Jose Carillo's Forum

MY MEDIA ENGLISH WATCH

If you are a new user, click here to
read the Overview to this section

Team up with me in My Media English Watch!

I am inviting Forum members to team up with me in doing My Media English Watch. This way, we can further widen this Forum’s dragnet for bad or questionable English usage in both the print media and broadcast media, thus giving more teeth to our campaign to encourage them to continuously improve their English. All you need to do is pinpoint every serious English misuse you encounter while reading your favorite newspaper or viewing your favorite network or cable TV programs. Just tell me about the English misuse and I will do a grammar critique of it.

Read the guidelines and house rules for joining My Media English Watch!

“Scot-free” doesn’t mean at large but escaping without punishment

I’m delighted to report that during the past week, Metro Manila’s four major broadsheets and two major TV news websites did remarkably well with their English grammar and usage. Going over their major news and feature stories, I could hardly find a grammar error serious or instructive enough to be dissected here. Their reporters and editors are evidently keeping a much tighter watch on their English than in previous weeks. This, of course, is a much welcome development for their readers and a happy respite for me.

I am then taking this opportunity to focus on an interesting feedback from a Forum member, Mr. Juanito T. Fuerte, about word choice in news reporting. Here’s the e-mail he sent me last August 19 about the subject:

Hi, Joe,

Once in a while, in reading the local papers, I sometimes run across English terms used carelessly by local news reporters. Because the words don’t always “fit” or are inappropriate in their stories, I suspect that they do it more for show—to make them sound like they’re English-savvy rather than to put sense into their news stories.

Take the following news item from 8/18/11 issue of The Philippine Star. The first paragraph relates the murder charges filed:

“Laguna Police have filed murder charges before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against a Batangas town mayor and his two close associates in connection with the ambush-slaying of a police officer in Taal town last month.” 

A later paragraph in the story tells of the status of the accused:

“Alito and the other respondents were implicated in the killing of Superintendent Rodney Ramirez last July 12. All suspects including the mayor are still scot-free.” (underscoring mine)

Still scot-free?  

Having lived in the States for over 40 years (until I decided to come to back here 18 months ago), I think I’m quite familiar with the definition and usage of the word “scot-free.” But, just to make sure, I looked it up anyway, and here’s how the online Merriam-Webster defines the word: “Completely free from obligation, harm or, penalty.”

In other words, based on that definition, if someone who committed a crime somehow avoids punishment due perhaps to some technicalities, we can say that that person got away “scot-free.” In the case of how the word was used in the above news story, however, I think what the news writer meant is that the suspects are “still at large” or “not yet in the custody of the authorities.” By using the word “scot-free,” however, the writer implied that the suspects are completely free from obligation, harm or, penalty. I think this is not the case because there was no mention of the suspects having been absolved or forgiven for their crime.  

What do you think?

Incidentally, Joe, having lived in the States for a long time does not mean I have sufficiently learned enough of the English language. I’m finding this out every time I read your English Forum.

All the best,
Juanito T. Fuerte

My reply to Mr. Fuerte:

I agree with you that the Philippine Star misused the term “scot-free” in that news story about the murder suspects. The reporter—and evidently with the consent of the editor—decided to use a figuratively colorful but semantically inappropriate word that means “without consequences or penalties” or “escaping without punishment.” Indeed, in the context of that story, “scot-free” is a carelessly chosen and showy word for what should really be “still at large” or “not yet in the custody of the authorities.” It’s a misuse of language that’s equivalent to putting the cart before the horse, so to speak, for to say that somebody went “scot-free” means that he or she had been accused or sentenced for a crime or misdemeanor but wasn’t penalized or punished for it—“acquitted” or, as they say in Tagalog, “naabswelto.”

This obviously doesn’t apply in the case of the suspects in that story, for although murder charges have been filed against them, they are by law presumed innocent unless proven guilty and, as the legal adage goes, they still must have their day in court. They obviously couldn’t escape a punishment or penalty that isn’t meted out yet. In fact, only if they are acquitted of that murder charge could they go “scot-free” in the correct sense of that word.  

Perhaps the correct sense of “scot-free” will become even clearer if we looked at its etymology.

Here’s British etymologist and writer Michael Quinion’s incisive take on “scot-free” in his World Wide World website:

Scot is from an Old Norse word that meant a payment or contribution and which is linked to the modern French écot, a share of communal expenses, as in payer son écot, to pay one’s share. It is a close relative of shot, which at one time could have the same meaning of a contribution or a share of expenses.

The expression “scot free” derives from a medieval municipal tax levied in proportional shares on inhabitants, often for poor relief. This tax was called a scot, as an abbreviation of the full term scot and lot, where scot was the sum to be paid and lot was one’s allotted share. (This tax lasted a long time, in some places such as Westminster down to the electoral reforms of 1832, with only those paying scot and lot being allowed to vote.) So somebody who avoided paying his share of the town’s expenses for some reason got off scot free.

Scot was also used for a payment or reckoning, especially one’s share of the cost of an entertainment; when one settled up, one “paid for one’s scot.” Again, someone who evaded paying their share of the tab got off scot free.

Let’s hope that after this, we’ll no longer read news stories about suspects who are “still at large” being erroneously described as “scot-free.”

Click to read responses or post a response

View the complete list of postings in this section




Copyright © 2010 by Aperture Web Development. All rights reserved.

Page best viewed with:

Mozilla FirefoxGoogle Chrome

Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional Valid CSS!

Page last modified: 21 August, 2011, 1:00 p.m.