Addressing the issue of addressing the issue
In the early 1990s, the term address the issue to cover things like investigate the trouble or solve the problem, became more common. By the mid-2000s, the term had killed off just about every other, more accurate phrase. This article traces it back to the first appearances that I and my wordspies can find, and it gives a typical example of how even respected journalists have given way under its force.Early appearances
Smart, Barry 1976, Sociology, Phenomenology and Marxian Analysis: A critical discussion of the theory and practice of a science of society, Routledge. On p. 188, in the notes to pages 23–52: "11. Gouldner is not unaware of the heterogeneity of Marxism although he does not address the issue directly …"Freund, James C 1977, Lawyering: A Realistic Approach to Legal Practice, Law Journal Press, p. 316: "Not that the purchaser's counsel suspects a particular violation of law exists, but merely that the potential harm from a material violation warrants having your firm address the issue."
Salter Ainsworth, Mary D 1978, Patterns of Attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, p. 116: "In this chapter we address the issue of whether individual differences in strange-situation behavior are related to stable individual differences in behavior in the natural environment."
Tannenbaum, Percy H. (ed.) 1980, from The Entertainment Functions of Television, papers based on a conference organised by the Committee on Television and Social Behavior of the Social Science Research Council, Paper 1: "An unstructured introduction to an amorphous area", p. 3: "We had earlier discussed the desirability of a more broadly based collection of scholars who would address the issue of entertainment from the perspectives of a wider variety of disciplines."
Findlay, Janice, January 1986 "Mathematics criteria for awarding exit levels on achievement" in ROSBA: Discussion papers 1–21 (the ROSBA report), Queensland Board of Senior Secondary School Studies, 1987:
Rather than these minimum standards, could trade-offs such as "S6 on one criterion with at least S5 on the others" make better sense in practice? Inevitably one will also question the role of "marks", and in particular SSAs for use in the derivation of TE Scores. This has not been addressed here, but is considered in a Discussion Paper by D R Sadler entitled A Method of Deriving SSAs without Marks.
Immerman, R. 1987, "Between the unattainable and the unacceptable", Reevaluating Eisenhower, Melanson & Mayers, eds, University of Illinois Press, page 126: "The second, however, would address ‘what should be done to prepare against’ …"
McMeniman, Marilyn, January 1987 "Towards a working model for criteria and standards under ROSBA" in ROSBA: Discussion papers 1–21 (the ROSBA report), QBSSSS, 1987.
End-of-course criteria and standards are addressed, but the paper stands back from proposing the sub-structure necessary for awarding the five end-of-course categories of achievement to students who exit after 1 or 2 semesters.
Sample
Sally Sara, ABC correspondent, speaking from Lebanon on 14 August 2006: "… [damage] that hasn’t been assessed, let alone addressed."This one-size-fits-all verb produces boring, vague, language. If you want your writing to produce more than a yawn, select what you mean from among the words in my address list:
| accounted for | acted upon | allayed | analysed |
| answered | attended to | avoided | cared for |
| catered for | challenged | avoided | come to |
| confronted | considered | covered | dealt with |
| debated | detailed | discussed | examined |
| faced | fixed | grappled with | handled |
| highlighted | improved | included | investigated |
| looked at | mentioned | met | outlined |
| presented | probed | proved | raised |
| recognised | rectified | redressed | reduced |
| reflected | related to | remedied | resolved |
| responded to | reviewed | seen | shown |
| solved | stated | tabled | tackled |
| talked about | tested | thought about | took action on |
| wrestled with |
Where have all the adverbs gone? There’s no basis for on this basis
What is going on with adverbs? On the radio this morning I heard three different educated people say on a daily basis, on a regular basis, and on a compassionate basis. An example is an ABC RN "Breakfast" presenter, 1 March 2005, discussing Dick Smith’s visit to a detention centre to publicise the plight of an individual case: "Do you think this indicates that opponents of mandatory detention are now approaching the issue case by case … er … on a case-by-case basis?"A letter to the editor of The Gold Coast Sun of 19 August 2009 asked "Should adults have a tetanus update on a regular basis?"
Why can’t these oafs say daily, regularly or compassionately? Has the purpose of the adverb been obscured by academicspeak, forcing people to make the longest possible line out of something simple?
If you work near an on a basis-er, get a piece of cardboard, write a big sign saying ADVERBS, put it on their desk and wait for them to ask what it means.
Adverbial problems
We hyphenate compound adjectives (little-known man, 25-odd people) to avoid ambiguity. We do not hyphenate when one of the words is an adverb (fully furnished room, totally worn piston ring) because, with an adverb, there’s no chance of ambiguity. But I found one the other day that could be ambiguous, even though it used an adverb: "The curriculum needs more culturally appropriate courses".Do we mean that the curriculum needs more courses (that are culturally appropriate)?
Or do we mean that each course we already have must be more appropriate, culturally speaking?
That’s where the editor's skill comes in. First you ask what the writer meant. Then you can write either "the curriculum needs additional culturally appropriate courses" or "the curriculum’s existing courses must be more appropriate".
I advise you not to advise
Bureaucrats love to advise you instead of tell you. So do TV stations: "SBS wishes to advise viewers …". Advise goes with spongy personalities. A person of quality does not advise anyone unless they are giving advice. Instead of advise, say: tell, inform, report, comment, indicate, state, remark, point out, suggest, think, believe.When Francene Norton read the ABC News at 0700 on 10 April 2006, advising us that some women got lost on a bushwalk in Queensland, she said: "They called police on their mobile phones to advise they were lost." What did they say when they rang the police? "Hello, is that the police? We advise that we are lost in bushland."?
Arseicons
I wish I'd invented these, but they were sent to me by my friend Letitia.You know those computer symbols called emoticons, like —
: ) means a smile and
: ( is a frown?
Well, these are arseicons:
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|
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Begging the question
The "correct" meaning of begging the question, as described by Henry Fowler, is "the fallacy of founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself". Ernest Gowers, the editor of Fowler’s 2nd edition, gave this example: "capital punishment is necessary because, without it, murders would increase". Today the term almost always means "to give rise to the need for a question" as in "Fred Bloggs’s incorrect condemnation of the writer’s grammar begs the question of how much grammar Fred himself understands".Gowers tells us that by 1966, Begging a question had been distorted to also mean avoiding giving a straight answer. By 1992, when Oxford published Professor Burchfield’s 3rd edition, begging the question had three meanings: the original, avoiding a straight answer, and giving rise to the need for a question. Neither of the two newer meanings was mentioned in the 1926 Fowler, so we can assume that the first distorted meaning cropped up between 1930 and 1966, and the second between 1966 and 1996.
Not many older people enjoy unnecessary changes to perfectly good expressions, but it’s nothing new. Ignorant people, including university-trained news reporters, will continue to do it. The obvious answer is to avoid the phrase entirely, replacing it by something people cannot misunderstand. BUT, Begging the question wasn’t a very good phrase to start with, was it? It was hard to understand and this made it easy to distort. Its latest meaning possibly makes a bit more sense than the others.
Confusing interpretations of language by uncaring or uneducated people will always win over correct definitions. That’s why language changes, and that’s why agonised cries for help from pained readers will not result in anything useful. I hate this sort of thing, but I’m no King Canute.
Begging the question is one good example of how a meaning has evolved, but there are dozens more, and new ones crop up every month.
Bureaucratese: publishing people’s second language
This was written for publishing editors, but it can also apply to anybody who deals with businesspeople, teachers, or government departments. Within a few minutes, I will prove to you that publishing people must have bureaucratese as their second language because, without it they:Watch Indian TV, or a bit of Bollywood, and you’ll hear sentences, made by a native for another native, that are made up of two languages stirred up together. This is the natural way, and it happened because of their history — they didn’t go out to learn it specially. I recently saw an Indian film made in the early 50s, and it was the same then as it is now.
Taking too long on a job, charging too much, not being respected, and going out of business
All of us in the publishing trade have chosen to work with words in a society whose appreciation of elegant language has fallen away to nothing, where information is distributed in tiny, media-useful wordbiscuits, and where everyone above the rank of floorsweeper has to have an MBA to even get an interview. Once inside an organisation, MBAs, just like cane toads, kill off everything else. They do it by attrition because they will select only their own kind, and as an organisation’s elegant writers retire, they are replaced by more and more MBAs. And as they fire good editors who know something about good language, they’ll replace them with "communications persons" who understand and blow-out the sort of wordfarts that MBAs love to use. If you want to survive in this unglamorous trade, if you are to earn a living by checking the words of writers who have trouble getting their own surnames right, and if you are to proofread at speeds over 500 words per hour, you are going to have to be fluent in the abstractions, wordfouling, half-truths, euphemisms, lies, showing-off, long variants and neologisms that is our second language, or perhaps our first language. We entrust the education of our children to people who speak only -eses, and so we owe it to our children to understand what these people say.Speaking to your writers in the only language they don’t understand
Let’s say you have to comment on this piece (which one of my friends had to do in 2005): "The emanation of innovation from synergies of various stakeholders working together to solve problems and issues is another focus of this publication". You could then click your "Comments" button and write: "As this is a stakeholder-focused annual report, do you think it’s an idea to leverage the interest of corporate readers by transitioning the sentence to the more strategic and powerful: "The way that various stakeholders working together have developed cooperative ways to address issues is another focus of this publication?" They couldn’t refuse because your translation has shown your mastery over the form, and they’ll crumple at your feet.Inability to understand the history of the other non-compos-mentis languages that will become more important going forward
As you strategically progress your career in editing, you’ll be asked to work on other forms. How about the rich tapestry of sportspersonese such as this from the sporting poet defending the throat-cutting gesture in the All Blacks’ Haka, new in 2004: "I think it’s completely appropriate. These gladiators are running the tightrope on the cutting edge of their sport."How about Hollywood? You mustn’t flinch when you’re asked not to change this, seen in a screen starburst, during a million-dollar trailer in 2005: "Sean Penn in another exciting and imploding performance."
How about law? "A male person who was in the house at the time of the fire is deceased at this stage" (Police spokesman reporting on a NSW house fire on ABC News Radio, 14 October 2004.
How about the military? "After the man ignored orders, which were given in Arabic, the soldiers engaged him with rifle fire." (Australian Defence Force spokesperson, ABC radio 26 January 2005, commenting on the death of an Iraqi shot by Australian forces in Iraq in January 2005.)
Collective nouns for publishing people
(This is from an old issue of Offpress, the magazine of the Queensland Society of Editors)There is a need for collective nouns for people in publishing:
Editors
An amendment of editorsAn anthology of editors
A compendium of editors
A flagon of editors
A grammar of editors
A lexicon of editors
A pen of editors
A revision of editors
Indexers
A cross-reference of indexersDesigners
A grid of designersIllustrators
A palette of illustratorsTypesetters
A galley of typesettersProofreaders
A correction of proofreadersA perfection of proofreaders
Publishers
A press of publishersColons and semicolons
Source: The Times Literary Supplement. Subheading: NB. Byline: J.C. Issue Date: Friday 15 November 2002. Page: 16.[While] marking the proofs of Seven Pillars of Wisdom for [T. E.] Lawrence …[George Bernard] Shaw felt compelled to spell it out: "When a sentence contains more than one statement, with different nominatives … the statements should be separated by a semicolon when the relation between them is expressed by a conjunction." When there is no conjunction, "use a colon". Shaw gave some examples: "Luruns [Lawrence] said nothing; but he thought the more. Luruns could not speak: he was drunk." The correspondence is also with Shaw’s wife, Charlotte: she sent Lawrence parcels. They often included copies of the TLS; but he failed to acknowledge them. Correspondence with Bernard and Charlotte Shaw 1922–1926 is the first volume of the Lawrence Letters: eight more will follow. Availability is limited; but enquire of Castle Hill Press, White Cottage, Woodgreen Common, Hants SP6 2BD.
Death of a student by vowel play and consonants
Emma Tom, Australian journalist, author, broadcaster and musician, wrote this article for The Australian of 5 May 2004. She has kindly given me permission to reproduce it. See more of this stunning superwoman at her website emmatom.com.au.The transnational dissemination of mass-mediated culture is, given the hegemonic strength of global capitalism in today’s world economy, an irreversible process that cannot be structurally transcended, at least not in the foreseeable future. But this does not mean that it is not actively and differentially responded to and negotiated with in concrete local contexts and conditions.
When I experienced my first homicidal impulse towards Perth academic Len Ang, I consulted my handy university survival guide for assistance. "During your studies you might find it necessary to get a part-time job," it read. "Also, try not to drink too much beer."
As a mature-age student, you get used to finding university survival guides a little off the mark. The hilarious idea that working might be optional, for instance. Or that excessive beer drinking is something you’d have time to do after spending every non-working minute of the day trying to get a grip on the difference between structural and non-structural transcendence.
Still, you’d think there’d be at least one reference to dealing with academic writing-related psychopathy.
It was just bad luck that Ang copped the brunt of my sudden new interest in professorcide. Plenty of her peers were equally infuriating. But chapter nine of her book Living Room Wars: Rethinking Media Audiences for a Postmodern World happened to be the first piece I had to read from my official university reader.
Here’s the thing: While I understood most of the individual words in isolation, the way they’d been arranged in relation to each other rendered them completely incomprehensible.
"If, in other words, the global is the site of the homogeneous (or the common) and the local the site of the diverse and the distinctive, then the latter can — in today’s integrated world systems — only constitute and reconstitute itself in and through concrete reworkings and appropriations of the former."
Um. About half past three?
I felt like that man who mistook his wife for a hat in Oliver Sack’s book of the same name. Hat Man was a musician able to register parts but not their sum. When presented with a glove, he identified it as a continuous surface that appeared to have "five outpouchings" and was "infolded on itself". Thus, for me, Ang’s reference to a "structure of temporal synchronicity" was little more than a bunch of vowels and consonants in groupings of nine, two, eight and thirteen.
Unlike Hat Man, I was unable to accept my condition with dignity and grace. Instead, I threw myself into the whole temporary insanity thing, stopping only to quote the recent defence of everyday English by The Spectator’s Lloyd Evans.
"It’s true that an arcane word has a dictionary meaning," Evans wrote in a condemnation of Will Self’s verbal wankery. "But this is purely hypothetical. In practice, it has no meaning at all. It’s like putting tlfdtjdtx in the middle of this sentence."
It’s five weeks into semester one and I’ve ploughed through enough idiot guides on critical theory to be able to read — as opposed to merely observe the outpouchings of — my required texts. Casual references to "Gramscian resonance" no longer leave me at risk of a restraining order and I can even understand enough of Ang to realise she makes some fascinating points. (Happily, my initial reaction to her book turns out to be a differential response negotiated from my concrete local context and is therefore completely legitimate.)
What I can’t understand, however, is the argument that complex ideas require complex language.
In a world where public debate has degenerated into simplistic either–or idiocy (you’re either a supporter of the occupation of Iraq or a Saddam Hussein flunky), we’re in dire need of the sort of philosophical complexity academics are rather good at.
What they need is encouragement — and I realise now this should probably be of the non-violent variety — to express themselves a little more accessibly. Or at least to offer a plain English translation for the masses. Because big, multi-dimensional ideas are way too important to leave to tlfdtjdtx.
Doubling consonants
(Extracts and modified text from an article "Finer points" by Christine Lindop, in the UK editors’ journal CopyRight, October 2000.)One-syllable adjectives and verbs
When the word ends with one vowel followed by one consonant, double the consonant before -er, -ing and -ed:• fat, fatter, fattest
• thin, thinner, thinnest
• clap, clapping, clapped
• grin, grinning, grinned
• fur, furry
• cat, catty
• run, runner
Verbs with more than one syllable
As before, verbs must end in one vowel followed by one consonant. But there is a further condition: consonant doubling only takes place if the final syllable is stressed. So:• regret, regretting, regretted – but: fidget, fidgeting, fidgeted
• defer, deferring, deferred – but: offer, offering, offered.
• begin, beginning – but deepen, deepening, deepened; and: focus, focusing, focused.
Odds and ends
W and y after a vowel at the end of the word are part of the vowel sound and are not doubled:• slow, slower, slowest
• stray, straying, strayed.
X is never doubled:
• box, boxing, boxed.
Verbs ending in a c add a k rather than another c, and do so regardless of stress:
• panic, panicking, panicked.
Adjectives ending in ic use more and most rather than er and est:
• the most basic requirements.
Exceptions
Like all good rules, there are exceptions. Something in the English and Australian souls (but not necessarily US souls) rebels against a single l or a single p before these endings, so, sometimes regardless of stress or number of vowels:• cancel, cancelling, cancelled; but US canceling, canceled
• dial, dialling, dialled; but US (usually) dialing, dialed
• travel, travelling, travelled; but US (usually) traveling, traveled
• trial, trialling, trialled; but US (usually) trialing, trialed
• kidnap, kidnapping, kidnapped but US (also) kidnaping, kidnaped
• worship, worshipping, worshipped but US (also) worshiping, worshiped.
Finally, an exception to the double ls above. There seem to be enough ls in parallel to satisfy everybody, so when parallel is used as a verb, the final l is not doubled. parallel, paralleled, paralleling, unparalleled.
Ellipsis: three points
This is not a review of a new-age book, but a mini-examination of a piece of punctuation. The little mark, which looks like this:…
is usually called the ellipsis but, if you are a keen grammarian, you may say that the ellipsis is the actual leaving out, not the mark that denotes it. Regardless, we’ll call it the ellipsis because everybody else does. Let’s take a look at this mark.
Some publishers have rules about the use of the ellipsis and professional publishing people should follow those rules. If you have no style to follow, the Australian Government’s Style Manual has useful information.
The first thing to remember is that the ellipsis mark goes in the place of the missing words themselves and so you would logically expect to see a space before and after the mark. The space before the ellipsis must be a non-breaking space so that the three little dots don’t end up by themselves. Amateur productions sometimes get it wrong and you see lonely ellipses blushing in the great open white space between paragraphs.
The Style Manual also demonstrates the ellipsis mark when it is used to indicate faltering speech: “But … but … I’m sure I did!”
The Style Manual says “three full stops only are used, even if the mark of ellipsis comes at the end of a sentence”. So this: “It was seen as a mistake. … The parson then drew …” has one too many stops for the Style Manual’s taste.
