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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged language

1. October 1, 2012 03:02 PM

   ‘They’ said so

   Pronouns without sex

   By Merrill Perlman

   Whenever anyone who loves language wants to start a robust discussion, they have only to mention “gender-neutral pronouns,” such as “they” in this sentence. The problem is that “anyone,” an indefinite pronoun, is singular, so it needs that singular verb “loves.” When the sentence gets back to “anyone’s” starting a discussion, a third-person singular pronoun is needed. But English has...

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2. March 5, 2012 01:04 PM

   @#?

   How to quote e-mail, tweets, and such

   By Merrill Perlman

   BREAKING: Palm Beach Sheriffs Office tells @SusanCandiotti that the bomb squad is investigating a suspicious pkg near #Rush #Limbaugh home How would you quote that tweet, sent last week? As it was tweeted? Or would you write “The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office tells Susan Candiotti that the bomb squad is investigating a suspicious package near Rush Limbaugh’s home”? Or something...

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3. February 6, 2012 05:52 PM

   Addressee Unknown

   Another comma goes AWOL

   By Merrill Perlman

   The Super Bowl is over, thank heavens, so all those incorrectly punctuated signs rooting for one team or another can come down. You know the ones: They say “Go Giants” or “Go Patriots.” In telling the Giants (or Patriots—no partisanship here) to “go,” the sign is making a direct address to the team. And in direct addresses, the person or...

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4. June 6, 2011 02:38 PM

   Appositive Negatives

   Some things are not unique

   By Merrill Perlman

   Last week, we talked about setting a parenthetical description off with commas in the grammatical phenomenon known as an “appositive.” Now, we’ll discuss how to apply it to everyday descriptions introduced by the articles “a/an” and “the.” “President Obama saw a movie” tells you about the activity, but not what movie he saw. Adding that information may require a comma,...

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5. March 31, 2011 01:09 PM

   Babel

   Robert Lane Greene on why language is always, and never, in decline

   By Daniel Luzer

   You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity | by Robert Lane Greene | Random House | 336 pages, $25.00 There’s a certain outspoken portion of the English-speaking population that’s really, really into grammar. Much like those who are sticklers for, say, etiquette or Robert's Rules of Order, grammar people think of themselves as...

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6. March 19, 2012 03:03 PM

   Beggars Can Be Choosers

   Questioning the questions

   By Merrill Perlman

   Every so often it’s important to revisit an issue, to clarify or modify it, depending on the circumstances. It “begs the question” whether revisiting something is needed. After all, revisiting is important, because it allows revisiting, which is important. And if it’s not important, it “begs the question,” why ask about revisiting at all? There. All three uses of “beg...

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7. July 30, 2012 03:00 PM

   Bell curves

   Lots of “ring” words

   By Merrill Perlman

   “You must be a ringer,” the journalism instructor told the student, who insisted that, though he had many years of experience in other jobs, he had never been a journalist. “I admit I had to look that term up,” the student said later.” I wasn’t sure if it calling me a ringer was a compliment or an insult.” Compliment, but...

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8. September 12, 2011 01:00 PM

   Bodily Functions

   The scent of a language

   By Merrill Perlman

   The scene may have been a long coach ride or a London park bench on a hot day, but the heart of the (probably apocryphal) anecdote about Dr. Samuel Johnson remains the same: A woman of some means says to a sweating Johnson, “Sir, you smell.” Johnson replies, “No, Madame. You smell. I stink.” In the anecdote, Johnson’s point, probably...

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9. June 13, 2011 02:28 PM

   Call Me ‘Al’

   Another confusing suffix

   By Merrill Perlman

   Is an appliance “electric” or “electrical”? Is Sarah Palin visiting “historic” sites or “historical” sites? Is being “politic” the same thing as being “political”? Our tour of the wacky world of English continues. The suffix “-al,” Webster’s New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition) says, creates an adjective meaning “of, like, or suitable for.” That’s easy when dealing with some words:...

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10. February 21, 2012 02:50 PM

    Cardinal Sins

    First or middle name?

    By Merrill Perlman

    In ceremonies filled with pomp, twenty-two men were named cardinals in the Roman Catholic Church, including two from the United States: Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York and Edwin O’Brien, emeritus archbishop of Baltimore and now the Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. (Now, THAT’S a title!) Depending on where you looked,...

