It's Friday, so it must be time for a rant
Today's word is 'Pedantry', which is somehow apt. OK, so I choose the word of the day each day and can make it whatever I want, but it's still apt.
I've been having a bit of a barney in the comments section over at ACG's blog, particularly concerning her use of a certain word. Now, I know that she's a busy person and doesn't bother to proof-read her postings. Many people don't, and generally it doesn't matter to me. As long as the content is interesting, I'll keep reading.
It's true that I like to check my own writing obsessively, in much the same way as I have to clean the sink after I've done the washing up, or scrape every last grain of rice out of the saucepan onto the plate. These are my crosses and I'll bear them without complaining. I don't expect anyone else to take the same burden on themselves. Misspellings, grammatical errors or even stylistic inconsistencies are not my problem with ACG's postings (some would say they are all part of her charm).
No, what I can abide is the use of the verb 'obligate'. Particularly in the sense of 'I was obligated to do it.'
Why? I hear you ask. It's in the Oxford Dictionary and Webster's: transitive verb, meaning 'to bind legally or morally (to constrain)' or 'to commit (as funds) to meet an obligation'. Its etymology is from the Latin 'obligatus', the past participle of 'obligare', meaning 'to oblige' (itself derived from 'ob' - towards, and 'ligare' to bind, as in ligament, ligature etc.)
So far so good. What's the problem?
Well, you have a perfectly good verb 'oblige', from which has been derived a noun 'obligation' and two adjectives 'obligatory', meaning mandatory, binding or required, and 'obligate', which has a more specific, scientific use, meaning restricted to one characteristic as in 'obligate carnivore' or biologically essential for survival.
Somewhere along the line, 'obligate' has been used as a verb when 'oblige' should have been, and it's gone uncorrected for so long it has become commonplace enough to appear in dictionaries. This obviously happened a long time ago - my Oxford English Dictionary is a 1979 edition and it lists 'obligate' as a verb. But it still grates every time I hear it used in speech (George W is particularly fond of being obligated to do this that and the other, but I think I recall hearing President Tony say it recently) or read it in the papers.
Perhaps it's because it's such an ugly, awkward word, with that hard sound to it. Oblige softens at the end, taking the sting out of the onerous requirement. 'Much obliged' is a polite, if rather antiquated way of saying thankyou; obligation smacks of coercion and something you'd rather not have to do.
Certainly I've no problem with language developing and changing - the whole beauty of English is it's flexibility, the multiplicity of meanings any one word can carry. But making a verb out of a noun that has been itself derived from a verb is crass. Like the idiotic 'speechify' and any number of weird concoctions from the mouths of General Haig, James Danforth Quayle and many others (not all of them American, though that country does seem to have a way with words).
There are other examples of this, but I've gone on for long enough. What words misused or incorrectly extrapolated annoy you?
I've been having a bit of a barney in the comments section over at ACG's blog, particularly concerning her use of a certain word. Now, I know that she's a busy person and doesn't bother to proof-read her postings. Many people don't, and generally it doesn't matter to me. As long as the content is interesting, I'll keep reading.
It's true that I like to check my own writing obsessively, in much the same way as I have to clean the sink after I've done the washing up, or scrape every last grain of rice out of the saucepan onto the plate. These are my crosses and I'll bear them without complaining. I don't expect anyone else to take the same burden on themselves. Misspellings, grammatical errors or even stylistic inconsistencies are not my problem with ACG's postings (some would say they are all part of her charm).
No, what I can abide is the use of the verb 'obligate'. Particularly in the sense of 'I was obligated to do it.'
Why? I hear you ask. It's in the Oxford Dictionary and Webster's: transitive verb, meaning 'to bind legally or morally (to constrain)' or 'to commit (as funds) to meet an obligation'. Its etymology is from the Latin 'obligatus', the past participle of 'obligare', meaning 'to oblige' (itself derived from 'ob' - towards, and 'ligare' to bind, as in ligament, ligature etc.)
So far so good. What's the problem?
Well, you have a perfectly good verb 'oblige', from which has been derived a noun 'obligation' and two adjectives 'obligatory', meaning mandatory, binding or required, and 'obligate', which has a more specific, scientific use, meaning restricted to one characteristic as in 'obligate carnivore' or biologically essential for survival.
Somewhere along the line, 'obligate' has been used as a verb when 'oblige' should have been, and it's gone uncorrected for so long it has become commonplace enough to appear in dictionaries. This obviously happened a long time ago - my Oxford English Dictionary is a 1979 edition and it lists 'obligate' as a verb. But it still grates every time I hear it used in speech (George W is particularly fond of being obligated to do this that and the other, but I think I recall hearing President Tony say it recently) or read it in the papers.
Perhaps it's because it's such an ugly, awkward word, with that hard sound to it. Oblige softens at the end, taking the sting out of the onerous requirement. 'Much obliged' is a polite, if rather antiquated way of saying thankyou; obligation smacks of coercion and something you'd rather not have to do.
Certainly I've no problem with language developing and changing - the whole beauty of English is it's flexibility, the multiplicity of meanings any one word can carry. But making a verb out of a noun that has been itself derived from a verb is crass. Like the idiotic 'speechify' and any number of weird concoctions from the mouths of General Haig, James Danforth Quayle and many others (not all of them American, though that country does seem to have a way with words).
There are other examples of this, but I've gone on for long enough. What words misused or incorrectly extrapolated annoy you?
Comments
Any-who... it isn't so much that I'm busy, just lazy.
And I think what you have found here is the difference between England english and America english... we fuck everything up... we're obligated to.