Cannot vs. would not comment

Fairly regularly, I see sentences like this in stories:

"Mayor Jane Darby said she cannot comment because the lawsuit is ongoing." (Group sues Edisto Beach after town bans religious worship services from its civic center)

She certainly can comment if she wants to, unless there is a clear policy, law, etc., that prevents her.

And maybe there is. But too often stories say an official said he or she "cannot" comment. Often, a stock phrase that like "because the lawsuit is ongoing" is thrown in - phrases that when you parse them really don't say much.

And that subtly makes us complicit in one of the favorite parlor games of many politicians and too many public officials:  linguistic obfuscation.

She would not comment. It's a conscious decision. We should make clear to readers/users that's the case.

If an official says he or she can't comment, then the conversation should be like this:

Them: I'm sorry, I can't comment on that.

You: Why is that?

Them: It's an ongoing legal case.

You: Yes, but why can't you comment? Is there a policy or is this your decision.

Them: I just don't comment on ongoing cases.

You: OK, then you would not comment. I understand.

If, OTOH, there's this:

You: Yes, but why can't you comment? Is there a policy or is this your decision?

Them: Yes, we have a policy against commenting in such cases.

You: Oh, is that a written policy? Where can I get a copy of it?

Them: Uh ....

Then I'd probably still say the person would not comment and cited a (fill in your governing body) policy against talking about ongoing legal cases. (And you should continue pressing for that policy, just because ...)

If the person were able to produce details of that policy or say it was on the advice of a lawyer, etc., then "can't" is closer to acceptable. But you now know details of why and should tell folks.

And even then, I think I'd favor "would not" with the explanation.

The only times I think "cannot" is clearly called for is when there are legal repercussions if the person talks. So if the mayor says she can't comment because of a judge's gag order or she can't comment because state law says officials can't talk about such and such, then OK.

In most cases, whether to comment is a decision made with free will, which takes "would." Even with a "policy," a person usually is free to decide to ignore it. (All the time we use anonymous sources who are doing just that, don't we? So that little nicety doesn't seem to trouble us.)

"Can't" seldom should be used, and when it is it should always have solid explanation, not just a tossed-off stock phrase, because the subtle but important implication is that the decision is being taken out of the person's hands. If we acquiesce, it provides a veil of plausible deniability. It's a reason pols and public officials like to use it, just as they adore the passive ("mistakes were made").

Our job isn't to provide linguistic cover.


(Usage notes:

- The widely established form is "declined to", not just "declined," comment. You decline something offered to you (another piece of pie, perhaps), but you decline to offer something (in this case, a comment) to someone else. The argument could be that you are declining the chance to comment, shortened to declined comment, but that's really not the sense of the interaction. And why even use that bureaucratic form when "would not" is perfectly fine?

- Avoid "refused" - the connotation has overtones of malice on your part. But if you catch his or her honor carting away a bag of money and you ask what's up and all you get is stony silence, then, yeah, "refused" might fit the bill.)

AP style change - collide

Buried in some of the AP style change entries last week was a bit of common sense:

Two objects now don't have to be in motion to collide: The previous entry stated "two objects must be in motion before they can collide. A moving train cannot collide with a stopped train." Now, "We dropped the previous rule that two objects must be in motion before they can collide. The entry has been deleted."

Homepage is also now one word, in keeping with a lot of evolving online usage.

The nuance of headlines

The headline this morning on the story of our dean, Charles Bierbauer, who announced yesterday he's leaving that job at the end of the academic year in June, got me thinking about the nuance of headlines.

Headline writing is tough. Don't believe me? Just try summarizing that nuclear disarmament story in a nine-count, three-line, one-column hed in print. (That would be a total of roughly 27 characters for those of the Twitter age, and probably one or two fewer because with print fonts, capital letters are wider and count as 1 1/2 or two, m's and w's are wider, some lowercase letters only count as one-half, etc.)

It's not a lot better online. Sure, you don't have to worry about those pesky line breaks, but even online heds have their limits -- abut 65 characters if you want to make sure it displays properly in those search engine results or on a mobile screen. Again, still less than your normal tweet.

There are a lot of ways things can go wrong.

This discussion isn't about the laughingly off tone, like "DOJ launching Fannie probe" (referring to an investigation of the Federal National Mortgage Association, more commonly known as Fannie Mae).

Nor is it about "Their ship has come in" -- a glaringly tone-deaf headline atop a story about a memorial for the hundreds of sailors who died when the USS Indianapolis sank. (Their ship is never coming in.) Or the awful "xx Mississippians gone with the wind" (I forget the exact number) on a story about hurricane deaths.

