In a recent article reporting on “e-signatures” for contracts and other documents, this quotation appeared: “How do you know it was me who signed it?”
The proper uses of I and me are among the first grammatical rules that schoolchildren are taught. Yet even as adults, writers and speakers sometimes get it wrong.
I have long been fascinated by funny mistakes committed by people who should know better. Whenever I find an amusing goof, I seize upon it. “How did the copy editors and proofreaders and fact-checkers miss that one?” I think.
Can you spot anything wrong in this sentence?
“Also on the front page, just below the Citizen’s masthead, the paper’s publishers added the phrase ‘Belmont’s Only Prize-Winning Newspaper,’ a thinly veiled dig at their hometown competitor, The Belmont Herald.”
In my reading, I frequently encounter misused and confused words. Here are five recent sightings, most from major newspapers:
The writer means faint praise — not very much. A feint is a deceptive or diversionary action. (more…)
A contentious issue among language enthusiasts is the use of the split infinitive. Before reviewing the arguments of the two sides, let’s look at a few examples: (more…)
If you’re old enough, you may recall a song that contains the lyric, “So it’s the meantime, meantime / All they gave me is that in-between time.” (more…)
In matters of grammar and usage, it’s not always easy to know what’s correct.
In France, a government-run Academy serves as the official authority. Here in America, no single authority has been appointed to give us definitive answers. We must consider various sources, sometimes conflicting, and make our own decisions. (more…)
In this column, I routinely use words that describe aspects of language. But these terms are often misunderstood and confused. Here’s a brief guide, followed by a few tips to improve your writing. (more…)
Mistakes can be a good thing. They teach us what to avoid. The trick, though, is to learn by observing others make them.
With that goal in mind, here’s another roundup of misspellings, misunderstandings, and other misuses — all found via Internet search, but equally frequent in print:
“I just find it as ridiculous as any other hair-brained conspiracy theory.”
Whether hair-brained or hairbrained, it’s wrong. The correct word is harebrained — that is, the brain of a rabbit. It’s true that hare was once spelled hair, but that was 400 years ago. Don’t be harebrained; spell it correctly! (more…)
You hear and use them every day, perhaps without realizing why they’re special. I’m referring to what linguists call blends: new words created via the marriage of two other words.
Familiar words of this type include the computer term bit (binary + digit), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), and Spam – the edible kind (spiced + ham).
They’ve also been called telescope words and centaur words. Lewis Carroll called them “portmanteau words.” That reference is now rather obscure, but back in the day, a portmanteau was a traveling bag that opened into two compartments. Thus, as Carroll defined the term in Through the Looking-Glass: “two meanings packed up into one word.” And, by the way, several of Carroll’s own blended-word coinages are still used, most notably chortle (chuckle + snort).
Decades ago, Time magazine and the gossip columnist Walter Winchell were known for devising new blends, some of which survived while others faded away. Among them: cinemactress, frauditor, genethics, guesstimate, and infanticipating.
If you keep your eyes and ears open, you’ll discover that the list of blend words is surprisingly long: advertorial, camcorder, Chunnel, glasphalt, infomercial, Jazzercise, minicam, pixel, and sitcom, for example. Because new things are constantly being created, and they all need names, the roster will surely continue to grow.
Here are a few more, the origins of which may not be immediately apparent:
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
One of my pet linguistic peeves is the frequent misuse of the adjective proverbial.
Consider this sentence, from a magazine profile of a government whistleblower: “When she grabs hold of something, she is like the proverbial dog with a bone in its teeth.”
But the expression the writer cites is not a proverb; it’s a simile.
A quick Internet search reveals that just about anything has been incorrectly labeled proverbial: “sitting on the fence,” “in the hot seat,” “throwing in one’s hat,” “getting hit by a beer truck,” and even “the first post on a blog.”
Some dictionaries have shamefully capitulated, sanctioning this solecism. The American Heritage Dictionary, for example, gives this as its third definition of proverbial:”Widely referred to, as if [emphasis added] the subject of a proverb; famous.”
As I’ve cautioned in this column, however, dictionaries are not always to be trusted. Many are descriptivist, meaning that they simply reflect how words are commonly used, instead of giving us guidance on how they should be used.
A proverb communicates a truth, principle, or moral lesson in a pointed and pithy style: “Out of sight, out of mind.” “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” And, of course, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
Whether adage, aphorism, apothegm, or axiom, a proverb contains a nugget of wisdom, expressed incisively and memorably. Thus, the word proverbial should be used only in reference to a genuine proverb.
So if you’re ever tempted to say something like “The report went astray, like the proverbial car keys,” ask yourself if what you’re referring to really is a proverb.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Here is more proof, if any is needed, that proofreaders and copy editors don’t always catch every error. I found all the following examples recently in major national publications.
