Blog Entries for stevenl - May 2007

ABC interviews chimps

stevenl

As a follow-up to my post on songbirds learning grammar, comes this: ABC interviews chimps.

Interestingly, I once read a National Geographic article (I think it was in the early 1990's) in which a researcher described a single conversation (in American-Sign-Language) between 3 species: a human, a gorilla, and a chimpanzee. Here's an excerpt from the ABC article:

The Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa, is home to seven bonobos -- a close relative of the chimpanzee -- and t [...]

Extentions! (sic)

stevenl

Good news! If you're running behind on your taxes, you can always file an extension.

Many of those with editors, however, say you can file an extention. And they are wrong, wrong, wrong.

You'll find dozens of botched references to extention on Google News. For the record, it's extension. Extention isn't a variant.

Lethally dead

stevenl

My only stand is on behalf of better writing. I take no sides in the debate over capital punishment, which gives rise to today's point.

Too often, articles on Google News say someone is to be executed by lethal injection or is sentenced to be put to death by lethal injection. In each case, lethal is redundant. An injection that kills is lethal to begin with.

This type of redundancy also shows up in references to past accidents and disasters: deadly tsunami that killed ...; de [...]

Passively considering , actively seeking

stevenl

I am passively considering a career change. I'm passively pursuing a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. I'm passively engaging others in debate about better writing.

What is it that possesses bureaucrats to say they are actively considering, actively pursuing, actively engaging? For example, the paper told me this week my governor is actively considering a tax on 401k plans.

Is this like a submarine movie in which the captain searches with active and pass [...]

The wayward apostrophe

stevenl

It's called the wayward apostrophe, the superfluous apostrophe or the errant apostrophe. I call it the #@%*&$@ apostrophe. It's the erroneous use of an apostrophe in common plural words and in other contexts.

You've seen it: a carved sign declaring The Smith's live in the home; a scrawled banana's for sale; a menu listing fresh prawn's. Some usage guides call this a greengrocer's apostrophe, as it shows up so often in the produce section (orange's, gr [...]

Assessing the damages

stevenl

After a storm, tornado, hurricane, flood, etc., bureaucrats assess damages. Speakers of English assess damage.

After a flood, one bureaucrat was quoted in the newspaper offering "a statement of damages from the storm events we had." He added that more money "would help us to recover some of the costs for the damages that occurred."

This kind of bureaucrat-speak is why God created paraphrasing, GrammarHell.com suggests. We'll simply wince at storm events and [...]

Bloc vs Block

stevenl

Trying to bloc out time for a vacation? It'll never happen.

An alliance or alignment of people, groups, nations, investors, voters, etc., is a bloc. Block applies in any other case in which block or bloc is used.

Odds are when you read voting block, Soviet block, communist block, Eastern block, economic block or political block, someone has made a boo-boo.

Block as a noun covers "a quantity, number, or section of things dealt with as a unit," such a [...]

Disburse money to me

stevenl

An article says a certain state normally has so many millions of dollars each year to disperse to law enforcement. Unless officials plan to toss bills into the wind, letting cops run for them, the writer meant disburse.

This is a common error and warrants an especially involved entry in Garner's Modern American Usage. Disburse means to pay out, as from a fund. Disperse means to scatter or spread widely or in all directions.

Those with editors are as confused as anyone. You' [...]

A (boldly) going concern

stevenl

One grammar guide tells me Star Trek Capt. James T. Kirk should be reprimanded for splitting an infinitive when he says, "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Heresy, I say. Would it mean half as much if Kirk had said, "to go boldly where no man has gone before?" Yech.

A split infinitive occurs when a word, usually an adverb, separates the infinitive marker to from the verb (for more on infinitives, click here).

In general, you want to avoid splitt [...]

Songbirds may be able to learn grammar

stevenl

Check out this article I found online.

The simplest grammar, it says, can be taught to a common songbird. That's if you believe research some supposed expert has put forward.

The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests.

Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, accordi [...]

Foetry closes up shop

stevenl

Thanks Alan Cordle and Foetry.com!

If you weren't aware foetry.com (whose dedicated members doggedly pursue cronyism and cheats in the pobiz) has closed up shop. In there three years, foetry.com exposed some major universities, publishers, and well-known poets who were involved in contests and complicit in rigged contests-causing students, friends, and lovers to win.

This caught me off guard. Indeed, while posting seemed to be down on the site, no one thought they [...]

Newsbreaks from the New Yorker

stevenl

The New Yorker is my favourite. At its best, the writing in it is dizzyingly good. It's best feature are the clippings (which I learned are called newsbreaks, courtesy of this site).

They have been appearing in the New Yorker since its inception. They are submitted by readers and also fastidiously gathered by members of staff.

They were originally used when there were column inches remaining at the end of feature articles, but soon became a favourite feature in their own righ [...]