Red Pen Diaries: Caring Is Sharing

Could you or could you not care less?

I came across a great graphic the other day that succinctly captures one of my pet peeves: saying "I could care less" when meaning "I could not care less."

What's the difference? This picture speaks 1000 words:



Do you mean to say you really, really, really do not care about something? Use the proper rhetorical flourish: Share with the world that you could not care less.

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Red Pen Diaries: Department of Redundancy Department

Using redundant words and phrases can cause unintentional hilarity as well as sap your writing of its strength.

In a previous Red Pen Diaries, I wrote about the redundant use of the word "dollars." Other common redundancies are often the result of acronyms, such as "PIN number" (personal identification number number) or "ATM machine" (automatic teller machine machine). Still others are obvious only upon closer examination, such as "7 AM in the morning" or "fellow co-workers."

Most people tend to overwrite at first. In the post below this one, I originally wrote "the widow of an old comb salesman who had died." That's either redundant (if she's his widow, we know the salesman is dead) or unclear (who died – the widow or the salesman?). Whatever the case, "who had died" was needless verbiage.

It always pays to go back with an eye toward pruning the dead weight of unnecessary, redundant words that muck up your message and tire the reader. Ideally, another, fresher set of eyes can help you cut the dead weight and strengthen the impact of your writing.

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Red Pen Diaries: Reign O'er Me

Do you know the difference between "reign" and "rein"? If not, you're in good company: The Associated Press doesn't, either..

Today, while logging into my Yahoo account, I was greeted with the following AP headline: "Senate OKs bill to reign in credit card practices."

I intended to take a screencap, but unfortunately I navigated away from the page to do something else, and minutes later someone at AP had corrected the mistake by changing it to "rein in."

What's the difference?

The relevant definition of rein is as a verb: "to control or direct with or as if with reins."

When you rein in a horse, you are directing it to slow down or otherwise exercising control or authority over its actions. Congress is attempting to control or direct the practices of credit card companies "as if with reins."

When you reign, you "possess or exercise sovereign power: rule." Louis XIV said, "L'etat, c'est moi." He reigned over France... for more than 72 years, still a record for European monarchs.

In other words, the king reigns and the carriage driver (or legislature, apparently) reins (in).

Being a libertarian, I can't resist saying that we must rein in the ambitions of anyone in government who would reign over our country. ("Here, sir, the people rule!")

Your political mileage may vary, but your grammatical usage should not!

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Red Pen Diaries: A Fistful of Dollars Bucks

I see this one everywhere – signs, print ads, TV commercials, restaurant menus, everywhere.

It's a simple proposition: The dollar sign by a number means that number of dollars. Someone reading, e.g., "$35" will say "thirty-five dollars."

So why do so many ads, etc. insist on saying "$35 dollars"? Last night a TV commercial even referred to "$50 BUCKS." Dollars bucks? Oy vey!

Make sure your writing is always money – don't write that redundant "dollars" (or bucks, smackeroos, samoleans, etc.) after the dollar sign.

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Red Pen Diaries: Honing Our Homing Skills

In which we home in on a peculiar use of "hone."

You've probably heard of homing pigeons or homing beacons. The birds are able to navigate their way back to their nests; likewise, the beacons enable people to find or track (aka "home in on") a target.

You are no doubt also aware of the phrase "honing one's skills." Hone means to sharpen something, whether it's a knife or your ability to hit fade-away jump shots.

Unfortunately, "hone in on," usually meaning "to focus on," is a construction now in widespread use. I have seen some commentators (and even some reference books) defend this usage, but I maintain that it never makes any grammatical sense to "sharpen in" on something. If you mean to say "focus on," my advice would be to simply use the words "focus on." In addition to being unimpeachably correct, you save yourself from using the unnecessary word "in."

Incorrect: "Let's hone in on the results of this TPS report."

Correct: "No one at the meeting ever was able to home in on the real problem."

If E.T. had accidentally phoned hone, the mothership never would have been able to home in on his location.

