07.30.08
Posted in language change, persnickitors, word history, word misuse at 6:58 am by Bill Brohaugh
Allow me to give fulsome praise to a certain word history.
Hold on there, Mr. “Everything You Know About English You Get Bitchy About,” sir!
Aha, a persnickitor in our midst. Let me guess. You screech at me because I’ve misused fulsome in a positive sense, yes?
Indeed! Your usage is egregious! Fulsome means, well, let me turn it over to William Safire in his June sixth column:
Fulsome does not mean “full.” Nor does it mean “complete, well developed” or other pleasing synonyms of abundance. On the contrary, the adjective is used not in a compliment, but in an insult, meaning “excessive.” Its frequent use in “fulsome praise” gives that phrase the meaning of “cloying, unctuous, obsequious flattery.”
Though loosey-goosey usagists may accept the turning of the word’s meaning on its head, most of us draw the line at such surrender to error.
That might depend on who “us” is, I suppose. Woe Is I
authors Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman wrote last year that “the word ‘fulsome’ has been misused so much lately that it may be beyond saving.” One might make a case that “misused so much” (a negative perspective) might be synonymous with “becoming common use” (a neutral or potentially positive perspective), a perspective shift as egregious as allowing fulsome to soften from negative to neutral, I suppose.
Now, I wonder if any language observers in the 1300s and later years were worried about fulsome being “misused so much” when the word first started changing meaning . . . from its original sense of, simply, “full, abundant, plentiful”—the very meaning that persnickitors decry today. That meaning was recorded around the middle of the 1200s (which, I acknowledge, O’Conner and Kellerman themselves note). The word later (oh, those loosey-goosey usagists, turning the word’s meaning on its head!) took meanings of “too full,” and eventually “obnoxiously full.”
So the word history I originally sought to offer my fulsome praise was the history of fulsome itself, of course. And I agree: my use of a shifting word meaning was indeed egregious, in that the first recorded use of egregious, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, was in the sense of “remarkably good.”
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07.29.08
Posted in neology, ugly words at 6:24 am by Bill Brohaugh
I love a well-constructed neologism. Made-up word. Coinage. Nonce word. Sniglet. Call it what you will. Bop about the web, and you’ll find any number of similar neophiles, from Word Spy to Word Fugitives to the Wordlustitude blog (any blog devoted to neologism must be neologistically named).
To reiterate, I love a well-constructed neologism. In that light, I’m hoping that Swedish home furnishings retailer IKEA is better at building furniture than it is at building words. DM News recently published an article about IKEA’s mobile marketing campaign—here’s a snapshot:
I don’t know specifically, but I’m assuming that that clunky word textvitations is IKEA’s creation, as DM News is unlikely to lower itself to such awkward word-play. Textvitation is a “portmanteau word,” described by Lewis Carroll, the phrase’s creator, as “two meanings packed into one word.” Portmanteau is a type of luggage. IKEA might sell luggage. If so, it must be constructed out of wrought-iron handles Super-Glued to silk baggies. In other words, textvitation doesn’t cut it as a neologism. It bears only jury-rigged resemblance to its source words—text and invitation; it saves almost no space in having one word rear-end another; it involves damn little poetry or panache; and it rolls off the brain the way gravel rolls off the bed of an accelerating pick-up truck with the tailgate down. Neologism should involve flow, not duct tape.
Oh, wait. IKEA doesn’t build furniture. It sells furniture kits and components. The retailer leaves the actual assembly to people outside their walls. It works for kitchen cabinets, IKEA. Now make it work for words.
(For a more palatable marriage of the concepts of “Swedish” and “neologism” (and, um, “well-constructed,” too—and I doubt that she’s Swedish, but play along here), wander over to this campy discussion of Sniglets at “Hot for Words.”)
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07.27.08
Posted in poetry, style, write tight, writing craft at 12:02 pm by Bill Brohaugh
This post is too long delayed:
A couple of weeks ago, I was once again honored to give a presentation at The Antioch Writers Conference, a venerable gathering with some fine instructors. The staff is marvelous, as well, and I thank them for their hospitality.
I also had the pleasure of co-presenting with mystery-writer Sharon Short. Her latest, Tie Dyed and Dead: A Stain-busting Mystery
, was published in February of this year. We spoke about “The Writing Life: How to ‘Pitch’ to an Agent,” though we covered other types of submissions as well.
