MLB Managers Get E’s for Grammar

While it’s not part of their official job description, two Major League Baseball managers provided useful grammar lessons this week. Who says sports isn’t educational?

Mariners manager Eric Wedge (center) addresses players at spring training.

Seattle Mariners manager Eric Wedge benched starting shortstop Brendan Ryan after the normally slick-fielding Ryan failed to complete two double plays because of poor relay throws to first base. Asked whether he told Ryan why he was sitting, Wedge said to reporters, “I think it’s inferred.” Seattle Times reporter Geoff Baker blogged that Wedge had replied “with a long, drawn-out roll of the r’s” to emphasize his point.

Sorry, Skip, but it’s “E-Wedge” on that one. Riding the bench might make Ryan infer that was his manager’s message, but Wedge was actually trying to imply it, not infer it.  Use “imply” when something is suggested without being explicitly stated, and use “infer” when someone is trying to arrive at a conclusion based on evidence. To imply is active: Wedge’s action with Ryan implies that the manager is benching the shortstop because of the poor defensive execution, while Ryan might infer that Wedge didn’t think highly of his recent level of performance.

Eric Wedge

Wedge certainly comes across as a stern, no-nonsense guy in his media interviews and also in recent TV and radio commercials in which he talks off-the-cuff about winning and player accountability when they come to the ballpark.  Current Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen, on the other hand, has as a former player and then a manager with the Chicago White Sox, carefully developed a different persona:  a full-nonsense guy. If Major League Baseball were casting the new film version of the classic TV comedy The Three  Stooges, Ozzie could easily play Larry, the one with curly hair. Ozzie tried to blame his latest gaffe, praising Fidel Castro in a Time magazine interview, as an unfortunate facet of English being his second language (he was thinking one thing in Spanish but saying another in English, he claimed). Still, Guillen appeared genuinely contrite at his press conference held to explain his comments and admitted the furor has left him sad, embarrassed and feeling stupid. “I am stupid,” he said at one point, “but I’m not dumb.”

Ozzie Guillen

Well, not exactly. If Ozzie had wanted to say he was “incapable of human speech,” he would have been correct, but obviously lying. However, since “stupid” and “dumb” are really synonyms (both defined as “lacking intelligence”), then Ozzie’s statement is clearly incorrect. If Ozzie admits that he’s stupid, he is also admitting he’s dumb – about as dumb as he was when he started praising Fidel Castro in the first place.

Of course, using baseball managers as examples of proper wordsmithing implies they ought to know something about it. They don’t. That’s why they need an editor.

How to Avoid Common Grammar Goofs

Sometimes you come across something so good that you wish you had thought of it yourself.

I just love “15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly” on Copyblogger, particularly the way writer Brian Clark and designer-illustrators at BlueGlass have put them together visually.  I advise anyone who has to occasionally write letters or presentations for business, or even in personal situations, to print out this list, hang it  above their computer screens, and look at it whenever there’s any doubt about what word or usage is needed in these common situations. You certainly don’t want to be the one looking silly, either.

f your writing needs more attention than merely avoiding the errors on this list, however,  it might be time to find an editor. Your words should always leave the right impression.

Sorting Out a Real Dilemma

Spring training in Arizona.

Baseball’s spring training is in full swing, giving followers of our national pastime their annual opportunity to blow the dust off their stable of  horsehide clichés for another season. From every training camp in Florida and Arizona, including that of my adopted team, the perennially woeful Seattle Mariners, local media coverage will be full of  “things have never looked better,”  “he showed up in the best shape of his career” and “the offense will improve. These are major-league hitters.” Even if they hit .188, apparently.

In the Washington Post, baseball beat reporter Adam Kilgore tried to display overwhelming optimism for the hometown nine when he wrote the decision by the Washington Nationals (or “Natinals,” as the jerseys of two players read during one game in the 2009 season) to limit pitching wunderkind Steven Strasburg  to 160 innings this season might cause “a pleasant, yet thorny, dilemma”  for the Nats if they find themselves in a playoff race next September.  A playoff appearance would be their first since moving to Washington from Montreal in 2005; would they risk Strasburg’s future to get a playoff berth now?

Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.

However,  Nats fan and self-appointed Proofreader General of the United States Roland Sweet points out that  Kilgore’s copy editor should have trashed that description, specifically the “pleasant” part. Dilemma denotes a choice between equally unpleasant alternatives: a lose-lose situation.

In baseball terms, the opposite of a dilemma would be the New York Yankees trading their expensive yet ineffective left-hander A.J. Burnett and nearly $20 million to the Pittsburgh Pirates for two minor leaguers. This action not only cleared space in the Yankees’ starting pitching rotation for better alternatives, but also allowed the Bronx Bombers enough payroll space to sign two-time Seattle Mariner Raul Ibanez, a mainstay of the Philadelphia Phillies’ championship season, as their primary designated hitter. Dump a chump, sign a champ. That’s what’s known as a win-win proposition.

Home of the Washington Natinals.

Back to dilemma.  According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, “Although some commentators insist that dilemma be restricted to instances in which the alternatives to be chosen are equally unsatisfactory, their concern is misplaced; the unsatisfactoriness of the options is usually a matter of how the author presents them. What is distressing or painful about a dilemma is having to make a choice one does not want to make.

“The use of such adjectives as terrible, painful and irreconcilable suggests that dilemma is losing some of its unpleasant force. There also seems to be a tendency toward applying the word to less weighty problems (the New York Rangers solved their goaltending dilemma).

When you can’t sort out your own writing dilemma, perhaps a professional editor can help. When it comes to predicting baseball’s pennant races, however, you’re on your own.

Everyone Can Use Editing, Even a Genius

While skimming my daily news digest from Crosscut.com, the Seattle-based website whose slogan is “news of the great nearby,” this headline immediately caught my eye:

New dance proves that even MacArthur ‘Geniuses’ need some editing

The article, by Seattle arts consultant and former dancer/choreographer Spider Kedelsky, reviews Limited States, a new dance and mult-media work by Shen Wei, a Chinese born choreographer and visual artist, and his 11-member company, Shen Wei Dance Arts. Shen, who has been based in New York City since 1995, was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Genius Fellowship in 2007.

Shen Wei: Multi-tasker can use an editor.

Kedelsky criticizes Shen Wei for simply trying to do too much in his 75-minute work.  “Shen is himself something of a multi-tasker, credited not only with the concept and choreography, but the video and animation of last week’s show, of which he is also a co-creator of the costume and lighting design,” he writes. “Shen Wei is clearly a gifted artist…still, after seeing his work for the first time, a focus on less might have been more.”

In business writing, as in performance dance, multi-tasking can be distracting, even if you’re not a genius. That’s why even the best of us can use an editor.

How to Write Like Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney: A man of few words.

Following the Nov. 4 death of CBS 60 Minutes essayist Andy Rooney, a Seattle Times editorial  praised his commentaries not only for their wit, but also for being a marvel of brevity.

“His ability to craft those commentaries was a special gift,” the editorial read.  “A classic newsroom excuse is ‘I didn’t have time to write short.’ Bright, tight and brilliant is not easy. Andy Rooney spoke volumes in a few dozen words.” 

Writing is hard. Writing short is even harder, and most people don’t have the time to do it right. That adage originates in a quote from Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), a French philosopher and mathematician who at age 18 invented the first calculating machine. In his Lettres Provinciales (1656, No. 16), a defence of Jansenist doctrine, Pascal wrote, “I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short (Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue parceque je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.”

Writing is hard, and writing short is even harder. Not only does it take time, but it also forces you to be critical of your own initial efforts. You may well save yourself time and also get a better finished product if you have someone else polish your words. If you just take enough time to write a first draft, or even a list of major points, an editor can organize and rework your thoughts into a consistent, more persuasive document. It may not end up as witty as an Andy Rooney monolog, but it will look professional and get your points across effectively. Look here for some examples.

