Word Wise

Winning the War, Not Just the Battle

Easily a dozen times over the years I’ve been writing these weekly tips I’ve addressed pairs of words we often confuse and provided an explanation of the difference between the two.

But there’s one pair I’ve shied away from: strategy and tactic. Today’s the day, however.

I’m writing this post two days after the first U.S. presidential debate, after a week of political hijinks in which John McCain’s behavior was analyzed ad nauseum in the media – was his traipsing to and from Washington, promising not to debate unless certain conditions were met and then debating despite those conditions remaining unmet, and insisting one thing was true about the economy one day (the fundamentals are strong) and insisting its opposite was true the next (the sky is falling) all a part of a brilliant, grand strategy (even if that strategy is to merely confuse voters and distract the media) or a bunch of disjointed tactics meant to “win” the battle but not the war? Listen here to vice presidential candidate Joe Biden on CNN explain the difference between tactics and strategy – he gets it exactly right.

As anyone who’s worked on new business proposals or industry award nominations can attest, being able to write cogently about the difference between the two is imperative to success in our industry.

First, of course, you’ve got to have a vision (call it what you want: a dream, a goal).

From that you derive a strategy, a “framework for action” that will lead to your fulfilling your vision. The tactics, then, are the actions themselves – the “purposeful procedures,” as I recently read tactics referred to, that help you achieve your desired outcome. They don’t exist on their own – they’re part of a bigger picture. They’re the battle, not the war. "Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory,” said Chinese General Sun Tzu in 500 B.C. “Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” 

So go ahead and mix up "who" and "whom" and "effect" and "affect" if you must, but know the difference between a strategy and a tactic or you'll lose every time.

Note: When I was a journalist an editor once told me to assume that a person who took the time to write a letter to the editor represented many more people’s feelings than just his or her own. So I take responses to my weekly blog posting seriously. This morning I heard from a few readers offended by the examples I used to illustrate the difference between a strategy and a tactic in today's post. I assume they are not alone in their reaction. Since I write a blog about writing and not about politics I wouldn’t want what appeared to them and others as political commentary, however unintentional, to blur the point I was trying to make about strategy and tactics and the necessity of understanding the difference between the two. I hope my blog persuades you to work hard to become a better writer; when it comes to politics, I will leave the art of persuasion to others. Sincere apologies to anyone who took offense after reading the tip.

Season's Greetings

Today, where I live, is the first day of autumn (or fall; though it’s not fall because leaves fall but because it’s the season when the sun falls below the equator). South of the equator, of course, it’s the beginning of spring (so called because it’s when the sun springs back). Personally, I’m glad summer here is over. I’m a hot and schvitzy guy. I’m tired of schvitzing. Anyhow, I’m more a winter person. Big nubby sweaters, cords and Bean boots. It’s a good look. However, to quote Ellen Degeneres, my point – and I do have one – is that the seasons are always lowercase unless they start a sentence or are a part of an official name, like the Lambertville-New Hope Winter Festival or Ensenada Summer Wine Festival.

Roots and Peeves Themselves Alone Are These

Lots of responses to last week's post about pet peeves. Here are some of them, along with a bit of commentary.

Reader peeve: Can we get people to stop using “unique” unless it is? Or say “[My company] has vast experience…” And could you weigh in on “snuck”? I think it’s anathema, but I fear that I’m in the minority.
My response: I’m a realist so, no, sadly, we probably cannot get people to stop using the word “unique,” whether a thing is unique or not. That's not to say we shouldn't try, however. Re: vast. It's not that lots of companies don't have vast experience in a vast variety of things (mine does, after all), it's just that the phrase itself - "vast experience" - is so overused as to be meaningless. I promise to stop using it if you do. And as for “snuck,” I’m not sure which side of the proverbial fence you’re on regarding it but I have a sneaking suspicion you don’t like it. AP prefers “sneaked” as past tense of "sneak" and warns “Do not use the colloquial snuck.” But Merriam-Webster says “snuck” is acceptable (though not preferable). Sorry to say, you'll have to use your judgment, as scary as that may be.

Reader peeve: I’ll throw in my favorite for a future column – misuse of the word “irony” as interchangeable for “coincidence.” Reporters and broadcasters get this wrong ALL the time, which, of course, is ironic given that words are their profession.
My response: “The great thing about irony,” said the writer David Foster Wallace, who wrote “Infinite Jest” and who, sadly, died this past weekend, “is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and hypocrisies and duplicates.

Reader peeve: Speaking of pet peeves, could you at some point do a post on “singular?” It annoys me that everyone uses it in place of “single.” And “assume” versus “presume.”
My response: “Single” means one thing or person, while “singular” describes something or someone distinctive or, dare I say it, unique. As for “assume” and “presume,” here’s what englishplus.com says: Assume has a variety of meanings. It basically means "to take up or on oneself," "to suppose or take for granted," "to pretend," or "to be taken up. . . . Presume is related to and similar to assume, but it has the sense of doing it beforehand. It means "to dare or venture without prior knowledge," "to assume as believable without direct proof," "to take as a premise, subject to further proof," or "to behave arrogantly or overconfidently.

