tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-78394172024-03-05T15:53:41.830-08:00The Sic List: Daniel Weber's Daily Catalogue of Literary Infractions"A writer doesn't die of heart failure, he dies of typographical errors"
-- Isaac B. SingerDanielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comBlogger301125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-28078012934904180512014-12-31T14:48:00.002-08:002014-12-31T14:48:38.244-08:00Everyone Who Hates Talking about Antecedents, Raise its Hand<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Our local hockey heroes closed out the calendar year in fine form last night, with an impressive win over the high-flying (high-swimming?) Sharks. Even Province hockey columnist and noted grumpster, Tony Gallagher, was impressed--particularly with the play of goalie Ryan Miller:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"><b>In short, it was another a masterful performance in a crucial situation which should make everyone here in Vancouver feel better about it’s beloved team’s goaltending. </b></span></blockquote>
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I'll put aside for now the matter of using "which" to begin a restrictive clause (feel free to re-visit my tipsy thoughts on that <a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/2010/01/which-wine-is-that.html">here</a>); the trickier question here arises from that little "it's." A couple of message board commenters jumped on Gallagher for using the contraction for "it is" when clearly the possessive, apostrophe-less, model was called for--hockey fans are notorious sticklers for correct usage, after all.<br />
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But I submit that neither one is the correct choice here. It all comes down to arranging the right marriage of pronoun and antecedent, and, in this case, to paraphrase Bill Clinton, it depends on what the definition of "its" is. I'm sure that Gallagher, in his post-game haste, just went with the pronoun that best matched the nearest preceding noun: "Vancouver." But the antecedent in that sentence is not "Vancouver," it is "everyone here in Vancouver." Just try reading it as "make everyone here feel better about its team" and the issue becomes clear. "Everyone" isn't an "it." The pronoun to use in this situation is "their."<br />
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Or is it? Some people with pinched faces who wear sweater vests will insist that "everyone" is a singular noun, and because you can't say "everyone are..." you also shouldn't use the plural "their"with it. But I think, this is<a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/2014/06/solving-kind-of-great-pronoun-problem.html"> a rule worth breaking</a>.<br />
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In the end, the best way to resolve this whole mess, especially since it's New Year's Eve and we all have drinking to get to, is to recast the phrase thusly: "...make people here in Vancouver feel better about their beloved team's goaltending." There. As is so often the case with even the most vexing issues in life, the best course of action is to find the easiest way to avoid dealing with the problem.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-4005755118176122502014-09-06T14:05:00.000-07:002014-09-06T14:05:31.022-07:00Now Playing: "The Case of the Missing Proofreader"Here we have an "eye-catching" elegantly designed poster for a high-profile event, its precision (just look at that kerning, design nerds) and otherwise flawless execution thuggishly defaced by a rogue apostrophe.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-10294439990096633042014-06-29T14:11:00.002-07:002014-06-29T17:21:34.441-07:00Solving (Kind Of) The Great Pronoun Problem<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Does the language you speak influence the thoughts you think, or is it the other way around? This is the kind of thing professional linguists have been arguing about for years, while the rest of us having been raising families, eating cheese, and watching TV.<br />
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In <a href="http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/dozen-words-misunderstood-language-linguistics-79600/">this review</a> of linguist John McWhorter's new book, linguist Graeme Wood tells us about the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" which, contra its name, is <i>not </i>the title of a Star Trek episode, but rather a once-fashionable idea promulgated by two linguists named Sapir and Whorf--an idea that is now as fashionable in linguistic circles as top hats are among skateboarders. As Wood puts it:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #383f44; font-family: Capita-Light, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28px;"><b>According to Sapir-Whorf, a person’s view of the world is refracted through her language, like a pair of spectacles (not necessarily well-prescribed) superglued to his face.</b></span></blockquote>
Here we come up against one of the more irksome deficiencies of the English language. Aside from not having a word to describe Charlie Sheen that does not have the words "douche" or "bag" in it, we lack a gender-neutral pronoun. It can be a tricky obstacle, and, in my hastily-formed opinion, the author in this instance, while trying to manuever around it, did a thudding faceplant.<br />
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Let's consider the options for recasting that sentence:<br />
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You could go all-inclusive, all the time--"a person's view of the world is refracted through <i>his or her</i> language like a pair of spectacles superglued to <i>his or her</i> face"--but that gets tedious pretty quickly. (And if you are even thinking of going with "his/her," I'm sorry, but you cannot be trusted at a keyboard without supervision.)<br />
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You could stubbornly stick with "his" throughout, or with "her"--and risk being thought of as either a doddering old chauvinist or someone making a conspicuously feminist statement.<br />
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You can revise the sentence to include only plural forms--"<i>peoples' </i>views of the world are refracted through <i>their</i> language like <i>pairs</i> of spectacles..." No, forget it--that's a non-starter in this situation.<br />
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You can try the "can't we all just get along?" approach and toggle between the two in the interests of equal time, which seems to be what Wood was going for here. But that can become distracting too, even when it occurs only sporadically throughout a chapter or paragraph. In this instance, our hypothetical person underwent gender-reassignment surgery <i>before we made it to the end of the sentence</i>, and that is just disorienting, even for the most LGBTQ-friendly among us.<br />
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So what's the answer? I'm going to go out on a shaky limb here and say this is one of those situations where the most natural solution is to bend the rules--albiet in a way that is becoming more and more acceptable among grammar snots who recognize that sometimes we just have to find a way around the pronoun conundrum, dammit. That's right, I'm talking about the singular "their."<br />