My stay at the conference was disappointingly short. It’s a week-long affair, and schedules allowed me to sit in on only a couple of sessions the first morning. But I managed to catch one of the more compelling presentations I’ve seen at a writers conference: Robert Morgan’s introduction to a week of lectures about poetry.
Morgan is the Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell University, and author of such poetry books as Topsoil Road: Poems
, such novels as Gap Creek: The Story of a Marriage
(an Oprah Book Club selection), and the recent Boone: A Biography
. He spoke eloquently of traditional poetic forms from two standpoints: Memorability, and power. He told of a poetry class in which he asked students to recite lines of poetry off the cuff. Morgan was offered no free verse from the students, only classical meters and rhymes. Here was a group studying modern poetry, but had no modern poetry living at the tips of their brains.
As for power, one example. Morgan noted that “Language spoken with great emotion tends to become iambic.” For example: “Do not go gentle into that good night.” You can clearly hear the “da-DUM da DUM” rhythm, the “the-DRUM the-DRUM” beat of the iambs.
Note that Morgan didn’t say “poetry,” but “language.” Poetic tools and forms, rising from instinctive rhythms in how people express themselves, should be the prose-writers’ tools, as well. I have neither the space nor the poetic training to make this any sort of poetry class. Suffice to say that classical poetic forms are often more natural expressions of language than less-disciplined prose diction, and to write tight—to write so the reader swiftly understands—understand the power of infusing poetic diction appropriately into prose.
And because that’s pretty serious stuff there, and this is supposed to be something of a smart-ass blog, let me leave you with another memory from Antioch. Last year, Paul Dickson, author of many books, including several on word use (like The Hidden Language of Baseball
), was talking about Hemingway covering the aftermath of a storm that had wrought horrific human damage. Dickson said, “Hemingway was so moved, he used an adjective.”
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07.26.08
Posted in African sources, French sources, spelling at 7:55 am by Bill Brohaugh
Because everything I know about French is wrong, I’ve taken away a series of delights from the Francophone World Scrabble Championship in Dakar, Senegal (likely spelled S-O-M-A-L-I-A by a certain Presidential candidate), held this past week. The Senegalese take their Scrabble seriously, and take great pride that once again they have beaten natives of their former colonizer at their own game. This is, I suppose, similar to Americans taking pride in spelling words like honor the way God meant them to be spelled.
Some highlights:
From an AP story (which confusingly never says specifically who won) highlighting African passion for competitive Scrabble:
“We have far less means than the French players,” says [32-year-old Elisee] Poka, who as a child in Ivory Coast made his own Scrabble set out of wood because he couldn’t afford a store-bought one. “But we keep on beating them.”
The story also mentions Ivory Coast native Joseph Kouassi, who used kitchen tiles as a kid to create the word tiles he couldn’t afford from the store. Now that’s admirable dedication to words. But what does Poka mean by “far less means”?
His French competitors used computers to spit out anagrams . . .
Oh. I suppose the French, so used to blood-doping in the Tour d’France, don’t mind brain-doping. Am I missing something, or isn’t this kind of like being able to use a dictionary at a spelling bee?
Another sign of Africa’s growing influence is the number of African words that have been accepted into the official Francophone Scrabble dictionary. The most recent edition has at least 20 African words, most in Wolof, Senegal’s main dialect. They include ‘yet,’ a kind of shellfish found off Senegal’s coast and ‘mbalax,’ the style of music made famous by Grammy winner Youssou N’Dour, Senegal’s most famous singer.
I imagine that this has members of the Académie Française popping forehead veins all over Paris.
A couple of side notes:
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07.25.08
Posted in redundancy, write tight, writing craft at 6:38 am by Bill Brohaugh
Miscellaneous observations with the cynical goal of bamboozling you into thinking that I’m doing some actual writing and not just tossing unfinished notes at you:
- Quoted in a news story: “It’s just a very unfortunate tragedy.” Not many tragedies are fortunate.
- In an early part of a news story: “there are two opinions about the untimely death of . . .” If any given death were “timely,” now that would be news.
- Seems I spend too much time commuting (and watching the needle on the gas gauge appear to not descend, but topple, even at 30 miles a gallon highway)—overheard in a radio commercial: “Are you tired of car dealers treating you like a puppet on a string?” Yes! Treat me like a puppet without a string! What does the phrase “on a string” add, other than a visual image? And an incorrect image, at that, as marionettes have multiple strings, and hand puppets have no strings.