This is about those tiny but important nuances that journalists must face every day. They are ever present in reporting and writing. They become more glaringly so when translated to a headline.

So today there is this headline on a story on The State newspaper's website:

OK. It's serviceable. Nothing really wrong. But as we've learned time and time again this political season, there is right -- and then there is more right. With headlines, it often comes down to verb tense and word connotation and order.

Tense
In headline writing, there are some rules, or at least guides, when it comes to verb tense. The present participle (stepping) indicates current ongoing action or sometimes action to be completed in the near future. The present tense is used as "historical present" to represent action recently completed. The future speaks for itself. The past tense is rarely used; it is supposed to signify new information about something in the past not previously known (say, for instance, you just got a 5-year-old report showing that the Justice Department investigated Fannie Mae but no one knew till now. Then you might write DOJ probed Fannie ... OK, maybe not. But you get the idea.)

So using "steps" in this headline really means the dean has done the deed already. Yes, he's announced it, so one could argue he sort of kind of stepped down. But he's not really leaving till June, and this is August, so the nuance is wrong. "To step" (or will) is the better choice. That is the tense used in the university news release (though it is interesting to see the URL uses "stepping").

Usage
All words have denotation and connotation. So the denotation of "step down" is fine -- it is what he is doing in the broad sense. But the connotation gets us to nuance again. When we hear an official has stepped down, the mind wonders a bit why? Did something wrong? Retiring? Health?

In other words, while the phrase is technically correct (denotation), it is broader than needed and leaves itself open to questions and multiple interpretations, not all of them flattering (connotation). In headline writing, whenever the count allows you to be more specific, it's almost always better because it gets connotation out of the equation. And our job, after all is to try to perfect communication -- make sure the message sent is most likely the message received.

So what is Bierbauer really doing? Well, after almost 15 years and at age 74, he's actually retiring. So that would be the better word.

Longtime USC communications dean to retire

Word order
Some have noted that Bierbauer said in his letter that "this is not retirement." Granted, but we are journalists, not stenographers, and so we have to apply some reasoning. But this also highlights the nuances.

Most journalists I know never really admit to retiring. They can always scribble, after all. And "emeritus" status at a university is like being a retired federal judge or commissioned military officer -- you can always be called out of retirement. (Style warning: Never call someone a "former" general, etc., unless he or she has renounced the commission or somehow been dishonorably discharged.)

This is what Bierbauer wrote: For now, this is not retirement, but transition. I plan to work on the Watson-Brown journalism history project, hope to do some writing on media and politics and determine ways I might continue to be useful to the college and university.

So he is retiring as dean. Which gets us to word order. Since we're dealing with an online hed, we can more easily switch things around:

Bierbauer to retire as longtime USC communications dean

That maintains the sense that he's retiring as dean. (If space is an issue, take out "longtime.")

While this may seem nit picking -- after all, the original hed was serviceable -- this gets to journalistic craft. There used to be time -- admittedly not much, but still a little -- to reflect on these things in the course of putting out the "daily miracle." We need to figure out how to preserve that in this hamster-wheel world journalists now exist in.

On an end note, it's been a pleasure working with Dean Bierbauer, who came on board at USC a year after I did. He's been a steady hand at the tiller and always a proponent of good journalism and good journalism teaching. He understood that delicate balance we walk between the academic and professional missions of the school. I wish him the best.

Let it be stated -- stop using that word

In the flurry of coverage over the blowup in the investigation of corruption at South Carolina's Statehouse, an ugly little verb of attribution -- stated -- seems to be cropping up like spring flowers. (Just one example.)

Why ugly? I'll let Jack Cappon, one of the finest AP features editors ever (and a pretty damn good writer too), explain from his book on writing (which, BTW, should be on your desk). The bold emphasis is mine:

Asserted, stated, declared are often indiscriminately used for said. All are stronger and much more formal. ... Stated shouldn't be used at all; it is the instant mark of a wooden writer. (It fits if you're quoting from a deposition, but still looks dusty.)

 It also has connotations of increased veracity.

So let's put stated in its proper place -- on the top shelf, out of reach, to be looked at occasionally as we grab the easy-to-reach said. That way, we don't have to risk injuring our writing by reaching too high for it.

Refute/Rebut -- we should get it right

How difficult is it to remember the correct usage for refute versus rebut?

Very difficult, apparently, for The State newspaper, which consistently makes the wrong choice.

Rebut means simply to present a counterargument. Refute carries a much greater weight, the connotation that someone has proved the point.

