Resources
All entries N — Z.
'Namesake'
What's in a namesaske?
Thanks to Nancy Holeman Holmes of South Carolina, a former English instructor, for an example of perfectly incorrect use of a pretty common word that is pretty commonly misused. An article Holmes read described Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense, as "the namesake of 'Rummyworld,' as Iraq is sometimes referred to..." That's backward. A namesake is a person or thing named after--in the sake of the name of--another. Joe is the namesake of his grandfather. Mary is her aunt's namesake. And Iraq, when it's called "Rummyworld," is the namesake of Rumsfeld, not the other way around. It's an easy mistake to make, but keeping the definition pure is worth some effort. Holmes, asked for help in remembering how it goes, noted that indeed it’s a matter of naming after: "The one coming first in time is the 'name'; thus a namesake must be the one coming later in time." Sounds foolproof.
Native — See ‘Former Native’
Near Miss'
Almost a hit
Jim Benes of WBBM Newsradio 78, Chicago’s all-news station, e-mailed recently to report a running battle — certain morning-drive staff members vs. evening-drive, as it happened — over the phrase “near miss.” The morning people, he said, thought the term could be confusing: “After all, if you nearly miss something, don’t you hit it?” At first blush, “near miss” does seem to be a contradiction in terms, even though it’s deeply ingrained in the language. But Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1994), tracing the phrase to World War II, notes its ubiquity and concludes that “despite its apparent lack of logic, it is not an error.” Fowler’s Modern English Usage defines a near miss simply as “a miss that was nearly a hit.” (That’s from the 1968 edition; the 1996 Fowler’s omits the phrase, which suggests that it’s no longer deemed worthy of discussion.) As an alternative, “near-collision” is unambiguous and unchallengeable. But WBBM’s evening-drive cadre is also on target, as it were, with “near miss.”
None, Plural
Think ‘Not Any’
A visitor to the Web site noted that the item “Police (The)” said at one point, “It’s a good bet none of us in journalism do,” and asked, “Does not ‘none’ require ‘does’ “? More often than not, it doesn’t. The word is sometimes used to mean “no one” or “not one,” and those are precise ways to say it if we’re emphasizing the singular nature of something. But “none” can also denote “not any” and other plural ideas. Its use as a plural is ancient and unassailable.
Normalcy
A Word for Parlous Times
For a little less than four score and seven years, professors and editors have told writers to avoid the word “normalcy.” Coined by Warren G. Harding, they said, and what did he know? Only “normality” would do. But though the great statesman’s prescription in his 1920 presidential campaign — “not nostrums, but normalcy” — both popularized the word and drew derision from pedants, it had been around long before he used it. Over the years since, says Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, “normalcy” has become “recognized as standard by all major dictionaries,” and “there is no need to avoid its use.”
Its use has hardly been avoided since September 11, 2001; it has pretty much swamped “normality” to express the condition Americans long for and whose loss they grieve. And somehow, despite long indoctrination, “normalcy” these days sounds perfectly (yes) normal.
Notoriety
Noting With Disapproval
If “notorious,” which has nothing negative in its roots, nonetheless has come to have the very negative meaning “infamous,” what is “notoriety”? One dictionary’s definition — “the quality of being notorious” — seems unassailable. So when the writer said it was “not in Thomas’s personality to court notoriety,” the passage was open to misunderstanding; other things made it clear that the aim was a compliment, and the word a poor choice. As a synonym for simple fame, “notoriety” has gained ground. But it’s still better used to mean a bad reputation — ill fame. Less room for misunderstanding.
Oddities
Going With the Flow
Questions and observations from readers produced a collection whose existence can seem to give logic a bad name.
None of us who care about the language are immune to twin weaknesses: we hunger for clear-cut rules, and we have a pathological aversion to ambiguity. Sometimes it’s best to relax and take what the language gives us.
Within reason, of course.
* See also Double Possessive
— CJR, July/Aug. 2004
Addendum, 2/14/05
In the matter of “six times more”:
When a son with a keen eye and ear for the language (and a math degree) insisted that such phrasing indeed meant 6X plus X, or 7X, to him and to many people he worked with, further research seemed in order. (He later came across supporting evidence in the form of guidelines from a reputable academic organization, though a rather specialized one; those folks “put the ‘eek’ in ‘geek,’ “ he said.)
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage derides the 7x view, while acknowledging a certain logic in it. Those who espouse it, the editors declare, are “paying homage to mathematics at the expense of language.” And there’s more, all sensible.
But the estimable New York Times Manual of Style and Usage says “precise readers” might well be 7Xers. Its editors therefore urge the use of “times as much (or as fast, etc.).”
Well — a smart kinsman, some solid geeks and an industry standard on usage (differing from another) — not to mention the newspaper editor who raised the question with Language Corner in the first place — all saying “6 times more than X” means “7X.”
Most readers, including an awful lot of precise ones, clearly don’t see the world that way. But the hardy few aren’t nit-picking cranks, and their numbers are more than infinitesimal, and they can’t be ignored. “Six times more” is pretty much unusable.
A sad state of affairs? Perhaps. But “six times as much as X” — and just “six times X” — are idiomatic, unambiguous, a reasonable compromise, and a safer bet.
‘Off of’ -- See Fused Participle
Of Which -- See Whose/Of Which
‘Older Than Him’; ‘To She and I’
Do We Have an Understanding?
Sometimes sentences have to be written with words that are not seen, but understood to be there. The ones in which “you” is understood -- “[You] Come to dinner!” are the most common examples. This was another: “His brother John, who is five years older than him, and George, who is three years older than him, both became doctors.”
Even in casual conversation, that’s illiterate (quite apart from the need for the plural “brothers”). The reason is a little word that doesn’t appear: “is.” What the writer meant to say is that the brothers were five and three years “older than he is.” So make it “older than he” or, less stiltedly, plain old “older than he is.” But never, unless obliged to quote illiterate speech precisely, “older than him.”
Addendum, 5/13/98:
The error can arise in the plural, too: “They have found a team as dysfunctional and foolish as them.” The word “are” being understood, the sentence has to read “...as they.” Or better yet, “as they are.”
Addendum, 1/20/99:
On a similar matter, Margery Simmons of Orlando, from a family “replete with teachers,” e-mailed to express annoyance with “the now prevalent use of the wrong case for pronouns in prepositional phrases,” adding, “I have the feeling that I would still be in eighth grade if I had said, ‘... gave it to she and I.’ “
Eighth grade (or earlier) is indeed around the time we ought to have learned that the pronouns that are used as subjects — I, we, he, she, they, who — can’t be used as objects. In this case “she and I” are objects of the preposition “to.” Probably no English-speaker would ever write or say “to she,” but somehow people do write things like “to she and I.” Two wrongs don’t make a right. The right way, of course, is “to her and me.” (See also Me, Myself)
One of/Among With Plural Verb
A Singular Trap
Because it contains a very common kind of error, this passage seemed worthy of comment:
“...the Catskill OTB is among the few parlors that does not record calls.”
An e-mail cemented the choice of topic. Neil T. Greenidge of the Bronx, a physician and a member of the Class of 1962 at the Columbia University School of General Studies, wrote, “I did not expect such a glaring, though universal, grammatical error from CU” (his alma mater). He was talking about this, from a recent CJR:
“The Atlantic, one of the few American magazines that still dares to publish high-quality, complex narratives...”
He is absolutely right. Both passages lay a trap. They induce us to allow a singular notion — “the Catskill OTB” and “The Atlantic, one of the few” — to carry us past what follows, straight to a singular verb.
