Skip to main content

The Anglo-Saxon/Latin Rule, Again!

It's one of those rules we're often told as writers. Don't write in Latin, write in Anglo-Saxon! This so-called 'rule' has been around quite a while. In Politics & The English Language (1946) George Orwell wrote "bad writers... are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones".

But, what does this mean? Do we have to check the etymology of every word we scribble down in our manuscript books, weeding out the obnoxious foreigners and replacing them with good, solid, stalwart Germanic conciseness? Or does it mean we should write in an archaic style and pepper our prose with lovely words such as erstwhile, forsooth and threap? Are we banned from using words such as obfuscate, perambulate, egregious and impecunious?

Well, let's think about this for a moment, with a couple of examples. Here's the opening line of Edward Bulwer-Lytton's book Paul Clifford;

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

Hmm? I can spot only one Latin verb in that sentence, so it's very 'Anglo-Saxon'. Now, here's the opening sentence to Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist;

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.

Well, there's at least nine extremely 'Latin' words in that opening. But what's the real difference between these two sentences? The first is the inspiration for the annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Competition where applicants are invited to enter opening sentences for the worst of all possible novels (i.e. that are deliberately bad). Bulwer-Lytton's sentence has been described as the worst opening line of all time and Bulwer-Lytton himself as the worst author of all time (unfairly in my opinion). Whereas Dickens' sentence (one of the longest he ever wrote!), is pure verbiage, full of Latin words and wandering subclauses, and goes on and on and on. But still, next to Bulwer-Lytton, it's pure genius.

Incidentally, if the opening phrase of Bulwer-Lytton's piece seems familiar, it's because it is, having been regularly lambasted for more than a century. Other phrases coined by him include "the great unwashed", "pursuit of the mighty dollar" and "the pen is mightier than the sword". 

So, the lesson? Rules are there to be broken. Nobody's writing, including yours, should be subject to particular rules of style, but perhaps only to commonly accepted rules of syntax, grammar and punctuation (and even those can be flouted to achieve an unusual literary effect). You can write what the hell you like, and use whatever words you damn well like too! As long as the result works, the words are correct. Forget about the rules.

So, what's with this Anglo-Saxon versus Latin thing then? Shall we forget it completely? Well, let's not be too hasty.

What is it about Latin words that cause us concern? Well, before we answer that, can you even tell the difference between a Latin and an Anglo-Saxon word? How about this list; belt, candle, chest, cup, fan, fork, mile, mint, monk, school, spade, wall. Do they sound Anglo-Saxon to you? Well, they're not, they're Latin. How about this list; amazement, ampersand, behavior, insightful, manifold. Yes, you guessed it, they're all Anglo-Saxon. So, although there is a common misconception that 'long words' are Latin and 'short words' are Anglo-Saxon (and that we should always trump for the shorter, more concise, more 'earthy' version), this idea simply doesn't hold up. 

The truth is that the English language has never been purely Germanic. Even the language of the Anglo-Saxons was replete with (sorry, I meant 'full of') Latin words. On the journey from the Old English of the 5th century towards our modern version of it, English has been warped and altered by the French, the Scots, the Irish, the Danes, the Swedes, the Spanish, the Portugese, the Dutch, the Indians, and even the Church, among many others (and, yes, the Americans!). We have even retained some Celtic words (basket, beak, galore, gob, crag, penguin) and one or two British place-names may in fact pre-date even the Celts (Humber, Ayr). This melting pot of languages has made English rich and expressive and we shouldn't just discard (sorry, I meant 'drop') long words in favor of short ones without a damn good reason.

But there often is a good reason. These pesky Latin words can be a problem and they're usually easy to spot. For verbs, they often end in 'ate' or 'ite' for example. For nouns they often end in 's/tion', 'ation', 'ant' or 'tude' and so on. For adjectives they often end in 'ive', 'ous', 'a/ible' . You get the idea. The problem with these words is that they can appear oppressive, verbose and pretentious (or should that be 'clunky', 'wordy' and 'flashy'?). In normal everyday conversation people simply don't use these words. So when you use them in your writing the reader instantly feels a detachment from reality. And that is bad (even if you write in the 'fantasy' genre) because if the reader can't believe in the image you're trying to create, they'll be disengaged and ultimately disinterested. They may even think you're a pompous idiot!

