The real reason why academics write in gobbledygook
Why can't academics write properly? Why can't they express themselves in language that normal people can understand? These are questions that have echoed through the ages, and ones that still resonate today – so much so that even academics are starting to ask them.
In an address to the Hay Festival this week, Professor Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham City University lamented how the work of so many of his peers is written in 'devastatingly bad', 'mind-deadening' and 'over-convoluted' prose. Taking one book as an example, he asked why it 'kept using the word 'quotidien'. What does 'quotidien' mean? 'Everyday'. Why not just say 'everyday'?'
While many will welcome this intervention by Professor Andrews, and many have for decades groaned at the tendency of academics to lurch into gobbledygook, this misses the point. Academics in the humanities today don't write in order to be understood by the public, or even by their students. They write the way they do primarily to signal fealty to an ideology.
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Times
5 days ago
- Times
Respite for hares as officials back a close season for hunting
Brown hares could finally have a respite from year-round shooting after the government said it supported ambitions to introduce a close season. Unlike other game such as deer and pheasants, brown hares — the numbers of which have declined by more than 80 per cent over the past century — can be hunted all year. Last week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said England and Wales 'stand out as being among the few European countries not to have a close season,' adding that it had failed 'to give it the protection we should'. It said it would look for 'a suitable primary legislative vehicle to deliver this close season'. Chloe Dalton, the former Foreign Office adviser who wrote the acclaimed non-fiction book Raising Hare, which is based on her experiences living with the animals in her rural home, said the absence of a close season meant hunters turned their attention to brown hares when all other game species were protected. 'The hare you can shoot at any time and commonly, because of the prohibition on shooting these other animals, such as pheasant, which you can't shoot from February 1, it is a good time for business reasons to shoot hares in February. 'So the peak shooting season for hares coincides with their breeding season, during which period most female hares are either lactating or pregnant or both. If you shoot a mother hare, her young [leverets] starve to death. It is an animal welfare issue,' she told the Hay Festival. 'It is a core principle of conservation that you don't kill an animal when it is breeding,' Dalton added. • Chloe Dalton: My father read Joseph Conrad to us at the kitchen table Brown hares are one of Britain's most extraordinary — and previously revered — species. In his account of the Gallic Wars 2,000 years ago, Julius Caesar said native Britons refused to eat the animal because it was sacred. Dalton's book outlines how brown hares are able to carry two litters of leverets simultaneously, in a process known as superfetation. They can move at 37 of their own body lengths per second, while a cheetah, the fastest land animal, can move at 23 of its body lengths per second. Dalton said: 'I think it is straightforward. We should grant to hares the same protection that we give to every other game species. Scotland already has, and most of Europe. So what happens is that they [European hunters] come over to [England and Wales] to do it.' A petition calling upon the government to protect hares and leverets from shooting during the breeding season from February 1 to September 30 has now been signed by over 20,000 people. According to the Hare Preservation Trust, there were about four million brown hares in Britain in the late 1800s. It said numbers had declined by more than 80 per cent during the past century — which it said was at least in part also due to the intensification of agriculture — and has also stated that in parts of Britain, such as the southwest, 'the brown hare is almost a rarity and may even be locally extinct'. Dalton, who was being interviewed at the Hay Festival by Lord Hague of Richmond, her former boss, who also supports the introduction of a close season, said the case should be made that the hare was 'an iconic national animal'. 'There is something about the quietly persistent, unassuming hare that speaks to who we are in this country,' Dalton said. 'I hope we can reverse these years of inattention.'
Telegraph
6 days ago
- Telegraph
‘Despite the headlines, 'mischeevious' is not considered standard English'
'Mischievous'. It's a word that has come to define my week in quite unexpected ways, ever since I happened to answer a question from an audience member at the wonderful Hay Festival about changes to English that I find annoying. I explained that one bugbear I have recently overcome was the increasing use of the pronunciation 'mischeevious', since I have come to see the rationale for the change and to acknowledge its place in a long history of sound shifts that, for a lexicographer at least, are interesting to observe. The result was a right linguistic foofaraw, thanks to many a mischievous headline claiming I now consider 'mischeevious' to be entirely acceptable. I'm hoping I can set the record a little straighter now. The first thing to say is that a lexicographer's job is to chart the trajectory of words as they evolve. We are describers, not prescribers, of language, despite the understandable desire of many for some form of linguistic government. English has no equivalent to L'Académie française, a body that attempts to preside over the French language. English has always been an entirely democratic affair, subject to the will of the people, and it is inevitable that some of the changes it undergoes will prove irksome along the way. The fact that many of us are messing with the sound of 'mischievous' is clearly one. Despite the headlines, it is most definitely not considered standard English: in fact Oxford's dictionary of contemporary English offers unusually firm guidelines as to its usage: 'Mischievous is a three-syllable word. It should not be pronounced with four syllables with the stress on the second syllable, as if it were spelled mischievious'. Why, then, are we changing it? Is there any method to our madness? The answer involves a process that has informed linguistic evolution for centuries. In the case of 'mischievous', which comes from the Old French meschever, 'to come to an unfortunate end', the '-ievous' ending of the adjective is coming under the influence of such words as 'devious'. In the same way, it is becoming rare these days to hear reports of 'grievous bodily harm': I have heard 'grievious bodily harm' at least three times on news reports just this weekend. This is far from the only example of changing pronunciation, as readers will know all too well. 