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11. October 16, 2012 06:50 AM

    Career advice

    On the fast track to ‘careen’

    By Merrill Perlman

    Two accidents, two verbs: In New Jersey, “The car careened down the street and smashed into several parked cars before coming to a stop.” In Florida, “A Ford Explorer careered out of control, hitting the pedestrian on the sidewalk before smashing into a utility pole.” If you’ve never heard “career” used that way, you’re probably young. “Career” as a verb...

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12. April 23, 2012 12:57 PM

    Climate Change

    Weathering a climax

    By Merrill Perlman

    An extension of a federal highway program passed the House recently, over the objections of some Democrats. “Even as they were approving the measure in an anti-climatic voice vote, Democrats sharply criticized Republicans for not accepting a two-year, $109 billion version of the transportation measure the Senate had approved on a bipartisan vote earlier this month,” one news report said....

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13. January 24, 2012 11:51 AM

    Confidence Trick

    Scams ‘R’ Us

    By Merrill Perlman

    In an episode of Dragnet from the late nineteen-sixties, Joe Friday is assigned to the “bunco squad,” where he and his partner, Bill Gannon, bust a woman running a “Ponzi scheme.” We’re all too familiar with what a “Ponzi scheme” is, thanks to Bernard Madoff and his ilk. (Charles Ponzi ran a pyramid scene in 1919, forever lending them his...

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14. November 7, 2011 03:45 PM

    Conjunction-itis

    What about ifs, ands, or buts?

    By Merrill Perlman

    Many generations of students have had certain grammar “truths” drilled into their little heads. One is the “myth” that infinitives can’t be split. But today we’re going to discuss the myth that sentences can’t start with conjunctions. (Actually, whether teachers do indeed prohibit conjunctive beginnings seems to be almost as much a myth as the prohibition itself. But more on...

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15. June 19, 2012 06:50 AM

    Digging in

    The etymology of a “clawback”

    By Merrill Perlman

    “Jamie Dimon: JPMorgan Will Likely Claw Back Pay From Responsible Executives,” the headline said. Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, was telling the Senate Banking Committee that the firm would probably seek to reclaim some pay and bonuses from those involved in the firm’s $2 billion trading loss. What a wonderful image: bankers digging in their “claws” to wrest bundles of cash...

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16. July 17, 2012 03:00 PM

    En-gendered

    Terms for sexual identity

    By Merrill Perlman

    Dealing with gender identity these days is a tricky business. And while we prefer to use “sex” to describe biological and procreative characteristics, “gender” has become the more common term to describe identity. A photo caption in The New York Times highlights the situation: A woman writing about her college experience said: “I used to say freshwoman until I was...

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17. October 26, 2011 02:27 PM

    Fermenting Revolution

    Some terms associated with beer

    By Merrill Perlman

    With “Oktoberfests” popping up all over, it seems a good time to grab a “growler” and get “krausened.” The first “Oktoberfest” was in Munich in 1810, a celebration of the marriage of Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria and Princess Therese von Saxe-Hildburghausen. (Ludwig became King Ludwig I, though the English-speaking world called him King Louis I.) The celebration was repeated...

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18. October 9, 2012 06:50 AM

    Forward-looking

    Ways of telling the future

    By Merrill Perlman

    We have weather “forecasts,” budget “projections,” attempts at earthquake “predictions.” Most dictionaries say those are all synonyms for one another. So why doesn’t the nightly weather report call them “predictions” or “projections”? Because the weather people know just how fickle Mother Nature is. A “prediction,” Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary says, is “an inference regarding a future event based on probability theory.”...

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19. September 15, 2011 12:39 AM

    Framing the Jobs Plan… Er, Second Stimulus

    This time Democrats get that language matters, and the press plays along

    By Ryan Chittum

    Barack Obama proposed his second stimulus last week, pitching a $450 billion measure. Or is it a jobs plan? Let's say it's both. Last go-round, the economic legislation was called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which just goes to show that the Democrats really are clueless when it comes to political language. That somehow never entered the national consciousness...

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20. June 27, 2011 01:12 PM

    Fraught Fest

    Can something be ‘fraught’ without ‘with’?

    By Merrill Perlman

    Kirk Arnott, a retired assistant managing editor of the Columbus Dispatch who keeps his hand sharp with part-time copyediting there, wrote Language Corner that a sportswriter turned in the following passage: A few weeks ago, the Ohio State basketball team entered the roiling rapids of the Big Ten schedule. It was undefeated then, but the way ahead was fraught and,...

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