Reader peeve: Sorry for this, but I have to express my number one pet peeve, which can be found in the following sentence: "It was a great day for Steve and I." Why do people think it's never correct to use the word "me"?
My response: Me has no idea.

Reader peeve: “Go with”: This seems to be a (U.S.) Midwestern (or, at least, Chicago) thing: “I’m going to the grocery store. Do you want to go with?” Arggh! My response often is: “Go with you? Go with money? Go with somebody better looking? Go with a bottle of scotch?”
My response: As a Chicagoan I'm kind of partial to "go with." I like singular regionalisms. I also recall as a kid hearing my parents and their friends all say, "Let's go out for coffee and.” (No doubt they followed it up with “Do you want to go with?”)

Reader peeve: Like, why is it, like, that anyone under, like, 30, like, has to, like, use the word “like” in every, like, sentence, like? I’ve heard some young people on the elevator [where I work] whose every other word is “like.” I often wonder if they’d be, like, mute, if, like, they couldn’t use the word “like,” like, y’know?
My response: The people who use “like” like that are also the ones who use the word “go” for “say,” as in: “So, like, he goes, ‘let’s dance,’ and, like, I go, ‘no, way, dude, so he goes 'fine' and walks away.”

 

All About Peeve

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a peevish writing tip. See, about one out of every three e-mails I get related to this blog start this way: "Hi, Dan. My pet peeve is ...." So, while I'm far from peeved by these things (I'm very forgiving), the following three peeves - the three I hear about most - seem to really peeve people off a lot.   Pet peeve # 1: “i.e.” versus “e.g.” The abbreviations i.e. and e.g. are not interchangeable – i.e. (id est) means “that is” or “in other words” and e.g. (exempli gratia) means “for example.” Both i.e. and e.g. must have commas after them as well as before them, unless they’re preceded by a dash or a parenthesis. Barney likes pasta (e.g., cresti di gallo, orecchiette, vermicelli). Bernie likes pasta (i.e., thin pieces of hardened, unleavened dough that are molded into various shapes).  Pet peeve # 2: “a” or “an”? It’s the sound that counts: Use “a” when the word that follows begins with a consonant sound. Use “an” when the word that follows starts with a vowel sound. Gimme an  H!: A honkytonk, a hodgepodge, a hoop skirt, but an honor and an hour. (Some say that we can use “an” before an h-word that begins with an unstressed syllable. So we might say an historical moment, but we would say a history book. Ultimately, the choice is a matter of personal taste.) Gimme a U!: A useful lesson and a Union soldier, but an ugly incident and an unfortunate hairdo. The same is true of a European and a Euro (because of that yoo sound). Gimme an O!: A once-in-a-lifetime dream or a one-time All Star because the words "once" and "one" begin with a w sound (as if they were spelled wuntz and won), but an ogre and an Oreo. Pet peeve # 3: the misuse of the word “myriad” One could say myriad things about “myriad” – and here are a few of them: First, like “tumultuous” and “plethora,” it seems to be one of those ten-dollar words everyone uses and, often, misuses. It originally meant “ten thousand” but today merely means “a great number.” Here’s where most people go wrong: It’s an adjective, not a noun, so it should not be preceded by “a” or followed by “of.” That said, it can sound awkward and doesn’t always add much; “many,” “numerous,” and “a variety of” are all good alternatives.

Entitled to Your Opinion - The Sequel

After last week’s posting about capitalizing titles, I received an unusual number of follow-up questions all pretty much asking the same things: Do these rules follow for smaller titles like chef or trainer? So it would be Trainer Bob Harper or Bob Harper, trainer on “The Biggest Loser”? Whereas official titles like vice president and even professor are capitalized when they appear before a name, titles that are occupational descriptions (trainer, chef) are not. It’s chef Bobby Flay, not Chef Bobby Flay, blogger Dan Santow, not Blogger Dan Santow, etc., etc., etc.   How about in my e-mail signature? Capitalized? Yes. In your e-mail signature, or in a vertical list of individuals and their titles, capitalize each word of official titles (use common sense, too; in a letter from a chef - say she's writing her fishmonger to compliment him on yesterday's catch of tilapia - you may uppercase the word “chef” as it appears below her name in her signature; in a list of people, you might capitalize vice president when it appears after a person’s name – Kate Peterson, Vice President – but not the chef who works for her – Jane Smythe, chef. What do I do if I’m referring to a vice president, say, at a firm but not using the person’s name – is it “the director will speak at the conference” or “the Director will speak at the conference”? The former – “the director will speak at the conference.”