A TV news report last week, about the availability of fruit pickers, went into some detail on seasonable workers. Which is utter nonsense and throws me into a funk over the training of reporters.
Seasonable is what we expect for the time of year. Seasonable weather, seasonable influx of tourists.
Seasonal means “depending on the season”. Fruit picking is seasonal. The sale of Easter eggs is seasonal. The report was about seasonal workers.
It should also have found a way to use the vernacular “git they berries picket, min” with a rural Angus accent, but that’s another matter altogether.
I enjoy a fine line between word meanings.
You and I do not have mutual friends, although we could have friends in common. “Mutual” is “acting in both directions in the same way at the same time”. You can have mutual regard or mutual attraction, but the word doesn’t fit a friend we both know.
A murder requires a post mortem examination, not just “a post mortem”. That’s just Latin for “after death”.
A classic is a film, song, or book recognised as high quality. The secondary meaning, “classic clothes, classic tastes” means simple and elegant. Classical refers to the language or art of ancient Greece or Rome, with a secondary meaning of “traditional, not modern”, as in classical music.
It is those secondary meanings which are mixed up, but should not be.
I often complain about words having meanings changed against their will. Notably decimate and epicentre.
Meticulous can be added to the list. It means unnecessarily careful or fussy and wasn’t intended as praise. Now it means exact or precise, and has turned into a compliment.
Similarly, evocative used to mean “raising memories or old emotions”. Now it just means “stirs up feelings” with the “old” nuance lost. I think this dilutes the word’s richness.
My niggliest niggle is though and although. There is no difference in meaning. But I think “although” is a stronger word. It gives a scintilla more emphasis. I’d always use “although” to start a sentence instead of though.
I insist words are used precisely.
In my first place of work, a newspaper’s hot metal caseroom, the iron principles of precision were hammered into apprentices like me on an anvil named “standards”. That discipline stood me in good stead the rest of my working life.
I don’t think razor-thin distinctions are taught any more. Anywhere. By anyone. Only the older among us care.
People now write or say any old tosh and think “the feels” of their statement gets their meaning across. They think I’m the foolish one for bothering about word definitions.
Word of the week
Scintilla (noun)
A minute particle; in the original Latin a tiny spark or glimmer of fire. EG: “There is but a scintilla of emphasis separating the words ‘though’ and ‘although’, but a useful and important one nevertheless.”
Read the latest Oh my word! every Saturday in The Courier. Contact me at sfinan@dctmedia.co.uk
