Time to Write

Write it right: eke, eek!

This is one of my favorite misspellings recently:

"While this quaint little monster movie doesn't quite manage to eek its potential out for its whole duration..."

What the reviewer meant was eke (although he may have said eek! during the film).

Dictionary.com defines eke as a verb (used with an object): "to increase; enlarge; lengthen."

The verb phrase eke out means to make a living or support laboriously or to supplement, add to, or stretch - "to eke out an income with odd jobs."

The reviewer also would have done better not to break up the verb phrase: that is, "doesn't quite manage to eke out its potential" rather than "eke its potential out."

 

For want of a comma...

Here's a line from an article by Christopher Hooton in The Independent, about a trailer for the new "Solo: A Star Wars Story" film:

"Emilia Clarke and Woody Harrelson's characters are seen briefly, along with a younger Lando Calrissian in a giant fur played by Donald Glover."

Man, that Donald Glover can play anything, even a giant fur.

 

Write it right: hot what?

This is from Kim Komando's USA Today technology column:

"For the millennial adult, it doesn't get better than this: sitting at home, playing with your Echo, and then deciding to meet someone for a hot totty at a nearby gastropub, but you don't want to drive."

Totty is British slang for sexy women, so "hot" is kind of redundant.

I'm sure people have met hot totty at a gastropub, but probably KK meant "hot toddy."

A hot toddy is a mixture of a spirit (usually whiskey, rum, or brandy), hot water, and honey (or, in some recipes, sugar).

Cheers!

 

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A simile too far

Even a brilliant publication like the Paris Review can drop a clanger now and then. Here's a sentence from "Life After Empathy: On Philip K. Dick and Blade Runner 2019":

"Like the enslaved Africans in the New World, they [replicants] sometimes object to their lot in life and go rogue, killing their masters, returning to Earth, and passing for human."

Um, did the enslaved Africans in the New World object to their lot in life? Yep. ...

And did they go rogue, killing their masters? Some. So far, so good.

But then we get to "and passing for human." 

Oops.

Unfortunate typos, and let's give the President a gold star

Everybody's material has typos, but some are more unfortunate than others.

WE TEACHES YOU HOW TO WRITE GOOD!

Here's a headline in an ad for a writing course offered by WritersLife.org: "How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy Thats Your Reader's Will Love." 

In the text, it says, "As of this email we has 27 slots available..." 

I suspect they STILL have 27 slots available.

MAYBE THEY WERE RIGHT THE FIRST TIME

One from a Guardian play review: "LSD can bring about psychotic behaviour in those who have not taken it," is one of the many striking lies in the play..." 

It was later changed to "striking lines."

THE INSANELY RIDICULOUS WORDING OF CLICKBAIT HEADLINES, REVISITED

"Insanely" has been joined by "ridiculously" in clickbait headlines.

For instance, "14 Things Ridiculously Successful People Do Every Day." 

Insanely and variations are still popular, of course, as in, "The Insane Mistake Your Social Media Team is Making and How to Fix it" (et tu, Inc magazine?). 

Coming up fast: "game-changing."

HE MAKES UP WORDS (AS WELL AS "FACTS")!

Before you claim it, Mr. President, you didn't invent the term "game-changing" so don't even bother.

In a recent interview with The Economist, Trump mentioned that improving the economy required "priming the pump" by making tax cuts. 

TRUMP: "Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?"

THE ECONOMIST: "Priming the pump?"

TRUMP: "Yeah, have you heard it?"

ECONOMIST: "Yes."

TRUMP: "Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven't heard it. I mean, I just...[pauses to admire own brilliance]...I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It's what you have to do."

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary notes that "the phrase 'priming the pump' has been used to refer to government investment expenditures since at least 1933."

I say that's fake news! Let's give the President the gold star that he so obviously was fishing for because otherwise he gets very cranky.

WRITE IT RIGHT: Demure, demur and an old favorite

In the same week I noticed two mix-ups of the words demure and demur:

"The costumes ranged from the demur to the over-the-top." - Coachella Valley Weekly

"But ask him about it and he'll demure." - Reader's Digest (!)

Demure (dəˈmyo͝or), usually describing a woman, is an adjective meaning reserved, modest and shy.

Demur (dəˈmər) is a verb, meaning to raise doubts or objections or show reluctance, or a noun meaning the action or process of objecting to or hesitating over something. "They accepted the judge's decision without demur."

Other recent sightings:

"Chocked full" instead of "chock-full," meaning full to the limit.

"Peels of laughter," from the Hollywood Reporter, presumably not referring to someone doing a pratfall on a banana skin...Otherwise, it's peals of laughter.

In ScienceDaily, a reference to something being superior than, rather than superior to...

From our usual rich source, USA Today: "A video that shows he and Kate MacKinnon being transformed..." (instead of "a video that shows him and Kate McKinnon..."). My old English teacher gave a very useful tip: if unsure, try saying it without the second individual and see if it sounds right. You wouldn't say "A video that shows he being transformed." Thank you, Mrs. Drake.

 And of course it wouldn't be a "Write it right" post without a sighting of our old favorite:

Yes, it's that shifty mountain again. Note to copywriter: take a peek at the dictionary.

By the way, of course I make lots of mistakes, too. My point is that professional publications seem to have stopped employing copy editors to check spelling, grammar and punctuation, which means readers are misled about the usage of words and phrases like the ones above.

This may be understandable in a small publication like the Coachella Valley Weekly, but I think we have the right to expect better of Reader's Digest, Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today.

 

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An epidemic of word conflation!

Write it right: envious vs. enviable, flare vs. flair

Write it right: sloppy language and farther vs. further

Here's a quote from an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail:

"People who take long-acting opioids for chronic pain are much more likely to die than those taking other medications, according to a study published ..."

And here I thought we all have a 100% probability of dying.

FARTHER OR FURTHER?

One thing that throws a lot of us is when to use farther and when to us further. It turns out that there's a difference between the US and the UK in this regard, according to grammarist.com:

"Farther and further both mean at a greater distance, and they are used interchangeably in this sense. In the United States, though, farther is more often used to refer to physical distances, and further more often refers to figurative and nonphysical distances. For example, we might say that one mountain is farther away than another, while we might say the price of a stock (a nonphysical thing) fell further today than yesterday. This is not a rule, however, and further is often used for physical distances. The distinction does not exist in the U.K. and elsewhere in the (British) Commonwealth of Nations, where further is preferred for all senses of the word and farther is rare.

Further has senses it does not share with farther. It works as an adjective meaning additional—e.g., “I have no further questions.” It works as an adverb meaning additionally—e.g., “He said he did not spend the money, and stated further that he had never even received it.” And it works as a verb meaning to advance (something)—e.g., “This website is meant to further understanding of 21st-century English.” Farther is not commonly used these ways."

 

Write it right: edition, heroin, cachet

Let's look at a few word mix-ups to avoid. First, here's part of the text for an ad for a speech to text program:

Are you looking for dictation software with maximum versatility and functionality? Look no further than the all-new addition of Dragon 5 for Mac.

It was added to their product line but they meant an all-new edition.

Another mix-up was in a headline about the drug that apparently killed Prince, which was described as "More powerful than heroine."

Although we do have many strong female role models these days, the headline writer meant heroin.

Finally, a headline said that a certain development would "endanger the area's cache."

The right word is cachet (ka-shay), the state of being admired or respected.

A cache (pronounced like cash) is a collection of similar items hidden away--these days we see it most often applying to information stored on a computer so it can be found quickly.

There's no shame in making errors like this, I'm sure I do it all the time, but when headline writers and journalists do it and editors don't catch it, it spreads the errors.

The elephant in the room vs the 800-pound-gorilla

I've written once before about how gradually the meaning of the term "the elephant in the room" is changing. It means something with a large presence that doesn't get talked about.

However, more and more I see it used this way (from a recent promotion for a webinar):

Jordan shares with us how YouTube is the elephant in the room. What does he mean by that?

• Everyone knows what YouTube is.
• Everyone considers it first for their solution.
• Everyone knows how to use YouTube.
• Everyone has watched a video on YouTube.
• Everyone is comfortable with it.

That's pretty much the opposite of the meaning, and I realized that it's taking the place of the 800-pound-gorilla, which was the previously popular phrase for something powerful.

Elephant vs. gorilla--advantage, elephant.

Write it write: the elephant in the room

"The elephant in the room" is a popular phrase that has traditionally referred to an obvious major issue or problem that nobody is talking about because it is taboo or would be too embarrassing to acknowledge. 

According to Wikipedia, "In 1814, Ivan Andreevich Krylov (1769-1844), poet and fabulist, wrote a fable entitled 'The Inquisitive Man' which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. The phrase became proverbial.^[3] Fyodor Dostoevsky in his novel 'Demons' wrote, 'Belinsky was just like Krylov's Inquisitive Man, who didn't notice the elephant in the museum....'^[4]

Lately, I've seen it used to mean simply the biggest problem or issue, not one that is unnoticed or ignored. 

I'm fascinated by how language changes, and this may be an example of a phrase in transition. There's a logic to this change, but some usages and patterns appear mysteriously. For instance, why do so many people now start a sentence with the word so, especially when answering a question? It seems to be replacing "well" as a way of buying a moment while you formulate your statement. 

PS: A headline that may have been the result of watching too many political debates appeared today, about a new computer mouse with "unpresidented" ergonomics." In the same article, Julian Horsey (who may not have been responsible for the headline) calls it "very unique." That's another word in transition--unique means one of a kind, so nothing can be very unique or a little unique, but increasingly the word is being used to mean unusual. 

 

 

 

Write it right: sneaky headphones, brainchildren, and massive regiments

An interesting term in USA Today: "non-evasive headphones"...the article was talking about cranial stimulation, so maybe they meant non-invasive...or they keep forgetting where they put their headphones.

Another article talking about an invention said "the brainchild is Dr. (name)"...of course, the brainchild is the result of somebody's thinking power, so it was the doctor who was the brain and the invention that was the brainchild. 

And my favorite, from Bryan Alexander writing in USA Today about the training actor Michael B. Jordan had to go through to play the boxer in Creed: "The already stacked actor had to go through a massive regiment..." Unless the army tried to stop him, it was a massive regimen.

Year-end 'Write It Right' round-up, offered with abandon

Time for this year's final round-up of language or grammar mix-ups spotted here and there. First, the ever-dependable USA Today featured this headline:

"Strangers Help Dog Get Home After Wandering a Thousand Miles"

It's amazing those strangers had any energy left to spend on helping a dog after they'd wandered a thousand miles.

Then there was the story referring to a "heroine overdose."

Did somebody read all of Little Women in one session?

Not a mistake, exactly, but an assault on language was the comment made by a representative of Alaska Airlines regarding a video showing baggage handlers having a contest to see who could throw a suitcase the farthest. He said, "The optics of this video are unfortunate." (And he claimed it wasn't a passenger's bag but one the handlers kept around for such amusement.)

Then there was an article stating, about something the author considered very important, that "the importance of this can't be underestimated." 

A rare sighting: somebody writing that a particular method "can be used without abandon." To do something with abandon means without restraint, inhibition, or worry, as in, "She dances with abandon." Come to think of it, I dance without abandon, so maybe that article was on to something. 

Let's finish with another one from USA today. A review suggested that a particular pair of headphones would "wet your aural whistle."

It's whet, and I'm having a hard time picturing an aural whistle.

I wish you a happy new year lived with abandon, featuring fortunate optics and lots of heroines!

 

 

 

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An epidemic of word conflation!

Grammar Gone Wrong (USA Today--hire a copy editor!)

Write it right: flare vs. flair (et tu, New York Times?)

What's happening to the New York Times? They promoted one of their food articles today with the sentence, "Turn your stuffing into muffins for a festive flare to the popular side dish."

Leaving aside the fact that muffins made out of stuffing are not muffins in my book, presumably the writer meant flair, not flare.

The Oxford dictionaries site says:

Flair means 'a natural ability or talent', as in:

She had a flair for languages.

Or 'a smartness of style or manner',

whereas flare means 'burn suddenly' or 'become wider', as in:

The flare of the match lit up his face.

There was a slight flare at the ends of his trouser

The dictionary gives dash, panache, verve, oomph and pizazz (sometimes spelled pizzazz) as synonyms for flair, although I have trouble imagining stuffing muffins as having any of those characteristics. 

 Within the article they quote a food blogger: "“Last year at Thanksgiving I made this recipe completely vegan and gluten-free and my family (who is normally very wary of anything made without meat or dairy) completely ate it up.”

Later in the article they quote the blogger again and use her quote in a call-out as well: "...this recipe is so fun that it takes center stage."

I've given up expecting proper grammar from the likes of USA Today and most online outlets, but I expect the New York Times copy editors to be fuddy-duddies like me where language is concerned.

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Write it right: Mindless?

Do you know the difference: awhile vs. a while (vs. protracted)

Roundup: An ugly word; Nicely written; Online security tip

AN UGLY WORD

Here's a word I hope doesn't catch on, as used in Entrepreneur magazine:

"When new hires are onboarded at iCracked..."

When they're fired, are they made to walk the plank?

NICELY WRITTEN 

Written by Joan Acocela in The New Yorker in a review of Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games

"There is a certain kind of theatrical spectacle at loose today--think Cirque du Soleil or the Olympics opening ceremony--that unites such things as videos of white stallions, great belches of flame, and what look to be projections of H-bomb tests with squads of women who appear to hail from cosmetics ads. To judge from the song lyrics, all the people involved have a 'dream,' and it eventually comes true, for optimism is as central as hyperbole to this genre."

ONLINE SECURITY TIP

A lot of sites use "What was the name of your first pet?" as a security question. The problem is that we tend to be pretty unimaginative in naming our first pets, so it's not hard for hackers to get a match if they run a list of typical pet names. I've forgotten where I've read this tip, but the suggestion was to make your answer the name of your favorite author instead. The odds are small that hackers will have Mark Twain or Kurt Vonnegut or Margaret Atwood on their list of pet names.

LEAST COMPELLING CONTEST PRIZE OF THE MONTH

"Win a fact-finding forest trip to a European paper mill" ...(but if this does excite you, go to www.twosides.info/competition).

write it right: metal vs. mettle

When metal shows its mettle...

From a news story about the effect of Greece's vote on the Euro: "However, in typical fashion the shared currency showed its metal and in morning trade in London..."

 What the author had in mind is mettle: "vigor and strength of spirit or temperament, staying quality" (Merriam-Webster).