My favorite Charles Manson quote (all right, my only Charles Manson quote) is this: “Is it hot in here, or am I just crazy?”
Yes, that’s just a joke. But have you ever been in a situation where you wonder if you’re the only one who’s aware of something, bothered by something? Is it just you, you might wonder. It happens to me. A lot.
Say you call a company about an account you have there, and a recording says, “In order to expedite your request, enter your account number now.” So you do that, then you wait. When you finally get a real person, the first thing that person says is, “What is your account number?” What? I just entered it. Isn’t that idiotic, or am I just crazy?
It seems to me that every magazine scent sample — the kind you scratch to sniff — is the same smell. Have you noticed that? “Lift here to experience … the smell.” I don’t need to; it’s the same as all the others.
Let’s say a friend of yours requires knee surgery. I’ll bet you right now that he didn’t hurt his knee, he didn’t break it or rupture it or smash it. You know what he did? He “blew out his knee.” Right? Isn’t that always the phrase? And it’s funny, that one, because you always blow out your knee, but just your knee. You don’t blow out your shoulder. Or your hip.
Of course, you’ll always use “one of the top surgeons in the country.” Am I crazy, or is almost every surgeon in the country — you know, the ones your relatives and friends use for their blown-out knees — said to be one of the top in the region?
This one’s equally irritating and predictable: Videographers zoom in extra tight anytime someone on camera is about to cry. I think they’re trained and certified in tear-zooming. Don’t zoom in, we take your camera away and give no severance pay. Zoom in and you go national. After all, what is grief for if not to be made public, with an extreme close-up.
While we’re on camera things, am I crazy, or has the once-revered National Geographic TV channel gone tacky? In the (good) old days, that brand, that name, meant class. Now it can be almost as low-class as any other cable show. Even the name has become Nat Geo. Say what? Yes, that’s how the promos go: Nat Geo.
Cell phones. Many, many times I’ve noticed cars with four businesspeople, all suited up and on their way to business doings, and each of them is on a cell phone. All four in the same car, wearing ties and talking … not to each other. Unless, of course, they’re calling each other.
Sometimes names make me shake my head, thinking I must be crazy. They simply strike me as beyond belief. I just heard a bird expert on national radio: Dr. Dove. You know who the commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is? Dr. Hamburg. Where we used to live there was a dentist named Dr. Pepper, and tonight I saw a cook on TV — Mary Cleaver.
Tell me this: Am I crazy, or are those new-fangled envelopes a mess? I’m referring to the ones that say you MUST remove the side panels first. First the side panels, then at this perforation, then stand on your head and tear here. They take forever to open and the carbon-lined inside is ugly. I hate them.
Oh, am I the only one who’s noticed that every alarm in the house — carbon monoxide, smoke, whatever — is designed to work our last nerves? The batteries always go bad in the middle of the night. At first you hear a quick beep, but it’s so, so loud. And you deny that you heard it: Oh no, it was nothing, it won’t happen again BEEP. So you have to get out of bed — always on a night before some really important activity requiring extra lucidity and strength the next day — and you get a ladder from your neighbor’s garage and you try to stop The Beeping.
That means that you need to discover a way to get to the bad battery, hoping that you’re not deafened and knocked off the ladder while cursing. The alarms are all different, so there’s no point in trying to remember how to do it. I’ve always found it best simply to use a hammer and then replace the whole unit the following weekend.
I don’t know how Charlie Manson would do it.
###
Mike Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Greensboro and provides daily language tips on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike). He can be reached at writermike@bellsouth.net.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
I’ll go first, I’m old. It happens.
This is weird. It’s been happening more and more lately, too. I’ll be walking, usually indoors, and people will step out of my way. Here’s why: I’m now old.
I’m not pushing my way through a crowd, I’m not stumbling or scowling or walking with a cane, but evidently I now look old. And interestingly, it motivates people to step aside in restaurant aisles, to hold the door, to smile and say, “Go ahead.” That feels strange to me. It’s also, if I ever get used to it, rather pleasant.
A lot of my jobs have been high profile, so I’ve been interviewed through the years. The descriptions in those have gone from “athletic” to “active” to “spry.” Wait a minute — “spry”? And I was 55 at the time.
It happens.
The joke is that we all have three ages: youth, middle age and “You’re looking well.”
You learn that over time, things go wrong with your body. By middle age you understand how it’s possible for some elderly to have serious medical problems that they leave untreated. After all, by their age, they’ve gone through decades of enduring countless aches, an array of pains. Life becomes: “Oh, I’ll just put up with it and it will go away eventually.”
Here’s the way I see it about our bodies. When you’re young, the question is “What’s wrong?” When you’re middle-aged, the question is “What’s wrong now?” And when you’re old, the question is “Can it be fixed?”
When I was 12 years old I made a three-fold vow to myself: I would never be bald, I would never get hemorrhoids and I would never talk down to a 12-year-old. So far, I’ve kept two out of three.
You know you’re old when you when you pass an attractive dog-walker of the opposite sex and then realize you were checking out the dog.
