We've been burglarized!

Don't panic, we haven't really. But I find writing this strange Americanism – let alone saying it aloud – amusing to say the least.

In the UK, we know this word as BURGLED. That's what a 'burglar' does. He burgles. For example: "Man, 62, burgles old lady's house and steals her purse."

My husband raised a good point yesterday (having just become a British citizen, I think he's finally starting to see the faults in American English aka 'the light'). He asked, why does a burglar burglarize if a shopper doesn't shopperize and a driver doesn't driverize?

I agree. A terrorist terrorizes... so the noun would have had to be 'burglarist', wouldn't it?

Who knows where it came from. Sometimes language has no logic.

All I do know is that I'm not a fan of this weird 'burglarize' word and don't appreciate it being used this side of the Atlantic, thank you very much Daily Mail. Even if you do change the suffix to the British '-ised', you're still not getting it past me.

In case you're interested, here's a little more background on these two words

Up close and personal

For me the thing that makes the most difference to a piece of copy, besides using plain English that Joe Public can understand, is how personal it is. I’m not talking ‘have you ever shaved your back’ personal. I just mean being warm and direct.

Today I received my weekly newsletter from Innocent smoothies. Like a lot of people, I’m a sucker for their copy (speaking of which, there’s a funny story below about an interview I once had – not with Innocent I hasten to add*). I don't even buy their smoothies.

Anyway, the subject line of the email was ‘The Amelia edition’, which had me hooked immediately. Who was this mysterious Amelia? Well, turns out she’s just some girl from Brighton who tweeted a few weeks ago about wanting to be in an Innocent newsletter.

Innocent didn’t blow the trumpet about it. They just added a few lines up top letting people know who Amelia was. Just so happens it also gave them something to focus the edition on (the Innocent newsletter is never really about Innocent stuff – it’s an eclectic mix of random facts and stories).

Thing is, they don’t actually write about Amelia from Brighton in the newsletter. Instead they write about famous Amelias in general, with a few other bits and pieces. But after reading it, I still came away with a fuzzy feeling inside and thinking to myself ‘isn’t that a nice idea’.

Sometimes, to make a piece of copy personal, all you have to do is let the reader know you’ve thought of them. Or that you’re thoughtful full stop. It’s not rocket science, but it’s something so many organisations still fail to do. All too often companies write about what they want to say – not about what their readers are interested in.

*Story about an interview I once had: Third or fourth question in, CEO asks me, “How would you describe a trip to Burma in the style of Innocent smoothies?” I’m sorry, but really? I’ve never even been to Burma before! And wouldn't this guy rather that his company have its own unique tone of voice, instead of just copying Innocent? I knew there and then that I’d turn down the job even if they offered it to me. Which they didn’t.

Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen

In typical British fashion I’m going to start this blog by referencing the weather. When I woke up this morning (one hour earlier than normal as the clocks had gone back), the skies were blue and clear. Having been warned that ‘stormageddon’ is due to make landfall tonight, we decided to make the most of the sunshine and take a walk in Greenwich Park. As we were walking, I felt a sudden burst of what can only be described as Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen – a joy of kicking through piles of leaves.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a real word. It’s something that Ben Schott made up in his new book ‘Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition’ – you can read (and listen to) excerpts from the book here. For a language geek like me, this book is a dream. One of my favourite things about German is the way you can just tack words together to create whole new words. The 63-letter long Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is a prime (pardon the pun) example of this, though unfortunately it ceased to exist earlier this year.

Herbstlaubtrittvergnügen prompted me to do a bit more research on ‘untranslatable’ words (and by that I mean words that don't have a one-to-one match – all words can be translated, of course). Two of my favourites on this list are the Inuit word iktsuarpok, which is the sense of anticipation that makes you go outside and check to see if anyone is coming, and the Spanish term sobremesa, which means to hang around after a meal and chat to the people you ate with.

I think it’s interesting that these cultures felt the need to create these words in the first place. The Inuit people live in very remote areas, and probably don’t get that many visitors – so I imagine the sense of anticipation they feel when they think someone’s coming to visit is indeed great. And we all know the Spanish are a very sociable lot who love their food. So sobremesa (literally ‘about the table’) is probably a national pastime.

It’s a bit like phubbing I suppose – words only ever come into existence if there’s a need for them. So next time you’re left wondering why there isn’t a word for something you’re trying to say, why not just make it up instead? 

He, she or they?

Reading this article the other day reminded me of one of my biggest bugbears. It’s when people are so afraid of discriminating that they insist on writing the clunky and awkward ‘he or she’ and ‘his or her’ rather than using ‘they’ and ‘their’.

But would you ever say that out loud? ‘I’ll phone the person at the shop, but I’m not sure he or she will have those fluffy giant pandas in stock?’ Or, ‘Everyone should bring his or her homework to class so that he or she can present it.’ No, probably not. So why write it?

Our language is constantly evolving, and with it our impression of what is ‘grammatical’. That's why the singular form of ‘you’ – ‘thou’ – was squeezed out some time ago and replaced by the plural ‘you’ (except for in some parts of Northern England and Scotland where ‘thou’ is still used, but that’s a different blog altogether). So what’s stopping us from using ‘they’ in the singular too?

We won’t be the first. As the Guardian article points out, great writers such as Shakespeare and Lewis Carroll weren’t afraid to use the singular ‘they’. And I found this in Oxford Dictionaries online:

“Some people object to the use of plural pronouns in this type of situation on the grounds that it’s ungrammatical. In fact, the use of plural pronouns to refer back to a singular subject isn’t new: it represents a revival of a practice dating from the 16th century. It’s increasingly common in current English and is now widely accepted both in speech and in writing.”

And with that ends my first sort-of-grammar rant. There will be more, I promise.