Word Play

NEW WORDS -- When the Samurai Rim Man was young (a rimteen?) , we started with something that was "fun." Then came the word "funner," which was more than what we began with. Now, the term "funnest" is out there. Yes, it follows the rules of grammar, but it will take some time for it to be accepted in the Fogey Forum.

HEAVY BREATHING -- When stores advertise a "pant," are they aiming at the amputee market?

MORE HISPANIC -- An objection came in over the use of the term "Hispanic" to include the people of Portuguese as well as Spanish extraction. Some dictionaries would limit the term to those who speak Spanish. (But we have a friend named Gonzalez who speaks only English, and another friend named O'Brien who speaks no Gaelic.) The objector added, "While the two countries (Spain and Portugal) are adjacent to each other, they are separate.  You may as well call someone from Toronto an American or someone from Alaska a Canadian." The Samurai Rim Man was thinking along the same lines of the use of the term British to refer to both the English and the Scots. Many Scots will accept being called British, but not English. As for a term that would cover both Spain and Portugal, would "Iberian" do? And what about Brazil, where Portuguese is spoken? If the term Hispanic does not apply, and Iberian is obviously inappropriate, would "American" be the term to use?
   Years ago, we encountered the argument from Spanish speakers that people of the USA should not call themselves "Americans" because the people of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, etc., were also from countries that are part of North America, and thus entitled to call themselves "American." They suggested that USA residents should be referred to as "estado-unidense," or "united-statesians." Pug Mahoney responded that the official name of the nation south of the Rio Grande was "Estados Unidos de Mejico," or "United States of Mexico," so the same term should apply to them, and to other Central and South American nations that use similar terms.

SPORTIN' LIFE -- The TV sportscaster lamented the news that his favorite team "could not extend their one-game winning streak." This is especially odd, since the season had just begun that week.

QUOTE OF THE DAY -- "Hate speech is the biggest danger to national security since McCarthyism."  -- From an episode of "Law and Order," produced in 2009.

Hispanics

From the archives

Editor's Revenge

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Second Series

Volume I, Number 2

August, 2009

BEWARE OF ABSOLUTES – First, biggest, only, and others of that ilk will quickly call out someone to contradict. This month's example comes by way of Sonia Sotomayor cited as the "first Hispanic" on the United States Supreme Court. Not so, says a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer: Benjamin Cardozo, who served as an associate justice from 1932 to 1938, traced his ancestry to Portugal.

HERD JOURNALISM – From the Irish Times: The death of Farrah Fawcett was a big story until about noon, Los Angeles time, "when the herds of reporters . . . perked up like meerkats and swept en masse" to a bigger story, the death of Michael Jackson. Both stories were important, but the Dublin perspective wondered about the amount of time devoted to each. George Bernard Shaw once said newspapers can't seem to distinguish between an accident involving a bicycle and the end of civilization. There's a difference between news and gossip, said our philospher friend Dinty Ramble.

HYPER-BOWL – The Philadelphia sportscaster enthusiastically noted that the Phillies were "hoping for their second straight win." Wow. That's in the same league as the writer who pointed to a "two-game winning streak."

CLICHE CORNER – "The blaze was sparked ... " Fires "engulf." Avalanches and mudslides are "triggered." Accidents are "horrific." Get thee to a thesaurus!

DANGER: INSTANT CLICHE AHEAD – A  well turned phrase is beautifully effective the first time out, and with judicious usage can stand some repetition. But when writers and broadcasters in their hundreds pick up and use the same phrase daily, it loses value like an inflated dollar. Points go to Kurt Soller of Newsweek (June 22 issue), who did a Google search of the phrase "In these tough economic times," and found that "this year alone, the nation's 50 biggest newspapers have used the phrase more than 2,500 times. That's a five-fold jump over the same period in 2008."

LAX LANGUAGE – The TV ad for Jose Cuervo tequila features Hispanic music and settings as a voice cheers for the beverage, but spells the cheer as "Vive Cuervo!" The Spanish word for "hooray" is "viva," not "vive," which is French.

