Oh my word!

D theear Steve”, Alban Houghton, a reader from Broughty Ferry, wrote to me other week. “I was reminded of my father when columnist Helen Brown used the verb aerated in The Courier.”

Alban went on: “Discussing TV show The Crown, Helen remarked ‘People are aerated about the fudging of fact and fiction.’ When dad was getting his head nipped by mum for some domestic infraction, he dismissed the accusation with the plea ‘not to get so aerated’.

“Where did this informal usage, meaning het up or agitated, arise?”

Aerated is, indeed, an interesting word. I spent a pleasant few hours thinking about it and came to a rather uncomfortable conclusion. A conclusion that exposes my unreasonable and unfair prejudices about language.

I know Helen well. She is a writer I admire. She has an excellent command of the language. I agree with her (and Alban’s) definition of this word in this context.

I began my research into aerated in my favourite dictionary, the Shorter Oxford English published in the 1930s with updates and corrections ever since. I have a two-volume copy from 1969. It isn’t old enough to have too many archaic entries, neither is it new enough to include silly neologisms I regard as slang.

It lists aerated as the process of charging a liquid with gas (as in lemonade). There is no mention of aerated as annoyed. Yet I am, and have been for decades, aware of aerated in the way young Ms Brown used it. An overlyexcited person deserves to be described as if they’d just been filled with gassy bubbles.

Online, I quickly found aerated meaning agitated. But online dictionaries are, of course, new dictionaries. Why wasn’t this definition in my 50-year-old OED?

The answer is simple. Aerated (as vexed) was regarded as informal usage in the 1960s and didn’t merit inclusion in a serious dictionary.

But then, if this usage – which I deem perfectly acceptable – isn’t good enough to be listed in a dictionary, is the dictionary doing its job properly?

This is where my prejudices are revealed.

I don’t like words such as “adorkable” (describing an attractive geek) or “griefer” (an online gamer who spoils another player’s enjoyment). Both now appear in the online version of the OED. I don’t think such frivolous terms merit inclusion. But I am forced to admit that this is simply because I don’t use these words.

It is a glaring double standard. I accept terms that were new half a century ago, but have grown too old and set in my ways to accept the changes the language is currently undergoing. This, sooner or later, happens to us all. Even adorkable griefers will one day be aerated because they don’t understand what young people are talking about.

STEVE FINAN IN DEFENCE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE