th century. If there are infinite ways to make Brunswick stew, then why must spelling and punctuation rules be so strict?
Imagine a world where those hard-working people’s Valentine’s Day menu wouldn’t be funny-looking; where it would be OK to say “it’s own way” just as you’d write “the girl’s own way” and nobody would put up with saying “indite” but writing “indict.” People could even write in their own dialects as long as there was no threat to clarity. It’d be the way we accept that people will spell names differently: Cornell or Cornel? John or Jon? Indite or indict? Imagine there being a choice!
It’s not going to happen, I know. Conservativity is baked into writing. It fetters the fleeting quality of speech into a static representation on the page, which, for all of its handiness, then develops conventions only vaguely connected with meaning or context, overshooting the requirements of clarity (looking at you, Oxford comma).
But because it’s all we ever know, even its dings and flubs feel somehow right. My brain is as hopelessly “on writing” as anyone else’s. I spend my life writing, and in an unguarded moment you might get me to admit that even I cringe a small bit inside when someone flouts the its/it’s or your/you’re rules. But goodness, so much of this orthographical etiquette is the product of random morphings and half-baked decisions piling up over time, and that’s ultimately what happened in Trump’s little eruption.
One last example: “Doubt” only has a “b” in it because somebody about 500 years ago decided the word needed to salute its Latin ancestor “dubitare.” Yet how many of us are up for respelling it as “dout”?
Don’t all talk at once!
Source: Read Full Article