Computering While Smartphoning

Perhaps Cicero has over-reacted to the imperial behavior of those who chose nouns as their bounty.  The colonization of nouns into verbs continues unabated.  The gusto with which this phenomenon is occurring leads Cicero to conclude that folks in the media now believe that the act of colonizing a noun is a mark of distinction.  Which brings me to "decisioning." Recently Cicero had occasion to investigate the merits of opening an account with Experian, the credit agency.  The fruit of information that Experian purports to include in its service offering are "decisioning tools."  Cicero hopes that Experian can explain the difference between deciding and decisioning.  Be that as it may, Cicero will test out the verbing-of-the-nouns for a while.  Like, ya know, this one time when Cicero was smartphoning, while at the very same time, computering.  And I was sitting.

The Beauty of Trump

Mr. Trump has announced his intention to be a candidate for President of the United States. Trump has identified one of the factors that make him an appealing (qualified?) candidate in his statement "Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich," explaining that he is willing to spend $600 million of his own money on a political campaign.

We aren't interested in assessing Mr. Trump's fitness for the office, or whether being rich makes one a qualified Presidential candidate. We also do not intend to debate whether or not Mr. Trump's wealth does in fact make him beautiful (isn't everyone beautiful wealthy?), or whether or not he is beautiful (if he is wealthy, then he must be beautiful).

Instead we would like to refer Mr. Trump to the grammatical idiom that a subject of a sentence cannot be part of a prepositional phrase. He might consider re-phrasing his statement in any of the following ways:

"I am very rich, and my wealth makes me beautiful." OR

"Part of me is beautiful, but all of me is rich." OR

"I am very rich and I am very beautiful." OR

"I consider it the highest form of patriotism to honor my duties as a citizen by serving my country in any capacity, and I proudly offer myself as a candidate for President of this great nation." OR

"Since I am so rich, I am entitled to declare myself to be beautiful."

Good luck Mr. Trump, whichever part of you is beautiful.

Based on True Events

This phrase keeps popping up. The most public example is the promotion of the new movie Unstoppable starring Denzel Washington. Thank God it is based on "true" events (is there such a thing as a "false" event). Any movie based on false events would have to be....well...every movie that isn't related to something that actually happened.

The (glaring) problem is use of the word true to modify the word event. My Standard College Dictionary (Harcourt & Brace) defines an event as follows: "event n. 1. Something that takes place; a happening or an incident: the events of that period; especially an occurrence of considerable importance: historical events." This first definition might lead one to conclude that a happening must have been real in order to be considered an "event," as opposed to a fictional (made up) occurrence. But wait! The definition continues: "2. An actual or possible set of circumstances; a real or contingent situation: in the event of failure." Does this mean that the word event may be used to describe fake occurrences???? No. It means that an event can be hypothetical, for, you know, educational purposes.

Can't we go back to the halcyon days of "inspired by a true story?" Even "actual events" is better, because it at least suggests that events may be completely made up. In any event, Denzel can do whatever he likes, but Chris Pine has to stick to the (Grammarsnot) script.

Virulent Virus

The Wall Street Journal, Tuesday November 9, 2010: "When asked to remove the virus form the laptop, Mr. Bedi allegedly told Mr. Davidson that his computer had in fact been attacked with a virus so virulent that it also damaged Datalink's computers, according to prosecutors." This sentence appeared in an otherwise well written, entertaining, and inspiring article entitled "Virus Leads to $20 Million Scam," by Tamer El-Ghobashy.

I propose that we refrain from using adjectives derived from nouns to describe the nouns from which those adjectives are derived. I think we can do better than melodious melodies, oozy ooze, muddy mud, liturgical liturgy, engaged engagement, or wet water. Anyone?

I also have to point out that my 1988 Roget's II The New Thesaurus (Expanded Edition!) offers the following as synonyms for virulent: deadly, malignant, noxious, pernicious, pestilent, pestilential, and poisonous.

In fairness to Mr. El-Ghobashy, it is possible that the statement above is actually a quote. However, this is problematic because it is not attributed to either the alleged criminals or the actual prosecutors (the statement was "..according to prosecutors"). If my supposition is correct, then I and the other WSJ daily subscribers are mere victims of lazy journalists and their educable editors.

Meanwhile, I sincerely hope Mr. Davidson continues to compose, and recovers his losses--or at least that his (Halliburton) family will help support him.

Apostrohe's Alway's S'ignify S'ignificance

The New York Times article written by John Leland on September 5 contained the following, describing low interest loans available to first time home buyers in the wake of the financial crisis: "The loans are the idea of state housing finance agencies, or H.F.A.'s, ...."