The hard part at my age is on a day when you feel young, but then someone says, “You’ve had a good life.”
It’s also hard when you realize that you’re doing the very things that you’ve always noticed about the elderly (you know, those who really ARE old). You find yourself humming. You find your mouth opening sooner than it needs to when food is incoming. When you climb into a car, you moan. You find that you really have forgotten to zip the ole zipper.
It happens.
Then we have the Senior Citizen Discount. When I was 49, I ordered some chicken at a KFC. The clerk said, “Do you get the senior discount?” I left.
A version of that still happens. My wife and I grocery shop on the seniors discount day every week, and the experience would be much more enjoyable if the clerks would ASK me if I qualify. They never do.
Oh, I meant to tell you. If you’re a senior and you eat at Chik-fil-A, they give you a free drink. It’s called a “Senior Drink,” and it’s slightly smaller than … wait a minute. I wonder if they have a kiddie drink, too, that’s smaller. Is this a kiddie drink?
That’s the problem, isn’t it? As we get old, we start to resemble the children, then the infants, we once were. We begin to eat like them, we cry easily, we walk like them. It’s fascinating.
Eventually, as you live in the Years of Discounts, you start to think in terms of Lasts: This will probably be my last house, my last dog, my last car. And the older you get, the shorter-term the lasts are. My last house is easy to live with, but then you reach your last suit, your last vacation trip, your last … banana?
It happens.
If you’re lucky.
###
Mike Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Greensboro and provides daily language tips on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
I’m not pushing my way through a crowd, I’m not stumbling or scowling or walking with a cane, but evidently I now look old. And interestingly, it motivates people to step aside in restaurant aisles, to hold the door, to smile and say, “Go ahead.” That feels strange to me. It’s also, if I ever get used to it, rather pleasant.
A lot of my jobs have been high profile, so I’ve been interviewed through the years. The descriptions in those have gone from “athletic” to “active” to “spry.” Wait a minute — “spry”? And I was 55 at the time.
It happens.
The joke is that we all have three ages: youth, middle age and “You’re looking well.”
You learn that over time, things go wrong with your body. By middle age you understand how it’s possible for some elderly to have serious medical problems that they leave untreated. After all, by their age, they’ve gone through decades of enduring countless aches, an array of pains. Life becomes: “Oh, I’ll just put up with it and it will go away eventually.”
Here’s the way I see it about our bodies. When you’re young, the question is “What’s wrong?” When you’re middle-aged, the question is “What’s wrong now?” And when you’re old, the question is “Can it be fixed?”
When I was 12 years old I made a three-fold vow to myself: I would never be bald, I would never get hemorrhoids and I would never talk down to a 12-year-old. So far, I’ve kept two out of three.
You know you’re old when you when you pass an attractive dog-walker of the opposite sex and then realize you were checking out the dog.
The hard part at my age is on a day when you feel young, but then someone says, “You’ve had a good life.”
It’s also hard when you realize that you’re doing the very things that you’ve always noticed about the elderly (you know, those who really ARE old). You find yourself humming. You find your mouth opening sooner than it needs to when food is incoming. When you climb into a car, you moan. You find that you really have forgotten to zip the ole zipper.
It happens.
Then we have the Senior Citizen Discount. When I was 49, I ordered some chicken at a KFC. The clerk said, “Do you get the senior discount?” I left.
A version of that still happens. My wife and I grocery shop on the seniors discount day every week, and the experience would be much more enjoyable if the clerks would ASK me if I qualify. They never do.
Oh, I meant to tell you. If you’re a senior and you eat at Chik-fil-A, they give you a free drink. It’s called a “Senior Drink,” and it’s slightly smaller than … wait a minute. I wonder if they have a kiddie drink, too, that’s smaller. Is this a kiddie drink?
That’s the problem, isn’t it? As we get old, we start to resemble the children, then the infants, we once were. We begin to eat like them, we cry easily, we walk like them. It’s fascinating.
Eventually, as you live in the Years of Discounts, you start to think in terms of Lasts: This will probably be my last house, my last dog, my last car. And the older you get, the shorter-term the lasts are. My last house is easy to live with, but then you reach your last suit, your last vacation trip, your last … banana?
It happens.
If you’re lucky.
###
Mike Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Greensboro and provides daily language tips on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Besieged by bazillions
Today we’ll examine the horrendous act of blending two decent words into one trendy and ugly new thing (I hate to call the new things “words”). Let me state what should be obvious by now: I am not a linguist. Linguists are scholars. They really, really know about words. Also, they describe language as they study it. Describing what has been done to our language is markedly different from prescribing what needs to be done.
Your favored columnist (that would be me), on the other hand, prescribes like a madman. He is no language scholar, nor does he claim to be. He’s more of a, um, well, not to put too fine a point on this, a language curmudgeon. And today’s griping will focus, as said, on that one part of our language’s evolution that gives us ugly, irritating, overused and unnecessary-to-begin-with new words.
Of course there are some great new words in our lives today, and thank heavens. After all, very few of us want to go around speaking the English of Chaucer. But some of the new stuff, well, keep reading.
