Hooking up words and phrases and clauses

Ah, Schoolhouse Rock memories ...

Inflated comparisons

Back in 1950, a car cost a mere $2,200! Boy, sure sounds as if life were cheaper back then. Back when things were simple and the economy didn't scalp you, huh? Money shockers like this are all over the place -- in magazines, newspapers, documentaries, TV news reports.

But let's spend a moment with that car number, shall we? We know that inflation eats up the value of a buck, right? So if we take a quick jaunt over to a Federal Reserve inflation calculator and plug in the date and the price, we find that in 2009 dollars, that car is $19,462. And consider just how much more advanced a car you'll be the proud owner of.

Always keep inflation in mind. It's lazy when journalists hit you with a gee-whiz number and drop all economic context. In fairness, I suspect some writers don't understand their error; inflation seems to be something many people forget about when talking about past prices. That makes it all the more important to have editors who stop and think about such details. The entertainment factor has got to be very tempting. Entertaining your audience is fine, but you fall on your face when the point you're trying to make is a fiction.

I'm not advocating against price comparisons -- they can reveal fascinating trends (among them, just how much our standard of living has grown). I simply want comparisons that are fair. Apples and apples, so to speak.

Erin McKean on lexicography

This evening I happened upon a lecture given by dictionary editor Erin McKean at Google. It's worth watching.

From the Deep Vertical blog:
Erin McKean speaks at Google: Erin McKean, editor and lexicographer for the New Oxford American Dictionary, tells Google the ten things she wishes people knew about dictionaries, how people go about making new words, and how lexicographers use Google.

Word of the year: bailout

The American Dialect Society's word of the year for 2008 is "bailout," defined as "the rescue by the government of companies on the brink of failure, including large players in the banking industry."

My favorite entry is the winner of the Most Creative category: "recombobulation area," defined as "an area at Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee in which passengers that have just passed through security screening can get their clothes and belongings back in order." (I adore the term "discombobulated.")

The weirdest entry was "thought showers," which had a decent showing in the Most Euphemistic category. It's listed as "coined by a British city council because the synonym 'brainstorming' was said to be offensive to epileptics."

My prediction for 2009? I suspect "sustainable" (gack) will have a strong showing.

'Kick you in the nuts, boldly'

Hilarious send-up of grammar snobs at The Daily Mash: "Grammar pedants fewer interesting"

I especially enjoy that the article pokes fun at the edict that writers shouldn't split infinitives. An infinitive is the base form of a verb (e.g., "to run" or "to play"). A split infinitive is when a word falls in the middle of an infinitive. For example, "to run" is split when it is "to quickly run."

This is a rule of Latin grammar that was imposed upon English -- and since we don't speak Latin, most contemporary grammarians consider this rule a myth. (It's interesting to note that Latin infinitives weren't two-word combos like English ones, so splitting a Latin infinitive wasn't even possible.)

The tyranny nanny

As someone who has had to work at being a good speller, I have a strong appreciation for memory aids. I came across a few misspellings while editing copy the other day and thought I'd post another installment of mnemonic devices:

tyranny: the N's are doubled, making the word similar to nanny, so think of a caretaker who's a real meanie

tenant: this word often appears incorrectly as "tenent"; think of ants moving into your house to be tenants (or don't -- maybe that's too terrible for those of you who have been visited by the carpenter variety)

memento: I think this one trips people up because it's so similar to "moment," which is what a memento memorializes; think of the "me" in "memento" and link the word to your stash of old bowling trophies

Read the fucking manual

When programmers see message-board postings with questions that could easily have been answered by a few minutes of research on the part of the person posting, they'll sometimes reply with RTF (read the fucking manual).

Perhaps that strikes some people as a tad aggressive. I think it points to a terrific ethic: Take some responsibility for your own learning and show respect for the value of others' time.

And a funny thing happens when you do a bit of hunting around, a bit of reading, a bit of thinking: You internalize what you learn.

Now, we all make mistakes. I have no tolerance for editors who like to play "gotcha" and trot out a writer’s errors in a way that is supposed to inflate the editor's sense of superiority. (Watch closely: Those editors are often the ones who end up making pretty heinous errors themselves.)

But some writers don't bother checking with the style guide or the dictionary before sending their material off to be edited. They'll sniff that these details are beneath their great craft.

This obviously makes life harder on the editors. But here's the other thing: When you discipline yourself to turn in clean copy, you become a stronger writer because you're thinking about how your work should come together in both big-picture and small-picture terms. You develop a command of grammar that heightens your sentences. And you learn enough to avoid embarrassing spelling errors (altar/alter, coulee/coolie) that just might slip by the editing desk on a hectic night.

The writers I edit who routinely turn in clean copy are usually the most interesting folks to read. I don't think that's a coincidence.