But what follows is critical. The verbs in both cases should be plural, because the noun that governs each of them is plural. It’s parlors that do not record calls, and magazines that still dare to publish. We — the pronoun is especially apt here — need to be alert. The slip happens all the time. (And sometimes it’s no slip; some authorities argue for the singular verb. The argument defies logic.)
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage suggests a nifty test: Turn such sentences around to see how the elements really work. That would give us “Among the few parlors that do not record calls is the Catskill OTB” and “Of the few American magazines that still dare to publish high-quality, complex narratives, The Atlantic is one.” (A test — only a test.)
“Enjoyed the article,” Greenidge said at the end of his e-mail, and so did we all. The author deserved better from his editors, especially from the last one to read the copy in each issue, who is expected to catch such slips. He wrote this little essay while kicking himself, which isn’t easy to do.
— CJR, January/February 2003
‘Only,’ Placement Of
Only Where It Belongs
Among the many things that are natural in conversation among literate people but don’t pass muster in writing is the misplacement of “only.”
In conversation, this would have been utterly natural and instantly understandable: “In the past, agents have only testified about their procedures and activities.” But that sentence was in the public prints, where the voice can’t be heard and the requirements are stricter.
“Only” is happiest snug up against what it modifies. The writer didn’t mean the agents only testified — as opposed, for example, to chatting or singing or praying. “Only” had to do with what they testified about — procedures and activities. The sentence would have been instantly clear and perfectly comfortable had it said the agents “have testified only about their procedures and activities.” (The letter of the law might call for “testified about only their procedures and activities,” but that’s strained.)
Onomatopoeia — See ‘Woof Down’
People/Persons -- See Individuals/People/Persons
Per
English Preferred
There was no mortal sin here...
“Updated continually, with new content five days per week...” ... but why use Latin? “Per,” here and very often, reads like corporate-memo-ese. The English, “five days a week,” is much more natural. Similarly, “miles an hour” is the way to go, despite the standard abbreviation “MPH.” Does anybody, in conversation, ever say “miles per hour”?
Latin is lovely; English couldn’t do without it. And “per” has its place because there are times when “a” or “for each” just doesn’t work. But we ought at least to think twice before abandoning vernacular English. Even in corporate memos.
Phenomenon/Phenomena; See Criterion/Criteria
Pleaded Guilty
A Modest Plea
The bank, a news article reported, “had pled guilty to charges that it made false entries.”
Why “pled”? A lot of lawyers (and a lot of lawyerly writings) seem to prefer it, and some dictionaries list it as an alternative past tense for “plead.” But we don’t say someone “pled for his life,” or “pled for mercy.” We say “pleaded.” And so it should be with legal pleas. Case closed, one hopes.
But no, not quite closed, and fair enough.
Drew Trott, a staff attorney at the Sixth District Court of Appeal in San Jose, saw those thoughts on the Web and was doubtful. He said he looked in the ultra-comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary and found quite a few examples of “pled,” starting with Edmund Spenser in 1596. For himself, Mr. Trott said he not only used the word and ran into it in both formal and informal contexts, but found it more pleasing to the ear than “pleaded.”
“I suspect it is for similar reasons,” he e-mailed, “that we don’t say ‘readed,’ ‘bleeded’ or ‘speeded’ — they are unpoetic…I acknowledge that we lawyers do say ‘deeded,’ but in that instance, consider the alternative.”
Aha! A point well taken. And more research seemed essential.
The O.E.D. traces “pled” to Scottish legal usage and dialect. The dictionary’s citations are balanced, and those for “pleaded,” by gum, include Blackstone, the giant of Western law.
Several references call “pled” colloquial, but a couple say it is established American usage. If so, it doesn’t seem frequent in any kind of formal writing, and the American press certainly isn’t sympathetic to it. A Nexis search turned up “pleaded” overwhelmingly.
That result is probably skewed, however. The Associated Press stylebook, the guide on such matters for most American newspapers, condemns “pled” as colloquial. And the New York Times stylebook, also influential, prescribes “pleaded” without comment.
There may be room for argument, and “pled” may gaining. It is certainly not irrational for the ear to prefer it to “pleaded.” But the strong preference here, and clearly the safer course in American journalistic writing early in the 21 st century, remains “pleaded.”
Police, The
You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
Practically everybody in journalism writes or broadcasts it this way: “Police said Mrs. Guerin...” and “Police say there is little doubt....” Practically nobody in the real world talks that way.
It’s a good bet none of us in journalism do, either, when we’re not reading a script. We say, “She called the police,” or “The police said.” Why? Because it’s natural English.
Dropping “the” is unnatural, something all of us news people had to learn as young adults — brisk writing, or something. But ain’t nature grand?
—CJR Sept/Oct 1996
Addendum:
As a language-maven friend noted after seeing this item, we’d never say “Army said”; why “police said”?
Addendum, 2/12/01
The headline “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” alluded to a wonderful song of that title from “South Pacific,” about the unnaturalness of bigotry. It prompted a mild complaint from Michele Drier, a longtime California newspaper reporter and editor. She enjoyed the allusion, she said, but was concerned “that ‘you’ve got’ is creeping into the language as the correct form — thanks to AOL, ‘You’ve Got Mail’ became the title of the remake of ‘Shop Around the Corner.’ I have even caught myself saying ‘what have you got’ to people other than my dog.” So for the record, and with thanks for the reminder, “have to be” is the preferable phrasing for such things unless we’re clearly striving for the colloquial — was AOL? — or maybe writing a song.
Possessive Nouns with Pronouns
A Rule to Ignore
Alot of attention has been devoted to a grammar argument, of all things, between a high school journalism teacher and the College Board. The teacher won.
He had objected to this part of a sentence on the Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test administered in 2002:
"Toni Morrison's genius enables her . . ."
The teacher insisted — for three months — that a possessive noun (Toni Morrison’s) functions as an adjective and can’t lead logically to a pronoun (her). In late May, 2003, the College Board capitulated, as in fairness it had to. Such a rule did show up in a few grammar books, so students who applied it couldn’t be penalized.
The triumphant — and clearly dedicated — teacher was roundly cheered. Yet the rule that enticed him years ago defies common sense. Must “Jane’s word is her bond” become “Jane’s word is Jane’s bond”? No. Possessives with their very own pronouns have been ubiquitous in good English writing forever. Avoiding them is tortured and ridiculous. (Quick looks into Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar,” Dickens’s “David Copperfield” and Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” turned up, not in the least surprisingly, exactly such usage.)
On June 1, the Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, writing in the Week in Review section of The New York Times, provided legal support, as it were, for sense and universal usage. Possessives like “Toni Morrison’s,” he said, should be thought of not as adjectives but as “determiner phrases,” which can be tied to pronouns. Nice to know.
Earlier, one commentator savaged the board, saying it “wrote an error” into the PSAT. His solution: Say “The genius of Toni Morrison . . . ,” making the name work as a noun, leading legally to “her.” All English possessives can be formed with “of,” though, and not always happily. Anybody like “The word of Jane is her bond”? Or try tapping to the rhythm of “The body of John Brown lies a-mouldering in the grave, but his soul goes marching on.”
The apostrophe is so handy. French-speakers have to make do with “la plume de ma tante,” but English-speakers can say “my aunt’s pen.” And we can certainly add, “is mightier than her sword.”
