News
Agree to Disagree
I was pleased a couple of weeks ago to be mentioned by writing guru Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute. That is, until I saw that he was using me as an example of what not to do. Roy's column was about what he called "the trap": being tempted (by the presence of a lot of plural nouns between subject and verb) to use a plural verb for a singular subject. The first example he gives is a sentence of his own:
"Her collection of Dali's art, which includes paintings, sculptures, posters, glass, jewelry, and even knick-knacks, impress even the most discerning experts."
Should be "impresses," of course. Then he goes on to say:
"Even the most accomplished authors, supported by a squadron of editors, falls (oops, I mean fall) into the trap. Ben Yagoda begins one of my favorite recent books about language this way:
"'In the end, it came down to two potential titles. Number one, When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It. Number two, Pimp My Ride. I have to admit that I carry a torch for number two -- which alludes, of course, to the popular MTV series in which a posse of automotive artisans take a run-down jalopy and sleek it up into an awe-inspiring vehicle containing many square yards of plush velvet and an astonishing number of LCD screens.' What a cool way to begin a book on the soporific parts of speech. But can you find the trap? (I'll give you a minute.) Here it is:
"'...the popular MTV series in which a posse of automotive artisans take a run-down jalopy...' If you recognize that 'posse' is a collective noun -- grammatically singular, even though the sense is plural -- you also see that the verb 'take' does not agree. A posse (that 'a' should be a hint) does not 'take.' A posse takes. The plural 'artisans' contaminated the verb. Ben Yagoda is one of America's best writers. If he and his editors can fall into the trap, so can you."
While I appreciate the shout-out, and though his point is eminently reasonable, I have to defend my sentence. I certainly spent enough time examining it--the first paragraph of any book or article gets more looks than any other. And so the thought of using a singular verb crossed my mind. But consider what the result would have been:
"... the popular MTV series in which a posse of automotive artisans takes a run-down jalopy..."
"Takes" may be correct, but--especially in a reference to "Pimp My Ride"--it sounds impossibly dorky. Sort of as if someone were to say, "A number of doctors prescribes the experimental drug." "Number" is singular so "prescribes" is "correct." But it goes counter to sound and sense. So I'm sticking to my guns. Date posted: Jul 5, 2008.
Post-Graduate Education
As I explain in "When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It," I tend to get annoyed by both the anything-goes language descriptivists and the non-infinitive-splitting language prescriptivists. Not surprisingly, the latter tend to predominate at talks and panel discussions about language, where everyone in the audience seems to have his or her (NOT "their") own usage hobbyhorse.
After a speech I gave recently, I was button-holed by a gent who was determined to make me admit that the past-tense "saw" could no longer be found in spoken English, having been eclipsed by the barbarous "seen." This did not ring true to me, but (not surprisingly) he pressed the point to the point of tedium.
A much more gracious woman at the same talk stood up during the Q-and-A session to ask about her own pet peeve: that nobody said "graduated from" (college, high school) anymore--all she ever heard was "I graduated St. Mary's Prep last year," etc. I gave the standard the-language-is-always changing answer, but all the while I had a nagging sense that I was leaving something out.
On the drive home, I realized what it was. I remembered that my mother, a humane prescriptivist, had always insisted on an even more proper formulation, to wit, "I was graduated from Smith College in 1941" (the college, not the person, being the entity that does the graduating). I wish I could call up the woman (and if you're reading this, please e-mail me), because here was an elegant illustration of the point I had clumsily made: if something is "proper" now, it probably wasn't in the not-too-distant past. Date posted: Jun 1, 2008.
Bill Mauldin
A few weeks ago, Slate asked me to read a new biography of Bill Mauldin and put together a slide show of his work. I said yes, not because I knew a lot about Mauldin, but because I didn't. To me, one of the main charms of being a freelance writer (just ahead of working in your pajamas, and just behind not having a boss) is the chance it gives you to learn about stuff. I read the bio (by Todd DePastino), perused a new two-volume collection of Mauldin's work (edited by DePastino), and was blown away. Mauldin was about 21 years old when he went overseas during World War II, but he put out great quantities of brilliant stuff about what it was like to be a GI on the ground. Date posted: Apr 26, 2008.
Even-ing
The migration of a word
Always one to embrace my inner language geek, I have spend considerable time recently musing on the migration, in certain sentences, of the adverb "even." For example, a familiar sentence to someone of my (older) generation is: "I don't even know what that means" (the purpose of "even" being to suggest something along the lines of "Not only can't I respond intelligently to your statement, but I do not understand it").
The new form, observed from my daughters, the Internet (see below), and even NPR (a sound bite a couple of weeks ago from a young woman) is:
"I don't know what that even means."