The word shackles refers to handcuffs or other sorts of fetters. Hackles are the feathers of a bird. Hence, the expression “to get one’s hackles up” means to be insulted or irritated.
The word presumptuous means taking liberties by assuming too much. It implies an attitude that’s bold or arrogant. The right word here is pretentious.
A rice patty is a culinary creation, but an irrigated or flooded field where rice is grown is a paddy.
This choice of words creates an image that the writer probably didn’t intend. Better: “… as one waits for the next meeting with one’s lover.”
When a new word, such as blog, enters the language, it can take a while to work out the right ways to use it. The phrase “keeping a blog,” which is probably modeled on “keeping a diary,” isn’t ideal. It implies doing something that’s private rather than public. Blogging is a form of communication, so the best word here is published, not kept.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
As a writer on language, I’m especially sensitive to mistakes I encounter while reading. They seem to leap off the page, and I gleefully seize them as potential material for this column.
Here are some of my recent “catches,” all from major newspapers:
Unless the eatery also serves suffixes, the correct spelling isprix-fixe (meaning “fixed price”). This French expression can be misspelled in multiple ways, and I suspect that I’ve seen every possible permutation.
The slang expression for messing with the head of an opponent, a verb, is spelled psych (and pronounced SIKE). The nounpsyche (pronounced SY-kee), refers to the mind or spirit.
The word dicey means involving danger or risk. The writer surely meant that the details were unclear or uncertain.
The verb tussle means struggle or scuffle. It might make sense here, in a strained way, but the writer probably meant hair-tousling.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
You may be surprised to discover how many advantages public speaking offers to anyone who has something to sell.
Your business, and your expertise, might be investing, fitness, motivating employees, fine art… or even video gaming. Whatever it is, people with an interest in that subject regularly assemble. They want to hear you.
Here are just a few of the many benefits you can realize by speaking about your specialty:
Where can you speak? Opportunities abound.
Consider the corporate and business world. Every industry and profession has conferences, conventions, seminars, breakfasts, lunches, and dinners. All need speakers.
To prospect for bookings, begin with your own network. If you don’t have direct contacts with groups that sponsor relevant events, an Internet search will turn up dozens or hundreds, including some you might never guess existed. Ask your local Chamber of Commerce for referrals to groups that welcome new speakers. Directories of associations are also good resources.
While researching my e-book, The Versatile Freelancer, I interviewed numerous successful speakers. One is Mardy Grothe, a consultant who speaks to business and professional associations on leadership, conflict resolution, and related topics. The 8,000 members of Vistage, an international business-networking group, consistently rate him as one of the organization’s best speakers.
“It’s tough to get booked by national associations,” Mardy says. “There’s a lot of competition and it’s a long shot. But here’s a tip that worked for me. Many of them have state chapters – so you have 50 additional chances.
“Moreover, it’s easier for a beginner on the state level, so start there. They pay little or no money, but it gets your foot in the door. They may recommend you to other chapters. Then one day, you have the clout to get the gig at the annual conference of the parent group, and that pays well.
“Your opportunities are in your own backyard,” Mardy advises. “Look around in your area. Speak at local groups and companies. If you have services to sell, your clientele is probably local, so that exposure makes sense.”
Regarding your presentation itself, here are a few tips that have served me well in my own speaking appearances:
When I suggest to friends that they consider public speaking to promote their businesses, I sometimes get the response, “I could never do that! I’d be terrified to stand up in front of an audience.” People afflicted with stage fright don’t realize that it’s not that difficult to overcome. If you can talk to an audience of one person, you can talk to an audience of one thousand. And you don’t have to dazzle your listeners. You merely need to communicate information they find valuable.
So what’s stopping you from reaping the rewards of public speaking?
[Ed. Note: The above article was adapted from Don Hauptman's e-book The Versatile Freelancer: How Writers and Other Creative Professionals Can Generate More Income by Seizing New Opportunities in Critiquing, Consulting, Training, and Presenting. It contains step-by-step advice on how to prepare a presentation, cure stage fright, avoid mistakes and problems, obtain bookings, negotiate compensation, leverage and exploit a presentation into new sources of profits, and more. The book comes with a free bonus report and a 100 percent money-back guarantee of satisfaction. Order your copy without risk here.]
Are the following two sentences correct?
• “The Minister of Public Security… signed last night in Washington D.C. a memorandum of mutual understanding with his American counterpart….” (The situation involves two people.)
• “A person met through a mutual acquaintance is often more easily integrated into one’s network than a person met on one’s own.” (The situation involves two people and their relationship to a third person.)
