Errors & Omissions: The meaning of usurp has finally been usurped

A change in meaning for the worse, a geography howler, and the ineradicable 'iconic' in this week's Independent

“The Tory King and his usurper,” said a front-page puff on Wednesday, referring to David Cameron and Boris Johnson. Recent years have seen a shift in the use of “usurp”.

Usurpare, the Latin verb from which “usurp” is derived, means “make use of”. To the English verb my 1968 edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives the primary meaning “to appropriate wrongfully to oneself”. And so it was, until recently. The usurper usurped the crown, not the king.

The latter usage, which gives “usurp” the meaning of “oust” or “supplant” comes a long way down the list of meanings in Shorter Oxford, and is labelled “rare”. Well, it is rare no longer. I get the impression that it is rapidly becoming the usual meaning of “usurp”.

Does it matter? Certainly this kind of shift in the meaning of a verb has happened before and will no doubt happen again. In the 18th century, “advertise” meant “draw the attention of”: you didn’t advertise your product to the public; you advertised the public of your product. Much more recently, “substitute” has undergone a similar switch, under the influence of football. Once, the new was substituted for the old; now the old is substituted in favour of the new.

In the case of “usurp”, the change may not be for the better. A verb meaning “seize from the rightful owner” is probably more useful than a further synonym for “oust”.

µ A picture caption on Tuesday said that a view of the Mourne mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland, had been “voted the best in Britain in a poll by The Countryman magazine”.

I hasten to assure you that it is the magazine, not The Independent, that labelled the Mournes as Britain’s Best View. Quotation marks in the caption could have made that clear. The mountains are not in Britain, which is the island comprising England, Scotland and Wales.

µ This column has long campaigned against the overuse of the modish word “iconic”. It seems that it was all in vain. A news story on Monday reported that a forthcoming David Hockney exhibition “will show some of his most iconic works. It will cover the artist’s six-decade career chronologically, tracing his art from his first appearance on the public stage as a student in 1961 through iconic works in the following decades to the recent show at the Royal Academy”.

That’s two “iconics” in 30 words, the first meaning “well known”, the second meaning “important”, if it means anything at all.

µ A picture caption last Saturday reported that the fashion entrepreneur Natalie Massenet “was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at Buckingham Palace yesterday”. It went on to refer to Ms Massenet.

Wrong. Ms Massenet was made a dame when the award was gazetted. By the time she turned up at the palace to receive the insignia of the award, she was already Dame Natalie.