Comments on: Please Make It Stop

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 18:46:08 +0000

Well, next time I speak to him, I’ll ask.

By: Jesse Kaplan

Jesse Kaplan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:52:12 +0000

I agree that some of the alternatives in your second paragraph, while increasingly wordy, are counterbalanced by increasing pointedness. I would insert “speak to” between “address” and “completely irrelevant to,” which interestingly uses “to,” on your sliding scale. “Doesn’t speak to…” abandons the politeness of “doesn’t address,” inflecting a kind of Potteresque unease, without leaving any tangible spoor of rudeness to support legitimate umbrage. And it’s pithy. I wonder what Peter thinks?

By: Malcolm

Malcolm — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:30:09 +0000

I am not all that concerned about one extra syllable, but I can see your point. The conceptual bridge between the two would be “address”, as in “Peter’s point doesn’t address the topic at hand.” (Address does indeed have a meaning that could be defined as “speak to”.)

Nevertheless, we got along fine without this ostentatious usage of “speak to” until quite recently; we just used “address” as above, or we would say something like “Peter’s response is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand”, or “Peter’s response is a flaming non-sequitur”, or “don’t even listen to Peter, he’s a raving moonbat.”

And when we wanted to offer an opinion, we’d use “about”, as in Richard Nixon’s “Let me say this about that.”

In customary usage, “speak to” has the listener as the direct object, as in “I’ll speak to the doctor about ordering your new prosthesis.”

In this new usage, however, the sentence has no direct object at all, because the speaker is still speaking to the listener, but about the subject at hand. Yuck.

I think it is stuffy and pretentious, and I hate it.

By: Jesse Kaplan

Jesse Kaplan — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:04:50 +0000

No. I’m surprised it bothers you. It could be overdone, but it is after all a reduction in syllables; moreover, were one to be difficult, one might point out that speaking “about” a topic can be construed as splattering speaking all about, at which point one might insist the speaker shorten it up and speak TO the topic. I’m not giving this much thought, but I think I mostly use it in writing and in this negative way: i.e., “Peter’s point doesn’t speak to the topic at hand” seems more pointed than, “Peter’s point isn’t about the topic at hand.”

By: Charles

Charles — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 07:57:57 +0000

Well, I can’t really speak to the topic at hand, but I have to agree with you.

(Did I get it right? I don’t think I’ve had quite as much exposure to this phenomenon.)