Many young people, all over the world, now say that they are chillaxin’. In case that’s confusing, they’re both relaxing and “chilling,” another word for relaxing. So with the new word, we get two words for relaxing combined needlessly into one new and ugly word.
We can’t blame youth alone for this trend. TV Guide recently wrote, “Is there a showmance in the works on Top Chef’?” Of course, “bromance” has been around for a good while, combining the deep affection that males, not necessarily brothers in fact, feel for each other. It only makes sense, I suppose, that if the bromance is on a TV show, we get a showmance.
Of course, if things go badly in a bromance or a showmance, you can end up with frenemies — a combo of friends at times and enemies at other times. Wow. Does any of this bother you, too, or should I simply be chillaxin’?
It seems to me that this kind of word blending began about the time we started using “guesstimate,” which is said to have come to us from statisticians in the mid 1930s. Some feel that the delicious combo “guesstimate” means a guess that is made without sufficient information. Really? I’d call that a guess. Others say it’s an estimate arrived at by conjecture. Again, I’d go with “guess” or “estimate,” and I’d never feel deprived by not using “guesstimate.”
Anyway (and please, try to avoid ever saying “anyways”), we’ve now gone down the path to “dinnertainment” (dinner with entertainment, of course), “twonversation” (I’m not sure what that means, but it rhymes with “conversation,” if that helps), “daditude” for today’s fathers and, for extra thin men, “manorexic.” Shoot, there’s even a respected organization in D.C. now with a building named “The Newseum.” Golly, isn’t our new language swell?
Here’s a request from me to you: Might we please stop with the -illion permutations, such as gazillion, jillion, bajillion and gadzillion? Maybe we can move into kill-illion. Oh, and let’s toss “ginormous,” the blend of “gigantic” and “enormous,” into the Kill Pile, as well. It’s been around since 1948; that’s long enough.
Previous generations used to say “We’re doing this for the umpteenth time,” and that was similar to the –illions. Maybe it was less irritating to me because it didn’t spawn an umpzillion permutations.
My clever nephew Steve Clark has written me to say that he agrees — “daycation” and “staycation” are unappealing (not his exact word, but you get the drift), and he offers us some new -cation terms, just to see how they fly: Praycation — a religious day camp; Haycation — a farmers’ retreat; Gaycation — a getaway to San Francisco; and Ayyy-cation — a chance to spend the day with Henry Winkler.
He sent more, but I’ll stop here. The list could go on ad Newseum.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net or follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
Your favored columnist (that would be me), on the other hand, prescribes like a madman. He is no language scholar, nor does he claim to be. He’s more of a, um, well, not to put too fine a point on this, a language curmudgeon. And today’s griping will focus, as said, on that one part of our language’s evolution that gives us ugly, irritating, overused and unnecessary-to-begin-with new words.
Of course there are some great new words in our lives today, and thank heavens. After all, very few of us want to go around speaking the English of Chaucer. But some of the new stuff, well, keep reading.
Many young people, all over the world, now say that they are chillaxin’. In case that’s confusing, they’re both relaxing and “chilling,” another word for relaxing. So with the new word, we get two words for relaxing combined needlessly into one new and ugly word.
We can’t blame youth alone for this trend. TV Guide recently wrote, “Is there a showmance in the works on Top Chef’?” Of course, “bromance” has been around for a good while, combining the deep affection that males, not necessarily brothers in fact, feel for each other. It only makes sense, I suppose, that if the bromance is on a TV show, we get a showmance.
Of course, if things go badly in a bromance or a showmance, you can end up with frenemies — a combo of friends at times and enemies at other times. Wow. Does any of this bother you, too, or should I simply be chillaxin’?
It seems to me that this kind of word blending began about the time we started using “guesstimate,” which is said to have come to us from statisticians in the mid 1930s. Some feel that the delicious combo “guesstimate” means a guess that is made without sufficient information. Really? I’d call that a guess. Others say it’s an estimate arrived at by conjecture. Again, I’d go with “guess” or “estimate,” and I’d never feel deprived by not using “guesstimate.”
Anyway (and please, try to avoid ever saying “anyways”), we’ve now gone down the path to “dinnertainment” (dinner with entertainment, of course), “twonversation” (I’m not sure what that means, but it rhymes with “conversation,” if that helps), “daditude” for today’s fathers and, for extra thin men, “manorexic.” Shoot, there’s even a respected organization in D.C. now with a building named “The Newseum.” Golly, isn’t our new language swell?
Here’s a request from me to you: Might we please stop with the -illion permutations, such as gazillion, jillion, bajillion and gadzillion? Maybe we can move into kill-illion. Oh, and let’s toss “ginormous,” the blend of “gigantic” and “enormous,” into the Kill Pile, as well. It’s been around since 1948; that’s long enough.
Previous generations used to say “We’re doing this for the umpteenth time,” and that was similar to the –illions. Maybe it was less irritating to me because it didn’t spawn an umpzillion permutations.
