"Media" Matters
"Media," pl.
We can skip examples of the use of the word as a singular. They're practically infinite, and maybe the outposts (like CJR) that are holding out for "media" as a plural will be overrun someday. But there are arguments for trying to mount a counterattack.

One has to do with literacy. The word has a useful and much-used singular form, "medium." It came from the Latin into English along with its Latin plural, "media," and both have been established in English since time immemorial. (The Anglicized "mediums" is rare these days, except in reports on the spirit world.) How can "medium" and "media" both be singular? It's not logical, and really not literate, despite those myriad examples of misuse.

Another argument for the plural is philosophical. Public figures -- politicians, athletes and their coaches, performers of all kinds -- like to blame journalists and journalism for all that isn't lovely in their lives. They consistently say sneeringly that "the media is" whatever, as if all of us in the ol' news game were the same. Polls that put us down among politicians and used-car salesmen in public esteem suggest that people are buying that notion. But even in a period when traditionally responsible news outlets wallow in sleaze from time to time (and agonize about it), it's unfair to imply that the best and the worst among us are indistinguishable. Subtly, "the media is" does that. We do well to fight for the plural, and to be even clearer by specifying "the news media" when we aren't talking about the trash peddlers or infotainment folks. A subtle counterattack is fair, and literate. (CJR, May/June 1998)

Addendum, June 16, 1998:
Via email from Baxter Omohundro of Columbus, GA, a retired Knight Ridder editor: "My list of abused words is long, but the next time you feel like leaping to the defense of an increasingly neglected singular I would nominate 'bacterium.'
'This bacteria is...' Ugh!"

Monies? Balonies!
Monies
"Public monies would lessen the need to sell so many sponsorships." On the rare occasion when we need a plural -- "the moneys of Central and South America" -- the sensible solution is to add an "s" to "money," though dictionaries do include "monies" as an acceptable plural. But as a substitute for plain old "money," or "funds," or "financing"? Leave it to the bureaucrats.

Dumb and Dumber
More Than/Over
Somewhere along the line, a lot of us were taught that we had to say "more than," and not "over," when dealing with amounts. Somebody could be over six feet tall, but we had to say more than ten years. It's a picky rule -- "over" is at least as common as "more than" in literate speech -- but harmless until, as happens often with rules, we follow it out the window. Then we get something like this: "...a salary just under "$25,000...and well more than Clinton himself would make as attorney general." Arg. "Well more than" flat-out mangles idiom; nobody says anything but "well over." So if we ignore the rule -- honor it in the breach, as it were -- we'll never perpetrate "well more than." (CJR Jan./Feb. 1997)

Addendum, 9/11/00
Another lulu, born of following that silly rule out the window: "He should command well more than $10 million a year." Clank.

More On 'More Than'
Doris I. Fenske, an editor at Ernst & Young in New York, e-mailed to say she was repeatedly running into uses of the preposition "over" like this one: "The concert was attended by over 1,000 people." Long ago, she said, she was taught to use "more than" in such instances. "But lately I am seeing 'over' everywhere, and my red pen can barely keep up," Ms. Fenske wrote. "Am I fighting a losing battle?"

It's one that should not have been joined; the rule long foisted on huge numbers of us doesn't make sense. There's nothing wrong with "more than" (though it has at least one pitfall; see "More Than/Over) but there's nothing wrong with "over," either.

According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, the idea of insisting on "more than" for countable quantities sprang full-grown from the head of William Cullen Bryant, the poet and journalist, in 1877, when he was editor of the New York Evening Post. Bryant gave no explanation for his edict, but journalists picked it up, and taught it, down to our time. No one, apparently, has tried to prohibit "over" when dealing with amounts not thought of as countable singly; constructions like "over $30,000 a year" seem always to have been acceptable. But for both countable quantities and round amounts, the dictionary says, "over" has been standard English since the 14th century, and it mentions James Thurber, W.H. Auden and Henry David Thoreau among those using the word the good old-fashioned way. That, and all those centuries of earlier precedent, would seem to make "over" unexceptionable. Better still, natural.

Amost a hit
"Near Miss"
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.

From the Email Bag
None, pl.; Hung/Hanged
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.

Noting With Disapproval
Notoriety
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.