Nothing could be further from the truth in this story, where the referee's story is being disputed even by the NFL's VP of officials. So the referee "rebuts" but hardly "refutes."

Usage - amid/against a backdrop

First, I want to point you to an excellent investigation by the Post and Courier of Charleston and the Center for Public integrity into spending by S.C. legislators and candidates.

But I also wanted to point out a usage issue in this sentence because I increasingly hear and read it:

Amid this backdrop, The Post and Courier/Center for Public Integrity's investigation found questionable spending under the state's ethics laws to be pervasive and unrelated to party affiliation or geography.

The preferred phrase is "against this backdrop." That's the point, the backdrop is literally or figuratively in back of the thing projected against it. You're not in the middle of it.


http://www.learnersdictionary.com/qa/against-the-backdrop-of

It's almost always 'rebut,' not 'refute'

The State newspaper in Columbia has suddenly, in recent months, seemed to get tangled up about "rebut" versus "refute." Maybe they don't go over this at the editing hub up north or whatever.

Tonight's entry:

Unless you're taking the PGA's side in this, the word is "rebuts" -- or, even better, "denies," which is the word used in the story's lede.

"Refutes" implies that you've taken sides and decided that one party has essentially proved its argument.

It's not an inconsequential nuance, especially in headline type, for professional writers and editors who are supposed to know better.

AP Style - spell out those state names

I'm not sure why there's all this kerfuffle over AP's directive today that as of May 1 the style is to spell out all state names in text.

It is after all the World Wide Web. We've known it was coming. AP's style keepers first broached this, what, four years ago at the American Copy Editors Society meeting in Philadelphia (to gasps, of course that made them quickly rethink)?

Yeah, it's going to mean reprogramming all those autopilot things we do. But that shouldn't be hard. I mean, really, you think it's easier to remember all those abbreviations -- and then remember not to use the postal codes that surround us -- instead of just spelling out? (OK, you'll have to remember what your elementary school teacher taught you about Mis-sis-sippi, or that it's ConneCticut. But really?)

My students are probably cheering right now.

We live in a digital world -- emphasis on world -- where someone in India can just as easily read our stuff as they can down the street. Just this week, one of my student's stories was published not only in local papers but was picked up on a martial arts publication based (I think) in Hong Kong.

OK, you can stamp your feet, if you want over underway for under way and over allowed for more than. Reasonable people can disagree over the usage/spelling evolution continuum. But whether to abbreviate state names? That's a pure style construct, nothing else. There is no inherent goodness in abbreviating 42 states and D.C. (So why, again, were Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah the favored children -- or odd man out, depending on your view? There were well-stated reasons, but there was no unalterable truth. It's just a reasoned decision, folks, nothing more, just as this new style change is.)

Yeah, it's still a little convoluted; the AP still says to use the abbreviations in datelines. And I think the guidance to avoid using state abbreviations in headlines just goes against reality in a printed product (the problem with these kinds of changes is that they tend to be broad-brush). But whatever. We can deal with it.

In some ways, I see all the hooha as the result of two things:

• OMG, AP is chipping away again at the sacred texts that allow us journalists, and especially copy editors, to be high priests. Man the bulwarks. Shibboleths alert!
• There is a bit of teaching envy in the halls of academe (why do I have to change this stuff every year for journalism class when the math teacher will always be able to teach 2+2=4?)

Welcome to 2014. If you wanted to be able to teach the same thing year after year, you should have gotten a physics degree (wait, that changes too, but at a relatively glacial pace compared with what the Internet has done to language).

Here's the next thing: We might go to putting the year with all dates. Same reasoning - it can be read around the world (maybe the universe before long) and stories have a long tail.

Now, if the AP will just address its gawdaful cornucopia of number styles, we can all go back to drinking. My suggestion continues to be spell out everything one to nine unless it is preceded by a dollar sign or some other symbol.

Or use all numbers, for all I care. For compactness, that might be the better solution.

I can count the howls now.

---

Here is the AP's style note:

SPELL OUT: The names of the 50 U.S. states should be spelled out when used in the body of a story, whether standing alone or in conjunction with a city, town, village or military base. No state name is necessary if it is the same as the dateline. This also applies to newspapers cited in a story. For example, a story datelined Providence, R.I., would reference the Providence Journal, not the Providence (R.I.) Journal. See datelines.



   EIGHT NOT ABBREVIATED: The names of eight states are never abbreviated in datelines or text: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Ohio, Texas and Utah.



   Memory Aid: Spell out the names of the two states that are not part of the contiguous United States and of the continental states that are five letters or fewer.