In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein explains:
“Properly speaking, mutual connotes interaction or recognition between two or more persons or things. The meaning ’shared in common’… is not now considered good usage.” (That sense of the word was popularized by the title of Charles Dickens’s novel Our Mutual Friend.)
Thus, the first sample sentence above is correct, but, judged by the rule just cited, the second one is questionable.
Another language authority is adamant that mutual should be used only to mean “reciprocal.” Instead of “mutual friend,” he advises us to write and say “friend in common.” But that locution strikes my ear as awkward and clunky.
Bernstein agrees: “Because a suitable substitute is lacking, the tendency these days is to accept the phrase mutual friend or mutual acquaintance.”
Although I tend to be a traditionalist on language matters, I can be flexible. We need not blindly follow linguistic rules if they don’t make sense. This is one such case. So my verdict is that both of the sample sentences at the beginning of this article pass muster.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
I never run out of examples of word pairs that are commonly confused. Here’s another list:
• “Fear of weight gain may mitigate against effective psychiatric treatments.”
The writer meant militate, which means to exert a force or influence. To mitigate means to alleviate, moderate, make something less severe. Thus, the latter word is never properly used with against.
• “Whatever food other people are eating around her, it doesn’t phase her.”
The word wanted here is faze, which means disturb, disconcert, daunt.
• “So, I’d do some digging before I went full boar into streaming.”
Although full boar conjures up an interesting image, the correct expression is full bore. The origin of the metaphor is disputed, but the term originally described the widest capacity of an engine cylinder or gun barrel, thereby suggesting the idea of maximum power.
• “Staff may be reticent to express themselves freely in the presence of supervisors.”
This is one of the most common linguistic mix-ups. The writer meant reluctant. The word reticent means reserved, quiet, taciturn. Thus, one is never reticent to do something.
I found all the examples quoted above by searching the Internet. The tens of thousands of incorrect citations that turned up demonstrate just how frequently these words are misunderstood and misused.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Consider the following sentences:
• “Whey protein has been proven through scientific research to be very beneficial….”
• “Yet few of them understood the investments they held, many of which had proven to be junk.”
• “It’s not as if this exact rumor hasn’t been proven false time and time again….”
In each of the above examples, proven should be proved.
According to Bryan Garner in Garner’s Modern American Usage“Proved has long been the preferred past participle of prove. But proven often ill-advisedly appears….” He goes on to explain that proven “properly exists only as an adjective,” as in “a proven success.” An exception is traditional legal terminology, e.g., “innocent until proven guilty.”
• • •
Follow-up: In a recent column, I pointed out that the word antisocial implies hostility and aggressiveness, so someone who simply wants to be alone should be described as unsociable. “What about the word asocial?” a reader asked. “How should that be used?”
Here’s my answer: The prefix a- means not, and asocial can mean both unsociable and antisocial. Because of that ambiguity, I recommend that you avoid it. Choose unsociable or antisocial, depending on which meaning you want to convey.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Here’s another roundup of doppelganger words that are often confused. I encountered all of these misuses in my routine reading:
• “With flawless, crystalline hindsight, Henry laid out the causes of our present affliction, and prescribed remedies therefore.”
The word therefore means thus; the word wanted here is therefor.
• “There is no shortage of data to support the notion that walking is imminently healthy.”
Perhaps walking helps you right away, but I suspect the writer meant eminently.
• “Of course, even if you use a social phone number, your hidden digits are likely to be announced through caller ID to anyone you deign worthy of calling back.”
The verb deign means condescend; the writer probably meant deem.
• “The dissembling of Malcolm Forbes’s assets culminated in the 2004 sale of nine Faberge imperial Easter eggs for about $100 million.”
To dissemble is to deceive; the writer undoubtedly intended to convey the idea that the estate was broken up or disassembled.
• “There’s no other word than ‘groped’ for having one’s breasts palpitated in public.”
The verb palpitate means tremble or quiver; what the writer meant was palpate, to touch a part of the body, usually for medical purposes.
• “But concerns that the new terms gave Facebook too much leeway with the hoards of data shared by its 175 million users quickly spread….”
The word hoard is a noun or verb meaning stash or cache; a large number or amount is a horde.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
You might assume that respected publications employ battalions of skilled editors who work assiduously to ensure that no errors appear in their pages. Maybe so, but the mistakes don’t always get caught. Here are four that I recently found in major newspapers:
These examples demonstrate once again that it’s a good idea to express oneself carefully. Sloppy writing and unprofessional editing tend to stop readers in their tracks and distract from the message.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
In honor of April Fool’s Day, let’s look once again at the lighter side of language.
