Rebecca Lyles's Blog, page 4

Writing around whomever

John Greenleaf Whittier said, Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.”

To paraphrase Whittier, “Of all words neither bright nor clever, the most egregious is whomever.”

I don’t wish to participate in a debate over whether it’s the object of a verb or the subject of a dependent clause. I don’t really care, and most people would remain unconvinced if I argued the point anyway. It’s simply an ugly, pretentious-sounding interruption in the flow of thought and rhythm of the sentence. And if you use it, half of your audience will think you’re wrong, no matter what.

Whomever has a way of popping up in the middle of a thought, derailing the reader’s attention for a moment. Wait – is that – no, or is it? I’m not sure. What were we talking about?

It’s a toe-stubber. Like saying, “That’s a whole nother matter.” Nother? Whomever would say that is an imbecile.

We understand whoever (without the m) as the subject of a sentence or clause, but whomever is one of those words (like utilize) that seems to have no reason to exist. There is always a clearer, more graceful way to express your thought than utilizing whomever.

Here are some ways to execute a nifty detour around the problem:

Before: Seating preferences will be given to whomever signs up first.

After: Seating preferences will be given to those who sign up first.

Before: Whomever did this, we are going to find and punish them.

After: We are going to find and punish the people who did this.

Before: We have the right to vote for whomever we choose.

After: We have the right to vote for whatever candidate we choose.

Don’t allow yourself to be backed into a corner, forced to choose between whoever and whomever. Writing and speaking offer unlimited possibilities to be creative. This is not a rock-and-a-hard-place situation, it’s just a puddle on the sidewalk. So walk around it.

If neither A nor B sounds correct, disregard your inner voice (or whomever) and opt for a whole nother possibility. Utilize your imagination. Pick C!

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Ten comebacks for book people

Technology has changed our lives, in many ways, for the better. Each new generation embraces it and defines those who don’t as old folks. I read news online, and I take my e-reader on plane trips because it’s small and light. But I still love physical paper books.

Confirmed book people love to browse through libraries or bricks-and-mortar book stores. If a cover or title catches your eye, you can leaf through a few pages to see whether it’s worth reading. No waiting for a package to arrive, only to regret your purchase after reading a few pages. Sample pages viewable online are seldom predictive of the book’s value. My recycling bin is full of partially-read merchandise from Amazon.

So it hurts when a youngster accuses book people of being out of date and behind the times. As if addicted to sugar, they want the over-colorized, jazzed-up version of everything. Complete with animation, interpretation, and sound track. Funny – I thought the imagination was supposed to provide those.

If you’re a book person, here are some responses you can use the next time the Internet Generation chides you for being a fossil:

I can operate it without reading an owner’s manual.
I can underline, write in the margins, or attach sticky notes to the pages.
I don’t have to scroll or endure ad pop-ups all over the text.
Great works of literature just don’t “sing” on an iPhone screen.
It’s easy to find my place again after I stop reading. It’s called a bookmark.
It never crashes, times out, or loses power.
No loud music suddenly starts to play because I accidentally scrolled over an ad in the margins.
No record of my reading the book exists. Nothing places me (and my demographics or shopping preferences) on a mailing list.
If I drop it, it doesn’t break.
If it was written by someone I admire, an autographed copy becomes a cherished keepsake.

They won’t understand, of course, but you might feel better. And you can always unfriend them, block their email address, or set your preferences to filter out anyone under a certain age.

I mean, technology isn’t all bad.

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Negative options

Did you ever receive a credit card charge for something you didn’t (knowingly) buy? You have to follow up, dispute the charge, call Customer Service, exchange emails, and generally spend time and effort to resolve it.

If you can’t resolve it, sometimes you just pay the charge to make it go away. That, of course, is what the perpetrators of this evil practice are counting on.

Maybe you purchased or subscribed to something online and failed to click the tiny checkbox , following the unreadable disclaimer text, that said No Thanks. To your horror, that unreadable text obligated you to ongoing charges on the credit card you had just supplied.

