Verbal Stuff That I Like: Claudia Schmidt Edition

Decades ago, literal decades, when I was just a young ramshackle, I was a fan of Claudia Schmidt, a musician who frequently venued in the greater metropolitan region I then lived in (I mean, it wasn't greater then than it is now, but it is greater than other metro regions). I live there still. A few years ago, I went to hear her when she came on tour through these parts once again. In the intro to a song titled "Banana Moon," she said something about most of our moonage. I like "moonage," and in fact it may be because of similar utterances that I was a fan of hers. In part. The music is good too.

Did she say most of our moonage is nonfull? I'm not sure; in a dream, perhaps.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: Tech Edition

This (with some redactivity to keep the identity of my employer[s] unknown) is from an e-mail from the tech guy at work.

During the maintenance periods, well-behaved servers will queue messages that are bound for unavailable Wherever email systems.

No clue what it means, but I like it. But hey!, I do have some speculation about what "well-behaved servers" means. In The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., in chapter 5 ("Grammar and Usage" by Bryan A. Garner), in "Glossary of Troublesome Expressions" (sec. 5.202), the entry for gentleman reads

This word is a vulgarism when used as a synonym for man. When used in reference to a cultured, refined man, it is susceptible to some of the same objections as those leveled against lady. Use it cautiously. Cf. lady.

This is the only place in the manual where Garner uses vulgarism; nowhere does he define it. (Although he does implicitly define a "cultured, refined" person throughout the chapter; it seems to mean somebody who writes and talks the way Garner wants them to.) But it's likely that vulgarisms are a subset (whether proper or improper, I don't know--we disapprove of impropriety, but if the set is a set of improprieties, is a proper subset itself improper?), and where was I anyway? Right, I remember now. Vulgarisms are probably a subset of those usages that Garner dislikes. So maybe, taking a cue (and/or queue) from Garner, would a well-behaved server be one who says to a cultured, refined male patron "Would Monsieur like an extra shot of horseradish juice?" instead of "Would The Gentleman like an extra shot of horseradish juice?"?

Or whatever. One of these years, I'm going to post my review of Garner's chapter. When I get around to it.

Verbal Stuff That I Like: A New Feature

I gripe too much. Too much negativity. "Jeepolas!, we're all doomed!, somebody said 'therefore' with insufficient support. Yiiiiighhhh!" Well, I guess a flimsy "therefore" can potentially doom us under some circs (and is "potentially" redundant here, or does it provide some needed emphasis? beats me).

Point is, I really do bellyache too much. So I'm going to make a point of posting about verbal or logical stuff that I like. Some of it may be trivial. (But more importantly, I began this graf with "Point is" and then I began the next sentence with "So I'm going to make a point of." Sad.)

So here it is. This blog, as you probably know by now, has no opinion on this article by Jonathan Chait with the title "Deficit Commission Is Harshing My Mellow." But the blog does love that title.

Let's get marginal

Can you find the probable error (as opposed to statement that you disagree with) in this?

The most recent NBC/WSJ poll... show[s] a plurality (45-43) preferring a Republican-controlled Congress.

--Jonathan Chait, "Republican Health Care Fratricide," New Republic, posted June 30, 2010

OK. What does it mean to talk about "a plurality (45-43)" in a random sample? In this case, it probably means 45 percent of the sample prefer a Republican-controlled Congress and 43 percent prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. And if we look at the poll Chait links to, that is in fact what it means. But when polling numbers are this close, we need to look at the margin of error. In the linked-to poll it says from the start that the margin of error is ±3.1 percentage points. But the difference between the percentage that prefer Congress (R.) to Congress (D.) is less than the margin of error. Which means that the poll shows no plurality here. This is what some correctly call a statistical dead heat or a statistical tie. Chait is mistaken when he says the poll shows a plurality.

This is something you see a lot of. Consumers (and writers) of news need to watch out for this. As do you and I, my colleagues.

Pitiful

The New Republic is currently running a stupid and inane series called "Dispatches from the Blago Trial" by Margo Howard. In the third installment, Howard makes fun of Mike Ettinger, the attorney for Robert Blagojevich, Rod's brother:

Robert gained top military clearance because he was involved with Persian missiles and in charge of three "nucular" warheads (this pronunciation no doubt a tip of the hat to George W. Bush, this Blagojevich being a Republican).

Howard impresses here with witty commentary about "nucular." But what about those Persian missiles? What involvement did this U.S. military guy have with Iranian weaponry? Why didn't a journalist like Howard find this odd? Why didn't her editors at The New Republic?

Here's my guess about what happened. In Chicago, 39th Street is also (and primarily) known as Pershing Road. The Chicago pronunciation of the street's name is "Perzhing." Whether that's the pronunciation of Gen. "Black Jack" Pershing's name, or of Pershing missiles, I don't know. But my guess is that Ettinger applied the Chicago pronunciation of the street name to the missiles, and Howard didn't notice. Maybe she didn't know about Pershing Road or its pronunciation, maybe she didn't know about Pershing missiles. Whatever.

