I've just been doing one of my occasional editing jobs for a Chinese international relations thinktank. It's the same old tired tosh about how a superpower China is no threat to anyone, and actually makes her neighbours feel all safe and warm and cosy.
I was, however, quite intrigued (horrified, but intrigued) to encounter in this uninspiring paper the use of the word 'bandwagon' as a verb. Although this usage appals and disgusts me, the intended meaning is clear enough, and it is just the kind of ponderous neologism that I can all too readily imagine gaining currency amongst our American cousins (whose otiose and inelegant lexical creativity is one of the great plagues of the modern world, in my view; I've complained about 'leverage' - used as a verb! - before). Quite often, I find, my fuddy-duddyish disdain for modernity means that I fall out of touch with 'accepted usage' in contemporary American English - which does now, alas, appear to be the prevailing standard for international academic discourse as well as the conduct of business and diplomatic relations. However, after rooting around on the Internet a while, I could find no extant examples of the word being used in this way, so perhaps we're safe from being bandwagoned..... for a while.
My author was using the word to describe the happy acquiescence of other Asian countries in China's emerging regional hegemony, saying that they "bandwagon China's leadership".
Amongst the Web definitions of 'bandwagon' I just found on Google were:
A fallacy in which one is attracted to a popular party, faction or cause that attracts growing support; following the crowd rather than using one's own judgment.
And:
A logical fallacy of pathos in which the primary warrant for an argument is that "everyone else is doing it".
Not quite what my author had in mind!
6 comments:
According to the OED, the word, current since 1855, means:
"A large wagon, capable of carrying the band in a procession. Freq. fig., as of one conveying a ‘band’ of usu. successful (political) leaders. Hence to climb, hop, jump, etc., on the band-wagon, to join in what seems likely to be a successful enterprise, to strive to join the winning side."
Nothing about fallacies here, so this was exactly what your author meant.
With what did you replace it?
I can't now recall, Tony. Unhappy memories of that turgid text have been swept from my mind.
I rather think I employed some such periphrasis as "are eager to accept (or support)".
Don't you feel that in more recent usage the idiom has acquired more pejorative connotations, as of a superficial or misguided enthusiasm, a cause adopted largely as a result of peer pressure rather than considered judgment?
Yes, I did just correct a typo in my original (now deleted) comment there.
I wouldn't normally bother, but since this was a post - and a comment - about linguistic exactitude, I thought I should make an extra effort.
Well, maybe it's sometimes pejorative. Perhaps in its next revision the OED will pick up your comment.
Verbing nouns has been common practice in English since Chaucer, and most such usages are quickly accepted; does anyone nowadays object to the verb 'to contact'?
As you say, the meaning of the verb 'to bandwagon' is perfectly clear and I see no reason to replace it with a phrase. It's a useful word the Americans gave us anyway so we should let them do what they like with it.
The trouble with what you call fuddy-duddyish disdain for modernity is that it means falling out of touch with all contemporary English, not just Americanisms.
Yes, I noticed the 'connatation' typo; I thought at first that you meant synchronised swimming.
I don't reject all neologisms, but I try to apply criteria of necessity, usefulness, logic, and elegance.
'Bandwagon' as a verb just seems unnecessary to me; and very ugly in sound. Also, if we were to allow it, I would have thought that it might also, and perhaps preferably mean "to create a bandwagon for others to follow" rather than "to follow something in a 'jumping on the bandwagon' kind of way".
Synchronised swimming - brilliant! I wonder if that is a word.
The other day I found myself typing 'compalined'. I dread to think what that might mean.
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