More at SEA

"You still workin'?" (var., You still workin' on that). Gee, and I thought I was enjoying a meal at a fine dining establishment! Who knew there was a deadline?

Similarly: "Can I get that out of your way?" What else am I supposed to be using this space (i.e., the table top) for?

(Yes, I did just end a sentence with a preposition. Wanna make somethin' of it?)

LIVIA DRUSA

Pebbles in the Mouth?

Being an occasional list of cringe-inducing pronunciations.

1. cou'en, wou'en, shou'en: couldn't, wouldn't, shouldn't
2. winner, et al.: winTer
3. ax (I axed him might be construed as a confession of murder)
4. axterick

Livia Drusa

Self-evident Annoyances Continued

7. Can I start you guys off with somethin a drink?
8. Your call is important to us (while you hold for 20 minutes on the 15th level of an automated telephone triage system)
9. Can I get the buffalo wings/Lemme get the beef Wellington

Livia Drusa

Partial List of Self Evident Usage Annoyances

Some things require no explanation. Below is a partial list. I swear to God, these things have been uttered by ADULTS:

1. Espresso ordered as eXpresso
2. suppose-UBLY
3. I bought it with me;
4. boughtEN, as in, "I had boughten it when I was in the City..";
5. boughtenED, same example, but far worse because the person who says boughtenED clearly believes boughtenED to be the correct form of boughtEN.
6. Thank you for taking my call

More to come, I'm sure.

Surveil?

A comment has poured in to GrammarSnot with this provocative question: "What's your call on the use of 'surveil' as a verb?"

Surveil is a big fave among law enforcement and other authoritarian types, who love to sound way cool and no-nonsense. It is a back-formation from the perfectly legitimate surveillance, which comes to us courtesy of la belle francaise, and we should probably give it a fair hearing--we use hundreds of other back-formations daily, without giving them a second thought. Burgle comes to mind, along with enthuse and scavenge.

No less an authority than the Oxford English Dictionary recognizes it, citing 1960 as its date of first use: "1960 Federal Suppl. (U.S.) CLXXXII. 750/1 The plaintiff also stresses that the store as a whole, and the customer exits especially, were closely surveilled."

According to both the Random House Unabridged and Webster's 10th Collegiate (based on Webster's Third, published in 1961 to general approbation), surveil is legit.

That said, we at GrammarSnot are not in favor of surveil. Our reasons are as follows:

1. It's jargon--i.e., in use in a very specific and limited community and not shared by the wider English-speaking public.
2. It violates the cardinal principle of good writing and speaking: clarity. Observed, watched, and kept under surveillance are all clearer and the first two are more concise.
3. It's ridiculous. Anyone using it immediately brands him- or herself as both pompous and of limited imagination.

So there you have it, Grammies: There'll be no surveilling for you tonight!

'

Pity the poor apostrophe. It is abused, misplaced, misunderstood, and unloved.

Washington Post, January 13, 2008, furniture ad: Sofa's, dinette's 50% off!
CBS, January 12, 2008, playoff game between Green Bay and Seattle: Favres' Stats
MSNBC, January 5, 2008: Iowa Caucus Voter's Give Obama the Lead

Is it that "sofas" or "dinettes" just doesn't look right ? Is that it, snookie? Well TOO BAD--the plural of sofa is sofas. The plural of dinette is dinettes. Unless I am completely misunderstanding and some copy is missing, i.e., the object that the sofa or the dinette possesses (the sofa's arms, perhaps), the apostrophe has no place in this home.

Now, as to Mr. Favre: although his performance in the game might have led some to think that there are two of him, in point of fact he is singular (in more ways than one) and therefore the apostrophe goes before the "s," not after.

And so to Iowa, where one busy bee apparently voted 82,536 times.

THE RULES:
The plural of a singular noun adds just a plain old "s" (sofa/sofas, dinette/dinettes, giraffe/giraffes, voter/voters); singular nouns that end in "s" or "ss" (arras, compass, Adams) take "es" (arrases, compasses, Adamses [NOT, please God, Adam's]). No apostrophes. Ever.

A singular noun takes an apostrophe and "s" to indicate possession: Favre's stats.

A singular noun ending in "s" or "ss" also takes an apostrophe and "s" to indicate possession: arras's, compass's, Adams's (please, please not Adam's).