My clever nephew Steve Clark has written me to say that he agrees — “daycation” and “staycation” are unappealing (not his exact word, but you get the drift), and he offers us some new -cation terms, just to see how they fly: Praycation — a religious day camp; Haycation — a farmers’ retreat; Gaycation — a getaway to San Francisco; and Ayyy-cation — a chance to spend the day with Henry Winkler.
He sent more, but I’ll stop here. The list could go on ad Newseum.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net or follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
Saturday, October 17, 2009
In loo of a proper restroom
Many, many years ago, way back in 19cough-cough (all right — it was 1969 and some of you weren’t even born yet), I was in London for the first time. I found myself in a car rental office, eager to start driving on the wrong side of the road. As I waited, I needed to use a men’s room.
Of course, I knew that British English and American English had differences, and that them Brits (as we Texans are likely to say) said “loo” or “water closet” to indicate the facilities. But when it came time for me to ask the nice lady for permission, I simply lacked the courage to try either of those words. So I reached for the most courteous-sounding term I had, and I said, “Is there a restroom I can use?” She thought for a moment, then said, “No, just that settee in the corner.” I realized that she truly thought I want to “rest,” and the sofa was all she had to offer.
Last month I had occasion to return to England, and I found some other language differences that you might find interesting. Let me start by telling you that the restrooms — the men’s rooms and ladies’ rooms — are still called loos and water closets … sometimes cloakrooms. But mostly they’re simply called toilets. And where we have handicapped restrooms, they have adapted toilets.
Not surprisingly, a lot of their terms are a bit more genteel than ours. For instance, instead of commanding that tourists stay on board while the bus is moving, they ask that you not alight whilst vehicle is in motion. Alight and whilst — genteel. And they don’t cook tea, or even brew it; they allow it to infuse. Yes.
On the other hand, their signs can be quite graphic (forgive the pun). We saw one street sign that warned of elderly people crossing the road, and the artwork featured drawings of people who were bent over, shuffling behind canes and walkers. And then we saw an even more graphic one showing exactly what kind of dog mess one is expected to handle (another pun to pardon).
The text on a nearby sign sounded genteel, though: “It is an offence to allow a dog to foul the footway.” Alliterative, even.
You don’t rent a tux there; you hire a dinner suit. We went to a wedding in a chapel at Oxford University, and the invitations had this: “No photography is allowed in the Chapel … and no confetti is allowed full stop.” Darn, I was hoping to stuff my hired dinner suit with confetti. But full stop, well, that put a definite halt to it. (“Full stop” means “and nothing less.”)
I signed up for a newsletter online with these instructions: “Fill in your details here and we’ll tip you the nod every few weeks.” Isn’t that interesting? Tip me the ole nod.
The vent in an English bathroom (well, toilet) is called an isolator, I suppose because it isolates the odors one wants isolated. Glass blocks are called air bricks, which makes sense. Scotch tape is called celly, Saran Wrap stuff is called cling film, and of course they watch adverts on the telly. (I assume they have adverts for celly on the telly.)
Finally, you and I have talked before about the British saying “he’s in hospital,” where they drop the “the” that we would use before “hospital.” I pointed out that we do it occasionally ourselves, such as in “he’s in school right now.” But they win, hands down — I heard all of these: “She’s downstairs in kitchen,” “Have we got problem?” and even “I’ll be down in minute.” Makes me want to write “the” a few thousand times and mail it over there as a helpful gift.
Can’t do it now — I need to go see if my dog has fouled a footpath.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net or follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
Of course, I knew that British English and American English had differences, and that them Brits (as we Texans are likely to say) said “loo” or “water closet” to indicate the facilities. But when it came time for me to ask the nice lady for permission, I simply lacked the courage to try either of those words. So I reached for the most courteous-sounding term I had, and I said, “Is there a restroom I can use?” She thought for a moment, then said, “No, just that settee in the corner.” I realized that she truly thought I want to “rest,” and the sofa was all she had to offer.
Last month I had occasion to return to England, and I found some other language differences that you might find interesting. Let me start by telling you that the restrooms — the men’s rooms and ladies’ rooms — are still called loos and water closets … sometimes cloakrooms. But mostly they’re simply called toilets. And where we have handicapped restrooms, they have adapted toilets.
Not surprisingly, a lot of their terms are a bit more genteel than ours. For instance, instead of commanding that tourists stay on board while the bus is moving, they ask that you not alight whilst vehicle is in motion. Alight and whilst — genteel. And they don’t cook tea, or even brew it; they allow it to infuse. Yes.
On the other hand, their signs can be quite graphic (forgive the pun). We saw one street sign that warned of elderly people crossing the road, and the artwork featured drawings of people who were bent over, shuffling behind canes and walkers. And then we saw an even more graphic one showing exactly what kind of dog mess one is expected to handle (another pun to pardon).
The text on a nearby sign sounded genteel, though: “It is an offence to allow a dog to foul the footway.” Alliterative, even.