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To wit, "a person's view of the world is refracted through <i>their</i> language like a pair of spectacles superglued to <i>their</i> face." Sure, when it comes to usage rules, it is still the equivalent of walking across the street against the light. But in this case, it's midnight in a small town, and there is no traffic for miles. Just go for it.<br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-53464687528093140622014-03-24T15:35:00.000-07:002014-03-24T15:35:25.950-07:00Who Here Knows How to Spell "Masturbate"? A Show of Hands...A disturbing pattern in this week's selections on PostSecret.com reveals that onanistic skills and spelling prowess do not go hand in hand, as it were...<br />
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Clearly, these correspondents are not masturs of their domain. On a side note, it is interesting to see that the pope is now contributing to a popular social website.</div>
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-20073808333510397362014-02-16T15:21:00.000-08:002014-02-17T16:49:51.661-08:00You Don't Know Jack<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Vancouver's Arts Club Theatre is staging a revival of "The Odd Couple" at the Stanley Theatre stage, and <i>Province </i>reviewer Paul Durras was not exactly effusive in <a href="http://www.theprovince.com/entertainment/Review+Couple+production+punctuated+with+exclamation+points/9509781/story.html">his evaluation</a>.<br />
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Neither was he accurate in the details. "<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">Wikipedia can tell you Walter Matthau and Art Carney did the movie in 1968..."</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;"> </span>he writes, by way of background. Wikipedia can try to tell me that, but memory tells me it was Matthua and Jack Lemmon who starred in the film version.<br />
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In fact, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odd_Couple_(film)">Wikipedia entry</a> I read today does say exactly that in the first sentence. Further on in the entry we are told that Art Carney originated the role of Felix Unger on Broadway opposite Matthua. That must have been the sentence the eyes of our time-pressed reviewer alighted upon and he ran with it.<br />
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Later in the <i>Province </i>piece, Durras tells us that Matthew "Parry" of Friends fame will be the next actor to don Felix's apron, and that Andrew McNee as Oscar in the Arts Club production "bellows like Jackie Gleeson in The Honeymooners." Honestly--an entertainment writer who misspells the name of an iconic legend of TV comedy? And he got <i>Gleason's</i> name wrong, too!<br />
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Coincidentally, that last misstep may have been avoided if Durras had continued reading that Wikipedia page, where it is revealed that at one point the movie version of "The Odd Couple" was set to star Frank Sinatra (!) and, yes, Jackie Gleason (who of course headlined in The Honeymooners along with Art Carney). Then again, Wikipedia may not be the best place to go for spell-checks, as evidenced by the fact that in said entry, Felix's Unger's last name is consistently, and falsely, rendered as "Ungar."<br />
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Also, Tony Randall, who played Felix on TV and was a veteran of the Broadway stage...no, no--that's enough. I've got to stop this somewhere and get on with my life.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-27348055070824099162013-09-11T22:45:00.001-07:002013-09-12T00:10:44.365-07:00The Ins and Outs of Pre-Natal Drunkenness <br />
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Today on <i>Slate</i>, Emily Oster <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/expecting_better/2013/09/11/drinking_during_pregnancy_what_the_experts_don_t_tell_you.html">makes the case</a> for drinking while pregnant. No, seriously.<br />
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I'm not about to get all judgemental about her pre-natal quaffing choices--lord knows if I were a pregnant woman I would find it hard not to take a few pulls at the Shiraz teat--but I <i>will</i> take issue with some of her word choices.<br />
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For instance, we have the paragraph that begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;"><b>I reviewed many, many studies, but I focused in on ones that compare women who drank lightly or occasionally during pregnancy to those who abstained. </b></span></blockquote>
I'll forgive the double "many" in the interests of poetic licence, but what does the word "in" accomplish in this sentence? Granted, "focused on" doesn't exactly sing, but it does have the virtue of concision. The "in" should be discarded like a moldy cork.<br />
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Further on in the paragraph, we come to this sentence:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">With these parameters, we can really hone in on the question of interest: What is the impact of having an occasional drink, assuming that you never overdo it? </span> </b></blockquote>
Here we get reacquainted with one of the first inductees into the copyeditor's Hall of Errors. To "hone" is to sharpen. The shopworn term the author was reaching for here is "<i>home</i> in on." Of course, there are a number of people who will claim that "hone in on," by virtue of common mis-usage, is now an acceptable alternative. These people, for the most part, have dents in their foreheads and had mothers who drank while pregnant.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-44546124256602284252013-08-13T17:18:00.002-07:002013-08-13T17:21:06.776-07:00Pleading the Case for "Pleaded"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Performer/loathsome cretin Chris Brown is in the news again. According to a piece on The Daily Beast he suffered a seizure a few days ago, brought on by (according to his publicist) the "stress and non-stop negativity" he has to endure from people who refer to him as a loathsome cretin.<br />
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The story goes on to say that:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt; line-height: 115%;"><b>Brown has been on felony probation since he plead
guilty in 2009 to beating his girlfriend, Rihanna. Since then, he has been in
and out of court, most recently having his probation revoked after a May 12
hit-and-run case.</b></span></blockquote>
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When you are looking for the past tense of "to plead" there are three ways to go, and for my money this is the least attractive option. According to lawyer/word nerd Bryan Garner, author of the estimable <i>A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, </i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"The best course is to treat plead as a weak verb, so that the correct past tense, as well as past participle, is </b><b>pleaded." </b></blockquote>
The Columbia Journalism Review seems to agree, while noting that <i>pled </i>has its supporters, too. The author of <a href="http://www.cjr.org/resources/lc/pleadguilty.php">this article</a> points out that we don't say "he pled for his life" we say "pleaded." But we don't say "readed" or "speeded," counters a crafty "pled"-loving lawyer he quotes.<br />
