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.

Nothing to do with language, but ...

8'FED and I were talking in the comments section here about caramel apples versus toffee apples versus candy apples and it led me to the Kraft foods website, where I saw this image of a delicacy Kraft calls Spooky Eyeball Tacos.

Here's the recipe, just in case this looks like good eatin' to you.

Hush Technology

BusinessWeek has "put together a list of outdated tech terms," which includes intranet, extranet, Web surfing, long-distance call, and push technology.

You'd think that, what with the biggest economic collapse since the Great Depression, business publications wouldn't be cranking out stories that evoke the phrase "slow news week." But there it is.

I clicked the link hoping for a little nostalgia -- you know: baud, floppy, token ring, boot disk, clicks and mortar, dot-com millionaire. But no. Nothing more exciting than ASP.

Copy Edits du Jour

It's as enticing as the caramel topping on a candied apple.

(changed to)

It's as enticing as a caramel apple.

* * * *

Autumn is a great time to enjoy the region's ambient weather.

(changed to)

Autumn is a great time to enjoy the region's weather.

Words That Should Get a Divorce (One in an occasional series on words whose relationships have grown tired)

short and shrift

On some level, I like the expression short shrift. But I just can't condone such unhealthy codependency. Like trove and amok, shrift is devoted to a partner that doesn't return the loyalty. On any given day, short can be seen running around all over town with everything from sell to order cook to man's disease.

This case of codependency is so bad that shrift has pretty much lost its own identity. Dictionary.com and American Heritage via dictionary.com don't give shrift an entry at all. Dictionaries that do tend to treat it as archaic and define it as: "a remission of sins pronounced by a priest in the sacrament of reconciliation," which leaves the reader wondering how this resulted in the short shrift we know today, which roughly means "careless treatment" or "scant attention."

Freedictionary.com tries to shed a little light on the matter, but doesn't fully connect the dots. In other words, shrift gets short shrift.

I say shrift needs to go out on a date with long. A long date.

From the front page of Los Angeles Times' Business section today

Oops.

Words I Almost Forgot Existed

gargle

Does anybody gargle anymore?

It seems that, in the '70s and '80s, every other TV commercial and sitcom dad was dedicated to gargling. But I suspect the word has lost relevance. A comparative Google search supports my theory.

gargle = 840,000 hits
gargoyle = 2,160,000 hits