Friday 8 August 2014

Grab

We all have a list of words that make us react irrationally when they are used, as we see it, improperly.  For all I know, "improperly" may be high on yours.  I have carefully avoided using "inappropriately" here, which I'm aware is a word that is beginning to irk many. One word which is heading to the top of my list is "grab".

"To grab", of course, is a perfectly decent, venerable and useful word.  It has a primary meaning of "to grasp or seize suddenly and roughly". It also has a figurative sense, as in "to obtain or get (something) quickly or opportunistically", and it is here the trouble starts.  People have long been grabbing something to eat before doing something else, or grabbing an opportunity to speak to someone.  The use of "grab" lends a feeling of vigour and spontaneity to what is generally a fairly mundane act.  To a large extent, that is the whole point of figurative language in everyday use.

But increasingly "grab" is becoming a synonym for "to get", "to buy", or "to take advantage of".  Every day, I am urged by advertisers to grab some of this Great Deal or some of that Amazing Bargain as it goes by, as if shopping were a slightly hysterical, competitive game for the street-wise and sharp-elbowed, and not simply a question of forking over the required amount of cash.  I'm sure if you did actually "grab" his latest pizza offering, Mr. Domino would call the police pretty sharpish.

But then I'm 60 years old, and still wince whenever the youngster in front of me in the queue asks the nice lady behind the coffee counter "Er, can I get a latte to go?"  No "please", no "thank you", no hint of a smile.  Just wrong in so many ways...  Of course you can have a latte, kid, but the nice lady will have to get it for you, and then only if you ask her politely.  And no grabbing!

20 comments:

Zouk Delors said...

Interesting that you show tacit acceptance of the "to go". When exactly did we stop taking things away and start expecting automotive attributes of them? I remember being really irked by this one when it was new (to non-television watching me, at least).

An interesting corollary, which also combines the goat-getting new custom of using textspeak in the names of products and businesses, is the tale of the mobile phone shop which opened in Stevenage town centre a few years ago: no doubt inspired by Phones4U and its imitator(?) Phones2Go, and hoping to piggy-back on their advertising outlay, an enterprising Asian started up Phones4Go. It didn't last too long -- presumably because its prospective customers decided to forego having a mobile.

Mike C. said...

Zouk,

Well, most of these are, at root, American idioms (in Scotland, you'd ask for a "carry oot"), which I don't object to in principle. But there's something about "can I get", used by an insolent 19-yr old, that really annoys me...

Grumpy Old Man territory, this...

Mike

milldave said...

It's in the same vein as the North American use of the word "gotten", to mean obtain, purchase, borrow, become, etc.
Singular word in use to avoid having to think of more suitable alternatives.
And I thought E.A.Blair dreamed up Newspeak; no, our cousins across the Pond have gotten in the habit of using it for the last fifty years!
Same can be said of the modern taste for "reaching out"; I'd like to, but my arms are usually too short.
Regards,
David

Mike C. said...

David,

I'm aware that we have quite a few US readers here, but I suppose I started it...

"Reach out to" is an interesting one -- in the US, I think it merely means "get in touch with", and seems to have lost (or never had) the emotional, yearning sense it has here.

Mike

milldave said...

Mike,
You are correct, though I think here it's just marketing jargon, simply for the sake of it.
Somehow "communicating" or "get in touch with" doesn't have the zip/zing so beloved of marketers.
And you're right about the emotional content; I usually have to reach for a paper bag when I read it in e-mails and reports!

David

Mike C. said...

David,

I must say that, since figuring this out, I am troubled by the fact I may have misunderstood "Reach Out" by the Four Tops all these years...

Mike

Zouk Delors said...

Actually, I wonder if "can I get" is perhaps derived from a form of politeness, whereby the applicant is offering to do the actual getting themself?

Mike C. said...

Zouk,

I suspect all the native American speakers (as opposed to the Native American speakers) are on holiday at the moment, so ...

I think that's unlikely. What makes it impolite (to my ears) is the simple omission of "please"! But then someone once said to me that to American ears our insistent use of "please" and "thank you" is equally grating -- it smacks of condescension.

