More on Syllable Breaks

OK, I just want to finish up this syllabification business. I posted the apologetic retraction as soon as I saw my error, but there's still a little more that needs to be said.

In my first post on syllabification, I wrote, "I propose that we stop worrying about syllabification. If a break is plausible and gives syllables that can be pronounced and isn't absurd, it's fine." On page 11a of Merriam-Webster's eleventh (quoted in the apologetic retraction), it says,

There are acceptable alternative end-of-line divisions just as there are acceptable variant spellings and pronunciations. It is, for example, all but impossible to produce a convincing argument that either of the divisions aus·ter·i·ty, au·ster·i·ty is better than the other. But space cannot be taken for entries like aus·ter·i·ty or au·ster·i·ty, and au·s·ter·i·ty would likely be confusing to many. No more than one division is, therefore, shown for an entry in this dictionary.

Many words have two or more common pronunciation variants, and the same end-of-line division is not always appropriate for each of them. The division fla·gel·lar, for example, best fits the variant \flə‑'je‑lər\ whereas the division flag·el·lar best fits the variant \'fla‑jə‑lər\.

In some ways, my intuitive approach--it's OK if it "is plausible and gives syllables that can be pronounced and isn't absurd"--is actually stricter than Merriam-Webster's approach. At least, it is if I add that the breaks shouldn't be misleading. Merriam-Webster says that "the division flag·el·lar best fits the variant \'fla‑jə‑lər\." Under my approach, flag·el·lar is incorrect. If I see "flag‑" at the end of a line, I'm going to pronounce it \flag\ (MW transcription, as in "you're a grand old flag" etc.)--there's not going to be a \j\ in the pronunciation. In cases like this, Merriam-Webster's syllable breaks are not just disputable, but downright misleading.

Apologetic retraction

May I quote myself? Thank you.

I looked up eschew because I thought I'd heard it mispronounced. The first pronunciation listed (the first among equals) was \e‑'shü\; but--and here comes my point at last--the syllabification is given as es·chew. This makes no sense if the sch is pronounced \sh\, but it's the only break that makes sense if the sch is pronounced \s‑ch\. So Merriam-Webster is contradicting itself. It doesn't take a stand on the pronunciation of the sch, but it does take a stand on the syllabification, which means that it does take a stand on the pronunciation of the sch.

And now I quote page 11a of Merriam-Webster's eleventh, with some added emphasis from yours truly.

There are acceptable alternative end-of-line divisions just as there are acceptable variant spellings and pronunciations. It is, for example, all but impossible to produce a convincing argument that either of the divisions aus·ter·i·ty, au·ster·i·ty is better than the other. But space cannot be taken for entries like aus·ter·i·ty or au·ster·i·ty, and au·s·ter·i·ty would likely be confusing to many. No more than one division is, therefore, shown for an entry in this dictionary.

Many words have two or more common pronunciation variants, and the same end-of-line division is not always appropriate for each of them. The division fla·gel·lar, for example, best fits the variant \flə-'je-lər\ whereas the division flag·el·lar best fits the variant \'fla-jə-lər\. In instances like this, the division falling farther to the left is used, regardless of the order of the pronunciations:

fla·gel·lar \flə-'je-lər, 'fla-jə-lər\

My point is that I sure do wish people would do their research before they publish. Especially me. I apologize to Merriam-Webster. (But boy, did it ever feel cool to think I'd caught a dictionary in a contradiction.)

I do get a little bit of vindication from the fact that M-W seems to more or less share my liberal view on this syllable business, sort of.

Parenthetical Flop

Thank you to Gal Vanicity, who heard this on NPR's Morning Edition and sent it to us:

But otherwise it's mud, sand. You can see tree roots clinging to the bottom of what was the lake. Fish, some of them still alive, flopping around.