You’ve surely heard, or perhaps even committed, a spoonerism – the exchange, often accidental, of the initial letters or sounds of two words, which results in a surprising and funny new meaning. For instance, one might intend to say “It’s time to leave the house” but inadvertently say “It’s time to heave the louse.”
Since childhood, I’ve been fascinated by spoonerisms. In 1991, Dell published Cruel and Unusual Puns, my book on the subject. I still occasionally write articles about the genre for fellow logophiles.
The word spoonerism derives from William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930), a clergyman and a scholar and official at Oxford University. He supposedly uttered these blunders constantly. Scolding a student: “You have hissed all my mystery lectures. You have tasted two worms.”
Only a handful of genuine spoonerisms are attributed to Dr. Spooner, and even those have been disputed. Mischievous students invented most of his alleged bloopers, yet the myth that Spooner said them persists to this day.
Spoonerisms continue to be crafted deliberately for humorous purposes. Consider the following specimens. If any stump you, remember the principle of reversing the initial letters of two of the words.
• Unadoptable section of the animal shelter: Nixed mutts.
• First lesson for Starbucks’ baristas: Heed the foamless!
• Why celebrities usually tolerate autograph seekers: A good fan is hard to mind.
• Alert for Australian soldiers: But mate – there’s war!
• What it’s called nowadays when teenage girls know so much that their beleaguered dads can’t keep up: The well-aware daughter gap.
• That bittersweet feeling on returning from summer vacation: One sighs; it’s fall.
• Homer Simpson’s reaction when he belatedly heard about Chamberlain’s 1938 appeasement of Hitler: Better the Neville you… d’oh!
Is all this just silly fun, without practical value? No! The study of spoonerisms and other speech errors gives us a “window into the mind,” say neurologists, psychologists, and linguists who do research in human behavior. It yields important clues about how the mind works; how language is acquired, structured, and retrieved; and how language disabilities such as dyslexia might be treated or cured.
My hunch is that you’ll now be on the alert whenever you encounter tips of the slung. Er, I mean, “slips of the tongue”!
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Here are three sentences, drawn from an Internet search:
The above uses of presently are incorrect – or at least dicey enough to warrant rephrasing the sentences. The word is used correctly in this sentence: “Bill is almost finished with the Thompson audit and he will presently begin work on the Witherspoon report.”
Hundreds of years ago, presently meant “now.” But it subsequently came to mean “soon,” “later,” “in a while.” Today, once again, people frequently use it in the “now” sense. But the “later” meaning is regarded as standard.
It’s easy to imagine how this ambiguity might result in confusion. Understanding whether something is happening now or will occur later could be important. So it’s best to avoid the word entirely and substitute now, currently, or at present. These alternatives are simpler and clearer. In communication, that’s always a good thing.
Can you recall when and where you first encountered certain words?
As a kid in the 1950s and early ’60s, I was a fan of superhero comic books. A convention of the genre was to caption the top of a panel “Presently…” I was puzzled by it at first, but quickly realized that the action in the captioned panel was happening at a later time, not simultaneously with the previous sequence. That’s how I learned the word and its proper meaning.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Are you a writer? A speaker? Whatever you do professionally, you need to communicate effectively. That means your success is determined in part by how well you use language. A new book by Roy Blount Jr. can help you improve your knowledge and mastery of English. And as lagniappe, it’s fun to read.
Published a few months ago, Alphabet Juice revels in the joys of the written and spoken word. The title is, I gather, a play on “alphabet soup.” But it’s also a tribute to the excitement that words can generate. Explains the Introduction: “Juice as in au jus, juju, power, liquor, electricity.”
As you might expect, the text is in alphabetical order. Readers will discover short (mostly) entries on ain’t, beg the question, cliche, double negative, Goldwynisms, headlinese, kvetch, limerick, portmanteau word, semicolon, subjunctive, unbeknownst… and scores of other topics.
Blount delves into the ancient roots of words, points out unexpected connections among seemingly dissimilar words, and explains the origins of slang expressions such as phooey and pizzazz. He debunks popular “folk etymologies” that are, in fact, fabrications or urban legends.
Best known as a humorist, Blount is the author of 20 previous books. His serious interest in language is confirmed by his membership on the American Heritage Dictionary’s Usage Panel, which adjudicates thorny language disputes. But Alphabet Juice is witty and conversational, and festooned with puns, wordplay, light verse, and clever coinages (e.g., antepenultimatum: two warnings from the final one!).
Here are some excerpts that illustrate the book’s range of subjects and the author’s distinctive style:
• babble/babel: “It’s hard to believe that these two words, whose meanings are so close, have no etymological connection. But they don’t, say the scholars: Babble is from baby talk and babel from the Bible.”
