Another Interesting Opinion

Subjects and Verbs as Evil Plot
By CLYDE HABERMAN
Published: January 13, 2011



Even before the Tucson shootings, Jared L. Loughner acted weirdly and darkly in so many ways that singling out any one aspect may defy sense. Nonetheless, for bizarreness, his rants about grammar stand out.

As Mr. Loughner has tried to explain it in Web postings, English grammar is not merely usage that enjoys common acceptance. Rather, it is nothing less than a government conspiracy to control people’s minds. Perhaps more bizarre, even potentially troubling, is that he is not the only one out there clinging to this belief. Some grammarians say they hear it more often than you may think.

“It is completely off the wall,” said Patricia T. O’Conner, the author of several books on grammar, including “Woe Is I.”

“But I’m not actually that surprised,” said Ms. O’Conner, who also writes a blog, grammarphobia.com, with her husband, Stewart Kellerman. “I get mail once in a while from people who believe that it’s wrong to try to reinforce good English because it’s some kind of mind-control plot, and English teachers are at the bottom of this. For anyone to say that subject and verb should agree, for example, is an infringement of your freedoms, and you have a God-given right to speak and use whichever words you want, which of course you do.

“But they see it as some sort of plot to standardize people’s minds and make everyone robotically the same.”

One person identified with this notion is a Milwaukee man named David Wynn Miller, who prefers to render his name as :David-Wynn: Miller and who says that people must free themselves of a government he deems tyrannical. But Mr. Miller has distanced himself from Mr. Loughner and rejected suggestions that his own online writings over the years may have inspired the rampage in Tucson.

Of course, idiosyncratic grammar and punctuation, of themselves, are hardly automatic signs of derangement. Nor are they confined to one point or another along the political spectrum.

Rappers have long gone their own way when it comes to spelling names and putting thoughts into words. And the idea that language can be used, and abused, to exert control is familiar. Orwell, anyone? (In fact, on his YouTube page, Mr. Loughner listed Orwell’s “Animal Farm” as one of his favorite books.)

But the Loughners and Millers take many steps closer to the dark side by describing grammatical structure as proof of government wickedness.

Ben Zimmer, the “On Language” columnist for The New York Times Magazine, said he, too, had received letters talking of a “grand conspiracy.” He got them, in particular, when he was editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press.

“When people are confronted with linguistic authority of various kinds, whether it’s dictionaries or grammar books, the more conspiratorially minded may use that as evidence of some grand scheme, or something where people are pulling the strings behind the scenes and using language to do that,” Mr. Zimmer said.

Ms. O’Conner said there is a flip side to the rejection of all grammatical structure. It is slavish adherence to old rules and intolerance for any perceived transgression.

She gets an earful, she said, when she writes that there is nothing horrific about, say, splitting an infinitive or ending a sentence with a preposition. For some people, those are heresies to always object to.

But it’s the more anarchic types whom Ms. O’Conner finds worrisome, those who “think we’re all in cahoots — government, business, education, the church — and it’s all one big conspiracy, and grammar is part of it.” E-mails that she gets boil down to, “You’re part of this elitist attempt to keep the masses down through language.”

Somewhat saddened by all this is Margaret Edson, who teaches social studies at a middle school in Atlanta. In 1999, Ms. Edson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play “Wit.” Punctuation, notably the centrality of the comma and the semicolon, is practically a character all its own.

“If we weren’t teaching grammar as a way to bring the voices of our students forward, for a redemptive purpose, then why teach, why live?” she said. “We’re trying to bring their voices forward, not suppress them.”

“If you don’t have grammar, you don’t have sense,” Ms. Edson said. “You don’t have one another. You can’t say ‘I love you’ without grammar.”

As the Tucson nightmare shows, however, you can express hate without it.

E-Mail: haberman@nytimes.com
A version of this article appeared in print on January 14, 2011, on page A19 of the New York edition.

Interesting Article

I found this article while looking around for information on the coming appearance of Watson on "Jeopardy". I am looking forward to watching that.

June 13, 1998

Grammatically Incorrect
By Ralph Schoenstein

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Microsoft has many detractors, but no one has noticed its most egregious sin.

The company's word-processing program, Word for Windows 95, is ruining the English language. I have just discovered that Word's grammar check has a command of English equal to that of Tarzan.

I first asked Word to check, She was a most unique woman; she was slightly pregnant. The error was easy to find, two modified absolutes. When the check responded that the sentence was flawless, I knew English was partially dead.

