Words Can Never Hurt Me?

This is the first day for weeks where I haven't had to go anywhere or do anything. So this morning the unthinkable happened. I didn't wake up until 12.10pm! I have lost a whole morning and I am not happy about it. A whole morning. 6 hours later than my normal time for getting up. 6 hours lost forever. Now my whole day is messed up and instead of enjoying a day of doing nothing I am all out of kilter. Being out of kilter is not good. Although I don't know what a kilter is - give me a minute to Google it.

Kilter - out of balance or harmony

OUT OF KILTER - " Many have tried to explain the origins of 'kilter' in this expression meaning to be out of order, out of whack, but no one has succeeded. The best suggestions I think are the 'kilter,' meaning a 'useless hand in cards,' the dialect 'kilt,' to make neat,' and the Dutch 'keelter, 'stomach,' because stomachs are often 'out of order' with digestion problems. We only know that the expression is first recorded in 1643, as 'kelter.'" From the "Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins" by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

A friend of mine will often email me and other friends who are interested in such things an obscure word and give it three definitions from which we have to guess the correct one (strictly no Googling the correct meaning). I am yet to get one right as I stick rigorously to the rules (I am not so sure about the others) and we then try to use the word in conversation that week. No easy feat when we have had such offerings as:


Pogomotomy - useful when G grew a beard for charity, sadly it never reached the cutting stage.

Recombentibus - not to be confused with a reconditioned 'bendy bus' but no doubt plenty of these occurred on board a bendy bus.

Sgiomlaireached - I actually got to use this one but nobody recognised my pronunciation which sounded like a coughing fit so all I got was patted on the back.

The presumed failure to know the meanings of words caused a bit of a rumpus (a noisy, confused, or disruptive commotion) at work this week when an older member of staff - who has a MA (Masters of Arts) in her chosen subject - was peeved (annoyed or resentful) that a younger member of staff - in the same team but from a different profession - read one of her reports. The older member of staff tried to maintain that her report was confidential and once she lost that argument she then tried to say that the younger member of staff was not 'qualified' to read it as she did not have the relevant degree. 'I need to read it to you, as I do with the parents, because you are unlikely to understand the words I have used in the report' she whined (to utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint).

This was wrong on many levels. The report was written about a child and the main audience for the report was the child's parents. Reports for parents have to be free of jargon (the specialised or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group) and when they are also being written for a variety of professionals who will be working with the child they have to be able to be read and understood by everyone who is going to read it. The older woman made an assumption that because the younger woman has a different job title and only joined the team a few weeks ago (from abroad) she would not be able to understand the report and had therefore committed a great faux pas (an embarrassing mistake, or indiscretion) by thinking she was able to read and understand a report written by someone of such (in her mind) superiority. The younger woman was close to tears as this discussion was taking place and the older woman eventually walked back to her desk satisfied she had made her point and there would be no more reading of her reports by the plebs (the common people). Unfortunately for her the younger woman's manager was witness to this conversation and that's when the rumpus began. They were all taken off to a room and the older woman was informed that the younger woman had a degree in the relevant subject and was able to understand the report. Which was beside the point as the report, if it contained such highfalutin language (pompous or pretentious) to render it incomprehensible (difficult or impossible to understand or comprehend; unintelligiblenible) to it audience it had failed its purpose. Older woman's turn to cry and take the next day off sick.

My friend T, who is one of the older woman's professional colleagues, told me after that at the interview for his position the panel are very prescriptive about the language used in reports, that it had to be free of jargon etc, and that he told them he was a member of the Plain English Campaign- http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/ - untrue but it impressed the panel and he got the job.

The younger woman, who is studying for a PHD in the very subject the older woman deems so superior, told me that in her opinion the report was substandard, clearly copied and pasted and really just a list of bullet points. This I can believe as I have heard a member of the team calling out to her colleagues 'has anyone got a report on a child with Downs?' clearly intending to tailor it to the child she was writing about. Nothing wrong with this really, we all have been known to take short cuts and why keep reinventing the wheel but if this is the case then stop being so precious about it.

The younger woman may even have felt that there was a racial motive behind the older woman's patronising behaviour. I know this is unlikely to be the case as many years ago this same woman asked me if my daughter's name was something I had heard on a soap opera (a television serial, typically broadcast in the afternoon or evening, about the lives of melodramatic characters, which are often filled with strong emotions, highly dramatic situations and suspense) which made me feel she thought I was trailer trash (derogatory description for person who seems well-suited to residential life in a mobile home park and is distinguished by poor hygiene, foul language, slovenly or slutty clothing, and general ignorance and children with unusual names). I have never forgotten this conversation or a comment I overheard her say a couple of years ago 'I haven't worked hard all this years to be put in the same team as this riff raff' (rabble; a mob; persons of the lowest class in the community) a comment she was heard to repeat returning to her desk after she had reduced the younger woman to tears.

Not a nice woman and one who has a lot to learn despite her M bloody A.