• English: “English is an outrageous tangle of those [Greco-Latin] derivations and other multifarious linguistic influences, from Yiddish to Shoshone, which has grown up around a gnarly core of chewy, clangorous yawps derived from ancestors who painted themselves blue to frighten their enemies.”
• intelligible: “We say something is unintelligible or barely intelligible, but we never say, ‘That argument of yours sure is intelligible.’”
• mic: “I hate to see mike, short for microphone, rendered as mic, which is how it tends to be spelled these days… . Mic, dammit, should be pronounced mick… . The colloquial abbreviation of a word is not limited to letters taken from that word. If it were, we wouldn’t be able to shorten refrigerator to fridge.”
• wrought: “… not the past tense of wreak, as is often assumed, but of work, in the sense of making something, forming something, bringing something about… . Archaic though the word wrought is, it has stayed alive… .”
One of Blount’s favorite themes is that certain words are imitative, reflective of their meanings, or that they “sensuously evoke the essence of the word”: blob, crackle, grunt, queasy, scrawl, throb, wince, zest, and many others. He calls such words “sonicky.”
I applaud the author’s prescriptivism. He firmly defends the traditional definitions of many words and doesn’t capitulate to their popular misuses – e.g., disinterested, hopefully, and literally. He also advocates, as I do, retaining the hyphen in e-mail.
Any quibbles? A few. Because the book is formatted like a dictionary or encyclopedia, some readers may be misled into assuming that it’s a comprehensive reference work. It’s not. The author chose to include items that struck his fancy, and excluded others. Thus, you’ll find helpful discussions on flack vs. flak and the misuse of incredible, but you’re out of luck if you’re seeking clarifications for other troublesome words, such as comprise, enormity, or fortuitous.
My hunch is that Blount, over several years or decades, habitually tossed notes and clippings into a shoebox. Then, when the collection became large enough, he cobbled everything into a book. There’s nothing wrong with that. After all, it’s pretty much the technique I use to write these columns for ETR! But for a complete guide to the English language or English usage, you’ll have to consult a volume other than Alphabet Juice.
It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that the book is something of a grab bag. The content sometimes tends toward the random, desultory, and idiosyncratic. Blount isn’t reluctant to free-associate or to digress into sports, movies, or an irrelevant anecdote from his childhood or adolescence. The entry on consonants somehow sparks a recollection of his father’s tool chest, and a discussion of spelling bees leads to… Madame de Pompadour? He’s also prone to shameless name-dropping. These excursions are interesting, but their connection to language is often minimal or nonexistent.
A final gripe: Alphabet Juice lacks an index and a table of contents. Apparently, when a book is formatted alphabetically, the publisher considers both to be dispensable. But without an index, the reader can’t easily find proper names or terms that aren’t major entries. A listing of topics up front isn’t redundant. It’s a valuable tool that gives the reader an overview of the book at a glance.
These reservations aside, Alphabet Juice is informative, entertaining, and amusing. And a big advantage in these times of information overload is that you need not read it cover to cover. Browsing and grazing in its pages will reward you well.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.
Knowing just the right word to say can not only help you become a more persuasive writer and speaker – it can elevate others’ impressions of you. Spend 10 minutes a day with ETR’s Words to the Wise CD Library and learn how to command a powerful vocabulary quickly, confidently, and easily.
I read The New York Times regularly. Notwithstanding its reputation, this esteemed newspaper often proves to be a fertile source of misuses for this column. Within the space of a few days, for example, I found these two sentences in its pages:
• Photo caption: Jed Walentas, a real estate developer, says that an 18-story building would not be obtrusive, and that a smaller one is unfeasible.
• Headline: Town Mourns Typical Businessman Who Took Untypical Risks
The words unfeasible and untypical are not necessarily wrong, but they are nonstandard. The preferred forms are infeasible and atypical.
Garner’s Modern American Usage, one of my favorite authorities on matters linguistic, uses the term “needless variants” – “two or more forms of the same word without nuance or differentiation.”
The English language contains numerous word pairs with identical meanings but which differ in minor ways, as the examples above demonstrate. One form is usually regarded as standard, however, and that’s the one you should use.
Here are a few more words to use – and avoid:
• complacency, not complacence
• ironic, not ironical
• orient, not orientate
• preventive, not preventative
When in doubt as to which version of a word to use, consult a good dictionary or style guide.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Language errors occur so frequently that this subject is a well that will never run dry for those of us who write about grammar and usage. Here’s a new list of common misuses and misspellings, with examples drawn from online and print media:
• “Last year one of [FedEx's] commercials featured a giant carrier pigeon wrecking havoc on a city.”
That may sound logical, but the correct expression is wreaking havoc. The word wreak means to execute or bring about.
