New column: Take a deep breath
Wednesday, January 9, 2008 9:07 AM PST
By Cal FitzSimmons
Printable version
E-mail this articleOK, now exhale, breathe in slowly and exhale.
What have we accomplished? In addition to launching ourselves into the early stages of hyperventilation, we’ve also demonstrated the difference between breath and breathe.
Breath is what stinks after someone eats a jalapeño and sardine sandwich on rye. Breathe is what you try not to do if you’re standing near that person.
Now, I’m not about to let loose with a lecture on spelling, grammar and proper use of the English language, but there’s nothing to lose by pointing out a few common mistakes I see here regularly.
And that, folks, would be a demonstration of the difference between lose and loose. If you call someone a looser, you’ve lost the argument. You’re the loser, so to speak. If you say someone has lose morals you’re either using the wrong word or making your point in such an obtuse way you’ve lost your audience.
I’m not passing judgment on any of you. Internet blogs, e-mail, text messaging and instant messages have created a syntax cesspool. (Please note, there’s no “e” in judgment. Judge, yes. Judgment, not so much.)
Written communication, being so common, handy and immediate these days, has moved closer to the spoken word. Except you usually can’t tell when someone is misspelling a word or using the wrong one altogether when they’re speaking.
If someone says to you “my head hurt’s from beeting it against the wall,” you’re not wincing at the unnecessary apostrophe or wondering what vegetables have to do with anything, you’re thinking “let me step slowly away from this person who beats his head against the wall.”
Most often, people are typing so fast their fingers are speaking for their brains. In the name of immediacy, they fire off that message without reading it over. They resort to acronyms like BFF (bring fifty forks), WTF (wide tined forks), and ROFLMAO (rigid old forks like my aunt owned). Yes, they talk a lot about forks, for some reason.
OK, back on point. Not only have we gone from carefully hand-written letters to hastily banged-out screeds, but we’ve also … hold it. Did you see how that “not only” was eventually followed by a “but” and an “also?” That was a pet peeve of a former editor of mine. If you say “not only” you must at some point have “but also” in order to properly complete the sentence. (“As well” can sometimes do the trick, as well). That editor was obsessed with “not only,” … uh .. but also many other things. It was a pet peeve, though certainly not a pet peave.
But this full-frontal assault on the English language has had another effect. People are pushing back. They’re saying STFU (strive toward forked underwear). No, it makes no sense but it does give me the opportunity to say “effect” is usually a noun indicating a result, while “affect” usually is a verb meaning to influence.
An easy way to remember that one is with this sentence. “Hillary Clinton said a third-place finish in Iowa would have no impact on her campaign strategy.” See, you still don’t know if it was “effect” of “affect” so you say “impact.” Simple as that.
Though, you’ll still want to say “he gave a very affective presentation,” rather than “he gave a very impactive presentation.”
And believe me, you are not being very impactful if you post a butchered sentence on a message board, blog or forum. In fact, it is perceived as a weakness in your argument. Did you see that? It’s the old “I before e, except after c” rule in “perceived.” Well, as a neighbor once pointed out, that is a weird rule that should not be given much weight because there are a ton of exceptions. Perhaps in your leisure time you could find some that would heighten interest in getting rid of that stupid rule once and for all.
And when you’re done with that, you can return to my point about the backlash poor writing is causing. People are actually using it against each other as they argue online. Like this example:
kirk1andonly9336320: “You are a fool if you believe flat toothpicks have supplanted round, pointy toothpicks as the choice of most Americans. Your pathetic reasoning skills are exceeded only by your ineptitude in the field of pontification. Perhaps at some point you will realize your opinions don’t have no validity.”
Which would be followed by:
Picardisthebomb8675309: “How insightful. I’m sure your third-grade English teacher is especially impressed with your deft use of the double negative. As your writing skills directly reflect your intelligence, it is clear your opinions on toothpicks should be immediately disregarded, so SFTTM.” (Supply forks to taste meats).
See, the first post obviously was the more legitimate, as round, pointy toothpicks clearly are the favorite of most Americans, but by concluding the argument with a grammatical blunder that person opened the door for the ultimate trump card “if you can’t write properly, you are an idiot.”
But what we mock today can easily become the standard tomorrow.
Newspaper editors used to freak out about using host as a verb, as in “Betty will host the party.” They went nuts over that. And not just because Betty was a woman of questionable morals who had no business hosting any party for a whole host of reason. No, they’d say. Betty is the host. She can’t be hosting. Oh, believe me, Betty’s done more than her fair share of hosting, if you get what I’m saying, but they were relentless in enforcing the “host is not a verb” rule.
So setting Betty aside (which, sadly, most often happened) host eventually found its way into verbdome. (I know that’s not a word, so back off.) The dictionary dictators finally gave up. And since you’re so interested in Betty’s morals, you should know they have nothing to do with morale, which Betty actually had an uncanny knack of boosting. Knack, not nack. Though nick, nack a paddy whack is OK. Which brings us to OK. No periods, no spaces all caps.
Which presents us a good opportunity to say if someone asks you how you’re doing, the proper answer is “well,” not “good.”
Even if it feels like a bunch of angry red ants just crawled inside your ear, say “well.” Because the truth is, if you’re feeling poorly nobody wants to hear about it.
Speaking of which, this is probably a good time to end this column, though I’d be remiss if I didn’t add that rambling, unfocused writing also can be annoying.
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