Plain Words (14 page)

The fact that
is an expression sometimes necessary and proper, but sometimes a clumsy way of saying what might be said more simply:

Owing to the fact that the exchange is working to full capacity. (Because the exchange …)

The delay in replying has been due to the fact that it was hoped to arrange for a representative to call upon you. (I delayed replying because I hoped to arrange for a representative to call on you.)

So too
until such time as
, which is usually merely a verbose way of saying
until
. It may be useful to convey a suggestion that the event contemplated is improbable or remote or has no direct connection with what is to last until it occurs. But it cannot do so in,

You will be able to enjoy these facilities until such time that he terminates his agreement.

If the phrase is used, it should be
such time as
, not, as here, ‘such time that'.

There cannot, I think, ever be any justification for preferring the similar phrase
during such time as
to
while
.

As
has other sins of superfluity imputed to it, besides the help it gives in building up verbose prepositions and conjunctions. Dr Ballard writes that
as
has

acquired a wide vogue in official circles. Wherever
as
can be put in, in it goes. And often it gets into places where it has no business to be. A man in the public service used to draw his salary from a certain date; now he draws it as from a certain date. Time was when officials would refer to ‘the relationship between one department and another'; now they call it ‘the relationship
as
between one department and another'. Agenda
papers often include as an item : ‘To consider as to the question of …' If this sort of interpolation between the verb and its object were extended to ordinary speech, a man would no longer ‘eat his dinner,' but ‘eat as to his dinner'; or, to make the parallel complete, ‘eat as to the diet of his dinner'.

(P. B. Ballard,
Teaching the Mother Tongue
, 1921)

There is reason in saying, of a past date, ‘these allowances will be payable as from the 1st January last', but there is none in saying, of a future date, ‘these allowances will cease to be payable as from the 1st July next'. ‘On the 1st July' is all that is needed. The phrase
as and from
, not unknown, is gibberish.

As such
is sometimes used in a way that seems to have no meaning:

The statistics, as such, add little to our information.

If they do not do so as statistics, in what capacity do they? The writer probably meant ‘by themselves'.

There is no objection to the sale of houses as such.

Here the context shows the writer to have meant that there was no objection of principle to the sale of houses.

Note.
The word
as
, sometimes coupled with
of
, continues to be overworked.
Equally as
is used to mean
equally
,
as yet
to mean
yet
,
as of yet
to mean either
yet
or
so far
,
as of now
to mean
now
or sometimes
from now on
, and
as of soon
to mean
soon
. A needless
as
appears in all the quotations below:

Certain pairs of words have a way of keeping company without being able to do any more together than either could have done separately.
Save and except
seems to have had its day, but we still have with us
as and when
,
if and when
, and
unless and until
.
As and when
can perhaps be defended when used of something that will happen piecemeal (‘Interim reports will be published as and when they are received'). Nothing can be said for the use of the pair in a sentence like this one:

As and when the Bill becomes an Act guidance will be given on the financial provisions of it as they affect hospital maintenance.

Bills cannot become Acts piecemeal.

If and when
might plead that both are needed in such a sentence as ‘Further cases will be studied if and when the material is available', arguing that
if
alone will not do because the writer wants to emphasise that material becoming available will be studied immediately, and
when
alone will not do because it is uncertain whether the material ever will be available. But this is all rather subtle, and the wise course will almost always be to decide which conjunction suits you better, and to use it alone. I have not been able to find (or to imagine) the use of
unless and until
in any context in which one of the two alone would not have sufficed.

Note
. There are new redundant pairings slowly becoming conventional in modern English.
Outside of
and
hence why
are two examples where the meaning of the second word has already been taken care of by the first:

Wales drop outside of top 100 of FIFA's world rankings for the first time since 2000. (
Daily Mail)

Met Office readings revealed that the atmosphere on Monday was as dry as desert air — hence why there were no clouds or aircraft contrails in the sky. (
The Times
)

Increasingly more
is another example when misused as follows: ‘Clinicians are becoming increasingly more influential' (
British Medical Journal
). But often it is the first word in a common pair that is redundant because it is an adjective that adds nothing to what it notionally describes.
Future prospects
,
close scrutiny
,
temporary respite
and
mutually contradictory
are all examples (the
Guardian
reports that ‘mutually contradictory witness statements often both felt true'). It should not be necessary on the London Underground to be reminded to take one's
personal
possessions—as opposed to what kind? Above ground, the tautology ‘preventive maintenance' has started to appear on the sides of Britain's white vans. This novelty may have been inspired by the phrase
preventive medicine
; but unlike medicine, which can be intended to cure, all maintenance is preventive, otherwise it is
repairs
(or so one might feel justified in supposing:
repairs
is now itself sometimes recast as ‘corrective maintenance'). The formula ‘becoming to be' is also on the up, as here: ‘Making ends meet is becoming to be more and more of a challenge'. This should either be
becoming
on its own, or
coming to be
. ~

Point of view
,
viewpoint
,
standpoint
and
angle
, useful and legitimate in their proper places, are sometimes no more than a refuge from the trouble of precise thought, and provide clumsy ways of saying something that could be said more simply and effectively. They are used, for instance, as a circumlocution for a simple adverb, such as ‘from a temporary point of view' for ‘temporarily'. Here are a few examples:

From a cleaning point of view there are advantages in tables being of uniform height. (For cleaning.)