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In the end however, the author delivers the verdict:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">There may be room for argument, and “pled” may gaining [sic]. It is certainly not irrational for the ear to prefer it to “pleaded.” But the strong preference here, and clearly the safer course in American journalistic writing early in the 21 st century, remains “pleaded.”</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: arial; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
Now, as it turns out "plead" is an alternative past tense option in the language, but it is "alternative" in the way a talentless garage band is. It's just never seen in credible legal circles. Nobody but a loathsome cretin would use it.<br />
<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-86820574586089015522013-03-30T16:20:00.002-07:002013-03-30T16:20:37.049-07:00How Many Clicks Will I Get if I use the Title "Whale Bone Porn"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A local mom named Ann Pimentel is having conniptions about an exhibit she and her children were scandalized by at the Vancouver Maritime Museum. The specimens in the display in question are examples of "scrimshaw"--etchings made on (in this case) whale bones and teeth. Rather saucy engravings they are, too, showing boobies and kissing and everything.<br />
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Even though the display was elevated out of sight of impressionable young eyes and was accompanied by a "for mature audiences only" disclaimer, it seems Ms. Pimentel, president of the League of Perpetually Outraged Citizens, was outraged. Describing herself as "extremely disturbed" (which is doubtlessly true), she felt compelled to alert the internet and other media.<br />
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According to <a href="http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/03/23/museums-whale-bone-porn-leaves-vancouver-mother-extremely-disturbed-demands-its-removal/">this</a> story,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;">Ms. Pimentel told the </span><em style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Vancouver Sun</em><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px;"> that her two small children — aged two and three — were needlessly exposed to the disturbing “whale bone porn.” No advance warnings were made to sensitive patrons outside the display room, she complained.</span></b></blockquote>
I had barely recovered from being introduced to the term "whale bone porn" when I came across another extremely disturbing story, this time in <i>Slate</i>. In a piece called <i>Six Ways to Avoid the Classic "Broken Bottle Scam</i>," I learned that certain aggressive hobo-types in New York have been perfecting a ruse whereby they bump into unsuspecting passersby and then accuse them of breaking a bottle--ostensibly filled with an expensive "medicine"--and bullying them into ponying up some coin for the "loss."<br />
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Stratagem Number Five on the author's mostly tongue-in-cheek list of ways of dealing with this scam begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 17.984375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Carry around your own bag of bottles</span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;"><b>. </b>OK, this one might not be the most realistic idea, and it definitely requires some advance planning, but I can’t think of a better way to confound a bottle trickster than by dropping your own bag upon contact and demanding that </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">he</em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;"> reimburse </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">you</em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.984375px;">.</span></blockquote>
The problem in each of these excerpts is that the word "advance" should be charged with loitering. It serves no purpose in either sentence other than to take up syllables. Warnings and planning must always, by definition, be done in advance, so I hereby rule that the word be stricken from the record.<br />
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Now if you'll excuse me, I'll get back to watching some whale bone porn.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-30252275296976157372012-12-24T17:30:00.002-08:002012-12-24T17:30:34.369-08:00The War on (the Correct Spelling of) Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPAUi6T2xBqWOQO904ljQgLrEq6zEHnrv1LmTFlCJlqKSEXUacF9qQQsurXJvhYjL4SJO37tF_LDSh8Bd0N1p2zAv-VhJVOEX4QldUTen7dgkEwGoc5qhVPmlRidFCxwWvwkOxA/s1600/006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPAUi6T2xBqWOQO904ljQgLrEq6zEHnrv1LmTFlCJlqKSEXUacF9qQQsurXJvhYjL4SJO37tF_LDSh8Bd0N1p2zAv-VhJVOEX4QldUTen7dgkEwGoc5qhVPmlRidFCxwWvwkOxA/s400/006.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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In the spirit of selflessness, the proprietors of this local eatery remind us that there is no "I" in "Chrstmas."Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-8887090935070659902012-11-13T14:05:00.000-08:002012-11-13T14:05:08.542-08:00Laying Down the LawLance Armstrong, in an attempt to "flip the bird" to his detractors, has tweeted this photo of himself lounging at home with his yellow jersey collection.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6m9GXRKZfJCAK-zqt83-yetxZ-Pm2QjYkZq79f1EuNx8hk0MK-S3KzCA-Jde_a_UwVUTec8sUuuxDA0a-DQIfqQIjIzwOJiIKrVSEoicirsXps3QAKZpFsQNwu2uk6pnMTaZ9w/s1600/media_22700756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="130" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin6m9GXRKZfJCAK-zqt83-yetxZ-Pm2QjYkZq79f1EuNx8hk0MK-S3KzCA-Jde_a_UwVUTec8sUuuxDA0a-DQIfqQIjIzwOJiIKrVSEoicirsXps3QAKZpFsQNwu2uk6pnMTaZ9w/s400/media_22700756.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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The insouciant caption reads: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>"Back in Austin and just laying around..."</b></blockquote>
Hang on there, pedal-pusher. When used in the present tense, as it is here, <i>lay </i>requires an object--that is, <i>laying </i>is what you do to something (or to be vulgar, <i>someone). </i>If it's just you and your yellow jerseys, what you are doing is "<i>lying </i>around<i>." </i><br />
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Then again, we all know that lying<i> </i>is something Lance Armstrong would never do.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-8453391143607458112012-11-11T16:22:00.001-08:002012-11-13T14:06:37.161-08:00Strange Bedfellows<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-ANG-3ugBxWkV229KYtJhof2SfGc9X8zuLa38bahFbhQFkxcQjnPhfF_V5ckPOG2H5GSv-2ninXBCTHAzdpHjSqafwHRNMRfPrJYoeo73N6zdzSAXEecfCH-XGvtOM9XcDwc7A/s1600/20081017_gergen2_250x250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ-ANG-3ugBxWkV229KYtJhof2SfGc9X8zuLa38bahFbhQFkxcQjnPhfF_V5ckPOG2H5GSv-2ninXBCTHAzdpHjSqafwHRNMRfPrJYoeo73N6zdzSAXEecfCH-XGvtOM9XcDwc7A/s200/20081017_gergen2_250x250.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Like just about any politics junkie (currently going through post-election DTs) I find David Gergen to be alluring and curiously seductive. The tight but creamy voice, that fascinating comb-over, those sexy non-partisan analyses...well, don't get me started.<br />
