Glenn's Gripes 1 An occasional series

The Bournemouth Council.

My dear friend Geoff Gillespie, recently drew my attention to this article about the Bournemouth Council. It’s from the Telegraph by Chris Hastings, Public Affairs Editor, 02 Nov 2008 (yeah I know it's late - shaddap and read).

Local authorities have ordered employees to stop using the words and phrases on documents and when communicating with members of the public and to rely on wordier alternatives instead.

The ban has infuriated classical scholars who say it is diluting the world's richest language and is the "linguistic equivalent of ethnic cleansing".

Bournemouth Council, which has the Latin motto Pulchritudo et Salubritas, meaning beauty and health, has listed 19 terms it no longer considers acceptable for use.

This includes bona fide, eg (exempli gratia), prima facie, ad lib or ad libitum, etc or et cetera, ie or id est, inter alia, NB or nota bene, per, per se, pro rata,quid pro quo, vis-a-vis, vice versa and even via.

Its list of more verbose alternatives, includes "for this special purpose", in place of ad hoc and "existing condition" or "state of things", instead of status quo.

In instructions to staff, the council said: "Not everyone knows Latin. Many readers do not have English as their first language so using Latin can be particularly difficult."

Well what can I say? This raises several issues.

Firstly, surely the councils of England should be employing people whose first language is English to start off with and if not, then they should be made to learn it. I live in Japan and I can guarantee you that no one on a council here does not speak fluent Japanese whatever there, colour, race or religion. It’s a simple, probably the most basic requisite of being elected to council that you understand all the people of that you represent and have voted for you and if the predominant language in that area is English, they have to know it. The council is quoted as saying ‘Many readers do not have English as their first language’. This intrigues me: exactly how many? Considering the population of Bournemouth is below 150,000 I can’t imagine there being that many on the council to begin with.

Secondly, if by same amazing miracle I was elected to any governmental position and I received a memo with a few words that I didn’t understand, I would either a) ask someone what it meant or b) consult the good old Oxford English Dictionary. I presume it is still available in Bournemouth. May I be so bold as to suggest that the council invest in copy?

Lastly, this is Latin, yes but it is actually part of the English language so much so that we use at as English and not as Latin. In fact as we all know, English is highly derived from Latin and therefore has a right to be in there far more than words that have appeared there in the last one hundred years or so and as Mr. Hastings points out, the very motto of the council is Latin: are they going to change that as well?

If we let this go, where do we stop? Do we start to take all the French words such as à la carte, reconnaissance, Grand Prix and sabotage? Do we remove the German words Kindergarten, poltergeist and angst? Is it time to dispose of some of those daft Celtic words such as gob, crockery, bucket and gaol? Tell you what, while we’re on Celtic, lets change all the names of the places in England from tor, coombe and pen to rock, valley and hill so that those poor things in Bournemouth Council can understand where they live.

The topic of this article has not only infuriated classical scholars it’s infuriated me and should infuriate anyone who feels that their heritage is under threat in their home country in any way. I accept that all languages evolve, probably none more so than English but it should happen naturally, not unnecessarily and this is unnecessary. We should not be deleting words because people don’t understand them, we should be educating them as the meaning of those words. It’s a sad fact but true that a similar thing happens in America. The title of the first Harry Potter book was changed from ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ to ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’ because it was felt that American children would not understand the word philosopher. Well English children did or if they didn’t, they certainly do now having read the book and what scares me a little here is that Americans children may never know the word Philosopher and if it’s going to be deleted I guess it’s time to delete Prophet, Visionary, Seer and Sage as well.

The original title for the Bond film ‘Licence to Kill’ was ‘Licence Revoked’ but again America stepped in and had it changed because they felt that their citizens would not understand the word revoked. This is ridiculous. Americans have the Webster’s dictionary and although some of the words have a slightly different spelling they are all in there and besides, it was an original title of a Fleming story and it never stopped sales. Really, honestly, can you tell me one instance where you didn’t go and see a film other than it being in a foreign language where you didn’t go and see it because you didn’t understand the title? Of course not and it won’t in the future because given half a chance, unless we put a stop to this (so eloquently put) linguistic ethnic cleansing, all film titles will be monosyllabic and the residents of Bournemouth will be voting for someone who can’t represent them verbally in Parliament.

Sermo datur cunctis; animi sapientia paucis

(Speech is given to many; intelligence to few)