Typesetters can choose to use three full stops with a non-breaking space between them, or the keyboard shortcut (which is OPT SEMICOLON on the Apple, and ALT0133 on the PC). If you don’t use nonbreaking spaces between the full stops, an email you send or a bit of website you write may end up with one full stop on one line and the other two on another. Don’t forget that when someone receives your email or reads your webpage, their width is different from yours and so the full stops may get split up. It’s safer to use the keyboard shortcut with a nonbreaking space before it. With some typefaces, the shortcut produces a nasty little squashed-up affair but others give a more elegant result. You’ll have to test each typeface as you go.
Euphemisms, unhelpful
In April 2006, Jack Straw, splendidly named British government minister, said that Iraq’s failure to come up with a strong, workable government was "unhelpful to the security situation". Once upon a time, using a word like unhelpful would have been called diplomatic but, in this case, I think Jack simply followed the pack by using a recent trendy new euphemism.I have noticed now that many people, especially nice people who may not have the courage to stand by what they say, use unhelpful every time they want to say damaging, dangerous, uncooperative or any other word that might sound like it means something. It’s an exact copy of the reason people started to say issue when they meant problem, or inappropriate behaviour when they meant bad behaviour.
If anyone accuses me of standing in the way of progress, I can tell you a story of how issue has deliberately been unnaturally wrenched from problem by word thieves. I worked in a Queensland Government agency, and one of our publishing staff had been invited by another government agency to spend two weeks working on a publishing project in Papua New Guinea. She showed me the invitation. I asked her why the writers had continually used issue when they clearly meant problem. She replied that, when she went up there once before, she and other staff had been particularly asked to avoid the word problem when they were referring to a problem, because it might possibly alert the people they went there to help (assist) might have a problem. This, of course, immediately insults the people they were trying to be nice to, by assuming that the poor devils don’t know they have a problem. I’m sure they do.
Old-fashioned euphemisms that might soften a blow, such as pass away, passed on, took her own life, cull, put him to sleep can be personal and helpful, and you’d use them if you knew the other person was sensitive to a too-blunt reference to a recent tragedy — but who do we think we're kidding by saying unhelpful instead of rude, assist instead of help, and issue instead of problem?
Foreign affairs
The world is divided into two: people who are polite and people who are not. When I say polite, I’m not talking about the force that makes people remember to say "Have a nice day" or "Safe home", or toot their damned car horns on leaving at midnight even though they have already said goodbye at the door: I am talking about deep-down politeness, the sort that good people naturally have, the sort that makes it unnecessary for them to have to learn to be socially correct.Polite people do not make others uncomfortable. They would hit you if you imitated speech defects of someone else in the room: they wouldn’t dream of copying a limp to honour someone in the room with one leg shorter than the other. So why is it that these well-meaning people make the blunder of trying to imitate the sound that natives make when pronouncing the names of their towns or other things indigenous to their country? Not only is it an insult to the people who speak the language naturally, it’s also an insult to anyone else in the room who has not studied foreign languages and who simply cannot be expected to know that a double l (that's "el") in French or Spanish is pronounced like a y. But because the 21st century has apparently been earmarked as the time when we must abandon English pronunciations of foreign place names, we continually hear Chee-lay for Chile, Nich-waugh-waugh for Nicaragua , Timor Este for East Timor, Barthelona for Barcelona, Seveeya for Seville, manzaneeya for manzanilla, and semi-yon for semillon. A senior wordspy, Glen Whitaker, heard the wonderful con-duee for conduit in March 2008. I often hear people talk about Turbo Street for Turbot Street in Brisbane, and many still say Suncor and Tabcor as if the cor sound in these corporations is short for corps. If people pose like this, why don’t they say Paree for Paris, Veen for Vienna, or Roma for Rome?
In Queensland a few years ago, Mr T. E. Morris started a vineyard, winery and restaurant. Spelling his name backwards, he called it Sirromet and "knowledgeable" people in Queensland pronounce it "Sirromay", an embarrassing piece of ignorance or pretentiousness.
As usual when looking for politeness in speech, we turn to Fowler. He puts it better that I can in his article "Didactism" (in which he lumps foreign-language pronunciation with the unnecessary use of technical terms): "If English is not entitled to give what form it chooses to foreign words … why do we say Germany and Athens instead of Deutschland and the rest, or allow the French to insult us with Londres and Angleterre?" … Seriously, our learned persons and professors should not, when they are writing for or speaking to the general public, presume to improve the accepted vocabulary or pronunciation. When they are addressing audiences of their likes, they may naturally use, to their heart’s content, the forms that are most familiar to both parties; but otherwise they should be at pains to translate technical terms into English. And what is of far greater importance, when they do forget this duty, we others who are unlearned, and naturally speak not in technical terms but in English, should refuse to be either cowed by the fear of seeming ignorant, or tempted by the hope of passing for specialists, into following their bad example without their real though insufficient excuse".
Foreign plurals
The Oxford English Dictionary defines curriculum as a course of study as at a school. Their first record of this word in English was in 1633, and so it is not that old — we must have been happy with "course", or "course of instruction" before then. The word comes from the Latin curriculum meaning a race, race track, chariot, course of action; and its plural was curricula.After a word from another country or a dead language has first been taken into English, we keep it at arm’s length by putting it in italics, using all its accents and frills, and spelling it and its variants the way it was spelled at home. After a while, when we get used to the word, we consider it has paid its dues, we release it from italics, and we apply English plural forms. One example is bureau which is now a fully paid-up immigrant meaning no more than office, and, in regular English use, the French plural bureaux would look quite odd. Despite this, many people hang on, perhaps in an attempt at sounding educated, and even make fools of themselves. My friend heard an Australian announcer on Channel 7, during the Olympic Games in China in August 2008, and he not only said: "These issues are the current foci for these atheletes", but he pronounced his foci as foe-sigh!
There are, of course, several foreign plurals so well entrenched that nobody would think of changing them from their native state — nobody says datums or stratums. Some foreign plurals have remained to help us differentiate between different meanings, so mediums means a collection of people who deal with spirits of the departed, but media is the collective name of the channels of public communication such as newspapers, magazines, radio and television.
Despite the strong, long-term drift away from foreign plurals, some writers still use foreign plurals even when the English version is well known and accepted. A good example is curricula instead of curriculums. The dangers in continuing this way are that the writer can appear precious, too clever, or simply old fashioned; and curricula and curricular sound the same and are easily confused.
Curricula is not entrenched; it’s sort of fifty-fifty. The Education (School Curriculum P–10) Act 1996 (Qld), uses both forms, one each! Australia’s foremost guide to consistency, The Macquarie Dictionary, gives both forms, but it puts curriculums first and curricula second. If we follow the guideline in the Australian Government Style Manual, we must choose the form mentioned first.
Authoritative people who lean towards English plural forms
Henry Fowler, the doyen of grammarians, in Modern English Usage (1926), at the end of his article "Latin plurals":All that can safely be said is that there is a tendency to abandon the Latin plural, and that when one is really in doubt which to use, the English form should be given preference".
In 1965, Fowler’s reviser, and famous grammarian, Sir Ernest Gowers, did not alter a word of it in the 2nd edition.
Professor R.W. Burchfield, Fowler reviser (3rd edition, 1996):
… In scientific work, foci, formulae, indices and vortices are regularly used, but in general writing, the ordinary plural forms in -s, -es are more usual".
Usage and Abusage, by Eric Partridge:
The general rule is: Add c (or, to nouns ending in s or x in the singular, es). Therefore nucleuses and chrysalises. Indices differs from indexes. The plural of formula is formulas (not ae much less æ). … This rule applies not only to Greek and Latin words (octopus, octopuses; rhinoceros, rhinoceroses), but to words from modern languages: thus, the plural of stiletto is stilettos; not, as in Italian, stiletti.
The Australian Government Style Manual, latest (6th) edition, 2002:
For non-specialist writing, the first spelling in either The Australian Oxford Dictionary or The Macquarie Dictionary should be adopted and used consistently throughout a document … Of the Latin loan words ending in a in the singular, the Latin (ae) is preferred only for those words strongly associated with science; examples are larvae and vertebrae. For the words curriculum, memorandum and referendum, the English plural is preferred — curriculums, memorandums and referendums".
David Crystal in the Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language:
Nouns which have been borrowed from foreign languages pose a particular problem. Some have adopted the regular plural ending: ‘They sang another two choruses’ (not chori). Some have kept the original foreign plural: ‘More crises to deal with’ (not crisises). And some permit both: ‘What lovely cactuses/cacti!’ There are no rules. Some people have to learn which form to use as they meet the words for the first time, and must become aware of variations in usage. Where there is a choice, the classical plural is usually the most technical, learned, or formal, as in the case of formulas vs formulae or curriculums vs curricula.
Do we choose English or classical plurals?
It’s a courageous person who would argue against the mighty forces assembled in the previous section. And the point that was made more than once is that the classical form is much more likely to be reserved for scientific, medical or "learned" journals. Documents dealing with general aspects of education are rarely scientific, so there is no strong argument to continue with classical endings. If we have to choose, it may be wiser to stay with the one that is bound to continue to increase in popularity over the next few years.Reasons to use classical
Reasons to use English
Curricular
We need a word that means "pertaining to curriculum". One long-accepted version is curricular, as in extra-curricular activities. But there’s no reason for us to insist on curricular — why shouldn’t we use curriculum as an adjective, too? (We already use the noun education as an adjective.) Even though there’s nothing wrong with curricular, it still sounds like curricula. Plumping for curriculum as an adjective overcomes that problem.One of many precedents for using curriculum adjectivally comes from the Education Act 2004 (C’wth): "30 Curriculum (1) The chief executive must decide the curriculum requirements".
Suggestions
Use curriculums, not curricula.Use curriculum as an adjective, not curricular, but don’t edit people who have already written extra-curricular.
Use Australian (English) for all plurals instead of Latin, Greek, French and Italian, if it’s not a scientific work (e.g. cellos makes more sense in English than celli because a cello is a very ordinary thing in this country, not a new, strange foreign instrument).
For me: do it just for me
There’s a newish, genteel and unnecessary niceness among medical assistants. Here is just one huge sample taken from just one assistant, during just one eye test for my mother (who had just one eye). I was in the room and I jotted these notes down without the assistant seeing me do it. I don’t need any more examples because this assistant covered the whole plot in just one go:The Great Leap Forward to backward speech going forward
In almost twenty years of recording changes and fads to our language, there must be one or two that irk me more than others. There are two. The smaller irk is offshore for overseas, and the reason is that we have now been robbed of the precision of offshore, and when people say it, we must guess whether they mean off a country’s coast, or overseas. The second, the worst, the most stupid, most redundant, pathetic, smartarse term is going forward.Now, going forward is quite new. I did not record it when I first heard it, but it would not, I think, have been more than three years ago (mid-2005). It first came from the slack mouths of people in finance: “the market will improve going forward”, and, as always happens, they were soon faithfully copied by people in the administration of education: “will be implemented in schools going forward”.
Why is it so poisonous? What sets it apart from any other fad? Reason: It is always entirely unnecessary, rather like situation in terms like strike situation. I have never heard a person say going forward when there could have been any doubt they were talking about the future. Going forward is always used with the future tense. Saying “There will be an increase in interest rates going forward” is as silly as saying “There was an interest rate increase going backward”. There's another problem with it: it has no graduations. You can say "in the near future" or "in the distant future" or "in the immediate future" but, with going forward, you're stuck with just a future. Perhaps the very near future could be "inching forward" and the distant future "leaping forward". Which all remind me of China's Great Leap Forward on the 1960s, and you know what happened as a result of that.
This embarrassing expression has the effect of making the people who say it sound pretentious, desperate to be trendy, or just plain ignorant. This is a shame because I believe that most people don't even know they're saying it. It's almost like they're clearing their throats. I will not bore you with a long list of examples — I’ll give you just a few, all by respected public figures, all in September to October 2008, just to show how entrenched this daftness has become:
-
"I think there's an expectation that it's going to really crunch them going forward." Heather Ridout, who organised a meeting with the PM and other business leaders in Sydney on 17 October.
“We will … in all our deliberations going forward…” (West Australian National Party leader Brendon Grylls, 9 September, ABC RN.)
“How will [the drop in the interest rate] affect mortgage holders going forward?” (ABC business editor, Cheryl Bagwell, 10 September, ABC RN.)
"They'll have to be careful about that going forward." (John Hewson, businessman and ex-politician, 19 September, ABC RN.)
I will comment on this sickening fad later, if, in future, it starts to disappear going forward.
Groupthink (is couple singular or plural?)
Pedants grow on nutrients scattered from newspapers, radio and TV. If a newsreader says "the couple was in the garden" then the pedant will be strengthened in their belief that the couple is singular. If a TV ad says that Ford Motor Company are to introduce a new model the pedant will be strengthened in their belief that the company is plural. Pedants then bully their weaker associates and, quick as a flash, everyone has a fixed idea on what is plural and what are singular.Elegant language, however, has no strong rules to bind it as tight as a pedant and we are all pleased to learn that couple, group, committee, company, staff and other such words are sometimes singular and sometimes plural, and common sense decides whether we put is or are after them. Don’t take my word. Listen to these simple explanations from Collins Dove Guide to Australian Usage and Punctuation:
-
"A lot of" or "a couple of" … strictly speaking … are singular nouns. But anything other than plural … verbs to go with these … is nowadays nonstandard:
A lot of them are happy. [obviously good]
A lot of them is happy. [obviously bad]
A couple of my friends are here. [obviously good]
A couple of my friends is here. [obviously bad]
… "group", "team", "staff", "government" are singular in form but they contain the idea of collections of individuals … If the context suggests that you are dealing with the collection as a whole, a singular verb is always suitable:
The orchestra is in good form. The firefighting team is on its way.
If the context suggests that you are dealing with the individuals of the group … you can opt between singular or plural verbs:
The staff is expressing different views on the subject
The staff are expressing different views on the subject.
Homomania
Increased publicity for homosexuality has started an unfortunate trend. Because homosexual women are commonly called lesbians, some people are starting to believe that homosexual applies only to men. This gives us unwieldy and absurd phrases such as "homosexuals and lesbians".This homotrend has infected other words beginning with homo. The ABC’s Radio National recently broadcast a program in which one person used the word homocentric to mean "centred around men". This is confusing, as the dotty homophobic centres around homosexuals, whereas homocentric centres around things that have the same centre.
We all know that Latin homo is "human species" and Greek homo is "same". So homosexual is a good, etymologically correct word and it applies to men and women. Homophobic and homocentric (in its meaning of men-centred) are on shaky ground.
This mix-up is a good example of how wise it is to stand against ignorantly conceived vogue words. Homo- is difficult enough with its two correct meanings without adding the new pair, "men" and "homosexual". If anyone says that you are being pedantic, obstructionist or simply living in the past, ask them to explain what homocentric means to them, and see what you get.
To avoid confusion over the meanings of homo- words to come, why don’t we steal a march on the word-generating public and produce our own? Here is a homonymous list of some of the homo- words in the Macquarie Dictionary:
Homochromatic: a homosexual with no mixed blood.
Homocyclic: pertaining to a man who rides a bike.
Homodont: male tooth.
Homoeopathy: sympathy for the homosexual cause.
Homo erectus: (can’t think of anything for this).
Homograft: distribution of bribes to male police officers only.
Homonym: name given to a homosexual person.
Homophone: what Adolphe Sax would have called his reed instrument, had he been homosexual.
Homopolar generator: device inserted into the womb of a female polar bear by David Attenborough to ensure male progeny.
Homotaxis: fleet of cars reserved for same-sex couples.
Homotransplant: lateral transfer of a sexually-harassing male worker from one workplace to another by an employer to avoid legal action being taken by harassed female workers in the original workplace.
The Humpty Dumpty Dictionary
This article was written in 1995 by a leading Queensland editor, and co-founder of the Queensland Society of Editors, Mary-Jane Bosch. Her premature death in June 2002 robbed us of a funny writer, a sharp wit, and one of the last of the old-style publishing editors who understood all the elements of publishing, not just how to copyedit a page. I thank her daughter, Jude Neibling, for permission to republish it.Before Macquarie gets the chance to bring out its third edition (expected in 1997, so I hear), I believe we need to produce a different kind of lexicon — a Humpty Dumpty dictionary. You will recall Lewis Carroll’s Humpty Dumpty, who maintained that "Words mean precisely what I choose, neither more nor less".
I’ve toyed with the notion of such a dictionary before. What caused the idea to resurface was the TV commentary accompanying an ABC report on the latest New Zealand victory in the America’s Cup series. "The TV coverage", said the reporter, "is compulsory viewing in New Zealand". Compulsory viewing! I had a vision of two burly policemen hauling a protesting little Caspar Milquetoast of a man off to jail, explaining as they did so, "He wasn’t watching the America’s Cup race!" Hang on, I thought. I’m watching the ABC, after all. Whatever happened to standards? For that matter, whatever happened to SCOSE — the Standing Committee on Spoken English? Why are so many announcers using words with such cavalier disdain for meaning? And not only announcers, but journalists, academics, writers, people who should know better. (I exclude politicians from this list; I don’t expect them to know any better.) Could it be that we are entering a new era of language — one in which meaning is a secondary consideration? If this is the case, then perhaps, even as we speak, a Humpty Dumpty dictionary, its hour come at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
I started compiling a list of today’s Humpty Dumpty words and phrases. Flaunt is one, as in "We cannot allow these young thugs to flaunt the law." Humpty Dumpty definition: flaunt, v.t., to flout, defy or disdain. Strategy: adj., cunning, really clever, e.g. strategy plan. Target: v.t., to aim at. Parameter: n., a limit or boundary. Viable no longer means "capable of life", but offers elegant variation when you are tired of workable or even practicable.
A plethora, the dictionary will explain, no longer means "a superabundance"; it merely means "rather a lot". We will have to look elsewhere if we wish to find a synonym for superabundance. And, by the same token, a myriad can now mean 100 or so, and sometimes even less than that!
Then there are the words which grow — extensible words, if you will. "Longer is better" cry the promoters of words like these. Add a syllable or two to a perfectly good, unambiguous word, and you will have a new, fresh HD word! One of my pet aversions from this category is proactive. I’m not certain why this is so much better than something (or someone) who is just active, but it’s becoming more and more prevalent. It is always used in a complimentary sense — one of the nicer things one can say about a colleague is that he or she is proactive. Perhaps the HDD should be organised, as is the OED, "on historical lines", so that we could identify the inventor of proactive and deal with him or her accordingly!
Yet another case of the HD dictum that "longer is better" is the use of the word servicing. We read of the police servicing the community, of cable TV servicing the populace and so forth. Whatever happened to serving, a sensible and acceptable word? A bull may service a cow; a mechanic may service a car. What the police, the electronic media and the Prince of Wales do is serve. (No correspondence of an indelicate nature regarding this paragraph will be answered.)