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Still, I have to admit I was shocked to find that Gergen was in fact the "woman" CIA chief David Petraeus forfeited his career for. At least that's what comes across in the opening paragraph of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/11/11/david_gergen_great_men_have_affairs/">this </a>Salon piece:<br />
<b><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></b>
<b><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">David Gergen — a friend of Gen. David Petraeus as well as the woman he reportedly had an extra-marital affair with — </span><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: initial; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: black;">said on “Face The Nation”</span></a><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"> this morning that great men have affairs — and that those relationships can be very important to them in difficult times.</span></b><br />
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First of all, I have had a well-documented romance with m-dashes myself--I think they are great for setting off a parenthetical thought with vigor and panache--but three in one sentence? That's a punctuational high-wire act I wouldn't attempt without a safety net.<br />
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But the real problem here is that description of Gergen as being a friend of Petraeus "as well as the woman he reportedly had an extra-marital affair with." Friends with benefits, indeed!<br />
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If we slip another <i>of </i>before "the woman" we get a simple unexceptional story of a man with friends. By eliding that crucial <i>of</i>, however, we invite mental images of David Gergen in drag "servicing" a (hitherto) respected retired serviceman. And that's a whole different story.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-28498376210254947892012-11-05T19:47:00.000-08:002012-11-05T19:47:05.425-08:00November SurpriseIt seems that awhile ago, in an effort to cast my online ballot in a survey of favored podcasts, I allowed a sketchy outfit named Stitcher to pollute my Facebook wall with banal "updates" such as this election-eve crap-poll:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMZWmOhNTK_gQpxmj0gtrqBtch8S-0a4_EoIx8uVyrAmQFh_tieBMB7BYoC_JUQvdKqM00BOGSBqAbNdGSOYKTN-Er388gHfcXZWZRybYI4YwagyLV8JAaVu4AWgKO0x-KFfQbw/s1600/Stitcher+image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMZWmOhNTK_gQpxmj0gtrqBtch8S-0a4_EoIx8uVyrAmQFh_tieBMB7BYoC_JUQvdKqM00BOGSBqAbNdGSOYKTN-Er388gHfcXZWZRybYI4YwagyLV8JAaVu4AWgKO0x-KFfQbw/s400/Stitcher+image.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Did you catch it? No, not the missing question mark, although that is annoying. I'm talking about Mitt Romney's apparent last minute gambit of ditching running mate Paul <i>Ryan </i>(he of the washboard abs and flexible memory) and replacing him with Ron <i>Paul </i>(he of the geriatric crankiness and inflexible positions). Worth a shot, I suppose. </div>
Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-88113072993517559262012-10-28T17:40:00.002-07:002012-10-28T18:12:12.433-07:00Much Too Many<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSt2JzEK9PWhHmicrCj7TSP4b6ajZhzIVNMnp-ycrmMNBraqLwJ71J_nfHoA5U1gV51W5Ex2tUQdvBWP-xyvabCJIWZKrn1th20S0f5XQq7a469-Q0fTLjwFEDCQJL6MBokOZ6JA/s1600/belushi-electoral-college.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSt2JzEK9PWhHmicrCj7TSP4b6ajZhzIVNMnp-ycrmMNBraqLwJ71J_nfHoA5U1gV51W5Ex2tUQdvBWP-xyvabCJIWZKrn1th20S0f5XQq7a469-Q0fTLjwFEDCQJL6MBokOZ6JA/s320/belushi-electoral-college.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
In case you needed to read yet another article on the state of play in the U.S. Election, <i>Slate </i>posted <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/10/28/obama_likely_to_win_electoral_college_path_to_270_electoral_votes.html">a piece</a> today that should help bring a few nervous Obamaphiles down from the ledge. As the author notes early on:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.983333587646484px;">The latest </span><a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_PRESIDENTIAL_CAMPAIGN_ROAD_TO_270?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-28-12-37-06" style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgb(255, 255, 153); color: #006699; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.983333587646484px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Associated Press</a><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 17.983333587646484px;"> analysis of the race points out that Mitt Romney has much fewer paths to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the election.</span></b></blockquote>
I hit a couple of speed bumps in that sentence. First of all, why bother with the AP breakdown--or any other poll analysis, for that matter--as long as uber-savant <a href="http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/">Nate Silver</a> is on the case? It's like showing off your Zune at an Apple store.<br />
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And then there is the matter of that phrase, "much fewer paths." Doesn't sound right, does it? But then, "many fewer paths" isn't exactly sublime poetry either. So which is it?<br />
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Several minutes of exhaustive Googling reveals a schism in the word nerd community, and that never feels good.<br />
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For instance, over on englishforums.com, a senior user who goes by the handle <b>inchoateknowledge</b> states, with definitive assurance, that "<i>fewer </i>is an adjective and is modified by <i>much</i> as an adverb of degree. <i>Many</i> is a determiner, that is a noun modifier, and can<b> not</b> modify an adjective." Which sounds pretty conclusive and contains lots of intimidating grammar jargon to boot.<br />
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But a couple of clicks away, the Word Watch column at the Hartford Courant has this to say:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b> ...[T]he phrase "many fewer," despite its seeming contradiction, is perfectly correct. That's because the adjective "many" is used with countable items (discrete or separate entities), such as people, pebbles and polliwogs. So when you're referring to a significant reduction in the number of countable items, "many fewer people" (or pebbles or polliwogs) is the correct choice.</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Unfortunately, because of the weird sound of "many fewer," some people fall into the error of using "much fewer" with countable items, as in, "Much fewer people came to the game."</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>But "much" should be used only with mass, uncountable items, such as grain, rain and pain. So when you're referring to a substantial drop in the size of uncountable items, "much less grain" (or rain or pain) is the correct choice.</b></blockquote>
Ah, so the "many/much" question is tied to the "fewer/less" pickle that continues to flummox creators of signs at supermarket express checkout lanes and bunch the panties of grammar fetishists. And in this case, "paths" are definitely discrete, separate, and countable.<br />
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Personally, I come down on the side of "many fewer" on the grounds that if the outlook for Mitt Romney's presidential aspirations were rosier, you wouldn't say he has "much paths to reach 270 electoral votes," you would say "many paths." I don't see why the introduction of the word "fewer" in between should change that.<br />
