Humpty Dumpty English!

The English Language is getting a pounding of late. Does it matter? Are we troubled by the way English is used? The BBC are helping two words flourish in ways they should not be used. The first is REPOSSESSION. Only this morning on News24, Declan Curry was happily chatting about REPOSSESSIONS! Does he know what the word means? Probably yes, but his self-regulatory mechanism is failing to get him, and countless others, to use the word FORECLOSURE!

Now a lot of Brits have a go at Americans for what they see as abuse of the language, but in many cases it is the Americans that are correct. A person or company can only repossess something that they already own. A car on hire purchase can be repossessed. A bank or building society does not own property in these cases. They are not landlords. By constantly repeating this word, REPOSSESSION, it conveys a message, on a drip-drip basis, that property ownership is in the hands of the banks.

The Americans quite rightly speak of mortgage foreclosures. One forecloses on a loan if a person is in default. However, that person has options to safeguard their financial situation. They can 1) Remortgage to get a better deal, or 2) Sell the property for a cheaper one, or 3) Pay off the loan in its entirety (not the most likely situation, I admit). In all this, the lender does not and never will own the property, providing the mortgage is paid according to agreements.

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.' Taking the Humpty Dumpty view of language, using the word repossession in place of foreclosure, the whole emphasis is moved from one of ownership to one of dependency. It is very easy for people to say "Oh, well, the bank own's my house!", even if they mean it in gest. It is also not the right word in the first place!

The second word is tiny, but, boy, has it permeated the whole of society. That word is OF! Here again, BBC News and almost everyone else is using OF when it is not necessary. ALL OF THE TIME! All OF this, all OF that! It is not needed. All this, and all that! That is all that is needed!

I appreciate that it is not a great grammatical sin. Most who say "all of" will resist stepping into "off of", but it appears to be a symptom of the way English is going. Pendantry can be self-destructive, but I think a certain maintenance of standards should be encouraged without letting the pedants loose!