mark, Author at Lexicide

Olde tyme lexicide: “Against Singular Ye”

Ye-Thou
The perversions the youth wreak upon our our shared language grate on the ear and distract from semantic content. While most of their petty acts of verbal vandalism are limited to the realm of vocabulary where they do little lasting damage, it is now the very foundation of our language that is under threat. I speak, of course, of a recent assault on our grammar, that of so-called “singular ye”.

If you like Lexicide (and I know you do), you will love this rante most exercifed on Jeff Kaufman’s blog. Just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun.

http://www.jefftk.com/news/2013-07-21

Reactionary

REACTIONARY: “(of a person or a set of views) opposing political or social liberalization or reform” – New Oxford American Dictionary

More specifically, a reactionary “holds political viewpoints that favor a return to a previous state (the status quo ante) in a society. The word can also be an adjective describing such viewpoints or policies.” (from the Wikipedia entry for Reactionary) So if one advocates a return to the gold standard, legal slavery, machine politics, undoing women’s suffrage or rolling back the clock in any other way, one is reactionary.

If a company does not lead or innovate – if it finds itself behind the curve, always reacting to market changes – that company is not reactionary. It is reactive. Reactive is the opposite of proactive (and we so like that word!).

I find it endlessly interesting that people: 1) use the wrong word so often, and when they do; 2) use a wrong word that imparts a negative connotation. For that is what reactionary is – a negative. Go ahead. Do a search and see if you can find anyone, even Rush Limbaugh, who boasts of being reactionary. You won’t find it. If we really dig, I’m sure we can find reactionary legislation that most people favor (the 21st Amendment comes to mind). And of course, whether a position is reactionary or conservative depends on both your opinion and where you are in time. But generally speaking, you don’t want to be a reactionary.

Now, I understand that unlike simplistic or verbiage, reactionary, when used as a synonym for “behind the curve,” is meant to sound negative. But it is the wrong negative. If you wish to change your company’s reactive ways, get more proactive. If you wish to make your company less reactionary, become more progressive. Or get a dictionary. Even Rush can get on board with that.

– Otto E. Mezzo

Sea Change

SEA CHANGE: “…a poetic or informal term meaning a gradual transformation in which the form is retained but the substance is replaced… For example, a character from literature may transform over time into a better person after undergoing various trials or tragedies, i.e. ‘There is a sea change in Scrooge’s personality towards the end of the play.’” – Wikipedia entry for sea change

What’s the difference between a change and a sea change? Nothing, if you only read memos and press releases. Or these recent headlines:

Aviva push into rented housing is ‘sea-change’

Barbara Walters’ Retirement: Sea Change Or Revolution?

Aquatica is a major sea change for water park

Okay, so that last one is a pun. But seriously – “The View” needs a replacement, and our choice of descriptors is sea change or “revolution?” Once again, hyperbole reigns supreme, with every advance hailed as a sea change. Just scouring the headlines, we have sea changes for surgery, banking and even the art of tax avoidance. In our opinion, better-looking mastectomy scars do not constitute a sea change in medicine. Patients not dying on the table from routine infections? Sea change. But in our modern media (which, by the way, is also undergoing a sea change), Florence Nightingale doesn’t merit the label. Barbara Walters does. That may be as media-fawners like it. I call it a comedy of errors.

– Otto E. Mezzo

Diverse (and, not to be excluded, Diversity)

Wow! Each one of us is diverse! (Except for the white guy on the end.) — Wow! An exciting example of diversity and hackneyed stock photography!

DIVERSE: “very different from each other and of various kinds” – Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary

“I am an intelligent, diverse individual.”

Like hell. You may have diverse interests, but you are not diverse. One thing cannot be diverse.

Yes, yes, I know what you mean – that you’re interesting (or maybe unique). Or maybe that’s not what you mean. More and more I see advertisements seeking a “diverse candidate,” meaning, of course, a minority candidate. Now who in the adult working world doesn’t know what diverse is code for? Is it really so terrible to say “minority,” or heaven forbid, “black,” “Hispanic,” “Asian,” or whatever you need? After all, you can have a diversity of personalities (outgoing and reserved), temperaments (introverts and extroverts), even political outlooks. But hey, if it’s racial diversity you seek, fine. Just don’t use diverse to refer to an individual.

I close with this reminiscence. I once worked at a Fortune 500 company, designing recruiting brochures. “We need more, um – diverse people,” the recruiters would say, the “um” signifying the brain shift from “black/Asian/Hispanic” to more politically correct term. So I’d find a few more goshawful stock photographs, careful to select models who differed from the existing models. When they complained they weren’t um – diverse enough, I’d throw in a few beards for variety. I know I was being a jerk. But I felt bad for misleading our new hires. They were expecting to join an ethnically-mixed team of six enthusiastic people in suits. What they got instead were five bored white people in polo shirts.

– Otto E. Mezzo

References: “There is No Such Thing as a Diverse Candidate” http://www.rosettathurman.com/2011/12/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-diverse-candidate/

How now, Ho Hum?

I am old. So my children tell me. So also says my 20-something friend and officemate. She says a lot of things I don’t get, actually. Then again, she watches a lot more TV than I do, so I usually dismiss her catchphrases as culturally irrelevant to those of us who still think REM is alternative.

One of her more arresting utterances is “ho hum,” a response to one of my many witty and cutting remarks:

Me: Yes, your new Tom’s shoes are fabulous. Because nothing says “urban sophisticate” like burlap.

