Is (screen) real estate that tight?

The addition of a one-letter word (gets a shot) would make this so much less disturbing when you read the first line of this headline from MSNBC.com this afternoon.

Politics aside, this was unpleasant news.

I rarely critique headlines, it being outside my area of expertise, but it seems like one character more might have been worth the space.

The importance of clarity in written communication...

eagle eye

Someone at work suggested we ask another coworker to use her 'eagle eye' and look for errors in a flier. This brought to my mind the image of someone looking down from really high up, spotting things from very far away.

Figuring that it was quite likely that I, not for the first time, was going a little too literal with an idiom, I looked it up:

eagle eye
Unusually keen sight; also, keen intellectual vision. For example, Antiques dealers have an eagle eye for valuable objects, or A good manager has an eagle eye for employee errors. [Late 1500s]
Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Houghton Mifflin Company. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/eagle eye (accessed: September 18, 2008).

Of course, it's too late for me now. I just keep picturing my coworker floating in the air while she proofreads something on the ground...

* Photo by M Kuhn. Used under Creative Commons license.

Sigh...

Sometimes, I wish the world of 'style' were the real world...

The cliché perfect storm, as in “Behind the trend is a perfect storm of economic forces,” has appeared in the Journal 13 times in the past three months, usually in quotes. So page-one editor Mike Williams is declaring a moratorium on the expression.

From Wall Street Journal style editor Paul R. Martin's blog, Style & Substance , March 27, 2008 (Vol. 21, No. 3)

They lay eggs?

The other night, I was looking through recipes for an appetizer to bring to a dinner party. I passed a potential selection over to B to see what he thought.

I was thinking it was pretty reasonable, so was surprised when he suddenly laughed.

As a result of one of those funny eye-brain mis-coordinations, he'd read "1 egg yolk" as "1 yak egg."

Those would probably be really big, huh?

Photo: Oliver Whiteside

Movie review gem

NYT reviewer Manohla Dargis describes the main characters of newly released monster movie Cloverfield as:

"Smart as Tater Tots and just as differentiated."

Love it.

I couldn't of said it better myself.

The publications manager asked me if I'd seen William Safire's column this weekend on of. I immediately said, "You mean like when people use it as a verb?" Well, it's that and more.

Safire mentions a few common mistakes, and I confess that I'm guilty of at least one myself: dropping the of in a phrase such as a couple of typos. (Although I will claim I do this only in my informal writing, emails, tweets, etc., I fear that may not be the case...)

But as I've mentioned previously, the frightfully prevalent mistake that troubles me deeply is the use of of as a replacement for have. As in: I could of/should of/would of had this checked for errors.

It's disappointing to me that native speakers of English seemingly have no understanding of contractions. Surely they know that the little apostrophe means that some part of a word is being omitted, and that there is, therefore, a real and meaningful word involved here and not just some arbitrary utterance. While yes, the contracted 've in could've may sound similar to the word of, it simply makes no sense when it's written down. (Yes, this is also a root cause of apostrophe misuse, but that's another topic altogether.)

To quote Mr. Safire:

Here’s my point and proposition: I won’t complain about those confusing contractions in speaking if you refrain from these infractions in writing. Blur and slur to your tongue’s content, but when your fingers hit the keys, keep faith with clarity.

Hear, hear!

P.S. Since I already got one email about this: the word "column" in the first sentence of this post is the link to Safire's original piece.

The world of L2 acquisition

So on my more or less weekly scanning of Language Log I came across an interesting posting and accompanying video.

While LK and I generally resist posting You Tube videos in our blog, I think this one deserves an exception.



Oh, and there is a part 2.

For a linguistic and literary discussion of this sketch, visit Language Log.

For a real-life application, come to my class.

A funny thing happened on my way to the blog...

I was heading over here to post a movie write-up on the blog, but was waylaid by my RSS reader. Namely a Language Log post that directed me to an interesting column in the Times Online (Ben Macintyre's "Last Word" column, "Any word that embiggens the vocabulary is cromulent with me", Aug 11, 2007). It begins:

How do you create a new word? Why do some fresh-minted words gain instant and eternal currency, while others prove duds? We adapt words from other languages, from slang, from developments in science, literature and art. But mostly, these days, we adopt new words from a bright yellow and deeply dysfunctional television cartoon family by the name of Simpson.

Now this is my kind of linguistic discussion.

As someone who regularly uses the word "cromulent," I'm terribly pleased to see this usage condoned (in a fashion).

But I still am not likely to be going to the Simpsons movie in the theater. That's what t.v. is for, after all.

Hmmm...

LK Here. Am I the only person who misreads "underserved" as "undeserved"? Boy does that change the meaning of a sentence.

S is for Spin

Linguists and editors are up in arms about recent stylistic mandates from the U.S. Army. It has come up on the Language Log ("Military capitalization," June 4) as well as in the print publication The Editorial Eye ("The Army Sets 'Down Style' Back a Few Decades," June 2007, 6).

