LANGUAGE
CORNER
by
Evan Jenkins
"Near
Miss"
Amost a hit
Jim Benes of WBBM Newsradio 78, Chicago's all-news station,
emailed recently to report a running battle -- certain morning-drive
staff members vs. evening-drive, as it happened -- over the
phrase "near miss." The morning people, he said, thought the
term could be confusing: "After all, if you nearly miss something,
don't you hit it?" At first blush, "near miss" does seem to
be a contradiction in terms, even though it's deeply ingrained
in the language. But Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English
Usage (1994), tracing the phrase to World War II, notes
its ubiquity and concludes that "despite its apparent lack
of logic, it is not an error." Fowler's Modern English
Usage defines a near miss simply as "a miss that was nearly
a hit." (That's from the 1968 edition; the 1996 Fowler's
omits the phrase, which suggests that it's no longer deemed
worthy of discussion.) As an alternative, "near-collision"
is unambiguous and unchallengeable. But WBBM's evening-drive
cadre is also on target, as it were, with near miss.
None,
pl.; Hung/Hanged
From the Email Bag
A visitor to the site noted that the item "You've Got to Be
Carefully Taught" (below; CJR Sept./Oct. 1996) said
at one point, "It's a good bet none of us in journalism do,"
and asked, "Does not 'none' require 'does' "? More often than
not, it doesn't. The word literally means "no one" or "not
one," of course, and those are the ways to say it if we're
emphasizing the singular nature of something. Otherwise, most
modern authorities prefer to use "none" as a plural.
Another
e-mailer wondered about this passage from a magazine article:
"The majority of the people had not died from natural causes.
Most had been hung - the ropes were around their necks - hit
over the head or stabbed." As a past tense for the word meaning
to put to death by hanging, "hung" is accepted by some dictionaries
as one alternative. Most of those modern authorities, though,
still argue that pictures are hung and people are hanged.
Normalcy
A Time for Normalcy
For a little less than four score and seven years, professors
and editors have told writers to avoid the word "normalcy."
Coined by Warren G. Harding, they said, and what did he
know? Only "normality" would do. But though the
great statesman’s prescription in his 1920 presidential
campaign — "not nostrums, but normalcy" —
both popularized the word and drew derision from pedants,
it had been around long before he used it. Over the years
since, says Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage,
"normalcy" has become "recognized as standard
by all major dictionaries," and "there is no need
to avoid its use."
Its use has hardly been avoided since September 11, 2001;
it has pretty much swamped "normality" to express
the condition Americans long for and whose loss they grieve.
And somehow, despite long indocrination, "normalcy"
these days sounds perfectly (yes) normal.
Notoriety
Noting With Disapproval
If "notorious," which has nothing negative in its roots, nonetheless
has come to mean "infamous," what is "notoriety"? One dictionary's
definition -- "the quality of being notorious" -- seems unassailable.
So when the writer said it was "not in Thomas's personality
to court notoriety," the passage was open to misunderstanding.
(Other things made it clear that the writer was paying a compliment.)
As a synonym for simple fame, "notoriety" has gained ground.
But it's still better used to mean a bad reputation -- ill
fame. Less room for misunderstanding.
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