A Silly 'Vis-a-vis'

 

In the 2000 movie “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” George Clooney plays a 1930s Southern convict with a penchant for hair pomade and flowery language. His puffed-up vocabulary is intended to make him look silly, and it works, especially when in his striped prison PJs he says stuff like, “It does put me in a damn awkward position, vis-a-vis my progeny.”

Fancy talk just sounds silly sometimes, which is probably why simple language gets so much more respect in the professional publishing world. The ability to express something in simple everyday language demonstrates a mastery of the topic and of the language itself.

So vis-a-vis often sounds silly. But it sounds especially silly when used to mean “in regard to.”

“The literal meaning of vis-a-vis in French is ‘face to face,’ and it has had some use in English (as in French) as a preposition meaning 'face to face with,'” writes Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. “But vis-a-vis is far more familiar in its two extended senses, 'in relation to’ and ‘in comparison with,’ which it also has in French, and both of which have been in use in English since the 18th century.”

Merriam-Webster’s says that, in these senses, the term can impart “something of a continental tone” (uh, if you say so) and adds that these uses are pretty uncontroversial.

The controversial usage is the one from the movie quote above, where it’s used to mean “in regard to.” But, Merriam-Webster’s notes, “our evidence shows it to be relatively rare.”

My evidence disagrees. Pretty much the only time I hear vis-a-vis is in the meaning “in regard to,” which, to me, usually just sounds silly.

 

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