sightings Archives - Page 9 of 15

The Music of Corporatese

Weird Al’s done it again. On the same album as “Word Crimes” comes this little gem. Enjoy the synergy.

(In case you lost count, he hit Lexicide featured words diversity, holistic, leverage, methodology, and vis-à-vis.)

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

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.

“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

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

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