- Spotted in a press release: “Handling over 39,737 online transactions annually . . .” Wouldn’t “over 39,737″ be, um, 39,738? Matching the vague with the specific is mentally jarring, and slows reading. “Odd” numbers, indeed.
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07.24.08
Posted in assorted weird crap, neology at 1:20 pm by Bill Brohaugh
Excuse me for a smidgen of self-promotion today. I take pride that a blog review of Everything You Know About English Is Wrong said that the book was “funner” than William Safire, the pride resulting in part because funner is a fun word. I like fun words and fun neologisms. In a recent email to a friend, I snarled about some “smugascious self-centered balderdash and lackadaisical writing” I had seen in a newsletter. My friend responded with what I believe is praise that’s even higher and funner than that in the review:
I’m going to figure out a way to work smugacious into conversations today. Why, you’re handier than word-a-day toilet paper!
Thus my new business card:
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07.23.08
Posted in concision, write tight, writing craft at 5:33 am by Bill Brohaugh
Over at the Seekerville.com blog, I recently spotted a succinct set of lessons in writing tight. What made them particularly powerful was that they were real-world lessons. Author Cheryl Wyatt discusses how she went about chopping 4,000 words out of a book-length manuscript to get it to length. Here’s a couple of the examples she gave (presenting the original phrasing first, and Cheryl’s commentary in parentheses):
He stood to his feet. (Uh . . . as opposed to what? Standing to his elbows?)
BECAME: He stood.
Nolan unfolded his arms and strode in looking very much like a warrior on a lethal mission.
BECAME: Arms unfolded, Nolan tanked in.
(Plus it gives us a stronger image. Warriors don’t stroll. They march. Sneak. Tank. Stronger, more defining word. Certainly didn’t waltz.)
Nolan grinned impishly with the giddiness of victory.
BECAME: The imp grinned with giddy victory.
In the first example, Cheryl applies the “As Opposed To” flab-finding test. Test your phrasings with it, and be smart-alecky about it. Better you do it than the reader.
The second example demonstrates compressing imagery into an active, forceful verb.
The third spots the warning-signal word of and snaps two unneeded words out of the end phrase in eliminating of, drawing the powerful words together at the same time.
But a deeper shortening has emerged from the third example, as well. Note how she changed “Nolan” to “the imp.” Though this runs contrary to two good concision guidelines (”user fewer words,” “use specifics”), this change significantly shortens the sentence. Read the two versions aloud. Which flows most easily, both off the tongue and in the mind? The second, of course, in very large part because of the subtle assonance of the short-i sounds, assonance that’s bolstered by removing the “of” and the “the” at the end of the sentence and replacing long-o Nolan with short-i imp.
To improve their craft, writers must do more than simply read widely and voraciously. Writers must listen to what they read. Turning on one’s critical sonar is quite natural when reading text intended to be spoken aloud, such as playscripts, or to writing that adheres to meter—poetry, of course. With pure prose, tuning the sonar isn’t quite as easy, but it’s just as important. Writing that flows with rhythm and sound feels shorter to readers.
And in Cheryl’s demonstration of that principle, I stand to my elbows and applaud.
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07.22.08
Posted in spelling, write tight, writing craft at 6:32 am by Bill Brohaugh
The Mr. Write Tight in me should like a recent website discovery more than he’s amused by it, but right now he’s weighing which side to fall on. You see, Thsrs.com am(us/az)es me.
Thsrs is likely not pronounced thissors (which is how you’d pronounce the word describing that dangerous pair if as a kid you ran with them and stabbed yourself in the tongue rather than poking your eye out). It’s pronounced, I presume, thesaurus, because in a clever but still somewhat shaky marriage of form and function, thsrs represents Thsrs.com, a site that bills itself as “The shorter thesaurus.” Type in a word, and you’re presented with a list of synonyms, all shorter than your source word. And shorter is good, right Mr. Write Tight?
To a point, but more on that in a moment.
I decided to play the meta-reference game at Thsrs.com. Meta-reference—referencing referencing—is the sort of thing you see in increasingly tired and repetitious quips: Why is the word abbreviation so long? Monosyllabic isn’t. What’s another word for thesaurus (other than thsrs, of course)? Meta-referring, I typed in sesquipedalian at our designated vowel-less site, half expecting that “sskwpdln” and fully expecting that “verbose” or “wordy” would be among the returned synonyms. What I got was:
polysyllabic
long
pretentious
sesquipedalia
polysyllable
Well, long is shorter (which sounds like an aphorism, doesn’t it?). And I like pretentious—which is only marginally shorter, yet has its special implication. Grandiloquent is but a letter shorter, but should be included, too. The lessons here are twofold: 1) A thesaurus is but a suggestion tool, and 2) the right word is the right word, and the right phrasing is the right phrasing. Shorter is an admirable goal only if shorter communicates as effectively or more effectively.