— CJR, July/Aug. 2003
Precipitate/Precipitous -- See Evoke/Invoke
Preposition Ending Sentence
The Way of All Flesh
I reviewed my list of friends and acquaintances and established that there was not a single one of them whom I could drop in on. (In on whom I could drop? No matter.)” Right — no matter. Ending a sentence with a preposition can sometimes be clumsy, but so can a lot of things. In general, for most good writers, the rule against it was long since repealed.
Addendum — 11/14/00
The television commentator got the who/whom right — “He is the best type of pitcher against whom to hit-and-run” — but something he learned in junior high led him astray. The sentence is much more natural if it reads “... pitcher to hit-and-run against.” Churchill is supposed to have declaimed, “There are some things up with which I will not put.” A bit of derision the rest of us can profit from.
Prior to/Before
Prior Offense
That’s the way to use “prior” — as an adjective. As a preposition, “prior to” is very close to non-English, however ubiquitous.
“Prior to 1965, virtually no one was speaking of abortion as a prospective right.” What in heaven’s name is wrong with “before”? We don’t have to follow the lead of such folk as football referees, who invariably say “False start, prior to the snap...” Or of the academics, doctors, lawyers, and bureaucrats of all stripes, public and private, for whom “prior to” is mandatory because “before” is plain English, and they can’t have that.
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage tolerates “prior to” in cases where the connection between two events is “more essential than the simple time relation,” but otherwise consigns it to the dread category of Formal Words, along with “following” as a substitute for “after.” (From this seat, “following” sometimes seems useful in connoting immediacy or causality, but that may be a character flaw).
Deposing on after/following and before/prior to in his delightfully erudite book “Words on Words,” the late John Bremner, a legendary teacher of journalism at the University of Kansas, asked: “If you don’t use posterior to, why use prior to ? Would you say ‘Posterior to the game, we had a few drinks’? So why say, ‘Prior to the game, we had a few drinks’? Make it: ‘Before and after (and even during) the game, we had a few drinks.’“ We can all drink to that.
CJR Nov./Dec. 1996
Addendum, 8/6/03
An extreme example, though not ground-breaking for sports announcers: “Immediately following the conclusion of tonight’s broadcast...”
Rage/Wage
The Sin of Wages
First one pop performer and then another, Curtis Gropp reported in an e-mail, insisted on singing "But the battle wages on for toy soldiers." Irritating, but Gropp, a copywriter for Creative Ad Services in Huntington Beach, Calif., just assumed it was a one-song slipup.
Then something made him check. Sure enough, there on the Web he encountered “Custody battle wages on” and “Spam wars: The battle wages on” and many other such fanciful uses of “wage.”
A twanscwibed speech impediment?
As Gropp noted, “wage” means to engage in, conduct, carry out. It’s a transitive verb, meaning it must have an object, meaning we have to “wage” something — a battle, a campaign, war. “Wage,” by itself, just doesn’t work, with or without “on.”
“Rage,” by itself, does. It’s an intransitive verb, not allowed to have an object. Whatever or whoever is raging just does what “rage” means — proceed or spread violently, or blow off steam — without doing it to anything else. No one can rage war or a campaign or a battle or a storm. Those things (among others) just “rage.” Or sometimes “rage on.”
— CJR, May/June 2005
Raveled Sleave, With an ‘A’
Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act III
Find the misspelling: “Sleep, as Shakespeare wrote, knits up the raveled sleeve of care.” No, not “raveled,” though it can be spelled differently. The error, a very frequent one, is “sleeve.”
Macbeth wasn’t talking about the arm of a garment; that wouldn’t really make sense. He was talking about a tangled skein, of silk or other material, which makes perfect sense. And for that, the spelling — which the original author used, correctly — is “sleave.”
It’s an obsolete word now, but spelling it right is still the way to go. Many readers may dismiss it as just another typo (a NEXIS search shows it’s a frequent typo for “sleeve”), but those who know better will smile. You’ll have to ignore your spell-checker, though.
Other matters Shakespearean appear in "Honored
in the Breach"; "Wherefore"; and "Gild/Paint the
Lily"
A Reader's Potpourri
Far-Flung Correspondence
After a few e-mail exchanges, Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D., who "commits public relations for a major Midwestern ad agency," but only after "what seemed to be a lifetime in state government," sent along a hefty collection of things that get under her skin, and should. A sampling:
Facilitate
Winston Churchill said, “Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.” I don’t go through a day without hearing “facilitate.” What in the world does it mean? “Help”? “Lead”? “Coordinate”? “Troubleshoot”? Say what you mean.
Implement
This word has dozens of subtly different meanings that generally stand for either “start” or “accomplish,” but we all “implement.” Why?
An interface, among other things, is the connection between a computer program and its user. Non-techies have come to use it as a verb meaning “talk with each other.” I don’t get it.
Share
You’re welcome to share your inheritance with me, but not your feelings. This word is used without thought by folks to mean they’re going to tell me something. Don’t try to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Just tell me what you want to tell me.
Terminate
If you’re going to fire me, fire me. Don’t make it sound better than it is — don’t let me go, as if I’d begged for it. And don’t terminate me, unless you plan on hiring a goon to do it.
Utilize
Of all the bad habits American speakers and writers have, this one seems hardest to break. Too many people who should know better still write and say “utilize” in place of good old “use.” The fancier word shouldn’t be banned — one worthwhile definition is “to turn to profitable account or use” — but usually all people gain by using it is two syllables and the joy of feeling superior when in fact they sound ridiculous. (“Utilization” is even more abominable.) Let’s not let our language make us look foolish. That’s what car phones are for.
See also Me, Myself (Reflexive Pronouns)
The Reason is That
Reason Enough
Mr. Dole,” the article said, “asserted that the reason his proposal had yet to catch on was because media coverage of it had been overwhelmingly negative.” Make it “the reason was...that....” Why? Because...the sense of “because” is already in the sentence in the word “reason,” and if we use “because” we’re repeating ourselves.
Addendum, 12/10/98
Joseph C. Alvarez, who describes himself as a retired Air Force man and (figuratively) a “fiddler,” saw that item and e-mailed: “May I submit that ‘why’ grates on my nerves when used after ‘the reason...’ It is smoother and neater simply to say, ‘The reason he failed to make himself clear , etc.’ “
“Theirs not to reason why,” Tennyson wrote. But he was using “reason” as a verb, and the line was not only memorable but also sensible. The “why” that irks Mr. Alvarez, which shows up often, rarely if ever serves a purpose.
Rebut/Refute
In Rebuttal
The team was waiting to hear what would happen to sexual-assault accusations against one of its members, the article and headline reported. The bank of the headline said, “No charges yet as teammate refutes woman’s claim.” The accused player hadn’t yet refuted anything; there had been no finding on the truth of the charges. The word is stronger than “rebut,” with which it’s often confused. “Refute” means to disprove, conclusively. “Rebut” means simply to deny, or present argument against, an allegation. And more than half the time, “deny” will get the job done more naturally than “rebut.”
Reference
Bureaucratic Referral
A database search confirms the impression that the unattractive use of“reference” as a verb has grown exponentially in recent years.
The verb is solidly established in the phrase “cross reference,” and it has some specialized applications of its own (a textbook that is well referenced, for instance). But mostly it’s legal and business jargon — you know, the above-referenced quadruple ax murder — and should be shunned by English-speakers. It was painful to read:
• that a governor wrote his legislators “a letter referencing the Rolling Stones”
• that a speaker ”referenced the old parable: pride goes before the fall.”
• about “communal tables referencing a monastery or a refectory.”