My next offering, I couldn't help but going, used the gerund instead of the infinitive. The check replied, Consider replacing with "could not" in a formal document. As they say in Seattle, I couldn't help but being dismayed.

Eager to see if the check knew the difference between a conjunction and conjunctivitis, I wrote, Due to the weather, they could not come. The check seemed to think that the sentence was Churchillian. Although most people use "due to" incorrectly, I thought that a grammar guide on millions of computers should know that the sentence needed a conjunction instead.

Inspired to eloquent awfulness, I wrote, Thinking it was open, the door was really closed. The check replied, The main clause may contain a verb in the passive voice. But there is no passive voice here, just a thinking door.

Incredulous that Microsoft was helping millions of Americans sound like Popeye, I went on to write, If I was a better man, I would go. Missing my failure to use the subjunctive, the check resorted to political correctness: Gender-specific expression. Consider replacing with "person," "human being" or "individual." The check, of course, had a point. Every time I call myself a man, as opposed to a woman or a newt, I am being gender specific.

Giddy from all the grammatical goofiness, I wrote, There were only three grown-ups between Judy, Jill, Eve-Lynn, Lori, Maria and Max. Once again, the check approved, unaware that between cannot handle six people. That's why among was invented.

Deciding to meet the check halfway, I stopped writing in English: She shopped, like, sixteen times. The check said the sentence was perfect.

Of course it was -- not a single contraction.

Ralph Schoenstein is the author of "Superman and Son," a memoir.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

I Thought "App" Meant Appetizer!

Linguists select word of the year: It's app
Saturday, January 08, 2011
By Sean D. Hamill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The word above all others in 2010? App.

That's according to the American Dialect Society, which held its annual meeting at the Wyndham Grand in Pittsburgh last weekend and chose "app" over the word "nom" as its Word of the Year for 2010.

App, which means "an application program for a phone or computer or other electronic device," was proposed not because it is particularly new or groundbreaking, but because it came into its own and crossed into the wider culture in 2010.

"My 84-year-old mother uses the word, and she doesn't even know how to text," said Bill Kretzschmar, the University of Georgia English professor who nominated the word "app" during a spirited voting session.

"It is the most democratic word. It's not just big companies making apps anymore, it's small companies and individuals," Dr. Kretzschmar said. "Even the weatherman I watch on television in Atlanta made an app to get weather information this year. It's everywhere."

The word was chosen Friday night by about 150 linguists after two days of debate that began with a list of 33 words. They narrowed it down to nine winners in various categories (most euphemistic and election terms, for example) before choosing the winner in a free-for-all final round that allowed adding words not previously voted on -- including app.

It beat out the word "nom," which was defined as an "onomatopoetic form connoting eating, esp. pleasurably."

Some who argued in favor of "nom" said it was "a vote for happiness," and that "app" was simply too old a word.

But in the argument that carried the day, Ed Cormany, a doctoral student in linguistics at Cornell University, stopped tweeting on his laptop long enough to rise from his seat to argue that, yes, it may seem that "app" has been around for a long time, but "this year people realized they needed an app for any technology."

The arguments sometimes became a little heated, particularly over some of the politically based words in early voting -- which didn't bother voters.

"I understand. It always gets a little heated," Mr. Cormany said. "We love our words here."

The goal in choosing a Word of the Year, is to find a word or expression that in some way "best characterizes the year ... [and] most reflects the ideas, events, and themes which have occupied the English-speaking world, especially North America," according to the dialect society's website.

Jesse Sheidlower, editor-at-large of the Oxford English Dictionary's North American unit, and the dialect society's president-elect, concedes that selecting the WOTY, as it's known, "is a fairly light-hearted effort."

"It isn't peer-reviewed, but we do put thought into it," said Mr. Sheidlower, who tweeted about the WOTY selection Thursday and Friday. "If you look through the list of previous years, you'll find, on the whole, they said something about the year."

For example, last year's selection for 2009 was "tweet"; 2008's choice was "subprime"; and 2007 was "bailout."

There are several other prominent organizations that choose their own Word of the Year, such as Merriam-Webster (which already chose "austerity" as its word in 2010) and the New Oxford American Dictionary (which chose "refudiate").

While Merriam-Webster chooses its word based on the increase in the number of times the definition of a particular word was searched for on its website -- "austerity" searches increased 80 percent from 2009 to 2010 -- the New Oxford American Dictionary chooses its word as a consensus among its lexicographers.

Another organization, The Global Language Monitor -- which chose "spillcam" for its 2010 word -- since 1999 has been using an algorithm to search online articles, websites, blogs and social media in English-speaking countries to monitor relevant words.