You don’t rent a tux there; you hire a dinner suit. We went to a wedding in a chapel at Oxford University, and the invitations had this: “No photography is allowed in the Chapel … and no confetti is allowed full stop.” Darn, I was hoping to stuff my hired dinner suit with confetti. But full stop, well, that put a definite halt to it. (“Full stop” means “and nothing less.”)
I signed up for a newsletter online with these instructions: “Fill in your details here and we’ll tip you the nod every few weeks.” Isn’t that interesting? Tip me the ole nod.
The vent in an English bathroom (well, toilet) is called an isolator, I suppose because it isolates the odors one wants isolated. Glass blocks are called air bricks, which makes sense. Scotch tape is called celly, Saran Wrap stuff is called cling film, and of course they watch adverts on the telly. (I assume they have adverts for celly on the telly.)
Finally, you and I have talked before about the British saying “he’s in hospital,” where they drop the “the” that we would use before “hospital.” I pointed out that we do it occasionally ourselves, such as in “he’s in school right now.” But they win, hands down — I heard all of these: “She’s downstairs in kitchen,” “Have we got problem?” and even “I’ll be down in minute.” Makes me want to write “the” a few thousand times and mail it over there as a helpful gift.
Can’t do it now — I need to go see if my dog has fouled a footpath.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net or follow him on Twitter (twitter.com/writermike).
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Twitterary allusions
Please read this entire column, whether you hate Twitter, love Twitter or don’t even know what Twitter is. The reason I’m writing to you about Twitter is this: I want to offer periodic advice on language via Twitter, and you can help make it happen.
It’s a challenge, you see, to write helpful notes about language in the teeny space that Twitter postings, known as “tweets,” allow: 140 characters maximum. That counts all letters, spaces, punctuation, etc. It makes one work a little bit to distill thoughts all the way down to the essence … similar to haiku, perhaps. (Forgive me if I sound all in a twitter.) Let me give you some sample tweets that I’ve already posted on Twitter — see what you think.
“Prices on the New York Stock Exchange rose higher yesterday.” Of course they rose higher; could they have risen lower?
Do you see how it works? Short, if not sweet. Here’s another one.
Which is correct - it's "a lot" [2 words] of fun, or it's "alot" [no such word] of fun? There's your answer.
Each of those is pithy (yeth indeed), and necessarily so. Look at two more, and then we’ll talk.
Do letters get an "s" or an apostrophe and an "s" for plurals? Singles get apostrophes (your p's and q's vs. the POs and two Ph.D.s).
Journalists get this one right, generally, but nonjournies do not. Ready? Under way, two words.
Please know that I am neither endorsing nor complaining about Twitter. What I am saying is that if enough of you sign up to “follow” me, then I’ll know that Twitter is a good way to pass along my language tidbits, and I’ll happily craft and post language tweets regularly.
Shoot — just stick your toe in. If you don’t like it, stop.
Yes, many people grouse at the very thought of Twitter. “If I want to know every time people eat a bagel, I’ll ask them” is a common kind of complaint. By the uninitiated, I might add. Here’s the way one tweeter, a young British comic, tweeted to make fun of that kind of posting:
I have my knees in my T-shirt, stretching it to a more desirable size. Stay tuned to my Twitter for more developments as they happen.
As I said, that’s a joke. If you encounter someone who really is mundane, simply stop following that person. The people and organizations I follow on Twitter tell me useful things — I follow news organizations and newsmakers to find out breaking news far ahead of stories on the wire services, for instance. Millions of people follow various celebrities for various reasons. You can keep up with your relatives if they’re tweeting. And, of course, you can send your own messages. Say your spouse is hospitalized, and friends and relatives want constant updates. Tweets can provide that, instantaneously and for free.
Here — have two more samples of my language tweets.
Bellwether = mix of bell and wether, a castrated male sheep, from the practice of hanging a bell from the neck of the flock leader.
Header in today's paper re BOA: 'Backing out of the deal might have lead to ouster ... .' Try not to use a metal (lead) for the verb (led).
Ready to sign up? It’s extremely simple to do. The whole process is free, and getting started truly takes only a few seconds. Simply go to Twitter.com and fill in the blanks to join. Then add writermike as someone to follow, and we’re set.
To update the James Taylor lyric, how tweet it is.
###
It’s a challenge, you see, to write helpful notes about language in the teeny space that Twitter postings, known as “tweets,” allow: 140 characters maximum. That counts all letters, spaces, punctuation, etc. It makes one work a little bit to distill thoughts all the way down to the essence … similar to haiku, perhaps. (Forgive me if I sound all in a twitter.) Let me give you some sample tweets that I’ve already posted on Twitter — see what you think.
“Prices on the New York Stock Exchange rose higher yesterday.” Of course they rose higher; could they have risen lower?
Do you see how it works? Short, if not sweet. Here’s another one.
Which is correct - it's "a lot" [2 words] of fun, or it's "alot" [no such word] of fun? There's your answer.
Each of those is pithy (yeth indeed), and necessarily so. Look at two more, and then we’ll talk.
