Is it just Zenglish?

Over the past decade or two, there has emerged into the popular parlance a slough of word variations which are cute, unnecessary, obscure and often simply wrong. Some of these are amusing; some quite inane. Most appear to arise from a cute twist, escaping a jumbled grasp of the English lexicon, to a fatuous flirtation with the sound of a word, unrelated to its actual meaning.

A word most notable in this regard is probably iconic, the adjective form of the noun icon. The word descends from classical Greek through Latin basically unchanged into English. An icon is an image, either visual or imagined, that represent a person, spirit, or even just an actionable abstraction which when appealed to is inhabited by that person, spirit or concept. The icon itself becomes a proxy of that which it represents and allows the viewer to commune with that which is being viewed. Think of it as something like the image of a face on a video link, not the actual person, but an in-person proxy image. Apple got it right when it introduced icons to their Macintosh computer screen. Touch it with your proxy-finger – clicking the mouse cursor – and it connects you to an interactive program. The word is ‘classy’ as it comes from ancient languages and sounds erudite, and it’s trendy as it emerges from Apple’s magical appeal. So, how can one “experience an iconic river journey”? American news has certainly taken the bait.

The poor man has been reduced to a wooden triptych or perhaps a moss-covered statue? Well, he did play for the Lakers, a team name recognizing Los Angeles, the city of Lakes. Wait – what lakes? Words can deceive.

Language is a living thing. It has grown, merged, shed its tired and ignored parts altogether, and it has added words from without and within. Such contortions of the language, such as the one above, typically arise from generational slang, the secret, rebellious language of youth. In the forties and fifties, we played adolescent games with spelling. Quick became kwik, in a time of expansion and relative wealth when time was precious, speed was valued, and shorthand was the common. Also, this must have seemed cute and clever. In the sixties and seventies, we capture phrases from film, television, and cultural vernaculars, often echoed in the film and television. The culture sets, civil rights, racial poverty, drug use and the Viet Nam War, emerged into public attention, and youth reacted to these social issues, as youth typically do, in their opinions and in their language. The eighties and nineties were the decades of rising consumerism and for youth with expectations for college or facing sidelining to grunt-work. Americans became more deeply class determined based on levels of education and income goals. We began to speak two languages and used them to solidify our identities.

Non-Standard English was left to vibrant “under classes,” and the privileged “educated” rallied around the Standard. Crossing over, the “standards” toyed with the patois of the “non-standards,” somewhat daringly playing with fire. Conversely, the “non-standards” saw the use of Standard English as uncool, even disloyal, as attempts at “passing.” This muddying of social dialects and 19^th century standards, as is apparent in this paragraph, is certainly characteristic of the vitality and growing pains of the language, and as English has evolved over the last millennium, our predecessors must have experienced this vitality and these growing pains as well. Words and phrases have been shifted or integrated into our usage well enough, but not always. Some have, thankfully, been expelled. Far out, man!

Here is an example of a slightly famous shift:

         Normality => Normalcy

Normality has, for several centuries, meant a state of normal or typical conditions. President Harding campaigned on the phrase “Return to normalcy.” Normalcy is a term from 19^th century mathematics, as in right angles being “right.” Harding intended the word to refer to returning the country to its “normal” situation. A norm being a mathematical average, “normalcy” was perhaps intentional, in a governmental and social if not mathematical sense.

Well, Harding was a teacher briefly. Perhaps he chose the mathematical “normalcy” to seem more academic, or maybe his rather average educational experience left him unclear about the alternatives, and he went for the one that made him sound more electable. This writer has observed that the PBS New Hour has used “normalcy,” while DW News (Deutsche Welle news in English) routinely uses “normality.” Harding’s contribution then has been to American English, among his other contributions. Indeed, dictionaries in the U.K. and U.S.A. attribute normality to the Standard with normalcy to the American alternative. It’s all part of the story of our language.

Here is a challenge for readers: guess for yourselves which of the candidates below will survive the whimsy of the English language speaker. You may need to do a bit of research, but learning from research is many times more lasting than a read over.

1. How is a scion a reasonable name for an automobile?
2. What’s the meaningful difference between like and such as?
3. Where does plus come from, and why should it not be substituted for and or also? (Est-ce plus clair?)
4. Why would we say, “She was gifted a ring,” and not say, “She was given a ring?” (As a former teacher of nominally “gifted” students, it’s hard not to see this as one of their jokes on the world.)
5. Why would we say, “The representatives expensed large sums to statute restoration,” and not say, “The representatives allocated large sums to statute restoration?” Or, why would be say, “The businessman expensed grant funds on workers’ safety,” and not say, “The businessman spent grant funds on workers’ safety?” (This is Latinization for the sake of obfuscation, i.e., big words for bullshit.)

One thing can be said for all this: English can be no end of fun