Sustainability
Businessdictionary.com sent me the definition for ‘sustainability’. I was pleased. This is one of the words that I rarely, if ever, understand and yet it comes up so often in editorial work. I suspect the conspirators who laugh at editorial staff promote the words ‘sustainable’ and ‘sustainability’ just to cause confusion. They come up in almost every topic, apart that is, from plain English.
When I say that businessdictionary.com sent me a definition for ‘sustainability’, what I actually mean is several definitions. The first two are marked ‘general’:
“General: (1) Ability to corroborate or substantiate a statement. (2) Ability to maintain or support an activity or process over the long term.”
Have you noticed that our friends at businessdictionary.com link to definitions of the words they use in their definitions? Is this because their definitions are quite difficult to follow?
I suspect not. I suspect they are trying to confuse, that they are part of the conspiracy. You only have to look at the words they choose to define to see what I mean: ‘ability’, ‘statement’, ‘maintain’, ‘activity’ and ‘process’.
Of course the second of these is very common. You only have to look at the exciting world of Organisational Development to find it used in sentences like this:
“HPOD brings together the key organisational components that help create and sustain competitive advantage…”
But I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about sustainable statements before. Are businessdictionary.com trying to add new uses of ‘sustainability’ to cause more mayhem in the world of language? As the old cliché has it, the plot thickens…
I quickly flicked through the Oxford English Dictionary and discovered that the word ‘sustain’ comes from the Latin word ’sustinere’, via old French and old English. This in turn comes from ’sub’ (meaning ‘from below’) and ‘tenere’ (meaning ‘hold’). So, it sort of means ‘to hold from below’ which sounds a little unsteady if you ask me but is very interesting nonetheless.
Then you have the definitions – all written beautifully in plain English of course:
- strengthen or support physically of mentally > bear (the weight of an object)
- keep (something) going over time or continuously
- suffer (something unpleasant)
- uphold or confirm the justice or validity of.
- * music an effect of facility on a keyboard or electronic instrument whereby a note can be sustained after the key is released.
Then I went back to the email from businessdictionary.com, to read their other definitions for ‘sustainbility’, interestingly classed as ‘economics’.
“Continued development or growth, without significant deterioration of the environment and depletion of natural resources on which human well-being depends.”
Interesting use of the word ‘significant’, I thought, but I notice it doesn’t link to a definition.
