One thing that's often struck me about American English is that long words quite often seem to be preferred to shorter alternatives that are more likely to be used by British speakers of English.
One example I've heard in the last half hour is 'elevator', when Brits would go in a 'lift'. Another is 'expiration', when we woild settle for the shorter 'expiry'.
Is there any evidence that longer options are more frequently used in American English, and, if so, why should this be?
Virgin mile-high poetry
Today, I’m going to the USA for a week and have deliberately chosen to fly with Virgin, rather than the other airlines that fly to Los Angeles.
It’s nearly 25 years since I first went across the Atlantic on a Virgin flight – at a time when the upstart airline only had one leased Boeing 747-200 that spent all its time going backwards and forwards between Gatwick and Newark.
The prohibitive cost of advertising throughout the whole of the USA also prompted the airline's founder to embark on a series of stunts, like crossing the Atlantic in a speed boat, that attracted huge amounts of (free) publicity on American TV news networks.
Right from the start, Richard Branson knew exactly how much it would cost him to hand the plane back to Boeing if the venture didn’t work out. He also had the benefit of a couple of top tips from Freddie Laker, whose transatlantic Skytrain business had only recently collapsed.
One was that the Boeing 747-200 would be a better bet than the DC10s used by Skytrain, because the Boeings were big enough to bring in extra revenue by carrying cargo as well as passengers.
The other was not to concentrate on the backpacker end of the market, as Skytrain had done, but to cater for business passengers too.
So the upstairs deck in the early Virgin flights to Newark were set aside for the cheekily named ‘Upper Class’, which was soon attracting enough customers for it to be extended into the front section of the main deck as well.
It was helped along by two neat marketing ploys. One was summed up in the slogan ‘fist class quality at business class prices’, and the other was that Upper Class passengers were handed a plain brown envelope during the flight, in which there was a free coach-class ticket for another flight across the Atlantic.
On one occasion, I sat next to an English stockbroker who was working in New York. As his company let him decide on which airline to use for his regular transatlantic trips, there was no contest – he always flew on Virgin because the free ticket meant that both his parents were flying with him (for nothing and not for the first time) in the back of the plane.
In those early days, Virgin made a real effort to run Upper Class like a club, with a games area and a bottomless bar where you could go and chat to the itinerant rock 'n roll groups for whom Virgin had already become the airline of choice.
As you’d expect in a club, there was also a visitors’ book, in which customers' comments heaped at least as much praise on Virgin as the scorn they poured on British Airways and other competitors.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, one of the entries is still stuck firmly in my mind, and confirms yet again how effective simple poetic techniques like rhythm, rhyme and/or assonance can be, whether you’re writing a speech, a presentation or a comment in Virgin Atlantic's visitors’ book.
It was at a time when Britain’s (then) second biggest airline, the long-since defunct British Caledonian, was running TV commercials that showed air hostesses in kilts dancing along the aisle to entertain passengers – which must have inspired one wag to compose the following ditty for the Upper Class visitors’ book:
'B-Cal girls are all very fine
But give me a virgin every time.'
(Until 8th May, Virgin permitting, I’ll be in the USA, from where I hope to be able to carry on putting posts on the blog – but don’t be surprised if there’s a slight reduction in output during the next week).
Joanna Lumley's rhetoric outshines Clegg and Cameron
In a previous posting, I suggested that actors, with the notable exception of Ronald Reagan, aren’t always very effective speech-makers.
But yesterday, we saw actress and Gurkha justice campaigner Joanna Lumley showing two party leaders the virtues of brevity and enthusiasm when it comes to delivering a highly sound bite (rounded off with a nice simple three-part list):
LUMLEY: When it came through – we saw it on the screen in the corner I can’t tell you the sense of elation, the sense of pride: pride in our country, pride in the democratic system, pride in our parliament…
By comparison, the reactions of Messrs Clegg and Cameron came across as rather long-winded and their impact was arguably weakened by their eagerness to use the victory to get other political points across:
CLEGG: It's a victory for the rights of Gurkhas who have been waiting for so long for justice. It's a victory for Parliament over a government that just wasn't prepared to listen. But actually the biggest victory of all... it's a victory of decency. It's the kind of thing that I think people want this country to do - that we pay back our obligations, our debt of gratitude towards generations of Gurkhas who have laid their lives on the line for our safety. I'm immensely pleased that David Cameron and I have been able to work on this together, that Labour backbenchers have also been brave enough to vote with their consciences. It was a cross-party effort. It was a great, great day for everybody who believes in fairness and decency in this country.
