Word Watch: Granular

Here’s a word that keeps cropping up in contexts that seem not to require it. We are told that a description of an accident, a criminal event, or a film or a play, is ‘granular’. Consulting the dictionary, we learn, what we suspected, that ‘granular’ means ‘characterised by the texture of grains’ – so these unexpected usages of the word are metaphorical. The online dictionary suggests as a definition ‘characterised by a high level of granularity’ but that seems tautological and doesn’t sharpen the sense of the word at all. 

A recent report (by the Free Speech Union) on the questionable dismissal of an employee includes this passage: ‘The technical reason for her termination? “Dishonesty”, on the basis that her account didn’t correspond with those provided by others the MP spoke to and because she hadn’t named the SNP MP in question when disclosing the conversation she’d had about her…  But as [the employee concerned] points out, when the complaint was first put to her out of the blue and without prior warning, she hadn’t imagined that granular detail of that kind was required, or indeed necessary…’

I draw attention to the word simply because it seems to have become popular lately. It was not much in evidence five years ago, to my recollection. It is being used metaphorically, as I say, and it has the effect of making some ideas or trains of thought more vivid. In those contexts is to be welcomed. Where it renders the context confusing, perhaps it is better avoided. But I like the homeliness of a reference, perhaps, to the sugar on the breakfast table in the midst of an important argument on a very different subject. I suspect that is the very opposite of the user’s intention: the word is deployed, I guess, to sound technical and so to impress the hearer. But if nobody minds, I’ll stick with the sugar.