Do We Have an Understanding?
"Older Than Him"
Sometimes sentences have to be written with words that are not seen, but understood to be there. This was one: "His brother John, who is five years older than him, and George, who is three years older than him, both became doctors." Even in casual conversation, that's illiterate. The reason is a little word that doesn't appear: "is." What the writer meant to say is that the brothers were five and three years "older than he is." So make it "older than he" or, less stiltedly, plain old "older than he is." But never, unless obliged to quote illiterate speech precisely, "older than him."

addendum, 5/13/98:
The error can arise in the plural, too: "They have found a team as dysfunctional and foolish as them." The word "are" being understood, the sentence has to read "...as they." Or better yet, "as they are."

addendum, 1/20/99:
On a similar matter, Margery Simmons of Orlando, from a family "replete with teachers," e-mailed to express annoyance with "the now prevalent use of the wrong case for pronouns in prepostional phrases," adding, "I have the feeling that I would still be in eighth grade if I had said, '... gave it to she and I.' "

Eighth grade (or earlier) is indeed around the time we ought to have learned that the pronouns that are used as subjects -- I, we, he, she, they, who -- can't be used as objects. In this case "she and I" are objects of the preposition "to." Probably no English-speaker would ever write or say "to she," but somehow people do write things like "to she and I." Two wrongs don't make a right. The right way, of course, is "to her and me."

Up With People
People/persons
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.

Only Where It Belongs
Placement of "only"
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.)

A Modest Plea
Pleaded Guilty
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.

A Singular Trap
Plural, but tricky

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)

The Way of All Flesh
Preposition Ending Sentence
"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 Offense
Prior to/Before
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..."

Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act III
Raveled Sleave
Find the misspelling: "Sleep, as Shakespeare wrote, knits up the raveled sleeve of care." No, not "raveled," though it can be spelled differently. The error, a very frequent one, is "sleeve." Macbeth wasn't talking about the arm of a garment; it wouldn't really make sense. He was talking about a tangled skein, of silk or other material, which makes perfect sense. And for that, the spelling -- which the original author used, correctly -- is "sleave." It's an obsolete word now, but spelling it right is still the way to go. Many readers may dismiss it as just another typo (a NEXIS search shows it's a frequent typo for "sleeve"), but those who know better will smile.

Far-Flung Correspondence
A Readers' Potpourri
After a few e-mail exchanges, Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D., a poet, state employee and lifelong "word dog," sent along a hefty collection of things that get under her skin, and should. A sampling:

FACILITATE. Winston Churchill said, "Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all." I don't go through a day without hearing "facilitate." What in the world does it mean? "Help"? "Lead"? "Coordinate"? "Troubleshoot"? Say what you mean.

IMPLEMENT. This word has dozens of subtly different meanings that generally stand for either "start" or "accomplish," but we all "implement." Why?

IN A TIMELY MANNER. If you mean "quickly," say so. If you mean "in plenty of time," "before the deadline," or "before it's too late," say that.

INTERFACE. An interface, among other things, is the connection between a computer program and its user. Non-techies have come to use it as a verb meaning "talk with each other." I don't get it.

SHARE. You're welcome to share your inheritance with me, but not your feelings. This word is used without thought by folks to mean they're going to tell me something. Don't try to make me feel warm and fuzzy. Just tell me what you want to tell me.

TERMINATE. If you're going to fire me, fire me. Don't make it sound better than it is -- don't let me go, as if I'd begged for it. And don't terminate me, unless you plan on hiring a goon to do it.

MYSELF. "If you have any questions, contact my secretary or myself." Writers use this because they remember (correctly) from English class that "Bob and me played ball" (where "me" is part of the subject) is wrong, and generalize (incorrectly) that "Give the ball to Bob and me" (where "me" is part of the object of the preposition) must also be wrong -- or at least somehow less genteel than "Bob and myself." No, no, no. The "self" words are reflexive pronouns, to be used only when the subject and object of a verb are the same person or thing, as in "I hurt myself" or "He hurt himself" or "The dog hurt itself." Similarly, "Don't hurt yourself" is right because the understood subject, "you," is the same as the object, "yourself." But "I'll send this to Jim and yourself" is wrong; "I" and "yourself" are two different people. The English for it is "to Jim and you."

UTILIZE. Of all the bad habits American speakers and writers have, this one seems hardest to break. Too many people who should know better still write and say "utilize" in place of good old "use." The fancier word shouldn't be banned -- one worthwhile definition is "to turn to profitable account or use" -- but usually all people gain by using it is two syllables and the joy of feeling superior when in fact they sound ridiculous. ("Utilization" is even more abominable.) Let's not let our language make us look foolish. That's what car phones are for.