Of course, if you're writing an annual accounting report for an employer, or if the purpose of your writing is to incite these very feelings of detachment, or it hopes to conjure up a particularly archaic or pompous atmosphere, then Latin words may be your best friend. Here's a brief extract from my short story Belper's Emporium;

Mr. Collier was a thoroughly despicable and worthless character. You may feel that such a singular sentiment requires corroboration. One only has to witness the diverse but invariably malicious opinions of Mr. Collier’s neighbors. In return for his incessant discourtesy they afforded him good measures of disrespect and indignation.

I could not have used more obvious Latin pomposity in these sentences. But, that's the whole point. It is designed to evoke a particularly British and Victorian correctness of language, simply because that is the actual tone of the piece. I would never dream of using such language when describing a police chase, for example. Latin words have their place. So too do Anglo-Saxon ones.

So, in conclusion, I'm going to suggest we replace the 'Anglo-Saxon versus Latin' rule with something else. Break the new 'rule' if you wish, but I think this is the only style 'rule' you'll ever need as a writer; make it effective and convincing. And choose the right words to make it so...

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories

An engraving by R. Graves entitled 'The Ghost Story', circa 1870. In his first full-length novel, The Pickwick Papers (1836-1837), Charles Dickens gave us a peculiarly Victorian view of the Christmas tradition. The host of a Yuletide gathering, Mr. Wardle of Dingley Dell, informs his guests that “Everybody sits down with us on Christmas Eve, as you see them now — servants and all; and here we wait, until the clock strikes twelve, to usher Christmas in, and beguile the time with forfeits and old stories”. So begins a long association of the traditional ghost story with Christmas-time; a tradition that has largely died out, but one that should be revived. Of course, the tradition of telling spooky stories at Christmas is much older than Dickens. It was already well-established in the early nineteenth century. In Old Christmas (from The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent ., 1819), Washington Irving describes a busy Yuletide fireside with the parson “dealing forth strange a

American's Guide To Pronouncing British Place Names

You all know there's some minor (though understandable) differences between British and American spelling. For example, we have 'colour' for 'color', 'favour' for 'favor' and 'harbour' for 'habor'. We have 'centre' for 'center', 'fibre' for 'fiber' and 'litre' for 'liter'. And so on. These don't usually cause us any problems, especially since they are normally pronounced the same (although with differences in accent, which is an entirely different subject!). But, British spelling idiosyncrasies go far beyond these simple examples, and never more so than in our emotive and quaint place names. British place name spelling is about as intuitive as the 'many worlds' interpretation of quantum mechanics - for the non-scientists among you, that means 'not at all'. Actually, it's not the spelling that's odd (they usually retain a perfectly logical spelling based

The Fastest Things In The Universe

Gravitational waves can't actually be seen as in this simulation. When gazing at the night sky from here on Earth, it’s easy to picture the Universe as calm and unhurried. But in reality, out there in space, things move fast – really fast. Putting aside particle accelerators and the like, the fastest-moving man-made object was the Helios 2 spacecraft launched in the 1970s. It reached a top speed of 68.75 km/s (153,800 mph) on its mission to the Sun. But this was just a leisurely stroll compared to the fastest things in the Cosmos. So, where do we find the real speed freaks of the Universe? Here’s a run-down of the top five. 1. Expansion of the Universe Speed: Greater than the speed of light! The Universe is expanding. But the Universe isn’t filling up ‘empty space’ as it expands because it is ‘space’ itself which is expanding. Although the laws of physics say that two objects can’t move faster than light speed with respect to each other, there is no such restricti

Who Was Ghost Story Writer "Mary E. Penn"?