The HDD will also tell us that words which sound similar are interchangeable; thus militate and mitigate are synonyms, as are adverse and averse. Fulsome is just a clever way of saying full. Continual and continuous are also synonymous. Other equivalents are affect and effect, alternately and alternatively, compliment and complement, venal and venial. (The potential for confusing either of these words with venereal does not bear thinking about!) Among my favourite interchangeable words are vivid and livid; as in "The painting was a livid mixture of reds and oranges." I shan’t bore and depress you any further with examples; you can add your own at leisure. But my HDD includes not just words; it contains phrases, expressions in which words are used as a sort of verbal underlining without any independent meaning at all.
An example is the use of the phrase forward planning. Excuse me — is there another kind? Obviously not; the word forward is verbal underlining, meant to emphasise to the reader the perspicacity of the planner. Or consider the slogan I read recently: Prevent future accidents! No, I’d prefer to prevent past accidents; think of all the catastrophes I could avert. These are not simple tautologies; they are deliberate (if illiterate) insertions for the sake of emphasis.
Other instances are more or less risible: a recent jewel is the motional speed of the vehicle — so called to distinguish it from the stationary speed of the vehicle, presumably. There are also gems such as meaningful learning experiences, each individual child, a panacea for all ills, and the main protagonist. But my favourite, by far, from recent reading is a growing proliferation.
Lewis Carroll, as well as creating the Humpty Dumpty after whose linguistic theory the Humpty Dumpty dictionary has been named, invented the portmanteau word — one into which two words, complete with their meanings, are packed. Examples include burble, whiffle and slithy, all wonderful words. Today, however, we have the unedifying spectacle of existing words which have been tortured into encapsulating dozens of meanings. I’m not sure of the correct descriptor for this category of HD words — perhaps we should borrow from the jargon section of the HDD and call them overarchers and underpinners. Such words include issue, situation, identify, and, of course, the ubiquitous address.
There are, of course, many other potential entries for the HDD — probably even a myriad; I suggest that you might like to while away the time spent waiting for a bus by adding to the list. And it is, of course, all highly amusing. But there is a serious side to the nonsense, and it is this. If you believe, as I do, that the purpose of language is to communicate rather than to obfuscate, you will join me at the barricades to defend clarity and lucidity in English, and to consign the contents of the Humpty Dumpty dictionary, together with the perpetrators of these linguistic barbarities, to outer darkness.
Mary-Jane Bosch
-Ize or -ise? ReviSe before you moraliZe
A woman I dined with recently was keen on the correct use of English and after she had covered some firm ground telling me how upset she was at Australians’ use of youse and nuthink, she unwisely stepped on to thin ise. “I deplore how our language is being Americanised”, she went on “with their spellings, and in the way so many people now write -ize at the end of verbs instead of -ise.Being a polite sort of chap, I did not want to make a brutal frontal attack, so I did a feint in the hope of my opponent scoring an own goal. “Do you”, I sez “have any respect for the Oxford University Press?”. Of course she had, and so I lined up the ball and helped it towards its goal by telling her that the Oxford University Press, the Cambridge University Press and The Times (until taken over by Mr Murdoch) all use -ize and that it was standard English until the Frenchified -ise came along (see unphilosophize in Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary).
Most English-language printers use -ise because they do not want to be bothered with the unnecessarily difficult distinction between verbs that take their -ize from the original Greek, and those that do not. I suggested she read Fowler’s article “-ize, -ise, in verbs” but she did not have a copy. To save you the trouble of getting out your Fowler, I’ll quote some of his juicier bits so that you can be warned off the danger of doggedly following the wrong scent: “In the vast majority of verbs that end in -ize or -ise and are pronounced [as in size], the ultimate source of the ending is the Greek -izo … But the suffix itself [this part quoted from the OED by Fowler ] … is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic.” Fowler then supplies a useful list of the words that do not get their -ise from the Greek -izo, and must be spelt with -ise: advertise, advise, apprise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, demise, despise, devise, disenfranchise, enfranchise, enterprise, excise, exercise, improvise, incise, premise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, televise.
Could you be bothered with getting all of them right? I certainly can’t, and that’s why I always use -ise. But -ize can never be considered offensive or “American” — I admire people who have the control to get it right, like all those proofreaders at the OUP and the CUP.
Moral: If you want to talk about the abuse of English, get your facts straight. Slamming a correct form of English because you thought it was incorrect can be embarrassing whereas criticising incorrect uses, such as the ridiculous going forward or the confusing offshore will always be laudable.
Keep yer drawers on
The IT department of a Queensland government agency sent this note to its staff in April 2007: "Please note that draws are all being removed on Thursday in your section."ABC RN news at noon on 24 January 2006 told us that the Australian Open Tennis Championship will continue this afternoon "with differences between men’s and women’s draws".
It all sounds the same.
Irony: which word did you really want?
Everybody says ironic when they mean unusual, or quirky, or funny. The reason we say ironic is that our language needs a word that means "kind of odd, in a funny way" and ironic fits comfortably. Ironic technically does/did not mean that. Let’s look at what Fowler said about ironic, and what it really meant, then look at some other words we might think of using, if only to break the monotony of ironic in its new, slightly suspect, sense.Fowler (1926): "The word irony is one of the worst abused in the language … any definition of irony — though hundreds might be given, and very few of them would be accepted — must include this: that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same…"
So you might like to try these once in a while: bitter, harsh, wry (bitterly amusing), droll (amusingly odd), sarcastic, sardonic, mocking, comical, strange. I have tried them all here, but they don’t all work:
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how ironic that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; a bitter twist, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how harsh, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how wry that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how droll that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; his death from a sudden heart attack, then, made a sad mockery of his advice.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; how comical that he died of a sudden heart attack.
He always was telling us to avoid fatty food; strange, then, that he died of a sudden heart attack.
Issues issues
Because everyone is so nice nowadays, they’ve managed to eliminate problems. We now hear, sickenly often, "Do you have any issues with this?" Well, I have issues with issues. It’s driving us mad. Who started it? I know it’s deliberate and I will tell you a story of how issue has deliberately been unnaturally wrenched from problem by word thieves.I worked in a Queensland Government agency, and one of our publishing staff had been invited by another government agency to spend two weeks working on a publishing project in Papua New Guinea. She showed me the invitation. I asked her why the writers had continually used issue when they clearly meant problem. She replied that, when she went up there once before, she and other staff had been particularly asked to avoid the word problem when they were referring to a problem, because it might possibly alert the people they went there to help that they might have a problem. This, of course, immediately insults the people they were trying to be nice to, by assuming that the poor devils don’t know they have a problem. I’m sure they do.
I present, then, my issues-solving table. The next time you are about to write issue, and you do not mean a matter that is under discussion without necessarily being a problem, consult this table and use a word we’ll like you in the morning for. Each one of these was written down as I or a wordspy heard issue being used, so you can see how many words issue has now replaced, very much like the cuckoo egg address (verb).
|
argument |
aspect |
concern |
controversy |
|
example |
focus |
item |
matter |
|
offence |
outcome |
point |
problem |
|
query |
question |
ramification |
situation |
|
state of affairs |
subject |
theme |
thing |
|
topic |
upshot |
|
|
Jokes
Rearrange the letters — very clever (email, unknown origin)
Dormitory: dirty room; Presbyterian: best in prayer; Astronomer: moon starer; Desperation: a rope ends it; The eyes: they see; George Bush: he bugs gore; The morse code: here come dots; Slot machines: cash lost in me; Animosity: is no amity; Election results: lies — let's recount; Snooze alarms: alas! no more z 's; A decimal point: im a dot in place; Eleven plus two: twelve plus one; Mother-in-law: woman hitler.AWB scandal, as seen by wordspy Glen Whitaker
The ABC says: "Some Liberal backbenchers want AWB stripped of its wheat export monopoly". I can't help thinking it should be threshed from its monopoly, or perhaps the executives could be winnowed.Mum and dad
You concentrate on Dad; I’ll have a stabat Mater.Limerick
A lovely young lady from Rydeate too many apples, and died
The apples fermented
inside the lamented
and formed into cider inside her.
A bit rude
I cannot vouch for this but it’s funny anyway. It was sent to me by email. The story is that this was broadcast by Ronnie Barker on BBC TV in the 1970s, but I find it hard to believe. The story goes that they received no complaint, which I can’t believe either.This is the story of Rindercella and her sugly isters.
Rindercella and her sugly isters lived in a marge lansion. Rindercella worked very hard frubbing sloors, emptying poss pits, and shivelling shot. At the end of the day, she was knucking fackered.
The sugly isters were right bugly astards. One was called Mary Hinge, and the other was called Betty Swallocks; they were really forrible huckers; they had fetty sweet and fetty swannies. The sugly isters had tickets to go to the ball, but the cotton runts would not let Rindercella go.
Suddenly there was a bucking fang, and her gairy fodmother appeared. Her name was Shairy Hithole and she was a light rucking fesbian. She turned a pumpkin and six mite wice into a hucking cuge farriage with six dandy ronkeys who had buge hollocks and dig bicks.
The gairy fodmother told Rindercella to be back by dimnlight otherwise, there would be a cucking falamity.
At the ball, Rindercella was dancing with the prandsome hince when suddenly the clock struck twelve. "Mist all chucking frighty!!!" said Rindercella, and she ran out tripping barse over ollocks, so dropping her slass glipper.
The very next day the prandsome hince knocked on Rindercella's door and the sugly isters let him in. Suddenly, Betty Swallocks lifted her leg and let off a fig bart. "Who's fust jarted??" asked the prandsome hince. "Blame that fugly ucker over there!!" said Mary Hinge. When the stinking brown cloud had lifted, he tried the slass glipper on both the sugly isters without success and their feet stucking funk.
Betty Swallocks was ducking fisgusted and gave the prandsome hince a knack in the kickers. This was not difficult as he had bucking fuge halls and a hig bard on. He tried the slass glipper on Rindercella and it fitted pucking ferfectly.
Rindercella and the prandsome hince were married. The pransome hince lived his life in lucking fuxury, and Rindercella lived hers with a follen swanny.
Neologism contest
Once again in 2005, The Washington Post published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply other meanings for common words. The winners were:The Washington Post also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Here are some:
Leafblowing your mind
I write this article, which has nothing to do with language, in mid-2008. I write it because I have never seen a mass-media article on it, and I beg senior press people to take this matter up for all enbrained people who are going around the bend from the very idea of the leafblower, or "power broom".At dinners now, people no longer talk about real estate or the sharemarket: they talk about the worldwide insanity that has moved crude oil from $20 to $130, permitted a politically inept president to single-handedly run the world's most dangerous nation two terms in a row, seen a global religious split similar to the Crusades but with weapons that make Richard the Lionheart's sword look floppy, and doubled the price of wheat and rice, causing worldwide food riots and widespread hunger. It wasn't long ago we shook our heads over shiploads of excess grain being dumped at sea to avoid spoiling the market pricing system, and some governments paying their farmers to not grow food.
There has never been insanity like it and by diligent research I have found the exact point when this madness started: it was the day the leafblower was invented.
There has never been a more useless, self-defeating, pointless, annoying, noisy invention and there have never been so many unthinking, mindless people prepared to use them in full view of other people.
You don't need me to list the reasons why they are pointless, and I don't have to prove that my assertions hold water, as long as you admit that you, too, have seen people "sweep" their leaves and dust even during windy weather.
Instead of blowing, why don't they suck, as their owners do?
I love Lucy
There are too many columnists using the word I too much, and they are often boring. Does anyone read them? There is one, however, who I love madly because she is right to the point, sharp, acidic, funny, and awake to the slimy abuse of English. Her name is Lucy Kellaway, and she writes for Britain’s Financial Times, and, if you listen to the BBC news overnight in Australia, you can sometimes hear her reading her articles.Love of the long word
I borrow Fowler’s subheading to present some of the most common longwordisms from the early 2000s. These are not ponderous words from ponderous people; they are what just about everybody seems to prefer, even down at the very few public bars we have left:| Long, popular | Short, rejected |
| allude | refer |
| purchase | buy |
| falsify | lie |
| inclement | bad |
| respiratory arrest | stop breathing |
| commence | start |
| terminate | end |
| donate | give |
| reiterate | repeat |
| recycle | re-use |
| preowned | used |
| embolism | blood clot |
| edema | swollen ankles |
| locate | find |
| nexus | connection |
| interregnum | gap |
| hiatus | gap |
Malapropisms 1
Being slightly wrong, or a mixture of right things, or genuine ignorance, and I guarantee each was heard from real life by one of our wordspies
I did a great one myself in 2010, and was picked up by my partner who fell about laughing at the Great Grammar Guru's stuffing up. I was telling her I'd arranged my impending overseas trip in short hops of max 8 hours because "... with my high blood pressure, I'm scared of getting that DVD in my legs".
I remember Chinese Communist posters in the 1960s and 1970s and, after I’d worked in a government agency in Australia for a year or two, it dawned on me that those posters and strategic-plan language are the same! They both follow the same style, a style that nobody could ever dream up unless they were writing a Communist poster or a strategic plan. How would your wife feel if you said: "Strive to present a wonderful dinner to our comrades after their glorious toil in the factory" when she expects "See if you can rustle-up a really good dinner for our pals after work tonight".
I have designed a foolproof strategic plan element generator (SPEG) that is based on your name. The resulting strategic plan element (SPE) sounds as good as any I have seen in a real strategic plan, because the purpose of SPEs is to sound good regardless of whether they are meaningless.
It does take a little discipline and careful reading of the instructions to get it right, but I guarantee the results. There is also a creative element because you have to choose linking phrases from the list supplied, and you even have to use a replacement term if you get two of the same in the same SPE.
So, after a small amount of modifying and selecting from the spare parts columns, the two first elements in the mission statement or strategic plan from the name PETER FOWLER are: Col 1 Col 2 Col 3 links a address client centric outcome inherent in b underpin overarching challenge devolving from c conceptualise meaningful fora evolving to d take cognisance client-focused positional base informing e commit ourselves to efficient and effective approach going forward to f reflect intra-sectional setting whilst taking cognisance of g advance community-endorsed oversight with regard to h oversee outcomes-based core values in respect of i progress multimodal modal balance regardless of j inform our commitment to inputs-and outputs-based function in the light of k benchmark appropriate paradigm shift whilst progressing [or recognising]
the need for l recognise the human values in multicultural protocol whilst maintaining strong m deconstruct non-ethnocentric construct whilst progressing the parameters of n re-establish socioeconomic equity whilst celebrating the rich cultural heritage of o generate and maintain equity-balanced partnerships p migrate ethnocentricized resources q cherish gender-balanced ownership r celebrate quality-based [client] cohort s value customer-driven linkages t serve [service] meaning-making stakeholder [groups] [partnership] u pioneer and grow strategic and tactical sustainable growth v facilitate strategic[ally] leadership role w,x challenge externally valued positive difference y,z balance holistic value-systems Spare parts to avoid duplication or to
spice things up share macromodal parameter enhance quasi-modal synergies leverage robust pathways cascade capacity-building best-practice scope triple-bottom-line continua cleave to ideated leverages inform macro-resourced cultural communities
A wordspy was speaking to someone in February 2010 about a singing group who performed a cappella. But the spy's pal had obviously never seen it written before, as he said that the group performed "archipelago".
"Since the drought, we've been losing money hand over foot." Foot-in-mouth farmer on ABC's "Bush Telegraph" program, November 2009.
In March 2009, a wordspy's neice told him that her clothes line needed replacing and that she had "looked at a new rotisserie clothes line." Our spy replied "That'll be good — you can cook chooks on it while you wait for the washing to dry".
On 11.00 am news on Radio National, 30 May 2008, about flooding in Hervey Bay: "We are deviating traffic."
At a website for Queensland government jobs, smartjobs.qld.gov.au, we find a job for "Cleaner's" at the Sunshine Coast TAFE. They don't want just cleaner's: they want someone who wants to "Contribute to an enhanced system of vocational and further education and training by providing quality cleaning services to the Institute". The role's key accountabilities are a bit more down to earth though: "Clean and mop toilet areas".
My daughter Isobel is a wordspy, cares a lot for plain language and regularly reports on deviations. She used to be a barista (a new word, sounding just like barrister) and dealt with smart young men taking smart young women for a caffé, this word being written in signs outside several caffé boutiques, whereas when I was last in France, the word for coffee had just one f.
Beauty parlours are an occasional source for mistaken beliefs about French, too. My best one so far was in Station Street, Nerang (the sign, alas, now taken down), with the name "Le Beaut’e Venue". Surely there’s more to it than ignorance? They got the gender wrong, and the t’e attempt for an acute-accented e must have been done for fun … please?
Response to a survey of TV audiences: "I love their dress scents [of the cast of TV's '90210']."
At a seminar at Queensland's DPI on Friday 7 March 2008, one of the presenters said: "You may have a hurdle to climb". Someone during the break at this seminar told our wordspy that something was "inoffensual" instead of "inoffensive".
"The house was completely unindated" (ABC news report, 6 January 2008).
"He always keeps his nose to the grime-stone."
"She’s been absconded to another department."
A friend was explaining how her husband was investigating a company he was thinking of buying, and she said: "He’s done quite a bit of investigation, but he still has to do a dewdilliance report" [due diligence].
(written in an email) "I like the poco-dotted bow tie on the dog [in one of the pictures]".
Obviously under the influence of Harry Potter, a woman on 27 July 2007, said: "It's a load of hogwarts."
"I don’t know about my husband … I think he’s going into early salinity."
"Who was it your brother in law married?"
"I prescribe to that magazine."
"I bought a new cadenza for my office."
"… then purify the tomatoes and add them to the sauce."
"If I’m not better by Monday, I’ll consultate the doctor."
"I’m just the bread in the sandwich in this affair."
"We thought we’d got the house, but somebody gazunted us."
"My friend’s terrible … she keeps getting her menopause mixed."
"It’s Turandot, that opera by Fettucini."
"My boyfriend always brought me a cortege when we went out to a dance."
My daughter works for a phone company, and she had a customer in April 2007 explaining that her phone was being troublesome, and said that "it gets a little sentimental" (temperamental).
Someone told one of our wordspies that he was reading a famous book, and that it was fictational.
"It’s in the pipeworks." My friend’s nephew telling my friend he had another job lined up.
"He recorded a respectful time of 1 minute, 13 seconds." Commentator at the Red Bull Air Race, Channel 10, 10 September 2006.
