Parlance Rants 3: Go, figure

Figuring. Image: Wikimedia

One of the downsides to being temperamentally a crank and then starting a series of posts excoriating particular word uses is that I’m operating in a target-rich environment. Without even getting into impenetrable gen-alpha slang,* there are as many misuses, elisions, imprecisions and infelicities as there are writers and speakers. Nonetheless, the spirit moved me to denounce content and viewer, and now it’s time to pay particular baleful attention to a new entry: figure.

I suppose I should be precise. “Figure” is a fine, flexible word. It came into English from Latin via Old French, meaning a shape, form, quality, or eventually a drawing. In print it got verbed, and came to mean the act of creating a representation rather than the representation itself. Thus we get uses like “Figure 1” and so on. By the mid 19th century it had expanded to mean working out a sum, or a problem more generally.

As a result, the modern word has many meanings, most of which are perfectly unobjectionable. Figures in a scientific paper, or figures of authority, or a figure standing on the bridge in moonlight; these are all concrete and comprehensible uses. To cut a fine figure: may we all strive to (though it’s notable that in both examples I can recall of a character saying that—Joe Gargery and Mr Marshall—it’s a somewhat compromised praise). Figurative language…well, I can’t very well decry the idea of figurative language. And the newish meaning of working out a conclusion is also a perfectly fine use; it even injects a faint sense of candlelight and scratching nibs into a process that’s likely digital. Figuring out a connection or figuring into a choice: all good.

But here’s where the word use is not only wrong, but offensive to me: I figured.

Nope. You’re giving yourself too much credit, and you’re damaging a word by doing so. There’s already a word for it. You assumed.

In this usage, the term has become exactly the opposite of its long and storied constellation of meanings. It’s not precise, concrete or deliberative.

• “I figured nothing bad would happen” is “I assumed nothing bad would happen because I’ve survived every mishap I’ve experienced. This has given me an unrealistic sense of my own invincibility.”

• “I figured a little bit wouldn’t hurt” is “I assumed my choices have no consequences.”

• “I figured there would be a warning sign if it was really dangerous” is “I assumed I would be protected from ignorance and recklessness because I’ve been encased, without my realizing it, in protective systems built on the accumulated wisdom of centuries of suffering and death.”

See the problem? In these cases there’s no “figuring” at all, nothing of the sense of calculating and working something out, no definite image. Through sheer misuse the word has become its own opposite. But it can’t even be a pleasing contronym because its meaning is to determine or fix or express meaning, so the opposite of that is just nonsensical rather than pleasingly ironic. Go figure.

* Yes, I’m aware of the deep irony of linking to Wikipedia for this list