What is it with the word ‘access’ all of a sudden?

You can’t move these days without people ‘accessing’ education, ‘accessing’ information on the web, ‘accessing’ resources in the library, or ‘accessing’ lists of annoying words.

Whatever happened to good old entering, obtaining, getting, using, reading, or any other of the hundreds or perfectly good verbs? Verbs that actually convey something specific about the action being carried. Verbs that suggest a sense of movement, of deliberate choice, that people are actually doing something, rather than access, which to my mind is a vague, passive word and should be avoided at all costs.

Unless of course it is being used in its correct sense (according to Collins, ‘the act of entering or approaching’), which it very rarely is.


Posted by: Gareth Chadwick on Wednesday, September 30, 2009