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And it turns out that <i>Slate</i> agrees. As of now, I see they have edited the piece to change <i>much </i>to <i>many </i>in the sentence in question. Of course, if the author had just written "<i>far </i>fewer<i>" </i>in the first place, we would have been spared all this kerfuffle and could have spent this time enjoying a nice sandwich.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-68917249521510944442012-08-25T18:03:00.001-07:002012-08-25T18:21:54.377-07:00"That's One Small Indefinite Article for a Man..."<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjUqdIQKvLQ-i_iiFMjNHS2NpXYwBMaodwiNQCice1BYOUxdQcvKO_BJ2xPUG-C4kqBsl7is_xiH6lqSWa3x52ZL4Wq-v6FUndQ6teCiGNvDkfV52kLqGJk2vj-h_gTTDaIg1YQ/s1600/80579237_blog_main_horizontal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNjUqdIQKvLQ-i_iiFMjNHS2NpXYwBMaodwiNQCice1BYOUxdQcvKO_BJ2xPUG-C4kqBsl7is_xiH6lqSWa3x52ZL4Wq-v6FUndQ6teCiGNvDkfV52kLqGJk2vj-h_gTTDaIg1YQ/s200/80579237_blog_main_horizontal.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Neil Armstrong has died.<br />
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I am old enough to (vaguely) remember the Apollo 11 moon landing. Watching as a spaceman-pajama-clad boy in our Mad-Men-era living room I saw the grainy black and white images on TV. (My parsimonious father wouldn't invest in a color set, or cable, until well into the 70s, so everything on TV was grainy black and white for me). I went over to a window and looked up at the moon, straining to see the flag the conquering space heroes had planted there. I was sure I spotted it.<br />
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Here's what else I remember about Neil Armstrong: He never exercised. He believed that every person is issued a finite number of heartbeats at birth and he was damned if he was going to waste any on jumping jacks. Seeing as he lived 82 years before dying from complications when doctors started poking around his ticker...maybe he was onto something.<br />
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<i>The Vancouver Sun</i> has commemorated Armstrong's passing with a story recounting his 1977 visit to Vancouver to open the restaurant atop the Harbour Centre tower.<br />
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The story includes this sentence:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, verdana, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><b>His infamous words: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind” will no doubt endure through the ages.</b></span></blockquote>
You'll notice the <i>a</i> in parentheses. That's because the quotation is usually (and accurately) rendered without it. It always bothered me, growing up, that this, one of the most famous of utterances, didn't really make sense. "Man" and "mankind," in this context, mean the same thing. It wasn't until fairly recently that I learned about the dropped <i>a</i>--which was either the result of a gap in the transmission, or a slip of the tongue owing perhaps to Armstrong's giddiness on planting his boots on the fricking moon. When I discovered the way the line was supposed to be heard, it suddenly made perfect, elegant sense.<br />
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The same cannot be said for the <i>Sun</i>'s reporter's description of these as "his infamous words."<i> Infamous</i>, according to the <i>American Heritage Dictionary </i>means:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">1. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Having an exceedingly bad reputation; notorious:<span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: 'Minion New Italic', Bookman, 'URW Bookman L', 'Palatino Linotype', serif; font-style: normal; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">an infamous outlaw.</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: arial,sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">2. </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: rgb(0, 0, 0); padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span>Causing or deserving severe public condemnation; heinous</b></blockquote>
No. He may or may not have dropped an <i>a</i> on the moon, but Armstrong's words were, and remain, <i>famous.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: arial, verdana, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 11px;"><br /></span>
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-72187636691022926222012-07-15T17:52:00.001-07:002012-07-15T20:21:35.174-07:00Writing by Ear<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggqG6CpqEx_xk_g5wMkFiTVc9LgpOj9nj4H4bMNqgK_fVpl1fVmiqteadzogPPrxmUvNRISAdHQgh-BT_xZzH4p9Wm1LwCEGIr625yFZHZZo3T72T88AiYmijx9wq5dMgDUg97Gw/s1600/active-listening.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggqG6CpqEx_xk_g5wMkFiTVc9LgpOj9nj4H4bMNqgK_fVpl1fVmiqteadzogPPrxmUvNRISAdHQgh-BT_xZzH4p9Wm1LwCEGIr625yFZHZZo3T72T88AiYmijx9wq5dMgDUg97Gw/s200/active-listening.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
It's one of the simplest rules in English: use <i>a</i> before a word beginning with a consonant; use <i>an</i> when the following word starts with a vowel. Easy-peasy, right?<br />
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Not so fast, Ben Kuzma, sportswriter for <i>The Province</i>, who wrote the following in a piece about the re-signing of Canucks forward Mason Raymond:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Next summer he'll be an UFA and it's up to him to determine what leverage he'll have.</b></blockquote>
The trick here is that the correct deployment of the indefinite article depends on the sound, rather than the spelling, of the word it's "articling." UFA, in this context, stands for "unrestricted free agent," and if Kuzma had gone with the full monty description, <i>an</i> would have been the correct choice. But "UFA" is an <a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/search/label/acronyms%2Finitialisms">initialism</a> and its initial sound is pronounced "yoo" so "a UFA" is the way to go. Similarly, we would say that Raymond is "<i>an</i> NHL player," because even though "N" is a consonant, it is pronounced "en."<br />
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All of which sounds ridiculously complicated but is in fact intuitively easy in most cases if you sound out the phrase in question. Just try saying "<i>an</i> UN resolution" or "<i>a</i> IRS investigation" without spraining your larynx or sounding like Sarah Palin. Impossible.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-36602992443530466052012-06-30T14:41:00.001-07:002012-07-15T17:56:29.064-07:00A Law of Attraction<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3T-URTE6He2g4T17kgvId9AfCluQqX9WZ5aFYngyJYOQ-RZfncf9WObfg9H7ZVwZ6W2E4O0LGXPm5YUN6-Olql8f5E73hNUU37w3Fdxc-zKR1nSP2nF8fs58zpOTNZv-YtTOcqQ/s1600/nib-magnet.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3T-URTE6He2g4T17kgvId9AfCluQqX9WZ5aFYngyJYOQ-RZfncf9WObfg9H7ZVwZ6W2E4O0LGXPm5YUN6-Olql8f5E73hNUU37w3Fdxc-zKR1nSP2nF8fs58zpOTNZv-YtTOcqQ/s200/nib-magnet.JPG" width="200" /></a></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>Mormons aren't supposed to gamble; Mitt got $10million from casino magnet Sheldon Adelson. Why doesn't some reporter ask Mitt about that?</b></span></blockquote>