"The first of these challenges is the inertia of old paradigms fuelled by our inherit resistance to change." (In this report of 150,000 words, inherit was used instead of inherent three times, and by two different writers. I think it might become a new version of alternate for alternative.)
"I thought it was only the flu, but we found out she had ammonia."
"I tried the new menu. I ordered some sort of spaghetti with bacon-and-cream sauce on it. It was spaghetti carburettor, or something like that."
"Carole sent a card from Egypt and it’s got those hydroglyphics on it."
"It hadn't worked out so they had to go back to the square board."
A person talking about the charisma of some politicians against the dull personality of others: "I met him once and I was quite disappointed; he was not at all enigmatic."
About transport enthusiasts not being able to seek out a particularly unusual vehicle to photograph: "These [vehicles] were seen around the [transportation] system from time to time, but often alluded the enthusiast who looked for them."
"She doesn’t know what is happening at the cold front."
Notes accompanying a presentation by Ricoh, of "PrintWise", Brisbane in 2002: "In Australia, email has attributed to a 40% increase in printing in the past three years."
Presentation by Ricoh: "Mr — —, Emirutus President of Intel."
"A friend of mine nearly lost his job as senior accountant because he made a serious mistake on a big account, but, in the end, they delegated him to a lesser position."
"I always had trouble making a pavalova, but it's even harder now because I’ve bought one of those convention ovens and it doesn’t bake as well as the old one."
A friend told me that when she first moved to Brisbane someone suggested she should look at a house at Cleveland, but when she went to Cleveland she didn't like its mud-flaps. (For outsiders, Cleveland has shallow tides with extensive mud flats.)
"Being picked for the test team is something you always expire to."
"I always expired to be a person like you."
Darryl Beattie, expert motorbike racing commentator for Channel 10, commenting of the heavy attrition of riders during the moto-GP in Japan on 18 September 2005: "The nutrition rate for this race … the amount of riders that’s gone out".
"I’ve got harmonial imbalance."
"Have you got one of those ergonomic lettuces?"
"He got quite sick, so we called the parametrics."
"He was illegible for registration."
"I have a job interview tomorrow and I’m going to lay all my eggs on the table."
"I like this method because it’s non-evasive."
On ABC RN’s "Radio Eye", a nurse describing how she feels about her work: "I remember patients I treated on my very first day, and I remember patients I saw yesterday. They just become inbred in you."
"I’ll stick with it here for the medium turn."
"In this cold weather we’d all be better off if we were penguins — they don’t feel the cold because they’ve got plenty of installation."
Greg Rust, motorbike racing commentator for Channel 10, 24 September 2005, commenting on the slow performance of a motorbike racer (Thomas Luthi) from whom he had expected more speed: "… as he got away, he just lacked that initial inertia".
"My daughter has an in-ground toenail."
"My nephew doesn’t like the taste of advocado."
On ABC RN’s "Deep End" on 6 February 2006, cartoonist Bill Leak talked about the furore over the Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed: "... in a robust democracy like ours, freedom of expression, freedom of belief, freedom of ideas and the press are tantamount — they’re extremely important."
"Our next-door neighbours are having their driveway cleaned. Some men have been cleaning it with hydroponic acid, or something like that."
"Remember, in some circumstances the tax office can garnish salary and wages." (Yes, garnish can mean to collect money, but it's so arcane, and so far down the list of definitions, and ninety-nine out of one hundred people use it only in the meaning of decorating something — so it's a daft choice in a public document.)
"She said she liked doing yoga, but not the medication kind."
"She was getting angry ... really getting her shackles up."
"The tension was palatable."
"The two boys’ boat was swept out and they were maroned overnight" (pronounced to rhyme with bone, not moon. News report, ABC radio).
Person interviewed about illegal fishing in northern Australian waters, ABC "Breakfast", 6 June 2005, 0815: "One of the imprisonments has led to a fatal death."
Malapropisms 2: Get it wrong, get it right
Being something said wrong, but that could also be right, and again, guaranteed heard or seen by one of our wordspies
"This book is a sustained and viscous attack on the 'peak oil' crowd led by Campbell, Deffeyes and Simmons."
http://www.amazon.com/Age-Oil-Mythology-Controversial-Resource/product-reviews/0275990087
Heard on a Brisbane commercial radio station on 8 February 2010: "Why don't you head on into XX store this week? We're having a huge sale of pants, tops and a great range of excessories."
My friend sent a reminder to a Japanese supplier asking her not to forget to "send a bill for the remainder of the work you did" to which the supplier replied: "Thank you for your remainder. My bill is enclosed."
From the Honey Birdette website in 2006, describing a Honey-Birdette-organised sexy party: "Whether you have it in the store or in the privacy of your own home, HB's party girls can relax, sip champagne and nibble on hors devours while viewing the latest collections."
This could qualify for "get it right" status if the number of Rastafarians who'd settled in the town of Basingstoke (UK) was so large that anybody else appeared as a minority. A man on ABC news on 23 December 2009 described his town of Basingstoke, which had been immobilised by snow, as "in total dreadlock".
Sarah Palin was famous for, among other things, hunting. So this letter from a reader to the blog opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com in December 2009, gets it really wrong and really right: "The issues should be about access to affordable healthcare and jobs. Without addressing these issues, [the organisation called] NOW and others have nothing to offer the average Jane and in consequence, have allowed Sarah Palin and her elk to define women's issues."
There is a business term SPIV, which is a contraction of SPecial and INcentive. For example: "for every XX-brand phone you sell, we'll give you a $10 SPIV". But the old meaning of spiv is "a man who makes a living by dishonest or unscrupulous dealings". As many SPIVs are paid out to push dodgy products, the new meaning of SPIV is not unlike the old.
My friend received an email from her Japanese manager thanking her for doing a special favour: "Thank you very much indeed! You are a chump".
From ABC News’s website abc.net.au/news/stories of 17 August 2009, a blogger agrees with Senator Joyce’s views on the government’s ETS (emissions trading scheme) by writing "I eco those comments 100%". Of course, there could have been a typing slip, but it’s a wonderful mistake to make. Get it wrong — but it’s right!
I was tutoring a Japanese student in August 2009, and we were talking about smell. She said: “Are there words for bad smell and good smell?" I said: “mostly we just say ‘good smell’ or ‘bad smell’ but we also can say ‘stink’ or ‘fragrance’. And, also, instead of ‘smell’, we can also say ‘odour’, but ‘odour’ and ‘smell’ are exactly the same thing.”
“Oh” sez she, “I know that word already: odour toilette and odour cologne, right?”
From a homebrewers' website chat page 2009: "… so what [you're] saying, it's a bit of sly in hand when all these manufacturers come out with all these specs of what [their] units should do."
From http://sspconline.org/article_details.asp?artid=art151 on 26 March 2009: "Chinese territorial claims in Arunachal Pradesh have been constant bone of tension in Sino-Indian relationship."
A British immigrant (2009) describing to me a part of his upbringing: "My accent was actually Scottish, but, to blend in when I moved to London, I developed a cockney accent. I never met anyone with a plum-in-the-cheek accent until I was a lot older."
A friend of a wordspy was describing his teenage daughter's rebelliousness, and said "The crutch of the matter is that we can't trust her any more."
Discussing with a friend the wisdom of buying a house to rent out rather than leave the money in a cash deposit (February 2009): "You have to be careful with maintenance. We bought a place, but we've had to replace this and had to replace that — it's a constant stream of money going out, and it turned out to be negative gearing rather than positive gearing."
Headline from abc.net.au/news on 16 January 2009: "More Coalition dischord over climate change policy"
Woman being interviewed at a London airport about her flight to Tenerife being cancelled because XL Travel Agency had gone bankrupt: "They must have known about this. They could have contacted us and given us a chance to recuperate some of our money".
During the motorbike grand prix telecast on 31 August 2008, the guest expert commentator, Troy Bayliss, was talking about how exciting it would be for Lorenzo, the relatively new entrant who was running second, to overtake the leader, Rossi, many times world champion. He said "Lorenzo would love to beat Rossi. That would be … like a feather out of his cap." That would be right, if only he'd meant a feather out of Rossi's cap.
The special project signalled out by this interviewee as an example ... The other attitude which signals out this company as different is that ...
From aussiehomebrewer.com's forum comes this neat response. You have to work out why it's wrong and why it's right: "Totally agree: I thought [the article] was super funny in parts … but some bits were lame. I will watch it again as it is still better than that American dribble on the network stations."
"It is just an example of how Telstra has this state [Tasmania] over a gun barrel." (A response sent in by "Whirlpool enthusiast" to an internet site, forums.whirlpool.net.
An Olympic cyclist being interviewed on TV in April 2008, seen by wordspy Brian Nott: "In cycling, the difference between winning and losing can be as little as one megapixel." She could have been referring to photofinishes.
"It’s amazing how, in the face of adversary, everyone rallies around." (From a 2008 newsletter of a Queensland golf club, after a local flood.)
"Glyn has been regularly having a serious of bladder infections."
"I’m afraid that anyone who thinks changes to the language take hundreds of years, and that decimate and irony haven’t shifted in meaning, really needs a Becks and a good lie down." (Note for people too young to remember the catchphrase from the famous Australian advertisement: "A Bex and a good lie down": Bex was/is a sort of headache powder. Becks is Becks beer.)
"The black stains … are due to moisture getting through the varnish. … This is exasperated by the fact that oak expands and contracts, which causes modern varnishes to crack."
An ABC caller on 19 September 2007 said something was "leap years ahead".
"No, I know I’ve got it right … I’ve got a phonographic memory."
"They tried living in a mirage à trois, but it didn’t work out".
A fellow our wordspy was talking to in March 2007 said he has had chronic fatigue syndrome for months, but finally feels he is improving. He said, "At least there’s life at the end of the tunnel."
"I’m impressed with the simplicity of the ‘brew-in-bag’ beer-making method [using steeped grain instead of prepared wort]. As you pointed out, this brewing style would make an excellent steeping stone for the new all-grain brewer." (The writer must have know he was being clever.)
"I can never really trust what my friend says about her health. She’s always been a bit of a hyperchondriact."
"No sooner does an apparently safe formula for humour appear, than fashions change with the times, and yesterday’s joke falls flat as yeasterday’s beer." Memoirs of an Abominable Showman by Billy Moloney, Rigby Australia 1968.
"Let me do it — I’ll use the method". Friend’s child offering to remove a label from a book, using methylated spirits (metho).
"Staff at Sydney Zoo are requesting the return of two rare African grey parrots which were stolen from the zoo overnight The pair have distinguished grey feathers on their wings." 2.00 p.m. news, 28 December 2006, ABC RN.
"If the young people know about [testing for drugs in cycle racing] it might perturb them to avoid doing it themselves."
"Early adopters tend to be risk-takers, while late adopters tend to be more risk-adverse."
"The stuff just disappears into the ethos". Someone at an education agency meeting, talking about the problems of getting sloppy kids to take stuff home and how reports get scrunched up at the bottom of school bags.
"Well, as far as breasts go, Dianne has always been volumptuous." (A comment made by a friend of a buxom wordspy during a "girl’s lunch" in June 2006.)
"Oh, I couldn’t play golf with you … I’m just a novelist." (New golfer to experienced golfing wordspy.)
"The radio was running funny stories about Christmas and they asked people to ring in with their antidotes."
"If we still get a drip after shutting off that pipe, that’ll annihilate the leak being between the tap and the mains."
"One of the girls at my party said she had a friend who had been into transcendental levitation."
"I helped fight a bushfire that was causing pandemania." (Possible in China!)
"There may be a bird flu panadeine soon."
"He said the benchmark was floored because it gave no indication that the treatment … was adequate." (Brisbane newspaper, 2005).
"I’m not very good at explaining the intuitive finance maths stuff as I just rope-learn it." (A writer’s comment to his editor’s suggested change.)
"He was nothing but a bold-face liar."
"I didn’t enjoy my first tour in East Timor, but the second was better because they’d got the new infantstructure sorted out."
Copied from an internet bulletin board, so I couldn’t hear the word hoped: "I made a new home-brew beer and hopped it would be fermenting by the next morning."
"Daddy, this computer game shows you how you get better when you’ve finished a game, cos it says ‘Bad’ then, as you get better, ‘Fair’ then ‘Good’ then, when you’re really good, ‘Good’, with an explanation mark."
"She’s underhand and cunning, and she’ll tell outright lies to get what she wants, but she’s duvious about getting her own way this time."
"The campground turned into a clogmire."
"My neighbour has that post-dramatic disorder thing."
"He did it off his own back."
"We’ve finished the house: now we have to get the landscraper in."
"He asked her to take her clothes off, but she demured."
"I really like smashed potatoes." (Child)
"We need to garnish support from our stakeholders."
"Mummy, would you buy me a flingshot?"
"This town is just getting too popularised." (Frustrated driver unable to park @ Surfers Paradise.)
"Maryborough has a transigent population." (Suggestion: intransigent = will not compromise (cannot be moved), so transigent = can be moved.)
"Did they have to excavate the Tax Office building too?" (Person evacuating a building because of a bomb scare.)
"He wrote under a pseudoname."
"I stabbed my toe on the bath."
"A change in policy was muted."
"Brian Abbott is not adverse to escaping from custody."
"but with the benefit of hindsense …"
"He used a lot of double-innuendo."
"I made this appointment on the pretence that the meeting ended at 5 p.m."
"I may be a palestine, but I don’t like those sun-dried tomatoes."
"It all goes well for the future." (Sports commentator on TV trying to say it augurs well.)
"My nephew said last night that soccer was a relief valve for him."
"No Parking, including weekends, emergency vehicles accepted" (sign at the Queensland Police Academy.)
"No swearing aloud" (sign in a pub at Mt Isa).
"Of course, Gary wasn’t good enough for her, so she spawned his advances."
"They did it in one foul swoop."
"She had to have her throat modules taken out."
"She was laying on the flattery when introducing the Vice Chancellor, and he was up there on the stage, pruning himself."
"So I think I got my just deserves."
"The break in the bone had rugged edges."
"They only care about the hierarchy here — they don’t care a damn about the middlerachy and lowerarchy." (Queensland department store employee complaining of unequal pay rises. When questioned, she swore she wasn’t being as brilliant as this turned out. She thought they were real words.)
"The house was like a pig-style."
"The trouble is the astringent health and safety regulations being imposed on us."
"The tsunami wrecked havoc in the area."
"They were in cohorts with the troublemakers."
"This weekend, I must clear the garden of obnoxious weeds."
Masters of Barbaric Abstractitis (MBA)
Once upon a time, newspaper reporters started their careers as cadets, or cubs, under the supervision of red-nosed, chain-smoking, no-nonsense reporters. People now charge $1000 per hour to give you advice on how to change your business (change management) even if they have not managed to even boil an egg. In an ancient time during which I just don’t know how we ever got anything done, managers started their management careers sweeping the floor and collecting mail, then worked their way up. In those dark ages, we did not have university degrees in much more than Classics, medicine, science and engineering. How on earth did we manage in such ignorance? George Stevenson (steam engineer) could hardly read. Gerry Harvey, I heard, ran his empire from behind boxes of samples in a room above a shop in Bankstown, and doesn’t know much about operating computers.
Since we now need a degree to even allow us into a fish and chip shop to work out what we want to eat, we have developed some quite interesting degrees in all kinds of subjects including blowing leaves from one side of the path to the other with one of those machines whose owners should be shot on the spot. My favourite among the new degrees is the MBA, or Master of Barbaric Abstractitis. This article gives you tips on how to obtain this qualification even easier than you can at present.
If we need to define what an MBA is, and assuming we know that the M stands for Master, we can complete the degree’s definition from these two entries in the second edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage:
Barbaric
Abstractitis
"… of the simple, unsophisticated, uncultured, unchastened, tasteless or excessive kind that prevails among barbarians."
"The effect of this disease … is to make the patient write such sentences as: ‘Early expectation of a vacancy is indicated by the firm’ instead of ‘The firm say they expect to have a vacancy soon’.
There is no need for me to give you a long list of common barbaric abstractions written by MBAs as you will find them all beautifully and wryly recorded in Don Watsons’s Death Sentence, but a few recent ones will get you in the mood:
Barbaric abstraction
plain language
going forward
in future*
high-wealth individual
wealthy person
fulsome apology
sincere apology
entry-level
basic
low socioeconomic group
poor people
on a daily basis
daily
corporate governance
business management
*(If going forward is in the future, why don’t they say going backward for previously; or even going sideways for at this particular point in time?)
These sorts of formations from businesspeople (corporate executives) are spreading to non-business areas, as people who edit educational materials will already know. There is something fascinating about the wordspittle that fulsomely sprays from the mouths of people who recently graduated with a degree in teaching ("learning management" in one nearby university). I particularly like this line, from a recent Queensland school syllabus: "Understanding of the world is mediated by language codes and conventions and this is reflected in products." Well, I’ve always said that.
Many people who do language for a living have been taken by surprise by the fast spread of barbaric abstractitis. Why is it so popular when it is so heartily laughed at? Why, also, is it becoming so popular with news reporters, the very people we look to to keep it under control?
They are not only being struck down by abstractitis, they are also picking up on other people’s mistakes or unnecessary contortions. One mistake deserves another. A good example is the unnecessary emphasis people put on the last syllabus of employer and employee. Until five years ago, radio commentators assumed that listeners had enough brain to understand the obvious difference between these words, but now we regularly hear employer and employee, as if we were too stupid to work out the difference.
Another belief (nearly 1000 years old) is the continuing one that it’s posher to use a non-English word instead of the native. We hear clever dicks talking about trends "on bourses all around the world" as if bourse were somehow a more descriptive word than stockmarket. Even though we’re used to it, and thoroughly sick of it, boutique is now used universally as a synonym for "overpriced and not big". In France, it was once nothing more than a small shop.
Mission statement or strategic planning element generator
Some people think it’s hard to sit down and write corporate strategic plans or even a mission statement. That’s because they are thinking of real-life ideas from their business but find it hard to encapsulate those ideas into dignified, businesslike phrases.Instructions, using the generator chart supplied (GCS)
You simply write your name, in groups of five letters, in a table. You then replace the letters of your name with matching elements picked from the chart provided later on this page. You're free to switch words here and there to make sense or give the thing more force. You can find spare words in the columns at the bottom of the chart
Example from name PETER FOWLER
The first row uses the five letters P-E-T-E-R, the second row uses the five letters F-O-W-L-E. For more, just keep writing in groups of five letters, so that the third row would be R-P-E-T-E and so on.
