English under threat from the north - linguistic musings

After Tiger Woods wrecked his car on a neighbor's fire hydrant and a tree recently in Orlando FL the celebrity golf champ was cited by police for the misdemeanor charge of "Careless driving". A more serious variant is "Reckless driving."

In Ontario, a supposed English-speaking territory of Canada this same traffic offense is called "Undue care and attention".

But "undue" means "excessive" or "too much" where careless driving implies deficient or too little care and attention.

Is this ridiculous inversion of meaning now given official sanction in Ontario law the sinister influence of Quebec to the east, you have to wonder?

More likely just some idiocy of an overhasty lawmaker.

But then the toll industry can't talk.

A common mauling of the english language here in the US toll industry is the term "violation enforcement" used to describe efforts to enforce payment of the toll and to identify and followup on toll violators.

To enforce a violation is logically to force someone into violating at a toll point.  

A violation enforcement then would accurately describe an offense by the toll authority, where, say there was no signage to indicate transponder-only cars keep left through an open road toll lane, and cash payers to the side, creating a situation where motorists were virtually forced to violate.

The proper term we're searching for is "toll enforcement" or "toll violation followup".

Maybe the ridiculous misnomer "violation enforcement" arises from some kind of abbreviation or conjoining of separate concepts of "violation" and "enforcement" and was first expressed "violation/enforcement", the concept separating slash '/' getting dropped?

Or perhaps after all it too was the language wrecking influence of les francaises?

editor TOLLROADSnews 2009-12-12