• Half term

Every month, we publish a diary from the Head Teacher of our local secondary school in Hungerford. He’s a good writer and the text only requires the lightest of edits. However, this month, there was something in there that really confused me.

He was talking about half terms, but not in the way I understand them, as breaks in the middle of a term. An email exchange revealed that schools now have six terms, not three: who knew? These are, in the vernacular of his profession, referred to as “half terms”. This solves one problem but creates a whole load more.

• First, to call them “half terms” admits defeat from the outset. They’re clearly half of something bigger, ie terms; which means there must still be three terms, not six.
• Second, in the middle of these “half terms” are breaks, also called half terms. By any linguistical or taxonomical standard, this makes no sense: two things can’t be separated by a different thing that has the same name without creating the impression that they’re the same things: which they aren’t.
• Third, sometimes these “half terms” are of different lengths – indeed, that was the the nub of his main point. I know we play fast and loose with what “half” means but, to a purist, it’s fifty percent and nothing else. So, can we have two halves, one of which is several weeks longer than the other one?
• Fourth, some of these six terms are separated by half terms – this term (that word again) still being used to describe the break – and some by holidays. To have two different kinds of breaks suggest two different kind of things being broken; which, apparently, is no longer the case.
• Finally, what other word could have been used instead? “Term” is no good as people immediately think of three a year. “New term” sounds political and makes no sense after a few years. The French “trimestre” might work but the “tri-” prefix gets us back to the three-term problem that are educators are so keen to shed. Americans use “semester”. This, however, technically means “six months” and so doesn’t help at all. In any case, the outcry against using these fancy and foreign latinate terms would be massive. Do we have any less emotive words that could help? None spring to mind.

• More words

All very casuistical, I agree: though I’d suggest that when a teacher says, say, that some bit of work will “need to be done in the next half term” you might want to check what’s meant.

I mention it because (a) words interest me and (b) because it shows that, no matter how vast a language, sometimes words have to double up. Some genius might think of a new word; and it might catch on. Until then, we’ll muddle along. At least we have no Académie Française to chivvy the language into a bureaucratically-defined path. We let it flow. None the less, if we don’t strive to use words as precisely as we can then we’re failing in our duty as their custodians. However, there are problems…

We don’t, for example, have nearly enough pronouns for current needs. We haven’t so far followed the French invention of the gender-neutral iel/s (though, for them, the problem of the genders of any adjectives remains, as it wouldn’t for us), but this may come. “They” and “their” are carrying far too much at the moment, particularly as we don’t use “they is” to describe a singular person who wishes to avoid gender definition.

All of which reminds me of another problem. In my professional life I’ve written, edited, designed or published thousands of publications. Some have been occasional or one-off, but most were or are annual, monthly or weekly. Fortunately I’ve never had to do any bi-monthly ones as I have no idea what the word means.

Merriam-Webster describe this as (1) every two months; or (b) twice a month. Other dictionaries aren’t any more helpful. For the second it suggests the alternative term “semimonthly.” This hasn’t really caught on – certainly I’ve never seen it before – and leaves open the question as to whether the “semi” refers to to the division of the month in which all the work is to have been done or the proportion of the work which is to have been done in the month: which leaves one no further forward.

• Fewer words

There are also occasions where the reverse happens, where two different words that between them capture a useful distinction have been allowed to become conflated. “Fewer than” and “less than” is an example, the original distinction being that the former is used where the quantity could be expressed with a number and the latter where it couldn’t. However, to mis-use these doesn’t create any particular ambiguity. Confusing the difference between “due to” and “owing to” – whatever exactly that difference is – is similarly unambiguous. Our language has been smoothed, though not debased, by the change.

It’s worth remembering that the incredibly flexible language that we speak was the result of centuries of its being smoothed in just this way. English is a peasant language which had no use for the more ornate aspects of the Norman French spoken by our post-conquest rulers. This filed away, for instance, the whole nightmare of genders. There’s only one English adjective I’m aware of (blond/e) that inflects in this way. This seems to have served us quite well.