Here’s the negative option at work:

If you don’t actively say NO, we’re going to take that as a YES.

An even more insidious version of the negative option is at work on social media. It appeared on email a few years ago, and has since infected Facebook, Twitter, et al., ad nauseam. (OK, enough Latin.) The point is that it’s everywhere. The goal is apparently not money. It purports to be participation or endorsement. The underlying purpose is not clear, and that’s the problem. Its message is:

If you don’t actively say YES, we’re going to take that as a NO.

Here are some examples:

Photo of a dying child. “Can I get an AMEN?”
Photo of person with shocking deformity: “LIKE if you think I’m beautiful.”
Sad animal: “SHARE if you’re against animal cruelty.”
Photo of wounded veteran: “COPY AND PASTE if you support our veterans.”

The implication is that if you don’t respond as they ask, you are a heartless, cruel, sub-human, awful person. There is no room for these responses:

I don’t know the source of that photo.
I don’t even know if that photo is real.
Where do you send my personal information if I respond?
Does this put me on some list?
Is there a legitimate charity involved?
I don’t have time to research this.

It’s a new form of emotional blackmail even more intrusive than those unwarranted charges on your credit card. If you have to depend on negative-option responses to make a point, maybe your real point is not so legitimate.

I have book coming out in the spring. If you don’t buy it, read it, and give me a great Amazon review, I will assume you have no taste and that you probably can’t read anyway. I will never speak to you again.

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Foddities, quoibles, and irks

Although English grammar and usage usually mean serious business, the idiosyncrasies of our language provide endless fodder for entertainment. Funny mistakes in speech or writing make us laugh. We’re willing to be amused at the expense of others, but did you know that several types of mistakes have serious names? Someone actually sat down, identified, and categorized these errors. Here are four of the most common:

Eggcorn

The eggcorn (not acorn) is almost an example of itself. It’s a misspelled word that sounds like the word you intended—a homophone. For example, “The gym was so crowded I had to weight in line” (instead of wait). Eggcorns are most often committed by people who are careless, don’t know the right word, or depend too much on Spellchecker. And, no, eggcorns don’t grow on oak trees.

Mondegreen

These happen when listeners misinterpret what they hear. The best examples of mondegreens are song lyrics. For instance the Beatles classic, “Hey dude” or the country song, “Donuts make my brown eyes blue.”

Malapropism

A malapropism substitutes a wrong word for one that sounds similar. Norm Crosby, a comedian popular in the 1970s, made a career on such quips as, “I went to the tailor because my pants needed an altercation.” Yogi Berra, famous for his malapropisms, was probably being more clever than careless when he said, “Texas has a lot of electrical votes.”

Spoonerism

To make a spoonerism, mix up the sounds in a familiar phrase. It’s sometimes called a slip of the tongue or, to parody itself, a tip of the slung. Examples:

A lack of pies (pack of lies)
One swell foop (fell swoop)
Is the bean dizzy? (dean busy)
Goldybear and the Three Locks (Goldilocks and the Three Bears)

The pratfalls that characterized comedians like Dick Van Dyke and Chevy Chase were funny because they made them look like accidents. Good eggcorns, mondegreens, malapropisms, and spoonerisms are best when discovered in the wild, like rare bird species. If you’re tempted to use any of these devices in your writing for humorous effect, be forewarned: creating them on purpose is counter-intuitive and harder than it looks.

It’s like saying:

I’m working very hard to become carefree and spontaneous!

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Be a sport

Sales employees are often treated like athletes. Managers’ pep talks inspire sports-like attitudes and focus on winning. Score the deal, win the quarter, beat the competition. Encouraging words—go, fight, win—could be lifted straight from the famous locker room speech delivered by Pat O’Brien in the 1940 movie Knute Rockne All American.

