Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/44605
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I am reminded of a recent question [about C.S. Lewis' and E.B. White's use of vocabulary](https://literature.stackexchange.com/questions/9441/do-orwells-and-e-b-whites-essays-belong-to-a-school). The answer I gave there touches on this question as well.

One feature of the English vocabulary is that on top of the stock of words that have their root in Anglo-Saxon, English also has an extensive vocabulary that was derived from Latin and Greek words, especially for scientific and medical terms.

There is a good bit of redundancy between the two groups. To draw on the example I used in answering the linked question, we can say that Jack needs a ride home, or we can say that Jack requires transportation to his residence. The first way of stating this does seem to be simpler, in that the words are shorter and more familiar, whereas the second phrasing is more complex, but is slightly more precise (in that it does not assume Jack needs any particular form of transportation).

If we were writing a novel, the first way of stating Jack's plight would make a pretty good opening line, whereas the second way reads like something that belongs in a police report or a legal brief. But this effect does not come from the relative simplicity or precision of the two phrasings, but from something else. Because the borrowings from Greek and Latin figure so heavily in the vocabulary we use for science, medicine, technology, and law, this portion of English's stock of words has acquired a clinical and lifeless quality, whereas the words which English inherited from Anglo-Saxon have an earthier, common-man feel to them.

It is also the case that the words rooted in Anglo-Saxon are more likely to be concrete, whereas the Greek- and Latin-derived words are more likely to be a kind of abstraction, meaning that the Anglo-Saxon is more likely to form a picture in our heads as we read them. Given the choice between something that builds a picture and something that does not, most of us would prefer the former.

Original score: 6