This drift towards the merging of meanings is not, however, always benign. My particular bugbear is “infer” and “imply”. This distinction is both simple and useful: the speaker or writer implies and the listener or reader infers. However, some dictionaries now regard these terms as interchangeable.

This immediately poses a philosophical question as to whether the lexicographer should (1) describe the language as it ought to be used or (2) define it as it is. Either aim is impossible accurately to accomplish in any case as (1) often no one agrees what correct usage is and (2) different people use language in different ways.

“Infer” and “imply” should be protected. If the two words, and their derived nouns, meant the same thing, then the sentence “the implication from the Minister’s speech was that…”leaves one confused as to whether that was the meaning that the Minister was seeking to convey (the implication) or whether the was the conclusion that the writer came to (the inference).

The distinction between statement and interpretation is therefore lost, or at least blurred. There’s enough of this going on as it is without throwing a useful linguistic distinction onto the bonfire as well.

• False friends

The term “false friends” is used to describe words which seem the same in two different languages but which actually mean quite different things. The only other language I can speak is French, so it is to that that I’ll confine myself.

As far as a foreigner is concerned, they have enough false friends (faux amis) of their own. The distinction between “dessus” and “dessous”, so hard for many non Frenchies to distinguish or pronounce correctly, wouldn’t normally matter, were they not referring to opposite terms, “above” and “below”. Similarly, “ouest” and “est” for west and east: both of which sound like wind coming under a door. There’s also “tout droit” which doesn’t mean, as one might logically imagine, keep taking right turns, but keep going straight ahead. You might wonder how the French ever manage to arrive in the right place.

Our two languages are similar. We construct our compound verbs in the same way and, apart from adjectives, follow the same word order in sentences. Every English person knows hundreds, perhaps thousands, of words of French (and vice versa) but just needs to change the pronunciation a bit. Lion, football, orange, special, information, impasse, minute, excellent, cinema and numerous others are exactly the same and many others like colour, beer,  enormous, blue and alcohol are separated by only a letter.

Other seemingly simple translations are more perilous. The French “car” is a coach. The French “librairie” is a bookshop. The French “raisin” is a grape. There are many others.

To a large extent, English is merely French spoken very badly, by proto-Germans. I’m happy with that.

• Harvard

Trump has picked a big enemy in his latest spat. It looks like an effort at control of an organisation which might, and currently does, teach things which are not to liking of their administration. Time will tell if he has the attention-span or resolution to continue it.

Huffington Post summarises the issue as follows: “The president appears to have taken particular umbrage with Harvard since he embarked on his crusade to weed out diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and combat antisemitism at the nation’s top institutions, along with targeting international students critical of his administration.” Team Trump has denied that PotUS’s son Barron applied to Harvard, his rejection having been advanced by some as the reason for his attack. The Times of India suggests that it’s Trump’s own rejection in 1964 that still rankles.

In terns of exclusivity and prejudice, Harvard doesn’t have a spotless record. Nor does Trump. None the less, he has identified this university as public enemy #1. It was pointed out to me that this poker game, if played all the way up to the Supreme Court, will produce one of two possible results, both beneficial to him:

• If the judges support Harvard, he will accuse them of being woke (ironically, given their provenance);
• If the judges oppose Harvard, then all of higher education in the US will have to toe his line (whatever that proves to be).

It was further suggested that this also suits his personal combative agenda: “I’m fighting for you, just like I said I would” or “they’re out to get me again, but I’ll keep fighting them.”

He likes a fight, does Donny. He’s also just picked another one with twelve countries whose nationals are now banned from entering the USA.

• Cambridge

Meanwhile, my own alma mater is in the throes of a less existential battle, that of picking its next Chancellor. This is a largely ceremonial position – a bit like a Mayor, though of a particularly influential town – whose main role is that of raising money: a well-dressed and well-spoken corporate chugger, perhaps. 