   IN THE BODY OF STORIES: Except for cities that stand alone in datelines, use the state name in textual material when the city or town is not in the same state as the dateline, or where necessary to avoid confusion: Springfield, Massachusetts, or Springfield, Illinois. Provide a state identification for the city if the story has no dateline, or if the city is not in the same state as the dateline. However, cities that stand alone in datelines may be used alone in stories that have no dateline if no confusion would result.



   ABBREVIATIONS REQUIRED: Use the state abbreviations listed at the end of this section:



   â?"In conjunction with the name of a city, town, village or military base in most datelines. See datelines for examples and exceptions for large cities.



   â?"In lists, agate, tabular material, nonpublishable editor's notes and credit lines.



   â?"In short-form listings of party affiliation: D-Ala., R-Mont. See party affiliation entry for details.



   Following are the state abbreviations, which also appear in the entries for each state (postal code abbreviations in parentheses):



Ala. (AL)    Md. (MD)      N.D. (ND)



Ariz. (AZ)   Mass. (MA)    Okla. (OK)



Ark. (AR)    Mich. (MI)    Ore. (OR)



Calif. (CA)  Minn. (MN)    Pa. (PA)



Colo. (CO)   Miss. (MS)    R.I. (RI)



Conn. (CT)   Mo. (MO)      S.C. (SC)



Del. (DE)    Mont. (MT)    S.D. (SD)



Fla. (FL)    Neb. (NE)     Tenn. (TN)



Ga. (GA)     Nev. (NV)     Vt. (VT)



Ill. (IL)    N.H. (NH)     Va. (VA)



Ind. (IN)    N.J. (NJ)     Wash. (WA)



Kan. (KS)    N.M. (NM)     W.Va. (WV)



Ky. (KY)     N.Y. (NY)     Wis. (WI)



La. (LA)     N.C. (NC)     Wyo. (WY)



   These are the postal code abbreviations for the eight states that are not abbreviated in datelines or text: AK (Alaska), HI (Hawaii), ID (Idaho), IA (Iowa), ME (Maine), OH (Ohio), TX (Texas), UT (Utah). Also: District of Columbia (DC).



   Use the two-letter Postal Service abbreviations only with full addresses, including ZIP code.



   PUNCTUATION: Place one comma between the city and the state name, and another comma after the state name, unless ending a sentence or indicating a dateline: He was traveling from Nashville, Tennessee, to Austin, Texas, en route to his home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She said Cook County, Illinois, was Mayor Daley's stronghold.



   HEADLINES: Avoid using state abbreviations in headlines whenever possible.



   MISCELLANEOUS: Use New York state when necessary to distinguish the state from New York City.



   Use state of Washington or Washington state when necessary to distinguish the state from the District of Columbia. (Washington State is the name of a university in the state of Washington.)

AP Style - death to euphemisms for death

It's kind of sad, really, that AP had to put out this update to its stylebook this week:

death, die: Don't use euphemisms like passed on or passed away except in a direct quote. 

Maybe we can now work on that phrase that's become trendy among a lot of TV reporters: We reached out to xxxxx for comment ...

I guess "asked" is too complicated.

Because ... just because

Before you go all ballistic over grammar and usage, please remember that language changes -- and that in the Internet age it changes at light speed.

Today's grammar grenade: because as a preposition

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/english-has-a-new-preposition-because-internet/281601/

How a newspaper is a convicting a man before trial

The case of a missing Richland County teenager continues to make headlines here - and to tug at the heartstrings of those searching for Gabrielle Swainson. The local sheriff has called a man arrested in the case a "monster."

Sheriff Leon Lott, no slouch when it comes to media savvy, continues to spin the story like a twister coming out of the plains. And it's hard, from the details that have come out so far, to not feel a sense of dread about Swainson's fate and a desire to see justice done.

Which is even more reason for the local media to keep a cool head.

Apparently The State newspaper missed that basic idea of journalism back in school, because it seems hellbent on convicting the suspect before trial: specifically reporter Noelle Phillips - but even more important, the editors who are supposed to have the smarts to keep a level head in all this.

Let's start with this headline of Aug. 29:

The quote marks are unlikely to mitigate that the paper has just called him a "monster." In fact, during the years at American Copy Editors Society meetings, readers panels have told us they often don't see the quote marks as attributing it to someone else but as the paper being snarky.

That was followed by this lead:

A man described as a monster and a career criminal forced 15-year-old Gabrielle Swainson from her home in the wee hours of the night on Aug. 18 and took her to his burned-out house on a dirt lane in Elgin.

 What happened in that house is unknown, but there is clear evidence of foul play, Sheriff Leon Lott said Tuesday.

