Latin or English?

[image error]Instant Quiz:

Can you find the mistake in the sentence below? Scroll to the bottom of today’s post for the answer. 

Gill is going to ask his Pastor to explain that Bible passage.

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My article about the Broadway play My Fair Lady was just published in SHAW: The Journal of Shaw Studies. I’m going to be writing a few posts about choices I made when I wrote the article.

One of the issues I thought about might surprise you: should I use Latin words?

Latin?

The Latin language has long been revered by academic writers. When I went to high school, I was taught to use abbreviations for Latin terms in my references: ibid. (“the same”), loc. cit. (“the same place), et al. (“and the rest”).

But why not just use English? That’s a question many scholars (including me!) started to ask. So I was delighted when the Modern Language Association (which makes reference rules for English scholars) decided to switch to English. (You can learn more at OWL.English.Purdue.edu.)

But the Shaw Journal stubbornly continued to use the Latin terms. &@#$%! I grumbled and argued. The Latin terms stayed.

Finally I quietly started doing my references in English, they way I wanted to. Guess what? The Journal published them that way! Other scholars did the same thing, and – mirabile dictu¹ – now we’re seeing far less Latin than we used to.

But one Latin phrase did find its own into my article. Ars gratia artis means “art for art’s sake.” I used the original Latin term – not an English translation – in my article. Here’s the sentence:

Shaw, hungry for fame and influence, had little appetite for ars gratia artis scruples about commercial success. 

I’m saying that Shaw didn’t go for pure art in Pygmalion (the play that eventually became My Fair Lady). Instead he concentrated on making Pygmalion a commercial success.

So why didn’t I just say so – in English? The answer is that the target readers for the SHAW Journal are Shaw specialists. Close to 100% of them would know what ars gratia artis means: it’s a term that Shaw himself used.

More important, it’s efficient. The phrase ars gratia artis is much shorter than explaining,”In the argument about pure art versus commercial success, Shaw always came down hard on the side of commercial success.” Three words instead of twenty.

There’s a third reason: using ars gratia artis was a signal that I’m an insider in the world of Shaw scholarship. It’s sort of a membership badge.

Let me give you a non-academic example of the same principle. I am an avid ballroom dancer (that’s an understatement). I often talk with friends about how my dance endeavors are going.

When I talk to non-dancing friends, I use ordinary words. There’s no reason to throw around the names of dance steps my friends might not know: chasse, telemark, or rond de jambe.

But when I talk to a teacher or another dancer, it’s much quicker to say “Let’s work on our telemark” than “Let’s practice the fox trot reverse step where I do a heel turn while you travel around me.” One word instead of sixteen.

This attention to who will be reading your work is one of the marks of a professional writer. You’d be surprised how many people don’t think about it!

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¹”wonderful to tell”

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Instant Quiz ANSWER

Most roles aren’t capitalized. In today’s sentence, lower-case pastor.  (But you would capitalize Pastor if it’s part of a name: Pastor Taylor).

Gill is going to ask his pastor to explain that Bible passage.

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Jean Reynolds’ book What Your English Teacher Didn’t Tell You can be purchased from Amazon.com and other online booksellers.

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“A useful resource for both students and professionals” – Jena L. Hawk, Ph.D., Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College

“Personable and readable…Jean knows her subject forwards and backwards.” – Adair Lara, author of Hold Me Close, Let Me Go