Churchillian Distinctions

I have been reading the third volume in William Manchester’s epic biography of Winston Churchill (I recommend it highly). On page 30 I encountered the use of three words that made me think “I wonder what the difference is between…. ”

Page 30 mentions Winston’s preference for simplicity in words.

He believed, with F. G. Fowler, that big words should not be used when small words will do, and that English words were always preferable to foreign words. He said: “Not compressing thought into a reasonable space is sheer laziness.” On his orders “Communal Feeding Centers were renamed “British Restaurants,” as Local Defense Volunteers had become “Home Guard.” And why not “ready-made” rather than “prefabricated”? “Appreciate that” was a red flag for him; he always crossed it out and substituted “recognize that.” Another was “intensive” when “intense” was required. Once John Martin, driving along the Embankment with him, described the winding of the Thames as “extraordinary.” Churchill corrected him: “Not ‘extraordinary.’ All rivers wind. Rather, ‘remarkable.’”

What’s the difference between recognize and appreciate? Between intensive and intense? And why is the Thames remarkable but not extraordinary?

Recognize means something is identified from previous knowledge. It has no qualitative or quantitative sense, whereas appreciate has a third meaning of being fully aware of something. There is a sense in appreciate of a quantitative completeness that is not existent in recognize. You can recognize something without appreciating the full implications of its presence. The first two meanings of appreciate are to be grateful or thankful for, and to value or regard highly. There is a positive sense to the more common uses of appreciate that is qualitatively different from recognize.

The meanings of intense and intensive, according to the American Heritage dictionary,

…overlap considerably, but the two adjectives often have distinct meanings. Intense often suggests a strength or concentration that arises from an inner disposition and is particularly appropriate for describing emotional states….Intensive is more appropriate when the strength or concentration of an activity is imposed from without…. Thus a reference to Mark’s intense study of German suggests that Mark engaged in concentrated activity, while Mark’s intensive study of German suggests the course Mark took was designed to cover a lot of material in a brief period.

So intense is something that comes from within, and intensive is something that comes from outside.

Now, why is the Thames remarkable but not extraordinary? Julius Caesar wrote about it when he encountered it in 54 BC, but he also wrote about and is more associated with other rivers (see Rubicon). That’s remarkable but not extraordinary. It was on an island in the Thames where King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215. That’s historic and remarkable, and could be extraordinary, but it was the winding of the Thames to which John Martin referred. Even the S formed east of London, a remarkable feature, is not extraordinary.

Remarkable means notable or conspicuously unusual. It is something worth talking about. Extraordinary is not the combining of the two English words extra and ordinary; it comes from the Latin word extraordinarius, created by the combining of two Latin words: extra (meaning “out of”) and ordinem (meaning “order”).  Since the winding of the Thames is not uncommon among rivers, it is not out of the order of things. But it is remarkable to note that it winds considerably.

Remarkable acknowledges something worthy of note; extraordinary acknowledges something unusual.

Now you can be Churchillian in your distinctions, too.