Oddly, that film and the sports movies that followed have been used to inspire generations of young sales managers to talk as if they were stuck in the 1940s. Inspirational sales training is seldom without Lou Holtz, John Wooden, or Vince Lombardi quotations.

The idea is to inspire your team players in the locker room … to carry that energy into their field performance. Right? But—just a suggestion—maybe the best way to relate to a culturally diverse customer base is not with business jargon based on male-dominated American sports.

Despite the globalization of business, provincialism persists. Corporate mission statements, white papers, sales presentations, and employee communications still use language like this:

swing for the fences (baseball)
you have to punt (football)
hit into the rough (golf)
down for the count (boxing)
slam-dunk (basketball)
the ball is in your court (tennis)

The point is not political correctness—a phrase some like to use as a pejorative—it’s communication. To persuade a potential customer to buy, you need to make a connection. Gain trust and credibility. If the prospect is a woman or anyone born outside the USA, American sports-talk might be fine. Women are into sports and some American sports are popular in other countries. But it also might reek of an exclusive little club that doesn’t include them. Why take the chance?

Turn the situation around. Imagine you’re the potential customer and a sales rep keeps talking about beamers and googlies and wrong ‘uns. Unless you’re a cricket fan, it probably doesn’t make any sense. Even if you are a cricket fan, it still might not make any sense.

Imagine a former figure skating champion pumping up her team of burly male sales reps to increase their numbers in the coming week:

“Guys! Last week was a bailed axel and a wrappy credit card triple Sal with a three-turn.

Now get out there and nail me a quad!”

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Reading the signs

No matter how many times you hear “Readability matters,” it’s easy to forget that it does. Maybe in your line of work you don’t hear ever that. Consider it one of those things you might need to know someday.

Perhaps you’ll need to post a sign in the break room at work. Instructions for using the coffee maker. Maybe a warning for co-workers not to eat your lunch or leave dirty dishes in the sink. Remember … the rules for readability in printed text also apply to signs. And if your sign is posted on a street, to be viewed from a moving vehicle, take the readability tips and multiply them by ten.

I live in a high-visibility, desirable location for posting signs. Real estate signs. Garage sale signs. Lost pet signs. The pet signs always make me sad, especially because many of them are nearly unreadable. If you feel the need to post a sign and it’s important to you that people read it, remember these tips:

WRITING SOMETHING IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS DOES NOT MAKE IT MORE READABLE.

The most readable text (for more than a couple of words) is called sentence case. That means the first letter is capitalized, but the others are not. Just like a sentence.

The fewer words, the better.

Ask yourself if the person reading your sign is going to stand there and endure a long explanation … of anything. Especially an inventory of the great stuff you’re unloading at your garage sale.

If you misspell words or use incorrect apostrophes, some people will laugh at your sign.

They might even take a photo of it and publish it on a website dedicated to funny signs. Or correct the mistake (with a comment) on your sign. Or write about it in a blog.

Use appropriate materials if you want readers to take your message seriously.

In the break room at work, don’t use a paper towel. Recently someone left an enormous garage sale sign, leaning against a street lamp post, in front of my house. It  was illegibly scrawled on a piece of oddly-shaped drywall and weighed more than I do. And for your Open House sign, don’t use the side of a cardboard box. Those are for begging at freeway on-ramps.

Neon-colored poster board might get attention, but it fights with your message.

It’s difficult to achieve good, readable contrast with neon magenta, acid green, or cosmic orange. People see your sign but forget what it said. Use a plain white or light neutral background.

Use bold, clear lettering you can easily read from several feet away.

Who would hand-letter a sign with a ballpoint pen, on neon cardboard, then post it beside a road with a 60 mph speed limit? More people than you would think. The result is a waste of time and a blight on the landscape.

“Honey, stop the car. I want to read that ugly, verbose, faintly lettered sign over there,” said no one, ever. If you’re going to all the trouble to drive around and put up signs, you can at least make them readable and effective. Otherwise, it’s just called littering.