How to Use Adverbs Correctly

The other day on the radio I heard a football coach deride his own game plan: “We played too cautious,” he admitted. My ears recoiled instinctively, knowing the adverb “cautiously” would be the correct way to phrase that sentence.

Most of the time, adding an “ly” to the end of a modifier changes an adjective (which modifies a noun) to an adverb (which can modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb). In some cases, however, that “ly” can cause trouble.

“More important,” the coach added, ” was our inability to execute on offense or defense.”

Or should he have said, “More importantly?”

The correct phrase is “more important,” and the same goes for “most important.”  They are often, if not always, shortened versions of “what’s more important” or “what’s most important.”

Using the full phrase “what’s more importantly” in a sentence illustrates the error: “What’s most importantly is that we get good line play,” the coach said. That sentence doesn’t make sense. (Of course, the full version would start, “What’s most important is that…).

Another online source says “more important” and “more importantly” are used interchangeably in all kinds of text and by reputable writers, which means that there’s no reason not to use “importantly.” Except one: It’s wrong. Writers aren’t necessarily grammarians, which is why even writers of high repute can use an editor.

Here’s a cute video from School House Rock about adverbs and what they do.

When you can’t be your own best editor, try another trained set of eyes.

Punctuation for the 21st Century

The constantly shifting sands of grammar and usage has been a frequent topic on this blog. Punctuation, a major subset of grammar, is a frequent source of disagreement and confusion.

The interrobang in Palatino Linotype.

A recent Wall Street Journal article by Henry Hitchings (“Is This the Future of Punctuation!?”) delivers a lighthearted history of punctuation marks and also discusses some others, historic and current, that I have never heard of.  The interrobang , for instance, is a combination of an exclamation mark and a question mark. According to  language  expert Michael Quinion,  a New York City ad agency invented it in 1962.

“For decades,” Quinion writes, “advertising copywriters had used both marks together to imply various blends of question and exclamation. The combination might indicate a rhetorical question allied with an exclamation, or a shout of wonder and curiosity. It might also mark that mixture of incredulity and dismay which any parent may produce at stressful moments: “You did what?!’”

Interesting, but most of us find it hard enough to keep track of the punctuation marks we already use. But if you’re among the many who have trouble remembering whether to write it’s or its, or when to use a comma, a dash or a semicolon, there’s no reason to get your shirt in a knot over it. Just hire an editor to get it right for you.

Hitchings’s latest book, The Language Wars: A History of Proper English, has just been published.

Typewriter Art: Finding New Use for Near-Extinct Machines

Manual typewriter artwork from Mike Greenstein's business card and website.

My friend and frequent art director Melissa Snavlin gets the credit for choosing a manual typewriter as the artwork for my business card (thanks again, Missy, it’s still working for me!)  The image is of course intended to characterize my writing and editing business as traditional, steady and dependable.  That’s the way I see it, anyway.

Recently I read about another American artist who is taking the practically extinct typewriter in an entirely different artistic direction. According to this piece by writer Simone Preuss, Oakland, Calif., artist Jeremy Mayer takes old typewriters and reassembles them to look like human heads and bodies. Mayer has been building these sculptures since 1994, using nothing but old typewriter parts. According to the article, some of his work has sold for  thousands.

To see his works and find out more, visit his website,  jeremymayer.com.

For the record, I don’t really use a manual typewriter anymore, having gone totally digital many years ago. Every time there’s a power outage, however, I wish I still had one.

If you’re ever at a similar loss for words, contact me. Maybe a good editor at a remote location can help.

Find Out What an Editor Does

The Editors’ Association of Canada (EAC) has published the 11-page brochure ”So You Want to Be an
Editor, “  a guide for people interested in editing as a profession. Many parts of it would also be beneficial for someone thinking about hiring an editor, explaining the many things editors do and the many reasons efficient communication is important in all fields.

Here’s favorite list in the brochure (edited by me, of course!):

1. Editors think for a living.
2. Successful editors turn their love of language into a way to earn a living and have an impact on the world around them.
3. Editors are team players, often working with writers, publishers and other editors to reach a common goal.
4. Technology is changing the way that editors do their work and the types of documents they deal with, but not the reason for editing. An editor’s goal is always the same: to improve communication.

