“Fervency Is Not a Word, Rand”
Do you ever feel a pang of regret when a certain memory flits across your mind? I won’t begin to share all my examples—I typically take them to the Lord alone. But here’s one. And don’t laugh.
Once upon a time, I was a counselor at the Wilds Christian Camp and Conference Center. And the humble servants there asked us teenage counselors at the end of the summer to feel free to write anonymous comments on a legal pad about anything we’d like to see change the next time around. I can’t remember what others wrote or whether I was supposed to look at.
What I remember is that I chose that opportunity to remonstrate with one of the best speakers there about his word choice. I actually did have theological questions I could have taken the time to express, but I was more concerned to enforce the standards of English pedantry. I wrote the following,
“Fervency” is not a word, Rand!
The next summer I came back and he used it again, just like he had the previous summer. And then, unmistakably, he corrected himself and said “fervor.”
One 19-year-old in the room sat back satisfied. I had done my duty on behalf of all my fellow word mavens. One more person had, for his own good, submitted to our principles. Some day perhaps we would rid the English-speaking world of all incorrect speech and writing. The pigs flying overhead would salute us, and the Millennium would commence.
So I was once exactly the person I now so gently complain about: someone who simply didn’t get it. I had been told by someone I trusted (who sometimes reads this blog…) that “fervor” was a word and “fervency” was not. The bright light of reason, however, never dawned upon my mind. I never thought to ask, “How does he know?”
How can anyone know that what a clearly very competent English speaker says is, somehow, not English? I understood him perfectly. So did every maven in the room. Why can’t he say it? Why isn’t it a word?
Let me mark it down for the record: fervency is a word. An English word. A fine one anyone is allowed to use whenever they (!) want. As best I can tell, it was more than once in its history considered preferable to fervor. That it is not now (as best I can tell) may be due to overzealous teenagers who think they know The Truth About Words and aren’t afraid to try to cow their betters into complying.
I, hereby, absolve myself of guilt. I’m sorry. I was wrong. I say this with both fervency and fervor, because I can’t tell you how many times this little story has embarrassed me without anyone else knowing what thirteen-year-old memories were causing that look to flit across my face. Now maybe those memories will leave me alone. The “Linguistics” category on this blog should be more than sufficient for my penance.
A Blogger After My Own Heart
This guy, a doctoral candidate in linguistics, has a whole blog dedicated to the same mission my posts about Lexicographical Prescriptivism are. He writes on his about page,
Grammar is a contentious point. Some argue that it’s horrifyingly appalling that ANYONE would ever utter the words “I drive pretty good”. (This, of course, is because good is an adjective, good is modifying drive, which is a verb, and our forefathers fought and died so that verbs would never be subjugated by adjectives.) Some would even argue that you are a fool, an ill-educated ass, and a corner-dwelling dunce if you managed to emerge from your schooling without learning that periods are properly placed INSIDE of quotation marks.
I am not a member of these groups, and I’m fighting back. Grammar should not be articles of faith handed down to us from those on high who never split infinitives but always split hairs. Grammar should be rules that allow us to communicate more efficiently, clearly, and understandably. I’m not advocating the abolition of grammar, but rather its justification. I’m not quite sure what that will entail in the end, but I’m starting out by pointing out grammar rules that just don’t make sense, don’t work, or don’t have any justification. All I want is for our rules of grammar to be well-motivated.
I agree, though you always have to be careful in fights… So I wanted to clarify two somethings maybe somebody somewhere has wondered about what I say about language:
- I’m not saying (and note that this guy isn’t either) that no one should ever prescribe any usage—or spelling or syntax. On the contrary, I’m all for a rigorous education in grammar and vocabulary and spelling. That’s what I got both at home and at school, and I’m very glad I did.
- Neither do I say that correct grammar is a tool of the elites to keep everyone else down, as if proclaiming descriptivism against prescriptivism will somehow empower everyone to say what he wants to say and therefore erase class distinctions. I don’t think this guy is saying that either, but it’s a charge I think I get sometimes.
No, all I’m saying on each of the above points is the following :
- At some point in the English education of our kids—and I’m not expert enough to say when this should be, but I suspect that junior high might be the time—they need to be introduced to the fact that “correctness” is largely a social construct and not a moral one. I say “largely,” because I think there are intrinsic, God-given principles of aesthetics and structure that we ignore at our peril. But they don’t perfectly match the-right-way-to-speak as defined by standard American English grammar in schools.
- Students should see language as a tool useful in different social contexts. My good English education is a ticket into some places I couldn’t go otherwise, I think. There really is something better about being able to sound like a high-class language speaker with mastery of accepted “rules” of grammar and spelling. There are times, however, when this is a liability and you would be well served to sound a little more down to earth—as an expression of love to people who haven’t had the same educational opportunities you’ve had, or perhaps as an expression of humility before people who have. Language is the biggest Swiss Army Knife there is, and those who know how to use all its tools (including the “low-class” ones) will survive in the Alps and in the jungles, in the dissertation defense and at the family reunion. With Uncle Ned. You know.
Further Reading:
- If there’s one post about language that I myself keep coming back to, it’s this one. That line about “people who have the power to reward them”—that’s a priceless insight substantiated by the existence of businesses like this one.
- And, okay, from a theological perspective, check out this post, too.
Bible Typography Manifesto
I’ve released a manifesto, and I invite you to sign it. “Manifesto” sounds a whole lot nicer than “private opinion,” and that’s my only excuse for using such a grandiose word.
The format is slightly tongue in cheek, but the upshot is serious. I’m a Bible curriculum author by day and, often, a graphic designer by night. I care about the intersection of those two sciences/arts. And I decided to do something about a significant problem I see at that intersection—a ten-car pile-up caused by drivers too old to keep their licenses, if you ask me. So I’m offering a constructive solution.
The Singular They
Reasonable, clear, straightforward, and admirably brief (and it even quotes the KJV):
Another Verse in the KJV That Can Be Easily Misunderstood
A few years ago I turned on the TV (don’t ask why; I had no excuse) and flipped over to the Church Channel. There I beheld a white, 40-something charismatic preacher jumping around the stage before a wildly clapping and shouting audience. He read the following verse out of the KJV, and it was projected on the television screen in front of him:
And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. (John 2:3 KJV)
The preacher was tired, he said, of the kind of preaching that promised that God would supply only your needs. That only goes halfway. This verse shows, he said, that God delights to give us what we want, not just what we need.
Prosperity theology played a strong role in this man’s statement, but this post is about the KJV. And it’s your turn to supply an explanation, dear reader: what is it about the KJV that led this particular speaker of contemporary English astray?
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