But the dialect society has been choosing its WOTY, as it's known among its voting members, the longest, since 1990 (when it chose the forgettable "bushlips" as its first WOTY).

"It's the granddaddy," said Peter Sokolowski, editor-at-large of Merriam-Webster, which has been choosing its word since 2003.

But the broad array of wordsmiths from the academic and publishing world who are WOTY voting members of the dialect society -- including members of related organizations like the Linguistic Society of America, which organized the conference -- gives the dialect society's choice quite a bit of cachet, even from sponsors of competing WOTYs.

Before the final vote, Christine Lindberg, senior lexicographer for Oxford University Press, said in a phone interview from her home in New York that she pored over the online list of the dialect society's nominated words, and she was positively giddy about what would take place Friday night.

"This is like the Oscars for me," said Ms. Lindberg, whose organization has been choosing its word since 2005.

Told that "app" was the choice later Friday, Ms. Lindberg said it might not have been her choice for 2010 -- though "nom" was in the top 10 of possibilities for her organization -- but she thought it had merit.

"I agree with their argument for app, because when it went in our dictionary at first, it only went in as 'short for application,' " she said. "But now it's time to go in and give it a full definition, because it really has become the full word people use."

What Is The Most Literate City?

D.C. tops rankings for USA's most literate cities


By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY


Washingtonians are the nation's most well-read citizens, but they're reading less these days. And so, it appears, are city dwellers everywhere.

That's according to the latest findings of an annual study of the United States' most literate cities, which ranks the "culture and resources for reading" in the nation's 75 largest metro areas. The study examines not whether people can read, but whether they actually do.

"What difference does it make how good your reading test score is if you never read anything?" asks researcher Jack Miller, president of Central Connecticut State University in New Britain, Conn. "One of the elements of the climate, the culture, the value of a city is whether or not there are people there that practice those kinds of behaviors."

The study, based on 2010, looks at measures for six items — newspapers, bookstores, magazines, education, libraries and the Internet — to determine what resources are available in each city and the extent to which its inhabitants take advantage of them.

Now in its eighth year, the study finds little to celebrate. Were Washington's top score in 2010 applied to the 2004 rankings, for example, the city would land at No. 7.

The study identifies "worrisome trends" consistent with other national research, including declines in newspaper circulation and book-buying, along with sluggish growth in educational attainment. Increases in Internet usage and stable library patronage aren't offsetting those declines, it says.

Among details in the study, which can be seen at www.ccsu.edu/amlc2010:

•Washington's climb to No. 1 this year was likely helped by troubles in Seattle, which has claimed or shared (with Minneapolis) the top spot four of the past five years. In recent years, Seattle has lost a newspaper and some legendary local bookstores have struggled.

•New Orleans, which ranked 42nd in 2005, then dropped off the list because its population dipped after Hurricane Katrina, has more than bounced back. It returned last year at 17 and this year climbed to 15. Changing demographics likely explain the spike. "A lot of the people that left and haven't come back were poorer," Miller says.

•Ten of California's 12 largest cities landed in the bottom half, including Sacramento, the state capital, at 45, and lowest-ranked Stockton, which has been at or near the bottom since the list debuted in 2004. San Francisco was ranked 6; Oakland squeaked into the top half at 37.

One bright spot: The use of public libraries has remained consistently strong over the years, particularly in manufacturing towns. Toledo, Ohio, and Fort Wayne, Ind., for example, were in the bottom half overall but were two of six Rust Belt cities in the top 10 for library resources.

Robert Lang, an urban planning and policy expert at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, acknowledges cause for concern but questions whether results necessarily mean people are reading less.

"People are reading more things and less in depth. They're getting briefed," Lang says. "The bigger finding (is) what's consumed is different."

Most literate cities in 2010

Washington DC
Seattle
Minneapolis
Atlanta
Pittsburgh
San Francisco
St. Paul
Denver
Portland, Ore.
St. Louis
Cincinnati
Boston
Raleigh, N.C.
Cleveland
New Orleans
Columbus, Ohio

PS - Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe!!

The Year In Language

The best and worst of 2010

By Erin McKean
January 9, 2011

I know, it’s getting a little late to reminisce about 2010. But besides being a new year, it has also been about a year since I started writing about language for Ideas (thanks again to Jan Freeman for sharing this column!), and I thought it would be fun to look back at a year’s worth of the best and worst stories about words.