 Now, 52-year-old Freddie Grant, is in jail on kidnapping and federal gun charges, refusing to cooperate with the FBI and sheriff’s investigators, who were searching for Gabrielle.

 “A monster came in that morning and did something that only happens in our nightmares,” Lott said.

I have real problems with that opening paragraph being unattributed. It's Editing 101 - when you make serious accusations, don't leave them naked - the two-graf, attribution in the second graf lede doesn't work well. First, some of your readers won't make it to graf 2 (a major part, actually, called "scanners"), and some others will have that first graf stuck in their heads and not make the clear connection that Lott is saying both things.

(While we're at it, I have the same problem with the third graf. Is Lott also saying that or is the paper divining it?) 

Apparently, The State thought better of itself, because online it tacked an "authorities said Tuesday" onto the end.

Then, today, we've got this:

The mystery of how an accused kidnapper entered the home of missing teen Gabrielle Swainson has been solved after investigators found a key inside the suspect’s house, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday.

Maybe the editors at The State missed it in Editing 102 when this came up (probably slept in), but they could always have referred to the AP stylebook:

To avoid any suggestion that an individual is being judged before a trial, do not use a phrase such as accused slayer John Jones; use John Jones, accused of the slaying.

Add to that the overall tone "mystery .... has been solved" and compound it by the subhead above it:

Any number of good texts on journalism and language (the editors might try Jack Cappon's put out by AP that was originally known as "The Word" -- hey, I know times are tough in newsrooms, but you can get a copy of it used for 1 cent plus $3.99 shipping; give  me a holler and I'll send you the $4) will tell you the connotation of words is as important as the denotation and that "claimed" has a pejorative, hands-on-hips, disbelief connotation.

Let's also add the definitive statement that he "entered" the house to the list.

But what's a little skill with the language among friends who are supposed to be professionals about it, eh?

Maybe something like this?:

A key to missing teen Gabrielle Swainson's house has been found in the home of the man charged with kidnapping in her disappearance, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday.

Or

The man charged with kidnapping in teenager Gabrielle Swainson's disappearance had a key to her house, and it was found in Freddie Grant's house after Grant said it had been lost, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said Wednesday.

No wonder the suspect's lawyer has asked for a gag order. Too bad it can't also include a suggestion that Phillips, but especially the editors at The State, go back and think about some of the principles of fairness and balance that got most of us into this business in the first place.

Trust me, I think they'll sell just as many copies. Let the story tell itself instead of becoming a tool.

Update 09/07: Roy Greenslade of Britain's The Guardian also weighs in.

Ditch the cop speak

Why do we as journalists reflexively go into "cop speak" mode? Are we afraid of deviating from the script for some legal reason? Do we think it makes us sound more important or that the cops will see us as more of their buddies?

You routinely read and hear things like "airlifted" when "flown" is just as good and much less pretentious. Or "ejected from the vehicle" when "thrown" works just fine. (And thrown from the "car" or "truck" or "SUV," if you know the details.)

So I found this brief story interesting (I've changed a few small parts to what was in the paper instead of online. The printed version, mercifully, got rid of cliches like "opened fire."):

A man fired shots inside a McDonald’s restaurant along Broad River Road in Columbia late Friday night after getting into an argument with an employee at the drive-through window.

No one was hurt.

According to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, a man and a woman got into a verbal altercation with an employee while in a car at the restaurant’s drive-through window at about 11:40 p.m. The man and woman then entered the restaurant, the man carrying a gun. They continued the argument, and the man fired a shot into the floor.

The couple left the scene, but deputies found their vehicle several blocks away from the restaurant that’s located at 1729 Broad River Road, according to sheriff’s department spokesman Curtis Wilson. Deputies are seeking two persons of interest.

Why use the nice simple argument in the lede but then switch to the ponderous verbal altercation? I've made a few other changes in the story below as well just to suggest some cleaning up:  

A man fired shots inside a McDonald’s restaurant on Broad River Road in Columbia late Friday night after getting into an argument with an employee at the drive-through window.

No one was hurt.

According to the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, a man and a woman got into a verbal altercation began arguing with an employee while in a car at the restaurant’s drive-through drive-thru window at about 11:40 p.m. The man, with a gun, and woman then entered the restaurant at 1729 Broad River Road. , the man carrying a gun. They continued the argument, and the man fired a shot into the floor.

The couple left, the scene, but deputies found their vehicle car several blocks away from the restaurant, that’s located at 1729 Broad River Road, according to Sheriff’s Department spokesman Curtis Wilson. Deputies are seeking two persons of interest.

