LANGUAGE CORNER
by Evan Jenkins

People/persons
Up With People
After reading in the November/December 1999 issue of CJR, under the heading "People Need People" (see Individuals, People) that " 'people' is almost always preferable to the stilted 'persons,' " Margo Young, director of academic publications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Business Administration, e-mailed with a question. She noted that in Elements of Style by Strunk and White, a kind of mini-bible for generations of writers, "persons" gets preference for some contexts. The good book declares: "The word people is best not used with words of number, in place of persons. If of 'six people' five went away, how many people would be left behind? Answer: one people." Citing that passage, Ms. Young asked, "Whom should we use today as the standard: Streisand or Strunk and White?"

As respected as Strunk and White should be, we're better off with Streisand on this one. "Persons" has never seemed natural, but a lot of us learned to use it years ago as part of the near-ubiquitous Associated Press style. Times change. It's no longer style at the A.P. or, also in a change, at the New York Times. Both prescribe "people" except for such established idioms as "displaced persons" and "missing persons."

And the Strunk and White argument didn't really make sense. If we started with 45,000 people (would anyone, anywhere, say "persons"? ) at a football game and all but one left the stadium, how many, and what, would be left? Answer: one person. That's what would be left in the S & W example, too. For centuries, the natural, standard English plural for "person" has been "people." And S & W to the contrary notwithstanding, using "people" as an all-purpose plural never locked anyone into using "people" as a singular. (CJR, March/April 2000)

Per
English Preferred
There was no mortal sin here…

"Updated continually, with new content five days per week…"
… but why use Latin? "Per," here and very often, reads like corporate memo-ese. The English, "five days a week," is much more natural. Similarly, "miles an hour" is the way to go, despite the standard abbreviation "MPH." Does anybody, in conversation, ever say "miles per hour"?

Latin is lovely; English couldn’t do without it. And "per" has its place because there are times when "a" or "for each" just doesn’t work. But we ought at least to think twice before abandoning vernacular English. Even in corporate memos.

Placement of "only"
Only Where It Belongs
Among the many things that are natural in conversation among literate people but don't pass muster in writing is the misplacement of "only." In conversation, this would have been utterly natural and instantly understandable: "In the past, agents have only testified about their procedures and activities." But that sentence was in the public prints, where the voice can't be heard and the requirements are stricter. "Only" needs to be snug up against what it modifies. The writer didn't mean the agents only testified -- as opposed, for example, to chatting or singing or praying. "Only" had to do with what they testified about -- procedures and activities -- and the sentence should have said the agents "have testified only about their procedures and activities." (The letter of the law might call for "testified about only their procedures and activities," but that's strained.)

Pleaded Guilty
A Modest Plea
The bank, a news article reported, "had pled guilty to charges that it made false entries." Why "pled"? A lot of lawyers (and a lot of lawyerly writings) seem to prefer it, and some dictionaries list it as an alternative past tense for "plead." But we don't say someone "pled for his life," or "pled for mercy." We say "pleaded." And so it should be with legal pleas. Case closed, one hopes.

Plural, but tricky
A Singular Trap

Because it contains a very common kind of error, this passage seemed worthy of comment:

"…the Catskill OTB is among the few parlors that does not record calls."

An e-mail cemented the choice of topic. Neil T. Greenidge of the Bronx, a physician and a member of the Class of 1962 at the Columbia University School of General Studies, wrote, "I did not expect such a glaring, though universal, grammatical error from CU" (his alma mater). He was talking about this, from a recent CJR:

"The Atlantic, one of the few American magazines that still dares to publish high-quality, complex narratives…"

He is absolutely right. Both passages lay a trap. They induce us to allow a singular notion — "the Catskill OTB" and "The Atlantic, one of the few" — to carry us past what follows, straight to a singular verb.

But the verbs in both cases should be plural, because the noun that governs each of them is plural. It’s parlors that do not record calls, and magazines that still dare to publish. We — the pronoun is especially apt here — need to be alert. The slip happens all the time.

"Enjoyed the article," Greenidge said at the end of his e-mail, and so did we all. The author deserved better from his editors, especially from the last one to read the copy in each issue, who is expected to catch such slips. He is writing this little essay while kicking himself, which isn’t easy to do. (CJR, January/February 2003)

Preposition Ending Sentence
The Way of All Flesh
"I reviewed my list of friends and acquaintances and established that there was not a single one of them whom I could drop in on. (In on whom I could drop? No matter.)" Right -- no matter. Ending a sentence with a preposition can sometimes be clumsy, but so can a lot of things. In general, for most good writers, the rule against it was long since repealed.

Addendum -- 11/14/00

The television commentator got the who/whom right -- "He is the best type of pitcher against whom to hit-and-run" -- but something he learned in junior high led him astray. The sentence is much more natural if it reads "... pitcher to hit-and-run against." Churchill is supposed to have declaimed, "There are some things up with which I will not put." A bit of derision the rest of us can profit from.

Prior to/Before
Prior Offense
That's the way to use "prior" -- as an adjective. As a preposition, "prior to" is very close to non-English, however ubiquitous: "Prior to 1965, virtually no one was speaking of abortion as a prospective right." What in heaven's name is wrong with "before"? We don't have to follow the lead of such folk as football referees, who invariably say "False start, prior to the snap..." Or of the academics, doctors, lawyers, and bureaucrats of all stripes, public and private, for whom "prior to" is mandatory because "before" is plain English and they can't have that . Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage tolerates "prior to," rather puzzlingly, in cases where the connection between two events is "more essential than the simple time relation," but otherwise consigns it to the dread category of Formal Words, along with "following" as a substitute for "after." (From this seat, "following" sometimes seems useful in connoting immediacy or causality, but that may be a character flaw). Deposing on after/following and before/prior to in his delightfully erudite book Words on Words , the late John Bremner, a legendary teacher of journalism at the University of Kansas, asked: "If you don't use posterior to, why use prior to ? Would you say 'Posterior to the game, we had a few drinks'? So why say, 'Prior to the game, we had a few drinks'? Make it: 'Before and after (and even during) the game, we had a few drinks.'" We can all drink to that. (CJR Nov./Dec. 1996)

Addendum, 8/6/03

An extreme, but not ground-breaking for sports announcers: "Immediately following the conclusion of tonight’s broadcast..."

 

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