'Pacifically' and 'nucular' are two other repeat offenders. In the case of the former, 'pacifically' (already in the dictionary meaning 'peacefully'; the Pacific Ocean is the 'Peaceful Ocean') is judged by some to be easier to say, while the shift to 'nucular' brings it closer to such words as 'molecular' and 'secular' – there are fewer common words in current English ending with '-lear', with the exception perhaps of 'cochlear'. In each of these cases, familiarity seems to the catalyst. Similarly, it seems most people feel on 'tenderhooks' these days, rather than 'tenterhooks'. The latter were once a common feature in cloth-manufacturing districts, for they were wooden frames erected in rows in the open air on 'tenter-fields'. Wet cloth would be hooked onto them to be stretched after milling, allowing it dry evenly without shrinkage. Metaphorically, to be on tenterhooks is to be as taut, tense, and in suspense as the wool itself. Today, tenters are no longer a feature of our countryside, resulting in 'tenderhooks' being chosen for the job instead. I of course regret the loss of the story behind such words, but the joy of etymology is digging beneath the surface to discover these treasures of the past. Lest you feel your blood pressure rising already, there is some reassurance in the fact that such shifts are nothing new. If you've ever wondered what a Jerusalem artichoke has to do with Jerusalem, the answer is absolutely nothing: the name arose because English speakers in the 16th century struggled with the Italian word 'girasole', which means 'sunflower' (the Jerusalem artichoke is a heliotrope). It sounded a little like 'Jerusalem', so they plumped for that instead. At the same time, 'asparagus' must have proved equally challenging, for English speakers some 400 years ago decided to call it 'sparrowgrass' instead. The expression a 'forlorn hope' is a mangling of the Dutch 'verloren hoop', or 'lost troop', describing the vanguard of an army that fell in battle. It's hard to deny that there is poetry in our substitution. Slips of the tongue and ear are more common than you might think. Such words as 'umpire', 'apron', 'adder', and 'nickname' are the direct result of mistaken assumptions, for they began respectively as a 'noumpere', a 'napron', and a 'nadder'. In each case the 'n' drifted over to the 'a', since when spoken out loud it was hard to tell which word the letter belonged to. There are dozens more examples. 'Teeny' is an alteration of 'tiny', 'innards' is a take on 'inwards', 'manhandle' is a semi-logical riff on 'mangle', and 'tootsie' represents a child's delivery of 'footsie'. Other words that once wore their hearts on their sleeves have changed their sounds completely: a cupboard was pronounced with 'cup' and 'board' fully intact; only later did we decide it was a 'cubbard'. A 'ward-robe', or 'keeper of robes', is now more usually a 'war-drobe2. And let's not even start with a process known as 'haplology', where a word's syllable is swallowed entirely: who pronounces 'February' with the middle 'r' these days? You're more likely to hear 'probably' as 'probly', too, and a 'library' as a 'libry'. Even our idioms have taken a strange turn over the centuries. Why does 'head over heels' describe being upended by love when this is our regular bodily position? The answer is that the original was 'heels over head', meaning to turn a somersault, but at some point in the phrase's history the idiom was mistakenly (and fittingly) turned upside down. None of these changes mean we should no longer care. The opposite, in fact, for having bugbears means we are passionate about our words and wish to protect their beauty and clarity. What's more, when we mangle them, we run the risk of distracting our audience, and losing our meaning in the process. But it also feels important to know that language – and English in particular – has always been unpredictable and occasionally erratic, changing as its users wish it to, even if that is occasionally by mistake. I'll finish with one request: please don't shoot the messenger. I'm beginning to realise that there is a reason why I am occasionally called a 'minefield' of information.
Telegraph
7 days ago
- Telegraph
Robert Harris: Why Conclave should have elected an older pope
The author of Conclave has joked that he wishes cardinals had chosen an older pope to increase his chances of seeing another round of revived popularity in his book. Robert Harris said Pope Francis's death had elevated him from a journalist into an unlikely papal commentator who was regularly called in to offer expert insight. His novel Conclave, first published in 2016, also rode a wave of popularity on the back of its recent film adaptation. The 68-year-old told the Hay Festival: 'From my point of view it would have been better if the Conclave had gone on for one or two more days and if they had elected an older pope because I feel as though I have written a Christmas number one which will keep coming back. 'We will have to wait until the next Conclave which may be after my time.' He added: 'I feel like I have suddenly become a most unlikely expert on the papacy, not a role I really ever expected to play. 'But now we can all move on.' The author praised Peter Straughan, whose screenwriting credits include Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, for a 'brilliant adaptation' released to critical acclaim in 2024. 'He kept a lot of the dialogue, characters and story, but he boiled it down and kept what was best – he did a terrific job,' Mr Harris said, adding that director Edward Berger was 'wonderful'. Mr Harris said Robert De Niro and Javier Bardem had been pegged for the role of Cardinal Lawrence before Ralph Fiennes was chosen. 'That speech that he delivers – 'there will be no need for faith' – is just so brilliantly done,' the author said of Mr Fiennes, revealing that the actor and director had asked to change the character's nationality from Spanish to English. 'I looked across the table and I thought do I really want to lose Ralph Fiennes? No, make him English it won't make any difference. And of course it doesn't make any difference at all,' the author said. Looking back at the revival of interest in his book, he said: 'I found myself peculiarly having written a sort of primer. 'So much so that the new pope watched the Conclave movie on the eve of the Conclave so that he knew what was coming.' Pope Leo XIV watched the film to 'know how to behave', according to his brother. John Prevost, 71, who lives in Chicago, told news reporters that he had asked his brother as a joke whether he had watched the film, and the future pope confirmed he had. 'His brother is one of those great brothers who clearly just blurts out anything,' Mr Harris said, adding: 'He could be a source of great amusement in the years to come.'