GROUPERS – From an AP story out of Washington: "The group were unable to obtain information they requested." The info line on a Comcast screening of a BBC America program: "News from around the world are presented." In American usage, "group" takes a singular verb, as in "the group is . . ." Across the pond, collective nouns can take either a singular or a plural verb, depending on whether the members are acting as individuals or collectively. Examples: "The crew is ready to make sail" (group action) or "the crew are going ashore" (a bunch of incipient drunks). As for the word "news," it is singular. I know, you can cite a Colonial-era publication as writing, "The news are not yet come," but most of us no longer live in the 18th Century. Although I'm not sure about some politicians.

POL TALKERS – Prez W was quoted as saying, "I don't believe that persuasion isn't going to work." Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy is still trying to decipher that one. Lawyers are fond of double negatives. Good writers avoid them. And if you really want to make a politician look and sound foolish, transcribe, in full, every word of what he or she says.

COMIC RELIEF – At his swearing-in ceremony, Al Franken promised "no funny business" in the U.S. Senate. That'll be the day.

DUDVILLE – TV people kept referring to Sarah Palin's "bombshell" announcement that she would resign. A shell by itself is empty. It's the stuff inside that is explosive.

SHE KEEPS GOING – An MSNBC commentator referred to Sarah Palin as "the Energizer bunny of American politics."

SAY WHAT? – Is it possible to understand nonsense? If we understand it, is it still nonsense?

WHEN IN DOUBT, REPHRASE – Reporters and editors too often spend as much as half an hour debating the "correct" use of a word or phrase. Keep in mind that if the phrase slows down supposedly professional users of the language, how much harder can it be for the reader? If it's confusing to you, it will be even more so for the reader; and that's not the purpose of good writing. The point was brought up in a discussion of a story that began, "Two colleges graduated 400 students." The editor insisted that colleges don't graduate students; students graduate from colleges. The defense was that one word is more efficient that two, and in this instance the single word "graduate" is more active. Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference (Sixth Edition, 2007) recognizes both "graduated from" and "was graduated from" as standard, and notes that dropping the word "from" is nonstandard. The position here is that students do the work, and therefore they do the graduating. Using the passive form "the student was graduated from the college" can imply that the reverse, active form "the college graduated the student" would also be acceptable. And many folks do, in fact, use that form. But rather than waste time debating usage that confuses the reader, rephrase the sentence. Suggestion: "The college awarded diplomas." Once again, keep in mind that the goal is to communicate, not to puzzle.

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Editor's Revenge is a free newsletter on the use, misuse and abuse of the English language in America. Logomachist: J.T. Harding.

Gender neutral

IT'S THEIR THERE -- Someday, the language will resolve the issue of gender neutral pronouns when referring to groups or individuals. A  company is made up of people, but is it right to refer to the company as an "it"? The conflict arises when using a singular verb ("the company is ... ") and a plural pronoun ("their") in the same sentence. British usage does not have this problem, since they consider collective nouns as being either singular or plural, depending on how the members are acting. Example: "The crew are going shore, and each of them will get drunk." Conversely, "The crew is ready to make sail, captain." On this side of the pond, however, the use of "their" grates when talking about a corporation and how it is doing business.

MORE MUSING -- When adding another bunch to something, make sure the numbers match. Are the terms "more" and "another" synonymous with "additonal"? Or would it be better to limit the use of "another" to refer to an equal, additional amount? Example: Thirty people died and another ten were wounded. It might be better to say "ten more."

GUIDE FROM THE RIM -- When in doubt, rephrase. If you, as a word professional, have to puzzle over which form is "correct" or easier to comprehend, how much more difficult would it be for the non-professional? The goal is communication, not challenge.

CLICHE CORNER -- If it's "needless to say," don't say it. This phrasing covers it all; just insert town and company: "The armed bandit brandished a revolver, vaulted the counter, scooped up the cash, stuffed it in a bag and made good his escape on foot." Avoid this one as meaningless: "Only time will tell."

SCOOP'S AMBITION -- Ace reporter Scoop Henshaw says he wants to write the Page One second day lede on the end of the world.

FASHION FORUM -- Mad Dog O'Shaughnessy wants to know if the British Royals and Southern Baptist ladies get their hats from the same milliner.

