Jacob Rees-Mogg, the foppish MP newly-appointed Leader of Britain’s House of Commons and sometimes called the Honourable Member for the Eighteenth Century, has issued a no-nonsense style guide for all writing done by his staff. Like any set of language do’s and don’ts, Rees-Mogg’s guide to utterly correct if somewhat outdated English, prepared some years ago for use in his Somerset constituency office and now to be used in the leader’s new office, includes rules to be followed and words to be banned.
Among the rules: staff must refer to all non-titled males as “Esq.” (there is no equivalent honorific for women). All organizations are singular (the government is, not the veddy-British the government are, which you’d think J R-M, Esq., M.P., would prefer). And two spaces follow a full stop (a rule common in the age of the typewriter but no longer useful in the age digital writing, where computer algorithms automatically allot the spacing in a line of text).
Banned words on Rees-Mogg’s list include
- very (a poor substitute for quite, which the English use to give the impression of enthusiasm when they mean quite the opposite)
- no longer fit for purpose (a phrase which has clearly passed its sell-by date)
- got (this one puzzles observers, but perhaps Rees-Mogg thinks it’s an Americanism)
- and unacceptable, which is—there’s no other way to say it—unacceptable.
Of course all style guides have such arbitrary lists. Henry Fowler wanted everyone to distinguish between that and which. He rightly acknowledged that the terms are synonyms but he thought it would be better if each were assigned a separate function—and purists transmuted his suggestion into a law of the universe.
Strunk and White have their own set of musts and peeves, including the mantra, “Omit needless words,” a rule that William Strunk repeatedly taught his first-year writing students at Cornell early in the twentieth century. Strunk, a rigid teacher as well as lawgiver, said everything to his students three times. And that meant breaking the rule even as he intoned, three times, “Omit needless words. Omit needless words. Omit needless words.” The students who weren’t busy texting saw right through that one.
All our usage guardians break the rules they expect others to live by. It was George Orwell who said—seriously, in “Politics and the English Language” (1946)—“The passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active.” That’s a passive. Orwell uses the passive to trash the passive.
It’s so common for rule givers to break the rules that I’ve turned this into my own rule: Baron’s First Law of English Usage reads, “Whenever someone tells a writer what to do, you will find them breaking that very rule.” So it should be no surprise to find Rees-Mogg an honourable member of this do-as-I-say tradition. According to the Guardian, he’s broken his own rules 700 times in his prepared speeches to Parliament.
And since a first law implies a second, here's Baron's Second Law of Usage: “When someone complains about some aspect of English, that’s a sign it’s already so entrenched that no amount of griping will get rid of it.” Which explains why ITV reported that Rees-Mogg is very fond of one word on his own banned words list: very. In a recent speech he used another banned word, I, seven times.
Even though they’re doomed to fail, style guides remain insanely popular (see how I avoided very?). Reviewers greet each new guide with relief and enthusiasm: at last someone’s got it right. Many of the books become best sellers, prompting readers to apply the guide’s rules to their own writing. But they do so imperfectly, creating new errors and prompting new guides that ban these new mistakes. And so it goes.
Seriously, the fact that there are so many style guides, and they keep on coming, suggests they’re not actually working. Until autocorrect, that is. Forget Rees-Mogg. Forget Fowler. Forget Strunk & White. Autocorrect is on the case.
Just as word processors will automatically space text to fit your screen, they will automatically correct spelling, usage, and grammar so you never have to do the heavy lifting for that or which or Esq. or passive voice again.
But that’s not all. About ten years ago, Apple took out a patent on an autocorrect that would eliminate dirty words from text, disappearing them from the screen as they were being typed, replacing them with the warning, “Language!” Any attempt to override the autocensor resulted in a frozen “send” key.
The “big brother” autocorrect never made it to market, yet it’s safe to say that autocorrect has succeed in regulating written language where the traditional style guides have failed, to the point where autocorrect, a computer program, now actively competes with humans in directing the course of the English language.
And that’s a problem, not just because it’s an example of technology interfering with a natural process—technology interferes all the time. And technology changes language use all the time: just as today's technology brings wtf, lol, and because internet, there was no word for 'wheel' in prehistoric times until someone invented both a wheel and a name for it.
Autocorrect as arbiter of language is a problem because autocorrect is imperfect: it can’t evaluate context the way a human can, and sometimes it seems programmed to give a wrong result. Writers are constantly fighting autocorrect. But it’s not a fair fight—autocorrect always wins. All your its become it’s, even if you meant to write its. You can keep deleting that apostrophe, but it keeps reappearing. Even when you think you’ve tamed the beast into submission, autocorrect ignores your instructions, sending what it is sure you meant to say out into the world. This happens so often that people make lists of funny and embarrassing autocorrects.
And that leads me to Baron’s Third Law of English Usage, which requires everything you post to be immediately followed by an apology--an autoapology, if you will: “I didn’t write that. I didn’t send that. I didn’t mean that. Because autocorrect.” And then, muttering to ourselves, “Damn you, autocorrect.” But autocorrect won't respond by warning, "Language!" because, being an algorithm, autocorrect doesn’t care what you think.
And one final comment about Rees-Mogg, who wants to autoimpose language rules on his staff the way his boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wants to impose Brexit on the United Kingdom: without negotiation. Since along with “no comma after and,” Rees-Mogg requires employees to ditch the metric system and return to imperial measurements, they must henceforth procure Rees-Mogg’s single malt from the off-licence in quarts instead of litres. But since Scotland voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, staff will have to buy litres of scotch, take a swig, and give the remaining 33.294 imperial fl. oz. (946 ml.) to the boss.
