Peter Harvey, linguist

Informatics

In my Guide to English Language Usage  I say

information technology (IT): The word informatics appears in dictionaries but is not in common current use.

True the COED defines it as

the science of processing data for storage and retrieval

but I have always thought of it as falling into the category of what I call

dictionary words: Some words are found in dictionaries but are hardly ever used outside them. The synonyms architectural and western are almost always used instead of architectonic and occidental.

other examples being petroleum (excepting technical use and OPEC) and milliard.

Nevertheless, in a letter in today’s Guardian I read:

… expertise in [algorithms] is to be found predominantly in departments of computer science and informatics

I wonder what the status of this word is. It may have a precise technical meaning but I am sure that it is not used generally, as informática is in Spanish for example

Personnel

What does the word personnel mean?

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary it is:

people employed in an organization or engaged in an organized undertaking.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary it is:

The body of persons engaged in any service or employment, esp. in a public institution, as an army, navy, hospital, etc.; the human as distinct from the matériel or material equipment (of an institution, undertaking, etc.).

And according to the BBC it is a member of the British military:

Four British personnel have died from injuries sustained in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

Three soldiers from 1st Battalion The Rifles were struck by a blast in the Gereshk district of Helmand province and pronounced dead at the scene.

Is this a part of the militarisation of British society? You bet it is.

Transfer etc., spelling

According to the COED transfer makes transferred and transferring, with two r’s. But it also makes transferability, transferable, transferee and transferor, which have only one r.

I wonder why this should be. I think that it is because the e in the second group of words is weak, but this isn’t really the case with transferable and transferor. In fact, I would have expected transferrer.

False friends

In a letter in today’s El País Tarso Genro, the Brazilian Justice Minister, points out that in an interview that he recently gave to the paper he said that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had supported a particular candidate. He meant that Lula’s support was an advantage but in Genro’s words:

I used the word “handicap”, which has a positive connotation in Brazil. However, it was interpreted by the journalist as a barrier or obstacle, in completely the opposite way to what I said.

Of such confusion are diplomatic incidents made.

Men, women and boys

Having just posted a message with the title ‘What is a boy?’ I am reminded of the Englishman (yes really) who said, ‘I can admire a manly man, and I can love a womanly woman, but I can’t stand a boily boy.’

What is a boy?

I am interested in the way in which this is reported. What is a boy? What is a youth? What is a teenager? Who is a 17-year-old who has not previously been identified as such?

I can understand that there are legal restrictions on reporting such cases but it seems that the BBC has got itself in a linguistic knot over this one.

Boy charged with youth's murder

Michael Simon Wright, known as Simon, died in hospital

A 16-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of a teenager who was stabbed to death near an east London railway station.

Michael Simon Wright, from Leyton, was found with stab wounds opposite Maryland station in Leytonstone Road, Stratford, on Thursday night.

The 17-year-old died at the Royal London Hospital shortly after being found at about 2230 GMT.

The 16-year-old is due to appear at Stratford Youth Court on Monday.

What do the English, Romanian, Latvian and Maltese languages have in common?

Q. What do the English, Romanian, Latvian and Maltese languages have in common?

A. The EU can’t find enough translators who can work into those languages (BBC).

The problems caused by the appalling decline in language-learning in British schools is nothing new (see here). The result is that the famous ‘international language’ will find its status impaired by the stupidity of British nationalist governments of all parties, and of British nationalist people who don’t want to find out about foreigners – because they all speak English anyway, don’t they?

Commenting on the commission statement on Thursday, Conservative MEP Richard Ashworth deplored the decline in language skills in the UK. "The lack of fresh graduates with adequate language skills is a great concern and reflects years of declining importance of foreign languages in our schools...  "Hundreds of future linguists are not being given the start in our schools that they need. Great talent is being allowed to slip through the educational net and the results will be felt in our economy," he said.

He is absolutely right.

Derby and the rest

Why is Derby pronounced Darby in British English? I don’t know precisely, but I do know that er was once commonly pronounced as ar, so we have that pronunciation in such words as clerk, Berkshire, Berkley, Hertford, Kerr and sergeant* though the forms Barclay, Clark, Carr and Sargeant are found as surnames.

There is also a variant form of my own surname: Hervey is pronounced in the same way as Harvey. It is mentioned in Boswell’s Life of Johnson:

[Johnson] was well acquainted with Mr. Henry Hervey, one of the branches of the noble family of that name, who had been quartered at Lichfield as an officer of the army, and had at this time a house in London, where Johnson was frequently entertained, and had an opportunity of meeting genteel company.  Not very long before his death, he mentioned this, among other particulars of his life, which he was kindly communicating to me; and he described this early friend, ‘Harry Hervey,’ thus: ‘He was a vicious man, but very kind to me.  If you call a dog HERVEY, I shall love him.’

*While writing this I thought that I would look at the BBC web site to check that John Sargeant does spell his name with an a. He does. I also found this from Radio 4:

Detective Sargeant Cate Jackson has been honoured for her work on some of Britain 's most high profile criminal investigations.

The iron steak now has wings

I recently mentioned a Barcelona bar-restaurant that had a mechanical translation of its menu, so that entrecot plancha came out as entrecot irons.

Today I happened to walk past it again. They have done something about it. It now says entrecot wing irons. I suppose they decided that the Spanish really should be entrecot a la plancha – but then they put ala as one word into the computer. And ala is the Spanish for wing!

What a coup!

The Concise Oxford Dictionary recognises:

• coup: 1 (also coup d’état) a sudden violent seizure of power from a government. 2 an unexpected and notably successful act. 3 Billiards a direct pocketing of the cue ball, which is a foul stroke. 4 historical (among North American Indians) an act of touching an enemy, as a deed of bravery.
• coup de foudre: a sudden unforeseen event, especially love at first sight.
• coup de grâce: final blow or shot given to kill a wounded person or animal.
• coup de main: a sudden surprise attack.
• coup de maître: a master stroke.
• coup d’état: see coup (sense 1).
• coup de théâtre:1 a dramatically sudden action or turn of events, especially in a play. 2 a successful theatrical production.
• coup d’œil: a comprehensive glance.

However, the coup de poule is known only to the Independent newspaper.

Sir James, a chief executive of HBOS, was appointed to the regulator by Mr Brown in 2004, when the Prime Minister was still at the Treasury. Even then, the decision smacked of putting a fox in charge of the chicken coup.

(My emphasis)