Choosing the right words

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Choosing the right words

Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill, was a brilliant orator whose speeches rallied the whole nation in the fight against Hitler.

One reason, Churchill was so persuasive was because he spoke the language of the people.

Churchill’s down-to-earth tone was in stark contrast to an American general who once asked the great man for some feedback on a speech he was planning to give.

Churchill read the speech, and wasn’t impressed. Here’s what he said:
‘Too many Latinate polysyllabics like “systematize”, “prioritize”, and “finalize”... What if I had said, instead of “we shall fight on the beaches”, “Hostilities will be engaged with our adversary on the coastal perimeter”?
Well, he’s certainly right about the use of polysyllabic words.

But what did he mean by ‘Latinate’? To understand that, let me take you back to the year 1065.

In that year, England was populated by a race of people known as the Anglo-Saxons.

They’d arrived in England in the fifth century from continental Europe. And they spoke a predecessor to modern English, called Old English.

Here’s what it sounded like:
Se wisa wer timbrode his hus ofer stan.

The wise man built his house on stone.
But the following year, in 1066, the Anglo-Saxons were conquered by the Normans at the Battle of Hastings.
Unlike the English speaking Anglo Saxons, the Normans spoke French and wrote in Latin.

Suddenly, Latin became the language of the ruling classes. The language of the law and the court.

Meanwhile, Old English remained the language of the ordinary people.

We still see the effects of this two tier language today.
Remember:

Se wisa wer timbrode his hus ofer stan

In modern English, you could say this as: The wise man built his house on stone.

But you could also translate this Old English sentence like this: The sagacious individual constructed his residence in a superior position to petrological material.

The first, looks much closer to the original, because all the words come from Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Look how similar some of the words still are.

In the second version, all those big words come from Latin, the language of the ruling Normans. Notice how the words are longer - more polysyllabic - and much less similar to Old English.

Let’s look at some more examples.
The the left are all what I’d call ten dollar words, and they’re all derived from Latin. The words on the right are all what I’d call ten cent words and they’re all from Old English.

You can instantly see the Latin words are longer. But notice anything else? Notice how they’re also more abstract.
It’s easy to picture a house. It’s a concrete thing. But a residence?
That could be anything from a palace...
...to a flat...
...to a squat.
“Residence” is more about the abstract concept of a place to live than the concrete building with bricks and windows.

Likewise, hostilities could mean anything, couldn’t it?
A chilly greeting...
a stand-off on the chess board....
... an exasperated tutting at someone who jumps the queue

But “fighting”? You can’t help but picture blood, sweat and tears.

In other words, Latinate language may sound posh. But the words of the people have all the power.
Unfortunately, many business writers unwittingly trade in people power for the sake of poshness.

Here’s some real-life examples of writers who got carried away with the Latin.
With the ten cent alternative, we can picture two people shaking hands over the deal. You don’t get such a concrete image with “The transaction was completed on a bilateral basis”