That was a tweet from TV provocateur Bill Maher about a week or so ago.<br />
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Sheldon Adelson owns casinos. You could even say he is attracted to casinos, which is why he owns so many of them. But he does not attract casinos to himself in the way "chick magnet" Matthew McConaughey attracts women, for instance. That is because Sheldon Adelson is not a "casino <i>magnet</i>" but rather a "casino <i>magnate</i>."<br />
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The primary pronunciation <span style="background-color: white;">of </span><i>magnate </i><span style="background-color: white;">in most guides calls for a long </span><i style="background-color: white;">a </i><span style="background-color: white;">in the second syllable</span><i style="background-color: white;">, </i><span style="background-color: white;">but enough people of dubious breeding are pronouncing it exactly like </span><i style="background-color: white;">magnet</i><span style="background-color: white;"> that that has become an established alternative utterance. This has obviously led to some confusion between the words, as evidenced by the faulty tweet of said TV provocateur. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I'll never be able to trust the Internet again.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b><i>Addendum: For an excerpt of the funniest writing you will ever read on magnets, see <a href="http://books.google.ca/books?id=ge1WDoIeDTsC&pg=PT396&lpg=PT396&dq=magnets+patricia+marx&source=bl&ots=7mEq0NoGqu&sig=LHg6s17GQbQuIrpm6voDJk92XVg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yS7yT9DCBcHlqgH00Iy6DQ&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=magnets%20patricia%20marx&f=false">this</a>.</i></b></span>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-16342059431758205452012-06-11T16:27:00.004-07:002012-06-11T16:30:34.692-07:00Unfortunate Unintended Pun of the Day<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 37px;">Dozens die in Syria,UN has grave concerns </span></span><span style="text-align: right;">Sydney Morning Herald</span></div>
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<br /></div>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-37250427592374616882012-06-10T13:32:00.002-07:002012-06-10T13:37:01.313-07:00Now There's an Episode of The Bachelorette I Would Watch<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<b>Mike Huckabee: "Madonna more likely to pick me than Mitt Romney"</b></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwg0ws4tb7WAVMGpcCuPW8tjldM89MhYPjQfIkT0U6b2nA-E3n51hJOabeQ4xyN-HVxtnWRnw92QRTjxEnYt9W9FSlRtKfkWY4jvpGFzSU6W_R1zLsmlXA2ZJPdz_GQrEMQ4H1KQ/s1600/110221_huckabee_romney_ap_328.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="108" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwg0ws4tb7WAVMGpcCuPW8tjldM89MhYPjQfIkT0U6b2nA-E3n51hJOabeQ4xyN-HVxtnWRnw92QRTjxEnYt9W9FSlRtKfkWY4jvpGFzSU6W_R1zLsmlXA2ZJPdz_GQrEMQ4H1KQ/s200/110221_huckabee_romney_ap_328.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
What's this? The Huckster and the Mitt Man are fighting for the romantic favors of an aging pop tart? And Huckabee thinks <i>he</i> has the inside edge? That's the impression you could get from that HuffPo headline from earlier today.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYCZANjAuDlzbddyKZOqiRdEsb6ux9LOWcvxM3bQKrwj2sD7vdE-2wufF0Y43uO6PS2u8F8L1wG9PqpG8cOcURQQYWP1045LIQLdVNkxEp4QAKoHd0TNu4ZYqkoN_3YJVDViePw/s1600/0_64_092106_Madonna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvYCZANjAuDlzbddyKZOqiRdEsb6ux9LOWcvxM3bQKrwj2sD7vdE-2wufF0Y43uO6PS2u8F8L1wG9PqpG8cOcURQQYWP1045LIQLdVNkxEp4QAKoHd0TNu4ZYqkoN_3YJVDViePw/s200/0_64_092106_Madonna.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
Sadly, the real story is nowhere near as awkwardly surreal. Huckabee was asked about the chances of his being selected as Mitten's running mate and he responded, "I think there is a greater likelihood that I'll be asked by Madonna to go on tour as her bass player." A weird reference for him to make, perhaps, but not as disturbingly weird as the headline seems to promise.<br />
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This the kind of ambiguity that can arise when the word <i>than </i>mixes with people, and it can often be cleared up with the addition of a tiny verb. If that headline had an <i>is </i>at the end, there would have been much less opportunity for the reader to conjure an image of two middle-aged political blowhards doing a "the girl is mine" routine.<br />
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Or take, for instance, the sentence: "I love wine more than my wife." That could be taken to mean that I love wine more than my wife <i>does</i>. Or it could mean that I love wine more than I love my wife. In my case, the first interpretation is an unremarkable declaration of fact. The latter is just speculation on my wife's part.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-52486699598526591672012-06-02T15:33:00.000-07:002012-06-02T15:49:56.156-07:00How Do You Say "False Arrest" in Swedish?Last night we had dinner at Ikea (yeah, like you've never done it) and after a splendid repast of fish and discount cafeteria Cabernet, my micro-bladdered wife, Kim, had to (predictably) adjourn to the facilities.<br />
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While I was waiting outside this door...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1UCMPLI0VlWDwSl3BdQMTbGOYTcybA5q_jkTiuDtCsUsU8CcbOyLrEdQDH99vViiwk-bUN_Z5hf7oYdtAwMCp93qasTViZiN0cUBUfWc6yZrhGcLakR0qF8JtlCj1HTYs1sQfBg/s1600/002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1UCMPLI0VlWDwSl3BdQMTbGOYTcybA5q_jkTiuDtCsUsU8CcbOyLrEdQDH99vViiwk-bUN_Z5hf7oYdtAwMCp93qasTViZiN0cUBUfWc6yZrhGcLakR0qF8JtlCj1HTYs1sQfBg/s320/002.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
...two things bubbled to the surface of my Cabernet-muted consciousness:<br />
<br />
1. That should be "WOMEN'S". You need the apostrophe to indicate the possessive. <i>Womens </i>is what you say if you're a polygamist hillbilly<i> </i>("I gots me two womens!")<br />
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2. There is no surer way of getting the hairy eyeball than by loitering outside the <i>women's </i>washroom with a camera trained on the door and discount Cabernet on your breath.<br />
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<br />Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-30243949575229468782012-05-15T20:54:00.001-07:002012-05-15T21:01:53.398-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cDvWdnT3hk_WcFZ9GF3uxVJnYkFgd9yf0FBIC6qF_o8GV6uX0IC4oe2JIZiL17jn_JwYhQ0Ex0KaZgpm1S2QbHbZPt41detWTDn6QGJL2W0WdyMon3ip1mSGIOPf8Arh6FhA8A/s1600/biden.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9cDvWdnT3hk_WcFZ9GF3uxVJnYkFgd9yf0FBIC6qF_o8GV6uX0IC4oe2JIZiL17jn_JwYhQ0Ex0KaZgpm1S2QbHbZPt41detWTDn6QGJL2W0WdyMon3ip1mSGIOPf8Arh6FhA8A/s200/biden.jpg" width="142" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<b><a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2012/05/vice_presidential_history_a_list_of_times_the_veep_did_something_that_mattered_.html">The Eight Times the Vice President Did Something That Mattered</a></b></blockquote>
So reads the headline of a Slate piece from a few days ago. I take issue with that article. Not the piece itself (although we'll get to that in a moment), but the definite article in the title. It's not a clear case of violating an on-the-books rule, but bear with me while I make my case.<br />
