mark, Author at Lexicide

Epic

EPIC: “An epic (from the Ancient Greek adjective ἐπικός (epikos), from ἔπος (epos) “word, story, poem”) is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.” – from the Wikipedia entry for epic poetry.

My oldest child is eleven, and like most Americans his age, his panoply of modifiers is limited to epic, awesome, ultimate and boss. I had no intention of covering middle school slang, but then I saw this poster: Okay, not this poster, but one like it. Anyhow, there in bold letters is a single word excerpt from Peter Travers’ mostly positive review: EPIC. Considering Rolling Stone’s core audience, I’m sure Paramount Pictures assumed Travers meant the movie was AWESOME and BOSS, but I had different suspicions. Here is the lead sentence from the review, which confirms my cynicism:

Pick your gospel: the Scriptures or rock & roll. Both figure into director Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, a biblical epic that follows no rules except its creator’s teeming imagination.

“Epic” in this case only describes the genre, not the quality. I’d seen this before, when I staffed a video store* as a summer job. “A ROMANTIC COMEDY!” proclaimed the box, hoping to attract an inattentive renter looking for just that (a romantic comedy, I mean). But never you mind. Any bored 13-year-old will see the poster and assume “Noah” is indeed EPIC.

So the poster fails twice – first, for resorting to teen slang, second for misrepresenting the comment in the first place** Of course, the movie has made more than $300 million, which proves my definition of “fail” is an epic fail itself.

– Otto E. Mezzo

*A “video store” was a retail outlet where one rented “VHS tapes,” an old magnetic media on which was recorded a movie – the forerunner to DVDs. Rather than Redboxes, these locations were staffed by “employees,” who would make recommendations and help you distinguish between “The Seventh Seal” and “The Seventh Sign” – if you didn’t annoy them, in which case, they would recommend the Bergman film.

**Which may explain why I can’t find the poster in Google images anywhere. I also searched for news of Travers protesting the use of his “review,” but to my surprise (not) I find nothing – media companies are very good about covering each others’ misdeeds. Then again, repentance is a good thing when the judgment of God is on screen.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/noah-20140327#ixzz30CWxoxNn

From The Telegraph: “Be short, be simple and be human.”

What he hated above all was jargon – partly because it was impossible to understand, and partly because it demeaned people by making them feel stupid. The more monolithic bureaucracies became, Gowers felt, the more they reinforced their remoteness by using impenetrable language. He suggested three golden rules that everyone in government and business should abide by: “Be short, be simple and be human.”

If a better maxim exists for institutional writers, I haven’t heard it. A recent Telegraph (UK) feature profiled Sir Ernest Gowers, who sounded the alarm against corporatese in 1948 by publishing Plain Words. Now his great-granddaughter is taking up the fight and updating The Complete Plain Words for the 21st century.

This article is well worth the read, if only to be reminded how long jargon and glittery language has plagued us. I was also struck by this nugget of wisdom by the great Sir Winston Churchill:

“Broadly speaking, the short words are the best,” Churchill said, “and the old ones when short are the best of all.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10710840/Speak-plainly-are-we-losing-the-war-against-jargon.html

From Slate: From whence “the plot thickens”?

A reader (also an academic, teacher and top-selling author) pointed us to this article exploring the history of “the plot thickens.” Because it comes from Slate, the article must contain some hipster hook, in this case a Wes Anderson film. But what is most intriguing is how this seemingly unintuitive turn of phrase spread. Just as today, when one boss uses leverage incorrectly or talks of a mute point, and others carry the banner without question, so it was in the 17th century.

And I said seemingly unintuitive — because once the article makes it clear plot refers to both “scheme” and “patch of ground,” the plot thickens makes perfect sense.

Reference: http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2014/03/12/_the_plot_thickens_the_phrase_s_etymology_and_origin_at_the_request_of_grand.html

Infamous

INFAMOUS: “Well known for some bad quality or deed: an infamous war criminal” – Oxford American Dictionary

A few months ago, a reader suggested notorious for an entry, claiming he had heard it used in a value-neutral or positive sense (as in “Tchotchkes is notorious for their pizza shooters!”). At the time, I searched the ‘net for misuses of notorious and gave up after the twenty-sixth Notorious B.I.G. link.

Then, lo and behold, today I read a wholly unwarranted misuse of notorious‘s less confusing synonym infamous – on a writing blog, no less. Here is the offending passage:

Recently, at the Final Draft Screenwriting Awards, the infamous Nancy Meyers labeled 2013 as the Year of the Shrew. That with few exceptions, most of the lead female characters in films last year were basically shrew-like bitches that no one could like and advised that writers “should write women you want to know, instead of run away from.”

Nancy Meyers, the writer-director of “What Women Want,” “Something’s Gotta Give” and “It’s Complicated,” infamous? Nancy Meyers, arguably the most successful American female director ever, twerking on tabletops with Miley? This I gotta see. Quick! Google her now!