Her: Ho hum!

By ho hum she means “what-EVER!” or, were we not at work, a visibly raised middle finger. That’s not what ho hum means to me (or, it seems, to nearly everyone on the web). So I’m asking a question: who among you has heard ho hum used in this manner? Who uses it thusly? The answer will help settle an ongoing argument about the vigor of youth vs. the merits of age.

— Otto E. Mezzo

CNN: “LOL isn’t funny anymore.”

John McWhorter laughs out loud. LOL.

In a CNN.com opinion column today, linguist John McWhorter makes this observation:

Take LOL. Today, it wouldn’t signify amusement the way it did when it first caught on. Jocelyn texts “where have you been?” and Annabelle texts back “LOL at the library studying for two hours.”

How funny is that, really? Or an exchange such as “LOL theres only one slice left” / “don’t deprive me LOL” — text exchanges often drip with these LOL’s the way normal writing drips with commas. Let’s face it — no mentally composed human being spend his or her entire life immersed in ceaseless hilarity. The LOLs must mean something else.

A little late to the game McWhorter is (Lexicide observed this four years ago, probably a year after everyone else). But the man is no slouch. Here’s his analysis:

[LOLs] signal basic empathy between texters. What began as signifying laughter morphed into easing tension and creating a sense of equality… That is, “LOL” no longer “means” anything. Rather, it “does something” — conveying an attitude — just as the ending “-ed” doesn’t “mean” anything but conveys past tense. LOL is, of all things, grammar.

Well put. He concludes: All indications are that America’s youth are doing it quite well. Texting is not the mangling of language — it’s the birth of a new one.

If anything, then, texting will keep Lexicide going for years to come.

Reference: http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/30/opinion/mcwhorter-lol/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7

Join the Commentariat!

Lexicide is accepting comments once again. We had been receiving an enormity of spam through commenting, so we turned off that feature to encourage a minimalist amount of junk we would have to delete. Alas, we realized Lexicide is not about being politically correct, but about serving you, our stakeholders. So comment away. We look forward to answering your questions and telling you you’re wrong.

— Lex and Otto

Utilitarian

UTILITARIAN: “of or relating to or advocating utilitarianism”

UTILITARIANISM: “a doctrine that the useful is the good and that the determining consideration of right conduct should be the usefulness of its consequences; specifically: a theory that the aim of action should be the largest possible balance of pleasure over pain or the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” – Merriam-Webster.com

Corporate Americans love philosophy. We try to make our software agnostic, our designs minimalist and our business plans conform to a schema. Bookshelves and Kindles must be bursting with Russell, Van der Rohe and Kant! Cogito ergo vendo!

Add Jeremy Bentham to that library, because managers love utilitarianism! You know, the philosophy that promotes policies proffering “the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”* What? That’s not what you meant when you demanded the website have a “utilitarian look?” You meant you wanted it to be functional but not florid, easy to use but not necessarily pretty?

Oh, pardonez-moi! And here I thought you were asking for a site that offered navigation and interface that appealed to the greatest number of potential visitors, which is actually a noble goal. (Except that we fired our user experience architect, figuring the sales manager could do her job.) No no. What you meant to say was “I want the site to be minimalistic.” Ha. Just kidding. What you want is to fire your creative director and get your UX expert back. Then you’ll have what you want. Won’t be pretty, though, especially with what you’ll have to pay her.

– Otto E. Mezzo

*What Bentham actually wrote, in his preface to A Fragment on Government, is: “…it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong…”

From Slate.com: Death to “Bridezilla!”

snowmageddon

On March 5, as a winter storm approached, I posted this on Facebook:

If you want to be my friend, do not — repeat, do not — repeat or use an annoying portmanteau “word” such as “snowquester,” “snowpocalypse” or “snowmageddon.” And realize for these constructions to be clever, the replaced syllable should actually sound like the original syllable.

On March 6, a friend posted a link to a Slate.com article titled: “Please Do Not Chillax: Adjoinages and the death of the American pun,” published that morning.

We have a word for that, and it isn’t synergy.

Anyhow, I learned from the article that this type of awkward construction is called a neolexic portmanteau, as distinguished from a true pun. Bridezilla, stagflation and chillax (I hadn’t heard that one) are neolexic portmanteaux, whereas they classify bromance, gaydar and staycation as puns because rather than simply trying to jam two dissimilar words together, there is the attempt to replace a syllable or syllables with similar sounds.

I suppose it says something about human creativity and the wily nimbleness of English that these words exist. Maybe it also says something about our culture that a close male friendship is mildly derided as a bromance or a female activist seeking equal treatment could be labeled a feminazi.

Then again, it also pegs us as a culture prone to gross exaggeration (Obamanation, anyone?). Case in point: we got less than an inch of snow last night. Snowmageddon, indeed.

— Otto E. Mezzo

Want to be taken seriously? Be a better writer! (h/t Linked In)

The number of poorly written emails, resumes and blog posts I come across each month is both staggering and saddening. Grammar is off. There are tons of misspellings. Language is much wordier or more complex than necessary. Some things I read literally make no sense at all to me.

So begins this brief and insightful article from Linked In. If you need validation that good writing is good for you, please read. My favorite tip (the one I hammer into my children)? Number 5: READ.

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130221123241-15077789-want-to-be-taken-seriously-become-a-better-writer