“Reference” probably showed up in those passages for two reasons, neither happy. First, its very sloppiness makes it handy: we don’t have to search for anything that really fits because “reference” fits all. Second, like others of its tin-eared ilk, “reference” apparently seems fashionable; somehow, bureaucratese invites imitation.
But in fact “reference” is a poor substitute for the many words and phrases that do fit. The governor invoked; the speaker quoted; those tables evoked. Cite, suggest, speak of, call to mind, allude, mention — all put “reference” to shame. Not to mention little old “refer.”
—CJR, Jul/Aug 2006
Reflexive Pronouns — See Me, Myself
Regard/Regards
A Regard? Take Two
A friend and former CJR colleague, the journalist and Web wizard Wendy Bryan, e-mailed from her new post in Los Angeles with a question from a friend of hers: “Is ‘with regards to’ correct, or is it always ‘with regard to’? And even more pressing: Are regards only given to Broadway?”
Well, sort of; no; and not necessarily.
“Regards” with an “s,” is fine if we’re talking about warm thoughts, the sort George M. Cohan was sending to Broadway. (The specific phrase using “with” seems most appropriate for the end of a letter, as in “With regards to Aunt Mary, Love, Ignace.”)
“With regards to” is definitely not fine as a phrase meaning “concerning” or “in reference to.” For that, we need “with (or in) regard to” — no “s.”
Finally, with regard to “regards” and Broadway, a little-known gem of Tin Pan Alley lore: Cohan first wrote the witty and sophisticated “Give My Regards to the Gowanus Canal,” but he never did find a publisher.
Reluctant/Reticent
In Other Words, Shy
The article spoke of a company’s “reticence to sign further contracts at that time.” It wanted to speak of the company’s “reluctance.”
Reticence is only one form of reluctance. And the words work differently.
“Reticence” means reluctance to speak up or come forward; silence; reserve. (Think RETIring, RETIcence.) And along with its adjective, “reticent,” our word is commonly followed by a word or phrase meaning “concerning”: His reticence about the accounts made the investigators suspicious.
Like “silence” or “reserve,” "reticence" is uncomfortable with an infinitive; “reticence to sign,” or “to” do anything, will offend every time. “Reluctance” and “reluctant,” though, work nicely with infinitives, as for example in “reluctance to sign further contracts.”
— CJR, March/April 2005
ReMUNerate
Think M, as in Money
"... a military career remains popular in part because an officer's renumeration is better..."
"With better renumeration for doctors, it is natural..."
"... the salary would be a drop in the renumerations bucket."
“Renumeration,” reasonable as it may look, has no place in those passages. What’s wanted is “remuneration,” with the “m” first, not the “n.” It’s often just a fancy word for “pay,” as it seems to be in the first example. But the word is usable when we need to cover other forms of reward — bonuses, stock options, and so on — as in that “bucket.”
The reversing of the consonants — NUM instead of the correct MUN — is puzzling. But it is fairly common, especially, it seems, in outlets of the British persuasion.
Some of us (he confessed) used to think “renumerate,” along with its presumed noun, “renumeration,” wasn’t a word at all. Alas, it is, though many dictionaries omit it and it’s not pretty or widely used. It means to enumerate — list one by one — again; count over.
Replete
More Than Complete
Replete with,” a phrase that seems to go through cycles of popularity in journalism, is often used incorrectly to mean just “having” or “equipped with.”
In fact, it means an abundance or a surfeit. A 10-acre estate with one swimming pool is pretty standard stuff; the estate is complete with pool. The same spread with eight pools would be replete with them.
The writer who told of “a ludicrous erotic ‘Slap That Bass,’ replete with tacky bumps and grinds” got it right. But a weakness for fancy-sounding words seemed to be at work in a basketball team that was "the darlings of the Sweet 16 a year ago, replete with colorful coach and mid-major charm;" and a "toolbox, replete with hammer, tape measure and plane level."
Resonate
Bad Vibrations
Unlike the distinctly unlovely use of "reference" as a verb (CJR, July/August 2006), the figurative use of "resonate" is effective and apt. But it became painfully popular as the century rolled over; a nice metaphor has been cheapened.
"Resonate" means to sound strongly and deeply, or to echo, pleasingly or otherwise. And our word makes for a fine, versatile metaphor, meaning ring a bell, strike a chord, make a strong impression, have a lasting impact, be memorable, and so on.
And on.
"But it takes a Byrne, Rushdie or Fellini or Dali to make the details resonate."
"What is important is that the Teen-age Mutants resonate so strongly with the kids."
"The songs resonate to her own experience."
"When people see the big company letterhead, it resonates well."
But enough-- and that's the point. "Resonate" is trite. We should let it rest awhile.
— CJR, Sepy./Oct. 2006
Reverend
Nouns, for Heaven's Sake!
An actress’s obituary said she had once played “the conflicted daughter of a Bible-wielding reverend.” Maybe the writer and editor were having fun; if so, the signals weren’t clear. And they have to be. “Reverend,” as a noun meaning a member of the clergy, is colloquial at best, and used with a straight face borders on the illiterate. Some dictionaries include the noun definition, some without even a frown, and the forces of darkness may be gaining, as in the sub-headline that spoke of “remarks ... made by the reverend.” But the word is an adjective, an honorific that properly takes “the” — “the Reverend John Smith,” or more usually in journalism, “the Rev.” with the full name. Common nouns for such people include priest, rabbi, minister, preacher, clergyman or clergywoman, imam, pastor, and so on. In any case, let’s stick to nouns. “Reverend” isn’t part of that flock.
Addendum, Jan. 19, 2000
The spirit moved Bob Pounds, a public affairs officer at the Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Canberra, to send along these thoughts (he’s sure there’s also a six-line version) on matters clerical:
Call me Brother if you will,
Pastor, Teacher, better still,
Minister, clergyman, counselor, friend.
Just never call me Reverend.
Amen.
Sequence of Tenses
The Present as Past
Ian Edwards, an information officer with the Organization of American States in Washington, wanted to know “whether it is correct to write ‘... the president said that America is the lone superpower.’ Should ‘is’ be there in the present tense, or should it be ‘was’ ”?
The question opens (briefly, at least for now) a can of worms called “sequence of tenses.”
Within any sentence or other discrete block of writing, it’s usually better to abide by the tense that brung ya. “The president said that America was” — “said,” past tense, followed by “was,” past tense — is acceptable. The president said it in the past and it applied, strictly speaking, only to that moment. “Was” can never be wrong in such circumstances. “She said she was [not is] confused” is clearly the best choice for that thought, for example.
Mr. Edwards’s question, though, involves an exception that proves the rule: If a statement applies to a continuing condition, even if only in the speaker’s mind, it’s usually preferable to let the present tense follow the past. “He said women are [not were] generally paid less than men for the same work” passes that test. So does “She insisted that the moon is [not was] made of green cheese.” So does “The president said that America is [not was] the lone superpower.”
— CJR, July/Aug 2001
Series: Changing Numbers
One Was, Two Were
“The field was set and post positions drawn,” the article about horse racing said, and that was a numbers slip, so to speak. The error is easy to spot in a series consisting of just “field” and “post positions”; not so easy to spot, and easier to commit, as series grow longer.
The noun “field” in the first part of the sentence is singular, and of course works fine with the singular “was set.” But “positions” in the next part of the sentence is plural, the singular “was” from the beginning of the sentence no longer fits, and “drawn” is only half a verb.
The sentence has to read, “The field was set and post positions were drawn.”
