The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1954-09-24


bring up the subject of correct English usage.
But trifles make perfection as Michaelangeo
marked, and perfection is trifle. Let us then
have at it.
There lies upon our desk at this moment
copy of the first issue OF new paper. II is attrac
tive informative, well edited. wholly worthy of
praise. This paper is the official publication of do-
cese that lies about six days journey from u.s.
if you travel afoot.
banner-line heads the first page reaching
from margin to margin. Here is what the banner
proelaims: This Is Your Diocesan-O owned Weekly
Newspaper" Now may a musty old pedagogue
be permitted to rise and remark Gn a variety of
senile quavers) that there is not and cannot be-
such thing as a dioceSan-owned newspaper. Do
ceseowned, yes. Diocesan-owned, no
What is there one wonders, about the word
diocesan that invites il into such impossible con-
structions as those in which regularly find it?
The word diocesan is an adjective. Why is it for
ever trying to pair up with noun in substantive
compound? Or with another adjective in what is
meant to be substantive expression?
Have you not read hundred times Of "dio-
eesan-wide campaign" or a "diocesan.Wide cele-
bration'? Yet you have never read of national
wide campaign" or a "nationalwide celebration"
People say and write nationwide when they mean
nationwide Why do they say and write diocesan
wide when they mean dioceSe-wide
There are city-wide activities, but no civicwide
or municipal-wide activities. The expressions city
wide, countrywide, nationwide diocesewide are
not particularly graceful expressions, but they
compact and useful. Further, they are correct;
they can be parsed. But the expressions civc-wide,
natlonaEwide, and diocesan-Wde cannot be parsed
at all. They are simply incorrect expressions.
1t is true that modern usage iustifies cat least
for the brisk and breezy business of reporting
news the word national as noun. If we read that
General Huffencoff and his nationals left the
yention," understand that nationals" is jour
alese for fellow eountrymen." Thus "a national"
may, sometimes, be used to designate a member
Of nation But so, the phrase "national-wide"
fails to have either sane meaning or grammatical
standing. It's only meaning must be, "clear across
the entire width of a citizen"
If you can call member of a nation "a national"
perhaps you might call member of diocese "a dio-
cesan.o In that case, the phrase "diocesan-wide"
would be merely silly. And the phrase diocesan
owned" would mean that one or more people in the
diocese own the thing described. The phrase
"diocesan-owned" does not mean and cannot mean,
what it is really intended to mean, namely that the
thing in question is owned by the diocese as such
And while we are on this important subject
let us look moment at the words nation" and
country" The word nation means, in strictest in
depreciation, people of common birth or origin;
for nation is full hloodbrother TO the word
nativity, The use of this word however, has been
expanded so that today il means people who live
in common territory under one government. The
territory in which these people live is their
country.
But notice that nation means people, not the
territory in which the people live. Hence the word
nationoide describes something that affects all the
people, all the citizens. And therefore the news
casters faVorite expressions of clear the
nation" and "up and down the nation" are, to say
the least inaccurate What the newscaster means
Is, of course clear across the country" and "up
and down the country"
Our national anthem is the anthem which the
people sing Our national borders Tor international
hordersl are indeed territorial things but only
because the phrase involves an overlapping Of
meanings-the people and their last legitimate
OutpostS For nation in the current sense, is
people living in definite territory under one
government; there does enter into the meaning of
nation the place and its limits, in which the people
constitute nation. The thing TO remember when
broadcasting or writing patriotic speecheS) is
that primarily the nation is the people, and the
country is their territory.
a mighty extent under the influence of the news
papers and the weekly reviews,-we are given to
the compactng of phrases and the concentrating
Of many meanings in one compound noun. We have
always been facie in making nouns serve as adiec-
tiyes,-as in schoolhouse, apple pie, brick wall,
motor car, college president, summer vacation,
Christmas gift snow man, and million (giye or
take few hundred thouSands) other expressions
People who speak the Romance languages
French Spanish Italian Portuguese. and Rouman
lam have hard time catching to this trick of
ours of using two nouns together and letting the
first adjective. They likely, in their
efforts TO follow our fashion, to say peaches pie
and tomatoes paste instead of peach pie and tomato
paste. For they quite logically tend to understand
nouns, and to regard peach pie as pie of
peaches" and tomato paste "a paste of tomatoes
Gor thus they would have 10 express these things
in their languagel and, in the elliptieal form,
they hold to the plurals Of the rounded original
phrasing.
But this business of putting an adjective IN
the place of is relatively new in the Ian
guage Nor blame this practice on smart
aleck reviews "Diocesan-wide and diocesan
owned" are our own sad inventions; they our
own palpabe mistakes. The discard
them the better.