May 22, 2023

Can 'either' refer to three things?

“Every outfit I tried on was either too casual, too loud or too frumpy.”

A funny thing about language: When you use it without thinking, you usually do just fine. It’s only when you stop and question words, grammar and meaning that you realize you don’t understand some element of the language as well as you thought you did.

I was reminded of this recently when someone asked me about “either” to introduce three things, as it does in the sentence about the outfits. Doesn’t “either,” by definition, refer to a choice between exactly two things? A statement is either true or false. A protagonist is either good or bad. Your car either runs or it doesn’t.

So how can “either” set up three things?

Well, according to some people, it can’t. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage lists 10 grammar experts who, in the early 1900s, started saying it’s wrong to use “either” to refer to more than two things. Oddly, grammar experts in the mid- to late-1800s had no problem with it, but this new crop of scolds started a trend.

There’s a flaw in their logic, as Merriam’s points out: The experts who say “either” must refer to only two things don’t take into account that it can be a pronoun, an adjective or a conjunction, and it works differently in each role.

Here’s my recent column showing why in one of its jobs, “either” can refer to more than two things.

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May 15, 2023

'With regularity'?

Here’s a before-and-after, but not necessarily in that order, from the world of editing. See if you can tell which phrasing for a light feature article was penned by the writer and which is the edited version.

If you fly United with regularity …

If you fly United a lot …

I suspect your inner editor cringed at “with regularity.” It’s stuffy. It’s wordy. It’s vaguely reminiscent of a laxative commercial.

If you had this reaction, congratulations: You have a better sense of language and communication than the real-life editor who changed “a lot” to “with regularity” — much to the writer’s chagrin.

I know this because I’m the chagrined writer.

In this column, I usually share experiences from my work as an editor. In that role, I have a bird’s-eye view of many common writing problems and how to spot and fix them. It’s the job. And it produces a lot of useful examples for anyone who wants to write better or just understand good writing.

But sometimes I wear the other hat, the writer’s hat. And in that role, I am, from time to time, the victim of editorial malpractice. “With regularity” may be the worst assault against my prose yet.

So what’s so bad about “with regularity”? A number of things.

For starters, skilled editors know that, in publishing, conciseness is a virtue. Every word that can be cut, should be cut. Why? Because, as PlainLanguage.gov puts it, “unnecessary words waste your audience’s time.” The prepositional phrase “with regularity” contains more words and syllables than you need: “a lot,” “often” or “regularly” would be more efficient.

Another problem with “with regularity”: People don’t talk that way. Feature articles are supposed to meet the reader on her own turf. As PlainLanguage.gov puts it, “Great writing is conversational.” Know who shares this belief? The very organization that employs that editor. Here’s a line from that company’s own editing guide: “Always edit for tight writing. Aim to be as succinct as possible while telling readers what they need to know.”

Also, “regularity” is a nominalization. Most editors I know are not familiar with this term, but they don’t need to be. They understand it instinctively. Harvard professor and linguist Steven Pinker explains in a 2014 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education titled “Why Academics Stink at Writing — and How to Fix It: “English grammar is an enabler of the bad habit of writing in unnecessary abstractions because it includes a dangerous tool for creating abstract terms. A process called nominalization takes a perfectly spry verb and embalms it into a lifeless noun by adding a suffix like -ance, -ment, or -ation.”

I would add “-ity,” to Pinker’s list of nominalizing suffixes and note that you can nominalize adjectives as well as nouns. For example “actuality” is a stuffy noun form of the adjective “actual.” “Curvilinearity” is a silly derivative of the adjective “curvilinear.” And “regularity” is a clumsy nominalization of the adjective “regular.”

Why are nominalizations bad? Here’s Pinker again: “Instead of affirming an idea, you effect its affirmation; rather than postponing something, you implement a postponement. Helen Sword calls them ‘zombie nouns’ because they lumber across the scene without a conscious agent directing their motion. They can turn prose into a night of the living dead.”

One final problem of “with regularity”: By searching Google’s Ngram Viewer, we can see that “regularly” is about 20 times more common in published books and articles than “with regularity,” meaning professional editors and writers consider “with regularity” bad form.

So why on earth would a professional editor change “a lot” to “with regularity”? I’m not sure. But in an age when ranking high on Google searches counts more than quality writing, it seems fewer and fewer editors know how to edit. In my experience, some seem to think that editing means just putting the writer’s words into your own words, without regard for whether they’re better.

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May 8, 2023

Waked up, woked up?

“Something that drives me crazy is the word ‘awake,’” a reader in California wrote to me. “I hear newscasters saying, ‘I was woked up. He woked me up. I was waked up, wokened up.’”

This issue gets tricky. According to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, “wake” gives you a number of past-tense forms to choose from.

For the simple past tense, Merriam-Webster’s prefers “woke.” But it also recognizes “waked.”

Yesterday I woke.

Yesterday I waked.

And, yes, you can use “up” if you want to with any of these, according to Webster’s.

Yesterday I woke up.

Yesterday I waked up.

As for the past participles, Webster’s allows three forms. (Remember that past participles the ones that work with forms of “have.”) For wake, the preferred past participle is “woken.” But they also allow “waked” and “woke.”

In the past I have woken.

In the past I have waked.

In the past I have woke.

In the past I have woken up.

In the past I have waked up.

In the past I have woke up.

There is no “woked.” But it’s not wrong to say “I was waked up.”

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May 1, 2023

Waver vs. waiver

Here’s a word I never fail to stumble over: waver. As in the recent Yahoo News Headline “Apple wavers as court Reverses Ban on Samsung Smartphone.”

Every time I see “waver” in print, I experience one brief moment of thinking it should be “waiver.” And vice-versa: anytime I see “waiver” I think it should be “waver.” It only takes me a split second to realize I’m wrong. But it’s still a little unnerving to have my mental defaults exactly backward.

For the record, here, per Merriam Webster, is the difference.

waver: verb. to vacillate irresolutely between choices; fluctuate in opinion, allegiance, or direction

waiver: noun. the act of intentionally relinquishing or abandoning a known right, claim, or privilege; also : the legal instrument evidencing such an act.

More simply, to waver is to change your mind. A waiver is a legal relinquishment or exemption.

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April 24, 2023

Can you evacuate a person?

In an old episode of "The Wire," a newspaper reporter wrote in an article that people were “evacuated” from a burning building. Wrong, her editors tell her. You don’t “evacuate” a person from a building. To evacuate a person, her editors tell her, means “to give them an enema.”

It was an amusing moment in the show made more interesting by the fact that the show’s creator, David Simon, is a former Sun editor. It gets even more interesting when the reporter picks up a copy of “Webster’s New World” dictionary — the Associated Press Stylebook’s designated dictionary and therefore the very one that newsroom would use — and affirming that, yes, the editors were right. “Evacuate” cannot be used to describe removing people from a building.

The tone of the newsroom banter rang true. Professional wordsmiths spend a lot of time talking about such usage matters. But the content of the conversation — the stuff aobut “evacuate” — well, I just wasn’t buying it. The fact that the show knew which dictionary to use had impressed me so much that I almost believed they were telling viewers the truth about its contents. But not quite.

So I picked up my own copy of “Webster’s New World.”

The first two definitions show that to “evacuate” a person can indeed mean to give him an enema. They are: 1. to make empty; remove the contents of; specif., to remove air from so as to make a vacuum; and 2. to discharge (bodily waste, esp. feces).

But the third definition was different:

3. to remove (inhabitants, etc.) from (a place or area), as for protective purposes

That means that you can evacuate a person by removing him or her from a place. And it contains another lesson, too. Never get your facts from people whose primary job is to entertain.

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April 17, 2023

5 pro tips for using the space bar

Nothing says “This was written by an amateur” like … nothing. White space. Blank space. The number of times you hit that long button at the bottom of a keyboard. Knowing when to insert a space can give your writing top-tier professional polish. Sound like a goal? Here are five pro tips for using the space bar.

1. Single space between sentences.
2. Put a space before an ellipsis.
3. Know when to space around dashes.
4. Know when to space between initials.
5. Check a dictionary for spacing between words.

1. Single space between sentences.

The question of whether to put one space or two after a period or other terminal punctuation mark is hotly debated and highly controversial. That’s ridiculous. There’s no controversy here.

For decades, the professional publishing world has followed the standard of using just one space between sentences. That’s true for both book publishing and news media. Even longtime holdout the Modern Language Assn., which guides students on how to write papers, now agrees, saying the only time you would put two spaces between sentences is when your teacher or professor prefers it.

2. Put a space before an ellipsis.

An ellipsis, a series of three dots that indicate that words were cut out or someone trailed off mid-thought, is always preceded by a space … like this. But if you’ve ever looked closely, you might have noticed that sometimes it sure looks like the first dot touches the word in front of it. Sometimes it even looks like there are four dots, not three, and the first one touches the word before it. I can explain.

When the text before an ellipsis is a complete sentence, the rules say you end that sentence with a period. Then you insert a space and then the three-dot ellipsis. … Computers often reformat this series to make it look like four dots in a row, with no spaces between them. But in fact, what you’re seeing is period, space, period, period, period. So technically there’s still a space in front of the ellipsis. When the stuff before the ellipsis is not a complete sentence, don’t add the extra period. Just space, dot, dot, dot.

Here's the rest in my recent column.

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April 10, 2023

Did AI write this blog?

Recently, author Neil Gaiman posted on Mastodon a link to a blog titled “The 20 Best Lou Reed Songs of All Time” with this comment: “the first time I’ve read an article that I could swear was generated by AI. Whenever it actually describes the lyrical content of a song it’s either slightly wrong, very wrong, or so generalized as to be possibly talking about any possible song.”

I don’t know much about music, but I know a little about writing, so I was curious whether the form was as revealing as the substance. It was.

Here are the first two sentences about song No. 10: “How Do You Think It Feels” is a track from Lou Reed’s 1973 album “Berlin.” The song is a haunting ballad that explores themes of heartbreak, loneliness and despair.

Now song No. 11: “Disco Mystic” is a track from Lou Reed’s 1979 album “The Bells.” The song is a funky, upbeat track that features a driving bassline and infectious rhythm.

No. 12: “Ennui” is a track from Lou Reed’s 1974 album “Sally Can’t Dance.” The song is a laid-back, jazzy track that features a smooth saxophone solo and Reed’s trademark deadpan vocals.

No. 13: “Kicks” is a track from Lou Reed’s 1976 album “Coney Island Baby.” The song is a fast-paced, guitar-driven track that showcases Reed’s trademark snarling vocals.

I don’t know whether this unbylined blog was written by a computer or by a cat walking on a keyboard. But a human writer seems unlikely. In all my years of editing writers good and bad, I’ve never seen anyone use identical sentence structures on repeat. For every entry, the first sentence had as its subject either the song title, the words “the song” or a synonym, all followed by “is” then another synonym for “song,” often “track.” Then they repeat Lou Reed’s full name, followed by a year, followed by an album title.

At their heart, all 20 first sentences say, “The song is a song.” Here in my recent column is a closer look at why the writing seems not human, plus a look at how real, talented writers might do it.

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April 3, 2023

Danglers can be tricky

Here’s a sentence that stopped me dead in my tracks while editing recently: “By purging these bacteria from your gut, online health gurus and supplement marketers claim that probiotics can improve your overall health.”

It sounds fine and the meaning is clear. So this sentence is OK. But editors don’t settle for OK. We aim for precise, unambiguous sentences in which the words say exactly what the writer meant. By editor standards, this sentence didn’t cut it.

Don’t see anything wrong? Ask yourself who, exactly, is doing the purging? As written, this sentence says that health gurus and marketers are doing the purging: “By purging … health marketers say.” That’s not what the writer meant.

Readers naturally expect that the first noun after a modifying phrase is the person or thing the phrase applies to. But when the wrong noun is in that position, the phrase doesn’t attach properly. Instead, it dangles.

A simplified example: “By purging voters, the registrar was breaking the law.” See how the subject of the main clause, “the registrar,” is clearly the one who was doing the purging? But shuffle that around and the intended meaning gets lost: “By purging voters, the election was skewed by the registrar.” Technically, we’re saying that the election purged the voters because “the election” comes right after the modifying phrase.

So here, the phrase “by purging” is a dangler because it doesn’t connect properly to the thing it applies to: the registrar.

The dangler in our original sentence is easy to fix. After “claim,” just delete the word “that” and insert a comma: “By purging these bacteria from your gut, online health gurus and supplement marketers claim, probiotics can improve your overall health.”

Our new comma works with the first one to set off the whole bit about gurus and marketers as parenthetical information.

Ensconced in commas, this clause signals that this is an aside — not the subject of “by purging.” That will come later in the next bit which begins with “probiotics” — the correct subject of “by purging.”

Here’s another dangler that caught my eye recently: One day while working on the farm with her father, they came across a wasps’ nest.

