Fortuitous, Orientate and Methodology

fortuitous. 'Fortuitous' means adventitious, that is, by chance, not by design. It does not mean 'fortunate'.  But that is what many people use it for, thinking it sounds more impressive. That it does not mean merely 'fortunate' is evident from the fact that 'not fortuitous' means 'not a mere matter of chance', whereas 'not fortunate' means 'unfortunate', i.e., lacking in good fortune. Thus we can say 'His getting a rotten oyster was merely fortuitous' - meaning only that it was bad luck, that no one was trying to poison him or anything like that - but we can't make the same point by saying 'His getting a rotten oyster was merely fortunate'.  Ernst Cassirer provides a literary illustration.  Of earlier cultures, for whom immortality, not mortality, is the default position, he writes of their thoughts towards death: ‘It always depends upon individual and fortuitous causes’ (An Essay on Man, p. 83).

At least, that's what I say, contrary to Webster's. I suppose people have thought: chance, therefore luck, which usually means good luck, which is fortunate. Here is a example of the misuse I have in mind:

Benitez's career hit the skids in 2003, when, despite being an All-Star, he was traded by both New York teams and ultimately landed in Seattle. He signed a free-agent deal with Florida last season and set a team mark with 47 saves. His comfort in Florida and a fortuitous pairing with pitching coach Wayne Rosenthal were thought to be the reasons behind his success.

Clearly the writer means that the pairing was an occasion of good fortune, not just that it happened by chance.

A correct use by Quine (!), writing on grammar (!): 

Taking 'lane' steadfastly as a string of phonemes, what are we to say  of the fortuitous occurrence of 'lane' in 'plane'? No other word is interchangeable with 'lane' salva congruitate when such fortuitous occurrences are counted in. 

orientate. Why say 'orientate' or 'orientated' rather than 'orient' or 'oriented'?

methodology.  A methodology is a science or theory of method. It is not itself a method. But everywhere you hear people speaking of a methodology when they mean a method. I suppose this is half-forgivable, since for most things we have some thought behind our method. But not always! A man might have a method of tying a fly. or shooting free-throws, without having a methodology - he might just do it that way, without having a theory about it.

I refute you thus

refute To refute a statement is to prove or establish that it is false. 'Refute' is a success-verb, like 'to convince'. But nowadays, especially where the people concerned are those in public life and stand accused of such-and-such infraction, they will say such things as 'I refute these allegations', when what they mean, and all they can rightly mean, is that they deny them (likewise, saying 'I prove the allegations!' doesn't bring it about that you have proved them). A lively example from an AP report, November 23 2005:

Teri Hatcher is suing a British tabloid newspaper for libel over its claims she had "sex romps" with men in a Volkswagen van, her lawyer said Wednesday. London law firm Schillings said Hatcher, who stars on ABC's "Desperate Housewives," had instructed it to begin libel proceedings against the Daily Sport over articles that she says "falsely alleged that she engages in sex romps on a regular basis with a series of men in a VW van parked outside her L.A. home for this purpose."

The claims "were repeated extensively elsewhere in many countries," the firm said. Hatcher "bitterly refutes these offensive allegations," it said.

tragedy 'Tragedy' now means simply 'disaster' or 'catastrophe'. It used to mean the sort of thing that happens in King Lear or the Oresteia: Disaster befalls human beings because certain human virtues, in certain situations that cannot be guaranteed not to arise, lead to ruin. It has to do with the inadequacy of human morality to cope with reality, giving the lie to Socrates' idea that the good person cannot be harmed. An earthquake that kills people is horrible, but it is not a tragedy (in the old sense).