• “Albright, 38, says he’s the only dad among his son’s friend group that plays games with his kids. This jives with a recent AOL/Associated Press poll that showed four in 10 parents never game with their game-playing kids.”
Maybe it’s the jazzy sound of the word “jive” that makes this such a popular error, but it should be jibes with. The word jibe means to agree, to be in accord.
• “I installed the board, and hooked up everything, 100% confident that it would have no problems. But low and behold, as it was starting to boot into Windows, I watched the CPU fan spin down to 0 RPM.”
People write the phrase as they hear it, but it’s really lo and behold. The archaic word lo, an exclamation of surprise, means look.
• “Finland is Europe’s most homogenous society, a nation of mostly blond ethnic Finns whose declining birthrate creates the classic 21st-century European dilemma.”
This is a common confusion in both speaking and writing. The writer of the above excerpt means homogeneous (hoh-muh-JEEN-ee-us), meaning of the same nature or having uniform characteristics. Yes, homogenous is a real word, with a technical meaning in biology. But the word wanted in almost every case is the one with five syllables, not four.
By the way, when I Googled homogenous, I got three million links – and the helpful query, “Did you mean homogeneous?”
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Michael Masterson has often written of the benefits of being a “chicken entrepreneur.” He uses this tongue-in-cheek expression to describe someone who starts a business or creates a new source of income while remaining at a full-time job or otherwise minimizing the risks.
Today, I want to tell you about a variation of that strategy that has proven successful for me and many others. You might call it being a “chicken salad entrepreneur.”
I’m the quintessential business coward. I have no management or leadership skills. Moreover, I never wanted to take on all those challenging business tasks and responsibilities: raising capital, hiring and firing, dealing with suppliers, and so on.
When I was in school, I expected that I would one day get a “real” job with an ad agency. As a result of some fortunate contacts, however, I became a freelancer with my own copywriting practice – for more than 30 years.
I soon discovered that there was a demand for my marketing expertise. So I embarked upon a series of lucrative and enjoyable sidelines: public speaking, corporate training, consulting, and critiquing. In these “presentation activities,” as I call them, I share what I know – and I’m paid well for it, between $2,000 and $10,000 per assignment. What’s more, the jobs are often fast, easy, and fun.
While researching my e-book, The Versatile Freelancer,I interviewed numerous other professionals who have double or multiple careers. They range from a career counselor who speaks, consults, and trains… to a book editor who coaches authors and critiques their manuscripts.
The “chicken” factor at work here is evident. For all of us, the risk of diversifying our careers was minimal, requiring a tiny investment of time and money – sometimes none at all.
Now, how about you?
Do people tell you that you’re a natural teacher? Do you possess the necessary skills and enthusiasm? Would you enjoy it? Ask yourself: “In my current job, are there elements of consulting, training, coaching? Are there people and companies that could benefit from what I know? Would they be willing to pay me for that knowledge?”
Do some research and apply some creative thinking. You may be surprised by what you discover.
If you’re hesitant about your presentation skills, fear not! You don’t need to dazzle your clients. You only need to have marketable knowledge and experience, and the ability to communicate it. And keep in mind that, if you have serious stage fright issues, consulting and critiquing can often be done via phone, e-mail, or written reports.
There are other benefits. For example, you can sometimes recycle content from one presentation activity or assignment to another – and get paid for it over and over again!
Let’s say you receive a fee for a corporate training presentation – and then realize that it can be repeated almost verbatim at another company or at an industry conference. This is not unethical as long as you’re not disclosing confidential information or duplicating material to which you’ve sold exclusive rights. Getting paid more than once is an established and accepted practice. It’s simply the adroit use of leverage to expand your time and multiply your earning power.
Despite all the advantages, this sort of career may not be for everyone. I couldn’t do it – until I had reached the point where I had something to say that was of value to others.
How will you know when you’ve achieved a sufficient level of knowledge and expertise? One tip-off is that people will start asking you questions such as, “How much would you charge to come to our company and…?” That’s a clear signal that the market is ready for you.
Caution: If you moonlight, as most chicken entrepreneurs do, be sure you’re not violating the terms of a current employment agreement – a non-compete clause, for example. If you have any doubts, talk to a lawyer. In addition to legal considerations, be aware of possible ethical conflicts.
Now… how do you get your first assignments?
Referrals are always best. A good way to start is by capitalizing on your existing business contacts: co-workers, industry colleagues, friends, online social networks, and so forth.
Beyond direct networking, the next most successful tactics for gaining exposure and building your reputation are writing articles for trade publications and speaking at business events. Both are low-key approaches that promote your services in a professional way. In contrast, cold calling and paid advertising can appear unprofessional – and may not generate enough business to justify the costs.