---

Speaking of "myself," a note prompted by the discussion in these pages of "Older Than Him" came from Loren Tretyakov, head of the translation department at the Russian news agency Interfax, where all reports originate in Russian. Noting that her copy editors, native English speakers, often misuse pronouns, she went on:

"My contribution is: ' "It is assumed that somebody, clearly Primakov and myself are meant, sells Cabinet positions," he said.'

"Wouldn't 'Primakov and I' be correct?"

It would. Broken down, the clause says that "Primakov is meant and I am meant." What's wanted in such cases is a pronoun that is a subject, in this case "I," not an object. We can't say "myself (or me) is meant," so we have to say "Primakov and I are meant."

---

"Hey, ejenk," Charlie McDonald e-mailed from Las Cruces, N.M., where he is retired as a high school English teacher but active as a freelance writer and weekend singer-guitarist, "how about jumping on 'he graduated Harvard in 1966' "? Clearly appalled at having heard a famous broadcaster say that, Mr. McDonald added, "Zounds!"

Zounds it is. "Graduated Harvard" (or anything else) is a common error; the phrase needs "from." Technically, it's the institution that does the graduating -- moving the student up a grade -- and some traditionalists hold out for "was graduated from." The "was" is uncommon these days, but the "from" is not optional if we don't want to look illiterate.

---

John Luke, a freelance writer and editor in Sierra Madre, Calif., sent this complaint:

"For years, I've been grinding my teeth when radio journalists say things like 'between seventy to eighty people were seen sliding down the rope.' I want to respond by telling them they're putting me between a rock to a hard place. You don't see this in print much, but it's all over radio news, even on the high-quality stations."

Mr. Luke is right, of course; "between" takes "and," not "to," and the people who make him grind his teeth belong where they've been putting him.

Addendum, 5/25/99 - It happens in print, too; from a newspaper front page: "...stole design information about America's most advanced warhead, the W-88, between 1984 to 1988."

Reason Enough
The Reason is That
"Mr. Dole," the article said, "asserted that the reason his proposal had yet to catch on was because media coverage of it had been overwhelmingly negative." Make it "the reason was...that...." Why? Because...the sense of "because" is already in the sentence in the word "reason," and if we use "because" we're repeating ourselves.

Addendum, 12/10/98
Joseph C. Alvarez, who describes himself as a retired Air Force man and (figuratively) a "fiddler," saw that item and e-mailed: "May I submit that 'why' grates on my nerves when used after 'the reason...' It is smoother and neater simply to say, 'The reason he failed to make himself clear , etc.' "

"Theirs not to reason why," Tennyson wrote. But he was using "reason" as a verb, and the line was not only memorable but sensible. The "why" that irks Mr. Alvarez, which shows up often, rarely if ever serves a purpose.

In Rebuttal
Refute/Rebut
The team was waiting to hear what would happen to sexual-assault accusations against one of its members, the article and headline reported. The bank of the headline said, "No charges yet as teammate refutes woman's claim."  The accused player hadn't yet refuted anything; there had been no finding on the truth of the charges. The word is stronger than "rebut," with which it's often confused. "Refute" means to disprove, conclusively. "Rebut" means simply to deny, or present argument against, an allegation. 

Think M, as in Money
ReMUNerate

"... a military career remains popular in part because an officer's renumeration is better..."

"With better renumeration for doctors, it is natural..."

"... the salary would be a drop in the renumerations bucket."

"Renumeration," reasonable as it may look, is not a word in standard English. What's wanted in those examples is "remuneration," with the "m" first, not the "n." It's often just a fancy word for "pay," as it seems to be in the first example. But the word is usable when we need to cover other forms of reward -- bonuses, stock options, and so on -- as in that "bucket."

The reversing of the consonants -- NUM instead of the correct MUN -- is puzzling. But it is fairly common, especially, it seems, in outlets of the British persuasion.

There is also a verb coinage, "renumerate." That one is sometimes given a different twist -- to mean to list or recount, one by one. That's apparently what a prominent politician had in mind when he said, "I won't go back and renumerate" examples of bad legislation. But the word for such a process is "enumerate."

Come to think of it, maybe that's where the trouble started. If we can enumerate, we can have enumerations, and we can re-enumerate, which spawns re-enumerations, and from there it's only a step...