Notice also the discrepancy between the lede and the third paragraph. The lede says "shots"; the story later says "shot." It needs to be clarified, but for now I've elected to choose one.

As for the "persons of interest," I've written before how I dislike it. What's wrong with "Deputies have the names of two people they want to talk to"?

(AP style notes - Yes, it's now "drive-thru," much as it pains me. "Sheriff's Department" should be capped in that last sentence under the "Police Department" rule. But feel free to differ on either of those.)

When 'which' vs. 'that' makes a difference

Found this sentence in a story today about the S.C. GOP executive committee endorsing the opponent of long-time Republican state Sen. Jake Knotts:

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry -- which state law enforcement officials say is illegal -- “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.”

There's plenty of usage debate about which vs. that. But there are occasions when distinguishing really does enhance clarity.

In this case, the construction can lead one to think the act of accepting the donations is illegal. Using "that" without the separating punctuation (and I find the use of the dash curious, but that's more of a nit) would clarify.

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry that state law enforcement officials say is illegal “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.”

But that's one mouthful of a sentence. This is a case where, for the sake of the reader, a few more words might help:

But Connelly said this weeks’ news that Knotts has accepted at least $5,000 from individuals and companies associated with the Internet sweepstakes industry “put a lot (of the committee members) over the top.” State law enforcement officials say the industry is illegal.

That also has the advantage of not detouring momentarily, producing a stronger first sentence.

Now, about the misuse of weeks' vs. week's ... was there an editor in the house?

WSJ now allows singular 'data'

The Wall Street Journal has come over to the idea that in some cases "data" can be singular instead of plural.

(Paul Martin gives a good test - substitute "statistics" for "data"; if it doesn't work, then data should be singular.)

AP has allowed the singular for several years - look under collective nouns for the example.

AP Style - clarifies 'nerve-wracking'

It's always been a bit unclear from the AP stylebook whether the phrase should be "nerve-racking" or "nerve-wracking."

The "-racking" form is favored by Bryan Garner in Garner's Modern American Usage, for instance. And AP seemed to indicate it favored that with its general wording:

The noun rack applies to various types of framework; the verb rack means to arrange on a rack, to torture, trouble or torment: He was placed on the rack. She racked her brain.

Paul Brians also used this logic in his entry favoring "rack."

If you are racked with pain or you feel nerve-racked, you are feeling as if you were being stretched on that Medieval instrument of torture, the rack. ...

 However,  the wire service has now put out a clarifying note:

The noun wrack means ruin or destruction, and generally is confined to the phrase wrack and ruin and wracked with doubt (or pain). Also, nerve-wracking.

So you are now faced with what seems to be an increasingly prevalent conundrum - go with AP or follow the other sources. AP gives no reason for why it seems to favor the "wracking" construction.

It may seem 'abstruse,' but consider using it instead of 'obtuse'

I saw a common tangling of "obtuse" and "abstruse" tonight in a Chronicle of Higher Ed article in which Michael Bugeja bemoans how faculty rubber-stamp new degree programs. It's worth reading, by the way, but for this moment, the focus is on this passage:

Promoted by the corporate world, RCM essentially operates on one concept: Reward revenue-generating activities, such as student credit hours. That is touted as "transparency," a welcome change from obtuse budget formulas by central administration.

While Merriam-Webster shows this use of obtuse (difficult to comprehend) as a secondary usage (derived from increasingly common usage), the better word is abstruse. It clearly means difficult to comprehend, with no other definition. (Neither American Heritage 4 nor Webster's New World have adopted the more liberal usage.)

So use obtuse if you must, but for clarity, consider abstruse.

Nouns as adjectives NPR style

Caught this on NPR the other day, a story by Julie McCarthy on how troops from India and Pakistan are facing off - and dying - on a remote glacier in the Himalayas.

And right at the end came that tin-ear construction of using a noun in place of an adjective. What made this one ring tinny was that she combined both forms:
"Pakistan-Indian relations."

You won't find it on the transcript - NPR has cleaned it up to "Pakistan-India" (though I'd argue Pakistani-Indian would be better). So much for accuracy in transcripts, eh?

But you can hear it right at the end of the audio:


As I've argued before, I wish we'd stop doing this noun-for-adjective thing because it produces these tin-ear constructions. I know I'm spitting into the wind, as the old Jim Croce song goes. Still, one can hope.

LaRocque needs to be less rigid in usage

I have long admired Paula LaRocque as a writing and language coach* and some of the excellent columns she has penned for SPJ's Quill magazine. But in the past couple of years, it seems to me her columns have taken on more of a rigid approach than a modern observer and user of language should be.

