Even the Wall Street Journal Can See Obama’s Halo

Graffito

I love Guy Kawasaki, because everything that he writes is terrific.

Well, almost everything. I recently came across usage in one of his books that made me shudder:

I shot an arrow into the air, and it stuck.
—graffito in Los Angeles

Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start 137 (2004).

Graffito is, as Russell Lynes once remarked, a frightfully pretentious word. You should only use it if you want to give the impression of being a literato. Otherwise, use graffiti as both singular and plural, just like normal people do.

Ho Activities with Ho Tendencies

Some lawyers skip the footnotes in judicial opinions. And in so doing, they miss gems like this:

The trial transcript quotes Ms. Hayden as saying Murphy called her a snitch bitch “hoe.” A “hoe,” of course, is a tool used for weeding and gardening. We think the court reporter, unfamiliar with rap music (perhaps thankfully so), misunderstood Hayden’s response. We have taken the liberty of changing “hoe” to “ho,” a staple of rap music vernacular as, for example, when Ludacris raps “You doin’ ho activities with ho tendencies.”

United States v. Murphy, 406 F.3d 857, 859 n.1 (7th Cir. 2005).

Redefining Definition

The New York Times recently ran a terrific little piece about dictionaries. Erin McKean wrote it, and although it’s a plug for wordnik, you should still check it out. Here’s a taste test:

Without privileging definitions, dictionary-making would involve more curation and less abridgment, less false precision and more organic understanding. If we stop pretending definitions are science, we can enjoy them as a kind of literature — think of them as extremely nerdy poems — without burdening them with tasks for which they are unsuited.

You can get more of Ms. McKean here. She’s awesome.

The Future Will Be Very Interesting

A new decade is here, and I can’t wait to discover what technologies it will bring.

I mean, just look at what America’s most well-known scientist found “very interesting” a few decades ago:

There is a popular game, sometimes called Pong, which simulates on a television screen a perfectly elastic ball bouncing between two surfaces. Each player is given a dial that permits him to intercept the ball with movable “racket.” Points are scored if the motion to the ball is not intercepted by the racket. The game is very interesting.

Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden 225 (1977).

Is there any doubt that the next ten years’ technology will revolutionize the practice of law? Not for me.

The Proof Stands in his Riddles of Pornos

Clarence Thomas is a clear, clear big-time supporter of black males. And Pat Buchanan is absolutely unflappable.

What’s in Santa’s Bag This Year? Snootitude!

Today, I received an interesting plea from Bryan Garner. He wants me to buy lots of copies of Garner’s Modern American Usage to send a message to bookstore chains who don’t stock his book:

I have a favor to ask of you as a loyal reader: In the next few hours or days, would you please go to www.amazon.com or www.bn.com and buy one or more copies of the new third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage as holiday presents? In fact, keep this gift possibility in mind through the end of the year, won't you?

I need your help in sending a message to the major bookstore chains: they’re not stocking the book because they’ve told Oxford University Press that they consider usage guides a “defunct category.” It’s maddeningly unbelievable. Please help me show them that they’re stupendously wrong.

I suspect that many of the snoots who are hardcore enough to buy GMAU as a Christmas gift would welcome its becoming harder to obtain, because that makes the club to which it affords access more exclusive.

But I also think that Mr. Garner’s book is what Guy Kawasaki might call “evangelist-worthy”:

A great product incites you to action. It is so deep, indulgent, complete, and elegant that it compels people to tell others about it. They’re not necessarily an employee or shareholder of the company that produces it. They’re bringing the good news to help others, not themselves.

Guy Kawasaki, Reality Check 188 (2008).

So while I may not buy you a copy of GMAU, I earnestly recommend that you buy one for yourself.

True Believers

I never rely on google to solve my usage dilemmas. And neither should you.

At Seth’s Blog, Mr. Godin unwittingly makes the case for keeping authoritative reference books on a nearby bookshelf:

The internet has amplified the volume of the true believers, the defenders of any faith.

If you’re into high end stereo, it’s far easier to find strident voices in defense of $100,000 stereos than ever before. If you have strong views on health care (either side) it’s not hard to find the orthodox and articulate believers. It’s not just specialty magazines or conferences any longer. The true believers are in our faces every day.

When you lead a tribe, the volume and accessibility of the true believers is a good thing. They’re easy to find and they maintain order and create a culture for the group you’re leading.

The problem is that these loud voices may be loud, but they might not be right.

You can read the rest of Seth’s post here.

Now go buy The Chicago Manual of Style so that you can use google for what it’s meant: stalking former colleagues.

Strong Verbs

Over at Bright Hub, Trent Lorcher has an interesting post about strong verbs. Strong verbs invigorate prose, as Mr. Lorcher demonstrates:

Instead of talking loudly, I should shout. Instead of walking proudly, I should strut. Instead of resting calmly, I should relax. Instead of hitting hard, I should wallop. Instead of writing long windedly, I should elaborate.

My Recent Post at ACSblog

I recently wrote a post about Maryland v. Shatzer for ACSblog. It has nothing to do with language, though, so readers of this blog might be uninterested.

Pleading Innocent

I’ve always wondered where the odd phrase to plead innocent comes from. Almost everybody knows that criminal defendants don’t plead innocent; they plead not guilty. But I still encounter the phrase fairly regularly, particular among nonlawyers.

Today’s Garner’s Usage Tip explains the common-sense origin of this phrase:

[N]ewspaper writers live in perpetual fear of the word not either being dropped by a printer or being changed from not to now. Therefore, whenever possible, they shy away from the word not, even at the expense of strict accuracy.