I was hoping to find out that this is all a hoax, but evidence so far indicates otherwise.

Bill Poser's Language Log posting reports that the Army Chief of Staff has decreed "that 'command information products' capitalize the word soldier in all contexts, as if it were a proper noun. He has, furthermore, requested that the Associated Press stylebook and Webster's dictionary adopt his proposal." Poser is spot on with his assertion that this opens up a nightmarish can of worms. (Read the full posting.)

While I can't link to the Editorial Eye article here, it was a response to Al Kamen's April 24 column in the Washington Post (scroll down to the second piece, "Army Puts an Emphasis on Families"). EE's response:

While we completely support the idea of showing gratitude to the families of the brave men and women serving in the Army, this mandate is not only counter to the current practice of minimizing unnecessary capitalization [down style] – it could backfire. Because the converse of respect is disrespect. And when referring to families unrelated to the Army, this style being floated would require American Families but Iraqi families.

That’s one of the objectives of down style: evenhandedness in referring to people who work together but have different identifiers, such as job titles, departments, and so forth. Across different cultures, showing evenhandedness matters perhaps more but not less.

And I'm not even going down the path of discussing how U.S. leaders might better serve our soldiers and their families than by tossing token, stylistic consolations their way. As the EE piece puts it: "It’s a misguided way of showing respect that we’re guessing doesn’t make sense to Families saddened by yet another Extended Tour – much less comfort them." The two responses I found written by Family (here and here) seem to bear this out.

My friends call me 'Prew'

Even with a well-established word, comprising a familiar root and prefix combination, a hyphen can greatly aid a reader. This clarifying use of the hyphen is common enough when adding a prefix creates a double vowel that could be hard to read correctly (like de-emphasize, rather than deemphasize).

I would like to make a plea for the inclusion of such clarifying hyphens is in any word that the addition of a prefix can lead to a mispronunciation. No matter how common the word may be.

When I see the word "prewar," it looks like it should rhyme with "brewer."

Now, if you are reading about a military topic, the context is likely to be adequate and you might just read it as it is intended, as "pre-war," before the war.

But if you just come across something about "Prewar Gibson Banjos," you really do need a hyphen to keep that from being read as Prewar-rhymes-with-brewer Gibson Banjos, rather than a designation of a certain make of banjos made before the war.

As in, "Hi, my name's Gibson. Prewar Gibson. My friends call me Prew. Would you like to see my banjos?"

All of this confusion -- and amusement -- could be avoided with more generous use of the hyphen.

I mean, give us a break. English is weird enough already.

Word of the day: avatar

I've become accustomed to the word "avatar" as that small graphic that is associated with a user account. Like the chick I use for my Blogger i.d., for instance. When you go to a fan site (like to the Mutts comic strip or DC Comics, for example), in addition to the old desktop wallpapers and whatnot, they now have downloadable avatars, or icons. So I learned what the word meant in this context. It sounded familiar, but it certainly wasn't a word in my active vocabulary.

So I finally looked it up and I see the primary definition comes from Hindu religion and that an avatar is "an incarnation of a god."

Cool.

I knew it made me seem more important, somehow.

This posting is brought to you by the letter S

If you haven't already heard about this, let me call your attention to a bill passed in Arkansas. The state house has approved a resolution declaring the possessive form of the state's name to be Arkansas's. It's a nonbinding resolution, but still, it's nice to have such a weighty precedent.

I have never condoned the idea that adding an apostrophe to a proper noun ending in s makes it possessive, myself. Written as Arkansas', it clearly indicates that there is something called Arkansa. In this instance, there are two or more of these things -- make it plural by adding an s, and you have multiple Arkansas. (Julian Arkansa and his family live in St. Louis Heights. The Arkansas' house is very nice.)

A likely reason that the possessive was debated is because of the silent final s. But apostrophes aren't about spoken English. This is about written English. I certainly don't condone folks saying "Did you hear about Arkansawzes new bill?" It should still sound like "I hear Arkansaws legislature has a little time on their hands."

The letter S is not rare commodity -- no need to be stingy. Let a proper noun keep its own s.

It's a perfectly cromulent word.

From BBC Radio Five Live Film Reviews, about Blood Diamond
(These two actually discuss etymology quite frequently.)

Mark Kermode: It's issue-tainment.
Simon Mayo: That's not a word!
MK: Well...I'm using it in an ironic sense.
SM: Yes, but you're using it!

Language Log on superbowl ads

I'm quite fond of Language Log, although the contributors are so prolific I don't even attempt to keep up with it on a daily basis. It is consistently very good, and, as I generally lean toward an anti-perscriptive stance on grammar (not one english majors or copyeditors are generally expected to take), I usually like their perspective on the use of language. I couldn't resist linking to Mark Liberman's post on superbowl ads when I saw this line in the post intro:

Frankly, I think it's obvious to any objective observer with access to an internet connection that the emergent theme of this year's superbowl ads was linguistics.

