multiple

Why has the frequency of this word skyrocketed in the last few decades? I will cut straight to the chase and say that it is fashion.  Multiple sounds more educated than many or several. It puts the speaker in the world of experts and specialists, whereas many and several are just commonspeak.

Some people argue that multiple is popular because it is vague.  Many implies an awful lot whereas several seems limited to a small batch.  Multiple could be anything, from a small number to a multitude.  That useful ambiguity may be a factor as well.

So why does multiple sound so up-market?

We need to go back to its origin in Latin and its pathway into English.  The word derives from the Latin multiplex which in Middle French of the 16th century was reduced to multiple.  The Latin word was formed from multi-, a combining form meaning ‘many’, and the suffix -plex from the verb plecto to plait or braid, twist or bend. Plexus meant ‘complicated’.

In Middle French and then in English the word was a term of mathematics. It generalised to non-mathematical contexts (though often specialist and technical) with the sense that one unit was replicated many times.  My exploration of multiple in the Oxford English Dictionary took me through telephony, railways, medicine, IT and banking, and finally brought me to gardening.  I found an example of a multiple tomato and a multiple potato in TROVE.  These are freakish productions with one fruit apparently having several fruits within it.  It is, by the way, described as a catfaced tomato although no one is sure why.

To me multiple still has faintly that sense of the multiplication of units.  A multiple choice question has usually four possible answers, four response units, attached to it.   A multiple store has a number of identically branded and stocked stores at various locations.  It is a chain store.

I think this also explains why multiple births sounds fine but multiple women (offender accused by multiple women) does not. Because  multiple has the base idea of a number of units repeated, it has to be used with count nouns like birth (capable of taking a plural births) and not with uncount nouns like women (not taking a plural).

All of this perhaps gives multiple the feel of being slightly technical.  As many journalists have discovered, it certainly sounds more impressive than many or several. Our only chance of ridding ourselves of the scourge of multiple multiples is to find something to replace it, something classy, something that has appeal to those who are finding multiple overworked and are looking for the next fashion statement. Any suggestions would be welcome and I’ll see if I can find someone in the media to plant them.