More Than Complete
Replete
"Replete with," a phrase that seems to go through cycles of popularity in journalism, is often used incorrectly to mean just "having" or "equipped with." In fact, it means an abundance or a surfeit. A 10-acre estate with one swimming pool is pretty standard stuff; the estate is complete with pool. The same spread with eight pools would be replete with them. The writer who told of "a ludicrous erotic 'Slap That Bass,' replete with tacky bumps and grinds" got it right. But another writer, who clearly didn't think a lovely old inn was overdoing things, chose the wrong word in writing that it "still serves a typical Hunt Breakfast, replete with the trimmings of a traditional English buffet."

Nouns, for Heaven's Sake!
Reverend
An actress's obituary said she had once played "the conflicted daughter of a Bible-wielding reverend." Maybe the writer and editor were having fun; if so, the signals weren't clear. And they have to be. "Reverend," as a noun meaning a member of the clergy, is colloquial at best, and used with a straight face borders on the illiterate. Some dictionaries include the noun definition, some without even a frown, and the forces of darkness may be gaining, as in the sub-headline that spoke of "remarks ... made by the reverend." But the word is an adjective, an honorific that properly takes "the" -- "the Reverend John Smith," or more usually in journalism, "the Rev." Common nouns for such people include priest, rabbi, minister, preacher, clergyman or clergywoman, imam, pastor, and so on. In any case, let's stick to nouns. "Reverend" isn't part of that flock.

Addendum, Jan. 19, 2000
Bob Pounds, a public affairs officer at the Australian Department of Veterans' Affairs in Canberra, sends along these thoughts (he's sure there's also a six-line version) on matters clerical:

Call me Brother if you will,
Pastor, Teacher, better still,
Minister, clergyman, counsellor, friend.
Just never call me Reverend.

Amen.

Serial Comment
Run-on Series
"Ochoa had two singles, a double and scored twice." There's a series in that sentence. It's governed by the verb "had," and it consists of only two things, Ochoa's hits. So it should read "two singles and a double and...." The rest of the sentence is a new clause, with the understood subject "he" and its own verb, "scored." "Had" is out of the picture. So when the verb changes, be alert.

 It's not always a verb that governs, though; here, it's an adjective: "...107 delegates from every state, territory and the District of Columbia." But "every" governs only the two-part series consisting of "state" and "territory"; it can't be used to modify "District of Columbia." We need "state and territory and...." So watch the modifier to make sure it works with the whole series, or amend the sentence. A small but frequent goof.

The Present as Past
Sequence of Tenses
Ian Edwards, an information officer with the Organization of American States in Washington, wanted to know "whether it is correct to write '... the president said that America is the lone superpower.' Should 'is' be there in the present tense, or should it be 'was' "?

The question opens (briefly, at least for now) a can of worms called "sequence of tenses."

Within any sentence or other discrete block of writing, it's usually better to abide by the tense that brung ya. "The president said that America was" -- "said," past tense, followed by "was," past tense -- is acceptable. The president said it in the past and it applied, strictly speaking, only to that moment. "Was" can never be wrong in such circumstances. "She said she was [not is] confused" is clearly the best choice for that thought, for example.

Mr. Edwards's question, though, involves an exception that proves the rule: If a statement applies to a continuing condition, even if only in the speaker's mind, it's usually preferable to let the present tense follow the past. "He said women are [not were] generally paid less than men for the same work" passes that test. So does "She insisted that the moon is [not was] made of green cheese." So does "The president said that America is [not was] the lone superpower." (CJR, July/Aug. 2001)

There's No 'They' There
Singular noun, plural pronouns
The article paraphrased an official as saying that "no bond firm should feel any pressure simply because they were called by the City Budget Director." Another piece said that "the network is looking to change all that by following their old letters with a new number: 24." A bond firm isn't a "they," it's an "it." And the possessive pronoun for a network is "its," not "their." Singular, not plural. In conversation we all use the plural pronoun after singular nouns, and no one (except maybe the colleague who was the smartest kid in the fifth grade) corrects us out loud. In writing, though, common as it is, the use of the plural should be avoided; it's wrong. If the singular pronoun sounds too forced, reworking the passage is worth the effort.

Splitsville
Split Infinitive
Splitting an infinitive is not a mortal sin, but it's nice to avoid because it makes some grammarians and other thoughtful readers -- the legions those grammarians taught -- grind their teeth. When it's easy to fix, we should fix it. It was easy here: "Mr. Lindsey has said he never asked the bank to not file the disclosure form." Correctness aside, isn't "not to file" much more natural? But there are times when we should let the infinitive fanatics grin and bear it. The writer said a business executive "pushed a button to officially activate the assembly lines at the $212 million plant recently." There are alternatives, but "officially" sounds fine where it is, right in the middle of that infinitive.