But back to meta-reference fun. Let’s look up thesaurus at Thsrs.com. But one word is returned: wordbook. Not returned is treasury, or any of the several “other words” for thesaurus, shorter or otherwise (and more on that in another post).
Now, in final meta-reference fun, let’s look up shorter, which returns this result:
Aha. “Shorter” doesn’t exist. And in some senses, it should not exist for writers, especially when it displaces “concise,” “precise,” “exact,” “evocative,” “communicative,” “meaningful,” “poetic,” “powerful” or plain-ol’ “perfect.”
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07.21.08
Posted in assorted weird crap, myths and misconceptions, word history at 7:26 am by Bill Brohaugh
Everything You Know About English Is Wrong
spends a good bit of time mocking “bullshitternet facts,” those Did you know!!!!??? flushable factoids like “The word GOLF was created as an acronym of ‘Gentleman Only, Ladies Forbidden,” and the phrase “Ship High in Transit” led to SHIT (I repeat: “bullshitternet”).
I’m delighted when I find web writers who not only understand that much of the Did you know!!!!??? internet and email posts are nonsense, but also mock the very form. Here are some word-related samples from an old site, (Plastic Thoughts), some of them clever, some of them just plain surreal (which is OK by me):
- No month in the English language turns teeth orange, silver, and purple.
- 20252 rhymes with 12,345,678,987,654,321
- The order of letters in the alphabet is controlled by Mrs G Peterson of Wichita, Kansas
- “Cabin fever” was responsible for the invention of the phrase “cabin fever”
- “K” is the shortest antonym in the English language
More recent, and more dynamic, is the “Did you know” feature at Wikipedia parody site Uncyclopedia, “the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Wander to the bottom of the home page for the “Do you know” items. I have to say that many of the items are strained, but others are clever—and a good deal of the fun is that you can submit your own. (Warning: “Did you know that a sentence fragment?” has been officially banned from the site due to over-submission.) The “Did you know” feature also takes some graphic twists. Did you know . . .
How could I have not known that!?
(Two side notes: Thanks, by the way, to the kind host of the Mypalmike’s Daily Caption Contest blog for tipping me off to Uncyclopedia. And if you like things Uncyclopedic in a sports vein, check out these books from a couple of my colleagues: the hilarious and thought-provoking The Baseball Uncyclopedia: A Highly Opinionated, Myth-Busting Guide to the Great American Game
and Football Uncyclopedia: A Highly Opinionated Myth-Busting Guide to America’s Most Popular Game
)
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07.20.08
Posted in write tight, writing craft at 10:09 am by Bill Brohaugh
My Write Tight
discusses the problems of adding “mental length” to a piece of writing—material that confuses or sets the reader thinking off in the wrong direction. Numbers often open up potholes in otherwise smooth writing, if they’re not communicated efficiently, or if the reader is simply not numerically inclined. My favorite true numbers story involves sitting at a Cincinnati Bengals game years ago. In a row in front of me, another fan turned to his buddy and asked, “How far to go for a first down? About half a yard?” His buddy studied the field, then replied, “Not that far. About two feet.”
Here’s a small pothole I spotted in an AP story about the tragic crane accident in Houston on July 17.
The 30-story-tall crane, capable of lifting 1 million pounds, . . .
I paused. This was a story of tragedy, yet I was suddenly thinking about crane-lifting-capacity: A million pounds? That’s, what, how many tons? Divide by 2,000 . . . toss out some zeroes . . . um, how many tons is that? I resorted to scratchpadding the math. I had stopped reading.
The writer may have chosen to express the capacity in pounds—allowing her to use a much higher number—for drama; or she may have simply relied on the phrasing used by a source. Doesn’t matter. We’re so accustomed to speaking of massive weights in terms of tons that this variance from an invisible communication convention drew attention to itself, and in doing so slowed the reader and disserved this tragic story.
By the way, how many tons is a million pounds? 500. No, not that many. Two feet. Of mental length.
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