Thursday, October 11, 2007
Word Up!
For those of you who don't yet know, I'm a magazine writer/editor. At parties, when people ask me what magazine I work for, I like to say: "I work for a publication called Gent: Home of the D Cup. Perhaps you've heard of it?" I especially enjoy saying this to a couple and then watching the deer-in-the-headlights look on the guy's face as he tries to formulate an answer that will neither incriminate him nor make him look naive. Fun!
No, I'm afraid my publications are very boring trade and professional magazines, nothing you'd ever find on a magazine rack. Nonetheless, I make my livelihood with words. Like all writers and editors, I have my own set of pet peeves.
Some of them are really anal, I know. For example, I have a very low tolerance for the split infinitive (e.g. "to quickly go to the store" instead of the correct "to go quickly to the store"). As I see it, infinitive verbs are meant to be one word. In most languages, they are single words (such as aller in French). It was just a linguistic freak accident that led English-speakers to use two words for this purpose. Would it make sense for a French speaker to say "al - vite - ler au magasin"? No, obviously that would be pretty fucking stupid. But we do it all the time in English and no one says boo about it. Some style guides even permit it these days.
OK, yeah, so you see, pretty anal, right?
On other matters, I feel more confident getting on my high horse. For some of the magazines I work on, I just edit submitted material rather than write it myself. The submissions typically come from intelligent, college-educated professionals, yet their writing typically is almost complete jibberish. In fact, that's how I think of it sometimes: "I'm not editing. I'm translating from jibberish to English."
One thing that really bugs me is the obsessive over-use of the passive voice by professionals of all sorts. It doesn't matter whether its cops, nurses, architects, engineers or civil servants. They all seem to think they sound smarter if they write like Yoda. One lovely "sentence" I handled today, believe it or not, was "The attachment of the boards is achieved through the use of nails." Bleh!
Of course, like any writer, I also hate buzzwords, techo-babble and bureaucrat-speak of all sorts. I've got a long hate list of these. The number one spot on my list varies over time. It used to be pro-active. For the last time, people: the opposite of reactive is active. Pro-active is not a real word and, if it was, it would be a real fucking stupid word because it would be totally redundant. Active already means active; you don't need to stick a "pro" in front of it to make it mean active again. Grrr!
But even pro-active doesn't bother me as much these days as the new darling bastard child of bureaucrat types everywhere: impacted. The illiterates who use this word must think it is just the verb form of impact. Impact, it should be said, is a great English word because it is so often used very artfully in metaphors e.g. "The full impact of the tragedy hasn't hit him yet."
But there's nothing artful about impacted. Its real meaning is "wedged or packed together", but pretentious types use it when they mean to say affected.
I actually saw a billboard, sponsored by the local nurses union, featuring that awful word: "Health care cuts: How have they impacted you?" What astounded me was not that a nurse would think of using the word, but that the copy-writers at the ad agency that designed the billboard for them let them get away with it. Incredible!
OK, so just for reference, here are the two examples when one might legitimately use "impacted":
- If you are an astronomer and you are talking about extra-terrestrial bodies like asteroids, e.g. "the asteroids became impacted after their collision."
- If you are talking about dentistry, e.g. "impacted wisdom tooth".
In Orwell's 1984, he tried to make it sound horrible that the fictional Stalinist regime was working to try to eliminate words. Given how routinely words are misused in our society, I think such a campaign would actually be doubleplusgood.
But enough of my rants. Do any of you have linguistic pet peeves you want to get off your chest?
posted by Mentok @ 3:21 p.m.,
17 Comments:
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At 7:18 p.m.,
FiL said...
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I can think of a gastrointestinal application of "impacted..."
My pet peeve is "to migrate." It ain't a goddamn transitive verb!! I can migrate, but no fucking IT support dweeb will ever be able to migrate me to a new system... -
At 7:19 p.m.,
FiL said...
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(Apologies to any IT support dweebs who are reading this. I don't mean you.)
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At 9:38 a.m.,
Rick said...
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Impacted... they probably can't figure out whether to use "affected" or "effected".
My big one is the incorrect use of "was" for "were" in the subjunctive mood. "If I were going to talk like a hick, I'd say 'If I was a hick' and pick my teeth with a piece of straw." If I were! If I were! If I were! If I were!
Whew. -
At 8:59 p.m.,
cchang said...
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Fil beat me to it...I think of my cat's impacted stool issue.
I need to forward your post to my husband who is not only grammar Nazi in the family but majored in linguistics. I got a kick out of the post, but I think he'd fully and truly appreciate it much more.
Knowing now that you're a magazine editor I am even more self-conscious of my writing ability.
IT Support Dweeb.... Over and out. :P -
At 8:20 a.m.,
said...
