Number 21
"Knockout nicotine for good."
I read this ad recently. It's common to see particles* like "out" or even real prepositions shoved into another word. This may be acceptable if the new uniword is a noun ~ "She's a knockout." (I won't get into hyphenation now.) The pronunciation is different here; the emphasis is on the first syllable. In the nicotine sentence, the first syllable may also be emphasized slightly, but there should be an audible space between "knock" and "out" and the emphasis should be pretty evenly distributed. This is a cue that these are two separate words. The knockout will probably apply makeup before she makes up with her boyfriend, who will pick her up in his pickup [truck]. Here, "up" takes more emphasis in the verb formations. If you can alter the verb as in "makes" or "picked her up", you know it's a verb not to be forced into a single word.
I call this urge to combine words Teutonization because of the way German strings words together. I remember "Sontagabendspaziergang" from my German class. If the professor wasn't our legs pulling, it means "Sunday afternoon walk". German is not our language. We shouldn't lose the English distinctions any more than we should our syntax invert. Just because two words often appear together in a single phrase, that doesn't automatically turn them into oneword. (But a tip of the hat here to a late friend who invented the "singlebound", as in "Superman is able to leap over tall buildings in a singlebound.") Plus, shorter, separate words are easier to read.
Certain word combos are, for some reason, more common than others. People often write "alot" for "a lot" (as in "a lot of flowers"). Perhaps they're visually confusing it with "allot", though there's no similarity in meaning.
Company names are sometimes invented by putting together two or more words, or parts of words, and then capitalizing both ~ or worse, capitalizing the second part. I have before me a book by maranGraphics, a family company. The Maran family. What does it say to lowercase the name? It can't be humility. What's the point of being humble about your company name? Was maranGraphics a better name than Maran Graphics would have been? Consider the poor editors who have to check all these names. Well, I did it too ~ I came up with KeithOps. Maybe it should be KeithOops. (I heard a young man on a subway telling another that he wanted to work for a company named after a person, because he thought they would be likely to have greater integrity, protecting the person's name. How many of the dot.coms that went under were named after their founders?)
* "A subordinate word that is never inflected (a preposition, conjunction, interjection); or a word that can not be used except in compositions; as, ward in backward, ly in lovely." (from www.dict.org ) Interesting that ly is considered a word. It came from lich (like) in Old English.
Many business people feel compelled to capitalize many nouns that don't deserve it, in the German manner of capitalizing all nouns. In English, titles, for example, are only to be capitalized when used before a name ~ President Flurg, but Joe Flurg, president of Flurg and Co. This goes for the president of the country, too. The whole idea of having a president rather than a king, queen, emperor, empress, fuehrer, or fueherlein was not to have to capitalize the title of the office, wasn't it?
An old-time newspaper editor, the kind who wrote the editorials and set the type, was said to have told a new reporter that in his paper there were only two things that were always capitalized: the name of the paper, and God. And in a doubtful case, don't capitalize God.
Seasons are not capitalized ~ winter spring summer fall (and autumn). The analogy to months and days of the week makes it seem logical and natural to capitalize them, but ~ no.
If everything is capitalized ~ if everything's important ~ then nothing is important.
I don't know if you've eaten any liberty fries lately, but during World Wars I and II, there was a reaction against all things German; sauerkraut became liberty cabbage for a while, and even some towns with German names were renamed. This is not my motivation. I've been annoyed by word mushing and overcapitalization for years.
From an astute reader:
"You point out that comprise is one letter longer than your recommended compose, and of Latin/Greek derivation through French (it also comes through Middle English). Compose comes to us from the French, as well, so I'm not sure why it would be more natural usage to English speakers or why comprise is 'straining for a more elevated style.' And while I value brevity, compose does save one letter, but your own example demonstrates that it also requires an added verb (is) and a preposition (of) to achieve the same meaning that comprise accomplishes with just one word. I don't consider myself at all insecure in conversational English, and I do use comprise in natural everyday speech when it's appropriate, so I don't consider the use of this perfectly sound and concise word with centuries of English usage to be some sort of overcompensation, but instead a natural use of an efficient word with specific meaning (suggesting completeness, as opposed to the alternate one-word choice of include). That these words are sometimes misused is IMO no reason to abjure their correct usage. That would only impoverish a rich language."
Quite right. I will add, however, that I intended to make defamatory remarks only about those who misuse the word. As is so often the case I chiefly became more often aware of the word at all in ordinary writing when I saw it commonly misused.
I am grateful for this distinction between "comprise" and "include." "Include" is often used ambiguously so that one doesn't know whether it implies completeness or not. Example: "The guest list included the Smiths, the Coopers, and the Wheelwrights." We know those people were invited, but does it mean the Scribners and the Carpenters were excluded? The word comprised in place of included would tell us that only the first three couples were on the list.
The greeting card section at the drugstore tells me that “Secretary’s Day” is being replaced by “Administrative Assistant’s Week.”
Find more on the "gry" riddle at www.dict.org/gry.html.
Copyright Rhonda Keith 2003. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.
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