A plural noun takes an apostrophe after the "s" to indicate possession: voters', Adamses'.


You have not heard the last of this.

LIVIA DRUSA

Impactfully Impacting the Impact of the Transitive Verb

CNN.com has a page entitled "Impact Your World." It states under the heading: Take action! When disaster strikes or horrible events unfold, these are opportunities to effect change. Bad things happen in the world every day. But good can result and one person can impact the world.

I'm taking this opportunity to weigh in on the controversy (!) over the use of the word "impact" as a verb. Dictionary.com provides definitions for both the verb and noun forms. The American Heritage Dictionary entry reports that the use of the word as a verb constitutes a "Usage Problem." I could not agree more.

While it is reported there that the word has been used as a verb since 1635, this word has colloquially and publicly occupied a perfectly respectable position as a noun. Dictionary.com opines that the use of "impact" as a verb is an attempt by public figures to gain intelligence-respect by using the word in new or fresh way. Again, I agree.

My objection to use of impact as a verb is NOT that the use is incorrect grammatically, because esteemed sources list the word as a verb. I object to the ego-centric audacity with which people claim a new use or create a word out of thin air ("impactful," for example, in a recent car commercial). This ego-pumping, acquisitive, and unacceptable trend of colonizing nouns to become verbs started at least ten years ago but proliferated during the dot-com boom/bust ("incent" is another one with a target on his back). I hoped that the bursting bubble exploded this practice, but it has not. Who is CNN to say that I can impose my will on the world? I'm not the target audience but I appreciate the brash, fresh, youthful, hip, enabling message this sends to a bunch of people who already believe they are entitled the spoils of the entire world.

Cicero

Blameworthy

Headline, CNN, December 4, 2007: Storm Blamed for 18 Deaths

Headline, Washington Post, December 10, 2007: 3 Shooting Deaths Blamed on Domestic Dispute

"Blame" derives from the Late Latin word, blasphemare, (also the root of "blasphemy") and primarily means "to hold responsible or accountable."

Can a force of nature be held to account? Can it be responsible (as in, to answer for)? Can it defend itself (as in, to respond)? Can it be hauled into court and subsequently required to pay recompense or be remanded in durance vile? No? Then it cannot be "blamed." Blame requires fault, and fault requires intent, and intent requires consciousness. Storms (at least as far as Livia is aware) have yet to develop self-awareness. The deaths can be attributed to the storm; they can be a result of the storm, but they cannot be blamed on the storm.

And how on earth did that domestic dispute get its hands on a gun?

LIVIA DRUSA

How To Speak Nonsense

1. Clyde's is one of the only restaurants in Northern Virginia to offer vegan entrees.

2. I have one of the only copies of Mein Kampf in Urdu.

If you can't see what's wrong with these two sentences, you will be shot. Line up at sunrise.

This locution causes Livia actual pain. (As opposed to the virtual or literal variety, which will be dealt with at a later date.) Why? Let's take this slowly.

One. Only. Get it?

No? Shooting is too good for you. A month in a soundproof room listening to public radio fundraisers.

If ONLY = ONE, then "one of the only" is impossible because "one of the" implies MORE THAN ONE, genius. What you mean is "one of the few," if you're not brave or knowledgeable enough to say "the only." "Only" is SINGULAR, dammit!

You have been warned.

LIVIA DRUSA

Items must fit comfortably

Airport security may or may not have improved recently, but the luggage has definitely gained some respect. I am a frequent business traveler, and time is usually in short supply for me, so I try to avoid checking luggage. Accordingly, I carry on my bag(s). You may know that carry-on luggage must be limited in size these days, as it has always been, in respect of limited storage space on airplanes.

In an airport, any airport, one can now find convenient gauges of luggage size. These gauges aid you in your decision as to whether you will be mildly aggravated (by your own luggage) by carrying on, or whether you will be completely aggravated by "checking." These gauges are boxes crafted from metal tubes to represent the outer barrier of overhead compartments.

So far, not annoyed by grammar. I'll take this opportunity to point out that the violators of the size limitation for carry-on luggage are sloths, traitors, and anti-human in the worst ways. I'll also point out that by the time I reach the airport, I have already tried to avoid checking my luggage by my packing choices, so the gauge is of little help to me.

