The constant changes in the language, wrought by inventions, travel, cross-fertilization of cultures and, especially, wars, would make it difficult, say, for people who use 19th century language to adapt to today’s usage.
Although modern technology makes it impossible for the average Joe to work on his car, men still lift the hood to impress their neighbors. Does anyone stranded on the interstate, hood up, have any idea what’s broken? True, raising the hood alerts others to your situation, but can you really get help, short of using your cell phone to call a wrecker?
Looking under a hood in the 21st century shows an engine, but doing it in the middle ages would reveal a monk.
Many words have taken on different meaning in recent years. A coke party back then consisted of sipping a soda with your girlfriend, sometimes with a straw for each. Grass was not what people smoked but what they sat on at picnics. “Four on the floor” was a gearshift arrangement, not an orgy. “Knocked up” meant physical exhaustion, not a pregnancy out of wedlock. Acid was poured into a test tube in high school chemistry.
A concert was an orchestral performance of the works of Mozart or Brahms, not a rock band playing heavy metal.
To be sure, bureaucrats have manipulated the language, apparently to soften the impact. That’s why we have terms like “academically challenged” in lieu of slow student.
Generals and presidents use “friendly fire” to indicate killings by one’s own troops, as if the shrapnel that goes into a soldier’s thigh is congenial and gives the G.I. a warm, fuzzy feeling. And that’s why bureaucracy has euphemized “war” with “engagement,” “attack” with a “pre-emptive strike,” and “torture” with “heightened interrogation.”
Various spins on language abound. They accomplish a kind of absolution, an implication that the person is really not at fault. For example, Rush Limbaugh entered a treatment center late last year to get over his addiction to OxyContin, a potent prescription pain reliever. To the unquestioning radio audience, he referred to “demons” that had apparently taken hold of his body. It’s almost as if the drugs were really of virus: Limbaugh was innocently standing in a breeze, and the “demons” took advantage of him. Notice how often people caught committing a crime admit to having made a “mistake.” Even worse, many people conveniently frame the expression in the passive voice, as in “mistakes were made.”
A characteristic of the passive voice is that the doer of the deed doesn’t need to be identified for the sentence to be complete and make sense.
People make mistakes with they circle the “T” instead of the “F” on a true-false test. They make mistakes when they misinterpret a traffic signal. Mistakes are what the Optic makes when it runs the same letter to the editor two days straight.
Operators of the Isleta Casino claimed it was a mistake (that lasted a month) when they ran ads on television inviting people who were overwhelmed by debt to try their luck at the gam(bl)ing tables and slots. How did many of these overwhelmed people get that way? Possibly by trying their luck a few times too often.
Mistakes really aren’t made by people who knowingly bilk millions from unsuspecting members of the public or who knowingly engage in trafficking drugs. Listen to the chorus of “I made a mistake,” when the only apparent mistake was in getting caught.
It’ll be interesting to learn what, if anything, becomes of 28 high-level federal employees who have bogus diplomas from unaccredited schools. The news aired last week concerning the acquisition of degrees from legitimate-sounding diploma mills. Three of the employees hold jobs requiring security clearance.
Anyone who receives email is aware of online companies that sell diplomas that require no classes, transcripts or books. More disturbing was the announcement of one of the federal supervisors that he planned no action against most of the “degree” holders because, after all, “they’re doing a fine job.” Yes, a fine job by virtue of using their fraudulent credentials to leap-frog over holders of valid degrees.
Should anyone attempt disciplinary action against the holders of bogus degrees, likely they’ll claim, “Mistakes were made.” But mistakes imply accidents, not deliberate intent.
Generations yet unborn likely will be reading stuff we wrote in the 21st century and remarking on our peculiar usage and spinning. Do you suppose they’ll surmise that we were mistaken about the use of “mistake”?
Or, as one of my favorite bumper stickers reads: “I used to think I was fallible, but I was mistaken.”