News
Email
Print
EVOLUTION: It certainly occurs with language
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: October 5, 2008
Updated: 10/04/2008 08:00 pm
In an item here last week I responded to a Pinnacle reader who had questioned the use of bona fide as a noun. As an example he sent in a magazine article that referred to a basketball player's "bona fides as a point guard."
I wrote that dictionaries list bona fide as an adjective meaning in good faith and bona fides as a noun meaning good faith. In Latin, bona fides is singular, but because of the s ending most people think it is plural and use it as such.
I wrote that you might occasionally hear someone use bona fide (with no s) as a singular noun meaning evidence of qualification. I quoted the Columbia Guide to Standard American English as saying that it occurs at only the conversational level of English.
Coincidentally, two days after my column appeared, I saw the noun bona fide in a syndicated column that appeared in the Journal. Except for the research I had done for my column, it was the first time I had seen bona fide in print used as a noun.
The syndicated column, by Bob Herbert of The New York Times, said that some of the things that Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president, has said in interviews have raised questions about her qualifications to become president, if that necessity should arise.
For instance, it is true that you can see Russia from Palin's state, Alaska, Herbert wrote, "But the infantile repetition of this bit of trivia as some kind of foreign-policy bona fide should give us pause."
This use of bona fide as a noun in a serious newspaper column seems to contradict the assertion that it occurs at only the conversational level of English. My guess is that the usage is spreading, and that dictionaries will someday list bona fide as a noun.
We all use the word
about to express approximation without fear of being misunderstood. A Mount Airy reader, however, has sent in some examples in which the meaning is fuzzy. He wrote:
"This week (Sept. 24) yet another bank in Mount Airy was robbed. This time, however, the robber was promptly caught, or nabbed as journalists say. The Mount Airy News had the story on the front page….
"In the article appeared this: ‘… inside the bank, which contained only about one customer at the time….' We had a little fun with that this morning at the office. How many is about one?
"I've read several articles recently about the benefits of drinking alcohol in moderation. Moderation is defined as one or two daily drinks for a man, and zero to one drinks for a woman. In other words, a woman who drinks zero drinks a day is a ‘moderate drinker.'
"Could ‘about one' mean that no customers were in the bank? Or three? As a retired editor, you know that precision is everything in journalism. Or is it?"
I am as puzzled as you are about the meaning of "about one customer." What the newspaper probably meant was that at least one customer was in the bank, but that there might have been a few more.
What the advice on alcohol consumption no doubt should have said was no more than two daily drinks for a man and one daily drink for a woman.
From Allyson Buie of Winston-Salem: "A question came up in conversation last night regarding the origin of ‘up to snuff.' We use it (in ‘not up to snuff') to refer to something that is not of good quality or does not perform well.
"Can you tell me how or where it originated and what ‘snuff' refers to?"
The most plausible explanation among several that I have found is that snuff in this expression refers to the pulverized tobacco that, for many years, affluent British men drew up their nostrils.
Snuff was expensive, and discriminating men could tell the difference between high- and low-quality snuff.
The meaning of up to snuff has changed over the centuries, from a description of someone who was not easily duped to the present meaning of up to standard or satisfactory.
■ Richard Creed is a retired Journal editor. He can be reached at richcreed@triad.rr.com.
Email
Print
