Subject-Object Agreement? Don't Hold Your Breaths.

Here's a headline from today's New York Times:

At Particle Lab, a Tantalizing Glimpse Has Physicists Holding Their Breaths

Breaths? Really?

I've written before about subject-object agreement, like "Users who experience dizziness should call their doctor."

The bottom line is there's no right answer in most of these situations. But I bet that about 99 out of 100 editors would have made "breath" singular -- a collective concept -- in that NYT headline. " Breath" isn't usually treated as a count noun. It's more of a mass noun. And if a nation can breathe a collective sigh of relief, can't breath be as collective as sigh?

Odd choice. Not wrong, per se. Just odd.

NY Times' Sassy Apostrophes

I'll never stop marveling at NY Times' use of apostrophes to form plurals of initialisms. It's a valid choice. I just don't get the why.

Sign Me Up, New York Times. I'll Pay.

Next year, the New York Times will begin charging frequent users of its website. A certain number of stories every month will be free. After that, there will be a charge.

I don't want to pay for something I'm used to getting for free. But the alternative is even less appealing: further erosion of the quality of news-gathering.

Some years ago, when we first started to see warning signs for the newspaper industry, I wasn't too worried. People will always need information gatherers, so the market will always support information gatherers. But I wasn't thinking about the quality question.

There's big money out there for bloggers and pundits who riff off news stories gathered by AP and major newspapers. Because it's more cost effective to talk about the news without gathering it, the pool of news gatherers could shrink even further -- so far that quality and reliability could fall to unacceptable levels.

So sign me up, New York Times. I'm ready to pay.

Ah, I Always Wanted a Term for That

In his New York Times column today, Paul Krugman uses the term "rent-seeking":

... the rapid growth in finance since 1980 has largely been a matter of rent-seeking, rather than true productivity.

It was a new one on me, so I looked it up.

Wikipedia says that, basically, rent-seeking means making money by exploiting economic factors instead of by producing something that creates real wealth.

Nice to know I'm not the only who's noticed how often this seems to happen.

Whom Can We Rely On, New York Times?

In this New York Times grammar quiz, the failure to use "whom" is actually counted as an error of sorts in the question 7 in the passage: "If we can’t rely on the marketers or the government or even the nutritionists to guide us through the supermarket woods, then who can we rely on?"

The reason, the Times says, is that: "If the correct grammar — in this case, 'whom' — sounds stuffy, we should try to find a deft way to rephrase a sentence to make it both fluid and correct."

The key word is "try," which means it's not mandatory, which means the sentence is fine as-is.

The only alternative would be to consider "to rely on" off limits in interrogative uses like this.

Weird.

Interesting Relative Clause Placement

Copy editing somewhat-green writers is starting to affect me. On several occasions lately I have found myself mentally editing the sentences of someone talking on TV or radio. Not a good sign.

That may be why I found this sentence in today's New York Times so striking. Then again, maybe the sentence is striking. It's from a review of Big Fan starring Patton Oswalt (whose standup comedy I love, by the way). What interests me is the placement of the "who" clause.

He’s a regular guy or as close to regular as any 35-year-old can possibly be who sleeps under a poster of his favorite football star while tucked under a coverlet imprinted with the names of N.F.L. teams.

I can see why the writer/editor didn't want to put it immediately after "35-year-old," which is where, in a shorter sentence, it should probably be. To do that you'd have to move the verb phrase "can possibly be" all the way to the end of the sentence. Still, it seems the Times could have found a better way.

True, I'm not coming up with anything better -- at least not with so little coffee in me. But that's why I can't land a job at the Times.

Wonderings and Archive Searchings (Wherein I wonder about words, then I search for them in newspaper archives)

I noticed in a New York Times piece today that the the New York Times called itself The New York Times, with a capital T.

I noticed it because, in my copy editing work it seems I spend about half a day every day lowercasing the T in "the." In running text, my stylebook says, you lowercase it -- even if it's part of a proper name.

There will be a tribute show to the Beatles at the Venetian starring members of the Who reading from the Holy Bible and the Wall Street Journal.

It took me a while to get used to this style convention. But now I'm way used to it. The alternative, to me, looks like crap.