Free speech

Free speech has consequences. During the Age of Reason, the thinkers who influenced the Founders of America wanted the freedom to express their views, both verbally and in print. They were also aware that disagreement with the government or the power structure, or even their friends and colleagues, could have consequences, and they accepted that. And just as they demanded the right to disagree with others, they knew that others would disagree with them. The point was that everyone had this right, and with every right there is responsibility.
   This is the real meaning of Freedom of Speech, as specified in the First Amendment: Accepting that others have opposing views, and are equally free to express them.
    Juan Williams was free to express his fear of airline passengers "wearing Muslim garb," as he did on a Fox network program. But the consequence of doing so was that he lost his job with National Public Radio (NPR), which has a longstanding policy that its on-air commentators and analysts remain neutral -- a policy that Williams repeatedly violated numerous times, and for which he was warned numerous times. We are all free to have and express opinions. But often, a condition of employment is that we adhere to company policies. NPR's policy is that of journalistic neutrality.
   NPR, which is partially funded by the government, has a well-deserved reputation for neutrality in its news coverage. Fox does not have such a reputation. One consequence of Williams' action was that he lost his job at NPR. A second was that he got a new, higher paying contract with Fox.
   As reporter Scoop Henshaw once said to the Samurai Rim Man: "My opinions are not relevant to what I do. I have many opinions, but when it comes to reporting the news, I don't let them interfere."

ARCHIVE QUOTES -- "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -- George Bernard Shaw.
   "The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is beside the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government to tolerate speech." -- Justice Anthony Kennedy.
   "I disapprove of what you say, but I  will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire

FROM THE RIM -- Patriotism is not always the last refuge of a scoundrel; sometimes it's the first. Samuel Johnson said it was the last, but Boswell later noted that Johnson meant the "pretended patriotism" which in many is only "a cloak of self-interest."

Nomen Nation

WHAT'S IN A NAME -- Newsweek referred to the President as having "a Muslim name." Not quite. Many Arabic-speaking people have similar names, but not all Arabs are Muslim, and not all Muslims are Arab. Lebanon is predominantly Arab, but also has a large number of Christians. Many Egyptians are Muslim, but there are also many Christians.  Strictly speaking, Egypt is not an Arab nation. And just  as not all speakers of English are English (the WASP is a minority in America, and always has been), not all speakers of Arabic are ethnically Arab. Not everyone named Patrick is Irish.

POLE POLL -- How many people still refer to the wooden columns along the street as being "telephone poles," even though they carry electric and cable TV lines as well  as telephone wires? Better to use the term "utility pole." We also still use "dial" for telephones, even though that circle of numbers is long gone. And people in New York City still refer to Sixth Avenue, which became Avenue of the Americas decades ago. Some battles may be lost before they start.

WARNING, WILL ROBINSON -- And for candidates and teenagers everywhere. If you don't want the world to know, don't put it into the computer. There is no privacy on the Internet.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY -- Fundamentalists are a danger no matter their origin. They view any and all disagreements as heresy, and therefore evil. Galileo was called a heretic, but he was right.

Media mavens

IGNORANCE OR BLISS? -- Reaction was quick and harsh when Delaware candidate Christine O'Donnell challenged her opponent with this: "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?" The debate audience laughed. Opponent Chris Coons offered the establishment clause in the First Amendment. O'Donnell: "That's in the First Amendment?"
   Technically, the Tea Party sweetheart is correct; the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear anywhere in the Constitution. It was offered years later by Thomas Jefferson, who said the First Amendment builds "a wall of separation between church and state." Specifically, the First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establshment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." More important, the main body of the Constitution, in Article VI, specifies that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
   At the time, the Founders were setting up protection from a set of English laws called the Test Acts, which required that only members of the government-established (Anglican) church were eligible for public office, or could enter the major universities and study law or medicine. Roman Catholics were heavily penalized for trying, and as for Nonconformists and Jews .... don't even think about it.

PHILLY WHICH -- The Inquirer reported that "The new Dilworth Plaza will be about as wide as Rittenhouse Square, but narrower."

APOCRYPHAL OF WRY -- A survey asked whether laws allowing women's suffrage should be repealed. A majority said yes. ("Don't hit me! I just want to vote!")

QUOTATIONS From the Rim -- Mock not, lest ye be mocked upon. Yeah, but if so, the Samurai Rim Man would be out of a job.