I hope you find your cat, make a bundle at your garage sale, and attract lots of visitors to your Open House. Go forth and spread your message with well written, readable, attractive signs.

Just don’t post them in my front yard.

OK, you can post the cat sign.

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Not sorry

Funny thing about apologies. People often say “I’m sorry” when they’re clearly lying, and that makes everything worse. If the speaker is looking at the ceiling, exhaling audibly, and rolling his eyes, you probably assume the apology is not genuine. Usually, it’s easier to acknowledge the appearance of an apology and just let it go. Even if you don’t say it aloud, you’re probably thinking, “Fine. Whatever.”

Social media teems with memes, gifs, blogs, and websites devoted to sorry-not-sorry apologies. In fact, #sorrynotsorry is a hashtag. I guess that means it’s a thing.

Parents pull brawling siblings apart and force them to apologize to each other. The kids are still angry about whatever caused the fight, and no one is even close to sorry about it. So why do we teach children to lie about their feelings? Might it be better to simply declare a truce?

Note to Secretary of State: Warring countries should just shake hands and agree not to bomb each other. No need to pretend-apologize.

Several former bosses and a couple of people I’ve known my entire life have the same distinction: I’ve never heard them utter a single sincere apology. You know the type … backing down is weak, everyone else is to blame, I’m always right. Period. If one of these people ever tells you “I’m sorry,” it usually means:

I’m sorry you can’t take a joke.

I’m sorry you’re so super-sensitive.

I’m sorry you don’t understand the situation.

I’m sorry you can’t take a punch.

I’m sorry you don’t realize I was right.

I’m sorry I got caught.

Instead of pretending to be sorry when you’re not, turn your attention to the situation. If it demands a response from you, try something like:

It’s a regrettable situation.

Too bad this happened.

How can we resolve this?

Let’s move on.

The words, “I’m sorry” carry more weight when they’re heartfelt. It’s easier to accept an apology when you believe it … with one exception. A boss, teacher, or other authority figure reprimands you in front of the entire team or class and, afterward, learns he was wrong.  Later he says to you, privately:

I‘m sorry.

The only reasonable response (probably unspoken) is, “You certainly are.”

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The elevator speech

Many companies train their sales forces to memorize an elevator speech. Imagine you’re at a conference in a large hotel, and someone important (perhaps a known big potential customer) steps into the elevator with you on the 35th floor. She sees your conference badge and asks:

What does your company do?

In a few precious seconds, when the elevator reaches the lobby, the opportunity will be lost. Your heart is pounding … this is the moment you’ve trained for. It’s showtime. Your response has to be hard-hitting, concise, powerful. How can you do it in less than a minute? You recite the carefully crafted elevator speech.

Companies agonize over the elevator speech. Hordes of people brainstorm and revise, arguing about what to include and what to leave out. Sadly, these people are largely sales and marketing types … those most afflicted with trendy jargon:

Clumps of words ending in –tion

Application of communication information simplification implementation realization …

The -ize words

Optimize, productize, maximize, minimize, synthesize, digitize, utilize …

Gerunds (ending in –ing)

Improving, growing, increasing, migrating, illustrating, mitigating, extracting …

Words so overused that they mean nothing

It’s all about, it’s around, in terms of, from that perspective, in that space, paradigm, leverage, issue, ecosystem, landscape …

Everyone on the Elevator Speech Committee wants to get a word in. Or several. They stuff and keep stuffing until it’s a one-sentence monstrosity you couldn’t deliver in one breath unless you were a trained opera singer. And they’re pleased with themselves.

The sad result? Your big chance in the elevator finds you poorly armed. You really want to say:

We make software that helps you manage your data and saves you money – with the information systems you already have! How cool is that?

But the official company speech you’ve rehearsed probably sounds like this:

At our company, it’s all about documentation consolidation and integration of information around the automation space, utilizing and leveraging the solutions that deliver functionality in terms of a new business perspective paradigm, impacting how we maximize our alternatives in the optimization landscape without jeopardizing the capabilities of the existing legacy ecosystem.