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The article sets out to enumerate--in light of Joe Biden's "getting out in front" of the gay marriage issue--the eight times in history that a sitting vice president has done something more noteworthy than cutting a ribbon at the opening of a shopping mall. So shouldn't that be "The Eight Times <b>a </b>Vice President Did Something That Mattered"? After all, we're talking about a number of different Vice Presidents, not one particular man with hair plugs and bleached teeth.<br />
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There is room for dissent here. In fact, coincidentally enough, Slate ran a piece just yesterday, tied to the sordid John Edwards trial, called "The Meaning of <i>The", </i>which attempts to explain why lawyers argue over the meaning of basic words. The author explains:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">In regular speech, the definite article (</span><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the</em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">) can sometimes refer to something unique—for instance, “I have a cat. The cat is sleeping.” Other times, it can refer to something that’s not unique: If I say, “My cat is lying on the arm of my chair,” I’m not implying that the chair has only one arm. Whether </span><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">the</em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> refers to something unique depends on the context in which it’s used and can be open to interpretation. </span></b></blockquote>
Fair enough. If you say that, in American legislative politics, <i>the </i>Vice President's most significant duty is to break ties in the Senate, we understand that you are referring to the position rather than an individual person. But when you give us a contemporary article professing to outline the eight times the Vice President did something that mattered, especially when the buzz has been about what this Vice President did last week, it's fair to assume you might be talking about the current incumbent.<br />
<br />
Which brings us to the what the current Vice President did last week and how it is characterized in this article:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">On May 6, 2012, Joe Biden offered up his full support for gay marriage on NBC’s </span><em style="border-bottom-width: 0px; border-color: initial; border-image: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font: inherit; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Meet the Press</em><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">. “I am absolutely comfortable” with “men marrying men” and “women marrying women,” the vice president declared.</span><br style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;" /><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">...The White House says Obama’s “evolving” position was heading to the same place—very soon. Maybe so. But Biden’s gaffe made Obama get there sooner.</span></b></blockquote>
Now, I'm as entertained as the next guy by Joe Biden's stream-of-consciousness non sequiturs. But in this case, I think it says more about the nature of politics than it does about his verbal dexterity that when he is asked a straightforward question and gives a straightforward, honest answer we call it a "gaffe."<br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-72057992462736610192012-04-07T17:10:00.000-07:002012-04-07T17:10:39.879-07:00A Letter of Variable InterestWow, check this out: the President of RBC Global Asset Management is writing to me!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJy0Qoec3Kw0aHCcCTdHn0MnZuZIUaOvcEusgTJhETpUy6UGc487agVXOeTKK7pn7li6iYT1jUVMx0ukdnH6KTgApgIIyGNkF8p2xs_KWzPcraKf3uesxbLT8gUjvxl_HP6tf5Wg/s1600/Sic+List.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="397" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJy0Qoec3Kw0aHCcCTdHn0MnZuZIUaOvcEusgTJhETpUy6UGc487agVXOeTKK7pn7li6iYT1jUVMx0ukdnH6KTgApgIIyGNkF8p2xs_KWzPcraKf3uesxbLT8gUjvxl_HP6tf5Wg/s400/Sic+List.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">As much as I hate to get all red-pencil pedantic with my new pen pal , I think there are few hiccups here.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The opening sentence begins:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>As a valued client, we are pleased to offer you...</b></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">So who's the valued client here? Once again, our syntactical orientation is discombobulated by a fiendish dangler. (What's a dangler and why does it hurt to get smacked with one? I refer you <a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/2011/12/atlantic-announcs-its-own-passing.html">here</a>, <a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/2012/02/copy-editing-neighborhood.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://siclist.blogspot.ca/2010/01/theres-lot-at-steak-here.html">here</a>.)</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">On to the next sentence:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>Many clients prefer to view their reports online, however, we will continue to mail printed copies to those clients who request them.</b></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">The marriage of those two sentences is even more awkward and grotesque than the Julia Roberts-Lyle Lovett coupling. Here's a nickel, Mr. President. Go buy yourself a period.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Next sentence:</div><blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>If you wish to receive a printed copy of the reports, for the funds you currently invest in, please complete the detachable postage-paid reply card...</b></blockquote>I don't know where that superfluous first comma wandered in from, but I'll bet I'm paying for it with some kind of service charge or another.<br />
<br />
But perhaps the most conspicuous--and most mirth-giving--error occurs right up front with the salutation:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>Dear Investor</b></blockquote>I mean, really. My "investments" consist of a flaccid retirement account that is propped up by monthly contributions from my empty wine bottle redemptions. Which makes me an "investor" the same way my three-year-old's Easy-Bake Oven makes him a chef.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-75104026178073094502012-04-02T17:32:00.000-07:002012-06-02T16:12:09.194-07:00The Name's Noah Webster--I'm Here for My Reading<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Oh, dear. It appears, judging from this garish sandwich board sign occupying sidewalk space on our local main thoroughfare, that one of those elaborately-scarved, morally-bankrupt soothsayer fraudsters has unpacked her scented candles and patchouli oils and set up shop in our neighborhood.</div>
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When Angela writes "set back" she is, of course, trying to conjure up the noun "setback." But hey, she's a sideshow con artist, not a writer. Similarly, it would be uncharitable to point out the simple typo in "you life," which is why I'm pointing it out. (I've just never felt very charitable toward elaborately-scarved fraudsters.)</div>