Do letters get an "s" or an apostrophe and an "s" for plurals? Singles get apostrophes (your p's and q's vs. the POs and two Ph.D.s).
Journalists get this one right, generally, but nonjournies do not. Ready? Under way, two words.
Please know that I am neither endorsing nor complaining about Twitter. What I am saying is that if enough of you sign up to “follow” me, then I’ll know that Twitter is a good way to pass along my language tidbits, and I’ll happily craft and post language tweets regularly.
Shoot — just stick your toe in. If you don’t like it, stop.
Yes, many people grouse at the very thought of Twitter. “If I want to know every time people eat a bagel, I’ll ask them” is a common kind of complaint. By the uninitiated, I might add. Here’s the way one tweeter, a young British comic, tweeted to make fun of that kind of posting:
I have my knees in my T-shirt, stretching it to a more desirable size. Stay tuned to my Twitter for more developments as they happen.
As I said, that’s a joke. If you encounter someone who really is mundane, simply stop following that person. The people and organizations I follow on Twitter tell me useful things — I follow news organizations and newsmakers to find out breaking news far ahead of stories on the wire services, for instance. Millions of people follow various celebrities for various reasons. You can keep up with your relatives if they’re tweeting. And, of course, you can send your own messages. Say your spouse is hospitalized, and friends and relatives want constant updates. Tweets can provide that, instantaneously and for free.
Here — have two more samples of my language tweets.
Bellwether = mix of bell and wether, a castrated male sheep, from the practice of hanging a bell from the neck of the flock leader.
Header in today's paper re BOA: 'Backing out of the deal might have lead to ouster ... .' Try not to use a metal (lead) for the verb (led).
Ready to sign up? It’s extremely simple to do. The whole process is free, and getting started truly takes only a few seconds. Simply go to Twitter.com and fill in the blanks to join. Then add writermike as someone to follow, and we’re set.
To update the James Taylor lyric, how tweet it is.
###
Sunday, August 16, 2009
A novel approach to language
Everyone makes typographical errors at some time, yes? What’s troubling me is that organizations that should not make them — book publishers — do.
We should be able to read a novel without finding egregious mistakes, don’t you agree? All right, I admit that some people feel that popular fiction need not be held to high standards. But c’mon, really? If it’s a book?
Let me give you a few examples that I’ve found in novels recently. And please keep in mind that these are from publishers with international reputations for high quality, not some DIY firm.
In fact, the mistakes I’ll tell you about are from the novels of New York Times best-selling authors. The first we’ll examine has written dozens of books, all best sellers and all published by leading publishing houses — Ballentine Books, Bantam Books, etc. I won’t tell you his name, but his initials are J.K., and these errors are to be found in every one of his books. Every one, I tell you.
Guess what? That’s the first one (I hope you got it). As we all know, “guess” is a command, not a question. So kill the question mark, J.K., and use a period. Here are some others. Let me combine them into one sentence for you, just for purposes of illustration. Here we go — I told the both of them to continue on, because they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone.
Did you catch all of those mistakes? “Both” means “the two of,” so saying “the both of them” is like saying “the the two of them.” Kill the “the” before the “both.” Also, “continue” means “go on,” so “continue on” is the same as saying “go on on.” Stop it. The final error is trickier to explain, but stay with me.
The last portion of the illustrative sentence should have read this way: “they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone else did,” or, more simply, “they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone else.” It’s the “else” that’s crucial. You always want to be careful about including an “else” when you’re saying “more than anyone” or “better than anyone” or any other comparative statements with “anyone” in the mix.
Let’s say your goal is to say that Bob knows more about cooking than any other person you know. Bob, we assume, is a person. That is, Bob himself is an “anyone.” See? If you simply say that ole Bob knows more about cooking than anyone, that means more than ANYone! But wait – he is an anyone, so it makes no sense. (Are you confused yet?) If you’ll just toss that “else” in there, all becomes clear. Instead of saying that Bob knows more than anyone (in the world), say that Bob knows more than anyone else in the world.
If that’s still confusing (and if you care), let me know and I’ll tackle it again later. For now, I’ll stop. You’re welcome.
Now we come to a New York Times best-selling author from Greensboro, a brilliant and talented writer with the initials J.H., published by St. Martin’s Press. Check out these two sentences from his latest novel: (1) Detective Cross was in the yard; so was his wife and Gerald. (2) Yoakum lead the boy away.
You see the problems there, yes? You’d have said, “Detective Cross was in the yard; so were his wife and Gerald.” And I can almost guarantee that you and the author, if asked, would vote to substitute the verb “led” for the metal “lead.” My point is that these errors belong to the editor, who works for the publisher.
Maybe hard economic times at publishing houses have led (I was tempted) to using fewer editors. Are they getting the job done? I’d say no, but tell me if you disagree. Otherwise, I’ll continue on whining louder than anyone. (I had to, sorry.)
###
We should be able to read a novel without finding egregious mistakes, don’t you agree? All right, I admit that some people feel that popular fiction need not be held to high standards. But c’mon, really? If it’s a book?
