Worthless grammar edicts from Harvard

Specifically, from economist Greg Mankiw. This post by Geoffrey K. Pullum is well worth reading. (Even though he doesn't know how to spell "Jeffrey.")

The danger of pouring the derogatory language on too thick

IMPORTANT REMINDER: THIS BLOG HAS NO OPINIONS ON ANYTHING CONTROVERSIAL (SEE "ABOUT ME AND THIS BLOG" IN THE LEFT MARGIN).

[Conservatives] have a general hostility to government and proposals formulated by Democrats, and since they reject the overwhelming majority of actual health care experts on ideological grounds, they have relied on a tiny handful of self-styled conservative pseudo-wonks to fill in the details for them. [emphasis added]

--Jonathan Chait, "The Conservative Misinformation Feedback Loop, Cont'd," New Republic

So here's the conversation:

"So, tell me a little about yourself."

[With smug, satisfied smile] "Well, I like to think of myself as a pseudo-wonk."

***

Yes, stuff like this does sometimes appear in the scholarly stuff that we edit.

Addendum to last post

I was so excited when I wrote the last post that I sent it without including an anecdote about my old pal. He used to sing, and this really cracked me up, he used to sing, "Hey, little Donna/You still wanna?/You said that I should ring you up when I was in Tiranë."

What He's Been Up To Lately

Well, I hadn't heard from him much lately, but yesterday I got an e-mail from my old pal Enver Hoxha. Enver, like so many who send me e-mails, is in the pharmaceuticals biz. Writes he,

Weither it's Viagra or Vicodin, we carry it all at the lowest price around.Anxiety, Sex Stims, Pain Killers, and more with no need for a doctor!Overnight Shipping100% money back Gaurentee Find our store @ [whatever].

Sorry. You're probably not interested in what my old friends are up to. This is becoming a downright blog.

Inconsistency, Ad Hominem, and Straw Man

No, that's not the name of an accounting firm. It's the title that the Fallacy Files gave to a little something that I wrote (wrote very badly, if I may say so) some years ago, before this blog existed. I hope you find it worthwhile. If you want to read it, you can go to the link and scroll down to "Inconsistency, Ad Hominem, and Straw Man."

Oh!, the Megacity of It All!

The OED and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) both list megacity, defined by MW as a megalopolis. The OED doesn't define it--it just lists it among a bunch of words that begin with mega-. As noted in the "about me" thing in the left-hand margin, I sometimes have opinions about stuff nobody cares about. And this is one of those times. To me, megacity looks like it should be pronounced /mɜg'æsəɾi/ (I based this on the OED's pronunciation for mendacity, except that OED uses a /d/ instead of a /ɾ/; I guess nobody ever told them about postalveolar flaps). So what? So I think it should be hyphenated (mega-city) for the sake of clarity, that's what.

We could force the issue by making up and popularizing a word megacity that rhymes with mendacity.

Thank you for your attention.

Cognitive whateverism

Important reminder: this blog has no opinions on anything controversial.

The New Republic carries this article by James Kirchick, titled "Tom Coburn: Unwitting Cog of the Gay Agenda," which ends thus:

If the President of the United States can "engage" with all manner of tyrants and petty thugs, then surely a small group of enterprising homocons [gay conservatives] can co-sign an op-ed with a conservative Senator from Oklahoma who, not so long ago, was railing against the "gay agenda." What Coburn may or may not realize is that he's just become an unwitting cog in it.

Two questions. Do agendas have cogs? More importantly, how can you realize that you're an unwitting cog?

Thank you to Digital Roberts for sending us this item.

Soaring

Chicago Public Radio reporter Mark Rivera quotes Sarah Mendez, the coordinator of bilingual education in Evanston:

And it’s 96 point something, its close to 97 percent meets and exceeds on the ISAT [Illinois Standards Achievement Tests] test. Which means, they are not only doing well, they are soaring.