Although I still think to plead innocent is an imprecise, inaccurate phrase, I get a kick out of journalists who editor-proof their copy.

Obama’s Cue Cards

Our Monstrously Evil and Utterly Indecent Legal System

An enormity is something monstrously evil, an outrage and utter violation of all decency. So the jacket copy on Lawrence Friedman’s American Law surprised me:

The proportions of our legal system and the enormity of its social impact beg several questions[.]

(Emphasis added).

This book is no polemic against American law, so I can only presume that the writer meant to use enormousness, which means vastness or immensity. And the proportions of our legal system don’t beg questions; they present questions. More about begging questions here.

More Words = Less Persuasion

During President Obama’s speech to a joint session of Congress, Rep. Joe Wilson shouted two words that caught everybody’s attention: You lie!

While the civility of Rep. Wilson’s outburst can be called into question, its power is beyond dispute.

Witness what happens when Rep. Wilson uses more words to get his point across:

Now That’s What I Call a Usage Panel!

At a recent bookfair, I picked up—for one dollar—a copy of the second edition of the Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage.

Its all-star usage panel includes:

• Isaac Asimov
• Saul Bellow
• Art Buchwald
• John Ciardi
• Walter Cronkite
• William O. Douglas
• S. I. Hayakawa
• Anthony Lewis
• Daniel Patrick Moynihan
• George Plimpton
• Daniel Schorr
• Barbara Tuchman
• Herman Wouk
• William Zinsser
  

Outstanding!

Appellate Courts Don’t Provide Affirmations

The other day I overheard a lawyer talking about an appellate court’s affirmation of a trial-court ruling. The lawyer must not have known that there’s a big difference between an affirmance and an affirmation.

When an appellate court upholds a lower court’s judgment, that’s an affirmance.

When Stuart Smalley asserts that, gosh darn it, people like him, that's an affirmation.

Hartford Mayor Arranged On Extortion Charge

I thought that the mayor of Hartford would be arraigned today, that he would be brought into court to answer a criminal charge.

But I was wrong. Mayor Perez was instead put into a neat, attractive order, like a bouquet of exquisite flowers.

From the Connecticut Law Tribune:

Hartford Mayor Arranged On Extortion Charge

Hartford Mayor Eddie Perez and three others charged in a corruption investigation last week have made a brief appearance before a state judge. Perez, former Hartford state Rep. Abraham Giles, Hartford City Councilwoman Veronica Airey-Wilson and Farmington businessman Carlos Lopez did not speak Tuesday during their arraignments before Hartford Superior Court Judge Glenn Woods. Perez and Giles are charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy for allegedly trying to extort $250,000 from a real estate developer. They deny the charges. Airey-Wilson is charged with tampering with evidence, and Lopez is charged with three counts of fraudulent voting. They are due back in court on Friday. – Associated Press

(Emphasis added).

Wee-Wee’d Up

I’ll Try to Pend Passing Judgment on This “Word”

Pending comes from the French word pendant, which means “hanging.” As we all know, it’s an adjective that means “awaiting decision or settlement.”

But today, I saw an appellate court back-form this adjective into a verb:

A condition precedent is a fact or event that must exist or take place before there is a right to performance. The nonoccurrence of such a condition pends the obligor’s duty to perform on the ground that it is not due as long as the condition has not occurred.

Zivic v. Zivic, 26 Conn. App. 5, 9 (1991) (emphasis added).

A Practice I Recommend to Many Others

Another gem from Rep. Frank:

I have looked carefully at the deliberations we have seen about the Bank of America-Merrill Lynch issue. And our colleagues on the Government Reform Committee have had a number of hearings on that. I must say one of the most interesting and potentially instructive things that came out [of] it was Secretary Paulson’s explaining that he could not produce e-mails, because he has never sent them. That is a practice I recommend to many others. I follow it myself.

Some Wisdom of Barney Frank, 12 Green Bag 2D 374 (2009).

Arguing with a Dining Room Table

At a recent town-hall meeting, a woman asked Rep. Frank why he supported a Nazi policy. Rep. Frank responded that trying to have a conversation with her would like trying to argue with a dining room table.

April Winchell keeps the Internet meme going:

That’s How I Roll

Hat tip to the (new) legal writer.

Is a Poster Boy a Poster Person?

The lawyer wanted to avoid the snares of sexism. The lawyer didn’t want to say to his audience:

He’s the poster boy for his organization.

This statement implies that only boys are members of the organization. So the lawyer said:

He’s the poster person for his organization.

The audience members were puzzled. They had never heard of poster people!

The lawyer could have avoided sexism and still not sounded ridiculous:

He’s the poster child for success.

Confrontation Claus

This brought a smile to my face.

Another Day, Another Awesome Protest Sign

Get a brain, morans.

Bryan Garner Is Wrong about Espresso

The third edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage arrived today.

The latest iteration of this brilliant book has a lot going in its favor:

• a terrific new essay on the language wars: The Ongoing Struggles of Garlic-Hangers;
• the Language-Change Index, which describes how widely accepted linguistic innovations are;
  
• lots of new entries; and
  
• it’s blue, not red
  

But the new edition is not without faults. The entry for espresso makes me crazy:

(= a specially prepared coffee through which steam is forced under high pressure) is so spelled—not expresso.

Of course, espresso is made by forcing water—not steam—through coffee.

Three Large Military Transport Airplanes for $674?

I admit it. I brood over my writing. I worry that I will commit careless errors. I torment myself with the thought that my writing will come across as careless, stupid, or ignorant. Or maybe even all of these!

