Like "practice" and "practise", "prophecy" is the noun and "prophesy" the verb. The last syllable of the verb is pronounced "sigh". There is no verb "to prophesize".
The witches in Macbeth prophesy that "No man born of woman shall harm Macbeth", but this prophecy is intended to deceive.
In today's Globe, we read in a review of a modern derivative of the play, that
Bearing news of the witches' prophesies, [the letter] was somewhat carelessly left lying around...
The reference should, of course, be to the witches' prophecies.
More serious is the error in an article on the Paris Fashion Week in the Globe of March 18, 2011.
"Everything is changing," prophesized the designer post show.
This should read:
"Everything is changing," prophesied the designer post show.
Saturday, 10 September 2011
Monday, 29 August 2011
Language pollution
In the paper this morning, I noticed a comment from a police superintendent about the problem with gangs in Kelowna:
Gang activity is huge in this area right now and we have capacity issues in being able to deal with it... (Globe and Mail on August 29, 2011).
Why do people talk like that? Why not say:
Gangs are very active right now and we don't have enough people to deal with the problem.
Recently I read under the headline "Navy submarine's rust repair to restrict diving depths":
Materiel safety of the submarine would be maintained through a depth limitation caveat on the Windsor submarine's safety register (Globe and Mail, August 1, 2011).
What does that mean? Fortunately, the headline explains the incomprehensible jargon of the navy spokesman.
We encounter this kind of language pollution everywhere. On BC Ferries I'm told what to do "in the event of an emergency situation", and where to find "the washroom facility". We read about "rain events", "flood events", "shower activity". Why all these unnecessary words?
And unnecessarily long ones. When I take my dog for a walk I pass a sign which reads:
Dog owners are required to remove excrement left by their dogs,
instead of
Please pick up after your dog,
and, believe it or not, instead of being simply told to close a gate, I am asked politely, to
Please preserve the integrity of the fence.
It is bewildering that people use language like this when they really want their reader to understand. I remember seeing as a young child the intriguing sign on a Western Australian railway station: Expectoration Prohibited. Perhaps it was considered impolite to say, Don't Spit. More recently I noticed in a New Zealand airport a notice which said Disabled Egress. And on the seat in front of me on a West Jet flight: Seat bottom usable as flotation device. It's just too bad if you find yourself in a predicament and you don't have the vocabulary to get yourself out.
Why do people write or talk like this? To make the subject seem more important? To make themselves seem more important? In some cases, perhaps.
George Orwell, in his essay "Politics and the English Language", had another explanation. He said that we write like this because it's easy. We don't have to think. The words are already in our head in prefabricated strips, and as we open our mouth or take up our pen, they just spew out. It is harder to write simply and clearly because we have to think about what we really want to say and choose the words carefully.
Or as Mark Twain is supposed to have written to a friend:
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
Gang activity is huge in this area right now and we have capacity issues in being able to deal with it... (Globe and Mail on August 29, 2011).
Why do people talk like that? Why not say:
Gangs are very active right now and we don't have enough people to deal with the problem.
Recently I read under the headline "Navy submarine's rust repair to restrict diving depths":
Materiel safety of the submarine would be maintained through a depth limitation caveat on the Windsor submarine's safety register (Globe and Mail, August 1, 2011).
What does that mean? Fortunately, the headline explains the incomprehensible jargon of the navy spokesman.
We encounter this kind of language pollution everywhere. On BC Ferries I'm told what to do "in the event of an emergency situation", and where to find "the washroom facility". We read about "rain events", "flood events", "shower activity". Why all these unnecessary words?
And unnecessarily long ones. When I take my dog for a walk I pass a sign which reads:
Dog owners are required to remove excrement left by their dogs,
instead of
Please pick up after your dog,
and, believe it or not, instead of being simply told to close a gate, I am asked politely, to
Please preserve the integrity of the fence.
It is bewildering that people use language like this when they really want their reader to understand. I remember seeing as a young child the intriguing sign on a Western Australian railway station: Expectoration Prohibited. Perhaps it was considered impolite to say, Don't Spit. More recently I noticed in a New Zealand airport a notice which said Disabled Egress. And on the seat in front of me on a West Jet flight: Seat bottom usable as flotation device. It's just too bad if you find yourself in a predicament and you don't have the vocabulary to get yourself out.
Why do people write or talk like this? To make the subject seem more important? To make themselves seem more important? In some cases, perhaps.
George Orwell, in his essay "Politics and the English Language", had another explanation. He said that we write like this because it's easy. We don't have to think. The words are already in our head in prefabricated strips, and as we open our mouth or take up our pen, they just spew out. It is harder to write simply and clearly because we have to think about what we really want to say and choose the words carefully.
Or as Mark Twain is supposed to have written to a friend:
I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.
Orwell ended his essay with a set of of rules for good writing. Two of them say it all:
Never use a long word when a short one will do.
If it's possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Never use a long word when a short one will do.
If it's possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Wednesday, 24 August 2011
Fortuitous and fortunate
"Fortuitous" does not mean "fortunate". It means "by chance". In the latest edition of my wine magazine, I read:
It was truly fortuitous that the immigrants who came and made their home on this continent brought with them recipes along with wine, beer and spirit-making skills.
Clearly, this didn't happen by chance, and it was to our benefit that they brought these recipes and skills with them. I would make another correction to the sentence as well, assuming that the writer is referring to their wine-making and beer-making skills, along with their spirit-making ones.
It was truly fortunate that the immigrants who came and made their home on this continent brought with them recipes along with wine-, beer- and spirit-making skills.