What if the number — singular or plural — in such a series stays the same from beginning to end? Then the auxiliary verb can be omitted (though that’s not mandatory) with the second and subsequent elements: “Post positions were drawn, weights assigned and jockeys named.”
And we’re off!
— CJR, May/June 2004
Series: Run-On
Serial Comment
Ochoa had two singles, a double and scored twice.” There’s a series in that sentence. It’s governed by the verb “had,” and it consists of only two things, Ochoa’s hits. The rest of the sentence is a new clause, with the understood subject “he” and its own verb, “scored”; “had” is out of the picture. So it should read “two singles and a double and scored twice.” When the verb changes, be alert.
It’s not always a verb that governs, though. Here, it’s an adjective: “...107 delegates from every state, territory and the District of Columbia.” But “every” governs only the two-part series consisting of “state” and “territory”; it can’t be used to modify “District of Columbia.” The sentence has to read “state and territory and the District of Columbia.” We need to watch the modifier to make sure it works with the whole series, or amend the sentence. A small but frequent goof.
Honored in the Breach
Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act I
Here, as often happens with this allusion, the great man's meaning is turned around: "Perhaps it is a saving grace of Russian politics these days that laws and orders are honored more in the breach than in the observance." What the writer meant was that the laws and orders were broken more often than they were obeyed. But Hamlet, who said it first, meant something else. When he described his stepfather's boozy carryings-on as a custom "more honored in the breach than the observance," he meant it was a bad custom, more honored when violated than when followed. Not the same thing, and the pretty phrase is usable in its original sense.
Other matters Shakespearean appear in "Gild/Paint
the Lily"; "Somewhere the Bard
Weeps"; and "Raveled Sleave, With
an 'A.'"
Gild/Paint the Lily
Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act II
Like "honored in the breach," the original phrase whence cometh this common error is usable just the way himself wrote it: "If you want to gild the lily, you could add herbs or minced garlic to the cheese layer" (emphasis added; the phrase in italics is the problem). In King John, some of the nobles are discussing His Majesty's plans to have himself crowned a second time. To do so, says one, would be "wasteful and ridiculous excess," as it would be "To gild refined gold, to paint the lily..." So our example is off on two counts: It seems to mean adding a finishing touch or a flourish, but Shakespeare meant going overboard. And it abuses the original, lovely phrasing. Let's face it, the guy had a touch.
Other matters Shakespearean appear in "Honored in the Breach"; "Somewhere the Bard Weeps"; and "Raveled Sleave, With an 'A.'"
Raveled Sleave
Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act III
Find the misspelling: "Sleep, as Shakespeare wrote, knits up the raveled sleeve of care." No, not "raveled," though it can be spelled differently. The error, a very frequent one, is "sleeve." Macbeth wasn't talking about the arm of a garment; it wouldn't really make sense. He was talking about a tangled skein, of silk or other material, which makes perfect sense. And for that, the spelling — which the original author used, correctly — is "sleave." It's an obsolete word now, but spelling it right is still the way to go. Many readers may dismiss it as just another typo (a NEXIS search shows it's a frequent typo for "sleeve"), but those who know better will smile.
Other matters Shakespearean appear in "Honored
in the Breach"; "Somewhere the
Bard Weeps"; and "Gild/Paint the
Lily"
Wherefore
Somewhere, the Bard Weeps
Headline about a no-longer-prominent athlete: "O Denis, Denis! Wherefore art thou Denis?"
Comment on the fickle pop music world: "Local DJ trends come and go (wherefore art thou, acid jazz?)"
Whimsy amid wicked weather: "Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Home with his feet up by the fire, if the poor lad had any luck at all."
All those allusions to Shakespeare are fatally flawed, as "wherefore art" cuteness almost always is.
Juliet's plaintive "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" had nothing to do with her lover's location. "Wherefore" means "why" (in both senses — "how come?" and "for that reason.") Juliet was asking why the fates had made Romeo part of the Montague family, with which her Capulets were locked in a virulent feud. "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy," she sighs; if his name had been the Veronese equivalent of Joe Smith, the two of them could have lived happily ever after.
By and large, "wherefore" survives today only in fancy proclamations and petitions, in some legal documents, and in the expression "the whys and wherefores." Also in stagings of H.M.S. Pinafore ("Never Mind the Why and Wherefore") and, painfully often, in misaimed Shakespearean allusions.
Other matters Shakespearean appear in "Gild/Paint
the Lily"; "Honored in the Breach";
and "Raveled Sleave, With an 'A.'"
'Share' — See a Reader's Potpourri
Singular Noun, Plural Pronouns
There's No 'They' There
The article paraphrased an official as saying that "no bond firm should feel any pressure simply because they were called by the City Budget Director." Another piece said that "the network is looking to change all that by following their old letters with a new number: 24." A bond firm isn't a "they," it's an "it." And the possessive pronoun for a network is "its," not "their." Singular, not plural. In conversation we all use the plural pronoun after singular nouns, and no one (except maybe the colleague who was the smartest kid in the fifth grade) corrects us out loud. In writing, though, common as it is, the use of the plural should be avoided; it's wrong. If the singular pronoun sounds too forced, reworking the passage is worth the effort.
The day may come when “they” is accepted as both singular and plural, but it hasn’t come yet.
See Also: He or She, etc.Split Infinitive
Splitsville
Splitting an infinitive is not a mortal sin,
but it's nice to avoid because it makes some grammarians and other thoughtful
readers — the legions those grammarians taught — grind their teeth.
When it's easy to fix, we should fix it. It was easy here: "Mr. Lindsey
has said he never asked the bank to not file the disclosure form." Correctness
aside, isn't "not to file" much more natural? But there are times
when we should let the infinitive fanatics grin and bear it. The writer said
a business executive "pushed a button to officially activate the assembly
lines at the $212 million plant recently." There are alternatives, but
"officially" sounds fine where it is, right in the middle of that
infinitive.
Stanch/Staunch — See Gantlet/Gauntlet
Straighten/Straiten
The Straitened and Narrow
The author, his obituary said, had been reticent about his personal life but had told of growing up "in genteel but often straightened circumstances." Unless the point was that the family got the ironing done, the word the writer and editor wanted was "straitened." That is the past participle of "straiten," meaning to restrict or limit or narrow (think of "strait," a narrow body of water). It's a nice word in all its forms and can be applied to life in general, to the atmosphere of an institution, and much else. But the most commonly used form is the participle, and the most common meaning — as it was meant to be for the deceased author — is strapped for cash.
Suspect/Suspected (adj.)
Suspecting the Worst
The article said U.N. inspectors wanted to visit
"suspect biological and chemical weapons sites." Since "suspect"
simply means looked on with suspicion, that sentence said that there were in
fact biological and chemical weapons sites, and not only that, they were also
suspicious. But the sites' very existence was still unproven, and was the question
the inspectors were looking into. The word the writer/editor wanted was "suspected."
Swatch/Swath
Nearly Twins
Swath" and "swatch" look alike
and sound alike but have no kinship, and the wrong one was chosen here:
"…they cut a swatch of land and spent nine hours searching…"
A swatch is a sample of fabric or leather or a collection of such samples. Think
"c" for "cloth" to arrive at the "c" in "swatch."
A swath, which the writer of our example had in mind, is a path cut by something,
originally one the width of a scythe stroke. Figuratively, the way it's more
likely to be used nowadays, to cut a swath is to make a big impression or have
a well-noted success. But think "th" for scythe, anyway.
