Tag: living language

A market for farmers

I missed the #ACESchat on Twitter yesterday, but I caught up afterward and was happy to see all the discussion about apostrophes creeping in where they really don’t belong (but being accepted regardless). The two big examples discussed were “farmers/farmers’/farmer’s market” and “Veterans/Veterans’/Veteran’s Day.”

First off: If the VA says it’s “Veterans Day,” that’s what it is. They get to decide that, not us. We might be unhappy, but come on. It’s akin to telling someone their name is misspelled because you don’t like the variation they use. Get over it.

It’s a day to honor veterans. The day doesn’t belong to veterans, so there’s no reason for an apostrophe (singular OR plural possessive).

Of course that logic breaks down with “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day.” Those are days for honoring parents, but they’re possessive. Because English. Get over it. Check your preferred style guide and move on. Thanks.

Now, as for “farmers market”: Again, it doesn’t belong to the farmers. It’s there for the farmers to sell their produce, wares, whatever. Same as with [fill in the blank] union. Teamsters union. Service workers union. Teachers union. The union is there for the benefit of the workers. It doesn’t belong to them. No need for the possessive form. CMoS says “farmers’ market,” so that’s what I would use if I were being paid to conform to style. However, I personally prefer “farmers market” with no apostrophe. There’s a general moving away from apostrophe usage in this kind of construction, these days. Yay for living language and the attendant mechanics!

Then we come to “children’s hospital.” By the same logic, it should be “children hospital.” But that sounds wrong, looks wrong, and so on — because it’s never been styled that way, that I can find. It’s always plural possessive. The hospital doesn’t belong to the children; it’s for the use/benefit of the children. Like “animal hospital.” Why don’t we say “animals’ hospital” then? Because English. Suck it up, buttercup, check your stylebook, and move on.

The longer I’m in this business, the more strongly I consider one question above all the others: Will the reader know and understand what the words mean? Will the difference between “farmers’ market” and “farmers market” cause confusion? If the answer is “no,” I don’t worry about it. (Again, unless I’m being paid to conform to a specific style manual.)

 

I feel it necessary to thank the following for their input during the ACES chat on 12/3/14, since that chat and their thoughts inspired me to create this post: Mededitor, MANUAL OF HULK, and DriftingEarth.

Should you ask a disinterested friend for an opinion?

Today’s topic is another “by request,” this time from an author whose work I’ve edited. She wants a post about the difference between “disinterested” and “uninterested.” I hear and obey. (This time, anyway.)

First let’s look at the prefixes. Both ultimately come from Latin. Dis- means “apart, away, asunder” and has “a privative, negative, or reversing force” on the words to which it is affixed. (You do remember, don’t you, that prefixes and suffixes are collectively referred to as “affixes,” right? Of course right.) Un- means “not.” That’s all. Just “not.”

Disinterested means having no interest in something in the sense of being unbiased, impartial (“apart from interest”). Judges are supposed to remain disinterested in the cases on which they are called to rule. They need to be on the outside, in order to make the kinds of decisions required by their position. I don’t think we can call them uninterested, though, because . . .

Uninterested means indifferent, not caring about or being bored by a subject (“not interested”). Think of being talked into going to an event about which you have no interest whatsoever (whether it’s the opera or a football game doesn’t matter). You’re uninterested in it, and aren’t likely to have a very good time.

An enlightening discussion of these two words and their current common usage is here. I’m sorry to tell you that the Cliff Notes version is: “Disinterested” is overtaking “uninterested.” I’m very unhappy about that; here’s another pair of words with a shade of difference in meaning that I think is worth preserving. I’ll spare you all my rant on the down-side of a living language and just say this is part and parcel of it — the loss of useful distinctions thanks to poor education and (yes, I’m going there) uninterest (not disinterest!) in the outcomes.

Here is another excellent breakdown (and I’ll say, I wrote my bit before I read this, so there).

And the answer to the title question? Yes, if you want an unbiased opinion from someone who doesn’t have a stake in the answer.

He may not have a stake, but he's got a gavel and he knows how to use it.
He may not have a stake, but he’s got a gavel and he knows how to use it.

The Pragmatic Grammarian

If you have any familiarity with grammarians, you probably know there are supposedly two types: prescriptive and descriptive. The former is obsessed with knowing all the rules and exceptions, and with forcing all writing and speech into compliance with those rules and exceptions. The latter is also obsessed, but not with rules. Rather, the descriptivist focuses on usage in the living language, which is always in flux. Rules? Bah. How people use the language is more important than whether they follow the rules. Reductionist thinking, you cry. Yes, for my purposes that is exactly how I’m describing the two types. Keep reading, okay?

Therefore, I posit a third type: the pragmatist. You may ask, What does that mean? And well you should. It acknowledges that most grammarians, whether they care to admit it or not, blend prescriptivist with descriptivist and make the writing or speech fit the purpose, the audience, and the subject matter as required. I know the rules. I am quite fond of most of them, actually. I also know how “real people” use the language. I am often less fond of this, but as I am also one of these “real people” I try to cut some slack, as the saying goes. If someone’s speaking casually to a friend, I won’t leap in to correct their subject-verb agreement or their use of a reflexive pronoun instead of a simple objective one. It’s just not that important under those circumstances. It’s really not. However, if I’m asked to copyedit someone’s work, you can bet your boots I’ll take at least these three things into account: the type of work, the subject matter, and the intended audience. Once I’ve determined those things, and the extent to which I need to mold the work into a particular shape, I’m off to the races.

