Word Wise

And Your Point Is?

In 1986 Hamilton, Ohio, changed its name to Hamilton! Ohio. Aside from its total weirdness (yes, Hamiltonians, while no doubt you’re lovely people, it is weird and it screws up comma placement and according to reports it cost $35,000 of taxpayers’ money to redo the city stationery), the exclamation point brings up a sore subject with lots of people – that is, exclamation points themselves. You’re either an exclamation point-type person or you’re not. And, it seems, like the divide between those who support Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, apparently the twain shall never meet. One of my favorite blogs, The Pirate Geek, recently referred to exclamation points as “louche and lazy.” Take that, Hamilton. But exclamation points have a long and proud history and I’m on their side. Really! I am! They’ve been around since the 15th century and originally were meant as a “mark of admiration.” The symbol itself is believed to originate from the Latin word io, an exclamation of joy, and, in fact, may be an altered combination of those two letters. For every embarrassing Love Smart! by Dr. Phil there’s an incredible O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. And let’s not forget Shakespeare: “A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!” Or James Joyce: “God, these Bloody English!”  Or Jane Austen: “But you have such a generous spirit!" And I could go on. The point about exclamation points is that they can convey a robust spirit or excitement. Used sparingly, they’re an effective way to express a variety of feelings, meanings, and attitudes. Outcry: Help! I need somebody! Help! Not just anybody! Irony: The surgeon fainted at the sight of blood! Name calling: You beast! Joy: I love you! Enthusiasm: Count me in! Shock: Well, I never! Loud noises: Wham! Pow! Zap! Disappointment: Work just won’t be the same without you! Newness: Try ‘em, you’ll like ‘em! Excitement: It’s a best practice! You get a lot of bang for your buck. But it’s their overuse -- which like anything else that’s really good only when really rare -- that renders them useless. So go ahead, free yourself to use an exclamation point once in a while. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice says, “ever so many lessons to learn!” And with today’s post? One less. Hurrah! Note: In the original version of this post I misspelled "stationery" (I wrote "stationary"), so my thanks to Nicole, a reader from Australia, for pointing it out. Further proof that everyone needs an editor.

Calling Collect

Collective nouns - words that refer to a group of things, such as total, majority, minority, and number - sometimes mean the group as a single entity and sometimes the individual members of that group. So far so good, if not a little confusing (or is it just me?). But how about when you add a verb - what then? Well, you actually have to think about it for a second or two because, depending on their meaning at the moment, collective nouns can take either a singular verb or a plural verb.  To figure out which verb form a given word takes, ask yourself whether you’re thinking of the whole or of the parts. If it’s the whole, use a singular verb, as in, “The minority is in charge.” If the parts (the individual members making up the group), use a plural verb, as in “A majority of voters are not happy.” "The" before the word (the total, the majority) is usually a clue that it takes a singular verb, whereas "a" (a total, a majority), especially when "of" comes after, usually indicates that a plural verb will follow: A majority of the voters are not happy." Here’s where people mess up the most, though: by treating a collective noun as both singular and plural in the same sentence. They write, “The majority of voters is finally making their opinions known.” Since the majority “is,” the majority is a single unit and, therefore, should later be referred to as “its.” “The majority of voters is finally making its opinions known.”

Compose. Comprise. Confused!

These words aren’t interchangeable. Compose means "make up" or "made up" – so parts compose, or make up, a whole. OPEC is composed of 13 countries. (Thirteen countries make up OPEC.) The Gucci Group is composed of Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Bédat & Co, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Balenciaga. Comprise means to contain – so a whole comprises, or contains, parts. Comprise is never followed by "of" ('comprised of" is as weirdly wrong as "contained of" would be). OPEC comprises 13 countries. (OPEC contains 13 countries.) Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, Sergio Rossi, Boucheron, Bottega Veneta, Bédat & Co, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, and Balenciaga comprise the Gucci Group. While it's true that using "compose" in place of "comprise" and vice versa isn't a major faux pas, it's also true that the distinction between the two is pretty clear and has a long history (in other words, the distinction wasn't created by me or by a nasty 20th-century grammarian bent on ruining your life). Both words, and distinct definitions, date back hundreds of years and come from Old French - French as written and spoken from about 900 to 1400. So try to use the right word at the right time, but relax if you're not sure. As Doris Day sang in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "The Man Who Knew Too Much," in the end, que sera, sera, what will be will be.

Bi-bi Confusion, See Ya Later Semi-clarity!

Bi means “two” and semi means “half.” A publication that comes out two times a year is both biannual and semiannual (they’re synonyms because if you write biannual it means two times a year and if you write semiannual it means every half-year, or – tada! – two times a year). But then again, maybe not. Things get dicey pretty quickly. When you write bimonthly, for instance. Is that twice a month or every other month? Twenty-four times a year or only six? Beats me. Things get dicier still if you presume it to mean 24 and assume your readers will agree. But presume not that others will assume what you presume they’ll assume. As the song says, it ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, ain't nessa, it ain't necessarily so. Ok, you think to yourself, let's see what the messieurs Merriam and Webster think. Yikes – first definition, “occurring every two months”; second definition, “occurring twice a month.” Still, follow their lead and you’re just asking for trouble, and that starts with T and that rhymes with P and well, you know where that’s going to lead you. The best advice? Skip the bi and semi thing altogether. Just write “twice a year” or “every other week.” When you do, everyone – that is, you and your readers – will be on the same page. You’ll be confident your readers know exactly what you mean. Your readers will feel confident they’ve received the right information. No one will be disappointed. Everyone will know how often the meeting is. No one will suffer unmet expectations. Good writing isn’t solely about using the words available to you, it’s about using the right words available to communicate precise information. And that's necessarily so.