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Red Pen Diaries: Any Which Way But Loose

Whenever I see the word "loose" misused, I am tempted to lose it...

Lose (say: looz) is a verb with a number of meanings, the main ones being "to misplace or fail to keep something," "to fail to win," or "to be deprived of something."

Loose (say: looss) can be an adjective, verb, or adverb; as an adjective it generally means "not securely fastened" or "not tight-fitting." In none of its forms or senses does it have anything to do with losing something.

Yet if I had a nickel for every time I saw someone write that their favorite team's opponent is "going to loose the game big time" or somesuch... well, you wouldn't be reading this because I'd be a millionaire living out my days on the beach of some tropical island, cold beer perpetually at my elbow.

Incorrect: "Did you loose your keys again?"

Correct: "You always lose your keys."

You don't want to be the kind of loser who mixes these two words up, do you?

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Red Pen Diaries: Tenets and Tenants

Today I'd like to describe the tenets underlying the use of the word "tenants."

A tenet is, according to our friends at Webster's, "a principle, belief, or doctrine generally held to be true."

A tenant is someone who rents (and occupies) a dwelling from a landlord.

It's unfortunately fairly common for me to see people writing about the "tenants" of this or that religion or philosophy. Of course, this is a silly error easily avoided by keeping the words' definitions in mind.

(Bonus!: A tenement is a house used as a residence; an apartment or flat.)

Example:

"I don't care how crazy the tenets of my landlord's faith are to me, I'm happy being a tenant in his tenement."

Or, in other words, you can rent an apartment from Tom Cruise, but you can't be a tenant of Scientology!

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Red Pen Diaries: I Can Get You a Toe

The common usage error I'd like to discuss today is the phrase "toe the line."

The expression generally means "to strictly adhere to rules or standards; to conform," often with a connotation of servility. But it's frequently (and incorrectly) written as "tow the line," which would instead suggest somebody dragging a cable around.

It makes more sense if you think of sailors being ordered to stand at attention with their toes aligned against a particular deck plank, which is one common explanation for the phrase's origins.

Examples:

"He always toes the party line."

"If they find you aren't toeing the company line, you could be fired."

"She toed the corporate line until she realized she wasn't getting that raise."

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Red Pen Diaries: Getting the Lead Out

One usage error I often see is "lead" used in place of "led."

Incorrect: "He lead them down the garden path."

Correct: "He led them down the garden path."

The confusion arises from the fact that the past tense (and past participle) of the verb "lead" (say: leed) is pronounced the same as the noun "lead" (say: led).

When you are speaking of the soft, heavy metal, it is spelled "lead" but pronounced as "led."

When you are speaking of the past action of leading, it is spelled "led" and pronounced the same.

(Legendary rock bands notwithstanding, a dirigible made of heavy metal actually would be a "lead zeppelin" or even a "leaden zeppelin.")

More examples:

"The Detroit Lions led the game in the first half, but now the Little Sisters of the Poor have the lead."

"To judge by your boss's face, I'd say that proposal went over like a lead balloon."

Don't be led astray by this common mistake!

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Red Pen Diaries: An Editor's-Eye View of Writing and the English Language

Friends are frequently annoyed or impressed, depending on the friend, when I instinctively blurt out spelling or grammatical corrections to menus, signs, even TV broadcasts. I can't help it; it's in the blood.

So naturally I'm motivated to share advice and observations on writing and the English language here on my blog. Said advice and observations I've lumped under the label "Red Pen Diaries."

Yes, that's a rather lame pun on the title of a rather lame cable show from the 1990s. But it suits what I'm doing for two reasons. One, the red pen is the universal symbol of the editor. It gets your attention and, in the hands of one who uses the power for good and not evil, it gently nudges the user of language toward more effective communication. Second, a blog is essentially an online journal, or diary, and so voila!: This is my diary on the uses and abuses of words.

From time to time I'll post entries in this diary in an effort to uplift, educate, enlighten, inform, or otherwise harangue anyone curious about word meanings, grammar goofs, spelling mistakes, and more. Keep watching this space!

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