When you reach the lobby, you’ll probably wonder why the prospect doesn’t ask for your business card. She seemed so captivated, mesmerized, transfixed.

Maybe she was having a seizure …

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Ripped from the headlines

Local newspapers often include brief sections on police and fire reports, I’m guessing, for two reasons. One is to explain why you heard sirens a couple of nights ago, and the other is to reassure you that your tax dollars are being spent wisely.

It’s not likely that any of these items will appear as plot lines on a TV crime drama any time soon. Famous novelists are not battling for the rights to these stories. But maybe that’s because they can’t figure out what really happened.

The police reports are allotted too little space for detail. Still, many leave you with unanswered questions. These reports are real, but the questions are hypothetical:

A 51-year-old woman complained of pain after a collision with an SUV, which turned into a restaurant.

Question: Like a transformer, the SUV pulled over, collapsed its tires, lifted a side window, and started selling tacos? I didn’t see that on the 11 o’clock news.

Better: .… collision with an SUV, which pulled into a parking lot.

One person was taken to the hospital in a two-car pile-up.

Question: They transported the victim to the hospital in the wreckage? Why didn’t someone call an ambulance?

Better: …. after a two-car pile-up.

Unclear antecedents are common, and the question is “Who did what here?”

A resident reported an unwanted hug from a staff member, which was reported to police by his father.

Question: Was the father reporting the hug or was he reporting the report? And whose father is he—the resident’s or the staff member’s?

Better: A resident received an unwanted hug from a staff member. The resident’s father reported the incident.

The final item on this police blotter:

Described by a witness entering a car “blistering drunk,” police arrested a 53-year-old

man for suspicion of DUI.

So many questions: Why was the witness entering the car? If the witness was drunk, why do we care how he described the police? Where does “blistering” fall on the scale of blood alcohol levels? And why was the man arrested for being suspicious? It doesn’t say he was arrested on suspicion … just for it.

This one actually has possibilities. A creative writer could construct an entire Dateline episode around it. I’m guessing that blistering is a blood alcohol level of about 0.16, just between blitzed and hammered. Worse than schnockered but not as bad as wasted.

Medical terms are always confusing.

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Not quite parallel

You know that vague, disquieting feeling you get when something is just a little off … but you don’t quite know why? You read or hear a sentence that makes a kind of sense, but it’s just wrong somehow .

A picture hangs atilt on the wall. Someone whistles off-key. You live in a house with no 90-degree corners and the walls are all accidental trapezoids.

If those things don’t bother you, stop reading right now. You’re probably happier than the rest of us.
If you have a passion for sense-making, you’ll appreciate parallelism.

English usage employs many devices that insist on it. A singular subject takes a singular verb. For instance, you would not say:

I walks my dog twice a day.

If you would say that, see Step 1. Otherwise, read on.  Here’s a radio ad that misses the mark. Only slightly, but a miss is a miss:

We can give you a loan in as quick as ten days.

“As quick as ten days?” Ten days is a measure of time, not speed. A quick cheetah might run 35 miles per hour, but a quick loan would be funded in as few as ten days. Or as little as ten days’ time.

An event announcement states:

A reception will be held between 1 to 5 PM.

A case of mixed pair-word conjunctions. The parallel pairs are between-and and from-to. It’s either:

between 1 and 5

– or –

from 1 to 5

In another pair-word conjunction not only—but also, the verb placement makes all the difference:

She not only paints portraits but also landscapes.

When paints comes after the not only, it implies that the artist plants and maintains yards as a sideline. To describe her skills in two painting styles, say:

She paints not only portraits but also landscapes.

Or you could repeat the subject and verb:

She not only paints portraits but she also paints landscapes.

Still, you must admit, parallel or not, that someone who can render a fine likeness in oils or acrylics … then whip your lawn into shape… deserves our admiration.

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