Let me give you a few examples that I’ve found in novels recently. And please keep in mind that these are from publishers with international reputations for high quality, not some DIY firm.
In fact, the mistakes I’ll tell you about are from the novels of New York Times best-selling authors. The first we’ll examine has written dozens of books, all best sellers and all published by leading publishing houses — Ballentine Books, Bantam Books, etc. I won’t tell you his name, but his initials are J.K., and these errors are to be found in every one of his books. Every one, I tell you.
Guess what? That’s the first one (I hope you got it). As we all know, “guess” is a command, not a question. So kill the question mark, J.K., and use a period. Here are some others. Let me combine them into one sentence for you, just for purposes of illustration. Here we go — I told the both of them to continue on, because they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone.
Did you catch all of those mistakes? “Both” means “the two of,” so saying “the both of them” is like saying “the the two of them.” Kill the “the” before the “both.” Also, “continue” means “go on,” so “continue on” is the same as saying “go on on.” Stop it. The final error is trickier to explain, but stay with me.
The last portion of the illustrative sentence should have read this way: “they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone else did,” or, more simply, “they knew more about the agencies in the city than anyone else.” It’s the “else” that’s crucial. You always want to be careful about including an “else” when you’re saying “more than anyone” or “better than anyone” or any other comparative statements with “anyone” in the mix.
Let’s say your goal is to say that Bob knows more about cooking than any other person you know. Bob, we assume, is a person. That is, Bob himself is an “anyone.” See? If you simply say that ole Bob knows more about cooking than anyone, that means more than ANYone! But wait – he is an anyone, so it makes no sense. (Are you confused yet?) If you’ll just toss that “else” in there, all becomes clear. Instead of saying that Bob knows more than anyone (in the world), say that Bob knows more than anyone else in the world.
If that’s still confusing (and if you care), let me know and I’ll tackle it again later. For now, I’ll stop. You’re welcome.
Now we come to a New York Times best-selling author from Greensboro, a brilliant and talented writer with the initials J.H., published by St. Martin’s Press. Check out these two sentences from his latest novel: (1) Detective Cross was in the yard; so was his wife and Gerald. (2) Yoakum lead the boy away.
You see the problems there, yes? You’d have said, “Detective Cross was in the yard; so were his wife and Gerald.” And I can almost guarantee that you and the author, if asked, would vote to substitute the verb “led” for the metal “lead.” My point is that these errors belong to the editor, who works for the publisher.
Maybe hard economic times at publishing houses have led (I was tempted) to using fewer editors. Are they getting the job done? I’d say no, but tell me if you disagree. Otherwise, I’ll continue on whining louder than anyone. (I had to, sorry.)
###
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Some beg you not to beg the question
We all have our pet sayings, yes? You know people who say “you know,” others who rely on “um” or, well, don’t even get me started on “like.” Thing is, any saying can be irritating if it’s used to excess.
Take the ever-popular “bless her heart.” That phrase, with its various permutations (his heart, your heart, etc.) has been used, discussed, trotted out as quintessentially Southern, laughed at and with, reviled and revered for decades, at least. It’s useful, but you must admit that if it’s in every other sentence, it’s tiresome.
Same goes for “sounds like a plan.” Certainly you’ve heard that one; you’ve probably said it. There’s nothing wrong with it … unless, of course, you say “Here’s the plan,” you detail it, and then someone else says, “Sounds like a plan.” Of course it’s a plan. Didn’t you say it’s the plan?
Anyway, it’s repetition that gets to me. I once ate lunch with a very respected and talented reporter friend. While we were eating, he uttered one sentence — and admittedly, he was flustered by something — in which he said: “You know, I mean, you know, uh, you know, this, you know … .” I did the only normal thing. I sat there, transfixed and counting. In that one sentence alone, he said “you know” 19 times. A talented writer, who would never use “you know” in his writing, even once.
Overuse, that’s the key to some of my whining today. Not the actual words, but their overuse. That’s what makes them lose effectiveness. They become irritating. They make diners count up to 19.
I once wrote a whole column on the overuse of “sort of” (http://bit.ly/15C9Xm), and the same goes for “clearly,” “actually” and “just.” It’s amazing, but people who say any of those (especially “just”) once in a sentence are likely to say it repeatedly, in every sentence: I just hope that you just know that we just need to just just just … help!
If you hear someone say “kind of,” “sort of” or “just,” you should start counting big time. Just for your own secret pleasure, of course. There is something about those particular verbal crutches — once they get their hooks into you, they own you. They rule your speech.
Some words and phrases currently riding high in popularity are “at the end of the day,” “powerful,” “transparent,” “sea change” and — oh, here’s one that’s ubiquitous — “Best. Something. Ever.” Sometimes there is a period after each word, but not always. TV Guide, talking about an online game: “Best. Game. Ever.” On another page: “When Dave met Blago. Worst. Idea. Ever.” And again: “Colbert and McCartney: Best. Interview. Ever.” British YouTube sensation Tom Milsom, announcing a live online show: “Best BlogTv Show Ever.”