I can therefore see no reason why we need to see these applications, apart from an information point of view. (Except for information.)

Bare boards are unsatisfactory from every angle. (In every respect.)

This may be a source of embarrassment to the Regional Board from the viewpoint of overall planning and administration. (The plain way of putting this is: ‘This may embarrass the Regional Board in planning and administration'.)

This development is attractive from the point of view of the public convenience. (This, I am told, provoked a marginal comment: ‘What is it like looking from the other direction?')

Aspect
is the complement of
point of view
. As one changes one's point of view one sees a different aspect of what one is looking at. It is therefore natural that
aspect
should lead writers into the same traps as do
point of view
,
viewpoint
and
standpoint
. It induces writers, through its vagueness, to prefer it to more precise words, and lends itself to woolly circumlocution. I cannot believe that there was any clear conception in the head of the official who wrote, ‘They must accept responsibility for the more fundamental aspects of the case'.
Aspect
is one of the words that should not be used without deliberation, and it should be rejected if its only function is to make a clumsy paraphrase of an adverb.

Various methods are in vogue for softening the curtness of
will not
or
cannot
. The commonest are
is not prepared to
,
is not in a position to
,
does not see his or her way to
and
cannot consider
.
Such phrases are no doubt dictated by politeness, and therefore deserve respect. But they must be used with discretion. The recipient of a letter may feel better—though I doubt it—being told that the Minister ‘is not prepared to approve' than ‘the Minister does not approve'. There is not even this slender justification when what is said is that the Minister
is
prepared to approve:

The Board have examined your application and they are prepared to allocate 60 coupons for this production. I am accordingly to enclose this number of coupons.

Are prepared to allocate
should have been
have allocated
. As the coupons are enclosed, the preparatory stage is clearly over.

But there is a legitimate use of
prepared to
, as in the following:

In order to meet the present need, the Secretary of State is prepared to approve the temporary appointment of persons without formal qualifications.

Here the Secretary of State is awaiting candidates, prepared to approve them if they turn out all right. But the phrase should never be used in actually giving approval. It is silly, and if the habit takes hold, it will lead to such absurdities as,

I have to acknowledge your letter of the 16th June and in reply I am prepared to inform you that I am in communication with the solicitors concerned in this matter.

There are other dangers in these phrases. They may breed by analogy verbiage that is mere verbiage—and that cannot call on politeness to justify its existence. You may find yourself writing that the Minister
will take steps to
when all you mean is
will
, or that the Minister
will cause investigation to be made with a view to ascertaining
, when what you mean is that the Minister will
find
out
.
Take steps to
is not always to be condemned. It is a reasonable way to express the beginning of a gradual process, as in:

Steps are now being taken to acquire this land.

But it will not do, because of its literal incongruity, in a sentence such as this one:

All necessary steps should be taken to maintain the present position.

There is a danger that some of these phrases may suggest undesirable ideas to the flippant. To be told that the Minister is ‘not in a position to approve' may excite a desire to retort that the Minister might try lying on the floor, to see if that does any good. The retort will not, of course, be made, but you should not put ideas of that sort about your Minister into people's heads. Pompous old phrases must be allowed to die if they collapse under the prick of ridicule. A traditional expression such as ‘I am to request you to move your Minister to do so-and-so' now runs the risk of conjuring up a risible picture—of physical pressure applied to a bulky and inert object.

The English language likes to tack an adverbial particle to a simple verb and so to create a verb with a different meaning. Verbs thus formed have come to be called ‘phrasal verbs'. This habit of inventing phrasal verbs has been the source of great enrichment of the language. Pearsall Smith says that from them

we derive thousands of the vivid colloquialisms and idiomatic phrases by means of which we describe the greatest variety of human actions and relations. We can take
to
people, take them
up
, take them
down
, take them
off
, or take them
in
; keep
in
with
them, keep them
down
or
off
or
on
or
under
; get
at
them, or
round
them, or
on with
them; do
for
them, do
with
them or
without
them, and do them
in
; make
up to
them, make
up with
them, make
off with
them; set them
up
or
down
or hit them
off
—indeed, there is hardly any action or attitude of one human being to another which cannot be expressed by means of these phrasal verbs. (
Words and Idioms
)