Col 1
Col 2
Col 3
LINK
Col 2 repeat
Col 3 repeat
P
E
T
[keep blank for link]
E
R
F
O
W
[keep blank for link]
L
E
This example gives two strategic plan elements, but you can make any number of MBA-approved phrases by continually repeating your name down the table as many times as you want.
Result, using exact wording from the matrix (further down the page)
Col 1
Col 2
Col 3
LINK
Col 2 (repeat)
Col 3 (repeat)
P=migrate
E=efficient & effective
T=partnerships
[choose a link]
E=robust (robust is a spare; avoids repeat "efficient & effect.")
R=client cohort
F = cleave to (spare)
O = equity-balanced
W = positive differences
[choose a link]
L = macro-resourced
E = approaches
Migrate efficient and effective partnerships going forward to forming robust client cohorts.
Cleave to equity-balanced positive differences whilst taking cognizance of macro-resourced approaches.
Mission statement generator element matrix
Hints for keeping your generator fresh:
Names that match the job (happy families)
From the Times (Britain) a 26 March 2010 article on Pensions was written by Antonia Senior.
From ABC News at abc.net.au/news on 13 February 2010: "Melbourne insulation industry leader Warrick Batt says he told Environment Minister Peter Garrett that some imported fibreglass products had high levels of the chemical and other dangerous substances." In Australila, insulation panels are called batts.
On BBC radio on 31 January 2010, one of our British wordspies heard: "the chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Mr. Francis Crook …"
"However, Queensland Water Commission chief executive Dan Spiller …"
"The company needs to be more forthcoming with information," Australian Greens marine spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert said today. (When you know her name is pronounced "seaward", this is brilliant for a marine spokesperson.)
Good name for a transport minister/secretary: From the Telegraph (www.telegraph/co/uk), 15 February 2009: "Heathrow airport to get third runway, Geoff Hoon announces. Heathrow airport, in London, will be expanded with the building of a third runway, Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary has confirmed."
Good name for a state treasurer. Sky internet news, 5 September 2008: "It's reported NSW Premier Morris Iemma has dumped controversial Treasurer Michael Costa."
Checking for tree lopping services in Brisbane, wordspy Darinka Copak came across "Tree Musketeers"
In May 2008 the same spy found a secondhand clothing shop in Surfers Paradise called "The Way we Wore"
On Channel 9’s "What’s good for you?" program on Monday 19 March 2007 was sex educator Sally Cockburn.
A competitor in the under-15 cycle racing class at the 2006 Australian championships in Queensland in October 2006: "Sam Spokes".
The Times of London, on 19 July 2006, was a reference to a UK High Court Judge, Lord Justice Judge.
E. Dehn was the name of the head gardener working for the landscape architect who planned the landscaping at the Chicago World Fair in 1893.
A boy in my friend’s class at school in Sydney was named Junior Constable, and he was planning to join the Police Service when he left school. This meant that, at his first promotion, he would have been Senior Constable Junior Constable.
Kevin Watts, electrician in Brisbane’s western suburbs.
Dr Natalya Lusty, lecturer in gender studies at the University of Sydney.
Eric F. Box Funerals, in Yorkshire, UK.
Richard W. Box Funeral Home. (USA)
Dr M Cervenak, the name of the physician who did a cervical spine x-ray on my mother.
Chief economist of the Australian Housing Industry Association in 2005 and 2006 was Simon Tennent.
A steel-spar buoy used in fishing in the South Pacific was designed by Lt Cmdr Richard Boy of the US Coast Guard.
Secretary of Australia’s Sex Workers’ union in 2005 was Julie Swallow.
CEO of Ports Corporation of Queensland in 2005 was Brad Fish.
A leading brain surgeon mentioned in Clementine Churchill by Mary Soames was Sir Russell Brain.
Names, funny, and that should not have been allowed
Meat pie anyone?
In Melbourne, there’s a company called The Sweeny Todd Medical Waste Disposal Company. Their website, www.sweeneytodd.com.au/about.asp, starts with: "It is the vision of Sweeney Todd Medical Waste Disposal to provide their clients an unequalled service in infectious waste disposal. It is the company's policy to continue to strive for the highest standards in …"
Cat pee
Believe it or not, in Queensland education circles, even after the dreadful WOG (Whole-of-Government), TAFE’s "Certificate of Adult Tertiary Preparation" was often shortened to CAT-P. It is incredible that people can say this with a straight face. I have asked them to repeat it out loud, and then ask them whether they heard what they’d said. The response was usually a blank look. CAT-P cries out for organisations with similarly impossible acronyms, such as Director of Government Personnel Units (DOGPU) or British Universal Language Standards for High-level Industrial Tribunals (BULSHIT).
A sh*t of a name
It is almost too hard to believe, but in Loganlea, a place near Brisbane, there is a street called Fistula Street. None of my English-language dictionaries give fistula a second meaning to describe an exotic flower, a tropic wind, or a sweet-smelling fruit, although my gardening book does have the name cassia fistula for the golden shower flower. My Latin dictionary gives me pipe, tube, shepherd’s pipe. But, however hard we try, fistula will always be, first and foremost, a nasty canal. Perhaps Fistula Street is a short cut to Arsehole Avenue.
Don’t have these in your kitchen
The ugliest word in English is the name for the ugliest thing you can think of. Despite this, and obviously without any research, the manufacturer of some quite posh and expensive kitchen equipment slap their name "SMEG" in big letters across the front of their appliances.
New words, and old ones resurrected
Words that I first heard after I’d turned sixty
Centric: (found in a document in 2008) centred or centred-on, as in "RemServ is a quality centric company focused on creating value for our clients, through the provision of salary packaging and related services. (http://www.remserv.com.au/)
High net-worth individual: rich person.
Power-down issues: (heard on Channel 10 in 2005 as a motorbike racing term for grip).
To helm: to run, to control the helm, as in this mindless drivel: "Paramount has tapped Ryan Murphy for ‘Need’, signing the ‘Nip/Tuck’ creator-exec producer to helm the psychological thriller set up at Sony-based Escape Artists ..."
To further: seems to be the same as to progress as in this line from a CV: "1995: furthered studies in Feng Shui and the Yi-Jing — Dr. Zheng Zhan Ding, Beijing, China" or this extract from the Queensland Studies Authority’s director’s newsletter entry: "There is nothing further to report on the director’s position other than the process is still being furthered."
To inform: The use of inform to mean inspire, shape, influence, help determine, contribute to, form the basis of, is at least 400 years old (see your SOD). But in my lifetime (1941– ), it has not been used by ordinary people to mean that, and its use has been restricted to a formal way of saying to tell. But the influence meaning of inform has rushed back into prominence in the past twenty years by educators: "use assessment results to inform teaching practice" and artists: "The artist’s visit to the Tate informed his later works." Car mechanics, stockbrokers, greengrocers and doctors don’t say it. To me, inform has an exclusive ring to it. The people who use it make me feel they’re part of an exclusive, better-educated, group. It sounds pompous and starchy, and would be better done away with. It has done for influence verbs what to address has done for all the verbs it has replaced (see article "Addressing the issue of addressing the issue".)
Useful or funny neologisms heard or invented
24/7 (worldwide, in speech and informal writing): Twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. Everyone knows what it means, and it’s neat and short (after all, people say e.g., and we all say OK).
apostrophy (mine): As "atrophy" is a wasting away generally, then "apostrophy" is the wasting away of people who know where the apostrophe should go.
awkword: a word that is difficult to pronounce.
charisn'tma (Dennis Nordern, on BBC's "My Word") what a boring person has.
bed-raggled (Dylis Powell, on BBC's "My Word") what older people look like when they get up in the morning.
bicoastal: (Reported by Robert Doolan, who heard a Hollywood gossip commentator on Channel 7's "Sunrise" program, week ending Friday 7 March 2008, talking about an actor who is now bicoastal because he has a house in California and another in Florida.)
canutize(mine, verb): To foolishly think you can stop an inevitable event. It’s short and funny, and it lampoons the twits who think they can do it.
cremains: the remains of someone who has been cremated.
earworm: an uninvited song or tune that repeats over and over inside your head.
ego wall: a wall on which to hang your degrees, awards, and photos in which you appear with famous people.
Generation XL: overweight children or young adults.
grammer slack: the tolerance shown by most internet users for small spelling and grammatical errors.
Ich liebe dick (mine): motto of lustful German women.
job spill: work that spills into your own time.
keyboard plaque: the dirt or grime that accumulates on your computer keyboard.
male answer syndrome: the compulsion by many people (mostly men) to answer any question, regardless of knowledge.
mind-maggots: unimaginative new meanings for words that should have been left alone.
peccadildo (mine): what a wife has when she prefers her vibrator to her husband.
prooflisten: check a recording for errors.
RUF (mine, in conjunction with Brisbane editor Helena Bond): Although RUF sounds like rough, it is an acronym for Removing Unwanted Formatting. Says Pamela Hewitt, editor of an online publishing magazine, and leader of a publishing training company: "The next step in electronic editing is to make a copy of the original file and clean up the formatting … I am indebted to Queensland editors, Helena Bond and Paul Bennett, for the clever name RUF file."
unibrow: hair between eyebrows that makes the two brows appear to be joined.
uptalka: manner of speaking in which declarative sentences are uttered with a rising intonation as though they were questions.
wrap rage: extreme anger caused by product packaging that is difficult to open or manipulate.
Old but uncommon words found by me, mostly in the Times Literary
Supplement
hierophant: an official expounder of rites and worship (ancient Greece). (See English Saga (1840–1940), Arthur Bryant’s third book in his 1940 history series, page 308, 4 lines down.)
comium: formal expression of praise
menarche: onset of menstruation
nosology: systematic classification of diseases
hoyden: rude or ill-tempered girl; tomboyish
festschrift: commemorative collection of articles written by a collection of authors to honour a colleague
docent (US): a college lecturer with a rank inferior to a professor
vedette: 1. small patrol boat 2. mounted scout in advance of army 3. stage/screen star (?)
lacuna: 1. cavity or pit in cells, bones etc. 2. gap in a manuscript
prolix: unnecessarily long-drawn-out writing/speech
excursus: a detailed discussion in a book; incidental digression
Niggardly
People with any sense of proportion are outraged when they learn that a senior person in the USA lost his job because he correctly used a correct term which was incorrectly interpreted as incorrect by people with power.
Here are details of the "Niggardly" controversy from http://www.adversity.net/special/niggardly.htm
Reproduced by permission of Tim Fay, and edited to remove some references that repeat what others said.
Racial intolerance, ignorance, and misplaced political correctness have cost a white mayoral aide his job in Washington, DC. The city population is 65% to 85% black, and the citizens have been criticizing their new black mayor for "not being black enough" and for having hired several extremely well-qualified whites to help him operate this troubled city.
New DC Mayor Anthony Williams gladly accepted the resignation of the aide who uttered the word niggardly in a private staff meeting. William’s acceptance of (white) aide David Howard’s resignation is tantamount to firing him.
Webster’s Tenth Edition defines the word niggardly to mean "grudgingly mean about spending or granting". The Barnhard Dictionary of Etymology traces the origins of niggardly to the 1300s, and to the words nig and ignon, meaning "miser" in Middle English. Nowhere in any of these references is any mention of racial connotations associated with the word niggardly.
In other words, it’s a perfectly good and useful word. It simply means "miserly" or even "cheap" or "penny-pinching". But there is the unfortunate coincidence that it starts with the same four letters as the word nigger. The news media are so loathe to use the "N" word, that they’ve been substituting the phrase racial slur, as in "...they mistook the word niggardly for a racial slur..."
Below are several [number reduced for "Love Your Language"] prominent news stories about this insane and sad example of ignorance and racial intolerance:
"Beyond 'Niggardly': Hypocrisy at the NAACP" (New York Post, 02/02/99 by Michael Myers) Stupidity has no color but ignorance sure is transparent. And ignorance showed through last week when Anthony Williams, the new black mayor of Washington, D.C., accepted the resignation of Public Advocate David Howard, who is white. Howard’s offense was sounding offensive: In a staff meeting, he used a perfectly good word — niggardly — to describe the administration of a fund. Mayor Williams’ pitiful explanation for accepting Howard’s resignation? "I don’t think the use of [that n word] showed the kind of judgment that I like to see in our top management."
…
"D.C. Mayor Acted ‘Hastily,’ Will Rehire Aide" (Thu. Feb. 4, 1999 - Washington Post) … The mayor said that an internal review had "confirmed for me that Mr. Howard did use the word niggardly, but did not use a racial epithet" during a Jan. 15 discussion with two employees of the Office of the Public Advocate.
…
Washington Post, 02/04/99, page A1, by Yolanda Woodlee: "Student Demands ‘Niggardly’ be Prohibited at University of Wisconsin"
Student Amelia Rideau is upset that her professor used the ‘N-ardly’ word at least twice: Once on Jan. 25 during a class on 14th-century English poet Geoffrey Chaucer, and once in a subsequent class to explain the word’s meaning. Ms. Rideau was outraged, and is demanding the UW implement a speech code which would punish anyone using what she described as ‘offensive’ language - including the ‘N-ardly’ word. She urged the university not to require proof of intent before punishing verbal villains such as her professor.
…
"Ancient Word Costs Man His Job" (01/28/99)
[DC Mayoral aide] David Howard could have used the word miserly to describe how he administered a Washington city government fund. Instead, he chose niggardly, and it cost him his job. Niggardly means Scrooge-like. But it sounds a lot like a racial slur, and a few of Howard’s [uninformed] colleagues took offense. The mayor backpedaled a bit Wednesday, the day after Howard resigned. The mayor said an investigation was under way and Howard might return to the staff in a different job if he’s ultimately judged to have done nothing wrong.
…
"A waspish, niggardly 'slur'" (02/08/99 - U.S. News) The nonimpeachment story of the last week of January was the controversy over the word niggardly. … The resignation of Howard was, of course, a shock and a tragedy but it had a good result too. It sensitized us all to the hidden and hurtful ethnic slurs that darken — oops, sorry — that afflict American life and allow the wily perpetrators to get off scot free–er, without any punishment at all. (U.S. News, 02/08/99 edition, by John Leo)
…
Daily Globe, 01/31/99: "Resignation doesn’t help race relations"
...Niggardly, for the record, means miserly. It has always meant miserly. Niggardly has no relation to that other word most of us find so offensive. Unfortunately, though, the two people who heard the official’s comments were unfamiliar with the word "niggardly." They assumed it was a variation of that other word, and they reacted in horror.
…
Said James Wright, editor of the Afro-American, a black weekly newspaper in Washington: "The problem with Anthony Williams is that many people feel that a lot of white people are pulling his strings. If you look at Tony Williams, he’s a nerdy, geeky type of person". (San Jose Mercury News, 01/30/99, by Tony Pugh and Tracey A. Reeves)
…
Webster’s Tenth Edition concurs, defining [niggardly] as "grudgingly mean about spending or granting." The dictionary dates its use to the late 16th century. Because the word sounds like a racial epithet, Howard said, he realized other members of the mayor’s staff present when he made the remark were offended. He said he quickly apologized. (Associated Press, via Boston Herald, 01/26/99)
NAACP Chairman Critical of Mayor in Washington Word Flap (01/28/99) "The chairman of the NAACP says Washington Mayor Anthony Williams acted in a ‘niggardly’ way by accepting the resignation of an aide who offended some people by using that word in a conversation. "You hate to think you have to censor your language to meet other people’s lack of understanding", Julian Bond said today, noting niggardly means stingy and has no offensive connotation even though it sounds similar to a slur. "This whole episode speaks loudly to where we are on issues of race. Both real and imagined slights are catapulted to the front burner. Seems to me the mayor [Anthony Williams] has been niggardly in his judgment on this issue." In addition to being chairman of the largest civil rights organization, Bond, who is black, teaches at the University of Virginia and is a student of language. "We have a hair-trigger sensibility and I think that is particularly true of racial minorities," he said. "These affronts do happen, they are expected to happen, and even innocent parties can find themselves victims." (Associated Press, via Fox News 01/28/99, by Deb Riechmann)
Numbers' days numbered
You’ll know that a word or way of speaking is on its way to a change when educated people start using it. This has happened already with you and I instead of you and me — even the best people now say: "Let’s keep this between you and I". It makes I shudder, but it's the way things go. It’s happening with number agreement, too, and we’re right in the middle of a big change. Listen all around you and you’ll hear "There’s lots of differences between you and I" or "There was about 65 people looking at that rental place yesterday." I can understand people saying there's instead of there are because it's physically easier, even though it's wrong. This will be the accepted form in a couple of years’ time, the same as how we now write in ten years time without the apostrophe. Here’s (here is) some examples:
A senior school assessment officer from a Queensland education agency, writing in a school guide: "There is three parts to this task and two criteria are assessed."
Mr De Griffin, a director of nursing in an area of Queensland, talking about a new hospital auxiliary funding scheme: "There is several areas of Queensland interested in this."
ABC TV News, early October: "There is no grounds for going ahead."
Channel 7 drama-documentary "Border Security", 8 October 2007: "Both lots of cash is to be seized."
Scripted TV advertisement for Delfin Homes, 8 October 2007 (a resident of a Delfin project saying why he likes living there): "The local parks and the bike tracks is great."
Helpful sales assistant at Bunnings, Nerang, in 2007: "There is some cleaning agents in aisle 13."
TV sports reporter at motorbike grand prix: "Here is the qualifying highlights."
The managing director of Brisbane’s Property Solutions, Kevin Miller, speaking in the article "Clean-up begins" by Brooke Falvey in Brisbane News July 2006: "We can’t get rid of [squatters] and there’s needles everywhere."
ABC TV promo on 31 May 2006, at 9 pm: "There’s more fascinating people and places on ABC."
The heavily ministered Clare Martin, Northern Territory Chief Minister, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Asian Relations and Trade, Minister for the AustralAsia Railway, and Minister for Indigenous Affairs, on ABC RN’s "PM" program on 24 May 2006 said: "There has been a lot of comments made …"
Centrelink worker during her talk about what she did after the London bomb blasts of 7 July 2005 "…there was lots of helicopters overhead."
Spoken by Fran Kelly, ABC RN’s "Breakfast" on 24 May 2006: "We’d be mad not to [export] nuclear energy if there’s profits there."
From The Sunday Mail TV guide, 21 May 2006, Channel SBS at 2030, for the show "The Cutting Edge": "There is an estimated 250,000 North Korean refugees living underground in China…"
From Craig Foster, on ABC RN’s "Sports Report" at 0830 on 28 April 2006, talking about the Australian Soccer team: "We’re the best competitors that there is".
