Three not so little words

Now and then I am moved to remark on certain words I hear too much of on the radio, generally in news or current affairs programmes where a speaker is commenting on some situation, either carefully defending it, or making some criticism but trying not to be blunt. 

Here are three that I've noticed. They are not new words, nor slang words, just words that are in vogue at the moment. They niggle me a bit, partly because they are ponderous to say and sound pompous; partly because their meaning isn't at all obvious: I'm left guessing what the speaker is really saying. And in some cases, I wonder if he (it is usually a he) does in fact know what the precise meaning of the word is. You can't rely on that, of course. 

Disingenuous

My first reaction is: what does 'ingenuous' mean? If I say to you, 'Look, I'm going to be ingenuous' will you know what I mean? Will you think I'm mixing it up with 'ingenious' and that I should have said 'I'm going to be clever and inventive'? 

Well, I do have an authority to turn to. The Concise Oxford Dictionary - albeit the eighth (1990) edition, which of course isn't by any means the latest one. Still, educated speech hasn't changed so very much in the last thirty years. So, let's see...'ingenuous'. Oh! It's a real word all right, meaning (firstly) innocent, artless; and (secondly) open, frank. Well, who would guess that? 

So 'disingenuous' must mean the opposite. The COD in fact says it means 'having secret motives, insincere'. Well, the speakers who use this word generally seem to be making a negative comment on the utterances of some politician, especially the current Prime Minister. So it's an accurate use of language, at least from their point of view.

I'll have to get off my high horse. The COD has spoken. It's a proper word with a proper meaning, and one that's bang on where senior politicians are concerned. I will still declare that most of the population - even well-educated types - would not use 'disingenuous' unless they hailed from Euphemism City and had no fear of sounding obscure. A phrase like 'less than fully honest' puts things in a much clearer way. But then I don't suppose a political commentator wants to be too transparent. Words like this fudge things nicely. 

Egregious

You do wonder whether this word - whose pronunciation (Grammarians! Is the use of 'whose' right here?) isn't at all obvious - has anything to do with 'gregarious', meaning 'liking a lot of company'. What is the COD definiton? Well, well. The COD says it means 'outstandingly bad'. Again, the speakers who use this word generally seem to be making a negative comment on the performance of some politician, especially the current Prime Minister. So once again it's an accurate use of language, at least from their point of view. 

This time I'm much more prepared to stand by my guns and let loose a fusillade. This word is merely a fancy way of saying 'guilty of shockingly poor performance', and it seems even more obviously a word that a political person might hide behind. Poor Boris! I'm sure he would much prefer plain speech, not a weasel word like this. For if challenged the speaker can always say, 'Oh silly me, I meant - of course - gregarious'. Which is also true of our cultured and affable PM. 

Eponymous

The 'nym' part of this word gives away the notion that it's about naming something. Beyond that, I've been clueless until quite recently, when I finally twigged that 'eponymous' meant 'named after a person'. Thus Rubik and his eponymous Cube, Noah and his eponymous Ark, Boyle and his eponymous Law, Churchill and his eponymous Square, and Magellan and his eponymous Strait. Rather than saying, 'Magallan and the Strait named after him'. The COD defines what an 'eponym' is: 'a person (real or imaginary) after whom a discovery, invention, place, institution, etc is named or thought to be named'. Then it lists 'eponymous' as the derived adjective - how you would describe such a discovery, invention, place, institution, etc. 

Lucy Melford and her eponymous Blog? 

When starting work at the office back in 1970, we were all advised to copy the style of Sir Ernest Gowers, who advocated Plain English. And it was severely plain. So no 'Dear Sirs, Thank you for your esteemed epistle of the twenty-ninth inst' at the start, or 'Your obedient civil servant' at the end. It was to be utterly brief and straight to the point: 'Gentlemen, I have your letter.' On the whole, Sir Ernest was absolutely right, although nobody actually went on to correspond with the public, or send a written submission to a Head Office specialist, in quite such terse language. 

Me, I tended towards the picturesque and fragrant in my early tax office letters. There was one letter I wrote to a Southampton accountant, in which I alluded to the 'extreme chagrin' his client might be feeling about a delayed tax repayment that was then (June 1971) being considered by the Chief Inspector (Claims). I still have the letter. I can't remember what he'd claimed for - cat allowance, who knows - but I put that in my letter and cheerfully signed it. But it didn't get past my group leader, who had a quiet word with me with a smile on his face. He explained that the dreaded Management Inspector (his boss - the next person up the chain of command) might think me disingenuous, and the letter thoroughly egregious...could I rewrite it? I obliged with the greatest good humour. But for some time afterwards, Lucy and her eponymous letter was the talk of the office, for nobody knew what 'extreme chagrin' was, and they all thought it must be a very nasty disease indeed. 

I always had them reaching for their dictionaries. It was a bad habit of mine. Modern users of needlessly exotic words, take note.