Get Off The Train - Goethe, Gravy & Guitars

The Alhambra Files

Last Monday saw the realisation of one of my dreams; a visit to the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain.  Our guide for the morning was the exuberant and excitable Francesco.  Unfortunately his talk was accompanied by so much gesticulating and bodily movement that the handheld microphone was rarely in the vicinity of his mouth and a majority of his words were lost on the cooling breeze.  In addition to this minor, if not slightly entertaining hiccup, our earpieces were also picking up the transmissions from his fellow guides.  Not necessarily a problem, the reception was clear and concise, unfortunately one spoke Spanish and the other Italian.

At the end of the tour I bought a guidebook to refer to at my leisure and to fill in the gaps of my recent and somewhat intermittent history lesson.  That evening back at the cortijo I sat on the terrace overlooking the mountains and the Med.  Images of the magnificent architecture and beautiful gardens pervaded my mind as I opened my guidebook and began to read.  Within minutes my romantic reverie was halted as abruptly as if I had been slapped around the face with a wet kipper (OK, I'm in Spain so let's call it a wet swordfish).  There on the page in front of me blatant and glaring is a sentence that includes the words 'rapid ISLAMISATION'!!!  This word crime truly does deserve three exclamation marks (there is another rapidly growing crime to discuss but that's for another time).

I can distinctly remember the first time I came across this literary offence.  Years ago I was working in a branch office of a Yorkshire building society.  I happened to be on my own transcribing the words of the Southern Regional Manager from a Dictaphone - happily typing away at the word processor - (all newfangled equipment then you know).  Abruptly I was slapped across the face by a wet kipper (well we are back in Blighty).  I can't remember the exact wording but it revolved around a deal with a French building society and the subsequent need to secure the contract.  The actual word coming through the headphones was 'SECURITISATION'.  I stopped, looked up, meanwhile Alan continued to waffle.  'He didn't just say that, I've heard it wrong' I thought.  Rewind - play - 'SECURITISATION'.  'That's not even a word, I can't type it in the report, people will laugh.  They'll laugh at him and they'll laugh at me'!  You can't just add 'ISATION' to a word to make it fit, surely you restructure your sentence to make it grammatically correct?  (Which is exactly what I would do today in the same position).  Back then I was young and too timid to question the Southern Regional Manager.  I typed it and sent it to Head Office.  After this day I saw it regularly in correspondence between Alan and Head Office.  To my horror, not only had they not rejected the word, they had thoroughly embraced it! 
 
Since that time I have seen it everywhere,  I can read a magazine article by a seemingly intelligent and articulate author only to be affronted by the dreaded 'ISED, ISATION, ISM' and even 'ISATIONALISM'.  I am no fool, I understand that the development of language is an integral part of cultural and social progression.  I have read the informative and often hilarious Etymologicon by Mark Forsyth and can appreciate that language is a liquid and evolving thing.  Words go out of fashion, some never to return.  Some words that we use today were once made up to fill a gap, to provide a description that no other words at that time could encompass.  However, the wilful degradation in this instance is not in the name of development and evolution but is born of laziness and the current trend to dumb down.  Am I the only one to feel this way?  It's as though everyone in the world has accepted it apart from me.  'Oh dear', I sigh with the weight of the universe on my shoulders. 

My moment of despondency and despair is broken by the instantaneous and loud chorus of the crickets chirruping in the dusk.  I look up again at the fantastic Andalusian view as the sun finally drops behind the mountain.  I ponder wistfully, perhaps I should conform, perhaps my mind has become too conservatised and I need to practise more liberalisationalism.  Maybe the problem is that I am a word snob and I am guilty of word snoberisation.........alism.