Tautology
Once Is Enough
A nice, precise word to remember: tautology. It's a subdivision of redundancy, and it means saying something twice, unnecessarily (and most often unintentionally.)
To wit: "The general consensus of opinion seems to be that there is an abundance of choice." Drop "general" and (for goodness' sake) drop "of opinion"; they're already there in "consensus" It's a tidy word meaning a general opinion, and it needs no embellishment.
Other classic tautologies involve the time of day: "Each morning at 7:45 A.M. ... Most evenings he did not return home until eight o'clock at night." Whew! "A.M." (for antemeridian or ante meridiem) means before noon; having started with "each morning," we don't have to paint the lily with "A.M." (And having said "Most evenings," we certainly don't want "at night.") Yet it's common to read things like "7 P.M. Thursday night" or "9 A.M. yesterday morning." Tautologies all.
Tempations abound. Do we really want to say that "additional restrooms will be added" or that a road project will "add additional lanes"? Or describe someone as a "knowledgeable expert"? Or say an employer requires, or doesn't, "prior experience"?
Think taut.
—CJR, Sept/Oct 2000; see also "The Reason is That."
Addendum, 4/16/01
By e-mail from Jenn Richardson, copy chief of the Navy Times, based in Springfield, Va.:
"I was just reading a few past items from LC on cjr.org, and was struck by the Tautolgy entry. One I see often is 'XX new homes were built,' which always rubs me the wrong way."
Yup, a beaut, and one a lot of us probably read right past every day.
Terminate — See A Reader's Potpourri
That, Omission of
What's Wrong With That?
Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D., an e-mail friend of Language Corner (see A Reader's Potpourri) was struck by seemingly odd omissions of the word "that."
"People insist," she said, "that in college writing classes, adult-ed classes, and professional training classes, instructors are telling them to excise the poor little bugger."
An aversion to "that" does seem conspicuous of late in the public prints, presumably because of a knee-jerk obsession with saving words. Consider this, about a company named Aristotle:
"...it is not surprising Aristotle, which was started in 1983..."
What is not surprising Aristotle? Oops! They didn't mean it that way; they meant it was not surprising that Aristotle did such and such.
A novelist committed the same misdemeanor when he had a character say he was "just pointing out the killer probably doesn't care..." It's hard not to misread, momentarily, "just pointing out the killer," and the true meaning emerges only after that hiccup. It's much clearer to say "just pointing out that the killer..."
Usually, "that" isn't necessary with "say" in any of its forms. The word is wanted, though, with many other words of saying — report, announce, insist, suggest, show, declare and others — and in constructions like the Aristotle passage above. It adds idiomatic roundness and more importantly, as we've seen, can avoid momentary but irritating confusion. Delete "that" in Ms. Greer's sentence beginning "People insist," and the reader is misled into thinking that people insist (something) in college writing classes. That's not what what Ms. Greer meant and not what the sentence says as she wrote it.
Is there a campaign to get rid of "that," no matter the cost in euphony and clarity? Maybe so, and maybe if we're alert we can stop it.
—CJR, Nov./Dec. 2000
Addendum, 11/14/00
They keep coming.
"The Gore campaign believed the recount, which is continuing in two counties and pending in one..."
But as the sentence unwinds, it turns out the Gore camp believed that the recount "could produce enough votes to erase Mr. Bush's small lead." (Note that if the passage said "thought" instead of "believed," no problem would arise whether or not "that" was used.)
"Boras explained his requests..."
Actually, he explained that "his requests were not contract demands..."
It's an awfully small word. Go ahead and use the space.
That and Which
That/Which, and Why
Why use “that” in one place and “which” in another? Well, consider:
The cars that were green failed to run.
In that sentence, "that were green" is a restrictive, defining, or (the favorite here) essential clause.
It’s essential because without it, we have “The cars failed to run” — not at all what we set out to report. Orange cars, say, may have hummed right along; it’s green cars that didn’t. Now consider:
The cars, which were green, failed to run.
Take out the clause, and the intended meaning of the sentence remains: the cars — all the cars we’re discussing — failed to run. Their color is incidental, not essential.
The principle is the same even if the content of the (nonessential) “which” clause is exciting:
“The pistol, which was the murder weapon, was a Mauser.”
For the purpose of the sentence as it's structured, what is essential is not what the pistol was used for but who made it. (The commas are characteristic around “which” clauses but not “that” clauses.)
Does that/which matter? Writers of the British school seem to use “which” routinely in both kinds of clauses, even though their great mentor, H.W. Fowler, favored a distinction. For Americans, the “rule” is worth understanding not because it’s intrinsically sensible — it’s not — but because many teachers and editors insist on it.
— CJR, July/Aug 2005
The Police
You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
Practically everybody in journalism writes or broadcasts it this way: "Police said Mrs. Guerin..." and "Police say there is little doubt...." Practically nobody in the real world talks that way. It's a good bet none of us in journalism do, either, when we're not reading a script. We say, "She called the police," or "The police said." Why? Because it's natural English. Dropping "the" is unnatural, something we all had to learn as young adults — brisk writing, or something. But ain't nature grand?
—CJR Sept/Oct 1996
Addendum:
As a language-maven friend noted after seeing this item, we'd never say "Army said"; why "police said"?
Addendum, 2/12/01
The headline "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" alluded to a wonderful song of that title from "South Pacific," about the unnaturalness of bigotry. It prompted a mild complaint from Michele Drier, a longtime California newspaper reporter and editor. She enjoyed the allusion, she said, but was concerned "that 'you've got' is creeping into the language as the correct form — thanks to AOL, 'You've Got Mail' became the title of the remake of 'Shop Around the Corner.' I have even caught myself saying 'what have you got' to people other than my dog." So for the record, and with thanks for the reminder, "have to be" is definitely the preferable phrasing for such things unless we're clearly striving for the colloquial — was AOL? — or maybe writing a song.
They Each; $57 million was
Number Notes
Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and State Senator James E. McGreevey," the newspaper reported, "clashed over property taxes and automobile insurance rates tonight during their second televised debate as they each sought to portray themselves as the champions of homeowners and drivers." Can't have it both ways — "they" and "each" (and then "themselves"). The simplest solution here is to delete "each." If both candidates were of the same sex, the singular would work, and it seems a little tidier, somehow: "...as each sought to portray herself..." In any case, "they each" doesn't make it.
"More than $57 million in accumulated taxes and customs duties collected by Israel from Palestinians were supposed to have been transferred," the article declared. Despite the plurals "taxes" and "duties" that follow, the subject of the sentence remains "$57 million." And since we're dealing with the transfer of a sum, not a dollar at a time, it should read "was supposed..."
To...To
Small Precision
Only a visitor from Mars — or maybe Mauritius? — would be confused by this, but in fact it's missing an important word:
"President Bush reached out today to Democrats and moderates in his party..."
The missing word is a second "to." It belongs before "moderates." As written, with only the first "to," the sentence can be read to mean there are moderates and Democrats in Bush's party. Have a look, with an open mind.
Making the passage read "to Democrats and to moderates in his party," would make it clear that Bush was reaching out to one group outside his party and one group inside it.
In other situations like this one, a reader wouldn't have to be from somewhere far away to be mystified. Nail it down with a double "to."
Tons Was
Singular Virtue
A reader was furious at the newspaper for having told its readers, "More than 13 tons of cocaine was found on a fishing boat in the Pacific Ocean."
"The fact that you writers and editors do not care about the basics of the language," the reader's letter said, "shows that our society has finally reached a level of mediocrity never before accepted."