There are some confusing aspects to this sentence. This post is an invitation to Mr. Leland to clarify his intentions. These items are confusing:
1. The loans, while an idea, can't be the idea of state housing finance agencies. This is because agencies are not sentient beings.
2. The loans, while an idea, can't be the idea of several state housing agencies can they? Did several state housing agencies have the same idea, at different times, or the same time in their collective agency brain? Have state housing agencies taken the Vulcan mind meld and applied to the lending of money to first time home buyers? Thank you, Gene Roddenberry.
3. Is this simply sloppy editing, in which case it isn't Mr. Leland's fault? It is apparent to anyone who reads a newspaper that reporters are no longer expected to write correctly, so I blame the editors, not the writers. Mr. Leland may have been trying to say that H.F.A.s's ideas are low interest loans to first time buyers, in which case he merely left in the whole first clause of his sentence without editing.

4. Is Mr. Leland advancing a new position on apostrophe usage? Should apostrophes be used at any time when referring generically to more than one (or all) State government agency, an incarnation of which exists in each of the 50 states?

5. Is it possible that Mr. Leland is subliminally advancing a political preference for federal government at the expense of State government? Why, after all, should we have 50 State agencies who all have the same idea? Seems inefficient.

At any rate, I'd like to hear from Mr. Leland to clarify his writing. Unless, of course, this is the fault of his editor.

Impactfully Impacting the Impact of the Transitive Verb HIDEOUS EXAMPLES

In the spirit of the first posting on the irretrievably vapid yet popular use of "impact" as a verb, and because the first posting has received 800% more comments than any other post in Grammarsnot history, I am obligated to further mine the depths of this foolishness. Several FOGSnot (FriendsOfGrammarsnot) have made suggestions or observations of words used in the same obnoxious fashion. I was extremely horrified to discover that this practice has been given a name: to "verb the noun." How prescient that we observed this sheer idiocy in its infancy....

Here are three of the most offensive examples dreamed up by noun pirates (in no order):
1. Parent. Now used as a verb, this is acually a perverse derivation of 'parenting' which has replaced parenthood--thank you Dictionary.com citation to American Heritage Dictionary. There's even a whole magazine--awesome.
2. Friend. I had no idea I could simply decide that someone is my friend. To"friend" someone started with that bastion of social isolation, Facebook. In another staggering example of one wrong exponentially exacerbated by another, the use of friend as a verb has perversely spawned the word and pastime of "friending." I guess it is too complicated in computer coding to work in the act of "making a friend."
3. Incent. Dictionary.com attributes to the American Heritage Dictionary the analysis that this word is a "back-formation" of the word, incentive. I cannot be so kind. Incent is the result of a person concluding that the suffix "ive" somehow modifies the (prefix?!?) incent. I'm going to credit the boss of the 'incent' dimwit for coming up with the bastard child of incent, incentivise. I guess this means that these are next: adject-, conjunct-, subjunct-, furt-, curs-, vot-, ICKcetera. Adjectivise? Cursivise? Hmmm.

To be continued, I'm quite sure.

A Multiplicity of Multiples

Dear dears, Livia has noticed a trend, which is always disturbing to her peace of mind, implying as it does both intellectual laziness and paucity of imagination. This particular trend is the use of "multiple" to mean "many," "several," or "numerous."

• "The congressman's behavior included multiple instances of tickle fights." (Wash. Post, 3/11/10)
  
• Jimmy's homework consisted of multiple worksheets.
• You have had multiple opportunities to clean up your act.

These are but a few of the usages Livia decries. Strictly speaking, "multiple" means "many copies of the same thing." So, loveys, you can't use it unless you're talking about repetition of or enlargement upon a single entity. Surely, each of Jimmy's worksheets was different--what would be the point of doing the same sheet over and over? Never mind.

As an appropriate usage, for example, "multiple birth" refers to the phenomenon of more than one child being born at the same time--presumably, several copies of the same kid, but applicable to non-identical womb-sharers as well.

Livia has corrected multiple instances of the misuse of multiple, and she fears that it is multiplying exponentially. Stop already! Plenty of accurate, concise, and descriptive words exist to describe a profusion of (fill in the blank). Use them!

"Whomever Wrote This Has Serious Mental Problems"

My goodness. Aside from the hostility reflected in that statement, please note the delicious use of "whomever." Practically nobody uses this word any more. However our psychological diagnostician has got it EXACTLY WRONG, you dolt! The word is whoever.