Eschew obfuscation

SAY WHAT? -- "Do you oppose cuttng Social Security benefits to help offset the current losses?" That question was on a survey conducted by a group calling itself the National Retirement Security Task  Force, sponsored by the National Center for Policy Research. At best, it's a loaded question, since no one wants to cut benefits. Secondly, it may be inaccurate, since it implies there are, in fact, "current losses." And third, it's confusing. We had to read it several times to get some semblance of meaning from it, and that's with a background of 30 years in journalism, supplemented by degrees in English, Linquistics, and Economics. The Samurai Rim Man has seen far too many polls and surveys with questions phrased in such a way as to seduce an answer that the survey makers want, to build support for their political positions. Moreover, many of the mailings come from groups previously unheard of, raising the suspicion that they are merely covers for political activists. Especially when they include a pitch for money to support their campaign.

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- "A tougher road to hoe." Good luck with that chore, putting a hand-held farm implement to pavement. Farm hands hoe a row, not a road.

FROM THE RIM -- Proofread your own text, but don't be the only one to do it. You'll miss a lot, because you know what you meant, and the eye sees what the brain knows should be there.

BEWARE THE SOUNDALIKES -- When you hear someone say, "Hire the bridge," does the speaker really mean "Higher the bridge"?

Don't ax me

BORRENDER? -- Lots of folks have been turning up on the reality judge shows claiming that "He borrowed me the money and now he won't pay me back." Alternatively, someone will admit, "I borrowed him the money." Keep them straight: You borrow from, and you lend to.

PONDER QUERY -- From across the Big Water comes this: "What do you think of the recent introduction of X in the word "escape," or should I say "excape"?

RESPONSE -- I haven't yet heard "excape," but it sounds like a dialectal carryover from the pronunciation of "aks" for "ask." On this side of the pond, "aks" is standard in the dialect known as Black English. It's a relic of the Middle English form, which was pronounced the same way. I have also heard the "aks" form in some Irish dialects. I suspect this might be where the American Southern blacks picked it up, about the time of the Famine Exodus, which sent so many rural and poor Irish Catholics to America, where they found themselves on a lower social level than the slaves. It seems that the Received Pronunciation of the upper class Brits is the form that changed, and the others retained the older form.

DOG DAZE  -- We're still looking for a generic term for the search and rescue dogs of the K9 Corps. Any suggestions? We have separate forms for sniffer dogs (drugs and explosives), guide dogs (for the blind) helper dogs (for the otherwise handicapped), and many other modifiers. But there is no general term. In a way, it's like the Eskimo and Inuit languages, which have many separate words for different types of snow, but no single word for snow generally. English does have a single word for snow, but uses modifiers to differentiate the various types. Ask any skier. Arabic has dozens of words for different types of camel, but I'm told there is no single word that would include all types. English has a single word to include all types of horses, but also has separate words for different types: e.g. foal, filly, colt, mare, stallion, gelding. Language develops or invents words for concepts that it needs to express. Look at all the new terms coming into English from the computer field. If the culture does not need to express something, there will be no word for it.

Enough already with the Whorfian Hypothesis!

SPELLCHECK -- It's a useful tool, and the Samurai Rim Man encourages all writers to use it. But remember, it's only a tool, and is not perfect. All it does is compare each individual word in your text to a lexicon, or word list, previously supplied. If a word is on the list, spellcheck lets it pass, but it flags any word it does not recognize. The word may be spelled correctly, but in context may be the wrong word.
Examples: to, too, two; carrot, carat, karat, caret; rain, rein, reign.

RANT OF THE WEEK -- Disable grammar check. It's not worth the space it takes up on the hard drive. And don't use autocorrect. The machine doesn't know context, and is likely to change words that should not be changed. Example: Autocorrect might change actor Kelsey Grammer's name to grammar.

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- Shepard is a person's name, and should be capitalized. Someone who cares for a flock of sheep is a shepherd.

ODD THOUGHTS -- Is the Pillsbury Dough Boy the son of the Michelin Man?

Spacy Cadet

MEANINGLESS NUMBERS -- Tom Corbett, candidate for Pennsylvania governor, has a TV ad claiming that one out of three Pennsylvania graduates go out of state to find jobs. The suggestion is that this is a bad thing. But if one-third go out of state, that means two-thirds, a solid majority, find jobs in the state. The claim also says nothing of the number of students at Pennsylvania colleges and universities who are originally from other states and go home on graduation.

GOOD LINE -- Thomas Friedman in the New York Times called it "the Tea Kettle movement -- because all it's doing is letting off steam."

