| With the possible exception of Samuel Goldwyn, who said ?A verbal contract isn?t worth the paper it is written on,? just about anyone who has ever made a verbal agreement knows that verbal sometimes means ?spoken, not written.? People have been using verbal in this way since the 16th century. Among the most prominent of these verbalists are Pepys, Swift, Fielding, and Dickens. This noble lineage has not deterred some language critics from insisting that verbal should only be used in the sense ?by means of words? and that oral is the proper synonym for ?spoken.? | 1 |
| They may be wrong in ignoring the word?s well-established use, but they are right that verbal can cause confusion. The phrase modern technologies for verbal communication may refer only to devices for spoken communication such as radio, the telephone, and the loudspeaker, or it may refer to all devices for linguistic communication, including the telegraph, the teletype, and the fax machine. In such contexts it?s better to use oral or spoken to make your meaning unambiguous. | 2 |
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