When I use a word ... Declarative titles

Abstract

‘Can saying make it so?’ J. L. Austin, ‘How to do things with words’ William James Lectures, 1955 (OUP, 1962) This piece has an indicative title—it tells you what it is about. I could have given it a declarative title, one that declares that something is so, such as ‘Declarative titles are deceptive’. The Indo-European root KLA, to call or cry out, shout, resound, has spawned a wide range of words, such as claim, acclaim, declaim, exclaim, proclaim and reclaim; clamour; clarinet and clarion; class and classify. Of the seven different entries for the noun ‘clam’ in the Oxford English Dictionary, the one relevant here is defined as ‘the crash caused by ringing two or more bells of a peal together’; the bivalve that implies the opposite, i.e. silently clamming up, is from another root entirely. Clear and chiaroscuro, clarify and clairvoyant are from clarus, a Latin derivative meaning loud or sonorous (of noise); bright, shining, clear (of light); distinct, unambiguous, clear (of words); and illustrious, famous, notorious (of people). Clarus gives declarare, to make known, announce, indicate, show and (of words) to express a meaning, signify.

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