Livia despairs. Ignorant teachers, writers, and talking heads have perpetrated countless assaults on innocent syntax, confusing their audiences and leading to the feelings of inadequacy that result in horrors such as the one quoted (see also "I'm OK, Me's OK, Myself's a Bitch" from last November). Here's another:

Whom shall I say is calling?

Pity the poor receptionist (housemaid, butler) who has been taught that this question is "polite" English. The error arises from the interjection of "shall I say": no one (Livia devoutly hopes) would seriously ask whom is calling. Would she? Gods help us. And in fact, a truly polite way to ask is, "May I say who is calling?" But that's a different rant.

Who intensifies to whoever and is nominative: that is, it is the subject of a sentence or clause.

Whom intensifies to whomever and is objective--the object of the sentence, clause, or preposition.

So how can one know which is the correct form to use? Simple, loveys. Livia will help you. The key is to substitute "he" or "him" for the pronoun. If "he" is the correct word, then use who or whoever. If it's him, use whom or whomever. See? Easy as slipping poison into wine. For example,

Give this package to whoever answers the door.

Now, tell Livia why whoever is correct in that sentence. Anyone? Sigh.

It's correct because whoever is the subject of the clause, NOT the object of the preposition "to." Who answers the door? He answers the door. Therefore, the nominative whoever is correct. ("Give the package to the person who answers the door.")

Let's try another:

I can give the package to whomever I want.

Here, the subject of the subordinate clause is "I," and whomever is in the objective position: I want to give the package to him.

Oh all right. Livia can see your eyes glazing over. She has done her best. Her last bit of advice is this: If your objective is to be bitingly sardonic, make sure it's in the right place.

BREAKING NEWS: Livia and Cicero Disagree

Followers:
Cicero contends that it is inappropriate to attribute possessive qualities to inanimate objects, even if they are nouns, as in "Today's forecast calls for rain." I've never met Today, but he seems like an opportunist.

Livia maintains that "...inanimate objects do have the property of possession. One of the beauties of English is its adaptability. To get around the clumsiness of using Latinate structure—the financial analyst of the Times, the suspension of the Acura—English allows us to apply the shorthand ‘s: the result is clarity of meaning and simplicity of expression—two highly prized (by me, at least) elements of style." Her examples include: The Times’s financial analyst...; The Acura’s suspension...; The book’s plot...; The building’s character...; The city’s traffic....; The piano’s tone... You get the idea.

We are in the midst of an identity (power?) struggle. Cicero intends that Grammarsnot should (continue to) be our soapbox for inappropriate, wrong, and annoying usage choices. Cicero mainly objects to the freewheeling, obnoxious, egocentric, and ill-informed usage choices made by media types. Cicero's objection has always been that these usage choices are intended to provide the authors with a measure of control, deduced by readers as intelligence, thereby attributing erudition to those who do not possess it.

Livia's contention is that the possessive quality of some of the poor usage choices is correct, and therefore is not fodder for this venue. Cicero may be slightly overstating (or understating, or mis-stating, or mis-remembering per Roger Clemens), Livia's position.

WHAT SAY YE?

The Vanishing T

One of the beauties of the English language is its adaptability: its readiness to accommodate new coinages, accept foreign words as its own, change its orthography (look it up, loveys), and allow the correct meaning of a word to shine through a wide variety of pronunciations, both regional and dialect. Yet Livia finds herself yearning for the beautiful, crisp sound of the letter T defining the middles of words. Global communication and a tendency in America toward a non-accent accent, however, are gradually erasing that lovely letter.

Think about it for a moment, loveys: when was the last time you heard the name of the dreary season pronounced with its central T? "Winner" seems to describe both the season and the person picking up the lottery check. Shopping malls (and hospitals) have become "cenners"; horses now "canner"; and fugitives are "wan-ed."

And the words with doubled-up letters are faring no better: the two in this sentence (sennence) are pronounced "leder" and "beder."

Livia is certainly not suggesting that we all begin to sound like snooty butlers in bad drawing-room comedies. She does suggest that the trend toward extreme casualness in American life leads to a variety of unappetizing results: enter (enner?) any office building on a Friday in the summertime, and you'll get the idea. On her good days, Livia attributes sloppy pronunciation to an overabundance of informality.

On her bad days, she believes that a rising tide of anti-intellectualism is destroying American culture and that sloppiness in pronunciation is simply a manifestation of a truly frightening dumbing-down of our populace. She can only hope that, now that we have actual grown-ups running the country, attention to thought and expression will regain a central place in public discourse.

But don't hold your breath.