The late Howard Shenson, renowned as “the consultants’ consultant,” wrote: “I have long been an advocate of indirect marketing techniques. … I believe that the direct, hard-sell techniques [cold calls, advertising, direct mail] are not as effective as the indirect strategies, which are more like public relations activities. As an added bonus, these indirect, low-cost/no-cost techniques are much less expensive.”
In advocating the indirect approach, Howard wasn’t relying on guesswork. He did periodic surveys and received responses from thousands of consultants about what sorts of marketing efforts they used and what worked. The results? The lowest-paid consultants marketed themselves via cold calls and paid advertising. The most successful and highest-paid used the public relations techniques: writing and speaking.
There are many advantages to diversifying your career into consulting, training, and coaching. One that might be especially appealing to you right now is that it can give you some protection against a weak economy or a recession.
How so? You’ll have a wider portfolio of skills and services to offer. You’ll have not just one source of revenue, but multiple streams of income.
And there’s another reason. In tough times, companies trim their staffs. To fill the gaps, they are likely to hire freelancers.
Many of the people I interviewed for my book told me that their businesses were unaffected by current economic conditions and that they are doing as well as ever, or even better. In most cases, they credited their survival and success to their versatility. Because they have multiple careers and income streams, when demand for one declines another often picks up.
So if you’re looking for a safe, low-risk way to increase your income while keeping your “day job,” and which might eventually turn into a full-time career, this might just be your ticket.
[Ed. Note: Don Hauptman writes ETR's Saturday column, "The Language Perfectionist." The above article was adapted from his e-book The Versatile Freelancer: How Writers and Other Creative Professionals Can Generate More Income by Seizing New Opportunities in Critiquing, Consulting, Training, and Presenting. The book comes with a free bonus report and a 100 percent money-back guarantee of satisfaction. Order your copy without risk here.]
In your reading, you may occasionally encounter a word or expression from another language.
Some writers ostentatiously drop in such words to flaunt their erudition. But foreign-language words are used for good reasons. Although the English language offers us a remarkably wide choice of words, some concepts are better expressed in other languages, especially when no precise equivalent exists in English. In addition, an imported locution is often more concise and stylistically superior.
Here is an A-to-Z glossary – by no means comprehensive – of such words and phrases. You might occasionally find opportunities to use them. But even if you never do, you won’t be in the dark when you read or hear them.
• a fortiori (ah for-tee-OR-ee), Latin. All the more. Example: “I said I wouldn’t clean the garage and my reasons apply a fortiori to the house.”
• casus belli (KAH-zus BELL-ee or KAY-sus BELL-eye), Latin. An act or event that provokes war. Often used metaphorically, e.g., “That new book on evolution is sure to be a casus belli.”
• l’esprit de l’escalier (les-PREE duh les-kal-YAY), French. Literally, “the wit of the staircase” – the clever retort you think of only after it’s too late to utter it and impress everyone. Interestingly, German has the identical metaphor: Treppenwitz. (I often find occasion to use this one!)
• nostalgie de la boue (NOS-tal-jee duh lah BOO), French. Literally, “yearning for the mud.” An attraction to, or perverse compulsion for, the unworthy, crude, or degrading.
• schadenfreude (SHAHD-en-froi-duh), German. When a once-esoteric word is discussed on The Simpsons and becomes the title of a song in a long-running Broadway musical (Avenue Q), you know it’s hit the big time. Literally, “shameful joy” – taking pleasure in the misfortune of another person. Handy!
• Weltanschauung (VELT-ahn-shou-oong), German. Literally, “world view.” A philosophy of the universe or of life.
• Zeitgeist (TZITE-giste), German. Literally, “spirit of the time.” The characteristic attitude or mood of a specific period or generation. Useful for conversations about politics, society, and the state of mankind.
A few stylistic points: When used in writing, foreign-language words and expressions should be italicized. In German, nouns are capitalized – and that style is usually retained when the words are imported into English text. Exception: schadenfreude. This word has become so common in English that it’s now lowercased.
If you find this subject appealing, you might enjoy They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases, by Howard Rheingold. It’s filled with interesting foreign-language expressions, some frequently used in English and some that probably never will be.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
On National Public Radio recently, a newscaster reporting on the Middle East conflict said that Gaza had been “bisected in two.” Of course, the word bisected means divided into two parts, so the phrase is redundant.
In an article in the interior design section of a respected newspaper, a report on mirrors included this phrase: “With their capacity to reflect back nearly all incident light… .” The back is unnecessary because it’s contained in the definition of reflect.
I used to expect journalists to display a minimal level of literacy, but I’m no longer surprised by the egregious errors I routinely spot. In an earlier column, I discussed redundancies. The problem is obviously still with us, so here’s another take on the subject.