It All Depends on 'U'
Stanch/Staunch; Gantlet/Gauntlet

"Stanch" is a verb meaning to block the flow of something -- anything from blood to a company's financial losses to emigration. It's also possible to stanch the thing causing the flow -- a wound, for example.

"Staunch" -- note the "u" -- is an adjective meaning watertight (a staunch ship) or more broadly, strong, loyal, dedicated, steadfast (it's popular as a neutral substitute for "zealous").

The words have the same root, and a discernible kinship, and the spelling question used to be considered a toss-up. But the modern consensus is that never the twain should meet, as they did here:

"Finally, Congress has already allocated $1.3 billion to staunch the flow of drugs ..." Adding that "u" to the verb is the standard error. Make it "stanch."

"Gantlet" (no "u") is an ordeal, originally military punishment requiring the offender to run between two lines of fellow warriors who beat him with switches, clubs or other handy toys. "Gauntlet" (with a "u" and a different root) is a large glove, originally one that protected a combatant's hand and forearm. Throwing down a gauntlet issued a challenge; taking one up accepted the defy, and both phrases are still used figurativley. So, consider:

"Congress had in fact already erected by statute an intimidating gauntlet of studies, findings, public hearings, and other steps the DOD would need to take before closing a base." Congress erected an intimidating glove? Drop the "u"; that's a "gantlet." (CJR, March/April 2001)

The Straitened and Narrow
Straighten/Straiten
The author, his obituary said, had been reticent about his personal life but had told of growing up "in genteel but often straightened circumstances." Unless the point was that the family got the ironing done, the word the writer and editor wanted was "straitened." That is the past participle of "straiten," meaning to restrict or limit or narrow (think of "strait," a narrow body of water). It's a nice word in all its forms and can be applied to life in general, to the atmosphere of an institution, and much else. But the most commonly used form is the participle, and the most common meaning -- as it was meant to be for the deceased author -- is strapped for cash.

Suspecting the Worst
Suspect/Suspected (adj.)
The article said U.N. inspectors wanted to visit "suspect biological and chemical weapons sites." Since "suspect" simply means looked on with suspicion, that sentence said that there were in fact biological and chemical weapons sites, and not only that, they were also suspicious. But the sites' very existence was still unproven, and was the question the inspectors were looking into. The word the writer/editor wanted was "suspected."

Once Is Enough
Tautology
A nice, precise word to remember: tautology. It's a subdivision of redundancy, and it means saying something twice, unecessarily (and most often unintentionally.)

To wit: "The general consensus of opinion seems to be that there is an abundance of choice." Drop "general" and (for goodness' sake) drop "of opinion"; they're already there in "consensus" It's a tidy word meaning a general opinion, and it needs no embellishment.

Other classic tautologies involve the time of day: "Each morning at 7:45 A.M. ... Most evenings he did not return home until eight o'clock at night." Whew! "A.M." (for antemeridian or ante meridiem) means before noon; having started with "each morning," we don't have to paint the lily with "A.M." (And having said "Most evenings," we certainly don't want "at night.") Yet it's common to read things like "7 P.M. Thursday night" or "9 A.M. yesterday morning." Tautologies all.

Tempations abound. Do we really want to say that "additional restrooms will be added" or that a road project will "add additional lanes"? Or describe someone as a "knowledgeable expert"? Or say an employer requires, or doesn't, "prior experience"?

Think taut. (CJR, Sept./Oct. 2000; see also "The Reason is That," above)

Addendum, 4/16/01

By e-mail from Jenn Richardson, copy chief of the Navy Times, based in Springfield, Va.:

"I was just reading a few past items from LC on cjr.org, and was struck by the Tautolgy entry. One I see often is 'XX new homes were built,' which always rubs me the wrong way."

Yup, a beaut, and one a lot of us probably read right past every day.

What's Wrong With That?
That, Omission of; Toward(s)
Jane Greer of Bismarck, N.D., an e-mail friend of Language Corner (click "A Readers' Potpourri" above) was struck by seemingly odd omissions of the word "that."

"People insist," she said, "that in college writing classes, adult-ed classes, and professional training classes, instructors are telling them to excise the poor little bugger."

An aversion to "that" does seem conspicuous of late in the public prints, presumably because of a knee-jerk obsession with saving words. Consider this, about a company named Aristotle:

"With promises like that, it is not surprising Aristotle, which was started in 1983..."

WHAT is not surprising Aristotle? Oops! They didn't mean it that way; they meant it was not surprising that Aristotle did such and such.

