Why language is such good sport

Previously, I suggested that coffee chains and their pseudo-Italian-American lexicon provided possible evidence of the way that English was changing its attitudes when it came to borrowings. My argument was that asking for 'a triple-shot mocha with soya to go' made consumers feel part of something exclusive; that it somehow helped 20- and 30-somethings to rediscover the joys of using slang with their teenage friends. In short, coffee shops had become closed language communities of their own. This doesn't have quite the same socio-political implications of Milroy's study, but you get the idea. 

However, I'd hate to be thought of as an inverted coffee snob and so I turned my gaze elsewhere. 

Watching Chris Froome claim his third Tour de France title yesterday got me thinking about the language of sport in all its glorious vagary. It is every bit as elitist as coffee and fine dining in its choice of lexis, often seeming like a different language intended for the few, rather than the many. 

In cycling, it literally is a different a language, filled with borrowings of French origin. Why have a referee when you can have a commissaire? As a noun, it sounds so much more important and sophisticated. Then we have the collective noun for the main group of riders: peloton. And let's not forget that the peloton gets strung out into echelons in strong cross winds, aching to pass under the flame rouge as they go over the final classified climb, supported by their domestiques! It's a delightful lexicon, but what on earth does a novice make of it?

And what of tennis?

As Sue Barker rounds up the day's scores, she casually announces that Federer is through in straight sets with a triple bagel, while Djokovic battled through a five-setter, eventually triumphing three, six, six, two and six, breaking twice in the decider. What does this mean to anyone out of the loop?

Golf offers little reprieve. Spieth leads Day by a single shot at seven under after eagling the par five ninth, while a wild tee shot from Day saw him double bogey the par four eighth. From this, we are meant to know what their scores were before these shots! (Incidentally, it would've meant that Day had led on -8 with Spieth three behind on -5.) 

Of course, there are sports like football where everyone knows the terminology, even though they might not quite grasp the rules, but with the Olympics fast-approaching, viewers are sure to be treated to a whole new world of sporting jargon. The question is, why do we tolerate it?

Because we want to learn. We all want to sound like experts in any field, nodding sagely at the right moments. The commentators are our teachers, describing what we are seeing on our screens so that we can match the words (usually nouns) to the actions. If you don't listen hard, you'll loft one into the deep and find yourself caught out!

Once again, specialist, field specific lexis is a tool that helps us become a part of something from which we would otherwise be excluded. Is it so wrong to want to join the club? Language is used in a self-seeking way from the moment we are born, we just become better practitioners in the art of manipulation as we grow. The ability to feel comfortable on a shared topic in any company is incredibly beneficial, so let's not shun the language's ever-changing vocabulary...let's take in as much as we can and go for gold. Well, a podium finish at least. 

Dollops of proper rustic hipsters

Here are two quick links to things which might tickle your fancy. First, here's a list of words nabbed from Luke Wright's twitter feed, allegedly promoted in Jamie Oliver's restaurants to sell his food. Now, I'm a big fan of Jamie - to my mind, he's a national treasure with his fight for decent school meals and his obvious dislike of Michael 666ove - but aren't these words a bit daft? Presumably they fit with his image of effortless, commonsense cooking, but "proper rustic" sounds a bit like a dry biscuit or a six-fingered Norfolk farmer.

The second link is a Hipster translator. We may admire their Hoxton fins from a distance and their ridiculous trousers, but hipsters speak the same language the world over: and here you can learn what it means.

Right-sizing the workforce

I used to try to add regular blog posts about the evils of corporate and management jargon, but in many ways this kind of language has become so mainstream that it's often no longer jargon. Sadly, the jargon has won. This article from today's Guardian takes a look at the jargon used in corporate law and it's a depressing read. If you thought Melissa from The Apprentice had swallowed a dictionary of drivel and was talking utter nonsense, then some of the expressions mentioned in the article will probably make you think she was actually normal.

One example is particularly egregious: right-sizing. When used as a noun - "We have to implement some right-sizing to meet our profit forecast" (or some such cobblers) it both hides and confuses meaning. What it really means, of course, is cutting staff - making them redundant - and cutting them to the level that is "right" for the business, or more accurately, the business's profits.

Grammatically, it seems to be a form of nominalisation: a term used to describe a process, that usually involves a verb, becoming a noun. So instead of it being an action or ongoing process, the noun becomes the label for the entire end result.

An simple example might be something like describing a person as a "stabbing victim" - a noun phrase which basically carries the information that the person being talked about is the victim of the process of the verb "to stab". By using nominalisation, the focus is taken away from the process or the action itself, and switched to the person affected by the action. By doing so, in a way, the process itself becomes wrapped up with the person who has experienced it: they become bound together.