There are some phrases, however, that are simply wrong, no matter how infrequently (or frequently) they are used. You know not to say “not hardly,” “can’t hardly” or (as a state senator just said) “cain’t hardly” when you mean “hardly.” So “she can hardly carry that by herself” is correct, whereas “she can’t hardly carry that by herself” means just the opposite from what you want.
Have you ever said, “begs the question,” as in this example from an Associated Press story about a performer appearing on the TV show Dancing With the Stars: “Lil’ Kim had an X-rated public image until she appeared on DWTS. Which begs the question: Is DWTS the new rehab?”
It’s a complicated phrase to judge. It began as a form of logical fallacy, described by Aristotle a very long time ago. Today’s usage is the result of confusion over the translation of “petitio principii,” which literally means “assuming the starting point.” However, “petitio” also means begging; as a result, “this begs the question” may incorrectly be translated as “this begs us, entreats us, to raise and consider the question.”
Even though some recent dictionaries grant that the newer usage is correct (standard), some purists still fight it. There’s even a website (cafepress.com/begthequestion) that offers T-shirts and other merchandise saying, “Oops — you used Beg the Question in an improper way.”
Who’s right? Old fuddy-duddies like Aristotle (bless his heart) or modern linguists, descriptivists who say that language is always changing, so live with it? Hmmm, I’d say it actually, just, you know, like begs the question, clearly.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net
Take the ever-popular “bless her heart.” That phrase, with its various permutations (his heart, your heart, etc.) has been used, discussed, trotted out as quintessentially Southern, laughed at and with, reviled and revered for decades, at least. It’s useful, but you must admit that if it’s in every other sentence, it’s tiresome.
Same goes for “sounds like a plan.” Certainly you’ve heard that one; you’ve probably said it. There’s nothing wrong with it … unless, of course, you say “Here’s the plan,” you detail it, and then someone else says, “Sounds like a plan.” Of course it’s a plan. Didn’t you say it’s the plan?
Anyway, it’s repetition that gets to me. I once ate lunch with a very respected and talented reporter friend. While we were eating, he uttered one sentence — and admittedly, he was flustered by something — in which he said: “You know, I mean, you know, uh, you know, this, you know … .” I did the only normal thing. I sat there, transfixed and counting. In that one sentence alone, he said “you know” 19 times. A talented writer, who would never use “you know” in his writing, even once.
Overuse, that’s the key to some of my whining today. Not the actual words, but their overuse. That’s what makes them lose effectiveness. They become irritating. They make diners count up to 19.
I once wrote a whole column on the overuse of “sort of” (http://bit.ly/15C9Xm), and the same goes for “clearly,” “actually” and “just.” It’s amazing, but people who say any of those (especially “just”) once in a sentence are likely to say it repeatedly, in every sentence: I just hope that you just know that we just need to just just just … help!
If you hear someone say “kind of,” “sort of” or “just,” you should start counting big time. Just for your own secret pleasure, of course. There is something about those particular verbal crutches — once they get their hooks into you, they own you. They rule your speech.
Some words and phrases currently riding high in popularity are “at the end of the day,” “powerful,” “transparent,” “sea change” and — oh, here’s one that’s ubiquitous — “Best. Something. Ever.” Sometimes there is a period after each word, but not always. TV Guide, talking about an online game: “Best. Game. Ever.” On another page: “When Dave met Blago. Worst. Idea. Ever.” And again: “Colbert and McCartney: Best. Interview. Ever.” British YouTube sensation Tom Milsom, announcing a live online show: “Best BlogTv Show Ever.”
There are some phrases, however, that are simply wrong, no matter how infrequently (or frequently) they are used. You know not to say “not hardly,” “can’t hardly” or (as a state senator just said) “cain’t hardly” when you mean “hardly.” So “she can hardly carry that by herself” is correct, whereas “she can’t hardly carry that by herself” means just the opposite from what you want.
Have you ever said, “begs the question,” as in this example from an Associated Press story about a performer appearing on the TV show Dancing With the Stars: “Lil’ Kim had an X-rated public image until she appeared on DWTS. Which begs the question: Is DWTS the new rehab?”
It’s a complicated phrase to judge. It began as a form of logical fallacy, described by Aristotle a very long time ago. Today’s usage is the result of confusion over the translation of “petitio principii,” which literally means “assuming the starting point.” However, “petitio” also means begging; as a result, “this begs the question” may incorrectly be translated as “this begs us, entreats us, to raise and consider the question.”
Even though some recent dictionaries grant that the newer usage is correct (standard), some purists still fight it. There’s even a website (cafepress.com/begthequestion) that offers T-shirts and other merchandise saying, “Oops — you used Beg the Question in an improper way.”
Who’s right? Old fuddy-duddies like Aristotle (bless his heart) or modern linguists, descriptivists who say that language is always changing, so live with it? Hmmm, I’d say it actually, just, you know, like begs the question, clearly.
###
Mike Clark writes a monthly language column for the News & Record. Reach him at writermike@bellsouth.net
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