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October 9th, 2008
Let’s try to preserve the difference between “beside” and “besides.” The former is most commonly used to mean “alongside” or “near” (”they stood beside him all through the crisis”) or “not pertinent to” (”that’s beside the point”).
It’s also part of a perfect example of how idiom is not meant to be taken literally: “After he said that, she was beside herself,” meaning she was “wild or upset, as with fear, rage, etc.” Clearly, to actually be beside oneself is impossible, unless we’re talking about an out-of-body experience or perhaps time travel.
“Besides,” with the additional “s,” has the sense of something in addition or in contrast to: “Besides the legal questions, think of the expense.”
Neither should be confused with “B side,” which is the “flip side” of a phonograph record (remember those?). Usually, the A side had the hit song and the B side was rarely if ever played. “Flip side” and B side” can be used informally in a general sense in referring to “the reverse or opposite, often sharply contrasting, side, aspect, effect, etc. of something or someone.”
Sometimes the flip side is something you don’t find out about until it’s too late.
September 25th, 2008
Awhile back a reader inquired about using the phrase “pushed back” in reference to something that has been rescheduled for later. For example, when we report that trash pickup will be pushed back a day during a holiday week. The reader suggested it should be “pushed forward.”
It’s the old perspective thing again.
Most of us think of time as a continuous thing moving inexorably from past to future. Logically, then, “back” would be toward the past and “forward” would be up ahead on the calendar.
However, if you take the point of view that the future is moving toward us, something that is rescheduled earlier is moved forward and something that’s reset for later is moved back.
The logic may be a bit strained, but the idiom is sound. A Google search yields more than 4.4 million instances of “pushed back.” I didn’t check them all, but the ones I did all had the same sense of occurring later.
A search of “pushed forward” produces about 811,000 examples — meaning moved to an earlier date.
This time travel stuff is tough on everyone.
August 27th, 2008
Hyphens are much more common in adjectives than in nouns. Typical examples can be found in the “no” words: “no-cal” beverage, “no-fault” divorce, “no-frills” vacation, “no-nonsense” attitude, “no-win” situation and so on.
However, there is a small group of hyphenated “no” nouns, five of which are fairly common: “no-brainer,” “no-hitter” and “no-show,” the informal “no-account,” and “no-no,” still considered slang by the most recent Webster’s.
A less common one is “no-see-um,” called a pseudo-American Indian term, altered from “no see them.” It should be obvious why the term “biting midge” is considered more acceptable for this family of tiny, bothersome insects. (Some species actually attack humans and animals in swarms.)
“The Oxford Dictionary of Word Histories” says “midge” is of Germanic origin and from an Indo-European root shared by the Latin “musca” and the Greek “muia,” both meaning “fly.”
As you might suspect, “midge” is where the word “midget” comes from.
You just never know where a word journey will take you.
August 26th, 2008
The Associated Press Stylebook doesn’t like the term “user friendly.” It urges journalists to avoid it and rephrase, for example:
Instead of “The system is user friendly,” make it “The system is easy to use.”
I don’t agree with this. Webster’s finds “user-friendly” (yes, it hyphenates it) acceptable for meaning “easy to use, operate or understand: said especially of computer hardware programs, etc.”
It also says “-friendly” can be added to a word to mean “helpful to or safe for” as in “child-friendly” or “not harmful to” as in “environment-friendly.”
These all seem to be perfectly logical uses. I would much rather see a campaign to replace the term “friendly fire,” which is much too sanitized for what it means.
August 21st, 2008
When referring to degrees of “far,” the preferred usage — by far — is “farther” (or “farthest”) for physical distances and “further” (or “furthest”) for extensions of time or degree. So, we walk “farther” into the woods, but we look “further” into how we got lost.
As noted by Mark Davidson in “Right, Wrong, and Risky,” only “further” will work as an adjective meaning “additional,” as in “for further reading,” and as a verb for “to advance,” as in, “She decided to further her education.”
There’s also “furthermore” for “in addition; besides; moreover.” There is no “farthermore.” And “furthermost” is the same as “farthest,” but the former is fairly uncommon.