There will be a tribute show to The Beatles at The Venetian starring members of The Who reading from The Holy Bible and The Wall Street Journal.

No doubt, some will disagree. But to me, all those capital Ts interrupt the visual flow of the sentence. Still, it's not my call. I just do what the style guide tells me -- whichever style guide I happen to be bound to that moment. And the style guide I've been working out of says lowercase that T in running text.

The sassy New York Times, however, loves to defy conventions observed by other publications. Most notably, the New York Times' style guide says to use an apostrophe in numeric decades: 1980's. Most other pubs scoff at that decision, taking the position that 1980s poses no potential for confusion that would justify the apostrophe.

I agree, by the way. I'm all for apostrophes in a sign like "CD'S ON SALE TODAY." But I see no benfit for it in 1980s. Still, I just does what they tells me.

Anyway, inspired by the observation, I searched the New York Times archive for the term "the Los Angeles Times." The search is not case sensitive. Sure enough, the New York Times capitalizes T in "The Los Angeles Times," as well as in its own paper.

In some uses, this didn't look so bad -- especially where the "the" might be modifying something other than the newspaper name, i.e.: "based a book by the Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez" Personally, I think they should have ditched the "the" altogether. But who am I tell the mightiest paper publishing since the "1800's" what to do?

Some of the New York Times' uses of a capital T in The Los Angeles Times looked really bad:

And The Los Angeles Times's Jerry Crowe takes a look back at how the Lakers can trace their roots

The position right after the capital A in And is yucky. The resulting string of capitals is super-yucky: A, T, L, A, T, J, C. -- all in a row.

Then, after searching the New York Times for references to the Los Angeles Times, I searched the Los Angeles Times for references to the New York Times. Yup. Lowercase Ts for all.

I saw this coming because most of my copy editing work these days follows Los Angeles Times style. So I knew the guide says to lowercase these Ts in running text.

But the LA paper's style guide make one exception. Even in running text, The Times takes a capital T in The. And, no, "The Times" in their pages never means a paper out of New York.

So if you ever see me doing anything crazy, like screaming at a pharmacist to give me meds or gouging my eyes out with a red pen, chalk it up to a sign of "The Times."

Hello, Fodder

I have a weird problem. (Well, lots of them, actually, but you don't need to hear about cats who pick the exact worst time to plunk down on a sleeping person's full bladder or how I never tasted a Zima.)

Since 2002, I've been writing a column on grammar and usage for a couple of little newspapers, including the Burbank (Calif.) Leader supplement to the L.A. Times. And, every week for seven years, I experience the same unfounded panic: Oh, crap. I have no idea what I'm going to write about this week. I'm all out of topics. I'm all out of ideas. I'm going to blow deadline then I'll lose the column then I'll no longer be able to afford to indulge my penchant for dental floss and store-brand cola.

Of course, if that were a valid fear, I wouldn't be in my seventh year of writing the dang column. Yet every week, the same stupid fear. It's like Pavlov's dogs continuing to salivate long after they learn that bell ring is only going to get them a bonk on the head.

Anyway, I was just starting to stress over this week's column when I saw NY Times website today. There's a piece by a Times staffer about little language issues that perplex writers and editors at the paper. Not very interesting issues, as far as I'm concerned, but whatever.

However, the comments left by readers are pure gold. They include an assertion that you can't use "like" to mean "such as" (you can), a rant about "one of the only" (sticklers insist it should be "one of the few"), overstated complaints about the Times style of putting apostrophes in numerically designated decades like "1930's" (a bad but nonetheless defensible choice on the Times' part) and unfounded peeves against stuff like "in the hopes that" and "iconic."

Houston, we have a column ...

NYT's Stumble Is My Certificate of Mental Health

Last month I wrote a blog entry about words that are out to get me. After some fancy footwork to try to deflect observations like, "Yeah, June, that's real sane," I identified the leader of the conspiracy -- the word "lead." I wrote:

Like some kind of evil twin, "lead" likes to stand in for "led," knowing full well that the metal "lead" sounds exactly like the past tense of the verb, which is spelled "led." The dastard.

