Mind your language

You can't be too careful with language . . . Just ask the Taoiseach, who was taken to task in this paper's letters page recently for urging Sinn Fein to "cross the Rubicon"; an unfortunate choice of metaphor because, as the writer (Father Denis Faul) pointed out, the crossing of that river by Julius Caesar in 49 BC caused civil war in Rome.

This is quite true. Caesar was commander of Cisalpine Gaul at the time, and for a general merely to lead his army across a provincial boundary (in this case into Italy) was tantamount to declaring war, under the rules then prevailing. It's hard to think of a modern-day example, but it would be something like - say - a reporter from this newspaper going into our local pub and standing in the corner where the sub-editors drink. Only worse than that.

These days we use the phrase "crossing the Rubicon" simply to mean "taking an irrevocable step". And maybe one of the reasons it's used so casually is that, for modern-day politicians, there's no such thing as an irrevocable step. Any politician worth his salt could cross the Rubicon and meet himself coming back, being careful not to get his feet wet on either trip.

But if there ever has to be a tribunal to investigate misuses of metaphor in public life, "window of opportunity" will be high in the terms of reference. Over the last couple of years, this column has heard people being urged to grasp the window of opportunity with both hands; to move the situation forward through the window of opportunity (without checking if it's open); and to bear in mind that it might be years before another window of opportunity comes along, and when it does it might be full and we'll all have to stand.

In fact, windows are as dangerous a subject as the Rubicon, especially when you're dealing with sectarianism. History tells us that the "De-fenestration of Prague" involved a window - an upstairs one in the city castle - through which two Catholic members of the Bohemian National Council were thrown by Protestants in 1618 (mimicking a similar event in 1419, and establishing a popular form of assassination among Czechs which has continued into this century).

On that occasion the Catholics landed in the moat, or in a dunghill, depending on which account you read, and were not seriously injured. But the event sparked the Thirty Years War. So next time you're in Prague, don't mention "windows of opportunity" to anyone, especially if you're sitting near one.

There are layers upon layers of meaning in the language we use today, many of them lost to understanding. For instance, in my opening sentence I said that the Taoiseach had been "taken to task," and yet I have no idea what "taken to task" means. I know what I meant by it, but apart from the guy who's already writing a letter to the editor, I bet nobody can explain the term's literal meaning.

On the other hand, when I used the phrase "worth his salt" in paragraph three, I was consciously referring to the method by which the Romans (them again!) used to pay their armies. And yet, before this sentence is finished, I'm perfectly likely to use another phrase I don't understand, willy-nilly, without even thinking about it.

But language is an endlessly fascinating subject too, a fact I was reminded of while browsing in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable recently. I had no idea, for example, that "barking up the wrong tree" was a phrase from racoon-hunting; or that "raining cats and dogs" was a reference to the prominence of those animals in the meteorological mythology of Scandinavia, or that to "let the cat out of the bag" was to expose the once-common trick of selling "a pig in a poke" to a "greenhorn".

I could go on, and as you probably know by now, I will. "Son of a gun" is one of many nautical terms, from the days when women were allowed live on ships and gave birth, when they had to, near the mid-ship gun; which, if paternity was uncertain, was deemed the child's "father". On the other hand, a "flash in the pan" was what happened when an old flint-lock gun didn't fire properly. And "burying the hatchet" was something the North American Indians did when they smoked "peace-pipes" ("pipes of peace" were, literally, the subject of one of the many bad songs recorded by Paul McCartney after the Beatles broke up).

Despite all this wealth of phraseology, and getting back to where we started, there are still not enough terms available to explain the lack of progress in Northern Ireland. "Impasse", "logjam", "stand-off" and "stalemate" have all been used until they'd give you a "pain in the ear". But if we're going to "coin" a few new ones, it might be worth remembering that the simplest phrases are often the most telling.

"Clap-trap," for instance, is "a trap to catch applause," according to Brewer's, "something really worthless, but sure to take with the groundlings". A trick well known to politicians, still, and used weekly on Questions and Answers.

Another simple term is "closure" (which, you'll be relieved to hear, I'm about to achieve on this subject); now very popular in America but introduced in these islands via the parliamentary motion of same in 1881, after the Irish Party had "filibustered" from 4 p.m. on a Monday until 9 a.m. the following Wednesday.

The term "filibuster", incidentally, related originally to the activities of 17th century pirates in the Caribbean. But thanks to Parnell, it is now best known as a practice among politicians and some columnists of going on and on and on about something, necessitating the use of the "guillotine". (One more paragraph and that's it - Weekend Ed).

Conveniently enough, on the day I write this, there was another example of language-related confusion in the letters page, in the form of a complaint about a headline in the August 20th edition. "Roll-overs in Global Positioning Systems May Effect Receivers" was the offending phrase, and the correspondent writes that surely we meant "affect" and not "effect". She's right, of course, but what I want to know is this: What did the rest of the headline mean?