Snobs

snob A snob, in the sense so brilliantly analysed by Marcel Proust, is member of a social elite, or a would-be member of the social elite, who is also motivated by a desire to be thought highly of by a social elite, in many cases out of insecurity for his standing in the elite. The snob therefore will ingratiate himself or herself with that elite, avoid being seen with persons outside it, affect a liking for things liked by members of the elite, and similarly for dislikes. In its purest form, it is entirely to do with social pretension and cultivating an image; it has nothing to do with actual tastes, actual likes and dislikes. Or that is what the word used to mean. Nowadays, a person who likes Beethoven but not Rihanna is in danger of being called a snob, purely on the basis of the preference, irrespective of social motivation or moral character. The opprobrious colouring of the original word is invoked, but without the sense that justified it. It is as if there is a moral duty to like Rihanna, mediocre Australian wine or Hollywood blockbuster films. Perhaps the word has become a weapon employed by insecure philistines to disparage those who would dare to remind them that, as J.S. Mill rather uncompromisingly put it, the pig might prefer piggish pleasures, but that is because he is a pig, incapable of higher pleasures; no one who has experienced higher human pleasures as well as low piggish pleasures, and remains capable of both, prefers the latter (of course, that is not quite true; it is in practice much more difficult to justify or explain the idea that some pleasures are more valuable than others, that they are higher, in the sense intended).

But the truth is that the matter is yet more delicate. Sometimes, say, one would really like a given movie, but one doesn't give it chance; one just  can't get down from one's high horse--out of habit, or out of fear of, or respect for, the opinions of the elite. I think most people have caught themselves in this position, and sometimes we see it in others.  Yet it isn't always a mistake; one recognises that certain people's likes and dislikes are enviable, and perhaps worth following, worth aping, so as to learn to make your own.  There is no easy answer to the question of what to like.  It doesn't clear anything up to say, 'Just like what you like'. 

Beg the question; comprise

comprise A club comprises its members. The members constitute the club. We can also say that the club is composed of its members. But that the club is comprised of its members, or that the members comprise the club, is nonsense. Again, some idiot thought that 'comprise' is just fancy for 'compose' or 'constitute'..

beg the question That someone has begged the question used to mean, and still does mean in philosophy or presumably formal debate, that someone has argued for P only by presupposing P, by assuming P; so the question as to why P is true 'goes begging'. But someone for whom this was too complex thought it just meant 'raises the question', and the virus spread. For example, that Manchester United was letting in two goals per match was said to 'beg the question' of why they let go of Jaap Stam.

The Decline of English #1: Disinterested

After reading Stephen Pinker, I've reformed. Even Samuel Johnson, he points out, realised that there is something not right about insisting on correct style where the speakers do not create actual confusion. And now most linguists are of the view that that attitude is unsustainable.  Roughly, since a sense of grammar is wired-in, it is idle to legislate: people will talk grammatically without help from schoolmasters. Their grammar might not be what the schoolmaster would like, but it is perfectly good grammar all the same.  So the idea that language could decline is a little like supposing that kidney function could decline. Nevertheless, some local degenerations are not to be borne. I'll post a  few exemplary confusions about particular words and phrases that really get up my wire, as my friend Barry Sharp would put it; one per blog post:

disinterested. To say that one is disinterested in doing such-and-such used to mean that one was not doing it for some self-interested motive, seeking to gain advantage. It was a term of praise, as one would describe a fair, impartial, unprejudiced judge. But it now means simply 'uninterested'. Some fool runs across the word and thinks it must mean 'uninterested'. He begins to use it that way, thinking it sounds sophisticated. The virus spreads. Thus a term of elegant compactness is rendered useless and redundant. The learned person must know that using the word in the new climate will only create misunderstandings. This one gets up Pinker's wire too. Here is an example from the Times (2 June 2005), commenting on reports that use of the pill decreases the female libido:

Unlike the official bods, such as the Royal College of GPs and the Family Planning Association who were more concerned that a story like this might cause women to abandon the Pill en masse, I predicted that hordes of sexually disinterested women would be clamouring for the ultimate chemical get-out clause, because according to the study, the anti-sex hormones linger in some women for like, ever, and how much easier to blame a pill than the usual stuff: feeling tired, depressed....