So today, after nearly a month of scanning the street for men in white coats every time I step outside, today I opened the New York Times and saw this:

While indicating, again, that he is willing to be flexible, Mr. Obama dismissed some Republican criticisms of his program, saying that they "echo the very same failed economic theories that lead us into this crisis in the first place."

Ha!

So now that we've established my sanity, let me tell you about the cabal of SUV drivers conspiring to obstruct my view of traffic ...

Nobody Knows the Trouble With Whom He's Seen With

It was a column about grammar. So of course it caught my eye. But it was the stuff between the lines that raised my ire.

In today's New York Times, university professor and dean Stanley Fish tells a story about a frustrating experience with an AT&T customer-service rep who said, "With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

Bad grammar? You betcha. Worth writing a column about? I'd say so. Validly disturbing to a grammarphile? Sure. The premise of Fish's article poses no problem for me. But he began the column like this:

When you live in two places and decamp from one to the other every six months or so, there are any number of things that have to be done. (I know that at least 50 readers will want to rebuke me for complaining about problems only the privileged can have, but perhaps we can agree to get past that.)

There are several ways one could take this, but here's a particularly noteworthy one: He's telling readers — readers — to shut up and listen.

In the new book I'm working on, I talk a lot about the difference between what I call reader-serving writing and writer-serving writing. It's a concept that began to gel in my mind back when I was a newspaper reporter/editor and people would ask me and my colleagues to write stories "for them" or "to help them." For example, someone who was getting screwed by a landlord would try to convince our paper to write a story about him to help him get justice.

But here's what they didn't get: Our readers were not a captive audience whose attention should be exploited to achieve other ends — no matter how meaningful those ends. Our readers were not a tool to be used in the pursuit of justice. The readers were the boss. Really. Only if the story was first and foremost for the readers did we have any business running it.

There's lots of potential reader value in a column about bad grammar and bad customer service. Yet Mr. Fish couldn't deliver. He was too steeped in an attitude of "let them eat cake while I bitch about the only frustrations that matter: mine." I base this not on his second sentence alone.

Exhibit B: Fish (surprise, surprise) couldn't let the bad grammar go. He told the rep her mistake and, when that got him no satisfaction, he tried to go over her head.

Exhibit C: Fish also wrote about how AT&T gave him the runaround and failed to set up his voice mail, as he requested. This is reader-serving in its universality — we've all been there and we can all rant and cheer along with a well-delivered tirade on the subject. But think for a minute about the hubris of the guy who thinks that his getting bad customer service is so noteworthy it belongs in print. There are people who have died from bad customer service. Literally. Consider the damage a poorly run health-insurance claims department can do when mishandled red tape delays some poor person's chemotherapy. Yet Fish thought the injustice he suffered — they failed to set up his voice mail! — was worth writing about.

Exhibit D: In a day and age when so many people are losing their homes that it's taking down the whole economy, Fish had the huevos to deliver a preemptive "shut up" to anyone who would take issue with his whine about having two houses. Here's how a reader-serving writer would have dealt with his situation: Reader-serving writers omit distracting details. If you want to write an article about pothole repair in your town and you gained a lot of insights while talking to friends at an A.A. meeting, you might be better off just calling them friends and leaving it at that. By mentioning they're A.A. friends, you're raising questions you don't plan to answer. Fish didn't have to mention the two-house business. He could just as easily have told his tragic tale of delayed voice mail service without slapping the reader in the second sentence. Such omissions are not just ethical. They're standard. Every article ever written omits certain details deemed outside of the scope of the article or the reader's interest. When motivated by a desire to serve the reader, it's the right thing to do.

Exhibit E: Fish is credited as the author of a book called Save the World on Your Own Time. When I check Amazon.com, I see this:

Fish's lively polemic skewers the popular perspective that universities have an obligation to foster ethical, social, and political virtues ...

I haven't read the book, but the premise seems to be that colleges should teach and not preach. I'll buy that. I know nothing about academic administration, but, unless I'm missing something, I'd say this is a right position. But when I look at Fish's title, I smell a rat. The title is written in the imperative. It's a command. Which leads us to wonder: Who's he talking to? and leaves us with only one possible answer: His own reader.