CANINE DOGS -- Broadcasters need to remember that while K9 is clear enough in print, to refer to highly trained dogs used in rescue and police work, it's not clear to the ear. The Samurai Rim Man wondered if they say "canine dogs" to differentiate them from "feline dogs," or even "canine cats." The term K9 began with "K9 Corps," the military term for the units that used our four-foot friends in the field.

Beware of Absolutes

WORLD SERIOUS -- Philadelphia baseball fans were thrilled when Ray Halladay pitched a post-season no-hitter. And rightly so. And the local TV people carried on and on that it was only the second such in baseball history. They repeatedly told viewers that it was the first post-season no-hitter in more than 50 years, a wonderful achievement. Indeed so. But if true, who was the other guy who threw the post-season no-hitter?

NEVER ASSUME --- Not all viewers and readers are avid sports fans, who would remember that the other guy was Don Larsen, who pitched a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. This is not to take anything away from Halladay's triumph, but a no-hitter (one man got on base by a walk) in a division playoff game is not the same as pitching a perfect game (no runs, no hits, no errors, no one on base) during  a World Series championship game.

MORAL -- If you write about something that is "only the second" or write "for the first time in  fifty years," you owe it to readers to tell them who or what was first.

SAIL ON -- The New York Times got caught in a similar trap when it reported that Sir Francis Chichester was the first to sail around the world alone. He wasn't; Sir Francis was the first to circumnavigate the globe following the same route as the early clipper ships. The Times correction noted that Joshua Slocum was credited with being the first to sail around the world singlehandedly.

SOUP SONG -- A Campbell's commercial proclaimed that the company's soups have "farm-grown ingredients." True enough. Who would buy food from  a test tube?

GLEANINGS of an Itinerant Speller -- A flier from candidate Rand Paul protests that the U.S. "has lost control of it's borders and it's national security." Sorry, Dr. Paul. The possessive form is "its," as in "his" or "hers." Sticking in an apostrophe indicates something is missing; in this case, the letter i.  The contracted form is from the set "it is."

BORDER ISSUES -- Candidate Paul wants the U.S. to seal its borders to keep out illegal immigrants. Is the country really overrun with Canadians? The Samurai Rim Man warns that they are so much harder to detect, since they look like us, they talk like us, and they even have similar names. They blend. As examples, consider the following names, all of Canadians who have taken jobs away from Amurkins: Michael J. Fox, Robert McNeil, Lorne Greene (star of "Gunsmoke"), John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Anka, Pamela Anderson, Dan Ackroyd, Mort Sahl, Art Linkletter, Mike Myers, Justin Bieber and -- perhaps the most insidious of all -- William Shatner, captain of the starship Enterprise. And all those hockey players ...

QUOTATIONS FROM THE RIM -- "Rudeness should be a strategy, not a way of life."

Palin Drone

PAINE IN THE BUT  -- In "Common Sense," Thomas Paine wrote of "words of sound only, and though they may amuse the ear, they cannot inform the mind." As in 1776, so today, with candidates ranting with words "full of sound and fury," as Shakespeare put it, designed to appeal to emotions in their efforts to gather votes. Too often, politics in America is not about getting anything done; it's about getting elected.

POLITICAL ADVICE -- "Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel," said the wise PR man to his client. And don't threaten them, either, especially when cameras are rolling. Carl Paladino, candidate for governor in New York, forgot that (if he ever knew it) when he said to a reporter: "I'll take you out."

WHO'S WHO? -- Candidates seem to have given up providing their party affiliation in TV ads, and their messages are phrased so that it's hard to discern any difference in their positions. What's a poor voter to do? Pug Mahoney, the ringside sage, pointed out that "We get the kind of government we deserve, not the kind we need. They're all clones in the demoglopic party."

Years ago, as president of the National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE), I wrote: "Too many business executives believe that if you are not an advocate for their position, you are therefore an adversary. Good reporters are neither. We ask the tough questions because they need to be asked." That's true today. Politicians, especially Republican conservatives, don't like dealing with news reporters because they can't control them. Maybe that's why the invisible candidate in Delaware talks only to the party faithful, and even then by prerecorded speeches.

NOTE WELL -- The ads on this blog are provided by the folks at Google. The Samurai Rim Man believes in the separation of editorial and advertising departments. We don't tell them how to sell ads, and they don't tell us how or what to write.