Also, "get", "got" and "have" seem to have a more complex relationship in American English than in British English. No-one here would ever say "Do you got a pen?" Someone will have written a book on the subject...

Mike

Zouk Delors said...

I reckon (!) most educated Americans at least would say "do you have"; really it's our "have you got" which is weirdly obsessed with the "getting" aspect of possession, innit? Maybe when we've heard them say "do you got" (as, admittedly, I have too), it's just when they're talking to us and they're sociably leaning towards our way of talking? "Gotten" is just an old past participle of "get", isn't it? It'll all be in that book....

PS In Scotland, do you think they now say, "Ah'll ha'e an Irn Bru tae gang"?

Gavin McL said...

This blog has some interesting articles on British and American attitude to politeness and how it manifests it in language http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/politeness

My kids who have recently learnt to read love punning / text speak product and company names - to them they are like puzzles to solve.

Having lived briefly in North America my particular dislike was "getgo" as in the start of something. "She was in at the getgo"
Haven't seen it yet this side of the Atlantic

Gavin

Mike C. said...

Gavin,

That's a really intersting link, and pretty much confirms what I had been told -- it's about the perceived relative equality/inequality of customer and "server". So much of British courtesy is actually about masking the gulf between the wealthy and powerful and those who "service" them.

Yes, business is where a lot of this crosses the Atlantic -- I figured out "reach out" because our American IT supplier kept advising me to "reach out" to their customer service or their help line ("Crikey, do I sound *that* desperate?", I was thinking...)

Mike

Mike C. said...

Gavin,

Actually, a better way of putting it might be to say that the British conventions are about acknowledging the power/wealth gap between customer and server, whereas the American ones are about masking it (given that in both cases the gap is real).

An interesting scenario is taking a car to the garage, where the power relationship is reversed, and middle-class men tend to attempt blokeish homosociality...

Mike

Paul Mc Cann said...

And while we're at it I loathe and detest the expression |" Looking to" as in "I'm looking to buy ...."

Also using a butchers cut to denote a skill level(i.e) Chops

Mike C. said...

Paul,

It never ceases to amaze (and delight) me how personally people take our language, and its uses and abuses.

I'm not sure about the origin of "chops", though it's clearly originally a musician's term, and may relate to the "embouchure" needed to play the trumpet ("chops" being the face and lips).

Mike

Gavin McL said...

Mike, middleclass men dealing with tradesmen in "masculine" trades is fraught with problems, as noted by the Daily Mash.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/middle-class-man-convinced-builders-like-him-2013041265450

Your comment about peoples attitude to language change is interesting, the world changes everyday, and sometimes it feels like it changes every hour and language almost has to change along with it, change is often uncomfortable and language is the sign of the change.

And Zouk, in my experience "gang" is more Geordie than Scots but there's a lot of cross border traffic

Zouk Delors said...

"Chops" hasn't reached my socio-linguistic set. Any links to examples in the wild? Why does it begin with musicians?

Have you ever had builders in, Mike? Was it difficult deciding how best to interact with them? (Blogpost there, surely?)

Thanks for the links, Gavin, and the note on "gang".

Mike C. said...

Zouk,

You will often read in the music press that so-and-so doesn't have his "blues chops" together -- it's been an expression in that context for decades.

Builders... Oh, yes... I decided the best way to interact was via money (pay it, withhold it, exactly as agreed in the contract -- they understand that very well).

Mike

Mike C. said...

Just remembered a classic example: the 1970 advert in the Village Voice that led to the founding of Steely Dan read:

"Looking for keyboardist and bassist. Must have jazz chops! Assholes need not apply."

The rest is history...

Mike

Zouk Delors said...

That's a cracker. I wonder if many only failed to apply because of the rider ("Hey, I could do that... oh!... dang!")

Zouk Delors said...

Gotten
Haven't found "that book" yet, but dabbling in the blog Gavin referred to threw this up:

http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/irregular-verbs-gotten-fit-knit.html?m=1