A Dictionary of Cont..

asis
by Ogden and his colleague, I. A. Richards,
while thev were writing The Meaning of Meaning
(192j). Ogden has continued to promote it
in England at the Orthological Institute, while
Richards since the late 1930’s has been its
sponsor at the Language Research Institute at
Harvard.
It is called Basic not only because it operates
with the most essential words but also because
Ogden conceives of it as an auxi1iary international
language which can easily be learned
by anyone anywhere. Although the name was
probably not coined as an acronym, the fly-leaf
opposite the title-page is set up thus:
B-British
A-American
S-Scientific
I-International
C-Commercial
It is English because, according to Ogden,
English is of all existing languages the most SUSceptible
of simplification and because English is
becoming, more and more, a world-wide second
language.
Of the 850 words in Basic over 600 are
regularly used by a child of six and the other
250 are common. There are 600 nouns and
150 adjectives. Verbs are minimized and called
“operations,” of which there are 16. Prepositions
(20) are called “directives”; they are essential
auxiliaries to the operations. The remaining
words also assist to put the nouns and adjectives
into operation. With the restriction of the verbs,
grammar is greatly simplified.
In addition to the basic 850 there are 100
more general science words, which may be augmented
by 50 more in any particular field of
science. There are also 250 “word groups”
(actually idioms), which must be learned as
such.
Basic English is primarily utilitarian. Some
translations into Basic (such as “Blood, facewater
and eye-water” for “Blood, sweat and
tears”) seem ludicrous, but any translation can
be made to seem ludicrous. The vocabulary is
limited and Basic English is, therefore, lacking
in nuance. A more serious difficulty, in the light
of its avowed purposes, is that for all its simplification
there are still a lot of very difficult
combinations to master.
Here is an example from Ogden’s book of
what happens on translating into Basic. The
selection is from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s speech
on the bank closings, on March 12, 1933. The
greater length and stylistic awkwardness of the
Basic translation is typical.
ORIGINAL
I recognize that the many proclamations from
State Capitols and from Washington, the legislation,
the Treasury regulations, etc., couched
for the most part in banking and legal terms,
ought to be explained for the benefit of the
average citizen. I owe this in particular because
of the fortitude and the good temper with which
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everybody has accepted the inconvenience and
the hardships of the banking holiday.
Public orders have been given out in great
numbers from State Capitols and from Washington;
there have been new laws, Treasury decisions
and so on. Most of them have been in the
language of banking or of the law, and it is right
for their purpose to be made clear in the interests
of the common man. There is a special need
for me to do this, because of the high hope and
good feeling with which everyone has taken the
loss of comfort and the troubles caused by the
fact that banking business has been stopped for
a time.
These limitations are but trifles, however,
compared to the immense benefits that would
accrue from the adoption of some working basic
international language, as a second language,
that was simple enough to be easily mastered.
basis. The plural is bases. A new singular base
has developed out of the plural bases. The two
words base and basis mean exactly the same
thing. In most contexts base is the preferred
form, but basis is still favored in speaking about
the grounds for an opinion or judgment.
bastinado. The plural is bastinadoes.
bathos; pathos. Bathos means a sudden and ludicrous
descent from the sublime to the commonplace,
from the terrible to the flat, from any
intense emotion to vapidity. A classic example
is a quatrain from Congressman H. C. Canfield’s
Elegy on the Loss of V. S. Submarine S4:
Entrapt inside a submarine,
With death approaching on the scene,
The crew composed their minds to dice,
More for the pleasure than the vice.
Or a couplet from Grainger’s The Sugar Cane:
Some of the skilful teach, and some deny,
That yams improve the soil.
Bathos is sometimes used as a synonym for
anticlimax (q.v.) but there is this difference, that
anticlimax is often intentional, whereas bathos
is always inadvertent.
Pathos is the quality or power in speech or
music of evoking a feeling of tender pity and
sympathetic sadness. Its adjective, pathetic, is
much used-too much, indeed. Bathos and its
adjective bathetic are rarely used except by
literary critics.
battle royal, a general engagement, a fight in
which several combatants engage, each against
all, is a term from cockfighting. It has become a
clichC and should be avoided.
bawling out. A bawling out is not merely a scolding,
but one delivered in a loud voice and a
bullying manner (She bawled him out in public
for forgetting her cigarettes). It is not used in
formal speech or writing.
bay window; bow window. A bay window makes
a bay out from the room. It may be a bay of any
kind-rectangular, polygonal, or curved. A bow