A novelist committed the same misdemeanor when he had a character say he was "just pointing out the killer probably doesn't care..." It's hard not to misread, momentarily, "just pointing out the killer," and the true meaning emerges only after that hiccup. It's much clearer to say "just pointing out that the killer..."

Usually, "that" isn't necessary with "say" in any of its forms. The word is wanted, though, with many other words of saying -- report, announce, insist, suggest, show, declare and others -- and in constructions like the Aristotle passage above. It adds idiomatic roundness and more importantly, as we've seen, can avoid momentary but irritating confusion. Delete "that" in Ms. Greer's sentence beginning "People insist," and the reader is misled into thinking that people insist (something) in college writing classes. That's not what what Ms. Greer meant and not what the sentence says as she wrote it.

Is there a campaign to get rid of "that," no matter the cost in euphony and clarity? Maybe so, and maybe if we're alert we can stop it. (CJR, Nov./Dec. 2000)

Addendum, 11/14/00

They keep coming.

"The Gore campaign believed the recount, which is continuing in two counties and pending in one..."

But as the sentence unwinds, it turns out the Gore camp believed that the recount "could produce enough votes to erase Mr. Bush's small lead." (Note that if the passage said "thought" instead of "believed," no problem would arise whether or not "that" was used.)

"Boras explained his requests..."

Actually, he explained that "his requests were not contract demands..."

It's an awfully small word. Go ahead and use the space.

Toward(s)
Ms. Greer was also puzzled at seeing "towards" in some places and "toward" in others, and wanted to know the difference, if any. It's strictly cultural; the British and their followers in style matters use an "s" and Americans don't. Some American writers and editors affect it, but it looks odd.

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
The Police
Practically everybody in journalism writes or broadcasts it this way: "Police said Mrs. Guerin..." and "Police say there is little doubt...." Practically nobody in the real world talks that way. It's a good bet none of us in journalism do, either, when we're not reading a script. We say, "She called the police," or "The police said." Why? Because it's natural English. Dropping "the" is unnatural, something we all had to learn as young adults -- brisk writing, or something. But ain't nature grand? (CJR Sept/Oct 1996)
 
Addendum:
As a language-maven friend noted after seeing this item, we'd never say "Army said"; why "police said"?

Addendum, 2/12/01

The headline "You've Got to Be Carefully Taught" alluded to a wonderful song of that title from "South Pacific," about the unnaturalness of bigotry. It prompted a mild complaint from Michele Drier, a longtime California newspaper reporter and editor. She enjoyed the allusion, she said, but was concerned "that 'you've got' is creeping into the language as the correct form -- thanks to AOL, 'You've Got Mail' became the title of the remake of 'Shop Around the Corner.' I have even caught myself saying 'what have you got' to people other than my dog." So for the record, and with thanks for the reminder, "have to be" is definitely the preferable phrasing for such things unless we're clearly striving for the colloquial -- was AOL? -- or maybe writing a song.

Number Notes
They Each; $57 million was
"Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and State Senator James E. McGreevey," the newspaper reported, "clashed over property taxes and automobile insurance rates tonight during their second televised debate as they each sought to portray themselves as the champions of homeowners and drivers."  Can't have it both ways -- "they" and "each" (and then "themselves"). The simplest solution here is to delete "each." If both candidates were of the same sex, the singular would work, and it seems a little tidier, somehow: "...as each sought to portray herself..."  In any case, "they each" doesn't make it.

"More than $57 million in accumulated taxes and customs duties collected by Israel from Palestinians were supposed to have been transferred,"  the article declared. Despite the plurals "taxes" and "duties" that follow, the subject of the sentence remains "$57 million." And since we're dealing with the transfer of a sum, not a dollar at a time,  it should read "was  supposed..."

In Transition
Transition; "As Such"
Transitional words and phrases are often necessary, but not as often as we use them. The exhausted "meanwhile," the slightly haughty "indeed," the currently fashionable, pince-nez professorial "to be sure" sometimes arise from unexamined reflex, not sense.

And sometimes when knee jerks, foot lands in mouth. It did in the unthinking reach for transition here: "After all, an independent Chronicle, with no Examiner to carry, would be much more profitable. As such, there have been rumors for more than a decade about the Examiner's pending demise."

