Blog/2026-03-07/Semantic Drift
Many years ago, semantic drift caught an actor unfortunately unawares. After she put in a lot of work to write a book describing how homosexuals received capital punishment for centuries, it was found not days after her book was published that a sentence of 'death recorded' does not actually mean that the person was killed.
It empowered the trial judge to abstain from formally pronouncing a sentence of death upon a capital convict in cases where the judge intended to recommend the offender for a pardon from the death sentence. In the vast majority (almost certainly all) of the cases marked ‘death recorded’, the offender would not have been executed.
— Richard Ward, quoted in The Guardian[1]
This particular example is exacerbated by the British tendency to use overly confusing terms of art in their bureaucracy[2]. I suspect this is intentionally done to obscure the purpose of that term, and to provide a shield of jargon around the bureaucracy, but regardless it does render history of the era complicated without context.
This came to mind recently because I read a funny quote about Terence Tao:
'At least', I thought, 'the parents and the teachers involved were courageous enough to attempt something designed at meeting Terence's special needs.'
— M.A. Clements[3]
In the vein of the urban myth that Einstein was notoriously bad at Mathematics, perhaps one day we will be informed that one of the best mathematicians of our generation was a special needs individual as the phrase has come to be used today.
Notes
- ↑ Lea, Richard (24 May 2019). "Naomi Wolf admits blunder over Victorians and sodomy executions". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
- ↑ The American term for a non-citizen who is permitted to live there is Lawful Permanent Resident. The desire of North Americans for quick easy words transmutes this to "having a Green Card". I have one. By contrast, the British choose the entirely accurately-phrased-yet-confusing Indefinite Leave to Remain. Choosing to use the word 'Leave' in there is mark of true British genius.
- ↑ Clements, M. A. (Ken) (August 1984). "Terence Tao" (PDF). Educational Studies in Mathematics. 15 (3): 213–238. doi:10.1007/BF00312075. Archived from the original on 2 Feb 2026. Retrieved 7 March 2026.