From a lexicographer’s point of view, the best language story of 2010 was the recent paper in Science about “culturomics.” The authors define this term as “the application of high-throughput data collection and analysis to the study of human culture,” but what they literally did, working with Google Books, was take the full text of a huge number of books — about 4 percent of all titles ever published — and crunch the words as data, on the model of the Human Genome Project.

One amazing finding: They estimated “that 52% of the English lexicon — the majority of the words used in English books — consists of lexical ‘dark matter’ undocumented in standard references.” They found vast quantities of words like aridification, slenthem (a musical instrument), and deletable, none of them in normal dictionaries. Time to get crackin’, fellow lexicographers!

Along with their study came a public release of billions of sorted phrases, ranging up to five words in length, and a tool that allows any user to chart how common specific words are over time (it’s at www.ngrams.googlelabs.com). As fascinating as they are, these graphs have also led to lots of great discussion about one big thing missing from the data: the context in which the words are used. When we use the word class, are we talking about social rank (“middle class”) or school (“geometry class”)? That kind of analysis will have to wait for a different tool.

The extended news cycle of Sarah Palin’s use of refudiate was another highlight of 2010’s language reportage: On July 14, she used the word (a blend of refute and repudiate) in a segment on Fox News; a week later she used it in a tweet about the planned Islamic center near Ground Zero (“Peaceful Muslims, please refudiate”). A few hours later, after the disappearance of the original tweet and a lot of talk about the unusual blend, Palin tweeted again: “Shakespeare liked to coin new words too. Got to celebrate it!” (It’s true — experts estimate there are at least 1,500 words first known to be used by Shakespeare, so if anything Palin has some catching up to do.) Her coinage generated some excellent analysis from both Mark Liberman at the Language Log blog (who found earlier examples of the word in several places, including in a 1984 science fiction story by John Sladek) and from Ben Zimmer, writing on VisualThesaurus.com, who was able to date its use back to at least 1925. In November the New Oxford American Dictionary named refudiate the word of the year for 2010.

In other new-words news, Oxford English Dictionary category, it’s wonderful that the OED now includes an entry for eggcorn (a word beloved of language enthusiasts, an eggcorn is a “mistake” that has its own kind of internal logic, like eggcorn for acorn, or expatriot for expatriate).

The dumbest story of 2010, wordwise, has to be the Global Language Monitor’s affirmation in late December that WikiLeaks is a for-real darn-tootin’ word of English. Calling WikiLeaks a “new media and high technology” company (it’s not; it’s a nonprofit organization), GLM asserts that the 300 million “citations” it has found for the name means that WikiLeaks is, by sheer force of numbers, officially an English word. Note that GLM didn’t make any assertions about whether WikiLeaks actually functioned as a word (for example, pointing out instances of people using WikiLeaked as a verb, which would be a reasonable argument), and didn’t give any instances of the citations used to make their determination. I’m all in favor of discussing how names become words, but it seems absurd to declare a “word” based purely on uncritical beancounting. By the same standard, the misspelling seperate, the number 101, and “Little Fockers” should all be considered English words now.

A much better story, in the real-language-scientists-finally-getting-some-respect department, is that two linguists won MacArthur Foundation “genius grants” this year: Jessie Little Doe Baird, whose project in Mashpee is working to revive the language of the Wampanoag Nation, and Carol Padden, a professor at the University of California San Diego who researches the structure and evolution of sign languages.

The best pronunciation story of the year was surely the air-travel-disrupting Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull (if you need a refresher, it’s pronounced, roughly, AYE-yah Fyat-lah Yir-kutl). And the best naming story? That would be the case of (we must say mild-mannered, whether he is or not) Richard Smith, 41, of Carlisle, England, who changed his name to Stormhammer Deathclaw Firebrand. Before the name change (as reported in May by the UK paper Metro) Mr. Smith was known to his friends as “Spiff.”

And it’s not really a news story, exactly, but if you have a minute to search online for “Stephen Fry kinetic typography language” you will not be disappointed by the video you find. Trust me.

All in all, 2010 was a great year for stories about words and language — here’s hoping 2011 is even better!

Erin McKean is a lexicographer and founder of Wordnik.com. E-mail her at erin@wordnik.com.
© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Banished Words

Lake Superior State University 2011 Banished Words List


It may have been word of the year in some wheelhouses, but "refudiate" wasn't looked upon favorably by many who sent in nominations for Lake Superior State University's 36th annual List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness, which was released on New Year's Eve.

In a busy U.S. election year, "the American People" told LSSU they were tired of not only "refudiate," but also "mama grizzlies" who wanted their opponents to "man up."