Several times, especially with some of her "brevity" examples, I've wanted to write a post saying wait a minute, things are more complicated than that (and some of my students and others who know me might find that interesting because I'm known for squeezing a sentence till it screams). But her latest column in the Quill dealing with a "potpourri of poor writing" sent me to the keyboard for pronouncements about "correct" usage when what is correct is changing ever more rapidly.

There are some excellent points in the article - you should read it - about misusing things such as "feel badly," "adieu" vs. "ado," "low (lo) and behold," etc. But she runs off the rails in her discussion of more important/importantly and gauntlet vs. gantlet.

More/most important(ly)
LaRocque writes emphatically: "Adjective/adverb errors are also perennials in the garden of bad grammar. “Most importantly” and “feel badly” have been in my end-of-year folder for years, and 2011 was no exception. “Most importantly” is an elliptical expression meaning “what is most important,” so careful writers and speakers lop off that “ly” and keep the adjective: most important."

Well, not exactly. A quick Google search will show you this is hardly settled territory. And, as a matter of fact, there are good arguments for the "ly" form.Mark Liberman at Language Log, for instance, has a good dissection of the topic. Among other things, he points out that Merriam-Webster's guide to English usage traces the angst about this back only rather recently, to the Times' Theodore Bernstein, who advocated for "more important" but then seemed to backtrack.

If you are in the camp of those who hate M-W as too liberal, however (and I tend to not make it my primary source for that reason), then Liberman supplies this usage note from the American Heritage Dictionary, the most middle-of-the-road of the big three: "But both forms are widely used by reputable writers, and there is no obvious reason for preferring one or the other."

Even the most conservative of the big three, Webster's New World 4th (the one used with the AP stylebook), uses "importantly" and not "important" in its example (page 717 of my well-worn edition, though it may vary in some newer printings).

Brian Garner, one of the most cited observers of modern English usage, argues that to insist on "more important"  is "picayunish pedantry." He lays out three reasons:

• If you can use "importantly" to begin a sentence, why not "more importantly"?
• While the argument (as LaRocque makes it) is that "more important" is elliptic writing for "what is more important," the same form isn't used for "more notably," "more interestingly" or other analogous phrases.
• If the phrase is moved to the interior of a sentence, the "ly" form is generally acceptable.

Gantlet vs. Gauntlet
LaRocque writes with unbridled conviction: "Mistakes with the word gauntlet, a glove, are common. The word is confused with gantlet, a double line or row that a subject travels between, often as a punishment or
hazing: “He says an extended run through the gauntlet may not be a bad thing for the Massachusetts senator.” This writer means gantlet."

And I'm ready to line up behind her, hoist the flag, throw down the gauntlet, run past the gantlet and charge into linguistic battle.

Except.

Two of the three major dictionaries - M-W and AHD - now list "gauntlet" as the preferred form. The M-W entry goes to far as to now label gantlet "a variant of gauntlet." Again, I take M-W with a grain of salt, but when AHD throws its gauntlet into the fray behind, well, gauntlet, I pay lots more attention. In fact, of at least a dozen modern dictionaries and online sites I have looked at, only WNW and the AP maintain the clear distinction.

I'm thinking it's time to move on. I maintain the distinction in my writing, but I no longer insist on it as a teacher (though I urge students to consider it). Again, a Google search will show that this is an area of changing usage. I like this from the Grammarist blog: "Writers have been mistakenly using gauntlet in place of gantlet for so long that most dictionaries have simply given up on trying to preserve the latter word. But careful English users still distinguish between the two." (See this fun example of when the word was used "correctly" and the reaction it brought.)

Pronouncements rarely work anymore
What I hope you take from this:

• Language changes more rapidly than ever. You're probably writing and saying things now that a decade or two ago were frowned on or just plain prohibited (not that it stopped anyone).
• Usage is not grammar, and most of these kinds of things are arguments about usage, which changes even more rapidly in the digital age. (Another reason I tend to object to "grammar" exams proposed to screen students for entry into college journalism programs - much of what my colleagues refer to as grammar is actually usage and style.)
• Let's drop the "man the barriers against the language Huns" arguments (such as the inanity going over at an editor's forum on LinkedIn about "over" versus "more than" (it's not an issue anymore - use whichever one suits your purposes or whichever one your boss, client or style guide dictates; Garner, fr his part, calls the distinction "a baseless crotchet")). Journalists have never been guardians of the language and, if looked at in the "man the barriers" light, have done as much "damage" to it as anyone else.
• Pronouncements like LaRocque's do damage in that they delay needed, prolonged and intelligent discussions about where language has been, where it is going and how to assess when it's time to change. Every semester, for instance, I find myself telling students that "rule" they learned a couple of semesters ago, well, it no longer applies as it once did or it is in flux. It drives them nuts, brought up as they have been in a world of right-and-wrong standardized test answers. But if we don't help them learn how to deal with ambiguity, we are not teaching them how the current world works.