As such what? Nothing in the first sentence leads logically to "As such" in the second. The phrase needs preparation, a person or thing or characteristic to which it refers, as in "The cook was Dutch and behaved as such." If a transition was needed in our example (whether it was is at least arguable), then "For that reason" or "Consequently" or other things we can all imagine would have built one. "As such" was a misguided reflex; we need to stop and think. (CJR, July/Aug. 1998)

The One And Only
Unique
Bob Howard, a visitor to the CJR website and a "cranky old (51 years) journalist who had grammar drilled into him by even crankier schoolteachers and editors," was affronted when he read this recently in a headline deck: "Inside Southern California's most unique real estate market...." Affronted he should be. As he pointed out, modern dictionaries do accept "highly unusual" or "very rare or uncommon" down on their lists of definitions for "unique." But that's a cave-in. Look at the start of that word -- "un." It means "one" (from the Latin "unus") just as it does in "union" and "united" and "unicorn" and "unit" and...you name it. Something that is unique is one of a kind. It can't be very, or less, or more, or somewhat, or a tad, or most unique. It's unique, period. On this one, the cranks, young, old, and in between, have to do battle. As one. (CJR, March/April 1997)

Use It Or Lose It
Use/Usage
"The overall increase in usage," the article said about election-night Internet traffic, "was barely perceptible." That use of "usage" threatens one of those nice distinctions we ought to cherish. The word should be saved for situations involving customary practice, such as "preferred American English usage." If all we're talking about is using something, the noun of choice is "use."

No Wrangle Here
Wangle/Wrangle
When Mark Freeman, a writer, former English teacher in Glens Falls, N.Y., and author of the twice-weekly column "The North County Curmudgeon" for the Glens Falls Post-Star, read that someone "had been trying to wrangle an invitation," it brought to his mind Tom Mix's sidekick, the Old Wrangler. That worthy gentleman worked with livestock; it might be worth remembering, by way of a loose synonym and a mnemonic, that a WRangler might WRestle with unruly critters. More broadly, "wrangle" means to argue or dispute, with someone or over something: "While its national bosses wrangle over the PRI's future and their role in it," for example, or "they must wrangle with Mr. Clinton, who usually holds the upper hand in these negotiations." As a noun the word means an argument, often protracted -- "a continuing wrangle with the city authorities over money he is owed."

As Mr. Freeman observed, the writer of the original example wanted "wangle," a colloquial word meaning to obtain something by trickery, cajolery or sheer persistence, the kind of thing people do with invitations. The "r" didn't belong, nor did it in the passage about a man "offended when teams wrangle subsidies for new stadiums and arenas," or in "you'll probably be able to wrangle your best deal at the final show." Make it "wangle" each time.

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..

Murky Whether
Whether (or not)
There are writers and editors and teachers out there whose blood boils when they see "or not" after seeing "whether." In fact, "or not" is never wrong; the phrase simply expresses the negative alternative of whatever we're talking about. But it definitely should be omitted when it's just extra words -- constructions like "She wouldn't say whether or not she would run," or "He asked whether or not the ship was sinking." In each case, the alternative represented by "or not," though implicit, is inescapable.

At times, though, balance, euphony and even logic demand "or not" or something else to specify the alternative outcome. On the logic front, the great John B. Bremner noted in his classic Words on Words that the little word "if" can be used to test the need for "or not." It means one thing, he noted, to say, "I'll love you whether or not you leave me," and quite another to say, "I'll love you if you leave me." We need "whether or not" to convey the full thought.

More subtly, this sentence needed something to complete -- balance -- the thought that "whether" began: "Whether the jawboning and billions of dollars in foreign-exchange intervention succeed in propping up the yen, they will almost certainly succeed in propping up Mr. Hashimoto." The thought imbedded in "whether" drops off a cliff; the sentence has to say explicitly that the jawboning and so on may not save the yen. One way to make the alternative clear would be to add "or fail" after "... intervention succeed." Easier still, we could start with "Whether or not."

Addendum, 3/5/99

A perfect example of a sentence that did not need "or not": "...Mr. Starr must decide whether or not he should seek the indictment of the president." The phrase contributes nothing to the sense or the sound.

'Whom' Doomed? Not Yet
Who/Whom
A lot of smart people hate the word. It can sound stuffy, and more importantly, it's very easy to get wrong. The great New York Times editor and language authority Theodore M. Bernstein, who almost certainly never got it wrong, nonetheless campaigned to "Doom Whom" (except after prepositions). He lost, at the Times and in the larger world. For anything approaching formal writing, "whom" clearly will be with us for a good while longer.