But words and phrases related to technology and the way we communicate dominated the list for 2011, including "viral," "epic," "fail," and the use of websites "Facebook" and "Google" as verbs. "Viral" received the most nominations.

The "back story" on LSSU's popular list began on Jan. 1, 1976, when former LSSU Public Relations Director Bill Rabe and a group of friends each contributed a few expressions that they disliked to form the first list. After that, the nominations stacked up for future lists and Rabe's group, known then as The Unicorn Hunters, didn't have to make up its own list again. LSSU receives well over 1,000 nominations annually through its website, lssu.edu/banished.

And now, here's a look at the 2011 list. Get ready for the "wow factor!" It's full of "epic" "a-ha moments" that are sure to "viral." It's a no-"fail" list that you'll be "facebooking" and "googling" with your "BFFs." "Just sayin'."

VIRAL

"Often used to describe the spreading of items on the Internet i.e. 'The video went viral.' It is overused. I have no objection to this word's use as a way to differentiate a (viral) illness from bacterial." Jim Cance, Plainwell, Mich.

"This linguistic disease of a term must be quarantined." Kuahmel Allah, Los Angeles, Calif.

"Events, photographs, written pieces and even occasional videos that attracted a great deal of attention once were simply highly publicized, repeated in news broadcasts, and talked about for a few days. Now, however, it is no longer enough to give such offerings their 15 minutes of fame, but they must be declared to 'go viral.' As a result, any mindless stunt or vapid bit of writing is sent by its creators whirling around the Internet and, once whirled, its creators declare it (trumpets here) 'viral!' Enough already! If anything is to be declared worthy enough to 'go viral,' clearly it should be the LSSU Banished Words list for 2011!" Lawrence Mickel, Coventry, Conn.

"I knew it was time when the 2010 list of banished words appeared in Time magazine's, 'That Viral Thing' column." Dave Schaefer, Glenview, Ill.

"I didn't mind much when 'viral' came to mean an under-handed tactic by advertising companies to make their ads look like pop culture. However, now anything that becomes popular on YouTube is suddenly 'viral.' I just don't get it." Kevin Wood, Wallacetown, Ont.

"Every time I see a viral video on CNN or am asked to 'Let's go viral with this' in another lame e-mail forwarded message, it makes me sick." Lian Schmidt, Bandon, Ore.

EPIC

More than one nominator says the use of 'epic' has become an epic annoyance.

"Cecil B. DeMille movies are epic. Internet fallouts and opinions delivered in caps-lock are not. 'Epic fail,' 'epic win', 'epic (noun)' -- it doesn't matter; it needs to be banished until people recognize that echoing trite, hyperbolic Internet phrases in an effort to look witty or intelligent actually achieves the opposite." Kim U., Des Moines, Iowa.

"Over-use of the word 'epic' has reached epic proportions. Tim Blaney, Snoqualmie, Wash.

"Anything that this word describes in popular over-usage is rarely ever 'epic' in the traditional sense of being heroic, majestic, or just plain awe-inspiring." Mel F., Dallas, Tex.

"Standards for using 'epic' are so low, even 'awesome' is embarrassed." Mike of Kettering, Ohio.

"I'm sure that when the history books are written or updated and stories have been passed through the generations, the epic powder on the slopes during your last ski trip or your participation in last night's epic flash mob will probably not be included. This may be the root of this epic problem, but it seems as if during the past two years, any idea that was not successful was considered an 'epic-fail.' This includes the PowerPoint presentation you tried to give during this morning's meeting, but couldn't because of technical problems. Also, the ice storm of 'epic proportions' that is blanketing the east coast this winter sure looks a lot like the storm that happened last winter." DV, Seattle, Wash.


FAIL

One nominator says, "what originally may have been a term for a stockbroker's default is now abused by today's youth as virtually any kind of 'failure.' Whether it is someone tripping, a car accident, a costumed character scaring the living daylights out a kid, or just a poor choice in fashion, these people drive me crazy thinking that anything that is a mistake is a 'fail.' They fail proper language!"

"Fail is not a noun. It is not an adjective. It is a verb. If this word is not banned, then this entire word banishment system is full of FAIL. (Now doesn't that just sound silly?)" Daniel of Carrollton, Georgia.

"Mis-used. Over-used. Used with complete disregard to the 'epic' weight of the word. Silence obnoxious reality TV personalities and sullen, anti-establishment teenagers everywhere by banishing this word." Natalie of Burlington, Ont.