LIVIA DRUSA

You Put the Bop in the Bop-Shoobop-de-Bop

...but who put the ICK in ick cetera? Seriously. Livia has heard the pronunciation "ick cetera" at least 5 times in the past week.

ET cetera, loveys. ET cetera. The phrase is Latin for "and so forth," not a description of a disgusting appendage. ET = AND. ICK = well, ick. Now you know, so knock it off. Unless you enjoy sounding like a fool.

LIVIA DRUSA

BizBuz: It's the New English

Livia's robustness is top-of-mind this evening, having successfully achieved good success going forward by leveraging her robust wordsmithing skills end-to-end across multiple volumes of a business proposal offering enterprise-wide IT services to the Federal Government.

If you don't understand what's wrong with that sentence, you deserve to spend the rest of your life with the Self-Important A*h**s (SIA, pron. see-ya) whose intellectual gifts are so limited that they actually think they are making sense when they write and speak such drivel. If you can top it, Livia will bow her head in shame, and Livia and Cicero will post your BizBuz contribution and award you a Snotty Star.

LIVIA DRUSA

Breaking News: CNN continues to bring inanimate objects to life

From CNN.com: "New GPS podcast looks at foreign affairs and global policies."

Now, I love Fareed Zakaria as much as the next left leaning news junkie grammar snob--er, I mean Snot. I liked him better in the early days for his gift of explanation to the American public as to why "they" hate us. I guess it was inevitable that the paragon of newsentertainment would get ahold of him.

There is sooooo much to work with on this example. The combination of assumed-to-be widely-understood terms (CNN is trying wayyyy too hard); use of the term "new" applied to a program which is also new. Global policies? I can't. As a bit of introspection has revealed, Cicero can be a bit too literal, and perhaps too Snot-ty. So I'll merely focus on CNN's staggering, stubborn, and stupid ability to attribute human behavior to--not just inanimate, but written and/or recorded--objects. A "podcast looks..."

Personification is cute and charming when used by children who address their stuffed animals. It can be an interesting technique to describe societal shifts or events (e.g. "economic diarrhea"). Message to CNN: your credibility as a serious news outlet **may** be in jeopardy if you can't master basic English. The old Cicero might acuse CNN of contributing to the decline of civilization. Now, that's a little over the top, isn't it? The "new" Cicero will stick to basic judgmental superiority.

But WHEN, for gods' sake?`

Livia has just returned from a pleasant holiday lunch with her two best friends. No, really. Livia does have friends after all. But she digresses. Charming as the interlude was, Livia must report a somewhat unsettling exchange with the waiter:

Livia: Please, where is the ladies' room?
Waiter: See that mirror over there? It's gonna be right to the left of it.

Pardon? You mean it's not there now? Does it just drop in from time to time? Is there any predictability as to its presence or absence? And "right to the left"? Which is it, for heaven's sake? Inasmuch as her query was not prompted by idle curiosity, dear hearts, imagine Livia's consternation. Exactly when is it "gonna be" there, please?

Please note that rooms within buildings generally have fixed positions, particularly rooms set aside for ladies who wish to retire for a few moments. They stay put, in other words. This sort of intellectual and elocutionary laziness will not be tolerated, loveys. You have been warned.

LIVIA DRUSA

How Bad Was It, David?

In the course of a conversation with Cicero this afternoon, Livia mentioned the alarming trend among soi-disant journalists (and others, following their example) to use words that sound like the ones they want, but aren't. Challenged to produce an example, Livia lost no time in trotting out "enormity." Good gods, it's everywhere.

• "Well, Wolf, how prepared do you think President-elect Obama is?" "You know, David, I hope he's prepared for the enormity of the task before him."
• "Let me tell you, Sylvia, the enormity of that slide was almost more than little Flavius could handle."
• "The enormity of the Pacific struck awe into Alexandra's soul.

Webster's II: "Enormity: 1. Outrageous or heinous character; atrociousness, as the enormity of war crimes. 2. Something outrageous or heinous, as an offense."

Please, please, please, people! Unless that slide is about to devour little Flavius, it does not possess the attribute of "enormity." It's BIG. Huge, maybe. Even enormous. But heinous? Livia doubts it.

The task before Mr. Obama may well be another story, however.

LIVIA DRUSA

I'm OK, Me's OK, Myself's A Bitch

Livia was rudely shocked recently by having had the occasion to read this sentence:

"What came out of John and I's conversation was the decision to have the meeting anyway."

Wait a minute: "John and I's conversation"? WHAT?! Oh gods, where to start.

Unknown to most native speakers, English has declensions. We have three cases: nominative, objective, and dative. No, dear, dative. And, believe it or not, pronouns have to agree with the case! OMG, we are sooo put upon.