The meaning is the same, the "even" placement rather rococo.
A common interrogatory variation is "What even is that?" (The traditional version would be "What is that, anyway?")
My daughter Maria hypothesizes that, like much else, this locution originated in the movie "Mean Girls," but she has been unable to cite chapter and verse. Alternative origins and/or explanations are welcome. Date posted: Apr 21, 2008.
Yahoo search for "what that even means"
Chronicle Piece
I have an essay in the March 21 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, about the extremely annoying trend of employers requiring college students to get academic credit for unpaid internships. Having to work with no pay is bad enough, but this means that students have to pay up to several thousand dollars to work for no pay! Date posted: Mar 29, 2008.
"Will Work for Academic Credit"
Advisor versus Adviser
Has anyone noticed that the most popular spelling of this word has changed from the venerable "-er" suffix (21 million Google hits) to the "-or" (59 million)?
Any explanations? Date posted: Mar 29, 2008.
Vote for my mom
My wife recently received this mass e-mail, sender "Chelsea":
My friends ask all the time: "What can we do to help your mom win?"
Well today I have an answer for them and for all of us who support my mom: we can make 1,000,000 calls.
OK, no one person has to make all 1,000,000 calls! But supporters like you and my friends are the best people to speak out on my mom's behalf -- and we need to talk to a lot of voters in the next few weeks.
It's simple: the more people we talk to about why each of us so strongly supports my mom, the more people will get out and vote for her.
If you sign up today to make calls for as little as an hour a week, you can help us reach 1,000,000 voters over the phone before the next big contests.
Please help my mom -- and all of us -- win by signing up to call voters for her campaign!
It's an amazing experience to meet so many people who are working so hard on my mom's campaign and to meet so many more who want to get involved and make a difference in this critical moment.
In less than three weeks, we're facing big races in states like Ohio and Texas. In fact, there are races all over the country where my mom needs help -- and we have to contact a lot of voters in a very short time! I know so many of you have shown a ton of dedication to my mom since Super Tuesday, and I'm sure that working together we will have no problem making our 1,000,000 call goal!
Can you help out? I hope so! Sign up for as little as an hour of calls a week, and you can make a huge difference toward reaching all those people in the next three weeks.
Sign up now to help us call 1,000,000 people for my mom.
Thank you so much for all you're doing to help my mom win!
Chelsea
OK, by my informal count that's then "mom"s in one short message, and left little doubt that "mom" has left "mother" in the dust--especially when you're trying to reach the heartbeat of America. Date posted: Mar 9, 2008.
Ben Yagoda's NY Times article on "Mom."
How to Not Write Bad
I've just added a new document to the "Yagoda on Writing" section of the site called "How to Not Write Bad." I will be adding to it from time to time so please check it out and let me know what you think. Date posted: Feb 3, 2008.
Wordsmith Chat
I'm going to do a language chat on the Wordsmith website, February 25, 9 PM Eastern Time. Date posted: Jan 13, 2008.
Paperback
Just in time for MLK Day
"When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It: The Parts of Speech, for Better and/or Worse" was published in paperback on December 26. This might not seem like the most commercially auspicious pub date. However, I was assured by a source at the publisher, Broadway Books, that it would actually lead to strong sales, since the book would be seen and bought by people returning their Christmas presents. Date posted: Jan 12, 2008.
Great Sentences
Bring em on
The New Yorker recently published a short story by Jonathan Lethem called "The King of Sentences." It starts off this way:
"This was the time when all we could talk about was sentences, sentences—nothing else stirred us. Whatever happened in those days, whatever befell our regard, Clea and I couldn’t rest until it had been converted into what we told ourselves were astonishingly unprecedented and charming sentences: 'Esther’s cleavage is something to be noticed' or 'You can’t have a contemporary prison without contemporary furniture' or 'I envision an art which will make criticism itself seem like a cognitive symptom, one which its sufferers define to themselves as taste but is in fact nothing of the sort' or 'I said I want my eggs scrambled not destroyed.' At the explosion of such a sequence from our green young lips, we’d rashly scribble it on the wall of our apartment with a filthy wax pencil, or type it twenty-five times on the same sheet of paper and then photocopy the paper twenty-five times and then slice each page into twenty-five slices on the paper cutter in the photocopy shop and then scatter the resultant six hundred and twenty-five slips of paper throughout the streets of our city, fortunes without cookies."
Do you have a favorite sentence? Send it (or them) on to me at byagoda@benyagoda.com, and I'll publish the best of the lot. Don't forget to include the source. Date posted: Jan 12, 2008.