Theodore M. Bernstein, writing in 1978 in “The Careful Writer,” speculated that the use of “farther” would vanish within 50 years. But so far, it’s hanging in there.
August 15th, 2008
If you can’t trust the movie industry, what can you trust? Surely the most successful movie about golf ever made was “Caddyshack,” released in 1980. It’s also one of the most quoted films ever, at least among certain demographic groups.
Unfortunately, the preferred spelling for “a person who attends a golfer, carrying the clubs, finding the balls, etc.” is “caddie.” It comes from the Scottish form of the French “cadet,” and you have to bow to the Scots when it comes to the origins of golf.
The spelling “caddy” is the correct one for “a small container used for tea” (not tees) or storage devices for phonograph records and the like. It comes from the Malay word “kati,” a measure of weight slightly more than a pound.
When it comes to the plurals, however, they’re both spelled “caddies,” so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.
August 14th, 2008
Here’s another example of easily confused near homonyms: “detour” and “deter.”
The former means “to go around” or “to bypass,” and the latter means “to keep or discourage from doing something.”
We’ve all seen detour signs, especially this time of year at the height of road construction season. This connection with traffic makes “detour” an enticing choice when referring to trying to “deter” someone from hazardous driving pratices, but “deter” is the correct choice.
Noun forms are “deterrent” and “deterrence,” the latter also having a specific use as “the policy or practice of stockpiling nuclear weapons to deter another nation from making a nuclear attack.”
So “detour” is to alter the route and “deter” is to head off the journey.
August 13th, 2008
Everyone seems to want to weigh in on former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm’s comments about how Americans are a bunch of whiners, so I guess it’s my turn.
The verb “whine” is from an Old English word for “whistle through the air.” Whining traditionally is associated with a specific type of sound, “a peevish, high-pitched, somewhat nasal sound,” uttered “as in complaint, distress or fear.” Young children whine. So do some engines and electronic devices.
The definition Gramm was using is “to complain or beg in a childishly undignified way, as with a whine.” Now there’s a loaded word, which I imagine is why he chose it.
What most people are doing is not whining but complaining: expressing discomfort or dissatisfaction, finding fault or making accusations. The freedom of speech includes the freedom to complain. Yes, it can get tiresome, but the people who complain the most about other people’s complaining are usually the ones whose lives are the most trouble-free.
Retailers recognize that part of customer service is dealing with unhappy people. That’s why they have complaint departments. Sometimes people who have spent a long time in government forget that they are supposed to be serving the people, too.
So, whine on, America. Not everyone thinks all is well.
August 8th, 2008
The adjective “ravishing” is an upbeat word. It means “causing great joy or delight; entrancing.” The most common use I’ve heard is in reference to a woman as “a ravishing beauty.”
Unfortunately, the other associations with “ravishing” are not at all nice. The verb can mean “to seize and carry away forcibly” or “to rape (a woman).”
It’s sometimes confused with “ravage,” which is “to destroy violently; ruin.” There’s a connection in violence, but they are distinctly different. For starters, “ravishing” is done to people, “ravaging” is done to things.
In the final analysis, it’s advisable to avoid “ravish” because of its negative tendencies — unless, of course, that’s exactly what you mean.
August 7th, 2008
Awhile back, someone asked about the books I often refer to and how expensive they are. Yes, it helps to be on a mailing list, but the few books I have received were unsolicited with no strings attached. I don’t do actual book reviews, but these four have received a certain amount of publicity in my column and, recently, this blog.
I Googled the following four titles, and each time I was directed to Amazon, where apparently every book ever published is for sale, new and used, at bargain prices — plus $3.99 shipping.
“Garner’s Modern American Usage,” a hardbound book weighing in at nearly 900 pages, is available starting at $18.10.
“Right, Wrong , and Risky” by Mark Davidson starts at $11.70.
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th edition, the one I use because The Associated Press recommends it, starts at an amazing $7.95.
And you can get a paperback copy of John B. Bremner’s “Words on Words” for as little as $3.95 — all of the above plus shipping, of course.
You can build quite a library without ever leaving your home — if, as Groucho once said, that’s your idea of a good time.
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