It's quite possible that this title is just for effect and that the contents of the book are as valid and reader-serving as any other treatise on any other subject. Were it not for his New York Times column, I would assume that was the case. But this is one of the parts that, summed up, form something bigger than the whole. It's like me writing a book titled, "Stop driving SUVs because you're rudely obstructing my view of traffic." Readers are not people you boss around, Mr. Fish. When you're writing, they're your boss.

Exhibit F, from Fish's column:

I reached someone who assured me that I would have voice mail the next day, and he turned out to be right. But by that time I was beyond caring. I told him that I had decided to write a column about my AT&T adventures and that, in fairness, I thought I should talk to someone in the corporate structure.

It's quite possible that "fairness" and journalistic principles governed his decision to tell an AT&T rep that he was writing a column. However, it's also possible that he was using readers as a tool — a blunt instrument with which to intimidate and clobber his enemies. We can't know. But here's what I can know: Fish doesn't get that every reader is a reader you should be grateful for any more than he gets what's wrong with a column about the sufferings of a dude with two houses in an economy with record foreclosures.

My closing argument: Fish is an A-hole. And I hope very much that you found some value in this rant, otherwise, I'm right there with him.

Hmmm ...

Here's an interesting quotation from an article in yesterday's New York Times:

“In some ways, it’s really frustrating,” he said. “I’ll hear someone say
something that isn’t grammatically correct and I’ll cringe.”

What's interesting is that the "he" in "he said" is not a 75-year-old retiree longing for the good old days of split-infinitives prohibitions and circling said crimes in his local newspaper. "He" is Max Gordon, a high school sophomore.

It's the one disconcerting bit in an otherwise encouraging article reporting that the number of students taking Latin is on the rise -- somewhat -- in Westchester schools and even nationwide.

They tell me that's good news. And I suspect they're right. I wouldn't know. In Pinellas Park, Florida, schools in the 1970s we didn't study Latin. We were more like young scholars in the field of "Gilligan's Island," sometimes with a minor in "Love Boat."

Loser Pangs

I'm 18 years old. I'm working the cash register at the local Kash 'N Karry grocery store. It's a good hair day. I feel pretty. A good-looking guy comes through the line -- a guy with the air of being on the make. Big time. He gets to the front of the line. He leans closer. And with a handsome, devious smile he nods in the direction of my co-worker April and asks, "Is she single?"

For a long time, I thought no one else suffered from occasionally feeling like a speck of dust. And I didn't bring it up, either, because I default to pettiness. For example, you wouldn't believe how many things I could find wrong with April's looks -- not to mention her I.Q.

I figured these feelings, which I hereby dub “loser pangs,” were something I would outgrow. Apparently not.

Both my books are about grammar nitpickers gone wild. “Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies” is in its sixth printing. (Could be seventh by now. I’m not sure.) “Mortal Syntax” I believe is better. I’ve written a column on grammar for about five years. I’ve been on NPR. Been on TV. At a recent library expo, got to be, basically, an opening standup act for Paula Poundstone. Also, I conquered alcoholism and got a college degree despite dropping out of school in the ninth grade.

And none of that can erase the big L on my forehead today.

Today’s New York Times website has a page devoted to the topic of grammar. Its introduction begins:

“Why are people so obsessed with grammar, and so offended by real or imagined
lapses? They argue over split infinitives and sentences that end in
prepositions, almost to the point of blows. (Winston Churchill was supposedly so
exasperated by a speechwriter’s avoidance of prepositional endings that he
erupted: “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”
Note the use of the weaselly word “supposedly”: some sources say an anonymous
British official, not Churchill, was the source of the famous remark.)”

Pretty much the drum I’ve been beating for years.

The site lists dozens of resources and blogs and articles and even books -- none of them mine.
I figured that I was on par with “When You Catch an Adjective, Kill It,” by Ben Yagoda.
I figured wrong. And a keyword search confirmed it. I just don’t rank.

So this morning, as my coffee is still just beginning to kick in, I’m wrestling with loser pangs.

I sure hope April got fat.