LaRocque treads close to the edge on two other examples. She mandates "sank" instead of "sunk" in a sentence such as "There was silence as the foreign minister's words sunk in." I'm with her for now - but only for so long. Just as with pled for pleaded, snuck for sneaked and dove for dived, I think this one is on an unstoppable change trajectory.

She also decries the use of "one of the only" instead of "one of the few." I'm with her again, but this is a case of idiomatic usage overtaking strict meaning, much like "could care less," which some observers see taking on idiomatic acceptability.

This spring, a linguistics doctoral student is teaching a course at the University of South Carolina on how new media is more rapidly changing language than ever before. It's already filled - that ought to tell you something. I wish every journalism student had to take it.

So in the new year, let's try for fewer pronouncements and more reasoned discussions about language issues and a realization that very little of this "beautiful, bastard language" of ours, as John Bremner used to call it, is set in stone.

(*Her husband, Paul, also has written one of the best books on copy editing I've ever used and read, avoiding entanglements with most such usage things and emphasizing the big questions that editors must deal with before all others.)

Numeracy - a minuscule problem

If you were reading along in The State this past week and came across this story,* you might have spotted a problem:

   If state lawmakers want to retire, they would have to give up their seat in the Legislature, according to a proposal moving through the state House of Representatives.

   The proposal would end the practice of lawmakers retiring but remaining in office and replacing their $10,400 annual salaries with much larger pension benefits - more than $30,000 a year, in some cases.

   State lawmakers are members of a separate - and much smaller - retirement system than state workers. Because of that, any changes to the General Assembly Retirement System would have little affect on the much larger state pension system’s debt of $13 billion.

   But lawmakers hope the change would send a message of shared sacrifice to the nearly 500,000 workers, retirees and other beneficiaries on the S.C. Retirement System. Come January, state workers in that system will be asked to pay more into the retirement accounts only to potentially receive lower benefits once they retire. ...

     State lawmakers still would benefit from a more generous pension formula.

   State workers calculate their annual pension benefits by multiplying their years of service times their average final salary times 0.0182 percent. State lawmakers multiply their salary and years of service times 0.0482 percent, giving them a higher benefit.

   Meanwhile, the proposal to change the retirement system for state employees calls for them to pay 1 percent more into the system - an increase of $408 a year for the average employee - while changing their pension formula, which could result in a lower benefit for some workers.

   The S.C. State Employees Association has agreed to endorse having state workers pay more into the retirement system, but only if lawmakers give state employees at least a 2 percent raise. Carlton Washington, the association’s executive director, called the current proposal, which lacks that guaranteed raise, “shortsighted.” But he said the offer from lawmakers to change their own retirement system could be a good sign to state employees.

   “If that is put on the table first, then that would send somewhat of a positive message to employees that (lawmakers) are at least interested in a comprehensive review,” Washington said. ...

It's a wonder S.C. state workers weren't already stocking up on canned pet food for their retirement. A pension based on "0.0182 percent" (or even the more generous "0.0482 percent" for legislators) would be very slim pickings indeed -- a factor of 0.000182 times the average of their last five years' earnings times the number of years worked. For someone making $50,000 who worked for 30 years, that would be a grand total of $273 a year. It's a case of mixing decimals and percents - the factor is 0.0182, or 1.82 percent - or $27,300 a year for our hypothetical worker.

It's what happens when a reporter tries to change the factor to a percent or vice versa** and forgets to move the decimal -- but a sharp-eyed copy editor should have caught it.

(For bonus points, you might also have caught the affect/effect error in the third paragraph, especially egregious from a copy-editng standpoint because it's used correctly in the headline.)

*The error has been corrected in the online story. Perhaps it was by an eagle-eyed copy editor when the story was posted. But since the affect/effect error is still there, my bet is on a correction made after the error was pointed out but never acknowledged online - a more common occurrence for this publication. The copy above is from the PDF replica edition.

** Don't ask me how I know this was it. Take this one on faith.

Foxtrot comic illustrates the inanity of 'and/or'

The inanity of using "and/or" is wonderfully illustrated by a weekend Foxtrot comic. Go to my Tumblr for the comic and discussion.

(Logically, "or" includes "and.")