Language and information retrieval in the social sciences

Abstract

‘Plain English’, ‘simple language’ and ‘good style’ are frequently taken for granted. Yet, easily as such epithets may come to us, they, nevertheless, conceal issues concerning the use of language which are unlikely ever to be resolved in a satisfactory manner. The quotation from Through the Looking Glass illustrates one of the most enduring of these. Alice, perhaps because she is a child, supports the conservatives: strict rule‐followers who believe that English words have fixed and invariable meanings. Into this category also come those who hope to purge our language of foreign (especially American) influences, much like those who wish to eliminate all traces of ‘franglais’ from the French language. Humpty Dumpty represents the liberals—those who feel that words can change their meanings according to circumstances. This allows him to close the argument by claiming that: ‘I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven't been invented just yet.’

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