English as she isn't spoke

By ADRIAN TAHOURDIN

Genteelisms are a curse of modern life. The announcements on railway platforms and trains that many of us are subjected to most days are a particular case in point. I’m referring to such constructions as “We are sorry for the delay to your journey. This is due to a fault on a preceding train that cannot be rectified”. Preceding? Rectified? Does anyone use such words in spoken as opposed to written English? It’s a form of genteelism, born from a sense that plain words, such as earlier for “preceding” and fixed for “rectified”, are somehow not good enough.

The battle against the hideous use of the word “customer” to denote a passenger has long ago been lost. We are all customers on trains, enjoying the service being provided rather than merely getting from A to B. “Will customers standing please move down the carriage to allow other customers to get on” neatly encapsulates the absurdity of it. Some train guards persist, during their on-board announcements, in correctly addressing us as “passengers”; let’s hope their words aren’t recorded or they’ll probably be sent off for a re-education programme. (I should say that train guards, ticket inspectors - sorry, “revenue collection officers” - and platform staff are almost unfailingly polite and friendly; it’s not about them.)

 

Yet when there’s an incident on a train involving “customers”, I’ve noticed that they tend to be downgraded to passengers, as in “this is due to a passenger being taken ill on the train” or “due to passengers fighting in the Clapham Junction area” (ok, I made up the last one, but it’s broadly representative). Yes, they’re very keen on the word “due”.

On it goes: “Please be advised that this service has been cancelled”. Or “It has become necessary to cancel this train”. “Train doors may close 30 seconds prior to booked departure time”, and so on. “Prior to” is always a good unnecessary variant for “before”. Trains are “subjected to platform alterations” - poor trains.

 

I travel on the Brighton to London line, which is in the hands of two companies, Southern and First Capital Connect (or Disconnect, as I prefer to call it). Journey time from London to Brighton is less than an hour, yet you still hear announcements apologizing for the fact that “there is no first class accommodation on this train” - er, what would that be? Sleeping cars? Couchettes? On a 50-minute journey? Rather than “accommodation” do they mean seating perhaps. After all, why use a two-syllable word when you can shoehorn in a five-syllable one? Sounds posher, doesn’t it? These are all recorded
announcements, so they have the official seal of approval of the train company.

Does any of this matter? Well, it matters to me, clearly. I also think it does because, aside from the irritation it provokes, such corporate misuse of language - or call it a clumsy attempt to shield simple truths behind a fog of verbiage - speaks of a kind of contempt for the public. And that does matter.