And more. Whew! But the outrage was misplaced.
The letter-writer thought the sentence should have read "13 tons of cocaine were found..." Plural noun (tons), plural verb — that's the rule, isn't it?
But the article had not reported on the finding of 13 individual things — 13 stolen cars, for example. It reported on the finding of a quantity of something, cocaine. As with "$57 million...were supposed to have been transferred" (click "They Each; $57 million was" in the index below) rigid adherence to a rule led someone out the window. The concept the sentence dealt with was singular, and "was found" was preferable by a ton.
Toward(s)
What's Wrong With That?
Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D., an e-mail friend of Language Corner (click "A Readers' Potpourri" and "That, Omission of") was puzzled at seeing "towards" in some places and "toward" in others, and wanted to know the difference, if any. It's strictly cultural; the British and their followers in style matters use an "s" and Americans don't. Some American writers and editors affect it, but it looks odd.
Transition; "As Such"
In Transition
Transitional words and phrases are often necessary, but not as often as we use them. The exhausted "meanwhile," the slightly haughty "indeed," the currently fashionable, pince-nez professorial "to be sure" sometimes arise from unexamined reflex, not sense.
And sometimes when knee jerks, foot lands in mouth. It did in the unthinking reach for transition here: "After all, an independent Chronicle, with no Examiner to carry, would be much more profitable. As such, there have been rumors for more than a decade about the Examiner's pending demise."
As such what? Nothing in the first sentence leads logically to "As such" in the second. The phrase needs preparation, a person or thing or characteristic to which it refers, as in "The cook was Dutch and behaved as such." If a transition was needed in our example (whether it was is at least arguable), then "For that reason" or "Consequently" or other things we can all imagine would have built one. "As such" was a misguided reflex; we need to stop and think.
Troopers/Trouper
Hanging Tough
From Hannah Feldman, associate editor of Baltimore Magazine, a "small question, but it's been plaguing me": Is someone who perseveres in the face of difficulty a real trooper, "akin to calling someone a brave little soldier," or a real trouper, "a professional performer for whom the show must go on, no matter what?"
It's the latter, as Feldman suspected. Spelled with a "u," and accompanied by an adjective or standing alone, "trouper" denotes a member of a theatrical company (usually traveling, in a troupe) and has come to mean someone who keeps plugging away even when things go sour.
The double "o" spelling is for a soldier - particularly cavalry, as in "F Troop" - or, most commonly in this country, a state police officer. If one of those were to soldier on under tough circumstances, we might say "the trooper was a real trouper." Or we might not.
— CJR, Jan./Feb. 2005
Unique
The One And Only
Bob Howard, a visitor to the CJR Web site and a "cranky old (51 years) journalist who had grammar drilled into him by even crankier schoolteachers and editors," was affronted when he read this recently in a headline deck: "Inside Southern California's most unique real estate market...." Affronted he should be. As he pointed out, modern dictionaries do accept "highly unusual" or "very rare or uncommon" down on their lists of definitions for "unique." But that's a cave-in. Look at the start of that word — "un." It means "one" (from the Latin "unus") just as it does in "union" and "united" and "unicorn" and "unit" and...you name it. Something that is unique is one of a kind. It can't be very, or less, or more, or somewhat, or a tad, or most unique. It's unique, period. On this one, the cranks, young, old, and in between, have to do battle. As one.
Use/Usage
Use It Or Lose It
The overall increase in usage," the article
said about election-night Internet traffic, "was barely perceptible."
That use of "usage" threatens one of those nice distinctions we ought
to cherish. The word should be saved for situations involving customary practice,
such as "preferred American English usage." If all we're talking about
is using something, the noun of choice is "use."
Utilize— See A Reader's Potpourri
Wangle/Wrangle
No Wrangle Here
When Mark Freeman, a writer, former English teacher in Glens Falls, N.Y., and author of the twice-weekly column "The Washington County Curmudgeon" for the Glens Falls Post-Star, read that someone "had been trying to wrangle an invitation," it brought to his mind Tom Mix's sidekick, the Old Wrangler. That worthy gentleman worked with livestock; it might be worth remembering, by way of a loose synonym and a mnemonic, that a WRangler might WRestle with unruly critters. More broadly, "wrangle" means to argue or dispute, with someone or over something: "While its national bosses wrangle over the PRI's future and their role in it," for example, or "they must wrangle with Mr. Clinton, who usually holds the upper hand in these negotiations." As a noun the word means an argument, often protracted — "a continuing wrangle with the city authorities over money he is owed."
As Mr. Freeman observed, the writer of the original example wanted "wangle," a colloquial word meaning to obtain something by trickery, cajolery or sheer persistence, the kind of thing people do with invitations. The "r" didn't belong, nor did it in the passage about a man "offended when teams wrangle subsidies for new stadiums and arenas," or in "you'll probably be able to wrangle your best deal at the final show." Make it "wangle" each time.
'Well', the Adjective
All's Good That Ends Well?
A couple of years back, an otherwise bright student in an introductory editing course insisted that there was something wrong with using "well" as an adjective, as in "He isn't well." That was nonsense, but just a puzzling peculiarity, it seemed.
Time passed, and the same odd notion turned up in print. "We often tell our friends," the essayist observed with a snicker, "'You look well,' when not referring to their vision." Only a joke, maybe, but why encourage adolescent literal-mindedness?
"Well" is an adverb, of course - she runs well, he sings well, and maybe for a frontier scout, he looks well.
But the word is also an adjective - a synonym for "healthy" and an antonym for "sick" (and the reason "unwell" exists). Of course we tell our friends, "You look well." And when they're not well, the missives we send them aren't get-good cards.
Though most common nowadays in discussions of health, "well" can also be used as a broader adjective. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes that it has been both adjective and adverb since the time of Alfred the Great. Hardy indeed.
The superstition about "well" seems more widespread than common sense
might suggest. Why? A craving for absolutes, perhaps, leading to misguided pedantry.
It is well to resist such temptations.
Whence
The Whence Offense
It started as a modest little essay. Then came
Holy Writ and the Bard.
"Whence," a word used in our time for comic or poetic effect, means
"from where." That makes "from whence" an irritating tautology:
"But politicians who forget from whence they came…"
"…from whence has this buxom cherub descended?"
"…from whence came fish and chips?"
But then,
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
That's how the lovely, much-quoted 121st Psalm begins in the King James and other English-language Bibles, and how millions remember it to this day. And Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage notes that the use of "from" with "whence" is ancient and that the users included, in the King James era though less memorably, Shakespeare.
But immortals have special rights (and Shakespeare, the old shark, also gave us "most unkindest cut" in the service of iambic euphony).
About "from whence," the generally wise and wonderful Merriam-Webster's concludes, "We see no great fault in using it where it sounds right, and great writers have used it where it sounds right all along."
Hmph, or something. Let's let "from whence" go. It had its run in the seventeenth century.
— CJR, March/April 2002
Where...at
The Where Stands Alone
Bill MacLoughlin of CBC Radio News in Edmonton, Alberta, wondered about what seems to be a trend:
"Maybe I missed something. Suddenly it seems everyone, including anchors, must use the word at, as in ‘where is he at?' Where did this little horror come from? Is there any defence?"
"Where" with "at" comes from one of two places: ignorance or affectation. It's not only a tautology, it's also a barbarism. Which is to say, it's not English. There we are.
And yes, "defence" is the way to spell it, in Canada and other bastions of British English.