Here's an example of the correct usage of "fortuitous" taken from the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage:
Hennessy's involvement with the musical was fortuitous rather than planned.
It was truly fortuitous that the immigrants who came and made their home on this continent brought with them recipes along with wine, beer and spirit-making skills.
Clearly, this didn't happen by chance, and it was to our benefit that they brought these recipes and skills with them. I would make another correction to the sentence as well, assuming that the writer is referring to their wine-making and beer-making skills, along with their spirit-making ones.
It was truly fortunate that the immigrants who came and made their home on this continent brought with them recipes along with wine-, beer- and spirit-making skills.
Here's an example of the correct usage of "fortuitous" taken from the Oxford Guide to Canadian English Usage:
Hennessy's involvement with the musical was fortuitous rather than planned.
Licence and license
"Licence" is the noun; "license" is the verb. And the same is true of "practice" and "practise". These are the British spellings, and the Canadian ones.
Pull out your driver's licence and check the spelling. License your dog. Do your piano practice. Practise meditation.
I'm sure the Globe's stylebook follows this distinction as well, so in the following error the writer's American spellcheck must have prevailed.
Unlike health cards, which usually aren't sent out for a few weeks after a replacement request has been fulfilled, a temporary driver's license can be issued after the forms have been processed. (August 23, 2011)
If you are ever in doubt as to which spelling is the noun and which the verb, think of "device" and "devise" to remind yourself that the nouns end in "ce" and the verbs end in "se".
Pull out your driver's licence and check the spelling. License your dog. Do your piano practice. Practise meditation.
I'm sure the Globe's stylebook follows this distinction as well, so in the following error the writer's American spellcheck must have prevailed.
Unlike health cards, which usually aren't sent out for a few weeks after a replacement request has been fulfilled, a temporary driver's license can be issued after the forms have been processed. (August 23, 2011)
If you are ever in doubt as to which spelling is the noun and which the verb, think of "device" and "devise" to remind yourself that the nouns end in "ce" and the verbs end in "se".
Tuesday, 23 August 2011
Fit, fitted, fitted
Recently in a post, I explained that many people mistakenly think that the verb "to cast" has a different past tense. It doesn't. The reverse is true of the verb "to fit". They think that it doesn't change. But it does:
Today the shoe fits; yesterday it fitted; in the past it has fitted.
In the Life section of today's Globe and Mail, we read:
The dress looked great on the hanger. It even fit.
This should read:
The dress looked great on the hanger. It even fitted.
Today the shoe fits; yesterday it fitted; in the past it has fitted.
In the Life section of today's Globe and Mail, we read:
The dress looked great on the hanger. It even fit.
This should read:
The dress looked great on the hanger. It even fitted.
Monday, 22 August 2011
Like or As
Today's error is usually made by people with less formal education than the editors of the Globe and Mail. In an editorial in the weekend edition (August 20, 2011) on the crackdown by the Syrian authorities on their people, they write:
Like in Egypt, they (the police) may soon tire of killing the innocent.
This misuse of the preposition "like" is often heard on sports programs as players make statements such as,
Like I said, we have to give 110%
instead of
As I said, we have to give 110%
"Like" is a preposition here, and as such should be followed by a noun or noun equivalent. "I said" is a clause, and should be joined to the rest of the sentence by the conjunction "as".
The editors can correct their mistake either by replacing the phrase "in Egypt" with a noun, or using the conjunction "as" to join the phrase to the rest of the sentence.
Like the security police in Egypt, they may soon tire of killing the innocent.
or
As in Egypt, they may soon tire of killing the innocent.
Update, August 24, 2011
Here's another example from an article on the decline of Canada's health-care system:
This kind of rhetoric is so commonplace that we have become largely inured to it. At first blush, it's another medicare-is-doomed pronouncement like we've heard seemingly every day for the past half century or so.
This should read:
This kind of rhetoric is so commonplace that we have become largely inured to it. At first blush, it's another medicare-is-doomed pronouncement as we've heard seemingly every day for the past half century or so.
Update, August 24, 2011
Here's another example from an article on the decline of Canada's health-care system:
This kind of rhetoric is so commonplace that we have become largely inured to it. At first blush, it's another medicare-is-doomed pronouncement like we've heard seemingly every day for the past half century or so.
This should read:
This kind of rhetoric is so commonplace that we have become largely inured to it. At first blush, it's another medicare-is-doomed pronouncement as we've heard seemingly every day for the past half century or so.
Sunday, 21 August 2011
Forecast and Broadcast
"Forecast" and "broadcast" are compounds of that marvellous old English verb, to cast, which occurs so many times in the King James Bible. People were always casting seeds on stony ground, or casting stones at each other, or casting someone out into the stony wilderness. Importantly, it's one of those verbs that doesn't change in its different tenses:
Today I cast a stone; yesterday I cast a stone; in the past I have cast a stone.
And the same is true of its compounds, yet some writers persist in adding a cacophonous "ed" to form the past tense or the past participle. An example of this incorrect practice is seen the Globe and Mail of 19 August, 2011. But it's not their error this time: they are quoting verbatim from a report advocating cuts to the military establishment.
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more than originally forecasted.
This should read:
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more then originally forecast.
Today I cast a stone; yesterday I cast a stone; in the past I have cast a stone.
And the same is true of its compounds, yet some writers persist in adding a cacophonous "ed" to form the past tense or the past participle. An example of this incorrect practice is seen the Globe and Mail of 19 August, 2011. But it's not their error this time: they are quoting verbatim from a report advocating cuts to the military establishment.
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more than originally forecasted.
This should read:
... [S]upport to the front-line deployable units is cut far more then originally forecast.
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