One reason this error is committed so frequently is that it isn’t always obvious that a particular combination of words is repetitive. Another reason is that certain phrases have become cliches, and because of their familiarity they “seem right.”
The problem can be solved by deleting the redundant element, which is most often an adjective. If any of the following appear okay to you, take a second look.
• actual fact
• close proximity
• completely surrounded
• confer together
• consensus of opinion
• convicted felon
• deliberate lie
• disappear from view
• necessary prerequisite
• new innovation
• new recruit
• merge together
I borrowed some of the above examples from a clever little book: Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense, by Richard Kallan. Though it’s primarily intended for amusement, the hundreds of redundancies cited also serve an educational purpose. If certain people make you “shriek loudly” by committing this type of mistake, a gift of this book “might possibly” help raise their “mental awareness” of their habit.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Consistency and coherence are hallmarks of good writing. This principle applies especially when you’re writing lists. The series of items that constitute a list should have a parallel structure.
Let’s say someone charged with the task of preparing a business report drafts the following passage…
The goals of the new product launch are:
The above list has what grammarians call “faulty parallelism.” Each item begins with a different part of speech. But the problem can be fixed easily. For example, this list could be recast by structuring all the items in the infinitive…
The goals of the new product launch are:
“The Grammar Curmudgeon” website (grammarmudge.cityslide.com/Home.html) has an excellent explanation of why parallelism is important:
“Parallel construction prevents awkwardness and promotes clarity. Balanced or symmetrical elements also tend to be more concise. Writers who face the challenge of stating several ideas… can often achieve this goal with remarkable clarity if they arrange these ideas in a balanced series. … The result is not only easier for the reader to follow, but it is also more pleasing aesthetically.”
Achieving these objectives may require some thought and effort. But that investment is rewarded by the result: powerful, effective, persuasive communication.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
Consider these passages, which I found in prominent newspapers:
• “Only the pursuit of ‘diversity’ by higher education meets the strict constitutional test for race preferences. As a lawyer, I am sure that Mr. Obama must know this.”
Is the lawyer the writer – or the president-elect?
• “[Jeremy] Piven, who grew up in a Chicago theater family, knew [David] Mamet as a child… .”
Which one was the child?
• “It took three phone calls to find this Dior dress in Elle.”
Were the calls to determine which page of the magazine the garment was on – or to locate the store that carried it?
The above excerpts are examples of the problems caused by misplaced modifiers. They are ambiguous and confusing, which confirms the rule that sloppy writing makes for poor communication.
In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein offers good advice: “There is no rule about the placement of modifying phrases excerpt perhaps the very general one that they should be as close as possible to the things they modify.” Applying this simple guideline often solves the problem. To convey what the writer probably meant, the first example could be reworded this way: “I am sure that Mr. Obama, a lawyer, must know this.”
I’m a lifelong blooper collector, so I especially relish misplaced modifiers that produce unintentionally amusing results. A classic example from a commercial in a live radio broadcast years ago: “Ladies, now you can buy a bathing suit for a ridiculous figure.”
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]
As I create these columns, I often encounter interesting errata that don’t fit into a specific category. So here’s a potpourri of miscellaneous misuses:
• Recently, I read the obituary of a prominent Japanese mathematician. The subhead announced that he was “a curious man whose models are used in finance and biology.” I assumed that the deceased scholar was odd or eccentric. Then I read the text, which revealed that he “had an intense curiosity, whether focused on math theory or world affairs or shoeing horses.” The word “curious” has a double meaning, and my initial interpretation proved to be mistaken.
• From a review of a nonfiction espionage book: “Mr. Chapman was feckless and erratic but, in his own way, dependable. ‘Slowly at first, and with great care, Chapman began to build up a stock of secrets that would be of supreme interest to British intelligence’… .” The primary meaning of “feckless” is ineffective – a characterization that seems inapplicable in this case.
• In a letter to the editor: “Authors subjected to a critical review face a Hobson’s choice: [If] they complain they sound thin-skinned, but if they remain silent the reviewer’s judgments stand unchallenged.” The writer is describing a dilemma, not a “Hobson’s choice.” This useful expression means no choice or, more precisely, only one choice. As the story goes, a livery stable owner named Thomas Hobson (1544-1630) had a policy that the customer must take the horse in the stall closest to the stable door – or none at all.
The above examples illustrate several important principles of effective communication: Be clear. Avoid ambiguity. Check a dictionary. Be sure it’s right. Or to paraphrase Dr. Seuss’s Horton the Elephant: Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant. He is author of The Versatile Freelancer, an e-book recently published by AWAI that shows writers and other creative professionals how to diversify their careers into speaking, consulting, training, and critiquing.]