Don't Give Me a Break

I recently heard a radio journalist saying that someone had \e‑'shüd\ (Merriam-Webster transcription) something. Certain that the journalist had mispronounced it, I looked eschew up in Merriam-Webster's eleventh, and to my surprise the pronunciation was listed as \e‑'shü, i‑; es‑'chü, is‑; also e‑'skyü\. According to the dictionary's frontmatter (p. 12a), only the one following also is considered a variant pronunciation, and we are to draw no conclusions on the comparative popularities of the pronunciations that precede it. But still! I mean! But still, I mean I'd never even heard \e-'shü\ before, which may mean only that I need to get a life. (The previous sentence strongly suggests that I do in fact need to get a life. A normal person--one who's not in the editing biz--would have put "only" [or "just"] before "mean," not after it. Pitiful.)

(Or maybe "only mean" would have been correct as well as idiomatic. I mean, the fact that I'd never heard \e‑'shü\ before only means I need to get a life; it doesn't build pyramids. On the other hand, I may only need to get a new line of work.)

But seriously now, the reason I'm bringing this up. I looked up eschew because I thought I'd heard it mispronounced. The first pronunciation listed (the first among equals) was \e‑'shü\; but--and here comes my point at last--the syllabification is given as es·chew. This makes no sense if the sch is pronounced \sh\, but it's the only break that makes sense if the sch is pronounced \s‑ch\. [An apologetic retraction for the rest of this paragraph appears here. June 26, 2008.] So Merriam-Webster is contradicting itself. It doesn't take a stand on the pronunciation of the sch, but it does take a stand on the syllabification, which means that it does take a stand on the pronunciation of the sch.

The Oxford English Dictionary takes a different approach to syllabification. In an entry where no pronunciation guide is given, accents appear at the beginning of the stressed syllables in the main entry. If a pronunciation is given, the accents appear in the pronunciation, and the main entry has no syllabification. Thus, the OED has "antidisestablishmen'tarianism with no pronunciation given.* Slicing it down little by little, we find dise'stablishment and finally establishment, with the pronunciation given as (ɪ'stæblɪʃmənt). The main entry lacks an accent mark since one appears in the pronunciation. (The OED uses accent marks at the base line for secondary stress. Since I don't know how to get those, I use double nonsmart quotes for the secondary accent.)

I propose that we stop worrying about syllabification. If a break is plausible and gives syllables that can be pronounced and isn't absurd, it's fine. I realize that this attitude is similar to that of the author who says "Since I don't understand dangling modifiers, they aren't important." This author is only partially correct. Dangling modifiers aren't important (except, God bless them, as part of a full-employment program for manuscript editors). But the author's not understanding them isn't why they're not important. But I'm digressing again. The point is that I realize that my attitude toward syllable breaks is willfully ignorant, but I'm still right. Merriam-Webster and the OED should adopt the practice of putting an accent mark before the stressed vowel, not before what they suppose to be the beginning of the stressed syllable.

None of which tells us how to break eschew.

* I looked antidisestablishmentarianism up in the OED because it presents many an opportunity for syllable breaks. The OED defines it thus:

Properly, opposition to the disestablishment of the Church of England (rare): but popularly cited as an example of a long word. So antidisestablishmentarian.

Indeed.

Illegible

The Times Literary Supplement of May 7, 2008, carries a review by Robert Irwin of two books critical of Edward Said, the late author of Orientalism. One of the books under review, Defending the West by the pseudonymous Ibn Warraq, discusses "The Imaginary Orient," a paper by Said ally Linda Nochlin that appeared in Art in America in 1983. Nochlin disapproves of Jean-Léon Gérôme's painting The Snake Charmer (c. 1883). Irwin's review tells us that

according to a note in Nochlin's article, "Edward Said has pointed out to me in conversation that most of the so-called writing on the back wall of the 'Snake Charmer' is in fact unreadable". To which Ibn Warraq responds that the wall bears a clearly legible quotation from the Koran's Sura of the Cow in thuluth script. (Hence, perhaps, doubts about Said's Arabic.)

