Lucky Dip

Useful Information No 3: Garner ye rosebuds

 

In times past, people used to gather information. Now they garner it.

Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary, in the edition of 1972, defined the verb as meaning to store, and the noun garner as meaning a granary; a store of anything. The derivation is from the Latin granarium: a granary. For several years, The Economist Style Guide has declared that ‘Garner means store, not gather’.

But times change. The Concise Oxford English Dictionary Twelfth Edition 2011 defines garner as ‘v. 1. Gather or collect 2 archaic store; deposit.’

Why has this shift come about? It must be the public mood. Gathering is a humdrum activity, carried out perhaps by people without much training or the motivation to do a good job. Garnering, by contrast, suggests a degree of refinement in the techniques employed and the commitment of those doing the garnering. An organization that undertakes to garner information for you might reasonably expect to charge a premium that cannot be justified by the firm down the road that merely gathers it.

Look out for this usage, and ask yourself: “What significance does garner have in this context?” You will find many examples to consider – including examples in The Economist, whose contributors continually and blithely ignore the precepts of its Style Guide.