Raveled Sleave
Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Act III
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.

The Reason is That
Reason Enough
"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.

Refute/Rebut
In Rebuttal
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. 

ReMUNerate
Think M, as in Money
"... 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...

Replete
More Than Complete
"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."

Reverend
Nouns, for Heaven's Sake!
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.

Run-on Series
Serial Comment
"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.