ABC presenter Anita Barrow asking details of the 21st birthday party of the young person at the centre of the report on ABC RN’s "Law Report" 2 May 2006: "Is there going to be any special friends?"
Peter Beattie, premier of Queensland, on ABC TV’s 7pm news on 23 May 2006: "If there needs to be more changes, we’ll look at that."
Opposites: one phrase, two opposite meanings
Words and terms that have opposite meanings, both "correct"
cleave = stick together; split apart
biannual (biweekly etc.) = every two years; twice each year (etc.)
inflammable = easy to catch fire; impossible to catch fire
oversight = mistake, possibly caused by poor supervision; supervision, management
raise = lift up; raze = crash down
sanction = a refusal to allow something; a blessing on something
sustain = suffer from, incur painfully; keep something in good condition
unbending = throwing off stiffness; stiff, inflexible
uptight = nervous; relaxed (now archaic, last used, in my knowledge, by ABBA in a Eurovision song.
Owing to problems due to due to, because of and owing to, we don’t use them
There are times when our language has too much choice, as in start, begin, initiate, and commence. We have all these words for starting something, but we still can’t choose a neutral word for he or she.
Apart from a load of words for begin, we also have more than one word for something between which there is not much difference, if any, as in due to, owing to, and because of. Hardly anyone gets these right, or consistent. Fowler’s article "Analogy" at point 3, can get you thoroughly confused by it all. Due to is most safely used to mean caused by or attributed to ("our delay was due to the traffic jam"; "his grey hairs were due to age") and some say it should not start a sentence. Owing to means because of, and may be used in various parts of a sentence ("Owing to the traffic jam, we were delayed").
To avoid all of these possible problems, I simply walk around the problem and use because of, caused by, or through.
Paris Hilton is down-to-earth and useful
To prove that Paris Hilton is down to earth and useful, here are a couple of snippets from "Waxing lyrical", by Robin Lynch, an interview with Paris Hilton in New Idea, July 2004.
How did you start your career?
My family taught me to be humble, to work for something and to make something of my own. I was like: "I want to make more money than my parents."
What is the biggest misconception people have about you?
That I don’t work for a living. I really work hard, harder than anyone I know. People are like: "I don’t know how you do it …." I’m like: " I know."
How did you find a boyfriend named Paris [Latsis]?
He came up to me and he was like: "Hi, my name’s Paris." I was like: "I am too."
Is pass-through just passing through?
Fran Kelly, anchor of ABC RN's "Breakfast" made fun of a new expression that has just popped up today, 3 October 2008. The term is pass-through. It's a noun meaning something like "the amount passed on", and it is a result of our prime minister, Kevin Rudd, being concerned that commercial banks should pass on the full amount of interest-rate reductions made by the Reserve Bank of Australia. For example, if the RBA reduced the interest rate by 0.5%, the maximum pass-through would result in a commercial bank passing on the full 0.5% to its customers. If they passed on only 0.25%, it would not be the maximum pass-through. The important snatch from Mr Rudd's speech on 2 October is: "… consumers should get the maximum pass-through …".
Pincer movement on English
Long before we had socio-economic groups, the class system delineated society's ranks. This class system was particularly strong in Britain and its empire. The British Commonwealth now has a range of systems. Some people say that Australia does not have the class system; others say she does and others say she is trying to have it.
Before the most obvious signs of this divisive institution were swept away by the social revolution of the 1960s, some people remarked that aristocrats, on one hand, and the working classes on the other, showed similarities in some facets of their behaviour. It was said that both ends of the class system could afford to be eccentric, either because they did not care whom they insulted or because they did not know better.
Although the class system is advertised as being dead, I think that we are in the middle of the creation of a new, wordo-social system in which English usage trends are set by those at the top and the bottom of a sort of intellectual class system. Educated groups — educators, politicians and senior public servants — are at the top of the system. Those who learned nothing at school are at the bottom. All the rest are in the middle classes.
By making such formal distinctions, we can see how the tops and bottoms of systems are the driving forces of those systems. Just as Winston Churchill could smoke a cigar, drink brandy, and eat kippers and milk chocolate during the same course, and yer Little Aussie Battler can drink claret with a pork vindaloo, so can the tops and bottoms of the new wordo-social system create disgusting terms. Let’s look at an example or two.
The term de facto has long been used, mainly in legal terminology, to mean something that is in the place of a legally-recognised thing. Since the revolution, couples living in sin have had trouble introducing their other half. Trendy, educated people in the 1970s started saying "This is my lover" but this died out as quickly as their affairs. Others tried "This is the person I live with" or "This is the person with whom I share my life" but it all became too wordy and artificial. Then, during what must have been an early well-publicised legal case, somebody referred to the slain person-with-whom-he-or-she-lived as: "the de facto husband of …". What a relief! All over the Western World now, lower wordo-social persons introduced their with-whom-they-lived-person as "My de facto spouse".
Soon, everybody was having a de facto relationship (which can’t have been half as much fun as having a real one). After this, it was not long before de facto became a noun for the person with whom you were nearly having a relationship. Five years from now [now=1994] the noun de facto on its own will mean "de facto spouse" and the use of de facto in other contexts will have to be dropped.
The same thing happened with relationships. In the days when persons were persons, people had love affairs. Even though an affair, on its own, soon became the euphemism for a love affair, it retained mystery, colour and a promise of something forbidden. Why did affair have to go? Was it because only the upper classes had affairs while the lower classes had a fancy man or a bit on the side? Whatever the reason, affair went and it had to be replaced by something. This was the time of the great revolution and, as we have seen, everybody was having a de facto relationship. Through the gradual decay of the entry requirements, you didn’t even have to live in sin to claim a relationship. All you had to do was knock off the de facto (as an adjective of course), and you were left with a relationship. From this brilliant piece of lower wordo-social-group logic came the new impossibility of having a relationship with a parent or child.
Now let us whizz towards the other end of the trend-setting continuum and study four examples of attacks on sensible English, this time mounted by the higher end of the wordo-social system:
• On 29 June, on the wireless, I heard a guest speaker, Max Prentis, say about a hard lesson he had learned about finance: "… it was a hard learning curve…".
• I think it was Bob Hawke who first refused to resile.
• As early as 1966, Mr Horner, an executive of Ford Australia wrote (and I know because I was there): "… some dealers have shown a disimprovement in their profit situation this year".
• The silliest upper wordo-social invention is off-shore for overseas. This term must have been enslaved by a businessperson who was bored with overseas investments. It is important to some people (those on oil rigs, for example) to distinguish between off-shore and overseas but they are no longer allowed to.
I will not bore you with a list of the claptrap that you probably already have to carve your way through every day. I will, though, ask you to take a note of any new expression and where you first noticed it. It may be possible to draw up a dictionary of silly expressions with footnotes on their origins and a conclusion about the pincer movement on plain English being undertaken by both flanks of the wordo-social aggressors.
Quotations: PC, funny, wrong, or "official" language
(Some of these are gaffs from Channel 10’s motorbike racing broadcasts. I am not picking on the excellent commentators there — it’s just that motorbike racing is the only sport I watch, so there is a natural over-representation from this sport.)
Gobbledegook Prize for 2010 so far. A March 2010 Melbourne job ad: "Looking for an experienced Information Architect with background and skills in copywriting for the digital space. Must have a proven record of creating engaging interactive experiences with a focus on usability and best practice IA and UX principles."
Other Alice-in-Wonderland words in this ad were: "usability driven design and testing", and "appropriate use of language in the digital space".
Using the fabulous new term "Information architect" gives scope for a better-sounding name for many jobs, such as:
Car mechanic: Vehicular Issue Addressal Architect
Waitress: Point-of-Sale Food Supply Architect
Proofreader: Word–Punctuation Paradigm Architect
Job-ad writer: Organic Resource Acquirement-Tool Architect
Jockey: Height-Reduced Equinal Locomotion Architect
Pirate: Marine Possessions Extraction Architect
On 21 September 2009, a reporter for BBC News described how England avoided a humiliating defeat by Australia in a one-day cricket match. Although I cannot track down the verbatim account, I heard it clearly, twice, and the reporter used denouement instead of defeat or humiliation. If you ever read this, BBC reporter, denouement means the unravelling of a plot.
ABC Radio National’s "Breakfast" program on 3 September 2009 featured the chief economist of the National Australia Bank, Alan Oster, talking to Fran Kelly about Australia’s economy and the Reserve Bank’s interest rate policies. He said:
"At the end of the day, when you look back in terms of going forward, Australia has grown over the past 12 months."
In an article in The Economist of 25 June 2009, Ethiopia’s prime minister Meles Zenawi said, explaining his reluctance to send troops back across the border to Somalia, after 800 of his soldiers were killed earlier this year: "We don’t want to be the horse taking the chestnut out of the fire and then being whipped by everyone and his grandmother."
From the ABC News website, 19 May 2009, this snippet from Senator Barnaby Joyce, possibly a mistake in transcription: "There's nothing to stop those with a political bent setting up a club or setting up an institution and using that as a mechanism of sorts for ciphering funds to themselves".
A respondent to an ABC "Have your say" forum in April 2009 said: "O yes, I am a scare mongrel, that what they said 35 years ago a lot of people when I was discussing global warming back then."
"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
R.J.Wiedemann, Lt.Col.- USMC Ret.
It's so annoying when you hear something unforgiveable on the radio, but it's too late to know who said it. Usually I just let it go because an unattributed quote is almost worthless. But I had to record the term dismissal environment used by a woman on ABC radio in August 2008 when she said something like "This will apply to any dismissal environment". So now we have another, friendly term for getting the sack.
If you don't stop that you'll go blind. From the leaflet inside the Viagra packet: "If you lose eyesight in one or more eyes, seek medical attention urgently". (One or more is neat.)
When Virginia Trioli, in an ABC "Q & A" TV show in July 2008, asked Liberal politician Tony Abbot why he kept referring to Labor's Emission Trading Scheme as the Howard Government's plan, he said: "Well it's a carbon copy of what the Howard Government proposed". The way he said it indicated that he didn't mean it to be a quite clever pun.
Mud cake? A TV Channel 10 motorbike grand prix commentator supplied this comment in early 2008 while we watched a famous rider, who'd performed consistently badly this season, crashing his bike: "He's just not doing a thing [this year] — he is completely struggling, and this [crash] is just the icing on the cake."
The ABC (May 2008) talking about subsiding houses in Ipswich said prices were going to slump and that "properties would fall" (not property prices).
Efficient and effective has obviously become worn out. In their Information and Knowledge
Strategic Plan 2007–2011 Queensland Government's education department said "State schools and TAFE institutes will … nurture coherent and cohesive learning experiences that improve learner engagement and achievement …" My Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives: coherent: (adj) that sticks or clings closely together. Cohesive: (adj) having the property of cohering. So, transposing these definitions into our tautologically minded education writer's phrase, we get: "… nurture learning experiences that both stick closely together and have the property of clinging closely together, to improve learner engagement and achievement." How much more poetic that was than: "… devise school lessons that really appeal to students and encourage them to achieve higher standards".
In a film about the 100-year celebrations of motorbike racing in the Isle of Man, one of the entrants was describing his bike, a 1905 Ariel 2.5 h.p. He obviously doesn't know his philes from his phobes because he said: "It's a two-and-a-half horsepower Ariel, built in 1905. For the technophobes, it has an inlet-over-exhaust valve system, clutch ..."
"we're just going to miranda over to the park". [meander? wander?] Personal chat with Gold Coast couple, April 2008.
"We've had more deaths, fatalilities, this year than …" Hughie Williams, Transport Workers Union, talking on ABC RN on Easter Friday, 21.03.08.
A wordspy received this conference promo in March 2008: "Providing invaluable networking and knowledge sharing opportunities, the ESTC 2008 will utilize innovative multi-stakeholder strategies to implement sustainable change for bio-cultural conservation."
From "Not so Fast, Lamborghini driver told", by Tony Keim, Sunday Mail, 9 October 2005: "The Diablo has a top speed of 330km/h and can accelerate from zero to 100km/h in less than four seconds, making it one of only a handful of Australia’s fastest cars."
A Fire brigade person being quoted about something funny happening at Melbourne Airport, 21 Feb 2005: "The fire brigade is in attendance at the Virgin South terminal at Melbourne airport and currently sampling the area where people fell ill earlier on this morning to look for possible contaminants. They’re still in the building and haven’t had a result of anything they may or may not have found."
"Dresden was exterminated" (report on ABC News, Sunday Feb 13 2005)
"At the end of the day, it’s about drawing a line in the sand" (NT opposition spokesperson on health, commenting on what has to be done about petrol-sniffing. ABC RN, 15.10.04 0715.)
"He’s carrying a level of fitness that’ll allow him to race again in the next race" (Clerk of course, speaking over loudspeakers to the crowd at the Brisbane South Bank cycle grand prix, 5 December 2004.)
"After the man ignored orders, which were given in Arabic, the soldiers engaged him with rifle fire." (Australian Defence Force spokesperson, ABC radio 26.1.05, commenting on the death of an Iraqi shot by Australian forces in Iraq in January 2005.)
"It’s an optical illusion that will explode in our face one day" Israeli commenting on Palestinian–Israel efforts at peace talks.
"There will be violence, but we’re well postured to deal with it". Senior US army officer, on SBS TV News (Iraqi election) 26 Jan 2005.
"My vision is for us to be extremely smart, to be world leaders in innovation, and to be able to say, with justification, that we are leading-edge world’s best practice." John McCarthy, Chair, CRC for Construction Innovation, Brisbane.
Following a street shooting in Melbourne on 18 June 2007, a witness reported: "Basically, about 8.10 am, a gentleman grabbed a lady by the scruff of the neck, tried to get into a taxi, then the lady got away, he turned, pulled out a weapon and shot three people at basically point-blank". (ABC News website, 18 June 2007)
"Telstra was reticent to pay the call costs for LifeLine" (0730 ABC News, female Telstra spokesperson).
Wordspy Brian Nott fell about in the supermarket in January 2008. He saw a pack of four dips, proudly called "4 Pack Aussie Dips" [note the Aussie]. The maker’s website, www.blackswan.com.au/dips, has it as: "4 Pack Aussie Dips: A combination of Tzatziki, Guacamole, Spinach & Pinenuts and French Onion Dips." Couldn’t get more Aussie than that.
From Melvyn Bragg, no less, in an episode of Adventures in English, talking about the origins of printing in the West: "Printing began in Gutenberg, Germany, in …"
ABC RN’s "Correspondents’ Report", Sunday 14, 2007: "Africa is armed to the hilt."
Stephen Farrell of The Times talking about the accidental beheading during the hanging of Saddam Hussein’s half-brother, on ABC RN’s "AM", Tuesday 16 January 2007, made an unintentional pun: "… and, in order to head-off the conspiracy theory …"
"…but he still recorded the respectful time of 1 minute, 13 seconds." Commentator at the Red Bull air race, Channel 10 Brisbane, 10 September 2006.
"This is your opportunity to meet John of God, arguably the most powerful unconscious medium alive today…" From an advertisment for Spiritual Healing Tours in the Gold Coast Sun, 30 August 2006.
"What’s different this time [about Australian troops entering East Timor on 25 May 2006] is that the protagonists are East Timorese, not Indonesian." Tony Eastley, ABC RN’s "AM", 26 May 2006.
"There is additional funding in the Budget for anti-family violence, employment and education programs."
Dorothy Pratt MP, in a 2006 letter to the Queensland Studies Authority: "I am concerned that the administration are accepting the whole thing as a fete accompli".
Darryl Beattie, road-racing champion, and expert commentator on Channel 10’s motorbike coverage, on 6 April 2006, at the Qatar moto GP: "Suzuki are trying to make headroads into their championship contention …" (A natural, oral mix-up between headway and inroads.)
Greg Rust, station commentator on Channel 10’s motorbike coverage, on 6 April 2006, at the Qatar moto GP: "Some in the paddock cast all sorts of dispertions over summer about his state of mind."
Greg is also pronouncing lever to rhyme with ever, whereas Australians have always rhymed it with beaver. This marks the spread of US pronunciation, especially by young people, and it probably has quite a bit to do with the ubiquitous leverage, first used in business, now used everywhere to mean everything.
On Google News 24 March 2006: "20 fags a day increases chances of importence by 40 per cent … Male smokers who puff their way through a pack of cigs a day have 40 per cent more chance of becoming impotent than non-smokers."
"The following announcements are proud sponsors of Briz31" Standard advertising promotional item on Brisbane’s Community TV channel, Briz 31. March 2006.
On ABC TV’s "7.30 Report" on 13 March 2006, from sports commentator Peter Wilkins, talking about the recordbreaking, highest-scoring one-day international one-day cricket match in history, in Johannesburg, where South Africa beat Australia on 13 March: "There were unheralded scenes at …"
Person interviewed after the death of three children at a railway line in Goodna on 10 March 2006: "This news is heart-rendering"
On the back of a Brisbane plumber’s van: ‘NO OBLIGATION FREE QUOTES’.
Owner-manager commenting on cheap Gold Coast rentals for older people: "… not suitable for a tourist precinct area".
Union rep commenting on a lock-out: ‘We have availed ourselves for work’.
Other regularly heard phrases: "a qualified professional", "a qualified JP", "a qualified doctor".
Reporter on Channel 9’s "Sunday" program: "Will Labor be skating close to the wind"
On a display ad in the window of a real estate agent's window in Woodridge: "CHEAPIE, CHEAPIE, CHEAPIE [picture]. This house has it all, and the heading reflex the price".
An ad in the employment section of the The Courier-Mail that said they were offering a "generous package to incent the right person".
Part of a report on drowning, on ABC News Radio, October: "The report showed that most drownings occur at beaches, rivers and swimming pools."
In a West End real estate dealer’s window: "This property attributes itself to a grand renovation or a demolition and redevelopment."
A senior judge had a single-vehicle road accident in NSW recently. ABC RN’s "AM" program told us that "the judge drove his Alfa Romero into a tree".
A railway engineer speaking on ABC RN’s "AM" program on 17 November (I think it was in 2002 or 2003): "There are infrastructure issues on the Brisbane–Townsville section of the track that need to be addressed."
Announcer on ABC RN’s "AM" program on 17 November (2002 or 2003?), about a railway accident: "the problem could have been caused by the wheels, or bogies as they are known".