But this morning’s New York Times editorial page made me feel much better about myself:

[The House defense appropriations bill] . . . include[s] more than $400 million for the new presidential helicopter, $560 million for an alternate engine for another new fighter plane (the F-35), $674 for three extra C-17 transport planes and an additional $603 million for the F-18 fighter jet program.

(Emphasis added).

Who knew that C-17 Globemasters costs less than $225 each? That’s cheaper than a Walmart bicycle!

The online version of the editorial has been fixed.

Lobbyest Payoffs?

Today’s New York Times has an interesting article about flagging support for President Obama’s proposed health care reforms. The article claims that opponents of these reforms have spent nine million dollars on TV spots. But the accompanying photo demonstrates that these opponents haven’t spent a penny spellchecking their signs.

Oh Snap!

Dismissive putdowns are so much better when they come from the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit:

Like bumper-to-bumper traffic, this argument goes nowhere.

La Plante v. American Honda Motor Co., 27 F.3d 731, 745 (1st Cir. 1994).

It’s Official!

Over at You Don’t Say, Mr. McIntyre has a wonderful post about stale writing techniques.

My favorite:

It’s official means that some piece of information has been confirmed — meaning that you are telling the reader something already widely known. Usually readers expect a story to tell them things they don’t already know.

Barack Obama, You Wicked, Wicked Devil!

Fourth Edition GMAU

The fourth edition of Garner’s Modern American Usage will be released in about one month. You should preorder a copy today.

A Palin-esque Power to Polarize?

The dining section of yesterday’s New York Times had an interesting article about pizza. This sentence really caught my eye:

It’s scrutinized and fetishized, with a Palin-esque power to polarize.

I wonder whether a casual reader fifty years in the future will appreciate what a brilliant turn of phrase this is.

This Restaurant Will Give You Gas

Hat tip to GrammarBlog.

A Fourth of July Observation

Serious writers detest nominalizations, also known as buried verbs. These verbs are buried because they’ve been changed into nouns. Buried verbs lead to abstract, obtuse prose.

Take, for instance, this sentence:

After the transformation of nominalizations, the text has fewer abstractions, so readers’ visualization of the discussion finds enhancement.

When the buried verbs transform into real verbs, the sentence becomes much more lively:

Uncovering buried verbs makes writing more concrete so readers can more easily see what you’re talking about.

See Bryan A. Garner, Garner’s Modern American Usage 117 (2d ed. 2003).

But on the Fourth of July, I can’t resist pointing out that buried verbs are not always inferior. I’m thinking of a set of buried verbs with which all Americans are familiar:

No taxation without representation.

No writer can “unbury” these two verbs without destroying the soul of this slogan.

Powerpoint Will Never Be the Same

I recently read Presentation Zen and advise you to do the same. If you give powerpoint presentations, following its simple rules will make you a superstar.

This book has changed my (professional) life.

What the Constitution Means

The last sentence of Adam Liptak’s New York Times article says it all:

The Constitution, it turns out, means what Justice Kennedy says it means.

“Don’t Tell Me That Democrats Won’t Defend This Country!”

This Sunday, Mr. Safire had a terrific column about straw men.

The column quotes Mr. Obama’s nomination-acceptance braggadocio: “Don’t tell me that Democrats won’t defend this country!”

Mr. Safire argues—correctly—that such arguments are misleading:

Who was telling him that? To be sure, his opponents were claiming that a Republican administration would be stronger on defense, but nobody was telling him or the voters that Democrats preferred abject surrender.

Lawyers make straw-man arguments all the time. In fact, I bet Obama learned to do it from being a lawyer.

And don’t tell me that I’m a mindless dullard who doesn’t know what he’s talking about!

Writing Is a Sacred Act

I recently picked up a copy of the third edition of A Writer’s Companion on half.com for seventy-five cents (plus shipping and handling, of course).

I love this book. Here’s one of my favorite lines:

In some ancient societies, writing was considered a sacred act because it had so much authority in the community, and thus only priests were allowed to do it. In its various forms, writing is still the strongest cement of the social order.

How to Write a Powerful Opening Sentence

From the front page of today’s New York Times:

The federal government mistakenly made public a 266-page report, its pages marked “highly confidential,” that gives detailed information about hundreds of the nation’s civilian nuclear sites and programs, including maps showing the precise locations of stockpiles of fuel for nuclear weapons.

DEAR JUDGES

Yesterday’s edition of Courtoons is genius.

Hat tip to the (new) legal writer.

Has President Obama Tapped Judge Sotomayor?

John McIntyre makes a good point: there must be a better way to discuss President Obama’s nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court than with a verb that suggests that President Obama has had sex with her.

To select is a much better word choice. It adds clarity and dignity, at a cost of two letters. Surely these two letters are worth it.

It Upsets Me Because I’m an English Teacher

This is a terrific cartoon.

Few in Number

I often hear lawyers talking about things that are few in number.

• Clients who are not cost-cutting are few in number.
• Opportunities for young attorneys to get into court are few in number.
• Associate openings at large law firms are few in number.
  

Few in number is a terribly redundant phrase.

Lawyers should follow Samuel Johnson’s advice and “avoid ponderous ponderosity.” While we’re at it, let’s stop using other redundant phrases like:

• basic fundamentals
• future plans
• absolute necessity
• mix together
  

Vile and Unspeakable Blasphemy

A colleague recently forwarded me A. O. Scott’s review of Angels & Demons. It’s a masterpiece of snootiness:

I have not read the novel by Dan Brown on which this film . . . is based. I have come to believe that to do so would be a sin against my faith, not in the Church of Rome but in the English language, a noble and beleaguered institution against which Mr. Brown practices vile and unspeakable blasphemy.