This poses a problem for new writers who ask grammatical questions in an open forum where I am far from the only professional editor. At times I simply don’t answer. My views are sufficiently fluid that I can easily cause more problems than I solve with my “well, it depends” answers. If I can tell that the questioner is more likely to be confused than helped by my answer, I withhold the information. I wait, instead, to see how the others respond; I watch the interactions, watch the wording and the behind-the-scenes body language (c’mon, you can tell when someone’s hunched over the keys stabbing at them with pudgy—or bony—fingers while blood drips from their brow), and take my time deciding whether I need to interject my opinion. Often the answer is no. When the answer is yes, I take even more time and care crafting the response. I’m not out to denigrate any of my fellow professionals, nor am I out to make a new writer feel stupid for asking a grammar or usage question. (They’re pretty good at doing that to themselves, from what I can tell, without help from anyone.)

Things become muddier still when the question is about US vs. UK conventions. I have a very basic working knowledge of UK grammar, spelling, and mechanics. That doesn’t make me an expert on it, but it does provide a basis from which I feel mostly safe answering simple questions (which tend to be about terminal punctuation with quotation marks). Even so, my simple answers—which I self-edit to remove words and concepts that tend to answer unasked, tangential questions—usually invite others to chime in with “But she forgot this” and “Of course, there’s also this over here” and the occasional “Yeah, what she said.” From my pragmatic grammarian view: If you’re writing for the US market, use US grammar/spelling/usage/mechanics/style. If you’re writing for the UK market, do what’s expected from the UK. Don’t fuss over which one’s better, or more correct, or easier, or looks prettier to you, or whatever. Just don’t. Write using the rules for the market you’ve chosen. And if you don’t know those rules, guess what? I’ll tell you not to write for that market. That whole debate (US vs UK style and whatnot) grates on my editorial senses, frankly. There’s nothing to debate from where I sit. Use the rules for the country where you grew up, or use the rules for the country’s market you’ve chosen (after you’ve learned them or teamed up with someone who can guide you through them), but don’t trouble your pretty or handsome head over which set is superior. The answer is both and neither. They are what they are, for the reasons they are, and that’s really all you need to know. It’s what I will tell you if you hire me to work on your project. And I will ensure that your work conforms to US rules to whatever degree is expected.

I don’t think I’m breaking any new ground with this pragmatic grammarian stance, except perhaps by naming it. I know prescriptivists who sometimes relax the rules, and descriptivists who break out in hives when someone says “Anyone can do whatever they want.” All I’m saying, folks, is let’s be honest about the situation. Let’s admit that neither approach can stand entirely on its own. People aren’t going to speak to their friends and family in the formal language of a doctoral dissertation. They’re not going to write their dissertations with contractions and dialectical figures of speech (unless the dissertation’s on linguistics, focusing on dialects, and they’re providing examples).

Let’s be pragmatic, shall we?

There’s no “I” in “they,” either

Yesterday, Karen posted about how she’s fine with the use of the singular “they,” as in, “Everyone can decide for themselves.” My initial response to her was, “Of course you know this means war.” (Yes, that phrase comes from where you think it comes from.)

But then today I saw this article about how the Queen’s English Society closed up shop recently. For 40 years, the QES had pushed for the continued use of proper English despite what the group perceived as declining standards. It took the prescriptive approach to grammar—trying to enforce the rules as they should exist, rather than adapting the rules to reflect what was actually happening to the language.

So I started to wonder: when (for example) I continue to insist that “they” is not singular, and I go out of my way to recast phrases such as “Everyone can decide for themselves” to “People can decide for themselves,” does that make me part of the language police? When is it worth fighting, and when is it better to go with the flow?

I don’t have an answer yet. I just wanted to ask the question and see what people thought.

Also, while looking into the QES, I couldn’t help but notice that the group’s website says nothing about disbanding. In fact, they’ve announced that their next annual meeting will take place in September. So perhaps the QES is not dead yet!

That would be a good thing; if nothing else, their website has a section called “On the Lighter Side” that has some decent language entertainment. For example, check out the Oxford Word Challenge, in which you have to identify a pair of homophones from clues. And then read “A Lesson Learned (the Hard Way),” which dramatizes the terrible things that can happen when you end a sentence with a preposition.

C is for contrafibularity

Have you ever wanted to add a word to the dictionary? Now’s your chance. The folks at Collins Dictionary, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, are soliciting new definitions for inclusion in their online dictionary. From their announcement:

Your word will then go through an editorial evaluation. If it’s accepted your word will be published on collinsdictionary.com within a few weeks, and your name will appear on the definition page where you will be recorded forever as the submitter of the word.

You can submit your new word here and learn about their evaluation process here. The website is also giving daily prizes to entrants.

Collins plans to accept submissions year-round, and as of this writing, the site has collected over 500 words and definitions. Some of them are terms you’ve probably heard before, such as “celebutard,” “pwned,” and “embiggen.” And then we have entries like the following (presented as is):

administrivia: the mundane, paper-pushing, monkey work that has to get done, however loathsome it may be

skattle: to disappear noisily

nigwin: a person who thinks they know everything and laughs too much

guggerstrasse: the feeling of awkwardness, exposure or panic induced by accidentally being oneself at work

illiterarti: stupid/dumb/uneducated celebrity

twerplet: a small irritating, sometimes offensive, nuisance poster on Twitter, offspring of spammer + troll, but rarely a threat

We’ve talked about the idea of a living language on this blog before, and nothing makes a language evolve more than a steady influx of new words. So head over to the Collins site and share your creativity with the world–or post your favorite definitions in the comments right here. We’re not giving away prizes, but we’ll let you wallow in smug satisfaction.

(The title of this post comes from an episode of Blackadder the Third in which Edmund Blackadder, the long-suffering servant to Prince George, frantically tries to rewrite the dictionary after accidentally burning Samuel Johnson’s original manuscript. Here’s a clip of Blackadder inventing new words on the spot to take the pompous Johnson down a few pegs.)