Deciding what's English, what's not

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By Israel Shenker

English suffers endless indignities, but it does not suffer in silence. So many expressions offend against hearing, taste or intelligence that linguistic vigilantes are forever deploying the weapons of authority, scorn, imprecation, even despair. A few of the critics manage to keep their per dry.

About a dozen years ago the publishers of the American Heritage Dictionary, seeking protection in numbers, collected a posse entitled "usage panel." Houghton Mifflin, the Boston publisher that now rides herd over the dictionary, last year enlarged that posse by about a third to roughly 150 deputies and named Edwin Newman leader of the vigilantes.

Summoned via mailed ballot to examine the latest atrocities, the deputies fired away.

Would you favor "affordables," as in "determining the affordables of skilled workers in a time of prosperity"?

Robert Coughlan, author: "This jars my ear, but it is useful; so, reluctantly, yes."

Heywood Hale Broun, interviewer: "Should be limited to use in those TV commercials which suggest that some vulgar extra extravagance is within your reach.".

Orville Prescott, critic: “Vile!” Isaac Asimov, author: "Ugly word. I have negatived its advisables."

Red Smith, columnist: "The mother tongue can't afford it.”

Annie Dillard, author: “Egad.”

Would you accept "downplay” as transitive verb and as noun, as in "The delegate downplayed the reported anxiety over the party's abortion plank" and "The Russians quietly shelved a campaign to convene a new conference, and press treatment of such a meeting reflects the downplay"?

Gilbert Highet, yea-saying to the verb form: "I think this is acceptable: We have downcast and downweigh. My wife, Helen MacInnes, disagrees and considers it a detestable formation."

Winthrop Sargeant, author, saying no: "Too many good synonyms: minimize, disparage, discount, belittle, doubt the importance of, call in question, etc., etc."

David Ogilvy, advertising executive: "Should be played down."

Jacques Barzun, author: "What's wrong with 'played down'? Shall we be saying "The defeated candidate ingave'?"

Peter De Vries, author: “If I heard a speaker use it, I would upget and outwalk."

Robert Coughlan: "Revolting."

Is it acceptable to use "free up," as in "A new copying machine that will free up your secretary"?

J. K. Galbraith, economist: "Inde cent, even-obscene."

Nat Hentoff, author: "I think there's a chance of nipping this one. It should be shunned up."

Was it acceptable to write that "She gaveled the convention to order""?

Sheridan Baker, English professor: and hammered home her plank?" Jacques Barzun: " glassed the final suppose." Annie Dillard, voting yes: "This is no different from axing a tree.”

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John Ciardi, poet: "Why not? Compared to 'called,' it is a precision.'

Heywood Hale Broun: "If it's actually on schedule, you may use any word you want as a reward."

Vermont Royster, former editor, voting no: "She called the convention to order with or without a gavel." Peter De Vries: "It gavels me." 'Is "gay" (homosexual) as an adjective and as a noun appropriate to formal speech and writing? How about "gays" as in "The gays were among small groups of protesters"?

Annie Dillard, voting yes for "gay": "If that's what they want, let them have it as an adjective..."

Ken McCormick, editor, voting yes for "gay": "Inconsistently, I don't like 'gays.'

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Sheridan Baker: "Yes-even though I must register as a morose."

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., historian: "Gay' used to be one of the most agreeable words in the language. Its appropriation by a notably morose group is an act of piracy."

Isaac Asimov: "I bitterly resent the manner in which, 'gay' has been forced out of speech. I can no longer say, 'I feel gay' or speak of a 'gay spirit.'

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Russell Baker, columnist: "The current acceptance of 'gay' reflects a modern tendency of educated folk to oblige vociferously aggrieved minorities too readily, sometimes with odious results."

"Input" is used as equivalent to "data or information" in charting a course, as in "The President had access to varied input,” and to “an active role" as in "The nominee declared that he had no input in adoption of the plant." Yes or no?

Jacques Barzun: “... ... jargon--and very vague, since input can mean anything from a congressional appropriation to a frankfurter at lunch."

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Nat Hentoff: " shorthand that rusts thought."

John Fowles, author: "A Watergatism (mechanistic barbarism)!"

Lewis Mumford, author: "Input' has a legitimate use in computerdom otherwise it should be shunned. It is the equivalent of 'y' know' for those who don't know the right word.”

Berton Roueche, author: "I accept 'output,' but I don't know why 'input' turns my stomach. Maybe it's the people who use such words.”

Reuven Frank, television producer, voting no: "If there is output there must be input. If there is outcry there must be incry. If there is outlaw there must be inlaw. So the reasoning is junk."

Shenker is a New York Times general assignment reporter.

*New York Times