The Penguin Guide to Plain English

kind existed before. One thinks o f the acts o f creation recorded in the
Book of Genesis. And so one feels a certain verbal discomfiture w hen one
reads in a travel article o f a Spanish township, It was here that the study
o f medicine and surgery was created. W hy not just began? W hen one
thinks of the kind o f context in w hich the w ord creative is properly at
hom e, w hat comes most readily to m ind is perhaps the towering genius
o f a Shakespeare or a Beethoven. But the w ord so conveniently arouses
feelings o f w onder that it gets bandied about in relation to all kinds o f
activities calling for our approval where, strictly speaking, true creation
is not at issue. There are courses in Creative Cookery and Creative
Advertising, not to m ention less publicized activities in Creative
Accountancy. We perhaps ought not to be too solemn about such usage.
W e naturally smile w hen w e read Owing to the creativity of the w eather
this year, her garden has been subject to some confusion. But there are
plenty of misuses. Advertisements o f vacant posts in various spheres,
business or professional, w ould seem, by the w ording of their demands
for creativity in their applicants, to be expecting some as yet unrecog
nized Botticelli or some m ute inglorious Milton to emerge from suburbia
and take the bait.
We have looked at the decay o f a w ord through its positive connotation;
let us look at the decay o f a w ord through its negative connotation. The
adjective dogm atic takes its meaning from the noun dogm a used o f a
system of authoritative doctrines, especially religious doctrines. To assert
such doctrines w ith due authority is to be dogm atic. Now such assert
iveness, especially in a liberal age, will be described as bigotry by
those w ho reject the doctrines. Gradually the w ord dogm atic acquires
overtones m ore and m ore pejorative. Thus, although even a recent
dictionary defines the w ord dogm atic objectively as forcibly asserted
or (of a person) prone to forcible assertion, it is scarcely possible now
to use the w ord w ithout a condemnatory implication.
Today many teachers realize that there is little point in imposing dogmatic
dress or disciplinary codes.
Here is a case in point. A code is a conventionalized set o f rules. The
adjective dogm atic therefore adds nothing to the strict connotation o f
the w ord, but the pejorative emotive resonance conveys that such codes
are to be disliked.
A m ore remarkable degeneration o f meaning has occurred in our use
o f the w ord pathetic, the adjective deriving from the noun pathos.