CAMERON: Today is an historic day where Parliament took the right decision, that the basic presumption that people who fight for our country should have a right to come and live in our country has been set out very clearly. And the government now have got to come back with immediate proposals, so that those Gurkhas that have been waiting so long now for an answer can have that answer. It can be done. We've set out a way for it to be done that doesn't ruin our immigration system and it should be done. And I think everyone should say congratulations to Joanna Lumley for the incredible campaign that she's fought, with all these brave Gurkhas, some of them very old and very infirm, coming to Parliament again and again. The government attempted a shoddy deal today to try and buy off some of their backbenchers. And I'm proud of the fact that it didn't work and I'm proud of all those Labour MPs who joined us in the lobby - and actually got the right result for Britain and the Gurkhas.
But yesterday, we saw actress and Gurkha justice campaigner Joanna Lumley showing two party leaders the virtues of brevity and enthusiasm when it comes to delivering a highly sound bite (rounded off with a nice simple three-part list):
LUMLEY: When it came through – we saw it on the screen in the corner I can’t tell you the sense of elation, the sense of pride: pride in our country, pride in the democratic system, pride in our parliament…
By comparison, the reactions of Messrs Clegg and Cameron came across as rather long-winded and their impact was arguably weakened by their eagerness to use the victory to get other political points across:
CLEGG: It's a victory for the rights of Gurkhas who have been waiting for so long for justice. It's a victory for Parliament over a government that just wasn't prepared to listen. But actually the biggest victory of all... it's a victory of decency. It's the kind of thing that I think people want this country to do - that we pay back our obligations, our debt of gratitude towards generations of Gurkhas who have laid their lives on the line for our safety. I'm immensely pleased that David Cameron and I have been able to work on this together, that Labour backbenchers have also been brave enough to vote with their consciences. It was a cross-party effort. It was a great, great day for everybody who believes in fairness and decency in this country.
CAMERON: Today is an historic day where Parliament took the right decision, that the basic presumption that people who fight for our country should have a right to come and live in our country has been set out very clearly. And the government now have got to come back with immediate proposals, so that those Gurkhas that have been waiting so long now for an answer can have that answer. It can be done. We've set out a way for it to be done that doesn't ruin our immigration system and it should be done. And I think everyone should say congratulations to Joanna Lumley for the incredible campaign that she's fought, with all these brave Gurkhas, some of them very old and very infirm, coming to Parliament again and again. The government attempted a shoddy deal today to try and buy off some of their backbenchers. And I'm proud of the fact that it didn't work and I'm proud of all those Labour MPs who joined us in the lobby - and actually got the right result for Britain and the Gurkhas.
The Turnip Prize
If you’ve ever been baffled by the Turner Prize, you’re likely to find the annual Turnip Prize, keenly competed for by amateur artists in the Somerset village of Wedmore, much more accessible and entertaining.
Recent years have seen entries such as Tea P (Used tea bags in the shape of a P), Flyin saucer (dead fly in a saucer) and Bunch of Marigolds (a posy of yellow rubber gloves).
Putting in 'too much effort' or framing a work of art are grounds for disqualification.
For more information, see HERE and HERE for a selection of past exhibits.
What’s the difference between a flu 'pandemic' and a flu 'epidemic'?
I got a pretty good grade in English ‘A’ level, have spent half my life studying how language actually works and have even managed to publish five books on the subject.
So it’s quite un-nerving to realise that I’m not at all sure what a ‘pandemic’ is, even though it was the only word used in the reports of ‘swine’ (why not ‘pig’) flu in last night’s BBC television news (and every other news report I've heard or read in the last few days).