There’s No Problem with Em Dashes

Newser has a little piece entitled The—Problem—With—Em—Dashes. In case it’s not clear from the title, the article contends that em dashes are commonplace and trite:

A punctuation plague is raging through contemporary prose, indulged in by ordinarily excellent writers and hacks alike. It’s the “em dash,” writes Lionel Shriver for Standpoint—that punchy, aggressive punctuation mark beloved for its flexibility . . . But we must have some restraint: em—dashes—are—used—way—too—frequently, and great style requires variety.

I agree that if six em dashes appear in a single sentence, then yes: em—dashes—are—used—way—too—frequently. But no semiliterate writer would ever use them in that way. So I stand by my assertion that em dashes are underused, particularly in legal writing.

Lawyers, use the em dash!

Quick Language Tip: Fluid? Liquid?

Writers often use fluid and liquid interchangeably. But these two terms have distinct meanings.

While all liquids are fluids, not all fluids are liquids. That’s because a fluid is a substance that has no fixed shape and yields easily to external pressure. So a fluid can be a gas or a liquid.

John McIntyre’s Top Ten Blogs

John McIntyre, of You Don’t Say fame, is sharing a list of his favorite language-and-editing blogs. Check it out!

GOP Clowns

This photo set is amazing. Hat tip to Veto Corleone.

Justice Souter’s Resignation Letter

You can read Justice Souter’s letter here.

In it, he tells the President that he “mean[s] to continue to render substantial judicial service . . . .” And lawyers wonder why they’re almost universally regarded as terrible writers!

Justice Souter apparently also means to continue to render substantial emphasis to lawyers’ unnecessary wordiness.

Hall of Shame: In Order To

The phrase in order to can almost always be reduced to to.

Instead of saying:

In order to win her motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact.

Simply say:

To win her motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact.

Oh Really?

My daughter’s reaction to the news that the next Supreme Court justice will likely be a woman.

Toucherism. Toucherism!

0:45 through 1:30 is fine, fine rhetoric.

You’ve Got that Patriotism in Ya That People Just So Respect!

Check out 1:10. Thank you for that.

Justice Roberts Brings the Snark

Chief Justice Roberts’s opening line in Dean v. United States is a zinger: “Accidents happen. Sometimes they happen to individuals committing crimes with loaded guns.”

Yesterday’s New York Times had a terrific article about Dean. Mr. Dean is a bankrobber whose gun accidentally went off during a heist. He was sentenced to eighteen years, which included a federal mandatory sentence for committing a crime in which a firearm was discharged.

The New York Times piece culls two other great lines from the case:

• At the argument last month, Justice Antonin Scalia asked Mr. Dean’s lawyer for an example of a gun discharge during a bank robbery that would not qualify. Justice Stephen G. Breyer jumped in. “He sees a duck fly by the window and he’s a hunter,” Justice Breyer said, referring, perhaps, to one of Justice Scalia’s pastimes.
• Chief Justice Roberts offered potential bank robbers some advice. “Those criminals wishing to avoid the penalty for an inadvertent discharge,” he said, “can lock or unload the firearm, handle it with care during the underlying violent or drug trafficking crime, leave the gun at home or—best yet—avoid committing the felony in the first place.”

A Kind of Souvenir Shop

In today’s New York Times, Adam Liptak has a wonderful article about the First Amendment implications of states’ refusal to issue “Choose Life” license plates. I love how Mr. Liptak points out that the proliferation of specialty plates undercuts the states’ position:

Had the states not decided to make license plates a forum for a sometimes comical array of messages, the “Choose Life” cases would be easy. But many states have turned their motor vehicle departments into a kind of souvenir shop. They may also have given up the right to decide what gets sold in them.

WeRNOT GoiNgToTaKEiT

I love signs that the Tea Partiers made. This one is my favorite. America is humble.

The Supreme Court is Outside Mainstream Opinion (Again)

From the Abbeville Manual of Style:

In a charming publicity stunt turned terrifying commentary on the state of the American judicial system, several Supreme Court judges have just decided in a mock trial that Shakespeare didn’t actually write Shakespeare. Yes, they’ve revived the old “Shakespeare authorship question,” in which scholars only one degree less legitimate than “ufologists” attempt to prove that Shakespeare’s plays were really written by Edward de Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, or one of several other candidates, and not by William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon.

I think Coppelia Kahn, president of the Shakespeare Association of America and professor of English at Brown University is onto something when she says: “Oh my. Nobody gives any credence to these arguments.”

Bryan Garner’s Nightmare

A friend from law school recently e-mailed me this charming cartoon.

Running for Office?

If you’re running for office, make certain that your Facebook page doesn’t have photos like this one on it.

What’s a Hotel?

A colleague recently asked me, “Aren’t all large dictionaries pretty much the same?”

As Sen. Stevens famously said, “No!”

Dictionaries aren’t “pretty much the same” at all. Take, for example, a word with which we’re all familiar: hotel.

If you were to look it up in The New Oxford American Dictionary, you’d learn that a hotel is an establishment providing accommodations, meals, and other services for travelers and tourists.

Most readers would probably agree that this is a fine definition.

But Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines hotel quite differently:

a building of many rooms chiefly for overnight accommodation of transients and several floors served by elevators, usually with a large open street-level lobby containing easy chairs, with a variety of compartments for eating, drinking, dancing, exhibitions, and group meetings (as of salesmen or convention attendants) with shops having both inside and street-side entrances and offering for sale items (as clothes, gifts, candy, theater tickets, travel tickets) of particular interest to a traveler, or providing personal services (as hairdressing, shoe shining) and with telephone booths, writing tables, and washrooms freely available.

If you prefer one of these definitions over the other, you’ll agree with me that dictionaries aren’t all pretty much the same.

Quick Language Tip: Aggravate

Some writers use aggravate for irritate in their formal writing. But they probably shouldn't, because to aggravate is to make something worse.

An injury, for example, can aggravate a preexisting condition. But an injury cannot, strictly speaking, aggravate its victim.

Fifty Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

Oh snap! Prof. Pullum totally dissed The Elements of Style:

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

I think Prof. Pullum is right: no one book should provide all the grammar instruction that most Americans get. And even if there must be such a book, The Elements of Style is a poor candidate.

We've Been There Before

At his wonderful blog, Mr. McIntyre aptly places America’s recent Tea Party fervor in context:

We’ve been there before. John Adams was a closet monarchist who was going to destroy our freedoms. Thomas Jefferson was going to turn lose the Jacobins and slaughter owners of property.

In the 1820s and 1830s, the Masons were going to take over the country. Then there were the successive bouts of nativist hysteria. If you have in your ancestry anyone of German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European, Jewish, Chinese, Japanese or Hispanic extraction, you can be assured that your ancestors were denounced as the scum of the earth and the doom of the Republic.

In the early days of the past century, Socialists took over the country with minimum-wage proposals and eight-hour workdays and an end to using children in factories and other outlandish ideas.

Franklin Roosevelt was going to destroy all wealth in the country. Harry Truman was a patsy for the Soviets (and so, depending on which flavor of conspiracy you favored, was Dwight Eisenhower).

Later, Richard Nixon was undermining the Constitution (oh, wait, that one happened), and then Ronald Reagan was going to get us into a nuclear war with Soviet Union and the elder George Bush was a pawn of some secretive internationalist group called the Trilateral Commission that was going to absorb the whole country and, well, you know.

Equipage?

A few days ago, United Airlines’ Senior Vice-President of Operations, Joe Kolshak, was on NPR, discussing the high cost of upgrading to a GPS air traffic control system. His word choice jumped out at me:

It’s very hard for me to go to the CFO of the company and ask for tens of millions of dollars for equipage when it’s not going to be required, and more importantly, I will not gain the benefit for another 10 or 15 years.

I noticed that Mr. Kolshak used equipage instead of equipment.

He must be trying to convince his chief financial officer to spend a prodigious amount of money on a carriage and horses with attendants. And I think that his CFO has pretty good business judgment.

Navy SEALs

The five-day stand-off between Somali pirates and the United States Navy is over.

Navy snipers were able to shoot three pirates, all at the same time. At the time of the shooting, the pirates held a hostage at close quarters. The pirates and their hostage were in a life raft, and were bobbing up and down in choppy waters. The snipers were themselves on a moving boat. They had probably been sitting motionless for many, many hours before taking their three simultaneous shots. And the sun was going down!

What kind of wizards could pull this off? Navy SEALs.

Of course, SEAL stands for Sea, Air, and Land. Navy SEALs compose an elite force that specializes in guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency.

The capitalization of their name, though, is perplexing the news media almost as much as the SEALs' marksmanship is amazing the rest of us.

Media outlets have rendered the name of this elite special warfare unit as Seals.

I always thought, though, that they were called SEALs.

That's how that Navy's own website refers to them. Although Garner's Modern American Usage is silent on the topic, the New Oxford American Dictionary also endorses SEALs.

So why does the New York Times only give them an uppercase S, especially when WASPs get the full uppercase treatment?

Thomas Paine on Simple, Powerful Prose

Mr. Paine was onto something:

As it is my design to make those that can scarcely read understand, I shall therefore avoid every literary ornament and put it in language as plain as the alphabet.

John Keane, Tom Paine: A Political Life x (2003).

Is "Allegedly" a Safe Word or a Fudge Word?

The other day I heard a lawyer say this:

I wasn’t really sure when the accident happened. So in the brief, I just wrote that accident allegedly happened in October. Allegedly is a safe word.

Of course, a safe word is a codeword used in the bondage-discipline-sadism-masochism community to indicate one’s physical, emotional, or moral boundary.

I don’t think that’s what the lawyer had in mind when he said that allegedly is a safe word. It would have been more accurate and honest to say that allegedly is a fudge word.

Who-That, Part II

I recently blogged about relative pronouns, noting that for things other than human beings, that and which are the proper relative pronouns. I then offered this allegedly incorrect sentence:

The goods were produced by firms who had independent contracts with the Government.

It didn't take long for a clever reader to call me out:

You mean to make a valid point but your examples undermine it.

A company (assuming incorporation) is a "legal person" so it may be appropriate to use "who", especially in a legal document.

And a "firm" is a partnership of individuals so a collective noun and we can see the people hiding in it. So "who" may work here too?

The reader is mistaken, though. As Mr. Garner puts it:

[T]hat and which are the relative pronouns for . . . entities created by humans.

Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage 836 (2d ed. 2003) (emphasis added).

Mr. Garner notes that who isn't the proper relative pronoun for companies and financial institutions. It also isn't the proper relative pronoun for firms, partnerships, or corporations, no matter what Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co. says.

Quick Language Tip: Who? That?