Announcer on ABC RN’s "AM" program on 25 November (2002 or 2003?): "Like his predecessor Simon Crean before him, Mark Latham …"
Why say in it five words, when twenty will do? Instead of "No smoking, drinking or eating", a sign inside Brisbane City Council buses says: "For the comfort and health of your fellow passengers smoking is prohibited as is the consumption of food and drink."
Why say it in eight words when thirteen will do? Instead of saying "She and her team have spent over $1m" a law spokesman on ABC News (w/e 11 December 2004) talking about one of Sidney Nolan’s daughters who is involved in a legal tussle over the ownership of a Sidney Nolan painting said: " he and her legal team have expended monies well in excess of $1m".
"It is disappointing when people who have been appraised of that risk choose to ignore it" (Philip Ruddock, talking about the travel warning about Indonesia. ABC Radio on 19 December (2002 or 2003?).
Gillian Bradford reporting on ABC RN’s "Breakfast" on 16 February 2006: "… this will fan the tension already there …"
In late September 2005, someone at a Queensland Government education statutory body got an email from a teacher that ended "Thank you for your patients."
"This event has really pushed back the envelope." (NASA spokesman on SBS’s "News Hour", 5pm, 5 July 2005, describing the projectile fired at a comet in outer space).
"That really gets up my goat." Overheard on a train.
"If the light on the taxi roof is off, it alludes you to the fact that the cab already has a passenger." Somebody on radio.
"It came in the form of a message stick … you know, one of those little things you plug into your computer." (Alexander Downer, describing how he saw some news about a kidnapped Australian person in Iraq, ABC News, TV, 16 June 2005.)
"Well, here we are on one of the world's largest amphibious warships." (Jodie Gummow, QUT TV News reporter in May 2005) ["Amphibious warship" must now be the official word for ships that support amphibious operations. See this note from a website: "…of F-35B joint strike fighter jets, a wide variety of attack helicopters and several thousand crew. The flexible amphibious warships are designed to support the Marine Corps tenet of operational maneuver from the sea, which allows them to travel anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice and is a ship that can hold its position offshore for months at a time.]
"If there’s not tens of them out there, there’s twenty or thirty." (comment on a scandal about pederasts).
"You always know it in your subconscious." Heard on a train.
"He was a very, very good fighter — not a great fighter — but a very good one — one of the greats." (ABC report on death of Max Schmelling, News Radio 5.2.05)
"I am constantly spotting errors in other people’s work — I have a passion for acuracy and attention to detail" (in a job application)
"This film has not been colourised" (Credit line in the TV film "The Colour of War")
"We expect a massive presence from an audience perspective" radio comment from World Vision spokesman about a forthcoming fundraising concert, 6/1/05.
"The Vatican always wants to make it appear that the status quo is in place", ABC Rome correspondent, 3.3.05
"… Azahari, and up to two other men, were inside." ABC Radio reporter commenting on the death of terrorist Azahari Hussin in November 2005.
"Garage à Trois" Name of an Australian music trio
"The Member for Berowra, Philip Ruddock today welcomed the announcement that supermarket shoppers continue to pass up on plastic bags in favour of more environmentally friendly alternatives, with a report released today showing a significant cut in usage." From Philip Ruddock’s personal website, 20 September 2005.
"The decision was made on one criteria and one criteria only." Philip Ruddock, on ABC RN’s "PM", 20 September 2005, commenting on the reasons for appointing new high court judge Susan Crennan.
"I thinks it’s completely appropriate. These gladiators are running the tightrope on the cutting edge of their sport." Captain of the NZ All Blacks Rugby Union team, defending the throat-cutting gesture in the new All Blacks’ Hakka.
"We apologise for this break in transmission. We are currently experiencing technical problems but we are addressing them" ABC announcer, ABC RN, 0530 on 30 August 2005.
"Sean Penn in another exciting and imploding performance." On-screen panel during a trailer for the film The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
"… as they watched the gyrations of world oil prices." Mary Kostakidis, SBS TV news, 23/8/05"Out in Redfern, people are dying on a regular basis." Aiden Ridgeway talking to Philip Adams, LNL, 10 August 2005.
" … it will be done on a without prejudice basis" (Senator Chris Ellison, talking about the Schapelle Corby case, ABC RN 29 July 2005)
"… post-secondary participation" (term used for tertiary study by somebody on ABC RN)
"... irregardless of [something]" Senator Barnaby Joyce, interviewed on ABC RN’s "Breakfast" w/e 1/7/05
Radio report in June 05 about a car-bomb that killed a Lebanese politician: "The bomb was planted under the passenger seat of his black Mercedes". Why the car details? If he’d had a blue Commodore, would they have said: ""The bomb was planted under the passenger seat of his blue Holden"? No. Any time you hear a radio reporter using terms like "his black Mercedes" or " he arrived in his red Porsche", they must be showing something. What is it? prejudice? jealousy? class solidarity?
Small boy, caught picking his nose shortly after being told off for doing so in the first place: "Muu—um, I’m only putting it back" (overheard by wordspy Dianne Bollen).
Sign in West End real estate shop: "Cheap, bedsetter"
"So, if we do have an accident on the Storey Bridge, it can be quickly cleared in a very timely manner" (Campbell Newman, Brisbane Lord Mayor, on ABC RN’s "Breakfast", 0610 31 May 2005.
"A male person who was in the house at the time of the fire is deceased at this stage" (Police spokesman reporting on a NSW house fire on ABC News Radio, 14 October 2004.
"We need to address some of these bottlenecks" (Vic premier Steve Bracks talking on ABC RN’s "Breakfast" about problems to sort out at the 2005 premiers conference)
"At the end of the day, it’s about drawing a line in the sand" (NT opposition spokesperson on health, commenting on what has to be done about petrol-sniffing. ABC RN, 15.10.04 0715.)
"He’s carrying a level of fitness that’ll allow him to race again in the next race" (Clerk of course, speaking over loudspeakers to the crowd at the Brisbane South Bank cycle grand prix, 5 December 2004.)
Quotes from language heroes
Henry Fowler
(When you see "@" it means "in the article" in Fowlers Modern English Usage.)
"[If the writer has used individual instead of person except to contrast the person with society, the family or other body or persons] he must expect us to like his [use of it] as little as we enjoy the fragrance of the smoking room visited early next morning”.
"… it is better to bow to the inevitable than to stand in the way of inevitable change." [my new verb for not bowing to the inevitable is "to Canutize."] @ -ies.
"The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning." W. S. Churchill cited @ incline.
"… now that all women are ladies and none are servants." @ lady.
"To those who have any regard for the language as distinguished from its pliability to their immediate purpose …" @ -less.
"She [Mrs Malaprop] is now the matron saint of all those who go wordfowling with a blunderbuss." @ malapropisms .
"Needless substitution of the abstract for the concrete is one of the surest roads to flabby style." @ membership.
"[Miocene] A typical example of the monstrosities with which scientific men in want of a label for something, and indifferent to all beyond their own province, defile the language." @ miocene.
"that … is a melancholy illustration of the popular taste in language." @ monocle.
"this must have been a remarkable feat of articulation." @ monosyllabic.
"mot juste is an expression which readers would like to buy of writers who use it, as one buys one’s neighbour’s bantam cock for the sake of hearing its voice no more. @ mot
"Those who talk in mathematical language without knowing mathematics go out of their way to exhibit ignorance." @ n.
"one touch of nature makes the whole world kin." @ nature.
"Writers who appear educated enough to know whether a sentence is right or wrong will put down the opposite of what they mean, or something different from what they mean, or what means nothing at all, apparently quite satisfied so long as the reader can be trusted to make a shrewd guess at what they ought to have said instead of taking them at their word; to his possible grammatical sensibilities they pay no heed whatever, having none themselves." @ negative mishandling.
"In the neighbourhood of for about is a repulsive combination of polysyllabic humour and periphrasis." @ neighbourhood.
"A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field." (Orwell, cited @ not.
"Not only out of its place is like a tintack loose on the floor; it might have been most serviceable somewhere else, and is capable of giving acute and undeserved pain where it is." @ not6.
"Some writers are as easily drawn off the scent as young hounds." @ number4.
"… if [grammar] were less despised, we should not have such frequent occasion to weep or laugh at the pitiful wrigglings of those who feel themselves in the toils of this phrase." @ one4.
"… the clever habit applauded at home will make them insufferable abroad." @ pedantic humour.
"[quasi-scientific clichés] "… have many advantages: their use evokes and even releases emotion, they have the knowing look of key concepts, and no one is quite sure what they mean. But any gratification they give to their users is at the cost of the harm done to the language by wearing down the points of words which, one suspects, may not always have been very sharp …" @ popularised technicalities.
"The power of saying people worth talking to instead of people with whom it is worth while to talk is not one to be lightly surrendered." @ preposition at end.
"The lust of sophistication, once bloodied, becomes uncontrollable." @ preposition at end.
"… to use a noun as a verb is a recognised way of adding to our vocabulary. Whether we are justified in doing so in any particular case depends on whether we are supplying a need, or merely inventing an unwanted synonym for an existing word." @ program.
"… quite right is all right, and all right is quite right but quite all right is quite all wrong …" @ quite.
"Previous to and prior to are grammatically blameless but that does not justify their use as substitutes for before because they are thought to be grander or more genteel." @ quasi-adverbs.
"… what have [they] done that their reappearance should be a recrudescence? Nothing, except fall into the hands of journalists who like popularised technicalities and slipshod extensions. This disgusting use is apparantly of the twentieth century only …" @ recrudescence.
"Can any man say that sort of thing and retain a shred of self-respect?." @ recipient.
"Pigs, being equally intent on roots and search, may root or rout (or rootle) indifferently." @ root.
"[if we don’t know the origin of salad days] … it is fitter for parrots’ than for human speech." @ salad days.
"… if the rest of their behaviour does not secure them from insulting suspicions, certainly the apology will not." @ saying (for people who say: "or so the saying goes").
"… there is a rotundity about it [in short supply] that to the official mind no doubt made it seem preferable to scarce." @ short supply.
"… it may be just the phrase he wants, but it is more likely to be one of those clichés that are always lying in wait to fill a vacuum in the brain." @ Siamese twins.
"The intelligent reader, however, is wont to reason that if his author writes loosely he probably thinks loosely also …" @ tautology 3.
"Writers open to overworking [-tion words] would be wise to try doing without them altogether; they would seldom find any great difficulty in it, and they would have a salutary exercise in clear thinking." @ -tion.
"Anyone who was conscious of this weakness might do much to cure himself by taking a pledge to use no relative pronouns for a year …" @ trailers.
"What concerns a writer is much less a word’s history than its present meaning and habits." @ true and false etymology.
Letter: "Dear Sir, We beg to enclose herewith our statement of your account for goods supplied and being desirous of clearing our accounts to end May will you kindly favour us with your cheque in settlement per return, and much oblige …" Reply: "Dear Sirs, You have been misinformed. I have no wish to clear your books." @ unattached participles.
"Thinking that to say the word [varsity] shows intimacy with the undergraduate’s characteristic language, they naturally put it into places where it would never occur to him, and reveal themselves not as natives, but as foreigners." @ varsity.
"L’auteur, dans son oeuvre, doit être comme Dieu dans l’univers, présent partout et visible nulle part." Flaubert @ verbless sentence.
"This tendency looks like pride of knowledge, the man in the street who is familiar with the two forms [villain and villein] having to be shown that he has been under a delusion all this time." @ villain.
"Despite her great age, Mrs Jones is fairly virile …" Perhaps the reporter associated virile with viridis green, not vir man, and was thinking of a green old age." @ virile.
"Ready acceptance of vogue words seems to some people the sign of an alert mind; to others it stands for the herd instinct and lack of individuality … the better the writer, or at any rate the sounder his style, the less will he be found to indulge in the vogue word." @ vogue words.
Many words depend for their legitimate effect upon rarity; when blundering hands are laid upon them and they are exhibited in unsuitable places, they are vulgarised." @ vulgarisation.
Vulgarisation of words that should not be in common use robs some of their aroma, others of their substance, others again of their precision; but nobody likes to be told that the best service he can do to a favourite word is to leave it alone, and perhaps the less said on this matter the better." @ vulgarisation.
"It is time for someone to come to the rescue of the phrase as well as, which is being cruelly treated." @ well.
"… in the starch that stiffens English style one of the most effective ingredients is the rule that whose shall refer only to persons. To ask a man to write flexible English, but forbid him whose as a relative pronoun of the inanimate is like sending a soldier on active service and insisting that his tunic collar shall be tight and high." @ whose.
"Most of us, as children, must have wondered why it should be that the green hill far away was without a city wall." @ without.
"Anecdotes are our pounds, and we take care of them; but of the phrases that are our pence we are more neglectful." @ worn-out humour.
"…with all these [examples of worn-out humour] we … not only are not amused; we feel a bitterness … against the scribbler who has reckoned on our having tastes so primitive." @ worn-out humour.
"Readers should be credited with the ability to make their way from end to end of an ordinary sentence without being pulled and pushed and admonished into the right direction; but some of their guides are so determined to prevent straying that they plant great signposts in the middle of the road, often with the unfortunate result of making it a no thoroughfare." @ overzeal
"… but venturing on dangerous ground, which the subjunctive always is except to skilled performers, he side-slips." @ subjunctives
"… what is required is the habit of paying all words the compliment of respecting their peculiarities." @ slipshod extensions
"… if a French adjective is to make itself at home with us it must choose first whether it will go in male or female attire and discard its other garments." @ spirituel(le)
Eric Partridge
Utilize, utilization are, 99 times out of 100, much inferior to use, verb and noun; the one other time, it is merely inferior.
Other heroes of plain language
A circular released in May 2004 by Dr Peter Shergold, Secretary, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, contains a gem of a sentence: "… the language of information technology, even more than that of managerialism, is too often like a soft pillow that lays ideas to rest and gently suffocates their meaning."
Interesting or historical or both
"No lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt." Winston Churchill talking about his relationship with President Roosevelt in WW2, cited in Summits by David Reynolds, published in 2007 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, England.
Clever
Slogan on the side of a van operated by Valiant Furniture Hire: "Setting Hire Standards"
Quotemarks, double: why should you prefer them to single?
When single quotemarks are used, your reading can often be spoiled because a possessive s gives a false impression of where the quote finishes. This cannot happen when the writer or publisher takes the trouble to use double quotemarks, and doesn’t hide behind the silly, worn-out excuses that single quotemarks use less keystrokes, or are tidier. Here are examples of confusion caused by a possessive s:
You say that ‘a constructive dialogue is more likely for both companies’ directors if personalities are taken into account’.
This will prevent ‘readers’ gout’ caused by taking too much ‘red meat’ at one gulp.
‘The sequencing of material in the syllabus helps teachers select content that effectively develops students’ knowledge and skills.’
This module is ‘designed to give learners and teachers time to investigate and keep account of learners’ progress and learning pathways’.
In the 30 June issue there is a picture which shows ‘features of the potteries’ landscape in 1930’.
…a duty to provide ‘a fair day’s work’
The romantically inclined continued to regard it as … a fairy-tale land where sultans sat on ivory thrones, ‘fanned by peacocks’ wings’ in ‘palaces paved with jasper and onyx’.
More trouble happens when two single quotemarks fall together:
She keyed it in on what we call ‘the amateurs’’ machine
The ‘reactors’’ comments stopped the book being published.
Here is an example of how double quotemarks are superior. This is from the TLS, 9 June 2000, p. 7, setting in one column, using double quotemarks:
As Diane Ravitch notes in a forthcoming book,
"the education profession accepted the critics’
claim that schools should not judge students,
should not pressure them …"
Now, if that had been done in single quotes, we may have been misled into thinking that the quote was ‘the education profession accepted the critics’, thus:
As Diane Ravitch notes in a forthcoming book,
‘the education profession accepted the critics’
claim that schools should not judge students,
should not pressure them …’
Sex or gender?
Faced by the demands of correct language in the Queensland Police Service several years ago, I felt that a short, clear, written explanation of the differences between sex and gender would help. After looking up several definitions in the library, I was less clear than I had been before. I decided to write my own.
Now that the word gender has grown to mean more than something only connected with grammar, it is important to use it in a way that will help us be more precise and not just as another name for sex.
The difficulty is to find an exact definition; even the Macquarie Dictionary gives gender only a passing glance as a colloquial alternative to sex. Let's look at four explanations of the difference between gender and sex and then try to pick out the best bits to make an overall, easy-to-understand guideline on which word to use.
Although the terms sex and gender tend to be used interchangeably in the popular media, they have precise meanings in sociology. Sex refers to biological categories defined on the basis of chromosomes, hormones and anatomy. Gender involves the sociological and cultural aspects of being male or female. . .
(Inciardi, J.A. & Rothman, R.A. 1990, Sociology: Principles and applications, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.)
We need also to make a further important distinction, between sex and gender. While sex refers to physical differences of the body, gender concerns the psychological, social and cultural differences between males and females. The distinction between sex and gender is fundamental, since many differences between males and females are not biological in origin.
(Giddens, A. 1989, Sociology, Polity Press, Cambridge, UK.)
Gender. If the sex of a person is biologically determined, the gender of a person is culturally and socially constructed … Social psychologists have treated gender-identity as the product of child training rather than as biologically given …
(Abercrombie, N., Hill, S. & Turner, (?). S. 1988, The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology, 2nd edn, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.)
The term sex refers to the biological differences between males and females, while gender refers to the socially-determined personal and psychological characteristics associated with being male or female, namely "masculinity" and "femininity".
(Garrett, S. 1987, Gender , Tavistock Publications, London.)
Guideline
Use sex when talking about biological differences.
Use gender when talking about differences that, although technically independent of sex, have been constructed by the social factors that have influenced our outlook.
Gender is a subject on which individuals decide; it is subjective. Sex is decided by nature and an individual’s viewpoint cannot alter it.
Four examples
When a middle-aged man automatically moves to carry a young woman’s suitcase, the move is gender-based, not sex-based (because the woman is biologically just as capable of carrying it as the man is).
A page from a survey asking technical questions should ask your sex, not your gender (because the survey wants to know if you are biologically a man or a woman).
If somebody argues that truck drivers should be men and not women, it is an argument based on gender, not sex (because women are physically capable of driving trucks).
In schools, it is incorrect to talk of single-gender classrooms because boys and girls are divided biologically. Such classrooms should be called single-sex classrooms.
Signs worth recording
Did they really mean the wording in this ad?
No waiting here
What kind of a baker is that?
For dogs only
Those of you who are expecting to eat too much at Christmas can prepare now by buying this set of four special bowls.
