This is about something I’ve noticed in current usage, English language.
We (it probably started in the media, and then entered common parlance) seem to get tired of lengthy but precise descriptions of things, so we find a generic substitute, and agree as to what we’re talking about. Examples:
“Substance”, as in “substance abuse”. Motor oil is a substance; brown sugar is a substance. But it now means “drugs (illicit or prescription) and/or alcohol”
“Device”. You can download the app to your favorite “device”. My favorite device may be a corkscrew, but now “device” means “laptop, tablet or smart phone”.
I know there are other examples but they escape my mind at the moment.
No, it doesn’t, it’s only in that specific phrase that it means drugs/alcohol. Otherwise the word means what it always meant. As do the others. The process is simple abbreviation: substance for illegal substance, device for electronic device, etc.
Your example is not really a good one: “substance abuse” is a pretty accurate description. Motor oil is abused as are many other non medical substances. I can’t think of a better description.
“Device” is slightly different. (You buy wine with corks?..:)) Electronic devices would be more accurate, but the important thing is that we understand what is being said and that it doesn’t sound awkward.
I remember many tears ago when people started to refer to transistor radios (as opposed to those with valves) as “transistors” and later as “trannys”. That word has an entirely different meaning today.
Another example, with a theory as to how this happens – it’s bureaucratic/legalese. Law enforcement (for example) gets tired of always having to specify “car, truck, motorcycle or RV”, and so begins to refer to everything as a “vehicle”. So you get the stereotypical cop/civilian dialog: “Sir, please step out of the vehicle”, where a regular person would say “get outta the car”.
I didn’t mean to imply that the meaning of the word has changed, and I’m sorry if that’s how it sounded. My point is that the context provides all the meaning, because we’re using generic words that become specific, in context.
It’s a good thing, generally. Any further particulars given might be true, but they are mostly irrelevant, and avoiding irrelevancy is a good thing.
It may be true to say that the US President is elected by the citizens who are over 18, who are not resident in Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, or the United States Virgin Islands, who are not felons resident in a state which disenfranchises felons, etc, etc. But unless you’re making a point about the disenfranchisement of felons, or residents of US territories, or young people, it’s really not necessary to go into this kind of detail every time you mention the basic principle of election by citizens.
Unless references to “downloading an app to your favourite device” are causing confusion, the idiom is fine. All of the items to which you could download the app are indeed devices. While you might have quite a fondness for a device such as a corkscrew in other contexts, in this context corkscrews are unlikely to be your favourite device; why would you favour downloading an app to a corkscrew?
Language is a flexible, living thing that changes over time. All languages do. They always have.
The process you’re talking about didn’t start with “the media”, it started when language first began. And it’s only one facet of language evolution. We do develop shorthand ways of referring to terms (implying meaning through context) but on the reverse we also complicate language by introducing neologisms, adopting slang, borrowing terms from other languages, and coming up with new terms to describe new concepts and inventions that we create and discover. It’s just how language began and will always be.
At least your example is plural. How about “The teacher will take their seat, then we can begin”.
In the US, “tuition” means “tuition fee”. Being a Brit abroad, I confused some people at first by using tuition to mean, well, tuition. The answer to “what’s the tuition?” will generally be “$30,000” (for example), not “a mixture of lectures and small group sessions with the professor”.
Funnily enough (I’m a fellow-countryman of amarone’s, for what it’s worth), I’m exactly the opposite way round – a strong proponent of “their” and “they” in such language-use situations. I feel “his or her” and “he or she” to be exasperatingly stilted / cumbersome / precious. In former times when this matter was not one of political correctness (I suspect that PC has existed as long as language has – just, about different issues in different eras), the masculine word was the default for such expressions concerning groups including both sexes – understood to indicate and cover both. (People were cheeky enough to summarise this as “the man embraces the woman”.)
I feel that a case can be made – in the interests of brevity, convenience and elegance – for people’s accepting one sex, or other, as the default in expressions of this kind – recognising it to be, in this matter, not about oppression; just, about being able to say and write things more smoothly.
Surely the point here is that if the law refers to “car, truck, motorcycle or RV”, some smart lawyer might well argue that their client’s vehicle was in fact something else - a buggy, or a van etc. “Vehicle” can be defined easily to cover all forms of motorised transport.
I too take the opposite view. In a previous job, I had to write rule and procedure manuals. It was not always possible to avoid the ugly he/she or his/her and the judicious use of they and their was much better, even though it looked a little odd at the time.
What would you substitute for the phrase “If everyone will take their seats, we can begin”?
Same here. I’ve long since decided that “their” and other third person plural forms are the tidiest (and widely understood) solution to the gender neutral pronoun problem in English and have adopted it without any guilt.
I remember one time when some of my friends and I were Googling restaurants and such. All of my friends were using either laptops or tablets, while I was using my smartphone.
I started talking about how “All of you guys have great big devices. I’m jealous. My device is very tiny.”
Hilarity ensued.
As far as “vehicle,” I’ve noticed that car salesmen do that too. They will talk about the looks, the safety, or the fuel economy of the “vehicle” they’re trying to sell you. I suppose that’s because they’ve got a lot of their spiel memorized, and don’t want to have to alter it depending on whether you’re looking at a car, a truck, or an SUV.
I was just intimating that a single standard one-syllable word in this role, fills it more expediently IMO than the “his or her / he or she” malarkey. Let the word and its derivatives be “he”, “she”, “they”, “it”, or some word coined specifically for the purpose – I think “splurk” has a nice sound to it .
The evolution of language is a topic that comes up here a lot, and there are boundless factors that drive it. In the old days when we had less concern for political correctness and perhaps language precision, we had no “substance abuse” – we just had drug addicts and alcoholics, and that was that. I suppose the idea was to invent a more neutral term that didn’t carry a stigma of condemnation. We had “drug abuse” for a while, but it wasn’t perceived to include alcohol and non-drug substances.
“Device” for all the little things we carry around and annoy people with is pretty good, too, because its meaning in context is clear and there really is no other term that covers phones, tablets, and PCs as a generic entity. In some contexts “device” could also be an e-reader, game console, or streaming media player. It’s certainly not a linguistic affectation – I can’t imagine what else to call those things as a group.
Perfect example of synecdoche (thanks, Dr. Strangelove) – which includes the use of some entity’s prominent or distinguishing attribute as a synonym for it. Just like in the early part of the 20th century it was common to refer to a car as a “motor”, short for “motor car” and focusing on the feature that people found most distinguishing, namely that it was powered by a motor and not a horse!
Further to Dr. Strangelove introducing us to this wonderful word, I’ve long been familiar with the movie “Synecdoche, New York” but I must admit I never explored the meaning of the title. It’s actually very appropriate:
A synecdoche is a play on words in which a part may be used for the whole (such as hired hands for workers), the whole for a part (as the law for police officers), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), or an object with the material it is made from (as steel for sword). In the context of the movie, New York (a whole) is replicated within a large warehouse (the part), while Caden is a representation of mankind.
