Language usage and misusage

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

Samuel Johnson 1709–1784

Modern languages are constantly undergoing change due to common usage, mainly in their spoken form. Nowadays, the rate of change is increased by the rapid developments in technology and the expansion in all types of communication. At the same time, the ease of present-day travel has enabled a commonality of understanding of the same language spoken in different regions of a country, different countries, and different continents.

Some present-day word usage jangles the nerves of the older generation like chalk screeching on a blackboard; for example, the redundancy of the preposition “of” following the prepositions “off”, “outside”, and “inside”, as in “getting off of a bus”; the use of “good” rather than “well” to modify a verb, as in “done good” “played good” and “swam good”; and the use of the adjectival rather than the adverbial form to modify a verb, as in “act natural” “stand natural” “walk natural” rather than “..... naturally.” Just as there is usually a better verb to use than “get,” so in the laboratory and clinical context, there is a better verb to use than “perform.” Misusages that seem to be creeping into present-day speech and writing are the use of “more” and “most” rather than adding “er” and “est” to form the comparative and superlative of one-syllable adjectives, for example, more clear rather than clearer; and the use of the plural possessive personal pronoun relating back to a singular antecedent; for example, the client was concerned about their dog. Perhaps this latter practice is attributable to a desire to be genderally correct without using the cumbersome “her or his”.

Since the purpose of language is communication, groups of people with the same or similar vocations or occupations develop their own vocabulary and style of oral and written communication, which may be somewhat unintelligible to those outside the group.

In the medical sciences, there is a basic vocabulary and form of communication that is understood by all who have been trained in these sciences, but it needs to be used correctly; for example, to modify an entire limb rather than a part or segment of it with “proximal” or “distal” is incorrect and indicates a misunderstanding of the meaning of the words, leading to their misuse. In addition, there is the oral and written communication developed among people within particular disciplines or specialties. This specialized talk and writing comes about from a desire to be as brief as possible, consistent with being understood, orally and in written matter, so abbreviated verbalizing, acronyms, and other means of abbreviating are used.

Many people write as they speak, which can be enlivening, but is generally not encouraged in scientific writing. The introduction of specialized talk into writings may be acceptable if the writing is for the edification of people with the same interests or training, but it makes for difficult or unintelligible reading for those who are not. For example, molecular biologists may use the abbreviations for nucleotides without further explanation when writing for a journal of molecular biology, but when writing for a catholic journal with readers of varying backgrounds, they need to be spelled out. The clinician may write in the medical history that “blood work was done” or “a sample was sent for bacteriology,” knowing that coworkers will understand what is meant, but when recording the history for publication, this is not acceptable and detailed scientific information has to be provided.

Veterinary scientists and professionals seem to have a penchant for the stacking of multiple nouns (or adjectives) to modify a single noun. This is another form of abbreviated talk that creeps into writings. The practice may be readily comprehensible to those familiar with the topic but is less so to those who are not. For example, writing that the steer prophylactic antimicrobial neck injection-site muscle lesion database (cum grano salis!) may save about 8 words over the expanded sentence, but it causes the reader to pause to unravel the words and, therefore, is to be discouraged in its extreme form. They also like to save words and “cover the bases” with the use of “and/or.” This also is to be discouraged, particularly in scientific writing, because it can be confusing. For example, if the following item were on the breakfast menu — steak, eggs (2), bacon, sausages, and/or hashed brown potatoes — I venture to guess that the table server would be asked for clarification.

Scientists and professionals are prone to verbalize nouns, and even adjectives. A few years back, “necropsy” and “biopsy” were nouns only; nowadays, due to popular demand, no doubt, they are also verbs. “Ultrasound,” “microchip,” and “aliquot” have not yet reached that status, so it is still incorrect to ultrasound or microchip a dog, or aliquot a solution.

Another common carry-over from talk into writing is the “mixing of apples with oranges,” as when diseases and the agents of disease are grouped together in the same context; for example, vaccination against canine distemper, hepatitis, adenovirus type 2, parainfluenza, and parvovirus. Along the same lines is the equating of the causal agent of a disease with the disease, as in experimentally infecting sheep with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (1).

Other readers have brought examples of word misusage to our attention (2,3) and numerous books have been written on the topic, some with considerable humor (4,5).

This editorial may be seen by some as an example of “the pot calling the kettle black,” and they would be right, for errare humanum est!