The point for readers of this editorial blog is that if we see something that seems very odd, such as a U.S. military person who works with Persian missiles, we need to query it. Another lesson, for all of us, is that if you're going to make fun of someone's pronunciations, you should try to look nonignorant when you're doing it. The best bet might be to not make fun of other people's pronunciations.

Says who?

Geoffrey K. Pullum at Language Log surmises that The New Yorker has a policy against putting said and the like before the subject, no matter the length of the subject. Says Pullum,

The New Yorker apparently has a house-style prohibition on (if I may use the technical terms employed in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language) subject postposing in a parenthetical report frame for directly reported speech, even when the quoted speech is preposed.

He cites this quotation, which I haven't verified:

"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky, says. (Larissa MacFarquhar, "The devil's accountant", The New Yorker, March 31, 2003, p.67, column 2.)

Obviously--so obviously that I feel silly pointing it out--this sentence could be made into a much easier read. As Pullum points out

the New Yorker's fierce and unyielding house style code will not allow the subject to be postposed, to yield what could have been a perfectly acceptable sentence:

"He used to have this great, dignified passion to him," says Christopher Hitchens, who, until his own political change of heart, defended Chomsky.

(Here I note that Pullum is inconsistent on whether "the" should be treated as part of the title of the magazine. In work, I need to notice this stuff, but in real life I passionately don't care about it. I mention it for the sake of my professional cred.)

I bring this whole thing up for a few reasons. First, it's interesting (if you're interested in this stuff, which I am). Second, obviously, if we come across this sort of antipostpositional nonsense in our work, we need to correct it (not that it's incorrect--it's just nonreadable). The third thing is less obvious and much more important. Early on, Pullum says the magazine "apparently has a house-style prohibition on...subject postposing." Later, he says the mag's "fierce and unyielding house style code will not allow the subject to be postposed." This is very seriously non-OK, and it happens a lot in the scholarly stuff we edit. Some new information is suggestive of something or other blah blah yuck yuck, and therefore whatever. We need to protest when the author of a work we're editing magically goes from suggestivity and apparentness to a solid "therefore," or, as in this case, forgets that something is merely apparent. I mean, right, we should make the protest look like a query. And they may say, incorrectly, that it's fine. But we need to do our job.

I realize Pullum may have been quasi-jokey when writing about the "fierce and unyielding house style code." But in editing scholarly books, this is a joke we need to be humorless about.

THE NEXT MORNINGWell, of course what Pullum did was probably OK. My point was that we need to be vigilant about maybe's that morph into defintely's. I actually do think that Pullum's was better than harmless--it was downright OK. But it would be non-OK for someone in our trade to not notice it and not at least be given pause by it.MAJOR EMBARRASSMENT FOR THE MIKESTER (VIZ, ME)Note two of the phrases in the previous paragraph. "What Pullum did was probably OK...I actually do think that Pullum's was better than harmless--it was downright OK." I noticed this in reviewing the paragraph and decided to keep it as an object lesson. It's hard not to fall into this trap, but we editors of scholarly material need to be on the lookout for it. And any of my colleagues who didn't notice what I did should consider finding honest work instead of what we do.

Frog crisis in Greece

Language Log is often interesting. I'm linking to this post because there's a comment by me, dated this morning. It's about the kind of stuff that makes you go "whaa?"

Infallibling

Today I was working on a book with a quotation from a nineteenth-century Englishman; the quotation had infallible as an adverb. So I looked infallible up in the OED to see whether it was used as an adverb at the time. It wasn't, but it was obsoletely used as a verb long ago. My favorite exemplary quotation is from The Golden Law (1656), by S. H. (Samuel Harsnett):

We will next pursue it with right Reason which will selfly infallible it.

No big deal. I just liked it and wanted to share it.

You know you're in trouble when "proverbial" appears twice in one paragraph

Lots of iterativity here: me reprinting a Jonathan Chait item that cites someone who Chait claims is Nico Pitney (at the end of the cited column, several names appear including Pitney's) quoting and making fun of Eric Alterman. Says Chait:

"Finding all the cliches and mixed metaphors in this Eric Alterman paragraph is like cutting fish in a barrel with a butter knife," writes Nico Pitney. After reading the paragraph in question, I think he understates:

And yet even with all its proverbial ducks lined up—a populist crusade is just what the doctor ordered for a divided and dispirited party going into perilous midterm elections—the administration and its lieutenants in Congress are still shooting as many blanks as real bullets at the bad guys. It’s not that their bills are all bullshit, as the Republicans’ clearly are. They contain many worthy measures that would, as almost any fair-minded economist will tell you, provide a proverbial “step [or two] in the right direction.” But somewhere along the line, whether in Obama’s White House, Tim Geithner’s Treasury Department, Barney Frank’s House Banking Committee or Christopher Dodd’s Senate side, a decision was made to let the big fish get away.

Jonathan Chait, "Like Teaching an Old Dog That Didn't Bark to Herd Cats," New Republic, posted May 4, 2010

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.")