"It has taken over blogs, photo captions, 'status' comments. Anytime someone does something less than perfect, we have to read 'FAIL!' The word has failed us all." Aaron Yunker, Ishpeming, Mich.


WOW FACTOR

"This buzzword is served up with a heaping of cliché factor and a side order of irritation. But the lemmings from cable-TV cooking, whatever design and fashion shows keep dishing it out. I miss the old days when 'factor' was only on the math-and-science menu." Dan Muldoon, Omaha, Neb.

"Done-to-death phrase to point out something with a somewhat significantly appealing appearance." Ann Pepper, Knoxville, Tenn.


A-HA MOMENT

"All this means is a point at which you understand something or something becomes clearer. Why can't you just say that?" Audrey Mayo, Killeen, Tex.

BACK STORY

"This should be on the list of words that don't need to exist because a perfectly good word has been used for years. In this case, the word is 'history,' or, for those who must be weaned, 'story.'" Jeff Williams, Sherwood, Ariz.

BFF

"These chicks call each other BFF (Best Friends Forever) and it lasts about 10 minutes. Now there's BFFA (Best Friends For Awhile), which makes more sense." Kate Rabe Forgach, Ft. Collins, Colo.


MAN UP

"A stupid phrase when directed at men. Even more stupid when directed at a woman, as in 'Alexis, you need to man up and join that Pilates class!'" Sherry Edwards, Clarkston, Mich.

"Another case of 'verbing' a noun and ending with a preposition that goes nowhere. Not only that, the phrase is insulting, especially when voiced by a female, who'd never think to say, 'Woman up!'" Aunt Shecky, East Greenbush, NY.

"Can a woman 'man-up,' or would she be expected to 'woman-up?'" Jay Leslie, Portland, Maine.

"Not just overused (a 2010 top word according to the Global Language Monitor) but bullying and sexist." Christopher K. Philippo, Glenmont, NY.

"We had to put up with 'lawyer up.' Now 'man up,' too? A chest-thumping cultural regression fit for frat boys stacking beer glasses." Craig Chalquist Ph.D., Walnut Creek, Calif.


REFUDIATE

"Adding this word to the English language simply because a part-time politician lacks a spell checker on her cell phone is an action that needs to be repudiated." Dale Humphreys, Muskegon, Mich.

Kuahmel Allah of Los Angeles, Calif. wants to banish what he called 'Sarah Palin-isms': "Let's 'refudiate' them on the double!"


MAMA GRIZZLIES

"Unless you are referring to a scientific study of Ursus arctos horribilis , this analogy of right-wing female politicians should rest in peace." Mark Carlson, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

"These politicians in Congress say 'the American People' as part of what seems like every statement they make! I see that others have noticed it, too, as various websites abound, including an entry on Wikipedia." Paul M. Girouard, St. Louis, Mo.

"No one in Washington can pontificate for more than two sentences without using it. Beyond overuse, these people imply that 'the American people' want/expect/demand all the same things. They don't." Dick Hilker, Loveland, Colo.

"Aren't all Americans people? Every political speech refers to the 'American' people as if simply saying 'Americans' (or 'people') is not enough." Deb Faust, Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.


I'M JUST SAYIN'

"'A phrase used to diffuse any ill feelings caused by a preceded remark,' according to the Urban Dictionary. Do we really need a qualifier at the end of every sentence? People feel uncomfortable with a comment that was made and then 'just sayin'' comes rolling off the tongue? It really doesn't change what was said, I'm just sayin'." Becky of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

"I'm just sayin'...'I'm not sayin'''…Actually, you ARE saying…A watered-down version of what I just said or intended to say….SAY what you are saying. DON'T SAY what you aren't saying." Julio Appling, Vancouver, Wash.

"Obviously you are saying it…you just said it!" Catherine Wilson, Granger, Ind.

"And we would never have known if you hadn't told us." Bob Forrest, Tempe, Ariz.

"When a 24-hour news network had the misguided notion to brand this phrase as a commentary segment called, 'Just sayin', I thought I was going to wretch." Casey Conroy, Pleasant Hill, Calif.


FACEBOOK / GOOGLE as verbs

"Facebook is a great, addicting website. Google is a great search engine. However, their use as verbs causes some deep problems. As bad as they are, the trend can only get worse, i.e. 'I'm going to Twitter a few people, then Yahoo the movie listings and maybe Amazon a book or two." Jordan of Waterloo, Ont.


LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST

"It's an absurdity followed by a redundancy. First, things are full or they're not; there is no fullest. Second, 'live life' is redundant. Finally, the expression is nauseatingly overused. What's wrong with enjoying life fully or completely? The phrase makes me gag. I'm surprised it hasn't appeared on the list before." Sylvia Hall, Williamsport, Penn.

What Is Your Opinion?

Upcoming NewSouth 'Huck Finn' Eliminates the 'N' Word

By Marc Schultz
Jan 03, 2011


Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic by most any measure — T.S. Eliot called it a masterpiece, and Ernest Hemingway pronounced it the source of "all modern American literature." Yet, for decades, it has been disappearing from grade school curricula across the country, relegated to optional reading lists, or banned outright, appearing again and again on lists of the nation's most challenged books, and all for its repeated use of a single, singularly offensive word: "nigger."

Twain himself defined a "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read." Rather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave."

"This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."

The idea of a more politically correct Finn came to the 69-year-old English professor over years of teaching and outreach, during which he habitually replaced the word with "slave" when reading aloud. Gribben grew up without ever hearing the "n" word ("My mother said it's only useful to identify [those who use it as] the wrong kind of people") and became increasingly aware of its jarring effect as he moved South and started a family. "My daughter went to a magnet school and one of her best friends was an African-American girl. She loathed the book, could barely read it."

Including the table of contents, the slur appears 219 times in Finn. What finally convinced Gribben to turn his back on grad school training and academic tradition, in which allegiance to the author's intent is sacrosanct, was his involvement with the National Endowment for the Arts' Big Read Alabama.

Tom Sawyer was selected for 2009's Big Read Alabama, and the NEA tapped NewSouth, in Montgomery, to produce an edition for the project. NewSouth contracted Gribben to write the introduction, which led him to reading and speaking engagements at libraries across the state. Each reading brought groups of 80 to 100 people "eager to read, eager to talk," but "a different kind of audience than a professor usually encounters; what we always called ‘the general reader.'

"After a number of talks, I was sought out by local teachers, and to a person they said we would love to teach this novel, and Huckleberry Finn, but we feel we can't do it anymore. In the new classroom, it's really not acceptable." Gribben became determined to offer an alternative for grade school classrooms and "general readers" that would allow them to appreciate and enjoy all the book has to offer. "For a single word to form a barrier, it seems such an unnecessary state of affairs," he said.

Gribben has no illusions about the new edition's potential for controversy. "I'm hoping that people will welcome this new option, but I suspect that textual purists will be horrified," he said. "Already, one professor told me that he is very disappointed that I was involved in this." Indeed, Twain scholar Thomas Wortham, at UCLA, compared Gribben to Thomas Bowdler (who published expurgated versions of Shakespeare for family reading), telling PW that "a book like Professor Gribben has imagined doesn't challenge children [and their teachers] to ask, ‘Why would a child like Huck use such reprehensible language?' "

Of course, others have been much more enthusiastic—including the cofounders of NewSouth, publisher Suzanne La Rosa and editor-in-chief Randall Williams. In addition to the mutual success of their Tom Sawyer collaboration, Gribben thought NewSouth's reputation for publishing challenging books on Southern culture made them the ideal—perhaps the only—house he could approach with his radical idea.

"What he suggested," said La Rosa, "was that there was a market for a book in which the n-word was switched out for something less hurtful, less controversial. We recognized that some people would say that this was censorship of a kind, but our feeling is that there are plenty of other books out there—all of them, in fact—that faithfully replicate the text, and that this was simply an option for those who were increasingly uncomfortable, as he put it, insisting students read a text which was so incredibly hurtful."

La Rosa and Williams committed to a short turnaround, looking to get the finished product on shelves by February. Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: The NewSouth Edition will be a $24.95 hardcover, with a 7,500 first printing. In the meantime, Gribben has gone back to the original holographs to craft his edition, which is also unusual in combining the two "boy books," as he calls them, into a single volume. But the heart of the matter is opening up the novels to a much broader, younger, and less experienced reading audience: "Dr. Gribben recognizes that he's putting his reputation at stake as a Twain scholar," said La Rosa. "But he's so compassionate, and so believes in the value of teaching Twain, that he's committed to this major departure. I almost don't want to acknowledge this, but it feels like he's saving the books. His willingness to take this chance—I was very touched."

Some Quotes For The New Year

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Be prepared!


Some New Year's Day quotes and sayings can be funny and humorous and add inspiration (or indigestion) to our outlook for the new year.

As usual, our favorite humorist, Mark Twain, shows up. And our old buddy Anon sneaks in too!