In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the only person in the country who doesn’t know what it means, because journalists and broadcasters have taken to using the word ‘pandemic’ as if it’s perfectly obvious to everyone what a 'pandemic' is.
I definitely do know what an ‘epidemic’ is, because I had the misfortune to suffer from Asian flu during the Christmas holidays in 1957-8 – which I then had to pay for in hard labour, as one of the few ‘fags’ of my year fit enough to serve as a slave for the few prefects who were still well enough to need their shoes cleaning.
But I never heard anyone in the media or anywhere else use the word ‘pandemic’ at the time, and had never heard of it until a few years ago.
This has made me wonder if it’s yet another case of one word being replaced by another for no apparent reason – in the same way as journalists now insist on telling us that something is happening ‘ahead of’ rather than ‘before’ something else.
Dictionaries I’ve consulted haven’t been a lot of help, and the best I’ve been able to come up with so far is that a ‘pandemic’ seems to be an epidemic that spreads across more than one country.
Does this mean that the Asian flu ‘epidemic’ in the Winter of 1957-8, which certainly wasn’t confined to the UK, was in fact a ‘pandemic’?
If so, why didn’t anyone say so in 1957-8?
More to the point, can anyone explain to me why today’s media prefer the word 'pandemic' to ‘epidemic.’?
Or is it just that ‘pandemic’ sounds much more serious than 'epidemic' and makes the story sound more sensational?
So it’s quite un-nerving to realise that I’m not at all sure what a ‘pandemic’ is, even though it was the only word used in the reports of ‘swine’ (why not ‘pig’) flu in last night’s BBC television news (and every other news report I've heard or read in the last few days).
In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m the only person in the country who doesn’t know what it means, because journalists and broadcasters have taken to using the word ‘pandemic’ as if it’s perfectly obvious to everyone what a 'pandemic' is.
I definitely do know what an ‘epidemic’ is, because I had the misfortune to suffer from Asian flu during the Christmas holidays in 1957-8 – which I then had to pay for in hard labour, as one of the few ‘fags’ of my year fit enough to serve as a slave for the few prefects who were still well enough to need their shoes cleaning.
But I never heard anyone in the media or anywhere else use the word ‘pandemic’ at the time, and had never heard of it until a few years ago.
This has made me wonder if it’s yet another case of one word being replaced by another for no apparent reason – in the same way as journalists now insist on telling us that something is happening ‘ahead of’ rather than ‘before’ something else.
Dictionaries I’ve consulted haven’t been a lot of help, and the best I’ve been able to come up with so far is that a ‘pandemic’ seems to be an epidemic that spreads across more than one country.
Does this mean that the Asian flu ‘epidemic’ in the Winter of 1957-8, which certainly wasn’t confined to the UK, was in fact a ‘pandemic’?
If so, why didn’t anyone say so in 1957-8?
More to the point, can anyone explain to me why today’s media prefer the word 'pandemic' to ‘epidemic.’?
Or is it just that ‘pandemic’ sounds much more serious than 'epidemic' and makes the story sound more sensational?
Oxford professor models jeans
Here’s a short clip from a TED lecture by Oxford mathematician Professor Peter Donnelly, who does important work in genetics.
Rhetorically speaking, it’s a nice example of how effective a simple sequence of PUZZLE-SOLUTION-PUZZLE-SOLUTION can be (on which, of course, you can learn more in my books).
Rhetorically speaking, it’s a nice example of how effective a simple sequence of PUZZLE-SOLUTION-PUZZLE-SOLUTION can be (on which, of course, you can learn more in my books).
A great source of videos for anyone interested in speaking and presentation
While preparing for a visit to the University of Michigan, I was directed by one of my hosts to a fantastic source of free videos of lectures by a range of distinguished experts who speak about quite complicated subjects, mostly in a very accessible way.
If you don’t know it already, I’d strongly recommend a visit to TED – where you might like to start by watching Professor Peter Donnelly, an Oxford mathematician, who makes probability theory sound far more fascinating than anyone who ever tried to teach me maths or statistics.
The website introduces TED as follows:
TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.
The annual conference now brings together the world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).
This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week. These videos are released under a Creative Commons license, so they can be freely shared and reposted.
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