Oh, I get it. You don’t mean infamous. You mean famous. Or maybe provocative or iconoclastic. Nancy Meyers is not “well known for some bad quality or deed.” She is known for directing financially successful movies that appeal to women, and that confuses male studio execs. Does that make her infamous? In their minds, perhaps. But this writer should know better. Really. I couldn’t find any response to her “Year of the Shrew” comment, which makes that utterance neither nettlesome nor well-known, and certainly not infamous.

– Otto E. Mezzo

Reference: http://www.scriptmag.com/features/taming-shrew-writing-female-characters-archetypes?et_mid=659715&rid=235847449

Refute

REFUTE: “prove (a statement or theory) to be wrong or false; disprove” – Oxford American Dictionary

You might think our last entry signaled a new direction for Lexicide – perhaps one in which we refute our antagonistic ways. As usual, you would be wrong. And wrong again.

Refute does not mean simply “argue against,” “rebut,” or “deny.” Refuting a premise means you are disproving it (or attempting to, at least) with data or hard evidence. It is the way intelligent and thoughtful folks debate, in contradistinction to the way most people “debate” today.

Some headlines that use refute correctly:

CDC Data Refutes New Anti-Gun Study’s Claims

Progressive Economists Refute AP, Defend The Buffett Rule*

Tesla uses data to refute New York Times report

…and incorrectly:

Oil producing provinces demand parliament to refute 2014 budget law draft

Trend of local violence hard to ignore, refute

Harare refutes Arsenal’s decline

Sheesh. Even The Economist.

You’ll notice two of the “good” headlines contain the word data.** This is because my first Google News search turned up zero correct usages. Only when I added the word data to the search did I get some proper hits (and one about Donald Trump). I also tried “scientists refute,” but most of those hits involved scientists “refuting” the existence of God – probably not a lot of hard evidence there.

A refutation (yes, that is a word) has nothing to do with the moral or political righteousness of an argument (which is why I deliberately picked one article from the NRA and one from Media Matters), so please don’t tell me that someone didn’t actually refute a position because you reject their data. They may not have persuaded you, but that’s not the same thing. Just as refute is not the same word as reject.

– Otto E. Mezzo

* I would have preferred the headline to say “Economists refute AP fact check”, as opposed to the AP itself.

**You know data is plural, right? So “data refute” is correct.

References:

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/articles/2013/11/cdc-data-refutes-new-anti-gun-studys-claims.aspx

http://mediamatters.org/research/2011/09/21/progressive-economists-refute-ap-defend-the-buf/182920

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20130214/CARNEWS/130219905

http://www.zawya.com/story/Oil_producing_provinces_demand_parliament_to_refute_2014_budget_law_draft-ZAWYA20140126061542/

http://www.codyenterprise.com/news/opinion/article_3d2f93f0-7e42-11e3-ad75-0019bb2963f4.html

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/03/football-africa

Against the pedants: an alternate view from Stephen Fry

Ladies and gentlemen, the always-spot on Stephen Fry:

Are his views contrary to Lexicide’s mission? Somewhat, and yet, the man has many points. Pedantry, the sense of academic superiority which informs so much language correction (and is often on display here), makes a poor evangelist. Can one tell the difference between disinterested used wrong (“uninterested”) and used correctly (“impartial”)? Often, yes. But then this (at 4:57): “I think what offends…when confronted with extremely informal, unpunctuated and haywire language is the implication of not caring that underlies it.”

Yes, this.

Never let it be said that we don’t enjoy language. Our love of language is what drives Lexicide – maybe now a little lighter on the pedantry.

– Otto E. Mezzo

Let’s Go Sailing: Jibe, Tack and Gaffe

Back in August, several of you took issue with folks using the word “jive” in place of the correct “jibe”: “That outcome doesn’t jibe with the data.” Another irksome confusion is the one betwixt tack and tact – too many people speak of changing tact when they should be changing tack. (Equally irksome is when you correct them, these folks claim tact is appropriate because one must have tact when throwing requirement changes at the team. When I throw changes at my team, I don’t need tact. I need body armor.)

What do these two lexicides have in common, aside from being wrong? They’re sailing terms. To jibe means to “swing a sail or boom across a following wind.” Tack refers to “a boat’s course relative to the direction of the wind.” So changing tack means moving the sail to change direction into the wind, and jibing – well, I’m not really sure how changing direction with the wind behind you translates into agreement or concord. Maybe it’s no surprise that jive supplants the term in the U.S. The Oxford American Dictionary defines jive as “a thing, especially talk, that is deceptive or worthless.” But come on, you don’t consult the OED for black colloquial, or jive talk – what you speak if you down with it. If you jive with what I’m saying, we’re two of the same mind. Solid.

One other sailing term that’s crossed into the mainstream is gaffe. A gaff is a “a spar to which the head of a fore-and-aft sail is bent,” and also “a stick with a hook, or a barbed spear, for landing large fish.” Supposedly, the landing of large fish morphed into the making of large blunders, hence gaffe. I don’t know. Sounds fishy to me.

(All definitions are from the Oxford American Dictionary.)

– Otto E. Mezzo

These are the words that try men’s (and women’s) souls.

The The Tar Tar Pits — A Smilodon and Canis dirus debate proper word usage.