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this is why we get along so well, we're copy editors at heart. ;-)
when i was younger, i had a hard time reading anything without editing it in my head. took a lot of fun out of the reading.
these days i try very hard not to use the passive voice when i write. yoda i talk like still, sometimes, unfortunately.
i hate the misuse of then/than.
i suppose it drives you crazy that i type only in lower case--my son hates it with a passion. heh heh. -
At 12:28 a.m.,
adam said...
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The kids I teach all write 'mom' instead of 'mum' which is a blackcountryism as well as an americanism and I DON'T LIKE IT but generally I've calmed down a lot about this kind of thing. Although god help you if you use an apostrophe incorrectly. A friend of a friend had a bugbear about the phrase 'bugbear' and she really didn't know where to turn...
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At 7:17 a.m.,
cchang said...
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I've always wondered if Mom would be bothersome to see/hear for those in the UK. In the US "Mum" is a flower. Specifically a large gaudy one with tassels and ribbons affixed to it that one wears during Homecoming games and debutante balls.
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At 10:40 a.m.,
Rachel said...
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I have a lot to say in regards to this matter...But I am so fuzzy I can't articulate what I want to say properly.
Hopefully when I am feeling better we can talk a little about grammar and/or lack there of. -
At 11:45 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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fil - yet another good example of why Orwell's idea of ever-shrinking Newspeak is a good idea. If we could just find some way to restrict everyone's vocabulary to the Grade 5 level, people would naturally make good word choices like "We're going to move you to a new system". But leave too many words hanging around and people will start making vanity choices.
wankel - holy crap! Subjunctive mood pet peeves? You are hard core, man! Good for you. Since (ironically) I don't edit my blog posts much, I've probably made that error myself on occasion, so please accept my sincere apologies and my promise to do better.
cindy - you are already an excellent blog writer and shouldn't be self-conscious. Blog writing is typically done on the fly, so no one should expect magazine quality editing from me or anyone else. My beefs are with educated people who send in magazine submissions (which they have presumably thought about and revised) that are so far from readable English that it makes one's eyes bleed.
marcy - Of course, we shouldn't be trying to eliminate passive voice, just reduce it. That's one of the problems: it's an argument of the beard. One passive phrase isn't overuse; nor is two or three. You can't tell until you look over a whole article, but unfortunately few people even seem to be aware that it's a problem.
And, no, your lower case doesn't bother me in the slightest. I interpret it as fun, on-the-fly blogger style. I'm not such a big language Nazi.
crash - I'd say that kind of thing falls more into the category of language nationalism. Like most Canadians, I share similar feelings about the spelling of words like "honour", "humour", etc. The "-or" versions are seen as American and disdained, even though there isn't a good linguistic argument one way or the other. Still, I'm with you on a bunch of those issues; I still try to drill my kids to say "LEF-tenant".
rachel - I'm eager to hear your input. Get well soon! -
At 1:20 p.m.,
cchang said...
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from the hubby:
That's funny, but I think if I were to post a comment, I'd say something like "I get irritated when people are nazis about not splitting infinitives." Might as well say it was just a linguistic accident that other languages don't allow it. :) "Impacted" doesn't really bug me, but I think I'd use "affected." And I think "pro-active" is a very useful word! It's not meant to be the opposite of "reactive." It's its own thing!
I agree with him about over-use of the passive. What bugs me most is mis-use of apostrophes, and when people use quotes for emphasis. That's only really done on signs (billboards and things), but it bugs me. I also get annoyed at people using "whom" all the time (I think that word should die.. "Who" is fine all by itself), or when they do verbal somersaults just so they don't end a sentence with a preposition. Oh, also related to "whom," I hate it when people over-use nominative pronouns ("he," "she," "they," etc). No one would ever say "Look! It's he!" if they saw Tom Cruise walking down the street, but for some reason you always hear people on the phone saying "This is he." Craziness, I say! -
At 1:52 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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T - (aka cindy's hubby) - well, I admitted the split infinitive business was anal and I'm on the wrong side of recent media style guides rulings on the issue.
If pro-active isn't the opposite of reactive, then what is the opposite of pro-active? I can't count the number of motivational company meetings where I've heard the slogan, "We have to stop being reactive and start being pro-active!" If pro-active has a meaning other than the opposite of reactive, I've never encountered it.
You are so totally right about the misuse of quotes, and it isn't restricted to advertising. I frequently edit articles where amateur writers use it for emphasis. Worse, they tend to put jargon in quotes, thereby committing a double crime.
I used to be guilty of jumping through hoops to avoid ending sentences in prepositions. Then I learned it was more of a guideline than a rule, so now I'm more chill about it.
