'Chaise lounge' and 'chomping at the bit'?

For years, every time I saw “chaise lounge” or “chomping at the bit” in an article I was editing, I changed it.

By traditional copy editor standards, they should be “chaise longue” and “champing at the bit.” Our name for the long chairs called chaises actually comes from the French, in which “chaise longue” literally means “long chair.” Yet for decades, careless American writers have glossed over that last word and assumed it was the English word “lounge.”

Likewise, “champing” isn’t a verb that comes up much these days. According to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, it means “to chew hard and noisily.” And, based on my experience as a kid hanging around horse stables, it’s the standard word for describing how horses chew. In my mind, it’s a horse-folk term.

Horses aren't a primary mode of transportation these days, so it makes sense that we’d be more comfortable with the idea of “chomping” than with the horse-centric “champing.”

But recently, I’ve started to feel funny about “fixing” them. When I do, I feel that I’m clinging to some bygone standard that is losing relevance by the minute. The “traditional” forms seem less realistic all the time.

A Google search confirms what my gut’s been telling me:

champing at the bit: 45,000 hits

chomping at the bit: 1.28 million hits

chaise longue: 24,600,000 hits

chaise lounge: 12,300,000 hits

It’s easy to see which way the tides are turning.

When not to capitalize job titles

Most of us have bosses. And even long after the days when people were inclined to call a boss "Mr." anything, most of us nonetheless feel obligated to show them a little deference. 

I suppose that’s why so many copywriters and even features writers think that the titles of company bigwigs must be capitalized in every circumstance.

 Joseph Jeeves is the President and Chief Operating Officer.

 Mary Jessup is the Executive Vice President in Charge of International Mergers and E-Commerce Manager.

I long ago lost my ability to be objective about all the things that may be wrong with that approach. Instead, my measured opinion on all this caps is a straightforward “yuck.”

 Professional publishing doesn’t like using this many caps. So, if you want your writing to look like something in a professionally written publication, neither should you. The easiest thing to do is just to never capitalize them at all. But if you want to emulate the news media, consider the Associated Press Stylebook's recommendation:

"In general, confine capitalization to formal titles used directly before an individual’s name," but, "lowercase and spell out titles when they are not used with an individual’s name: The president issued a statement. The pope gave his blessing.

“Lowercase and spell out titles in constructions that set them off from a name by commas: The vice president, Nelson Rockefeller, declined to run again.”

 In other words, when there are commas separating it from the name, it’s not part of the name. You’re not saying Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. You’re saying: The vice president, who is named Nelson Rockefeller.

The bottom line: To make your writing look professional, avoid capitals whenever possible, and resist the urge to pay homage to anyone with capitalization like: Nelson Rockefeller, Former Vice President of These United States, Distinguished Gentleman, and Exceedingly Wealthy Individual.

Yes, you can use 'between' to refer to more than two

Can two people talk among themselves? Can three people have disagreements between them?

According to some of the more strict language authorities, no. That’s not how “among” and “between” work. But in the real world, the definitions are more forgiving.

Let’s start with this rule for publishers explained in the Chicago Manual of Style: “‘Between’ indicates one-to-one relationships (between you and me). ‘Among’ indicates undefined or collective relationships (honor among thieves).”

What if you have one-on-one activities within a group of more than two? For example, when you’re talking about pairs of member countries of the European Union that trade with each other? The Chicago Manual says “between” works in these situations because you’re still talking about one-on-one exchanges: “‘Between’ has long been recognized as being perfectly appropriate for more than two objects if multiple one-to-one relationships are understood from the context (trade between members of the European Union).”

The equally influential Associated Press Stylebook has the same rule: “The maxim that ‘between’ introduces two items and ‘among’ introduces more than two covers most questions about how to use these words: ‘The choice is between fish and tofu. The funds were divided among Ford, Carter and McCarthy.’” AP agrees that one-on-one relationships within larger groups get “between,” as well: “‘Between’ is the correct word when expressing the relationships of three or more items considered one pair at a time: ‘The games between the Yankees, Phillies and Mets have been rollicking ones.’”

As far as anyone can tell, this rule dates back to 1851 when the “Grammar of English Grammars” (not published, as far as I know, by the Department of Redundancy Department) by a language expert named Goold Brown, insisted that “between” used for more than two people or things “is a misapplication of the word ‘between,’ which cannot have reference to more than two.”

Other grammar authors followed Brown’s lead, and the idea caught hold that you can never say, as Jane Austen did: “This, of course, is between our three discreet selves.”

But years before these experts starting say this use of "between" for more than two was wrong, other experts — notably, one Noah Webster — said it was fine. Here's the full story in my recent column.

Which Thursday is next Thursday?

If it’s Wednesday and you went to the dentist six days ago, did you go last Thursday? Or just Thursday? What if your appointment is six days in the future? Would you say you’re going next Tuesday? And if you’re talking in October about your appointment 11 months ago, would you say that was last November?

Now imagine you’re the listener, not the speaker. If your friend says in October she went to the dentist last November, would you assume it was 11 months prior or 23 months prior? And if she says she has an appointment next Tuesday, would you assume that’s the nearest Tuesday or the one after that?

The words “next” and “last” are trouble. Consider this reader email sent to longtime Atlantic and Boston Globe language columnist Barbara Wallraff and published in her 2002 book “Word Court”: “I am writing this note on a Wednesday. In my mind, next Tuesday is six days away and next Thursday is eight days away. To my wife, next Thursday is tomorrow.”

Before I saw this, I figured there were two ways to interpret “next” when it modifies a day of the week. Either it means the day soonest to come, which would mean that 24 hours after Wednesday is indeed next Thursday, or it means the one after that — that on Wednesday, tomorrow is this Thursday, six days in the future is this Tuesday and in 13 days comes next Tuesday. But this Wallraff reader apparently had a third take: “next” means a day that follows the beginning of a new week, presumably on Sunday.

So what’s right? What do “next” and “last” mean in these contexts? The answer, I regret to inform you, is that there is no answer.

“In ‘next’ I think I detect the handiwork of the same folks who decided that Sunday should be not only the first day of the week but also half of the week end,” writes Wallraff, who acknowledges there’s no clear rule. She recommends this way of looking at it: “The ‘next’ in the phrase typically [refers] to next week. Never, not even on Wednesday, is ‘next Thursday’ tomorrow.”

For all the trouble these words cause, there’s a surprising shortage of help to be found in language guides. So it took a bit of research to come up with this guidance in my recent column.