Wonderful words carry precise meanings

There has been some good stuff in editorials in this paper and the weekly free community in recent weeks. Even as we say it, however, we ask - is it a word? - and check the handy Shorter Oxford. Editorial is indeed both adjective and noun - the first dating from mid 18th century, and the latter from mid 19th. Samuel Johnson or the editor of Spectator might have bemoaned impertinent abuse of that which is properly adjectival in both use and form; and what of "adject" - late Middle English adjective, noun and verb; and "adjective", and ultimately late 18th century adjective "adjectival".

English is not a beautiful language like French or Italian or Maori, but it's rich and fun. The charm is rather in selection and arrangement - word by word and phrase by phrase - although beauty may be rather in the mind of the creator than eye or mouth of the reader. And what's the use of writing if no one will read and especially verbalise it.

We choose words as much for rhythm as for sense.

Yet not all love the language or even think as they use it, and often enough we don't know what they mean. Startling news that the cheapest house (in Wanganui, of course) is 3142 times cheaper than the dearest. A few days ago it was something 11 times lower. Does it mean one-eleventh of the maximum? What does forty-six percentage points mean, or half a per cent or seventy per cent majority?

In legal writing and draughting, the choice and order of words is critical. And there are in every trade (not only the proverbial schoolteacher "speak"); words of peculiar and technical meaning such as execution and estate and executrix. In wills we often use the Latin phrase "per stirpes" (in English "according to the stocks") and everyone but the schoolboy will ask what does that mean and so we explain.

If you leave the estate to your children, what if they die before you? Do they and their children miss out? It's not just to be boring that we say "to my children in equal shares, but if any of them die before me leaving issue who survive (etc) such issue shall take and if more than one in equal shares per stirpes the share of my estate which my child would have taken had he or she survived". It means if I have five children, but two die, and one of them leave say two surviving children, and the other four; three children will have one-fifth each, two grandchildren will have one-tenth each, and four will have one-twentieth. Latin is useful.

So what? There are times and places for words. There's prose and poetry - and blank verse. Even in formal or technical writing, we may try to write elegantly, or simply make fun with words, but we need to know what we're doing. If we try to impress, or obscure the truth, by weird construction or commercial phrases, we may make asses of ourselves.

John Tripe is principal with the Wanganui legal firm of Jack Riddet Tripe