Why does this matter? Well, a bit like with the passive voice, if agency (i.e. who did what to who) is hidden, we don't get a full picture of events. We see an end result, but not the process that led us there. It could even be argued that by doing this we are less likely to be able to challenge or prevent the process - we may not even see it - and that hides responsibility and the bigger picture of cause and effect. Still with me? No... Oh well.

In the case of right-sizing, the process of cutting jobs is condensed into the idea of "sizing" - which almost inevitably means making something smaller - but even more devious is the use of "right" which carries with it connotations of correctness and even virtue. But of course, it's only "right" for the person who makes money out of cutting a job. For the person who has been a victim of right-sizing, it's probably very wrong!

Woop woop - it's the sound of the gavvers/boy dem/po po/filth/coppers/babylon

Here's the real sound of the police, but for those of you who don't want to travel back in time to the prehistoric days when hip hop meant something, just go straight to yesterday's Guardian which ran a short item on the slang used by some British police: you can find it here.

The whole area of occupational language is a good one to study. Doctors, teachers, soldiers, call centre workers and firefighters are all likely to have their own occupational varieties, which themselves might be affected by the speech styles of the individuals in the job, or the geographical area that people work in. The police are no exception to this and their occupational variety is probably one of the more widely scrutinised forms because it often appears in transcript form in court, or (perhaps more glamorously) on TV dramas and even reality police shows.

So is this sort of occupational variety a slang or a form of jargon? To what extent might we call the police a "community of practice"? According to the definition given by Graeme Trousdale in his excellent new book, An Introduction to English Sociolinguistics, a community of practice is defined by three characteristics: mutual engagement, a jointly negotiated enterprise, and a shared repertoire. He uses the example of a school rock band to illustrate these characteristics.

Here, a number of individuals come together in face-to-face contact (mutual engagement) for a particular purpose, that is, to play music (jointly negotiated enterprise), often conversing using jargon common in discourse on popular music, such as riff, bridge, amp, bass guitar and so on (shared repertoire).

Is the same true for the police? I think so. And like other communities of practice, there is pressure from within to use language in the accepted way, meaning that members of the community of practice become institutionalised in the language of the organisation.

Quite where this leaves the firearms police involved in this case, I don't know. they seem to have developed their own discourse, which apparently consists of slotting in as many song titles as possible into their witness testimony...

If you're interested in the language of the police, this link to a forum about police slang/jargon might be of interest.

Also, the many different words used to describe the police can be found here.

edited to add: 
While on the subject of communities of practice, this short article about the language used on message boards by divorced women discussing their relationships is quite a good one. There's the usual mix of acronyms and initialisms that we tend to see online (although I'm not sure LOL has been correctly defined here) along with a  smattering of new ones like STBXH (Soon to be ex-husband) and OW (other woman).

Ambient replenishment controllers...

...or to put it more clearly, shelf stackers. How about "Technical horticultural maintenance officers"? Gardeners. Or a "Knowledge navigator"? A teacher.

Jargon - technical language associated with specific occupations - can be completely baffling to lots of us, which is why the Plain English Campaign will be happy to see that some local councils have decided to ditch their insane obfuscations and ludicrous circumlocutions (look 'em up) in favour of clear and straightforward language. Huzzah!

This piece in The Daily Mirror gives some shocking examples of how local authorities and businesses dress up mundane jobs and activities in fancy language to make them look really important, and how some local authorities are deciding it's time to change their tune.

We've looked at jargon elsewhere on this blog - here and here - so have a look.

Useful for:
ENGA1 - Investigating Representation
ENA5 - Language Change

Mis-speaking management

There's a great article on the BBC News Magazine website here about the horrors of business-speak and management jargon: words and phrases like blue sky thinking, giving it 110% (like the mighty Lee on The Apprentice), stepping up to the plate and herding the dinosaurs.

There's also an interesting point of view broadcast here from Radio 4 which offers an angle on this horrible phenomenon.

What does it all mean? Why do people use it? How can we stop it? All good questions, but now we must go forward.

Are those some pentapeptides in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

Jargon is a strange thing. It's usually defined as a kind of specialist or technical language used only by a particular group. The jargon of different groups can be baffling to outsiders, but that's usually part of its appeal: if they don't know what you're on about, you might be able to say rude things without them finding out. It can also be used to create the impression that you know what you're on about. (If I start calling pictures graphology, or words lexis, I might start fooling someone that I know what I'm on about...)

So, this report in The Daily Mail (I promise I didn't buy it - I saw a woman from Chingford reading it on the train) about cosmetics companies' using pseudo-scientific jargon to bamboozle unsuspecting readers is quite a good read. According to some experts, the cosmetics firms are making up their own words to try and make their products sound more high-tech than they really are.

Elsewhere, this article about in-group medical jargon includes such gems as "doing a Hasselhof" - inflicting a bizarre and possibly alcohol-related injury to yourself - and being a Jack Bauer - a doctor still standing after 24 hours.

Useful for:
ENA1 - Language & Representation
ENA5 - Language Change