This one makes my head hurt. It was in a story profiling an entrepreneur, so it was clear at this point in the story who “her” referred to. But who do we mean by “they”? Obviously, it would mean both the entrepreneur and her father were it not for one little problem: the first part of the sentence dangles. Why? Because it’s about one person — the person who was working with her father. “They” suggests they were both working with her father, even though one of them was her father. Hence my headache.

To fix this, change the structure of the opening phrase: “One day while she and her dad were working on the farm.” By making this a complete clause, containing both a subject and a verb, you no longer have the modifying participle “working” looking for a subject to attach to. You already gave “working” its subject. So when the word “they” comes up, it’s a logical reference to both the woman and her father.

Another alternative that eliminates the dangler: One day while she was working on the farm with her father, the pair came across a wasps’ nest.

Danglers like these aren’t a huge problem because the reader easily gets the meaning. But if you want to write with precision, make sure that the first noun after a modifying phrase is the person or thing the phrase applies to.

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March 27, 2023

One consortium, two ... consortiums?

Recently, I was editing an article and came across a reference to a consortium, then to another consortium, then (here it comes) to two consortiums.

I didn’t want to futz with it. I liked it fine. And the tendency I’ve seen in some people to go all Julius Caesar when forming the plural of any Latin noun always struck me as a bit much. I’m talking about the people who lunge at the chance to use “memoranda” without even considering whether it should be “memorandums” because, hey, that’s how you’d do it in ancient Rome.

This may be a good way to justify how they spent a couple precious semesters in high school, but it’s not a good policy for forming plurals. In fact, if you did this with memorandum, you’d be making a bad call.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary allows both “memorandums” and “memoranda” as the plural of “memorandum.” But it prefers “memorandums.” And editing styles usually defer to their dictionaries’ preferred forms, in part because it helps ensure consistency. Otherwise, if editors chose whichever correct form they wanted, some would choose “memorandums” and others would choose “memoranda” and a publication that didn’t watch such things could have all kinds of inconsistencies.

So when I saw “consortiums” I really didn’t want to be that editor who gets all Latin happy on a writer’s word choice. But, of course, it’s not my call anyway. So I had to check.

The dictionary I was editing from, Webster’s New World, says the correct plural is “consortia.” So I had to change it. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, however, allows both plural forms, though it prefers “consortia.”

You can use either one you prefer. Just don’t judge an editor too harshly if she changes it on you.

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March 20, 2023

Worst Comes to Worst? Or Worse Comes to Worst?

I try not to cringe when people use language in a way that seems wrong to me. My idea of what’s right, as I’ve learned the hard way, isn’t necessarily right. So who am I to judge? But though I can hold my tongue, I can’t just turn off my cringe impulse at will, as evidenced by my reaction when I hear people say, “If worst comes to worst.”

To me, that first T is like nails on a chalkboard. How can worst come to worst, I wonder, if it’s already worst? Clearly, the fear is that something already bad — a worse thing — could go even further downhill, all the way to its worst possible state. So obviously, people who use two “worsts” in this expression are botching up the logical original wording, “if worse comes to worst.”

So I scoffed and I sniffed and I silently judged every time I heard the version with two “worsts” until the year 2023 when, after about 20 years of writing about grammar, I finally looked it up.

Good thing I held my tongue. “The traditional idiom, evidenced by the Oxford English Dictionary consistently from the 16th century, is worst comes to worst,” writes Garner’s Modern English usage.
Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage reports that the expression “worst comes to worst” seems to have first appeared in print in 1597, its meaning identical to the way people use it now: “if the worst that can possibly happen does happen.” It wasn’t till more than a century later that the expression I assumed was the original, “worse comes to worst,” appeared in print.

“Presumably it was the desire to make the phrase more logical that gave rise to the variant ‘if the worse comes to the worst,’ which was first recorded in 1719, when it was used (in the past tense) by Daniel Defoe in ‘Robinson Crusoe,’” Merriam’s writes.

Interestingly, when I searched a version of “Robinson Crusoe” online, I found on page 183 “if the worst came to the worst” — with two Ts — meaning that sometime between the publication of the edition Merriam-Webster referenced and the edition I saw, someone had changed Defoe’s “worse” to “worst” in order to make it correct according to the standards of his time.

This back-and-forth supports Merriam’s central point about the two forms of this expression: “In the centuries since, this phrase has shown a stubborn unwillingness to settle into fixed form.”

Here's more in my recent column.

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