Enjoy what lies ahead, my friends! Keep eyes and ears open, prepare to be amazed, look for the wonder around you and stop playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat!

(Do you know where that expression comes from?)


* "New Year's Day: Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." ~Mark Twain

* "An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." ~Bill Vaughn

* "Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right." ~Oprah Winfrey
* "Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning, but a going on with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us." ~Hal Borland

* "Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let every new year find you a better man." ~Benjamin Franklin

* "Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever." ~Mark Twain

* "Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to." ~Bill Vaughn

* "It wouldn't be New Year's if I didn't have regrets." ~William Thomas

* "Probably nothing in the world arouses more false hopes than the first four hours of a diet." - Samuel Beckett

* "New Year’s is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls and humbug resolutions." ~Mark Twain

* "The proper behavior all through the holiday season is to be drunk. This drunkenness culminates on New Year's Eve, when you get so drunk you kiss the person you're married to." ~P.J. O'Rourke

* "Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go." ~Brooks Atkinson

* "From New Year’s on the outlook brightens, good humor lost in a mood of failure returns. I resolve to stop complaining." ~Leonard Bernstein

* "Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits." ~Anon

* "New Year's Eve, where old acquaintance be forgot...Unless, of course, those tests come back positive." ~Jay Leno

* "New Year’s Resolution: To tolerate fools more gladly, provided this does not encourage them to take up more of my time." ~James Agate

* "New Year's Day is every man's birthday." ~Charles Lamb

* "Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account." ~Oscar Wilde

* "Your Merry Christmas may depend on what others do for you. But your Happy New Year depends on what you do for others." ~Anon

And finally - this fascinating thought -

"For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T.S. Eliot

First Thoughts

Happy Ewe Near!!

A common grammar topic this time of year is where to put that silly apostrophe in the phrases New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

The sentence above shows that the answer is Y-E-A-R-apostrophe-S. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the term new year refers to "the calendar year that has just begun or is about to begin following the 31st of December."

That means there is just one year that's new and being celebrated. The Eve—or the Day—belongs to that singular new year, thus the apostrophe comes before the S. The Oxford Dictionary of Current English spells out New Year's Eve and New Year's Day that way, too: apostrophe-S. To further reinforce this, the Gregg Reference Manual asserts that possessives in names of holidays are usually singular; New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are among them.

Many folks comment on this issue. Among the best can be found at The Punctuator. Look for the December 24th post. Rimpy does a great job with his blog!

But talking about where to hang an apostrophe in New Year's Eve and New Year's Day isn't enough for a complete post. So...

It could be said Scotland has had tremendous influence on the way the New Year's holiday is observed in the English-speaking world. Combine that with Scotland's own New Year's traditions and we have a number of linguistic lessons and new words to discuss.

One of those terms is Hogmanay. Hogmanay is used commonly in Scotland to describe New Year's Eve, but no one can exactly say for sure where it came from.

There are assertions supported by evidence that the word Hogmanay comes from Scandinavian languages, from Flemish, Anglo Saxon or Gaelic—but it probably comes from France. Given the historic alliances that existed between Scotland and France down the years, Hogmanay may have come from the French L'homme est n&3acute;, literally, "man is born," meaning for the new year.

On Hogmanay, the bells are traditionally rung at midnight and then one hopes for a first-footer; that is, the first guest to cross one's threshold in the New Year. The first-footer presents the homeowner with symbolic gifts: coal, for warmth; black bun, a traditional fruitcake; shortbread; salt; and whisky. And it's really good luck if it is brought by a dark-haired person. The feeling used to be that in the days of the Vikings, when a fair-haired person turned up, it might not necessarily be a good thing.

A New Year's tradition that is familiar to English-speakers everywhere is the singing of Auld Lang Syne. This is a song and poem that was written by Scottish poet Robert Burns. He was born in Ayrshire in 1759. He's quite a fascinating guy. He actually only lived until he was 37 but packed a whole lot into his life. He is famed as a poet, and to a certain extent a philosopher, too: some of his work is very, very deep.

Auld Lang Syne doesn't come from Scottish Gaelic but from Broad Scots or Lallans (Lowlands)—the dialect of southern Scotland. It means "long time since" or "long time past."

The song itself is actually quite a sad piece. It's a man talking to a friend who he has known since his childhood, and they're saying, We have a long history, so let's lift a drink to one another.

Lastly, Scots don't wish anyone "Happy New Year" until the actual new year arrives. Until that point, it is proper to say, "A good one to you when it comes."

It has now come.

HAPPY NEW YEAR dear readers!!