Who is a relative pronoun for human beings. For things other than human beings, that and which are the proper relative pronouns.

That's why this sentence is wrong:

The goods were produced by firms who had independent contracts with the Government.

Firms are not human beings; the sentence should be:

The goods were produced by firms that had independent contracts with the Government.

Of course, using who in place of that is a common mistake.

Even terrific writers get it wrong on occasion:

In order to elicit private financing, the Mexican Government granted concessions to companies who would build and operate the system of toll roads.

Grupo Mexicano De Desarrollo v. Alliance Bond Fund, 527 U.S. 308, 310 (1999) (Scalia, J.) (emphasis added).

Things That Only Britons Can Try And Get Away With

The other day, I was reading about Thomas Paine's brief adventures in the Seven Years War:

He took his prize money—naval warfare at that date was still semi-piratical—and went to London to try and improve himself.

Christopher Hitchens, Thomas Paine's Rights of Man 21 (2006) (emphasis added).

Mr. Hitchens's choice of words struck me, because I thought that try and was a casualism and the sentence would be more proper as:

He took his prize money—naval warfare at that date was still semi-piratical—and went to London to try to improve himself.

But it turns out that try and is a standard idiom in British English. While a speaker of American English couldn't get away with this, Mr. Hitchens gets a free pass.

Beware of Double Meanings: Happy Endings

A happy ending is a fictional plot in which everything resolves in favor of the hero.

Of course, a happy ending is also an orgasm that concludes an erotic massage.

I presume—and hope—that the BBC's headline-writer had the former meaning in mind.

Hat tip to Vito Corleone.

Great Leads

Good leads introduce your subject matter to readers. Great leads do so with logical, simple, honest, and memorable language.

The front page of yesterday's New York Times had great leads. Here's one about Northern Mexico's violent drug cartels:

TUCSON — Sgt. David Azuelo stepped gingerly over the specks of blood on the floor, took note of the bullet hole through the bedroom skylight, raised an eyebrow at the lack of furniture in the ranch-style house and turned to his squad of detectives investigating one of the latest home invasions in this southern Arizona city.

A 21-year-old man had been pistol-whipped throughout the house, the gun discharging at one point, as the attackers demanded money, the victim reported. His wife had been bathing their 3-month-old son when the intruders arrived.

“At least they didn’t put the gun in the baby’s mouth like we’ve seen before,” Sergeant Azuelo said. That same afternoon this month, his squad was called to the scene of another home invasion, one involving the abduction of a 14-year-old boy.

After reading this lead, are you interested in reading the article?

Here's another example, a lead from an article about the new Secretary of Energy:

WASHINGTON — As a physicist, Steven Chu has seen atoms suspended in a powerful laser beam and DNA stretched out in a vacuum chamber.

But in his new job as energy secretary, Dr. Chu is observing phenomena he never saw in the science laboratory.

After reading this lead, are you interested in learning more about Dr. Chu?

Now that we've seen two great leads, let's consider a terrible lead. Here's an opening from an actual brief:

The state's argument is the same as the statement of the court. That is to say, that is what the court did, and that is what the court does, then the court does what the court does; and if that is what the court does, it is all right, because that is what the court does.

Tom Goldstein & Jethro K. Lieberman, The Lawyer's Guide to Writing Well 81 (2d ed. 2002).

Do you notice a difference?

The Cat Is out of the Barn

This morning, Kent Conrad was a guest on This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

He spoke in trite language and quickly confused clichés:

STEPHANOPOULOS: How about you, Senator Conrad? Do you agree that -- no new money to AIG unless they give back this -- these bonuses through some -- in some fashion?

CONRAD: Look, to me, unfortunately, the cat's out of the barn, the horse is out of the barn. You've already put up $170 billion. So, you know, frankly, I would take a different tack.

Nowadays, Everybody Has a Blog

Even Barack Obama's teleprompter has its own blog.

Very Unique?

I recently came across a First Circuit opinion with an interesting concluding paragraph:

In the very unique circumstances of this case, we therefore decline to enforce the appeal waiver. The conviction is affirmed, but the sentence is vacated and the case is remanded for resentencing. We intimate no view on whether appellant should receive a higher or lower sentence on remand, or on the reasonableness of his previous sentence or on any revised sentence.

United States v. Quirindongo-Collazo, 213 Fed. Appx. 10, 13 (1st Cir. 2007) (emphasis added).

The circumstances of a case cannot be very unique, because unique embraces a mathematically absolute concept: being the only one of its kind. A thing either is or is not unique. There aren't degrees of uniqueness.

If very is essential to the sentence, a nonabsolute adjective solves the problem:

• In the very remarkable circumstances of this case . . .
• In the very unusual circumstances of this case . . .
• In the very rare circumstances of this case . . .
• In the very distinctive circumstances of this case . . .

Otherwise, removing very solves the problem:

• In the unique circumstances of this case . . .

Impress Your Friends with Complex-Sounding Legal Jargon

From The Onion:

Year Of Law School Now Mandatory For Nation’s 25-Year-Olds

WASHINGTON — Under the provisions of a bill approved by Congress and signed into law Tuesday, every 25-year-old American, regardless of prior life commitments, is now legally obligated to enroll in a full year of study at one of the nation’s accredited law schools. “This new measure gives us the means to compel 25-year-olds to simultaneously placate their parents, impress their friends with complex-sounding legal jargon, and effectively avoid any real-world responsibilities for another full year,” said Rep. Steve Buyer (R-IN). “We can think of no better way for our young people to squander their postcollegiate aimlessness.” Congress is reportedly seeking further legislation that would provide for an additional nine months of grumbling over LSAT prep, and up to five years of whining about paying off student loan debt.