A final rant on the split infinitive, if I may:
The fact remains that the infinitive is supposed to be a separate, self-complete form of a verb. "Go" by itself could be the present tense but "to go" must be infinitive. By separating the "to" from the "go", you create confusion about what tense the verb is supposed to be.
Interestingly, people seem less inclined to separate other multi-word tenses of verbs. For example, in the present perfect, one would normally say "I have gone quickly". It would sound a little awkward and unnatural to say "I have quickly gone". Funny how these things work out. -
At 2:24 p.m.,
Unknown said...
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Let's see if this thing will let me post a comment without having an account..
Maybe the pro-active thing is just a matter of personal experience. I've rarely heard it used in the context you described ("stop being reactive and start being pro-active"), but I can certainly see it being said (and it would annoy me, too). Still, though, I don't think of "active" as the opposite of "reactive." I think there's plenty of semantic space for all three terms. "Pro-active" has a very specific set of circumstances where it can be used, while "active" is much more general. Also, I think "pro-active" fills a space where "active" would be potentially awkward ("we need to stop being reactive and start being active" sounds like "...and start doing stuff"). In any case, I agree with you that "pro-active" can be very over-used. If I hear a manager or CEO or someone say it, I tend to smirk a little. :)
I get a different sense about the "have quickly gone" type of sentences, too. They don't bug me. Sentences like "I have suddenly become ruler of the internet," or "I will have thoroughly defeated evil" don't bother me at all (but "I will thoroughly have defeated evil" sounds bad).
As for putting jargon in quotes.. *shudder* I'm glad my job lets me read funny stuff without having to correct it. For example:
"DIGITAL RECTAL EXAM : Impossible to examine as he has no rectum or anus." Poor guy. Or "He really was somewhat very tenuous for a period of time." The ability to fix people's ailments doesn't necessarily lead to the ability to form coherent sentences. -
At 2:40 p.m.,
Mentok said...
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T - splitting other verb tenses doesn't especially bother me either. I don't think it's even considered incorrect, which is probably what led the professional grammarians to ease up on the split infinitive. Oh well, I'll just have to defend steadfastly my beliefs by myself ;-)
I should be absolutely clear that I do not profess to be perfect. I have proof-readers who slash my writing to pieces too. The difference is that I appreciate what they do for me. Some of the people for whom I edit, on the other hand, have gotten ferociously angry at me. It's all I can do to stay calm when some engineer thinks he understands writing and grammar better than I do. -
At 9:43 a.m.,
Rachel said...
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Ok I was trying to think what my personal pet peeves are...And I think what gets under my skin the most is southern slang. For example, y'all or fixin' this is a pathetic excuse for language and it drives me insane.
My apologies to any southern readers out there.
I am not really a hard ass about grammar because I know that the English language as a whole can be a bit absurd. Plus, I am a poetry major so I am known to make up words from time to time. ;-) -
At 10:20 a.m.,
Mentok said...
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rachel - I agree that the southern accent grates on the ears. I think the higher the geographic degree of latitude at which you live, the more grating it is.
But...
Viewed with linguistic objectivity, southern language innovations are perfectly reasonable, I think.
For starters, in most versions of English, people often get confused because the singular and plural versions of the second person pronoun are the same, "you".
So, technically, by creating a distinct second person plural pronoun, "y'all" is an improvement (although I agree it doesn't sound like one.)
Likewise, "fixin'" can be a more concise way of expressing future tenses. Compare "I am going to go to get something to eat" to "I am fixin' to get something to eat". -
At 12:01 p.m.,
cchang said...
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I actually do use y'all for the very reason Mentok mentioned. In fact, I prefer it infinitely more than "Yous" which seems to be the alternate slang (seems to come from people from Brooklyn the most).
Fixin' Darlin' Puttin'...I see that more as an pronunciation thing for some reason. Although using it as a concise manner of describing future action makes sense too.
My pet peeves have more to do with pronunciation than anything else. "Taste-tes" for "Tastes" and "Nu-cu-lar" instead of "Nuclear" ... People who say "War-War 2" instad of "World War." Course I have a lisp, so why should I be complaining? -
At 4:39 a.m.,
said...
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Mentok,
>Interestingly, people seem less inclined to separate other multi-word tenses of verbs. For example, in the present perfect, one would normally say "I have gone quickly". It would sound a little awkward and unnatural to say "I have quickly gone". Funny how these things work out.<
I disagree. Does it sound any more unnatural than these of yours?
For those of you who don't yet know, I'm a magazine writer/editor.
No, I'm afraid my publications are very boring trade and professional magazines, nothing you'd ever find on a magazine rack.
Given how routinely words are misused in our society, I think such a campaign would actually be doubleplusgood.
Plenty of forms and tenses of verbs get split regularly. Why worry about the infinitive?