I recently asked for suggestions for an article. That I had to ask may reflect better word usage in the population as a whole. Or it could mean people are changing the way of their errors. Here are some suggestions, courtesy of a Boston-based reporter at a national news magazine:

Not sure how many of my pet peeves you’ve already addressed but here are a few options: “decimate” as a synonym for “destroy,” “on accident” vs. “by accident,” the word “irregardless,” “pressuring” vs. “pressurizing,” “circumventing the globe,” “jibe” vs. “jive,” “make due” vs. “make do,” “safe haven,” “less than” vs. “fewer than,” the way people use “fit as a fiddle” to mean “physically healthy” when it really means “well suited to the job.”

Lexicide has covered decimate (somewhat). Others, such as the war between less than and fewer than, we don’t intend to tackle; writers have spilled much ink on that particular distinction. We also try to stay away from tautologies (phrases that repeat themselves or use self-evident descriptors) like safe haven, frozen tundra (suggested by Andrew from Pennsylvania) and my personal favorite, salsa sauce. Picking on salsa sauce may be mildly unfair (see what I did there?) to the Spanish-illiterate, just as most Anglophones won’t see the error in please R.S.V.P. Scott from L.A. went further and panned La Brea Tar Pits, as la brea is Spanish for “the tar.” Which means The La Brea Tar Pits translates as “the the tar tar pits.” Ay, carumba.

Scott in Los Angeles also asked: How about “free reign”?

Lexicide has covered a few homonyms, but as a rule (I did it again!), we don’t touch them. In case you don’t know, you give someone free rein, just as you rein a person in — rein as in those straps of leather you use to steer or stop a horse. If you type free reign and then justify it by claiming your giving someone the powers of a monarch, you are wrong. Just wrong.

Claire in in Delaware suggested synergy, which I’m not sure actually had a meaning to begin with.

Andrew also suggested notorious, which many use to mean well-known (with no negative connotation) as opposed to infamous. I seem to recall hearing colleagues misuse notorious that way, but a search of news sites comes up snake eyes. We’ll keep an eye on this one, though, as it would follow the pattern of negative words shifting into neutral (see fulsome, postmortem and stagnant).

Lylah from Boston went on to criticize meteoric rise when, in fact, meteors only fall. Speaking of falling, Elisa from Virginia hates fail as a noun. Sorry, Elisa. I think that one is here to stay.

Anne, an English teacher in North Carolina (wouldn’t you know it?), does not like the conflation betwixt everyday and every day. Finally, Andy from Florida, disses newly created words without vowels like “pwn.” Obviously, Andy, you’re not a fan of the Czech language.

Troll

TROLL: “One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument” – Urban Dictionary

I used to engage in political debates with a certain relative. The discourse would usually proceed like this:

Relative: I would never vote for [Politician]. His positions demonstrate his lack of sincerity.

Me: [Politician] is plenty sincere. I think he strongly believes in those positions.

Relative: Well, then he’s just stupid.

And there you have the lexicide of troll in a nutshell. Let me explain.

Troll used to serve as internet slang for a provocateur – someone who sought attention by posting controversial or contrary sentiments on a message board (e.g., a paean to steak tartar on a vegan website). Eventually, we all learned to ignore them, or not to “feed the trolls.” Since their comments existed only to get a rise out of people, we knew trolls lacked sincerity.

But as the world turns, so do the meanings of our words. Troll is now an all-purpose insult for anyone with whom you disagree or find nettlesome:

Commenter #1: Vote for [Politician]! She understands the plight of the poor!

Commenter #2: She was raised in Newport and went to Choate. How does she understand the poor?

Commenter #1: Get lost, troll!

Commenter #2 is fielding a legitimate counter to Commenter #1’s thesis, but in doing so, she raises an inconvenient truth, hence she is a troll. This lexicide reveals much about the psychology of the commenters who use it. When they label someone a troll, they assert that their opponent is just voicing a conflicting opinion for attention – because no one in his right mind would really believe that claptrap. In other words, whereas troll used to describe one who lacked sincerity, now it describes someone you think is just stupid – because they don’t share your viewpoint. That’s public discourse in America for you – intolerant of diverse opinions and proper word use. Which is worse? I’ll let you decide.

– Otto E. Mezzo

“New dictionary definition of ‘literally’ will literally make your head explode”

From the Syracuse Post-Standard, in an article literally titled “New dictionary definition of ‘literally’ will literally make your head explode“:

Back in March, The Week pointed out that Merriam-Webster had recently added a second usage of the word “literally” to mean the same as “virtually,” but as hyperbole for emphasis. The Oxford English Dictionary has also included the informal definition, “used for emphasis while not being literally true,” since 2011.

But while traditionalists are complaining about the demise of English, many are quick to say that language evolves over time and dictionaries reflect those changes.

“Our job is to describe the language people are using,” OED senior editor Fiona McPherson said, according to the Daily Mail. “The only reason this sense is included is because people are using it the wrong way.”

Your rite! My head did literally explode!

Reference: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/08/literally_definition_dictionary_wrong_english_languageyour_head_explode.html