Spelling Vandalism

May the Legislature Giveth and Taketh?

Connecticut Lawyer recently ran an article about Kerrigan v. Department of Public Health. In Kerrigan, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that Connecticut's state constitution requires that same-sex couples be permitted to enter into marriage.

The article is noteworthy because it discusses the differences between marriages and civil unions in dated language:

Marriage, although regulated by the legislature, is a fundamental right, the abridgement of which must serve compelling governmental interests; civil unions are a creature solely of statute, and what the legislature giveth, the legislature may taketh away.

Quoting the Bible in discussions about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage is problematic. But if the Bible must be quoted in such discussions, it should at least be quoted accurately. The giveth-taketh phrase is much more archaic than the actual language of the King James Bible:

Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped. And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

Job 1:20-21 (King James).

What's the Difference between Somalis and Somalians?

I recently listened to a fascinating NPR program about a terrifying terrorist organization:

Somali-American youth in Minneapolis would suddenly go missing, telling their parents they were going out with friends or just off to do some laundry—only to board planes to Africa. About 20 young men have disappeared so far, and they are believed to have traveled to Somalia to join a terrorist group. American counterterrorism officials' worst fears are personified by a young Somali-American named Shirwa Ahmed. He left Minneapolis about 18 months ago to join an Islamic militia in Somalia called al-Shabab. Then, last October, he drove a car full of explosives into a crowd in Somaliland, killing 27 people.

During the call-in segment of the show, I noticed that some callers used the adjectives Somali and Somalian interchangeably.

But there's a distinction between the two words.

A Somalian is a citizen of the Republic of Somalia. Of course, the Republic of Somalia is a country in name only.

A Somali, on the other hand, is a member of the largely Muslim ethnic group in the Horn of Africa.

So a person can be Somali but not Somalian, Somalian but not Somali, or both Somali and Somalian.

And the Cushitic language of the Somali ethnic group is called Somali, not Somalian.

Quick Language Tip: Jail? Prison?

I recently overheard a lawyer talking about Bernie Madoff's plea deal:

It looks like Bernie Madoff is going to do serious jail time.

But Mr. Madoff isn't going to do jail time as a result of entering a guilty plea.

That's because a jail is a detention center where accused criminals awaiting trial are confined.

A prison, on the other hand, is a facility for the confinement of convicted criminals.

Books That Make You Dumb

There's a terrific new site that compares Facebook favorite-book data with average SAT scores to produce a fascinating data set.

The Constitution Wasn't Written in Microsoft Word

Some of the questions on Yahoo! Answers scare me. Here's a prime example:

i'm looking to find out what Font wrighting is We The People is on the American Constitutuion so i can use that font in a Word Prosseser

Wow.

Schoolhouse Rock Explains Grammar

“Mr. Morton is the subject of the sentence and what the predicate says he does.”

The First Rule of Legal Writing

Wayne Schiess has a short post with a simple maxim: “Do not mimic the format, style, or citation form of judicial opinions.”

The Supreme Court Disfavors Preemption, but not Pre-Emption

The United States Supreme Court recently released its 6-3 opinion in Wyeth v. Levine, which addresses whether FDA approval of drug labels preempts state tort claims. (It doesn't.)

Although the opinion's take on preemption is noteworthy, what really struck me about the opinion is that the Court hyphenates pre-empt and pre-emption.

I had always thought—with good reason—that these words are properly spelled without a hyphen. See Bryan A. Garner, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage 682 (2d ed. 1995).

Begging the Question

This weekend, State Secretary Clinton traveled to the Middle East—in listening mode.

In response, former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy argued that it's pointless for Secretary Clinton to travel to the Middle East unless she's in speaking mode:

Anything she says can be construed as taking a stand on the coalition negotiations. She will likely keep her comments to a minimum, which begs the question of why go there?

But Secretary Clinton's terseness doesn't beg the question. To beg the question is to reason in a circular way. To beg the question isn't to raise an obvious question.

Mr. Levy should have said:

Anything she says can be construed as taking a stand on the coalition negotiations. She will likely keep her comments to a minimum, which raises a question: why go there?

Dialect Society Survey Results

The Dialect Society has its survey results online, with maps.

I love the sort of maps that show where people pronounce the h in huge, humor, humongous, and human!

"You Be Da Man!"

During the election season, Rep. Michele Bachmann was a guest on Hardball with Chris Matthews. In her interview, Rep. Bachmann hinted that members of Congress are, in fact, un-American:

MR. MATTHEWS: How many are anti-American in the Congress right now that you serve with?

REP. BACHMANN: You'd have to ask them, Chris. I'm focusing on Barack Obama and the people that he's been associating with. And I'm very worried about --

MR. MATTHEWS: But do you suspect that a lot of people you serve with --

REP. BACHMANN: -- their anti-American nature.

MR. MATTHEWS: Well, he's a United States senator from Illinois. He's one of the people you suspect as being anti-American. How many people in the Congress of the United States do you think are anti-American? You've already suspected Barack Obama. Is he alone, or are there others? How many do you suspect of your colleagues as being anti-American?

REP. BACHMANN: What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an exposé like that.

MR. MATTHEWS: Okay, thank you very much, U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.

This intriguing exchange (briefly) put Rep. Bachmann in the national spotlight. You can see the video here:



Now, Rep. Bachmann is back in the news for her introduction of the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele:

Michael Steele! You be da man! You be da man!

