Two words to retire

Every now and then, words blast out of the lexicon and elbow their way into every article, blog, or tweet. Within weeks, their welcome is worn out because they're pushing other and perhaps more colorful words to the sidelines. With the speed of communication today, a word can become a cliche in about 48 hours.

My two candidates for the Boy-I'm-Really-Sick-of-These-Words Award are iconic and snarky. Chrysler and GM are iconic corporations that build iconic brands with iconic nameplates. I can live with that, I guess, but now I'm also reading every day about iconic TV shows. Iconic movies. Iconic foods. Iconic style. Even iconic sunglasses and lipstick shades. Not to be iconoclastic, but I bet we can stumble along with other words. Popular, perhaps, or well-known, or even beloved.

When someone recently referred to something I'd written as snarky, I thought it was relatively descriptive. But suddenly I have so much company in Snarkville that I'm thinking of moving out. Anything that's a little snide, a little sarcastic, a little cynical, is now snarky. I like having a choice. Will I be sardonic today? Or caustic? Sassy? Mocking? Maybe derisive or supercilious. But not snarky. Not anymore.

Let's all get out our thesauruses (I love that word; for me it always conjures up a really erudite dinosaur who wears thick glasses) and find some apt replacements for words that have lost their zing.

Some grammar simplified

Yesterday in a doctor's office, I read about some pain management techniques that the brochure said would "subside" my discomfort. Later, I heard a colleague describing how his company had "migrated" all its computers to a new operating system.

But here's a flash. Both migrate and subside are intransitive verbs. In other words, they never have a object. And in even more other words, things subside or migrate all by themselves; you can't subside or migrate them.

So the good doctor's techniques would not subside my pain, but would cause it to subside.

The second example, migrating computers from place to place, is more problematic because the verb itself, besides being intransitive, is just not a good description of the process. It might be better to say something such as, "Our computers are now running all new programs," or "We replaced our operating system with something that's more useful for our purposes."

Those examples are simpler, make more sense, and don't require tortured grammar. And, as Martha would say, those are all good things.

5 big proofreading mistakes

Whether you're writing for publication or business--or both--don't send out your first draft. Even the most seasoned writers make mistakes. I've found them on my own blog posts--and hit myself in the forehead for them. Many errors can be eliminated by careful proofreading. Here are some things to do to begin the correction process.

• Read headlines and subheads. You'll be surprised at how many mistakes you might find there. I once sent out an $11K print job with a headline that had the word "Suprise" in it--in bright teal type. Of course, I meant "Surprise."
• Watch for word substitutions. For example, look out for their if you mean they're, then if you mean than, or who's if you mean whose.
• Root out wrong word choices, such as laying for lying, insure for ensure, or compliment for complement. All of these are commonly misused.
• Check your punctuation, particularly apostrophes and plurals. It's men's room, not mens' room. It's children's clothing, not childrens'. Be careful when it comes to the word it's. It's means it is or it has (It's my party, or It's been a long time ...); its means belonging to it (Its special features include ...). There is no such word as its'. Don't even think about it.
• Use your dictionary to make sure your spelling is correct. Just today, I received an e-mail with a great example of this simple rule. A restaurant posted a sign saying it was closed because the kitchen was out of meet. Oh, come on.

To get it right, you have to proofread several times. Different proofreaders have different styles, but some read once for headlines, subheads, and pull quotes only; once for street addresses, phone numbers, e-mail and web addresses, and other factual data; once more for numbers, figures, and page numbers; again for missing or repeated words or letters, and spacing errors; again for spelling; and finally for sense. Although that may seem like far too much work, proofreading goes quickly when you read for one thing at a time rather than trying to catch every kind of error during a more global look-see.

Paying attention will make your writing more polished and professional.

Have to love closed captioning

Last night, as I was I was "reading" my TV to keep from wakening other members of the household, I saw an interesting ad caption. The product advertised was Nyquil. Three rather doltish characters were discussing another person's symptoms, which the caption indicated might be a result of his having "hoof in mouth disease."

This is a public announcement to the makers of Nyquil. If you're going to caption your ads, which you should, you also should make sure the captions are correct. There is no such disease as "hoof in mouth," unless a cloven-hooved animal has made a significant oral faux pas. Although humans may certainly have "foot in mouth" disease, animals have hoof and mouth disease.

And, by the way, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, which is common in children and not serious, is not related to hoof and mouth disease, which occurs in animals and can be fatal.

So, Nyquil folks, take your feet out of your mouths and fix the caption.

Scott McClellan's mistake

And I don't mean being press secretary to George Bush. I mean what I heard him say this morning while being interviewed about his new book What Happened. When speaking of President Bush, McClellan mentioned the great respect he held "for he [Bush] and his advisors."

No, Scott. For is a preposition. Correct usage dictates a prepositional object: "for him and his advisors." I don't think you ever would have said you had great respect for he, so, as I just said in a blog post a few days ago (which I guess you didn't read), if you wouldn't say it in the singular, don't say it in the plural either.

