LANGUAGE
CORNER
by
Evan Jenkins
Last
Updated 9/3/03
Addendum at Prior to/Before
Tripping
Over Latin Roots
A news story said “Eminent domain . . . is usually evoked
for highways . . . ,” but the “oke” word was wrong.
Make it “invoked,” meaning called into play and by extension
put into effect. We may invoke, for example, our Fifth Amendment
rights.
“Evoke” is from the same Latin root, vocare (meaning,
to call) so it, too, has to do with calling; “vocal”
comes from the same place. But “evoke” means to call
forth or call to mind. Often, evoking something involves emotion
— Ah, how wonderfully cotton candy evokes childhood! —
and remembering the two e words may help separate the two “oke”
words.
Another article mentioned the brief removal of a foreign leader
from power, and said the United States “precipitously endorsed
the short-lived ouster.”
“Precipitous” means steep, so the adverb means steeply
or drastically, as with nasty declines in the stock market. The
writer or editor wanted “precipitately,” which has to
do with undue speed. Both words come from the Latin root for “precipice,”
which both evoke, don’t they? To remember the correct last
syllable, it might help to think a, as in “precipitate”
and “haste” (in which the United States acted, the article
intended to say).
(CJR,
Sept./Oct. 2003)
Small
Precision
Only a visitor from Mars — or maybe Mauritius? — would
be confused by this, but in fact it’s missing an important
word:
"President Bush reached out today to Democrats and moderates
in his party..."
The missing word is a second "to." It belongs before
"moderates." As written, with only the first "to,"
the sentence can be read to mean there are moderates and Democrats
in Bush’s party. Have a look, with an open mind.
Making the passage read "to Democrats and to moderates in
his party," would make it clear that Bush was reaching out
to one group outside his party and one group inside it.
In other situations like this one, a reader wouldn’t have
to be from somewhere far away to be mystified. Nail it down with
a double "to."
A
Rule to Ignore
A lot
of attention has been devoted to a grammar argument, of all things,
between a high school journalism teacher and the College Board.
The teacher won.
He had objected to this part of a sentence on the Preliminary
Scholastic Aptitude Test administered in late 2002:
“Toni Morrison’s genius enables her . . .”
The teacher insisted — for three months — that a possessive
noun (Toni Morrison’s) functions as an adjective and can’t
lead logically to a pronoun (her). In late May, 2003 the College
Board capitulated, as in fairness it had to. Such a rule did show
up in a few grammar books, so students who applied it couldn’t
be penalized.
The triumphant — and clearly dedicated — teacher was
roundly cheered. Yet the rule that enticed him years ago defies
common sense. Must “Jane’s word is her bond” become
“Jane’s word is Jane’s bond”? No. Possessives
with their very own pronouns have been ubiquitous in good English
writing forever.
On June 1, the Stanford linguist Geoffrey Nunberg, writing in
the Week in Review section of The New York Times, provided legal
support, as it were, for sense and universal usage. Possessives
like “Toni Morrison’s,” he said, should be thought
of not as adjectives but as “determiner phrases,” which
can be tied to pronouns. Nice to know.
Earlier, one commentator savaged the board, saying it “wrote
an error” into the PSAT. His solution: Say “The genius
of Toni Morrison . . . ,” making the name work as a noun,
leading legally to “her.” All English possessives can
be formed with “of,” though, and not always happily.
Anybody like “The word of Jane is her bond”? Or try
tapping to the rhythm of “The body of John Brown lies a-mouldering
in the grave, but his soul goes marching on.”
The apostrophe is so handy. French-speakers have to make do with
“la plume de ma tante,” but English-speakers can say
“my aunt’s pen.” And can certainly add, “is
mightier than her sword.”
— CJR, July/Aug. 2003
Somewhere,
the Bard Weeps
Wherefore
Headline
about a no-longer-prominent athlete: “O Denis, Denis! Wherefore
art thou Denis?”
Comment
on the fickle pop music world: “Local DJ trends come and
go (wherefore art thou, acid jazz?)”
Whimsy
amid wicked weather: “Wherefore art thou, Romeo? Home with
his feet up by the fire, if the poor lad had any luck at all.”
All
those allusions to Shakespeare are fatally flawed, as “wherefore
art” cuteness almost always is.
Juliet’s
plaintive “O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
had nothing to do with her lover’s location. “Wherefore”
means “why” (in both senses — “how come?”
and “for that reason.”) Juliet was asking why the fates
had made Romeo part of the Montague family, with which her Capulets
were locked in a virulent feud. “’Tis but thy name that
is my enemy,” she sighs; if his name had been the Veronese
equivalent of Joe Smith, the two of them could have lived happily
ever after.
By
and large, “wherefore” survives today only in fancy
proclamations and petitions, in some legal documents, and in the
expression “the whys and wherefores.” Also in stagings
of H.M.S. Pinafore (“Never Mind the Why and Wherefore”)
and, painfully often, in misaimed Shakespearean allusions. (CJR,
May/June)
Other
matters Shakespearean appear in "Gild/Paint the Lily";
"Honored in the Breach"; and "Raveled Sleave, With
an "A." See index..
***
Links to other
Language Corner entries are listed alphabetically below. If you'd
like to see all of the Language Corner items, they're available
as two printable pages: Topics
A-I and Topics L-W.
***
Evan
Jenkins puts together Language Corner. He is consulting editor
of CJR; before that, in reverse chronological order, he was editor
in residence at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism; senior
editor, CJR; senior editor, the Racing Times; deputy news editor,
the New York Times; chief copy editor, Newsday, and a reporter
and copy editor at the Worcester Telegram in Massachusetts. He
can be reached at ejenk35@aol.com.
He claims infallibility only in matters concerning "who"
and "whom," and even there opposes following the rules
out the window.
The
examples used in this space are the work of professional writers
and editors. Some offenses are obviously more heinous than others,
but most are things frequently done wrong that are worth doing
right. The outlets where they have appeared will remain anonymous,
because the point of the exercise is not to say "Gotcha!"
The point (to put it modestly) is to help make the world a better-written
place.
Various
rules of the language, including rules of thumb, are discussed
here (with as little jargon as possible) because we need to know
the rules to know when to follow them, when to bend them, even
when to break them. To borrow a fundamental thought from The
New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, the first and overriding
rule will be common sense.
N.B.:
Unless otherwise specified, references in this material to H.W.
Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage are to the
second edition (1965) and not to the 1990's version, which retained
the Fowler name, but little of Fowler.