Aside from the prejudicial fact that we were there at the same time and that I knew her slightly, I can’t think of anyone better. The others (men, with one other exception) I’m sure are all worthy candidates. However, if communication skills are needed – and to raise money you need to do this – you need look no further.

Her problem might be because of the main aspect of her success. The fact that she’s a woman, and a gay one, hopefully won’t count against her. Nor will her intelligence, obviously first-rate. What might is that she’s too funny. I’m sure that the other candidates are hysterical on their chosen subjects of macro-economic development or nuclear fusion. Sandi can be witheringly funny about anything, as watchers of many programmes including QI can attest. This might make some of her voters uneasy.

Humour is, of course, just another way of expressing truth. To be able to express mature humour about something, you have to understand what it is, separate the absurd from the serious and make the point in a way that helps people not only laugh but also think. If there’s any higher goal of higher education then I’d like to know what it is. If anyone reading this is a member of Cambridge’s Regent House, which casts the votes, then go for Sandi.

• Tweeting in haste

The Week takes a look at the case of Lucy Connolly, the childminder who was sentenced to 31 months for tweeting some robust views about asylum seekers and illegal migrants following the Southport stabbings. She recently lost an appeal against the length of the sentence and the matter is being portrayed as an egregious case of state over-reach or a proportionate reaction to an incitement to racial hatred.

Others were given similar sentences, often for similar messages. The main difference between her and most of them is perhaps the fact that she’s a middle-class woman. In fairness to her, she did quickly delete the tweet. 

I’m not sure where I stand on this. Her comments went way beyond my definition of what constitutes reasonable free speech but there is a concern about locking people up for things that they say, rather than do. This time, the judges may have got it right, in quite a harsh way. Is it, however, the thin end of the wedge for the day when someone’s banged up for saying they don’t much care for a particular politician or law, as happens in other countries?

It’s also a timely reminder that “once tweeted, never deleted.” Remarks that would once have been made to half a dozen people in the pub and then forgotten by closing time can now go worldwide in seconds and stored on a server for ever. But that’s what we want, isn’t it? Instant, global traction for our opinions. We can’t have it both ways.

• And finally…

• The Week refers to the fast-developing U-turn by Sir KS and Rachel from Accounts regarding matters such as the winter-fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap. The magazine goes on to quote the The Guardian and The Independent as arguing that the government’s hand was forced by Reform. Farage has, The Guardian claims, “simply marched his party into the “vacant political space” that ought to be occupied by the centre-left.: This could be a fairly rare case of national policies being directly influenced by local election results. 

• The BBC reports on the recent case of four men who’ve been jailed over a £6m NHS contract fraud. It seems that the scandal was “only uncovered after the theft of two NHS-issued mobile phones, which led to thousands of text messages and emails being discovered on multiple laptops, computers and mobiles.” Sometimes crime does pay, it seems.

• Donald Trump will be remembered for many things. One of his particularly unwelcome legacies is likely to to be the popularisation of that most hideous piece of punctuation, the exclamation (or screech) mark. Sorry to be so dogmatic but, apart from in direct speech or writing a letter to Westward Ho!, there is never any circumstance in which its use is acceptable. Yet Trump uses them all the time – yes he does! Fact!

• Speaking of which, I did say shortly after the US election that Trump and Musk’s new love-in wouldn’t last more than a few months, there only being room for one massive narcissist in any relationship. I think you can agree that that was a straight tip.

• Well done to PSG for scintillating performance in the Champions League final, blowing away an aging and leggy Inter Milan 5-0. This is the largest margin of victory in the competition’s 70-odd year history, the previous records being a couple of 4-0s and a 7-3. From what I saw of the game, Inter were lucky it wasn’t worse. It’s gratifying that PSG did this after they’d shed their trio of superstars who, by all accounts, were acting like prima donnas. The way they played, it’s hard to bet against their retaining it next year.

This victory increases French club’s tally of European club trophies by 50 per cent, the total now standing at three. Quite a long way to go to catch up with Spain (41), England (35) and Italy (30). Still, it’s a start…

Across the area