Let's assume that 97 percent of the students in the program meet or exceed standards, and let's assume these children are soaring (hope it's true; although in keeping with blog policy I have no opinion on bilingual education, I only wish these students well). Even if both of these assumptions are true, it is not true that the 97 percent success rate implies that the students are soaring. If all those students met standards by one point, they wouldn't be soaring, but the 97 percent statement would be true. Of course, this depends on how you define "soaring." You could reasonably say that a student who meets standards in a once-unfamiliar language is soaring compared to what some may expect. But that clearly isn't how Mendez was using the word; as she said, "they are not only doing well, they are soaring."

It might be safe to say that Mendez's program is soaring with such a high achievement rate, and I hope that the students are soaring as well. My point is that we need to be careful when evaluating numbers and the claims about them.

The Value of Checking Primary Sources: A Case in Point

Perhaps you're tired of hearing about Rod Blagojevich. Even if you are, I recommend that you listen to this radio clip ("Impeachment Hearings Raise Legal, Pronounciation [sic] Questions") sent by reader Ed Homonym in Chicago. It gets bizarre and hilarious about three minutes into the clip. If you're interested in as much Blagojevich news as you can get your hands (or ears) on, feel free to listen to the whole thing.

***

I've been away from blogging for a while--life keeps intervening. I expect to post something more substantial some time soon (and of course, you and I may define "soon" differently).

Language Police

I'm probably an ingrate. A publicist sent me an e-mail offering me a free copy of "a new book from The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar." I turned down the offer--I consider it unethical to accept a free copy of a book (a) that I probably won't read and (b) that I assume I'd give a hostile review to if I did read it.

The book is, according to the press release that the e-mail links to, Things That Make Us (Sic) [sic]: The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, The White House, and The World, by Martha Brockenbrough. The cover of the book has "sic" in square brackets, while the press release has it in plain parens. So the square-bracketed "sic" was added by me. It appears from the press release that Brockenbrough is one of those people who make fun of others' spelling and punctuation errors. It would be nice if she were as diligent when vetting a press release that she's responsible for.

According to the press release, this is one of several "interesting grammatical tidbits you'll learn only from Martha Brockenbrough":

Remember that "irregardless" is an irregular word, just as underwear is an irregular hat. Please use "regardless" instead (and keep your underwear under there).

The first thing you might notice about this is that this tidbit has nothing to do with grammar. On closer reading, you'll also notice that it's incoherent. Brockenbrough tells us that "'irregardless' is an irregular word." What does that mean? I think she means it's wrong or unacceptable, but irregular doesn't mean that--it just means not regular. English is full of irregular verbs and nouns with irregular plurals. Irregular seems to be a poorly chosen word here. I can guess why she chose it. We've got regardless and irregardless, so let's use irregular, which is regular with ir- in front. The joke doesn't seem very good, but that's just my taste. And we note that regardless and irregardless are synonyms (if we grant for the sake of the moment's argument that irregardless is a word), while regular and irregular are not.

Not only is irregular a poorly chosen word here, but the analogy seems very poor. I realize (or assume) that Brockenbrough is going for humor, and that different kinds of analogies are used in humor. They can be very strong analogies that make us realize how ridiculous something is, or they can be just silly (I originally wrote "intentionally silly," but there are some humorists who use silly analogies that are intended to be strong). Brockenbrough tells us that "'irregardless' is an irregular word, just as underwear is an irregular hat"; "just as" suggests to me that she thinks she's making a very strong analogy. Underwear is indeed an irregular hat; you can use it as a hat, and people will think it's highly irregular. But underwear isn't useless; it works well as underwear. So if this analogy is any good, irregardless is useful; it just isn't useful as a word. If irregardless is useless, which I suspect is Brockenbrough's point, then the analogy is no good. It strikes me as neither strong nor silly, but just inept.

I don't mean to single Brockenbrough out. The problem is that many of these language-policing would-be humorists seem to care more about spelling, made-up words that they don't like, and the enforcement of made-up rules than they do about logic or accuracy.