Nominative case refers to the named subject of the sentence; for example, I.
Objective case refers to the object of the verb. That would be me.
Dative case refers to the object of a preposition, such as "to" or "for"; that would also be me.
And again, a class of pronouns called possessive: that is, my and mine.

Take a break, dear hearts. Livia knows that this sort of thing is taxing. Now. What is wrong with the phrase, "John and I's conversation"? Speak up, dear. Livia can't hear you. "I's conversation" is a grammatical impossibility, yes?

But what pronoun goes in I's place? Not "me," certainly. RIGHT! "John's and my conversation"! And that's leaving aside the obvious edit: "In the conversation I had with John, we decided..." or the stilted (but instructive): "The conversation between John and me resulted in the decision... ."

Just to keep things interesting, we also have a class of pronouns called reflexive: in the first person, that would be myself. (If it helps, take out the x and substitute ct. The pronoun reflects back to the subject of the sentence.) NEVER, NEVER, EVER say or write

"John and myself had a conversation." (nominative)
"The speakers were John and myself." (objective)
"There was a conversation between John and myself." (dative)

Myself may be used only in a supporting role: I did it myself. It may be the object of a verb or a preposition if -- and ONLY if -- the subject of the sentence is I: I embarrassed myself; I sent it to myself.

Are we clear? I nominative; me objective or dative; my/mine possessive; myself reflexive.

That wasn't so hard, was it? Now mind! Or you'll be thrown from the Tarpeian Rock!

LIVIA DRUSA

Talking paper

"After the close, a New York Times report said that Morgan Stanley (MS, Fortune 500) was considering a merger with Wachovia (WB, Fortune 500) or another bank." Posted to cnn.com 9/17/2008 by "Senior Writer" Alexandra Twin.

In my world, only human beings can actually "say" things. To me, it follows logically, therefore, that someone capable of, you know, "saying" things would be described in the past tense as having, you know, "said" something. I'm delighted at the progress modern science has made now that reports can actually speak. And kudos to cnn.com for harnessing the technology to disseminate the news of the day.

Final-Final

Unlike Cicero, who still must toil for his bread, Livia spends relatively little time on airplanes. Thus, when forced to endure air travel, she is hypersensitive to sources of potential irritation. Who would have imagined that the pilot's announcement of the torment's imminent end should prove to be such?

"We are beginning our final descent into [fill in the blank]."

Now think about that statement for a moment. Our final descent: What, the next time we board the aircraft bound for this particular destination, we will not descend? Like the Flying Dutchman, we'll carom around the clouds forever? No descents for you!

Was there an interim descent of which Livia was unaware? Surely, she would have noticed if the oxygen mask had dropped, yes? Felt the bump?

Maybe all other descents were just practice runs, and this one is the one that counts on the pilot's permanent record. Perhaps he or she wishes to reassure us that after the plane touches the ground and taxis to the terminal, it will not sink beneath the tarmac, pretzels, mini-booze, and all.

Or is it "goodbye, cruel world"? Livia can certainly understand that sentiment--she has helped many a confused soul arrive at that conclusion, though certainly not while that person was operating a conveyance in which she was a passenger.

Livia remembers a time when pilots used the phrase "final approach." While clumsy, it does at least have the virtue of possibility: rush-hour traffic might have required a 50-mile roundabout--more than once, even--thus necessitating more than one approach.

But "final descent?" Scares the shit out of Livia, frankly.

LIVIA DRUSA

It Was A Very Good Year

May 6, 2008, The Washington Post, A Section: "This week, to mark the one-year anniversary of the bag ban, Modbury is planning a big beach cleanup."

Some days, Livia just wants to put her head down and cry. Other days, she wants to get out her little vial of poison... Take out your dictionaries, please.

Anniversary: from the Latin words annum (year) and verso (turn). Commemoration of an event that comes around every time the year turns. Same day every year. "Anniversary" includes "year." See? Come on, come on: make the connection; you can do it.

Bravo! X-year anniversary is redundant! You win the fur-lined bathtub! Amazing what you can find out when you think. What the Post writer should have written was "... to mark the FIRST anniversary..."; that is, the first time that the year has turned since the event happened.

Appearance in printed periodicals, on broadcast media, or in the largely illiterate world of Internet communication does not make this usage correct. Nor does it absolve you for perpetuating it.

Yes, yes, I know--everyone else does it. Well I'm not everybody else's mother-- oh wait, wrong crowd. Anyway, stop it! Don't make me stop this car!

LIVIA DRUSA

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