Here comes the annoying part: the sign over the gauge. It states, in relevant part, that "...items must fit comfortably...in the box below..." [item: noun; a single article or unit in a collection, enumeration or series. www.dictionary.com]. Only a sentient being can be comfortable. Many sentient beings cannot verbalize their comfort, or lack thereof, as evidenced in spectacular fashion by my dog, Otto. Unless those airline folks have developed some higher sense of consciousness (which they must be using every effort to conceal), luggage cannot notify us as to whether or not it is comfortable. I don't speak luggage, but, again, I am not in the airline business.

I should be clear about one thing: I am grateful to those in the security roles at the airports as I do believe they have my personal safety as their primary concern. It is the folks writing this stuff that are the targets of my ire.

Airport annoyances--to be continued.

Only Two?

ONLY; adverb; without others or anything further; alone; solely; exclusively (thanks Dictionary.com)

If we can agree that the word, "only," is often used for emphasis, where someone is stressing the relative specialty of a situation, how is it that this word can be so widely misused???

Too often the word is used to describe more than one thing, person, or event. Examples:
Only two teams have perfect records.
Only 90 million Americans are subscribers.
There have only been 72 burglaries in the last three months.

By definition, there can only be one team, one American and one burglary. I've seen this error in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and all over TV news/entertainment (same thing). STOP IT, please.

IF YOU WILL

Livia usually toils to the soothing sounds of classical music on WETA-FM . As a result, she recently suffered through the Fall fund-raising whinefest. The "arts editor" turned up every once in a while to bang the drum, and she ended every single sentence with "if you will." "A sort of je ne sais quoi, if you will."

In rhetoric, "if you will" is a device a speaker uses to ask the listener's indulgence while the speaker constructs an analogy or syllogism. Writers use it, too. When did it become a "like"-like hiccup for the lazy-brained?

What if I don't will, hmm? What then? Will you take it back? Come up with another lame analogy and ask me if I will that?

LIVIA DRUSA

Last and Final

Have you been in an airport recently? I have, and I keep hearing airline employees over the P.A. system saying something that is driving me crazy. They say: "Attention passengers of AirDope Flight Number 1254, this is your last and final boarding call." And within 90 seconds, the same person repeats the message. There are two GrammarSnot issues here:

1. How can something be last AND final? I don't believe this is possible, grammatically, or metaphysically.

2. Airline employees are liars. If they are really making the LAST boarding call, then, by, you know, definition, you can't make another LAST boarding call.

This is not my last posting.
Cicero

SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

Does anyone know how to use the subjunctive anymore? Does anyone even know what the subjunctive IS? Subjunctive: states a condition contrary to fact.

One of the many crazy-making things about listening to sportscasters is the after-the-fact use of the present tense instead of the subjunctive, as in: If Brady passes to Moss instead of giving the ball to Cooley, they score. NO! NO! If Brady HAD PASSED to Moss instead of giving the ball to Cooley, the Patriots WOULD HAVE scored. (But he didn't, so they're 3rd and long.)

And while we're on the subject, how about may/might? The auxiliary verb "may" follows a rule called the Sequence of Tenses, which states that time relationships must be accurately expressed. So when you have an auxiliary verb, like be, can, have, may, must, ought, shall, or will, it has to agree with the verb it supports. For example:

He can raise financing on his personal property and credit, so the move MAY happen sooner than you think. (The verb is in the present, therefore "may.")

He will be able to raise financing only on his personal property and credit, which MIGHT be a problem. (The verb is in the future, therefore "might.")

LIVIA DRUSA

HOW

I've recently witnessed several incorrect uses of this word in the form of a question. Perpetrators include NPR, ESPN, CNN, and 60 Minutes. Examples (made up) of how (!) this manifests:

• How upset are you that you've lost your precious Teddy Bear? I'm very upset.
• How big of a concern is the subprime mortgage crisis? Very big.
• Talk about how much of an influence Joe has had on the team. I don't know how to measure "influence." Is it metric?

This is annoying because use of the word "how" in this context is demanding that the answerer quantify the unquantifiable.

Comments welcome, but please appreciate that we don't really care if anyone agrees with us. This is strictly a cleansing exercise for us.