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But really, Angela--"Ruin Stones"? If you can't get that right, you are going to give your profession a bad name and "rune" it for all the other, more orthographically diligent, small-time hustlers and pernicious beady-eyed swindlers.</div>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-5680399334073188962012-03-21T20:42:00.000-07:002012-03-21T20:42:23.571-07:00If They're Yearning to Break Free, Why Are They Huddling?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDM0WS4nKF99ICZwi1P_5cPCLbiD4MeoWnpIO1NjX7aeVV8mBuwhzp9XuOrTRjgi9x-M4ZRyaQVsLmjFmzhhdM3QwX7xjR9lfsz944T3uUyaWf-d-xdb-3K-PDY-aPaPxbNb0_xQ/s1600/gay_statue_of_liberty_newyorkcity_thevillage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDM0WS4nKF99ICZwi1P_5cPCLbiD4MeoWnpIO1NjX7aeVV8mBuwhzp9XuOrTRjgi9x-M4ZRyaQVsLmjFmzhhdM3QwX7xjR9lfsz944T3uUyaWf-d-xdb-3K-PDY-aPaPxbNb0_xQ/s200/gay_statue_of_liberty_newyorkcity_thevillage.jpg" width="107" /></a></div>Emma Tietel, <i>MacLean's</i> token young person columnist (look kids, aren't newsmagazines cool?) wrote a piece recently decrying the neutering (as it were) of gay-straight alliance clubs by Catholic school boards in Ontario.<br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
<b>You can just see it in lights: the club's mission statements, and the Catholic boards' iconoclastic revision to Emma Lazarus's legendary sonnet: "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to break free...oh yeah, also your gay, bisexual, transgendered...anyone with acne."</b><br />
<b><br />
</b><br />
Not sure I get that. But anyway, speaking of iconoclastic revisions, when the French sent over Lady Liberty, the poem on the card that was attached to the gift bag spoke of "huddled masses yearning to <i>breathe </i>free."Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-36027665209418848932012-03-05T19:06:00.001-08:002012-11-11T16:45:22.467-08:00Hold the Homophone*<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLX-BamlifyrcY16pR391RNcPs_tAyQar4sTso02LondBsnTrQnrdSRdijjQwgWQ40N4mygLq3uStpuB7mOiHYapTyOR3x1lg9dDHehAJSNr7T5h6sBewKFfmNmG1wReGjSpJzQ/s1600/thing1_and_thing2.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLLX-BamlifyrcY16pR391RNcPs_tAyQar4sTso02LondBsnTrQnrdSRdijjQwgWQ40N4mygLq3uStpuB7mOiHYapTyOR3x1lg9dDHehAJSNr7T5h6sBewKFfmNmG1wReGjSpJzQ/s200/thing1_and_thing2.gif" width="200" /></a></div>
<b>Cherry shouldn't be silenced</b></blockquote>
So goes the headline to <i>Province </i>sports columnist Ed Willes's articulate defense of the outrageously inarticulate (and undeniably entertaining) hockey bloviater Don Cherry. The subheading explains:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>New media puts CBC under pressure to sensor commentator</b></blockquote>
Now if they were talking about applying <i>sensors </i>to Cherry's cranium that would deliver a bracing A/C jolt every time he was detected pronouncing Quebec as <i>Cue-bec, </i>I could see the point. But of course the story is about the latest effort to stifle Cherry's more outlandish opinions--in other words, to <i>censor </i>him.<br />
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Meanwhile, do you remember the MPMan? Of course not; nobody does. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_729923871">A piece in </a><i><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/from-walkman-to-ipod-what-music-tech-teaches-us-about-innovation/253158/">The Atlantic</a> </i>today explains how the device, the first portable MP3 player, was destined for failure. This sentence sets the stage by describing the success of the MPMan's progenitor:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><b>For a decade after its launch, Sony's Walkman retained a 50% market share in the U.S. (46% in Japan) in a space teaming with competitors, even as it enjoyed a price premium of approximately $20 over rival offers.</b></span></span></blockquote>
The phrase "teaming with competitors" is practically a contradiction in terms, since one usually competes against one's competitors. It's nonsensical, but that's because the word the author meant to use here is <i>teeming, </i>as in "overflowing, maggoty, out-the-wazoo with superabundance." Another example of sound-alike cousins being mistaken for each other.<br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;">*From Wikipedia: "<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">In </span>linguistics<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">, a </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">homonym</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that share the same spelling </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">and</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> the same pronunciation but have different meanings.</span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> Thus homonyms are simultaneously </span>homographs<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> (words that share the same spelling, irrespective of their pronunciation) </span><i style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">and</i><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span>homophones<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> (words that share the same pronunciation, irrespective of their spelling)."</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19px;">Not that it matters--as far as Rick Santorum is concerned none of them should be allowed to marry.</span></span><br />
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</span></span>Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7839417.post-1576770355665584202012-02-14T13:51:00.000-08:002012-02-14T14:38:41.016-08:00With This Hyphen, I Thee Wed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJunTDIyEQ5PgbSp5YRTokoNqQFdPlyvh5QM_2Cb2bGULbnvv4jc1AarIgsmGupWPAXzubdlsmFeUeqvhdslZW0Vk61TAdJUGo1YiYCNJKAo2YCLCRqdyHfR8mpkHqzq61j_kZXA/s1600/gay-marriage1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJunTDIyEQ5PgbSp5YRTokoNqQFdPlyvh5QM_2Cb2bGULbnvv4jc1AarIgsmGupWPAXzubdlsmFeUeqvhdslZW0Vk61TAdJUGo1YiYCNJKAo2YCLCRqdyHfR8mpkHqzq61j_kZXA/s200/gay-marriage1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>The inexorable march toward marriage equality picked up its pace yesterday with this news, as headlined at HuffPo:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>Washington Gay Marriage Bill Signed Into Law By Governor Chris Gregoire </b></blockquote>After recounting the details of this legislative triumph, the report advises us that<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><b>Separately, an anti-gay marriage initiative was filed at the beginning of the session, but the language is still being worked out so no signatures have been collected yet. An initiative alone would not pause the law.</b></blockquote>This reminds me of the "orange juice salesman" conundrum from Bill Walsh's <i>Lapsing Into a Comma. </i>The phrase could be construed as describing a juice salesman who is orange, so he suggests employing a hyphen, like so: "orange-juice salesman." Even though "orange juice" is not normally hyphenated, this helps alleviate the confusion and unintended comedy.<br />
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That's why I think "anti-gay-marriage initiative" may be the way to go here. As it stands, "anti-gay marriage initiative" could be taken to mean a marriage initiative that is anti-gay. Hmm. On second thought, perhaps it is accurate the way it is.Danielhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13526989098005398006noreply@blogger.com