The most common who/whom problem arises in sentences where there's a distraction between the pronoun and the verb it goes with: "...he is a former All-Star whom the Knicks apparently feel can help them contend for a title." The distraction is the clause "the Knicks apparently feel." It's parenthetical; technically, we could put parens or commas around it. Do that, and it's instantly clear we wouldn't say "whom can help them." Inserting the parens or commas -- just mentally, since they're not needed -- will help us ignore the distraction and pay attention to what comes next. (CJR, March/April 1999)

A different challenge: "...cameras showing whomever was speaking." Think MMMMM: "hiM" and "whoM" (and "whoMever") all work the same way. They are objects. In the example, the W word might seem to be the object of "showing," but it isn't; the object is the whole three-word clause that follows "showing." And a clause needs a subject to go with its verb. Since we wouldn't say "hiM was speaking," we can't say "whoMever was speaking." So, "...cameras showing whoever was speaking."

Some might argue for leaving who/whom technically wrong when it sounds natural and the repair would sound like fingernails across a blackboard: "...discovering a way to score no matter who Chicago had on the mound." Here, the pronoun is the object of "had." We couldn't say "Chicago had he," so only "whom" would satisfy the purists. But "no matter whom Chicago had on the mound?" Whew! If the letter of the law is mandatory in your shop, duck the issue: "...no matter who took the mound for Chicago."

Finally, we can break the rule for fun as long as we let the reader in on the gag. To convey astonishment, for example, we might want to say "She married who?" It's natural. So is the emphasis provided by the italics; without them, "who" could look like ignorance.

Addendum, 12/6/99:
A beaut: Game shows, the story said, are "popular only with older viewers, who advertisers are least interested in reaching." Which is to say, least interested in reaching they.

Addendum, 8/7/00:
Some other examples; the first two reinforce the importance of ignoring interruptions: A lot of testimony, the article said, focused on a man "whom the authorities believe masterminded the plot." Here, "the authorities believe" is the parenthetical trap; put the parens around it, or commas, or delete it mentally, and see. It wouldn't be "hiM masterminded the plot," so it can't be "whoM." In this one, if we do the same exercise with the parenthetical "he believed," the need for "who" becomes obvious: "At Calder, he curbed corruption by summarily exiling from the track dozens of trainers whom he believed were dishonest." He believed they were dishonest, not them were dishonest. And a trickier one, partly because the sentence fails to track, quite apart from the who/whom question: "The legislative future of the abortion debate is more complicated, related to a pending Supreme Court decision on abortion, on who wins the presidency and who he might nominate to fill Supreme Court vacancies." "Related to" begins a series that suddenly switches to "on" as its preposition. Easily fixable. But regardless of the prepostion, the first "who" is correct -- the subject of the clause that begins, "who wins..." The second "who" is wrong; the pronoun is the object of "nominate." Again, think M -- the president might nominate hiM, not he. The sentence should read "whoM he might nominate."

'Whose' You Can Use
Whose/of which
A superstition, still rather widely held, may well have been at work here: "... in the province, the population of which consists predominantly of ethnic Albanians..." The superstition is that no form of the pronoun "who," which is used for human beings, can stand in for a common noun, like "province," denoting a thing. It just ain't so; the use of "whose" for things has been around for centuries (the great H.W. Fowler cited Shakespeare and Milton in its defense) and, in sentences like the one above, is a lot more graceful than the alternative. "Of which" isn't wrong, but it often grates. So make it "...in the province, whose population...," save the extra words, and avoid the pain in the ear. (CJR, July/Aug 1999)

"Woof Down"
Animal Appetites

Lisa Aug, a defender of the language from Frankfort, Kentucky (click "Lightening; Forecasted" in the first-page index) was troubled when an online news site, reporting on an impoverished child's torturous attempt to walk from Nicaragua to the United States, said, "Mamacitas clean their pans and grills for scraps, which he woofs down."

The expression for avid eating is "wolf down," after the animal of ravenous repute. Outside the weaving and sound-reproduction trades, "woof" is a word for a sound dogs supposedly make and has nothing to do with eating.* But a computer search suggests that "woof down" is showing up more than it used to. Sometimes it's junior-high-school humor in stories about dogs, and we ought to leave such stuff to the junior-high-school humorists. But sometimes it appears to be sheer error.

Ms. Aug, objecting to "ubiquitous improper usage smothering proper usage," went on, "To quote my mother, if everybody jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?"

Down (as it were) with lemmings!

*The word for such sound-imitating words, good to know and especially handy in case a spelling bee comes along, is "onomatopoeia."