It’s how you say it…

I don’t know about the rest of you, but when I hear a person use a word or phrase that I do not know or that I have never heard them use before, I will notice, and – I’m half-ashamed to say – there is a chance that I will judge them.

But there are a couple of reasons why it is only a half-shame that I feel about possessing this despicably-snobbish-sounding tendency, and they are pretty good. Well, good-ish. Having preferences and prejudices around language is as common as the cold. Everybody is a word-snob of some kind, whether they realise it or not.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a spectrum of kinds and degrees of word-snobbery, and where you lay along this continuum may decide whether you are accepted or loathed by wider society.

The most hated type of word-snob, and probably the one who most readily springs to mind when you hear the phrase, is the one who is committed to the ‘proper use of the English language’ and has no qualms letting you know.

“Actually it is ‘to’, not til,” they say with punchable superiority.

“I hate to be so pedantic,” they grin smugly, “but you were actually ‘scared’, not ‘feared’.

“Oh I’m an awful word-snob, but it’s ‘have you ‘eaten’ yet?, not have you ‘ate’?”

If you imagine a big party in which every sub-section of society is represented, you would find the overt word-snob sitting in a dark corner of the room along with a member of the Taliban, a convicted kidnapper, a violent homophobe and Vladimir Putin, slowly but surely becoming the least popular person at this table of pariahs.

To be the kind of person who compulsively pulls people on grammatical errors or corrects them when they mix up their past and present tenses is one of the easiest routes to loneliness. It’s tantamount to social suicide. You’ve more chance of finding a spouse if you give up showering and get a swastika tattooed on your face than if you persistently advise people that ‘one another’ and ‘each other’ should not be used interchangeably.

Suffice to say, if you can avoid becoming this sort of person, do.

But there are infinite other variations of word-snobbery.

For example, there are those who look down their noses at any man or woman who liberally pepper their sentences with obscenities, vulgarities, expletives, curses, swears and/or profanities.

One man who had absolutely no time for so-called ‘bad language’ was the Kerry playwrite and novelist, John B Keane.

Keane is someone I much admire. So I was disappointed to hear that he was almost allergic to the use of ‘coarse’ language. He thought it was colourless and lazy.

I was wounded by this revelation.

But I suppose even the greats have their foibles and blind-spots. While John B’s books are filled with wisdom, humour, insight, lyricism and basic human decency, his stance on cursing will be the veritable dribbled tea stain upon the otherwise pristine pages of his life.

Another species of word-snobbery, and one which I identify more closely with, was once well-described by the legendary Dubliners singer and musician, Ronnie Drew.

Ronnie said that Paddy Kavanagh was sat in a pub one afternoon, bating (and what?!) some form of strong drink into him as if to fuel a bonfire in his belly. Along with the petrol he drank bicarbonate soda.

A well spoken gentleman piped up with some advice for Paddy.

“If you keep drinking bicarbonate soda along with alcohol, you will ruin your tummy, Paddy,” projected the refined fellow.

Paddy looked at him menacingly.

“I could forgive a thief for stealing if he found himself in need. Violence, if provoked, is not beyond my understanding. And, in special circumstances, even the grave sin of murder is not without its defence,” said Paddy.

“However, vulgarity is never acceptable. The word is belly or stomach, not tummy!” stated Paddy, bitterly.

30-year-old men should not call their Da ‘Daddy’.

You do not go for ‘pre-drinks’ or ‘prinks’, you have a carryout.

And, if you ever feel like saying ‘jeepers’ in my company, don’t.

I’ll be far less offended if you take the Lord’s name in vain.