Nicely said.

EAC is making the brochure available for free. Read the text or download it as a PDF from
http://www.editors.ca/join_eac/be_an_editor/index.html.

Should Sleeping Dogs Lie or Lay, and Other Grammar Puzzlers

Grammar's burning questions confronted.

In the adage “let sleeping does lie,”  is “lie” correct, or should it be “lay?” Do members comprise a committee, or do they compose one? Head-scratchers like these come up often, and each time they befuddle me anew. But do they continually befuddle me? Or is “continuously” the word I’m looking for?

Thankfully, the answers to such perplexing questions are now but a few keystrokes away. Any time you’re not sure whether you’re using the correct word or phrase,  just type the words that confuse you into a search engine and you’ll turn up more choices for grammar answers than you’ll ever need–and almost as many opinions about what’s right.

Here are a few examples:

Lie or Lay?

You lay or place something, as in: Lay the carpet or lay the book on the table. But you lie on a bed or other flat surface.
Therefore, the following  sentences are incorrect: He is laying on the bed. Why don’t you lie it on the bed? The correct forms are:  He is lying on the bed; why don’t you lay the book on the bed?

Here’s where it gets really confusing: The past tense and past participle of  lay is laid (they laid the groundwork; he had laid the plans), while the past tense of lie is lay and its past participle is lain: He lay on the floor face down; she had lain in bed for hours.

Continuing, Continuous or Continual?

Sorry, these words are not interchangeable.

Continual implies recurrence at regular or frequent intervals–for example, playing baseball requires continual practice. Continual means duration over a long period of time, but with intervals of interruptions.  A corporation evaluates the effectiveness of its products and implements change on a continual basis.

Continuous means extending uninterruptedly in time: For example: a continuous rain fell in Seattle for two days. Continuous is duration that continues over a period of time, but without intervals of interruption. For example:  The plan called for continuous improvement.  The electric fan emitted a continuous whirring sound.

In some cases, however, continuous can be interchangeable with continuing. If we look at them both as adjectives, continuous means unbroken and continuing usually means from a given point onward. Both can describe time or distance.  Some examples:

At one time, Route 66 was a continuous length of highway, stretching from Los Angeles to Chicago.

Ever since I’ve known you, your complaining has been continuous. 

Your continuing tardiness will not be tolerated.  (into the future)

As a present participle, continuing is often used in verb forms and as a gerund:  Continuing with this charade would be a grave mistake! (gerund)

The train passed through St. Louis and was continuing to Chicago. (participial phrase)

She was continuing to annoy me.  (past progressive tense)

Comprise or Compose?

Comprise means “is made up of” or “consists of.”  The whole comprises the parts. Compose means “make up” or “”make.”  The parts compose the whole.

Incorrect:  The Beatles was comprised of four musicians.

Correct:  The Beatles was composed of four musicians.

Correct:  The Beatles comprised four musicians.

Correct:  Four musicians composed the Beatles.

Searching for answers.

Once again, in practice it’s not that cut-and-dried. What about the phrases “is comprised of” and “is composed of”? In her excellent essay on this subject, Grammar Girl notes, “One of these (phrases) is allowed among grammarians, and one is not. ‘Is composed of’  is OK. You can say, ‘Our nation is composed of many ethnic groups.’ On the other hand, most grammar sources agree that ‘is comprised of” is an incorrect phrase. Just as you can’t say, ‘The house includes of seven rooms,’ you can’t say, ‘The house is comprised of seven rooms.’ You have to say, ‘The house comprises seven rooms.’”

Even this rule may be changing, however. Grammar Girl cites a survey by the  American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style. The survey reports  that in 1965, 54 percent of the usage panel disapproved of the phrase “is comprised of,” whereas in 2005, 65 percent approved of it, and only 35 percent disapproved. This traditional distinction may be destined to fall by the wayside.

Confusing? Of course! So don’t frustrate yourself with such arcane rules. When it comes to getting your words shipshape, just hire an editor and let an expert decide.