We do not launder expensive shirts
Dogs can read English
Well, they are accepted
It's really a factory in disguise
This notice must have been written after a couple of Guineasses:
Business diversification
Doesn't look like one
What would we do without serving suggestions and suchlike?
Clever signs
Oh that sinful lingire
Plain language
They don't always do it
Only for those of you who are calm
Baker cuts finger
The final step in water restrictions
Computers that last
No comments
How do the tenants spark?
We, will ensure it
Syllabilitis verbis
All of us have wrung our hands over the lumpy language that many of those who feed us speak and write. We have thought of them as pompous or status-seeking and we have not been kind to them, except on payday. It isn't really their fault, though, because what we didn’t know is that another new virus has been at us for the past twenty years. It is syllabilitis verbis, which, although discovered many years ago, is reproduced here in its clinical detail for the first time.
Normal, healthy people pass through childhood and adolescence with no outward signs of the condition but, when they reach the age of 20 or 25, sufferers present with verbal expressions using as many syllables as possible. The specialist, if not alert, can miss the tell-tale signs, concentrating instead on a side effect.
Syllabilitis verbis causes unchecked reproduction of syllables which, not being able to bond to body tissues, are forced out through the mouth or writing fingers. The virus is thought to be spread by radio waves and printing ink, and is ingested through the ears and eyes. Incubation depends on the socioeconomic status of the host — the higher the status, the shorter the incubation period. Some people in the lower classes are completely resistant to the virus. A recent study has shown that, whereas many people still say use at the age of 80, some people, although only light radio-wave or print users, say utilise by the end of their teens.
The prognosis is not good. Specialists have predicted that the virus will be out of control by 2010 unless governments can find a way to persuade people to read one Justice Michael Kirby speech, or equivalent, per month for at least a year. Estimates suggest that fewer than 2500 people are taking this preventive treatment. Although many people seem to be immune even without the monthly dose of type, the danger to interpersonal comprehension is regarded as being at a tipping point.
You should be constantly vigilant for signs of syllabilitis verbis. Talking nonsense is one obvious symptom. For example, although a syllabilitis-resistant person might say: "I’ll look later" (4 syllables) an infected person would say: "I’ll address that issue going forward" (10 syllables). Other words (with syllable counts in brackets) used by persons living with syllabilitis are prior to (3) instead of before (2); purchase (2) instead of buy (1); involuntary redundancies (9) instead of sackings (2).
There are many others, and we urge you to give this matter your full attention in an effort to reduce what could become an almost total breakdown in communications in this country today.
Themself, themselves, or more timewasting s/he/it
Will any reader please put up his, her, its, their, his or her, hes hand if she, he, it, she or he, s/he finds this pronoun business tiresome?
I think it's really daft how English often has many words for one thing (like start, begin, commence, initiate) but nary a suggestion of one word for he or she, his or her and so on. People get into a huge mess with this. Some people simply cannot bring themselves to say they instead of his or hers as in "Every student must bring their textbook tomorrow". The language needs a gender-free pronoun, but we refuse to make one. In 1996 I was the editor of the Queensland Society of Editors magazine Offpress, and I wrote an article on this annoying subject, thereby baiting my hook. I waited for a bite, and I got a beauty from member, J Brody. I'll reproduce his response after you have read this edited version of the article:
"Conservative people jump up and down at the thought of introducing a new, gender-free pronoun. Australian Style received support from only 28 per cent of responders in its survey on this subject. So, having rejected a new pronoun, the conservative protectors of a faulty language also reject using they and them as a singular! When our language has such an obvious hole, why do people shy from filling it?
Here’s the logic of using they, them, themself, and themselves as a singular:
Them = him or her. Self = one person. So, by simple addition: Themself = himself or herself.
Of course, if you do not mind lumpy gravy, you could always say him or her self. Don’t tell me that the sentence can be recast — even I know that — but not every writer wants you to recast their sentences.
If The Bible, Shakespeare, Fielding, Goldsmith, Sydney Smith, Thackeray, Bagehot and Bernard Shaw (thank you Mr Fowler) can use it, and as just about everbody says it, don’t you think it’s a little Canutey to resist? It is unthinkable to use he and him all the time; there is no neutral word; you do not always have the authority to recast. Anybody who still refuses to accept a singular use of they, will, I predict, look like a silly old duffer long before they have to."
Here is J Brody's response:
Themself? Themself?
A plural wedded to a singular? Is this not rather like a Siamese twin joined to itself — or should that be themself? Or itselves? What next, indeed! Them innovation does not appeal to me — forsooth.
With kindest regards, me myselves, J Brody.
Using usage instead of use
At p. 670, "Usage", in Fowler’s Modern English Usage, 2nd edn, he writes: "Those who write usage … when they mean no more than use must be presumed to do so for one of two bad reasons: that they prefer either the longer word to the shorter … or the unusual one to the common … Usage implies a manner of using (e.g. harsh usage), especially of habitual or customary practice creating a right or standard ([as in] modern English usage). An example of its misuse is: 'There is a serious shortage of X ray films due to increasing usage in all countries'."
Fowler knows that, and we know that, but it’s a tricky differentiation, and it’s not charitable to look down on those who get it "wrong" — especially as I don’t think they always do it to sound posher. It’s just one of those silly bits of English. I’m sure we’d be quite well off without usage at all, really.
VET howlers
Vocational education and training seems to throw up more daft expressions than most fields. Here is a selection of daft things taken from guidelines once published by ANTA, once the Australian fount of VET facts, figures, competency standards and other things we need to keep us on track. The left column has the original, and the right column contains suggestions for elegantizing them.
Clumsy or wrong
More elegant
(RAC001) Respect the authority of persons designated to give emergency signals and instructions and is not undermined during an emergency.
Respect the authority of persons designated to give emergency signals and instructions, and ensure that their authority is not undermined during an emergency.
(RAC001) Follow in situations where evacuation is not possible or appropriate, alternative instructions.
Follow alternative instructions when evacuation is not possible or appropriate.
(CAI002) Check and confirm suggestions with a responsible person before being implemented.
Before acting on suggestions, check and confirm with a responsible person.
(CAI006) Assess equipment being dismantled for damage and report promptly where damage or deterioration has occurred to the responsible person.
If damage or deterioration has occurred to the equipment being dismantled, assess it and report promptly to the responsible person.
(CAI007) Express clearly ideas for improvements to practice which is not within the area of responsibility of the trainee to make to the appropriate person.
Ideas for improvements to practice, but which are not within the trainee’s area of responsibility, should be clearly expressed to the appropriate person.
(CAI0014) Report repairs which cannot be carried out to the responsible person.
Report, to the responsible person, details of repairs that cannot be carried out.
(ROP003) Use the rudder, if fitted effectively.
Use the rudder effectively, if one is fitted.
Wellness not well
In 1995 I published an article in Offpress, the journal of the Society of Editors (Queensland). I wanted to draw attention to the reappearance of wellness, a dead word that had been recently dug up. I must have succeeded because, apart from its use in the name of The Women’s Wellness Clinic, it has failed to excite the public’s interest. I am surprised, because wellness is just the kind of wholemeal word people like to use (cf issue (for problem), holistic for complete, and discrete (for self-contained). Here is a modified, shortened version.
Disinterested persons disinter wordcorpse
From a Queensland Government department that "actively promotes" wellness comes this mission statement:
It is the policy of the [department] to support the concept of wellness of its employees and to actively promote, resource, and develop strategies toward achievement of this goal.
The authors were so hard up for something new to say that they were driven to dig underground to find the rotting wellness, possibly useful as an antonym for illness but not really any improvement on the well-known working word wellbeing.
There is a good reason to worry about these bodysnatchers, and it is miles away from pedantry. Many people, reading wellness but knowing wellbeing, will stop and wonder what the difference is. Readers who care about words will reach for their dictionaries but, in 1995, most wouldn’t find wellness; it was not listed in the following dictionaries: Australian — Macquarie, Australian Concise Oxford. English — Pocket Oxford, Chambers. North American — Websters, Websters New International, Random House.
It is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a "nonce word" (nonce = a word invented just for the moment) and defined as "the state of being well or in good health". The OED goes on to tell us that the word was first recorded in 1654 (as wealnesse) and quotes part of a letter from a Ms, Mr or Dr Osborne in 1655: "… pray, what is meant by wellness and unwellness?"
It appears in the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd edn. (Houghton Mifflin, USA, 1992). It says: "Well-ness. Good physical and mental health, especially when maintained by proper diet, exercise and habits". But it then goes on to describe the difficulty with the word:
Usage problem
: It can be argued that wellness serves a useful purpose as a means of describing a state that includes not just physical health but fitness and emotional well-being. The word is first recorded in 1654 but has never been given the acceptance of its antonym illness. In the most recent survey, sixty-eight percent of the Usage Panel found the word unacceptable in the sentence: "a number of corporations have implemented employee wellness programs aimed at enhancing spiritual values, emotional stability, fitness and nutrition".
Word thieves
(Written as an address to a society of editors, but anyone who cares about elegant language will be able to get something out of it.)
As soon as somebody mentions that a text will be edited, writers rise up and say two things: (i) "the readers will understand what I have written" and (ii) "language is constantly evolving — you have no right to stand in its way". Both these statements are wrong. An honest writer would rise up and say: "I am not interested in the readers’ not understanding, because I am writing this to impress my peers" and "language is always evolving and you should be blessed for keeping the changes under control".
We can do nothing to rein-in the hubris of writers, especially if they are academic — all we can do is to make a comment, wait to be ignored, and take the money. But we can do something about the warning that we shouldn’t stand in the way of the evolution of language — we should ignore it, and take big steps to keep the evolution under control.
Copyediting is a bit like herding cattle. Cattle have to go from here to there, and you wouldn’t want to change the general direction of travel, but you do have to bring back the ones that bolt, and keep an eye on those in danger of being rustled. Just as people steal cattle from herds, people steal words from English, and if I am told that I have no right to stand in the way of a changing language, I reply that you have no right to steal words of which I am a part-owner.
The problem is that people can’t stop themselves from splurting out new words, or replacing time-honoured, accurate words by others that are not quite right. There are three groups of "new" words, and while this article admires the first group, it criticises people who use the second and third groups.
Group 1: New new words. We must welcome these when they supply a need. Let’s look at one new word from each decade of the twentieth century (taken from John Ayto’s Twentieth Century Words, OUP 1999: hangover, autism, penicillin, supermarket, bikini, modem, velcro, spin (slant), himbo, and spam. These words define something we did not have, or could not express well before.
Group 2: Show-off new words or terms. These show off the user’s new-found perspicacity, or demonstrate cool familiarity with a celebrity or current event. They include buy-in, going forward, transitioning, governance, yadda-yadda, and cost-driver.
Group 3: Stolen words. These are existing words that have been damagingly twisted to mean something different from what they meant yesterday. They include altercation, protocol, issue, disinterested, crescendo, reticent, cohort, and edgy.
Some of the not-new-but-replacing-old words slide in under your guard, and all of a sudden they are entrenched and you’d be wasting your time trying to put things back they way there were. Do you remember how, in the late 1980s, we used to stamp and shout when people started "addressing issues" instead of dealing with problems? These days, even eminent editors address issues. The other day, a senior editor told me she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and I had to tell her she was having them all over the place in full view of everyone. The best-educated reporters on Radio National often report on a crisis coming to a crescendo, and shady politicians sometimes blame their shady cohorts when things go wrong.
I can help you keep the language under control by providing a list of words that point to danger. When you are editing, and you find these words, be bold and strike out dodgy uses! Stand up for your rights, protect your property, and upset a writer at the same time. The list is made up of just a few words either in flux or already completely fluxed, with the old use first and the new use second:
Word
Good people's meaning
Word thieves' meaning
anticipate
prepare for something
expect
articulate
move the speech organs
say
to allude
to make a casual or sly reference
to refer
altercation
verbal stoush
physical fight
begging the question
the fallacy of founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself
to give rise to the need for a question
corporate
connected with a corporation, often local government
business
Criteria
More than one criterion
One criterion
crescendo
build-up to a climax
climax
cohort
large group of people
crony
crisis
the point when an illness or event will go one way or the other
a serious event
culminate
to reach the highest point
to end
de facto
in fact, though not in law
(noun) someone you live with as a spouse
directly
very soon
direct, with no intermediary
disinterested
having no vested interest
uninterested
edgy
nervous
on the cutting edge
enormity
grossness, badness or wickedness
large size
fortuitous
accidental, without planning
probably unplanned but fortunate at the same time
(Fortuituous: Leave this new meaning alone. It is a fortuitous change of meaning. The new meaning is more descriptive and more useful than the old one.)
fulsome
overdone in a sickly way
thorough
going forward
moving forwards
in the future
issue
something of interest to people
problem
momentarily
in a flash of time
soon
offshore
just off the shore, like a drilling rig or an island
overseas
oversight
a mistake resulting from poor supervision
good supervision
presently
soon
right now
protocol
diplomatic procedure
any procedure
relationship
how you relate to someone
how you sexually relate to someone
refute
deny, with proof
deny
reticent
reluctant to discuss something
reluctant
The reason for standing up to word thieves is to preserve precision. A well-read person should not be reluctant to differentiate between "having a vested interest" in something and simply "wanting to know something" about something. I want to talk about my relationship with my daughter without half the population raising their eyebrows. When I play my cello, I obey musical markings that ask me to gradually increase my volume until I reach the climax; I don’t suddenly fff at the first sight of a hairpin. When my 92-year-old mother tells me she’s feeling edgy, I should immediately get her a scotch and keep her calm, not be prepared to see her appear in skin-tight hip-huggers.
If we are not "allowed" to stand in the way of the evolution of our language, why should wordmanglers be "allowed" to rob our language of its one good feature? Why should they go unchallenged when their grossness plonks itself down in the way of precise, poetic phrasing? How do we explain our acquiescence when they drive their dirty-great wordHummers through our narrow and precise sentences, knocking our meanings for six, and scaring the homophones?
I’ll not be reticent to beg this question: Please, writer or editor — whether you are uninterested or involved, at home or off-shore, edgy or old-fashioned — will you, in your work, promise to fulsomely utilise the one important criteria of oversighting a culmination of this crisis so that it will not reach a crescendo?
Yeah-no
The Macquarie Dictionary has not only listed nae as a variant of no, but the fourth edition (2005) has also listed yeah-no as a word! It really sounds daft at first but it seems to sum up a whole lot of things. It can mean "Yes, that’s right, I won, but, no, I don’t want to boast" or "Yes, you’re right, but no, that state of affairs is not what you want" and several similar wordy phrases. The Macca was quick, as I had started to make notes about this new word, which I thought I had found on my own, as recently as 2005. Here is a selection of yeah-nos heard from life. Note how few no-yeahs there are. No, yeah, it’s awesome. Is it just in Australia? Do the English say it?
After Daniel Richert won a heat in a sedan-car race televised by SBS on 12 March 2006, the interviewer asked the driver how he felt about the win, and the response was: "Yes, no, it was a good effort".
Beef breeder interviewed on ABC’s "Bush Telegraph" program Friday 10 March: "How are red meat sales now, since the promotion?" "No. They’re really good. Yeah."
February 2006. Overheard two women getting on the ferry at Bretts Wharf. Lady #1: "Oh, we’ll be going past South Bank. They’ve got that sexpo-thing on there today. Be better to keep well away from that". Lady #2: "Yaairs ... no ... yaaairs."
Conversation between me and checkout worker at Ikea store Springwood, on Monday 21 November 2005: "Can you tell me the price of these two baskets? … I got them from the ‘specials’ table, but they have no price marked." "Yes no, they’re not actually on special; some customer just left them there."
Four responses from market research subjects: (a) "I was like, yeah, no I was actually looking at the movie site then." (b) "How do you feel about that as an ad technique for getting your attention?" "Yeah, no, that kind of, well it would get my attention." (c) "So the grey colour is kind of dread, not sober and sensible?" "Yes, no, not this is going to be good for you." (d) "It’s not too serious?" "No, yeah. Like, yeah, I don’t know; it catches your eye."
"It’ll take them [old horses] a long time to get there." "Yes no, they’re not gallopers." (ABC RN)
"Did you find out why my room wasn’t cleaned?" "Yes no, I really don’t know why." (Overheard at Hobart Motel September 05)
"You seem to be almost a mayor of a small town out here." "Yes no, you have to do a little bit of everything." (ABC TV reporter interviewing a station manager on "Landline" 28 August 2005.)
"there’s no way I could’ve done any better". "Yes no, you did great". (Sports interview on ABC radio.)
"I rang you but I couldn't get through." "Was that @ my old place?" "Yes, where I always rang before." "Yes no — I'm not there any more … here's my new number." (Overheard in street.)
"I think we’re out of stock of the big ones … let’s have a look … yes, no we don’t have any big ones at the moment" (Shop assistant helping me)
"KTM [a motorbike manufacturer] planned a come-back into grand prix racing but now it’s all changed …" "Yes no, it seems to be, you know, KTM’s a small factory, and …" (Ian Woods, Channel 10 sports anchor man, and Mick Doohan, ex–world champion motorbike racer, talking about the aspirations of the KTM motorbike factory, Channel 10 ‘Sports Tonight’, Sunday 12 June 2005.)
"She’s upset, because, you know, and I'm thinking, like, they're going to take my child away and all this and, yeah no, she's not happy." (Debbie Chapman, who says she is the mother of a schoolgirl who was pictured in a newspaper in connection with the disappearance of schoolgirl Tegan Lane. ABC TV News, Monday 13 June 2005.)
"This form of art seems to need a lot of power tools". "Yes no, there’s a lot of manual labour, and power tools help a lot." (ABC Arts program, Sunday 13 March 2005)
"Despite the fact that we all come from diverse backgrounds, no, yes, we all [came to similar conclusions]." Judge, on ABC’s "Inventor of the Year" TV show 24 November 2004.
"That’s OK. I don’t take offence at that, yeah, no". (ABC’s "Bush Telegraph" rural program). (The interviewer asked a tomato grower whether he felt happy to talk about his recent defeat in the competition for who was the grower of the biggest tomato in Australia.)
"Some of my friends ribbed me about it but no, yeah, it’s a good little bike". (A 75-year-old woman motorbike rider describing how she’d changed from a big motorbike to a scooter, in "Life Matters", ABC RN.)
"We were all at [name of place] and, yes no, everybody’s OK." (ABC RN: Australian traveller describing her family’s condition after the tsunami disaster in SE Asia.)
"Those large dots … yes no, they’re fine." (Meeting between me and an education writer, talking about a typesetting detail of a book to be published.)