The WordSmith - A Matter of Character

The WordSmith

by Darin M. Bush

A Matter of Character

I hope you caught my article on priestly language. I discussed jargon, and how it can hurt your speech. What about the opposite? What about plain language? Well, maybe it is not the opposite, but I am at a loss for words. I am searching for a word for something we all know, but do not usually describe. The timing is ironic, because that is also what this article is about: describing mundane things accurately, especially in a speech. This is different from jargon, which describes the unusual, the complicated, or the secretive. We are talking about putting a name to normal, ordinary things. Take for example Arabic numbers and Roman letters.

Arabic numbers, e.g.: 1, 2, 3, usually require no introduction. We all use them. Contrast this with Roman numbers, e.g.: I, V, X, which we all dreaded in school. In the 6th to 10th centuries, Arabia controlled most of Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. (If you use The Wordsmith to study for tests, you are on your own.) Ships were crucial to trade, politics, and keeping order. Arab scholars invented the astrolabe (early GPS – sort of?) and greatly improved the science and technology of sailing and navigating. Just as the Internet demands copper wire, so too the Arabian empire demanded sophisticated mathematics. Their math once dominated (denominated?) half the population of Earth. It follows that it survived, and today is the standard method of writing numbers.

However, we use Roman letters, not Arabic, for our written language. The Arabs filled a niche left by the Romans, who had similarly cornered the market on land for centuries. For some reason, best left to historians, the Arabs did not conquer the language of the Romans. The Romans were famous (and infamous) for bringing Rome with them everywhere. They brought their culture, art, religion, architecture, and philosophy. They also brought their language. That language, once spoken from Manchester to Morocco to Mesopotamia, was Latin. This is important to The Wordsmith because over 55% of English comes from Latin. It makes sense we would adopt the easiest alphabet available: the one already being used. Latin used the Roman alphabet, and now so do we.

So what? Well, that question is plain enough. If you are speaking on history, science, archaeology, math, astronomy, or (gasp) language, you might choose to differentiate between two sets of words or numbers. For instance, at some point, Coke had to figure out how to completely change the way they printed materials for Japan, where their characters (Kanji) are nothing like our Roman letters. It sounds ethnocentric to say Coke had to change from using ‘regular letters’. To the Japanese, Kanji is the regular letters. You sound more convincing and less insulting to say Coke had to change from Roman letters. Furthermore, can you imagine if we got Arabic and Roman numbers confused? Disney’s 'CI Dalmatians' just does not roll off the tongue. What about that TV show ‘XXX Something’? Words can not describe the calamity.

Questions? Suggestions? Sail an email over to me at the Tourette Tiger

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