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Columbia Journalism Review content tagged usage

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. 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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5. 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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6. 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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7. 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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8. 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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9. 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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10. 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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11. June 5, 2012 06:50 AM

    Empty pockets

    A phrase with several meanings

    By Merrill Perlman

    Max Crittenden posted on Language Corner’s Facebook page: I’m seeing some peculiar usage (misuse, to my mind) of the phrase “out of pocket”. “My housekeeper has injured her leg and will be out of pocket for a while.” “Sorry, I’ve been out of pocket and haven’t gotten to your request.” Is anyone else noticing this? To me, “out of pocket”...

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12. 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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13. November 28, 2011 02:12 PM

    Friendly Fire

    Insulting without meaning to

    By Merrill Perlman

    As language and society evolve, words that were once considered merely slang sometimes take on an offensive odor. In the past twenty years, for example, many municipalities have renamed localities with “squaw” in their names after the belated realization that the word, flung about casually for decades by cowboys and Indians in westerns, is actually a vulgarity. Sports teams have...

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14. January 30, 2012 12:20 PM

    Houses of Straw

    Flimsy votes and arguments

    By Merrill Perlman

    Though we’re thick in the primary and caucus season, the testing of the political winds actually began months ago, with several “straw polls.” Thought to come from the farm practice of tossing a few shreds of straw into the air to test which way the wind was blowing to determine if it would be good weather for whatever chores needed...

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15. October 22, 2012 03:16 PM

    However you want

    Who’s on first?

    By Merrill Perlman

    A Florida correspondent writes: My boss is obsessed with Strunk & White, and so tells me that I can never start a sentence with “however” when using it to mean “nevertheless.” I disagree with him and say that I can start a sentence with “however” when I mean “nevertheless” if I put a comma after the “however.” However (lol), he,...

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16. January 17, 2012 12:37 PM

    Intoxicating

    Deriving ‘drink’

    By Merrill Perlman

    No one needs to be told that the present tense of the verb “to drink” is “drink.” But what about the past tense? Is it “yesterday I drunk two martinis” or “yesterday I drank two martinis”? If you said “drank,” reward yourself with an olive in your next martini. But many people use “drunk” as the simple past tense. Despite...

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17. March 12, 2012 11:59 AM

    Jibe Talking

    Confusion over jibe, jive, gibe, and gybe

    By Merrill Perlman

    “Alas, poore Yorick,” Shakespeare wrote. “Where be your gibes now?” Or, depending on your edition of Hamlet, perhaps he wrote “Where be your jibes now?” But he most certainly did not write “Where be your jives now?” Come with us as we gybe our way through four words that sound so similar that they often get mixed up. And yes,...

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18. April 9, 2012 03:54 PM

    Locution, Locution, Locution

    Fewer words take up less real estate

    By Merrill Perlman

    The Internet offers writers unlimited space and so, for many, their writing expands expansively. Readers, however, have limited attention spans. So here are a few circumlocutions, or wordy phrases, that seem particularly ascendant. (Consider this a supplement to our earlier list.) Occasional use of them may be needed for clarity, but most of the time, it’s just inattentive or bloated...

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19. May 16, 2012 06:50 AM

    Logue jam

    A catalog of dialogues

    By Merrill Perlman

    “Catalogue” can also be spelled “catalog.” “Dialogue” can also be spelled “dialog.” But “monologue” is rarely spelled “monolog.” The Americans are at it again. The combining form “logue” is French, descended from Latin, and it indicates an engagement of some sort, a discourse, if you will, between people or things. People browse “catalog(ue)s” to “discuss” what items to buy; a...

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20. August 13, 2012 03:03 PM

    Lucky strike

    Not all fortunes are good

    By Merrill Perlman

    As Evan Jenkins wrote here in 1997, “fortuitous,” strictly speaking, does not mean “lucky”; it means “by chance.” So when a snake bites a mouse that just happened to be in its path, it is “fortuitous”—lucky for the snake, not so much for the mouse. Just an accident of timing. But, possibly because “fortuitous” begins the same way as “fortunate”...

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