Clearly! While Lynne Truss may have a sense of humor, it's the linguists, not the grammarians, who have the real fun.


And on a related note, one of the ads Liberman cites, "Check Out Girl," is one of the two winners in the Doritos Crash-the-Superbowl Contest. Leann Emmert, producer of this commercial, is a CU grad ('95) who majored in international affairs.

See how irrelevant a student's choice of undergrad major can be?

Language: She could of been a role model

By now, many of you know about Lindsay Lohan's literacy-challenged tribute to Robert Altman. Personally, I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She's young. She was inspired in the moment. So she didn't have anyone proofread her heartfelt note before she pressed 'send,' big deal. We've all done it, in some way or another. Foolish, yes, but not unforgivable. Nit-picking it would be just plain mean-spirited, right? I'd heard about her comical mis-spelling of "adequate." So what?

But that was before I saw the letter text myself and it sent me reeling. There, in black and white, is what I believe to be one of the most frightening, yet disturbingly common errors made by non-readers. But I assure you, Miss Lohan, and others like you:

"Of" is not a verb.

Really. It's not.

Therefore, "I am lucky enough to of been able to work with Robert Altman" is NOT OKAY!

And as if the negative attention for this was not enough, she sent out another email this week of even greater grammatical spasticity. (Check out the Fug blog's funny--if a bit bitchy--mark-up of her email.)

Besides, what would "Be adequate" even mean? Is this some kind of motivational statement? Jeez, aim high, why don't you?

Language: FOB-bing

What's with the "FOB key" (all caps)? What could this acronymn possibly stand for? FOB: For Opening Big doors? Fumbling in Our Bag (for keys)?
Am I the only one who doesn't know this lingo?

Where does this come from? I wouldn't even mentioned it, but it's come up more than once. I was most recently provoked on this topic by an internal email at work that contained a reminder to bring our "FOB keys" to an after hours activity. I could have dismissed this as one person's quirky style, but some very smart friends of mine also think key fobs are in all caps. I assume this is a usage they must have gotten from their own workplaces. But if it doesn't stand for anything, why is it written that way often enough that many people recognize it as standard? I don't need my FOB to get into my OFFICE to do my JOB. (For that matter, I don't say I need to SIGN IN to make an entry to my BLOG either, which is perhaps a closer parallel.)

None of my dictionaries contain an entry "FOB" that has anything to do with opening doors (I'm pretty sure no one is saying their keys are "Free On Board," which is what all of my dictionaries suggest as the meaning of the acronym. That's obviously an obsolete expression now anyway, as hardly anything is FOB on airplanes anymore...). I suspect Wikipedia's entry for "FOB"--a re-direct from "Fob," which does refer to electronic key fobs but has no mention of the all-capped "FOB" except the entry itself--is just a perpetuation of this acronymic myth.

Does this actually mean something? Was it a trademark name for some widely used security system and people now use it just like all cotton swabs are "Q-tips"? Yes, your employees and your workplace will now be secure using our patented FOB (TM) key chain accessories.

Or are they all just yelling about their keys?

Language: Use it or lose it.

"The simple fact is we cannot afford to be careless with our language, because if we are careless with our language then we are careless with our world and sooner or later we will be lost for words to describe what we have allowed to happen to it."

Excerpt from John Humphrys Beyond Words: How Language Reveals the Way We Live Now (Hodder & Stoughton, 2006)

Hear, hear! (or is that here, here?)

Anti-British(isms)?

An author remarked to me recently that she was criticized by a reviewer for using the word loath--as in, to be disinclined to do something--on the grounds that it is a "British-ism." It appears in the piece as "academics are loath to point the finger at corruption for the problems..."

Would an educated American reader have trouble understanding this? Is this a legitimate complaint about the clarity of the writing, or is this something far more insidious? Perhaps this is some kind of a post-colonial backlash against a former imperial power? And might not it be unpatriotic for an American publication to use English that sounds like it originated from (gasp!) the English? Perhaps it is a reaction against what the reviewer percieves as pretentiousness? But how is this defined? One writer's pretentiousness might truly be another writer's natural voice. I would ask, then, whether the deliberate use of "plain" language or even the vernacular is any less pretentious as it reflects a self-conscious desire to be one of "the people" as only an intellectual (who is, one might say, inherently not "people") can express? Where, if not in academic circles, would formal language have a place? Certainly to use the synonym ("academics are disinclined to point the finger...") doesn't sound any less fussy! They are "reluctant" to...? They are "hesitant" to...? It loses its nuance of meaning--as an artist, I object!

In the interest of full disclosure, however, I must admit that I do insist on spelling grey with an "e" in my own writing because I think the word just looks wrong with the American spelling (gray). It's a soft and lovely color, and the "a" is downright ugly. I have also frequently been guilty of using the distinctly British structure of "I've no money" in favor of the cumbersome and more lengthy American construction of "I don't have any money." So sue me. Oh, but wait--I've no money...