Language Corner
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February 08, 2010 11:43 AM
Meta Data
Self, meet yourself
Lady Gaga and Elton John, two of the music world’s most self-referential and self-aware performers, sang a duet at the Grammy Awards in a setting that made many references to Hollywood, fame, and each other. “It was a typically meta statement by Lady Gaga about her travails through the machinery of ‘the fame factory,’ as the stage set proclaimed,” one...
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February 01, 2010 04:00 PM
Natural Selection
The dilemma of choices
These are tough times, and politicians have to make hard choices about how to spend the smaller amounts of money they have. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, for example, has told the city’s labor unions, including teachers, police officers and firefighters, that they will probably have to decide between smaller raises or layoffs, a decision he called “a Hobson’s...
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January 25, 2010 03:15 PM
Sissy Talk
“Pantywaist” has survived for nearly 100 years
If you had children in the early part of the twentieth century, you probably clothed the babies in one-piece suits, a shirt and pants with snaps or buttons around the garments’ middles to allow easy access to diapers. You probably called it a “union suit” if it had long pants (maybe with feet), or a “pantywaist” if it had shorts.
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January 19, 2010 12:44 PM
Sizing It Up
‘Downsize’ upgrades itself
In a letter to CJR, Jeffrey Kaye, a freelance journalist and author, objected to some usages in recent articles about laid-off journalists.
“I suggest you reconsider your occasional use of PR-speak,” he wrote. “I respect the need for synonyms, but ‘downsized reporters’? Really? Only if they had gone on diets or had body parts amputated. You can downsize an organization...
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January 11, 2010 01:33 PM
Compound Interest
When you’re not quite a suspect
In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a commercial jet, we were introduced to a new term.
An announcement from the Transportation Security Administration said that “every individual flying into the U.S. from anywhere in the world traveling from or through nations that are state sponsors of terrorism or other countries of interest will be required...
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January 04, 2010 11:49 AM
Word
When auld acquaintance be forgot
As the new year begins, we’re reeling from an overload of retrospective lists: top news stories; persons of the year; scandals of the year (and their subsets: financial scandals of the year, celebrity scandals of the year, etc.); viral videos of the year, ad nauseam. (Yes, that’s how it’s spelled, no matter how many times you’ve seen it as “ad...
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December 21, 2009 03:20 PM
Seizin’ Greetings
Tis the season for misplaced apostrophes
Pity the poor apostrophe. Even in this, the jolliest of seasons, its traditional role is misused, abused, and forgotten. As holiday poems, greetings, and lyrics become commonplace expressions, their apostrophes often get battered or shoved aside.
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Let’s start with “tis the season.” It really should be “’tis the season,” because “’tis” is an old contraction of “it... -
December 14, 2009 01:47 PM
Singulars Bar
Pronouns and nouns need to be monogamous—and non-sexist
Grammar is a strict matchmaker: singular subjects must be paired with singular verbs, and plural subjects can associate only with plural verbs. Each must stick with its own kind. But they frequently intermingle, forming combinations that are unnatural in the United States.
Some examples are obvious: “The company says they will meet their profit targets in 2010.” “Company” is a...
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December 07, 2009 01:35 PM
Just Because
Let us count the reasons why
One reason why columns like this are written is because so many writers don’t realize when a tautology has them in its grasp and won’t let go.
“Tautology” is a fancy word for “needless repetition,” or silly redundancy. And the first sentence in this column contains a double tautology. (Is that a duotautology?)
Evan Jenkins discussed separate pieces of...
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November 30, 2009 11:01 AM
Before the Beginning
Doing away with some pre-fixes
One of English’s favorite prefixes is “pre,” three little letters that mean “before.” It helps modify words like “nuptial,” “conception,” and “disposition,” among hundreds of others, to include a “pre-condition.” Even “prefix” has its own “pre” fix.
“Pre” has many legitimate uses: A “pre-existing” condition existed before something else, usually the issuance of an insurance policy. A nation makes...
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November 23, 2009 02:08 PM
Your Move
Chess terminology, imprecisely played
To practice politics, one must know something about strategy. Like a poker player, a politician needs to know when to hold ’em and when to fold ’em. And while politicians occasionally use poker terms when discussing strategy, more of them–and more journalists--put on their game faces with terms from chess.
You would think that people would use that terminology...
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November 16, 2009 04:41 PM
Foundering Flounders
When a fish is not a failure
Whenever the government announces the failure of another bank, a news outlet somewhere reports that the bank has “floundered.”
Well it did “flounder,” but once the government seized it, it stopped “floundering” and started “foundering.”
“Flounder” and ”founder” have very similar spellings and meanings, so it’s no wonder that so many people confuse them.
Historically, to “flounder” has...
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November 09, 2009 01:53 PM
Playing Tricks
The expression ‘tricked out’ isn’t new
A review of the new “Lego Rock Band” video game mentioned one cool feature: “You can also trick out your Rock Den and buy new costumes and instruments for band members.” A feature on a group that revitalizes old mopeds says that they “have figured out how to trick out their engines so they can cruise at up to 70...
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November 02, 2009 12:34 PM
Early Bird Special
On turning the clocks back
Unless you live in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, most of Arizona, or off the grid with sundials, you turned your clocks back an hour yesterday, in the annual return to standard time. (Nowadays, lots of clocks turn themselves back, so it’s actually less work than it used to be.)
The period that just ended is daylight saving time. Not daylight savings,...
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Desks
The Audit Business
- New Financial Sheriff in Town, Part III Times highlights SEC’s latest crackdown—on an Estonian brokerage
- Audit Notes: Bloomberg Backs the Buck; WSJ on Future State Taxes; Big Money vs. Student Loansharks; Mortgage Banker Schadenfreude, etc.
The Observatory Science
- “Waves in a Shallow Pan” Has climate coverage in the MSM lost its authority?
- Dumb Blonde Story Sunday Times botches the science in piece on the “princess effect”
Campaign Desk Politics & Policy
- Unforced Error at Salon “O’Keefe’s race problem” story goes astray on key detail
- Is Health Reform Dead or Alive? Wanted: a newsmaker to give us the word