Since Nochlin's article appeared in a scholarly journal, it's worthwhile for those of us in the scholarly editing racket to pay attention. The claim that some "so-called writing...is in fact unreadable" is an argument from ignorance. An argument from ignorance takes the general form "I don't know that this is true. Therefore, it is untrue." Or vice versa. The case of Said, Nochlin, and the sura isn't just an argument from ignorance--it's an ignorant argument from ignorance. In the standard argument from ignorance, the arguer at least knows that he or she doesn't know. A bit of Rumsfeldspeak might help us here. When most of us see a supposed language that's unfamiliar to us, it's a known unknown--we don't know it, but we know that we don't know. Said thinks it's a known--it's bogus and he knows it. But it isn't a known. What's a known unknown to the rest of us is an unknown unknown to Said--he doesn't know that he doesn't know. This all casts doubt onto much more than Said's knowledge of Arabic.

The scholarly Edward Said says it isn't real since he can't read it, the scholarly Linda Nochlin accepts this, and the scholarly Art in America publishes Nochlin's comment. We who edit scholarly materials need to watch out for stuff like this. We need to query authors on whether they can actually know such statements to be true. Some will plant hedges around the wording; since this blog has no opinions, it will let you draw your own conclusions on those who leave it as it is.

Should we criticize Nochlin for making an argument from authority? Yes and no. If she had reason to think Said was familiar with Arabic and all of its calligraphic styles, it was appropriate for her to take his word for it and to cite him as an authority to the extent that he was claiming that it wasn't legible Arabic. Asserting Said's authority for the claim that it wasn't legible at all does seem to be an inappropriate appeal to authority. Or maybe not. This is not just a known unknown, it's a known unknowable. There is no appropriate authority to appeal to for such a statement.

Let the record show that I'm accepting Ibn Warraq's authority on the writing and therefore am vulnerable to a charge of using an argument from authority. Let it also show that Ibn Warraq's claim is at least verifiable (although I haven't verified it). And how would I verify it? By checking with an authority, of course. There's no getting away from it, and it's often appropriate. Most bibliographies are one big appeal to authority, and you lose credibility if you don't have them.

All statements about Nochlin and her article, Ibn Warraq, and Gérôme and his painting (with the exception of Gérôme's first name) are based on Irwin's review, which I found at the invaluable Arts & Letters Daily.

A Comparison That's Probably Not Nonmisleading

Imagine this text (from a pro-Obama site) comes your way. What do you do with it?

In February alone, more than 94% of our donors gave in amounts of $200 or less. Meanwhile, campaign finance reports show that donations of $200 or less make up just 13% of Senator McCain's total campaign funds, and only 26% of Senator Clinton's....

Meanwhile, Senator McCain has raised more than 70% of his total campaign funds from high-dollar donors giving $1,000 or more. Senator Clinton has raised 60% of her funds from $1,000-and-up donors.

First, note that this gives February figures for Obama and "total campaign funds" for Clinton and McCain. Second, and perhaps more subtly, two different types of things are being compared. The only thing that's being said about donations to Obama has to do with the percentage of donors who gave $200 or more; for Clinton and McCain, the percentage of total funds is given.

In case the difference isn't clear, let's cook up some highly improbable hypothetical numbers. All of these are consistent with the numbers in this text. Imagine that Obama had 100 donors in February; 95 of them donated $25 each, and 5 gave $2,300 each. And now I'll repeat myself--these figures are improbable, and they're consistent with the text. At any rate, this would give him a February total of $13,875, of which $11,500 came from donors giving $1,000 or more. In other words, 83 percent of this money comes from "high-dollar donors."

The problem is that the percentage of total money from big donors will always be higher than the percentage of total donors who are big (as it were). That's because they give more money. So the comparison made by the text is inherently misleading, unless the Obama contributors in both categories--$200 or less, and more than $200--all gave approximately $200.

So what do you do if text with a comparison like this crosses your desk? I would query it, pointing out the flaws. Some authors will thank you and make a more appropriate comparison (and it might show that the total percentage of money contributed to the author's candidate by large donors is indeed lower than the percentage for the other candidates). Some won't care and will leave it as it is. The truly cynical ones will realize that it's misleading and want to keep it that way. But it's still our job to try to keep them honest, and to make the decent but careless ones look good.

Thank you to H. Luke O'Cephalus for bringing this material, which was found on Brendan Nyhan's blog, to my attention.