Wretched retching

A while back, a character in a book I was reading got sick. As told in the story, “He wretched” long after his stomach was empty.

Oops. What the writer should have written — or, more  precisely, what the copy editor should have caught — was that wretched should have been retched.

The disheartening thing about this error is that it appeared almost 300 pages into an otherwise very well copy edited book.

Whoever was copy editing this book knew what they were doing. Yet even a team of professional editors with great skills aren’t immune to letting typos slip by. That’s troubling because it means that, no matter how hard you try to make a written work perfect, there are no guarantees.

Plus, some typos are particularly easy to make.  Wretch and retch are among them.

According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, a wretch is a person. Specifically:

1 : a miserable person : one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune

2 : a base, despicable, or vile person

It’s one of those words you hear a lot in old-timey dialogue, especially British. For example, in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, a character refers to juries as “vulgar grovelling wretches.” And of course, the term “poor wretch” comes up in pretty much every piece of fiction with a Dickensian tone.

From wretch, comes the adjective wretched. But it’s not pronounced like the verb retched. Wretched has two syllables, RETCH-id. And it means:

1. deeply afflicted, dejected, or distressed in body or mind

2. extremely or deplorably bad or distressing <was in wretched health> <a wretched accident>

3.  being or appearing mean, miserable, or contemptible <dressed in wretched old clothes>

The verb retch is simpler.  It means only 1. to vomit, 2. to make an effort to vomit.

There’s no trick to keeping them straight, other than just being on your guard. Which, somewhere around page 300 in a 900-page novel, is no small feat.

When commas and quote marks collide

A while back, the ask-the-editor section of the Associated Press online stylebook got this question: “Please, no recasts. I cannot find a definitive answer anywhere on the planet. Keep in mind these represent directly quoted utterances. Do we keep or toss the comma after France’s, New York’s and 2001’s? ‘Alice said, “Paris, France’s, sights are breathtaking!”’ ‘Gov. Cuomo said, “Albany, New York’s, crime rate has risen exponentially.”’ ‘Joe said, “September 11, 2001’s, tragic events will be indelibly etched in the minds of everyone.”'” 

These are interesting questions because they create a conflict between comma rules and good taste. Comma rules say that when you refer to a city followed by its state, then continue the sentence, the state is followed by a comma. For instance: Albany, New York, is lovely this time of year. 

The same rule applies to countries after cities: Paris, France, is home to the Eiffel Tower. 

And the same rule applies to years after dates: September 11, 2001, was a tragic day.

But sometimes, especially in casual speech, people can make New York, France or 2001 possessive. New York’s weather is nice this time of year. France’s president will visit. 2001’s events affected us all. 

This is almost never a problem, but when the rules call for a comma in the same spot, things get unsightly and a little weird. Notice how, in “Paris, France’s, sights are breathtaking,” it sounds more like you’re talking about France’s sights than Paris’s. A similar effect is true for the other two sentences.

Rulebooks like the Associated Press Stylebook don’t tell you what to do in these situations. So subscribers sometimes just pose the question to AP’s editors on the stylebook’s website. Usually, this works out great. But not this time.

“Really, truly, recasting is the thing to do,” replied an editor. “Just because someone utters a quote doesn't mean, in most cases, that you have to use the quote in full or in part. There's not a definitive style for this and many other questions because Style Rule No. 1 would be: Recast, rephrase, rewrite! So, we don't have a definitive answer either. I could make something up, but that's not wise or helpful. Sorry!” 

So what would I do if I had to edit one of those sentences? I talk about that in my recent column.

'Pretense' and 'pretext'

If I want to say that someone sold me a bad car, would I say they were operating under the pretext that it wasn’t junk? Or under the pretense?

According to the Associated Press Stylebook, “pretext” is the way to go in this situation: “A pretext is something that is put forward to conceal a truth: He was discharged for tardiness, but the reason given was only a pretext for general incompetence. A pretense is a false show, a more overt act intended to conceal personal feelings: My profuse compliments were all pretense.”

That’s a teensy difference. A pretext conceals a truth. A pretense conceals feelings. They’re both deceptions used as an excuse to say or do something disingenuous.
But AP style is really just for editors and people looking for a rulebook to conform to. If you want rules that apply to the language in every context, you need a dictionary. And here, in this world of rules for everyone, the pretense-pretext distinction is all but wiped out.

Under the entry for “pretense” in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, the fourth definition is “pretext” — meaning the two words can be synonymous. Under its entry for “pretext,” there’s no definition summed up as “pretense,” but if you click on “synonyms,” you land at a thesaurus page that lists “pretense” as one of the top words you can use instead.

Here's the full story in my recent column.

'Like' for 'such as'?

Sometimes readers of my column write to point out mistakes I made. Every once in a while they're right. But perhaps 95 percent of the errors they catch aren't really errors. They’re based on misconceptions that, ironically, I have addressed over and over again in the column.

Here’s an example:

“In your June 10 column you refer to "editors like me." Unless you're speaking of editors who bear similarities to you, I think the phrase should be "editors such as me.”

The author of this e-mail has been writing to me for at least seven or eight years. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the “like” vs. “such as” issue before in the column, just as I have here. Yet this reader often seems to think he’s educating me about issues I had no idea existed until he e-mailed me.

The issue of whether  “like” can be a synonym for “such as” is an old one, and  it’s well-known among people who pay attention to language. The popular misconception is that it cannot: “like” means "similar to” and “such as” means “for example” and that anything else equals bad grammar.

Not so. “Like” isn’t just a verb meaning “bearing a resemblance to.” It’s also a preposition that can mean “such as,” according to Merriam Webster’s.

Every other source I checked agrees. Yet I doubt I've convinced my e-mail friend and I'm even more doubtful that I've convinced him that I.