Distinctives is not a word
Home Page > Fun Stuff > 2002 > Distinctives

I have for some time been annoyed whenever I see someone use the word "distinctives." This essay will explain why I am bothered by the use of that word, and why I want everyone to stop using it.

The first time I remember hearing the word was in 1996 or 1997, when my friend Eric Oldenburg was reading me one of his assignments for Talbot School of Theology.  The assignment was to explain "the distinctives of the Christian belief" on some issue.  I said, "hey, your teacher has bad grammar, you can't use the word 'distinctive' as a noun."

"I see it all the time," Eric replied.

"Really? Well, they're all wrong," I said.

I looked it up in the dictionary, and sure enough, it had the word listed as an adjective. The definition I read then was similar to what you'll see on Merriam-Webster Online today (http://www.m-w.com/):

Now, I recognize that language changes, and evolves in a fluid way.  However, it happens that only Christians in the American evangelical subculture make this mistake, and because of this, it makes us look stupid, like we don't know how to properly use grammar.

There are many words with specialized meanings, used in certain subcultures of society.  And words such as "sanctification" and "edification" are used almost exclusively by a Christian subculture.  However, most of these words are at least acknowledged by secular society.  This grammatical error of misusing the adjective "distinctive" is not accepted by society: it does not show up in any dictionaries as a noun, and the only publications whose editors allow it in print are evangelical Christian publications.

Truthfully, most accusations of Christian anti-intellectualism are probably true. In fact the use of the word "distinctives" is sort of a shibboleth, exposing the authors and editors who use it as people who either don't care, or are too cloistered to realize that the real academic world sees it as a glaring grammatical error.

My father, Mark Weathers, is a linguist. When he first read the first version of this article, he said that it seems that Christians like the word so much because it conveys less meaning. If you use "distinctive" as an adjective, you have to attach it to a noun, such as "distinctive theology", "distinctive behaviors", or "distinctive practices". According to my father, it is typical for Christians to want to be distinctive about something -- anything, it doesn't matter what, as long as there is something that sets them apart.

Conclusion: It's Here to Stay

I had originally intended this article to be a call for Christians to clean up their grammar in this regard. However, I have seen the word in such widespread use (again, 100% exclusively by Christians), that I think it is too late for that.  Instead, I'll just point out that it is an interesting cultural phenomenon, and would make a good test case for linguists who like to study how words come in to use in a society. It will be interesting to see if this word eventually makes it to mainstream secular society.

Until then, however, just a warning to those of you using the word "distinctives": according the the rest of the world, it's a grammatical mistake, and it makes you look stupid when you use it.

Appendix

Some prominent examples of Christians using the word "distinctives", along with my sarcastic remarks

Institutions that may emphasize evangelical distinctives at one point in time may not do so at another. page 8, Mark A. Noll, "The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind" (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1994, ISBN0-8028-419-5) Just like this book chooses to use "distinctives" at one point in time, but not another, on page 42: The distinguishing characteristic of Puritanism...  Ironically, this book is about how evangelicals have become too anti-intellectual.

About GFU: Distinctives What Sets George Fox Apart From Other Universities? http://www.georgefox.edu/about/distinctives/ What sets it apart? Well, for one thing, no secular university would use the word distinctives. However, among Christian institutions of higher education, George Fox has good company:

School Distinctives. International School of Theology, http://www.leaderu.com/isot/distinctives.html, December 2002

Distinctives of The Evangelical Free Church of America http://www.efca.org/distinctives.html, July 2002

Rosemead's major educational distinctives are its strong professional training orientation and its goal of relating the data and concepts of psychology to those of Christian theology ...and it's lack of proper grammar http://www.rosemead.edu/about_us/distinctives.cfm, December 2002


Distinctives and Installations. There are four distinctive characteristics of InfoHandler.com: http://www.infohandler.com/About/Distinctives/ Hmm... this is interesting, the author of this page wrote "distinctives" the first time, but then used the word correctly a few words later.  Also, at first I thought that this may be my first example of a non-Christian using the word "distinctives".  However, I suspect this organization has some ties to the Christian subculture, since it looks like they market their product to home schools and private school, which are mostly Christian.

Presbyterian Distinctives. Presbyterians are distinctive in two major ways... Points of Distinction: http://www.pcusa.org/101/101-distinct.htm  An interesting mix of different ways to use the word.

I think it's ironic that "distinctives" shows up in the places where the web pages mean to brag the most, and thereby end up showing off their ignorance the most.  It shows up on pages where the organization is trying to say: "Ta-da! Look at what makes us stand apart from the rest of the crowd"

Here are some examples of Christians not using the word:

One of the distinctive characteristics of the LDS theogony is that...
Jim W. Adams, "The New Mormon Challenge", ed. Francis J. Beckwith, et al. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002, ISBN 0-310-23194-9)

Distinctive features of this edition of the New King James Version
Back cover of a paperback New Testament, (New York: American Bible Society, ISBN 158516064-4

Distinguishing Characteristics Web page of the Quakers in Ireland, Dec 2002, http://www.ipag.com/quakers/characteristics.html

Navigation Bar: Home : Who We Are : Distinctive Characteristics... The Distinctive Character and Purpose of the Voice of the Martyrs Interestingly, the filename of their webpage indicates maybe they used to say "distinctives" somewhere on this page: http://www.vom.com.au/aboutus/pages/distinctives.html

Links, etc.

There's a great list of Common Errors in English, by Paul Brians, professor at Washington State University, at http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/

For a while, I could never figure out where the phrase "for all intensive purposes" came from, but then I realized I had been misusing the phrase "for all intents and purposes".  Now, I see this error frequently.

Also: I really like a book by C. Edward Good called "Mightier Than the Sword: Powerful Writing, In Class -- On the Job". (1989, ISBN 0-934961-02-6).  He suggests dropping the words "utilize" and "utilization", and using the word "use" instead.  Why use such a long word when a shorter word means exactly the same thing?  It just sounds pretentious.  I think he's right, and I never use the word "utilize" when I'm writing.  (Note: if you disagree: I challenge you to explain to me an instance where "utilize" means something different than "use")

From: (your name or email address, or anonymous) Your message to Matthew:

Created and maintained by Matthew Weathers. Last updated Apr 20, 2006.