Is this mistake up there with some of the doozies of the past few years? Of course not, but it's the kind of error a former White House press secretary shouldn't make.

"Lay" and "lie." Why is this so hard?

I've resisted writing this post for a long time, but when I heard a colleague say that she had "lied in the sun," and she didn't mean she was outside telling an untruth, I figured it was time. This word pair is the one that is most often messed up, and myths abound about which is right and in what context.

I recently heard a radio call-in argument about the subject, and the host obviously had no idea which was correct. When a caller said that "things lay and people lie," the host said that was good enough for him and closed the discussion. How unfortunate that the caller was wrong. Things lie all the time. And people lay things. So let's start at the top.

Lay means "to put or place on a surface" and always requires an object--something put or placed. For example:

• I'll lay these reports (object) on the credenza in your office.
• When you've finished, lay your test booklets (object) in the box by the door.

If you use lay, you have to lay something. That's why, "I'm going to lay down for a while" is incorrect. There's nothing put or placed. However, "Now I lay me down to sleep" is correct because there's an object: me. However, in most cases we don't say, "I'm going to lay myself down," so lie is the correct word.

Lie means "to recline" or "to be positioned," and it doesn't take an object.

• Sue has to lie down in a dark room when she has a migraine.
• At this time of day, the sun lies just below the horizon.

When you want to talk about what happened in the past, the proper words are laid and lay.

• I laid the sweater (object) on the chair a couple of hours ago.
• Joe laid the report (object) on my credenza last week, but I can't find it.
• Sue lay down until her headache went away.
• The reports lay on the credenza for a month before anyone got around to reading them.

And the past participle (don't worry about the name; this isn't a grammar test) of these two words are laid and lain.

• I've laid the reports (object) on your credenza.
• I'd lain down for only a couple of minutes when the phone rang.

The present participle forms (the -ing form) are laying and lying.

• I'm laying tile (object) this morning.
• Don't call after noon. I'll be lying down. Tile work is exhausting.

The same rules apply to set/sit and raise/rise.

Set and raise always require an object. Sit and rise never have an object. For some reason, people don't have quite as much difficulty with these two as they do with lay/lie, although in my neck of the woods, I often hear, "Set down and make yourself comfortable." Here's how to use these word pairs.

• Please set the plant (object) in the corner.
• Please sit down.
• We'll raise the flag (object) at dawn.
• Please rise for the national anthem.

Because these words are misused so often, saying and writing them correctly may feel odd at first. Persevere. It's OK to be right.

The reign in Spain

There's an interesting car commercial running now. It states that "Joan of Arc reigned only five years." Really? I was unaware she ever reigned. As a matter of fact, Joan's fondest desire was to put someone else on the throne. There's no doubt that Joan had a significant influence on the course of history, but she wasn't a sovereign, and she didn't reign.

Recently, I saw a similar use of this verb in the context of a college president's "reign" over the campus. I know academic regalia is cool, but it generally doesn't confer royal power. That's why college presidents are installed during an inauguration rather than a coronation.

English is a language of subtleties, and, to me, "reign" as a verb has the connotation of kingly (or queenly) rule. As an adjective, though, "reigning" often has the opposite connotation, meaning commonplace or popular, as in the "reigning" opinion or fashion of a particular time.

One more thing to remember is the spelling of reign v. rein. A "rein" is part of a bridle, used to hold a horse in check. However, I can't tell you how many times in the past few weeks I've seen the phrase "to reign him/her/it in." The right word in that context is "rein" because it means to exercise control over something or someone.

And don't forget to take your umbrella when it reigns.

A pair of troublesome word pairs

It seems I'm picking on professors lately. That's not my intent, but they're interviewed a lot on public radio, which I listen to during my half-hour commute to work. I heard a gaffe from one recently that surprised me; since then, though, I've heard it several more times (it's funny how these things seem to come in waves). The professor was talking about the weather and referred to "climactic" conditions.

Sorry, professor, but thanks for playing. The word he was looking for was "climatic," which means pertaining to climate. "Climactic" would, of course, mean pertaining to a climax. For example:

• The environmentalists were concerned about several recent climatic changes.
• John was late and missed the climactic moment of the play.

And one more. Could we please, please distinguish between "serve" and "service"?

"To serve" means to meet the needs of another, such as a customer.

"To service" means to maintain. It also can mean to bring a stud to a female for breeding.

So whenever I hear, "We service our customers, " I wonder if perhaps the company might be going a bit too far. A simple handshake is probably all that's necessary.

I guess someone thought that "serve" was too pedestrian and "service" more high-toned and elegant. But, in fact, "serve" serves just fine.

Word pairs still troublesome

Yesterday I received one of those "healthy living" magazines from a local hospital. It contained an article about rehydrating after exercise. The doctor is quoted as saying, "Follow a regular fluid regiment." Because the writer or the doctor (or both) chose the wrong word of a similar word pair, the sentence doesn't make sense.