Wherefore
Somewhere, the Bard Weeps
Headline about a no-longer-prominent athlete: "O Denis, Denis! Wherefore art thou Denis?"
Comment on the fickle pop music world: "Local DJ trends come and go (wherefore art thou, acid jazz?)"
Whimsy amid wicked weather: "Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Home with his feet up by the fire, if the poor lad had any luck at all."
All those allusions to Shakespeare are fatally flawed, as "wherefore art" cuteness almost always is.
Juliet's plaintive "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" had nothing to do with her lover's location. "Wherefore" means "why" (in both senses — "how come?" and "for that reason.") Juliet was asking why the fates had made Romeo part of the Montague family, with which her Capulets were locked in a virulent feud. "'Tis but thy name that is my enemy," she sighs; if his name had been the Veronese equivalent of Joe Smith, the two of them could have lived happily ever after.
By and large, "wherefore" survives today only in fancy proclamations and petitions, in some legal documents, and in the expression "the whys and wherefores." Also in stagings of H.M.S. Pinafore ("Never Mind the Why and Wherefore") and, painfully often, in misaimed Shakespearean allusions.
— CJR, May/Junel 2003
Whether (or not)
Murky Whether
There are writers and editors and teachers out there whose blood boils when they see "or not" after seeing "whether." In fact, "or not" is never wrong; the phrase simply expresses the negative alternative of whatever we're talking about. But it definitely should be omitted when it's just extra words — constructions like "She wouldn't say whether or not she would run," or "He asked whether or not the ship was sinking." In each case, the alternative represented by "or not," though implicit, is inescapable; drop "or not."
At times, though, balance, euphony and even logic demand "or not" or something else to specify the alternative outcome. On the logic front, the great John B. Bremner noted in his classic Words on Words that the little word "if" can be used to test the need for "or not." It means one thing, he noted, to say, "I'll love you whether or not you leave me," and quite another to say, "I'll love you if you leave me." We need "whether or not" to convey the full thought.
More subtly, this sentence needed something to complete — balance — the thought that "whether" began: "Whether the jawboning and billions of dollars in foreign-exchange intervention succeed in propping up the yen, they will almost certainly succeed in propping up Mr. Hashimoto." The thought imbedded in "whether" drops off a cliff; the sentence has to say explicitly that the jawboning and so on may not save the yen. One way to make the alternative clear would be to add "or fail" after "... intervention succeed." Easier still, we could start with "Whether or not."
Addendum, 3/5/99
A perfect example of a sentence that did not need "or not": "...Mr. Starr must decide whether or not he should seek the indictment of the president." The phrase contributes nothing to the sense or the sound.
Who/Whom
'Whom' Doomed? Not Yet
A lot of smart people hate the word. It can sound stuffy, and more importantly, it's very easy to get wrong. The great New York Times editor and language authority Theodore M. Bernstein, who almost certainly never got it wrong, nonetheless campaigned to "Doom Whom" (except after prepositions). He lost, at the Times and in the larger world. For anything approaching formal writing, "whom" clearly will be with us for a good while longer.
The most common who/whom problem arises in sentences where there's a distraction between the pronoun and the verb it goes with: "...he is a former All-Star whom the Knicks apparently feel can help them contend for a title." The distraction is the clause "the Knicks apparently feel." It's parenthetical; technically, we could put parens or commas around it. Do that, and it's instantly clear we wouldn't say "whom can help them." Inserting the parens or commas — just mentally, since they're not needed — will help us ignore the distraction and pay attention to what comes next.
—CJR, March/April 1999
Addendum:
A different challenge: "...cameras showing whomever was speaking." Think MMMMM: "hiM" and "whoM" (and "whoMever") all work the same way. They are objects. In the example, the W word might seem to be the object of "showing," but it isn't; the object is the whole three-word clause that follows "showing." And a clause needs a subject to go with its verb. Since we wouldn't say "hiM was speaking," we can't say "whoMever was speaking." So, "...cameras showing whoever was speaking."
Some might argue for leaving who/whom technically wrong when it sounds natural and the repair would sound like fingernails across a blackboard: "...discovering a way to score no matter who Chicago had on the mound." Here, the pronoun is the object of "had." We couldn't say "Chicago had he," so only "whom" would satisfy the purists. But "no matter whom Chicago had on the mound?" Whew! If the letter of the law is mandatory in your shop, duck the issue: "...no matter who took the mound for Chicago."
Finally, we can break the rule for fun as long as we let the reader in on the gag. To convey astonishment, for example, we might want to say "She married who?" It's natural. So is the emphasis provided by the italics; without them, "who" could look like ignorance.
Addendum, 12/6/99:
A beaut: Game shows, the story said, are "popular only with older viewers, who advertisers are least interested in reaching." Which is to say, least interested in reaching they.
Addendum, 8/7/00:
Some other examples; the first two reinforce the importance of ignoring interruptions: A lot of testimony, the article said, focused on a man "whom the authorities believe masterminded the plot." Here, "the authorities believe" is the parenthetical trap; put the parens around it, or commas, or delete it mentally, and see. It wouldn't be "hiM masterminded the plot," so it can't be "whoM." In this one, if we do the same exercise with the parenthetical "he believed," the need for "who" becomes obvious: "At Calder, he curbed corruption by summarily exiling from the track dozens of trainers whom he believed were dishonest." He believed they were dishonest, not them were dishonest. And a trickier one, partly because the sentence fails to track, quite apart from the who/whom question: "The legislative future of the abortion debate is more complicated, related to a pending Supreme Court decision on abortion, on who wins the presidency and who he might nominate to fill Supreme Court vacancies." "Related to" begins a series that suddenly switches to "on" as its preposition. Easily fixable. But regardless of the prepostion, the first "who" is correct — the subject of the clause that begins, "who wins..." The second "who" is wrong; the pronoun is the object of "nominate." Again, think M — the president might nominate hiM, not he. The sentence should read "whoM he might nominate."
Whose/of which
'Whose' You Can Use
A superstition, still rather widely held, may well have been at work here: "... in the province, the population of which consists predominantly of ethnic Albanians..." The superstition is that no form of the pronoun "who," which is used for human beings, can stand in for a common noun, like "province," denoting a thing. It just ain't so; the use of "whose" for things has been around for centuries (the great H.W. Fowler cited Shakespeare and Milton in its defense) and, in sentences like the one above, is a lot more graceful than the alternative. "Of which" isn't wrong, but it often grates. So make it "...in the province, whose population...," save the extra words, and avoid the pain in the ear.
"Woof Down"
Animal Appetites
Lisa Aug, a defender of the language from Frankfort, Kentucky (see "Lightening; Forecasted" in the first-page index) was troubled when an online news site, reporting on an impoverished child's torturous attempt to walk from Nicaragua to the United States, said, "Mamacitas clean their pans and grills for scraps, which he woofs down."
The expression for avid eating is "wolf down," after the animal of ravenous repute. Outside the weaving and sound-reproduction trades, "woof" is a word for a sound dogs supposedly make and has nothing to do with eating.* But a computer search suggests that "woof down" is showing up more than it used to. Sometimes it's junior-high-school humor in stories about dogs, and we ought to leave such stuff to the junior-high-school humorists. But sometimes it appears to be sheer error.
Ms. Aug, objecting to "ubiquitous improper usage smothering proper usage," went on, "To quote my mother, if everybody jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?"
Down (as it were) with lemmings!
*The word for such sound-imitating words, good to know and especially handy in case a spelling bee comes along, is "onomatopoeia."
