h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Heard a head teacher on R4 the other day say 'professionalise'

That kind of thing doesn't bother me in the slightest. It shows the flexibility of the English language, which lets us turn adjectives into verbs into nouns, willy-nilly.

But I was amused by Anna Raeburn on Broadcasting House last Sunday. She was moaning about the recent furore concerning teachers who, although leaders in their field, have had difficulty in getting their qualifications recognised. She said (something like):

"I know that I can teach English to any child, man or beast, and it really annoys me that this sort of bureaucratic nonsense would mitigate (sic!) against me getting a job in a school."

I thought "Aye, right!" I guess it was early morning, though, so maybe she could plead militation.

How much English can she teach a slug? Or is that outside the category "any beast"?

Oh, pedantry!

Tee hee, Edward! My father's beatnik joke.
A beatnik is walking along the banks of the East River in New York, when he hears cries, and so he looks into the river, and sees a man thrashing and sinking.
"Help me, please! Help me!"
"What's the problem, man?"
"Help me, I can't swim!"
The beatnik gives him a stern look, and replies:
"Fake it man, fake it!"

>> ...it was early morning, though, so maybe she could plead militation. <<


Well I don't mind admiting I had to look that one up.
No such word says dictdotcom but they did find a verb:
>>
mil·i·tate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ml-tt)
intr.v. mil·i·tat·ed, mil·i·tat·ing, mil·i·tates
To have force or influence; bring about an effect or a change: “All these factors militated to a different targeting priority” (Tom Clancy). “The chaste banality of his prose... militates against the stories' becoming literature” (Anthony Burgess).
<<

So I think I get it. Creating a non-existant noun, 'militation', from a really obscure verb used only by the likes of Clancy and Burgess. Yes, very droll, very droll indeed.

~jwf~

No no no, it's the word she meant when she wrongly used mitigates.

"Militates against" is common usage here (in what are sometimes called The Atlantic Isles) (of Europe) but it is often garbled by the misuse of "mitigates" which means more or less the opposite.

She might have meant "litigate"?

This discussion is all very well, but no-one's answered the burning question...with what do Germans cut their potatoes?

RF

The idea is that they cut them with their forks. The explanation is that a knife-cut surface will not soak up the gravy.

I was thinking of potatotoes in their uncooked state.

RF

Oh, jaysus! I've confused everyone.

There is a common confusion between 'militates (against)' and 'mitigates'. The first means (something like) 'gets in the way of'. The second means 'makes better' or 'confuses'.

Thanks to squigglejwfsquiggle for mentioning one of my favourite authors, though (Anthony Burgess). I recently re-read 'Earthly Powers', and his autiobiography and recent (hostile) biography are in my 'waiting to be read' pile. I have him to thank for making a new Czech friend in Prague last year (we bonded in a bar over a mutual love of Burgess. And a couple of spliffs)

My favourite Burgess sentence:
"His breath was strangely redolent of, for no banquet would ever serve, knowing the powerful redolence of onions, onions, onions".

If you think about it for a while, you realise that it is perfectly grammatical. Linguists call this sort of clause-within-a-clause-within-a0clause sentence 'An onion sentence'.

It may be perfectly grammatical, but it ain't good English. Language is intended to convey meaning. But I know Mr Burgess of old. He certainly has a way with words.

<>

Nope. Sorry. Sooooooo close, but not quite. Ani.

"There is a common confusion between 'militates (against)' and 'mitigates' "

Unfortunately this seems particularly to afflict people who ought to know better, because the other people don't attempt to use words whose meaning they don't understand, if they have heard the words.

"militates against" = fights against (or similar) - for obvious reasons,
"mitigate" = reduce the intensity (of consequences, conditions) a term much loved in judicial circles where a miscreant admits his wrongdoing at the earliest possible time thereby attracting a reduction in his/her sentence.

>>It may be perfectly grammatical, but it ain't good English.

Curse you, Gnomon! It wasn't intended to convey meaning so to play with language. You'll be telling us next that Jimmy J was a crap writer!

Actually, Burgess said that if we were to remembered for anything, he hoped it would be as the writer of that sentence.

>> ..he hoped it would be as the writer of that sentence. <<


Crazy Tony! Funny what surviving cancer will do the mind. He always had an eye for detail, often focussing un-naturally on the most unlikely specifics within a roughly sketched rendering.

After his 'miraculous' recovery it became more like an acutely tuned obsession for 'crystalised reflections in the ruff', which he defends as his art, his view, his gem. But I have to admit that many layers of his meaning elude me; it simply requires more hard thinking than the likes of me can bring to bear.

No, I'll always remember him for the 'eastern-euro-based' dialect he imagined would be the future-speak of the punks in 'Clockwark Orinj'. If I had known then that those boys were supposedly 'Russians' I'd have found them even more frightening. As it was, they were convincingly terrifying to give me great concern for civilisation.

Funny how he recovered after writing it.


~jwf~

Sorry, Edward, I didn't mean to slight Burgess's ability to entertain by twisting words. I myself have enjoyed some of his works.

But I have fought all my life for simplification. Far too many people produce a less extreme version of that and think that the more convoluted it is, the better English. I believe it is possible to explain abstract concepts in simple words - if you can't, then ask yourself do you really understand the abstract concept.

As you suggest, it was quite early so she did have militating circumstances.

"...it is possible to explain abstract concepts in simple words..."

Yes but, when in doubt, obfuscate!

Militate/Mitigate: I would like to add a new word to the English language: Milligate - to object to something in the manner of Spike Milligan.

RF