I'm still undecided as to whether Michael Steele “be da man.” The press will report more about him in the coming months, and I look forward to getting to know Mr. Steele.

But the fourth estate has a ready-made investigative project in Rep. Bachmann. To put it in familiar words:

What I would say -- what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-grammar or anti-grammar? Do they use language authentically? Do they care about the English language and how it's used? I think people would love to see an exposé like that.

Well, at least I would love to see an exposé like that.

Outhouse Counsel?

Because it creates rhythm, parallel structure is essential to good oratory. But it should be used with good judgment. I recently overhead a speaker who used parallel structure with terrible judgment.

The speaker was discussing two lawyers. Lawyer A was employed full-time by a corporation. Lawyer B was employed full-time by a law firm. The speaker referred to Lawyer A as an in-house counsel.

I would have preferred the simpler phrase house counsel, but in-house counsel is acceptable. In an apparent effort to maintain parallel structure, though, the speaker then dropped his bomb:

Lawyer A was an in-house counsel and Lawyer B was an outhouse counsel.

The phrase outhouse counsel should never, ever be used to describe a lawyer—unless his or her practice focuses on outhouses.

A Dangerous Business

Fred Rodell was absolutely right about our profession's relationship with language:

Dealing in words is a dangerous business, and it cannot be too often stressed that what The Law deals in is words. Dealing in long, vague, fuzzy-meaning words is even more dangerous business, and most of the words The Law deals in are long and vague and fuzzy. Making a habit of applying long, vague, fuzzy, general words to specific things and facts is perhaps the most dangerous of all, and The Law does that, too.

Fred Rodell, Woe unto You, Lawyers! 39 (1939).

President Obama's Incredible Beatbox Performance

Hat tip to Veto Corleone.

Ivan Cameron

I was disappointed to learn that this week's Prime Minister's Questions had been canceled.

Then I learned why—the death of David Cameron's six-year-old son.

The heart-breaking New York Times article is here.

The Rapist Finder?

Internet addresses lack spaces, which can create miscues.

Somebody should have told Therapist Finder, California’s self-proclaimed “online resource for consumers searching for a marriage and family therapist.”

Their website—therapistfinder.com—can be read in two ways:

• Therapist Finder
• The Rapist Finder

Hat tip to Reddit.

Obama Has Appeal

In his Rhetoric, Aristotle identified three forms of persuasive discourse:

• Logos, the rational appeal, focusing on our ability to reason
  
• Pathos, the emotional appeal, focusing on our emotions
• Ethos, the ethical appeal, establishing the speaker as fair, open-minded, honest, and knowledgeable.

In last night's address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama used all three rhetorical tools.

He relied on rational appeal:

We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for.

He relied on emotional appeal:

You don’t need to hear another list of statistics to know that our economy is in crisis, because you live it every day. It’s the worry you wake up with and the source of sleepless nights. It’s the job you thought you’d retire from but now have lost; the business you built your dreams upon that’s now hanging by a thread; the college acceptance letter your child had to put back in the envelope.

And he relied on ethical appeal:

As soon as I took office, I asked this Congress to send me a recovery plan by President's Day that would put people back to work and put money in their pockets. Not because I believe in bigger government -- I don't. Not because I'm not mindful of the massive debt we've inherited -- I am.

Me, Myself, and I

Today's New York Times has an interesting op-ed about President Obama's trouble with pronouns.

Check it out!

"Don't Let Them Pee on Us Anymore"

When I think American politics couldn't be more crass, my Israeli friends provide a proper frame of reference.

Hat tip to design:related.

Course Language?

I recently wrote a short post that linked to President Obama swearing.

But—as a reader recently pointed out to me—I blundered my warning that the link contained (surprise!) swear words. I originally wrote:

If course language doesn't bother you, you'll enjoy this.

President Obama's language, though, would be course if he were talking about a route followed by a ship, aircraft, road, or river.

But he wasn't. He was dropping the F-bomb. His language was thus coarse: rude, crude, and vulgar.

Flaunt the Law!

My friend was recently researching model traffic codes from the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Laws and Ordinances. In the course of his research, he found this linguistic disaster in the Safe Streets Act:

Citizens who comply with the law are frequently victims of traffic accidents caused by those who continue to drive when their driver’s license is suspended or revoked. These innocent victims suffer considerable pain and property loss at the hands of people who flaunt the law.

Of course, to flaunt the law is display it conspicuously, defiantly, and boldly, as if it were a 1976 Impala with 26-inch wheels.

To flout the law is to show contempt for it.

Ginned Up

During his first prime-time press conference, President Obama said something peculiar:

I love this notion that somehow I came in here just ginned up to spend $800 billion. That wasn't how I envisioned my presidency beginning.

His odd phrase, ginned up, really caught my ear. In fact, it drew my attention away from the extreme quantity of money that the President was proposing to spend. (I wonder if this was by design.)

At first, I thought President Obama's being ginned up might have something to do with his fiscal inhibitions being lowered by an excess of alcoholic drink, particularly gin.

Then I though it might have something to do with a cotton gin.

When I tried to look up the phrase in the New Oxford American Dictionary (2d ed. 2005), though, the phrase wasn't there.

Ginned up is also missing from other large dictionaries:

• Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1989)
• Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language (1961)
• The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (2d ed. 1987)
• The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed. 2000)

But I got the answer from Bryan Garner.

The phrase means to rev up (as an engine) and comes from a clipping of engine. See Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage 384 (2d ed. 2003).