A regiment is a military unit of two or more battalions. However, a regimen is a specially prescribed course, usually related to diet or exercise. And a regime is the government in power.

The embarrassment potential for misusing these words is high because many people know the difference between regimen and the other two. If you're confronted with a troublesome word pair or triplet, your best friend is a dictionary. These three words--regime, regimen, and regiment--follow each other, so it's easy to check which one to use.

It's all about design

How many times in the last seven days have you heard or read in an ad, on a Web site, or in business collateral, "Our product (or service) is designed to ..."

• Make your life easier
• Save you time or money
• Improve your relationships
• Make you more attractive
• Solve your problem

Well, I don't care what it was designed to do. Does it actually do it? If so, say so. "Our product..."

• Cuts your cooking time in half
• Reduces wrinkles 95 percent in three nanoseconds
• Makes it easy for you to pay yourself first

If something is only designed to do something, it sounds as if it might fail. And if it does, that's somehow the customer's fault. "Well, it was designed to work. You must have done something wrong."

"Designed to" gives you some wiggle room, to be sure, but it also plants doubt in the customer's mind. Be bold. If your product works, stop waffling and stake your claim.

Drop these. Their time has passed.

Have you noticed some expressions that are creeping toward serious overuse? Once they seep into the water we hear them constantly, and they begin to lose their power and punch. Look out for:

• "A perfect storm." What this appears to mean is that all conditions are lined up to create an inevitable result. You'll hear the expression now related to politics (Clinton-Obama), economics (the housing downturn), the stock market, the energy market. The list grows every day. Keep an ear cocked for this one, and think twice before using it. People are getting tired of it.
• "It is what it is. " Well, of course it is. How could it be anything else? But when you use this one in business, you don't sound professional. You sound like an aging hippie or a mystic--and you aren't communicating anything of value.

Eat and die

Sometimes words that sound nearly alike have quite different meanings, and you can embarrass yourself when you use them incorrectly. For example, the words gourmand and gourmet both refer to food, but one of them is laudatory and the other is insulting. A gourmet is a person who is knowledgeable about food and appreciates fine cuisine and wine. A gourmand, on the other hand, is a hog. A glutton. Someone who will plow his or her way through whatever's on the table. So it's probably not a good idea to refer to the boss as a gourmand.

Recently, I've seen considerable confusion in another word pair: interment and internment. To inter is to bury. To intern is to confine someone to a specific location, such as a camp, usually during a time of war. So an interment is a burial and an internment is a type of imprisonment.

While I suppose we could argue that someone who's dead is imprisoned in a coffin-sized space, that's a bit of a stretch. Better to get it right than to try to talk your way out of that one.

Jargon rears its ugly head ...

... but it's funny. One of my henchmen recently ran across a site that touts its new software as very useful for "backupping." Oh, come on. There's a perfectly good phrase--backing up--that has served several generations of technology users. What's the point of a word like "backupping"? It's ugly, doesn't work, and makes the perpetrator of the phrase look silly.

Another of my spies has found a perfectly lovely misplaced modifier that made me laugh:

"His last billed part was in 1956, though he appeared in an uncredited bit part after his death." I'll bet his performance was a little stiff, though.

I found another in a publication I'd been asked to work on:

"This set of instructional materials is very useful for teachers with children." But what about childless teachers? Might they find the materials helpful in their classrooms, too?

These are cute little object lessons that illuminate a bigger point. In careful speaking and writing, the details matter. Really. Read. And then read again.

Web site up

My new Web site, www.midwestbookdocs. is finally up. I haven't optimized it yet, and there's lots of work to do, but it's out there, and if you want to find out what we do at Midwest Book Doctors or get in touch with us, this is the place to go for all the information.

I built the Web site with products from Go Daddy (www.godaddy.com.) The process was very easy and relatively quick. Most of my time was spent troubleshooting my own mistakes, not bugs of any kind. If you can't or won't pay a Web designer and you don't need many bells and whistles, this is a great alternative.

Recently, I've seen an uptick in mistakes in the word pair respectfully/respectively. Let's straighten it out. Respectfully means "with respect," while respectively means "in the order mentioned."

For example, "I took English 101, 102, and 103, with Professors Jones, Smith, and Brown respectively. " And, "All members of the staff should treat one another respectfully."

I'm in the process of proposing another book. I'll let you know where it leads.

A common mistake

One of the books I've written is called Talking Your Way to the Top: Business English that Works (http://www.prometheusbooks.com). The book contains several sections on mispronunciations, confused word pairs, buzzwords, euphemisms, jargon, and other mistakes that keep business English from being as clear as it might be. We're butchering the language daily, and it makes us sound pretentious and silly at the same time. Here's one I've heard frequently, the last time from a banker, who really should know better:

Promissary. Come on, Ms. Banker, the word is promissory. Remember that this word means a promise to pay money. One o in promise + one o in money = two o's in promissory. Now, wasn't that easy?