The identity of Mary E. Penn, a late-Victorian author of ghosts stories and crime and mystery tales, is a complete enigma. Scholars of the macabre have been unable to discern any details of her person, origin or character (assuming she was indeed female). We only know that from the 1870s to the 1890s this author published a number of stories in periodicals, most commonly in The Argosy (Ellen Wood’s monthly publication). Some of her early contributions were anonymous (later attributed to Penn in The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals ) and her name only appears from 1878 onwards. Her first story, At Ravenholme Junction , was published anonymously in The Argosy in December 1876, but was later ascribed to Penn on stylistic grounds by eminent supernatural fiction scholar Richard Dalby. Her other ghostly tales were Snatched from the Brink ( The Argosy , June 1878), How Georgette Kept Tryst ( The Argosy , October 1879), Desmond’s Model ( The Argosy , December 1879), Old Vanderhav

Black Holes 101

Artist's impression of a black hole. With new blockbuster movie Interstellar now in cinemas, there's a flurry of interest in black holes and wormholes. Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne was a scientific consultant for the production and insisted that the depiction should stay within legitimate boundaries. Apart from the odd bit of artistic license, of course! Black holes are scary, right? They suck in everything in their path. They devour whole planets, stars even, ripping them apart like mere wisps of smoke. They condemn anything that confronts them to an unknowable oblivion. It’s the stuff of nightmare, or at least a bad disaster movie. But I think black holes get a bad press. They are misunderstood, misrepresented. The truth is they are fascinating creatures, if confusing, and not a little bit weird. So, relax for a moment while I give you my quick and dirty guide to black holes. The Black Hole 101, if you like. Let’s start with a simple definition of a black hole

Flat Earth Fallacy

I'm an accepting kind of person. I generally allow people to think what they want, believe what they want and (pretty much) say what they want, within reason. But occasionally an opinion is so far-fetched, insulting or incorrect that it debases human intelligence (all human intelligence, not just mine). And then I feel I must speak up. One such 'opinion' is the belief in a 'flat' Earth. Although this topic has a substantial history (see for example Christine Garwood's Flat Earth: The History of an Infamous Idea ), it has so far not been publicly contested in any great depth. Even Phil Plait, author of the ever-popular  Bad Astronomy Blog , declined to give such a preposterous proposition any real air-time. And I don't blame him. It really is the most absurd idea. But it should be denounced, for any number of reasons. The basic premise of the 'flat-Earth' protagonists is that ancient cultures were right, the Earth is flat , a circular disk bo

Does Today's Music All Sound The Same?

What's wrong Simon? Is this music too interesting? Recently, whilst out shopping, my young son asked "why is all the music in these shops exactly the same?" He had a point. Every neon-illuminated consumer-hovel of fashion we visited was pumping out the same insidious four-to-the-floor musical effluent. There was no variation in rhythm, tempo, timbre or anything else. Absolute tedium. You've heard it said over and over again: "all today's music sounds the same!" It's something that your parents probably say about the music you listen to. Or you say about the music other people listen to. It was probably also something your grandparents said about the music your parents were into. But who is right? Are any of them right? Does today's music really all sound the same? Or is it just generational crankiness? If you're on the ball, you'll already know that the music industry doesn't have your best interests at heart when deciding w

The Date Of Christmas

I've said this many times before, but astronomy effects our daily lives in ways of which we're often unaware. For example, you may be surprised to find that the date of Christmas is almost certainly down to our ancient forebears' astronomical endeavours. Imagine you’re a prehistoric farmer. You would have little understanding of what we today call science. But you would almost certainly know a lot about the motion of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets around the sky. In fact, these motions would be very important to you. Why? Because they mark the passage of the seasons and the seasons dictate what sustenance is available to humankind. Your survival depends on them. If you want your crops to grow, your livestock to survive, your hunt to be a success, you need a good knowledge of where you are in the yearly cycle of life. And it is the skies which give you that knowledge. So, here's the science bit (as people annoyingly say!). In the morning, the Sun rises in the

Are You Really A Bestselling Author?

I've seen a lot of discussion online recently concerning the 'bestseller' or 'bestselling' tag that many authors add to their online persona. There seems to be a general feeling that such tags are often not what they seem, or worse, seem to have no basis in fact. Let me state at the outset that this post is not a criticism of authors who genuinely are 'bestsellers'. To gain such an accolade takes a lot of hard work, dedication and devotion, and would not have been possible if their work were not of a high standard. No, this post is aimed at the author who appears to be making claims that are not substantiated, in the hope of artificially increasing their discoverability, and presumably bolster their sales.  Many authors are desperate to achieve success (usually measured by sales volume), and will often employ underhand tactics to achieve that. This is odd, because there is no evidence that merely making such claims actually improves an author's sa