By Bob Yearick
Where are the Editors?
• Reader Larry Hamermish submits this sentence from a News Journal article by Sophia Voight about Delaware Law School moving downtown: “The Bridge academic center compliments nearby Community Education Building, another former MBNA-turned-education-hub at 1200 N. French St.” To compliment is to praise or offer accolades. The correct word here is complements, meaning to complete or enhance by providing something additional.
• From a recent email: “Amy Melissen and Lee Stivers revisit classic covers and originals in their premier album, ‘Something Tells Me Everything Will Be Alright.’” And I’m telling you that all right is two words.
• Tim Reynolds, Associated Press, exhibiting phony sophistication: “It’s reasonable to think many basketball fans learned of Wembanyama when the now-infamous video of a 2-on-2 game featuring he and Gobert came out six years ago.” As the object of the verb featuring, the pronoun here should be him.
• Reader Janet Ames sends this from The Philadelphia Inquirer: “Since he left CNN, Lemon has joined the legion of journalists who have gone into business for himself.” Glaringly, this should be themselves, since this reflexive pronoun refers to journalists, not Don Lemon.
• Alex Coffey, also in The Inky: “Someone hurled an illicit 40-ounce bottle of beer in retaliation, and everybody sprung into action.” The past tense — sprang — is needed here. Sprung is the past participle, as in, “The cat had sprung from her hiding place before John could catch her.”
• And finally, while distributing our grammatical brickbats, we must throw a bouquet to NBC’s Tom Costello. The senior news correspondent corrected himself when, reporting on the recent Artemis II mission, he at first said the spacecraft had traveled further than any of its predecessors, then quickly changed it to farther. Further refers to greater degree or extent, while farther means actual physical distance. Well done, Tom.
Department of Redundancies Dept.
• Once again, WDEL aired a police report in which a car was “traveling at a high rate of speed.” Speed: The rate at which something or someone is moving.
Similar, and Sometimes the Same
A friend recently mentioned that he had seen a news report about a man “careering around a corner,” and asked, “Shouldn’t that be careening?” Well, yes and no. According to Grammarphobia, “Until the early 20th century, a traditional distinction was made between the two verbs. The verb ‘career’ meant to rush recklessly and out of control, while ‘careen’ meant to tilt, tip, or heel over (as a ship might do).”
Since the 1920s, however, careen has the sense of “hurtling,” or “moving quickly and out of control” — at least here in the United States. The British, meanwhile, have clung to the original meaning, and across the pond career is more often used in this sense.
That led me to other words that have similar meanings, such as these two pairs:
• devoid/void Devoid (always followed by “of”) emphasizes the absence of something that is expected or desired, often used to describe a lack of qualities, emotions, or substances. E.g., “He is devoid of emotion.”
Void describes an empty space — “The room is void of furniture” — or a situation where something is null and without legal effect — “The contract was declared void.”
• begrudging/grudging. Grammarians such as Bryan Garner and Grammar Girl advise us to stick with grudging (reluctant; with grumbling). E.g., grudging acceptance. Avoid the participial adjective begrudging — e.g., “I have heard even some die-hard Hillary-haters express begrudging [read grudging] admiration for her determination, resourcefulness and fierce advocacy for her beliefs.”
Curated to Death
I nominate curate (and its offspring, curated and curating) as the current most overworked word in the English language. Originally used in relation to collections of art, it’s now a buzzword referring to a group or list of, well, almost anything — a playlist, a clothing line, a subscription box, homes in a given market. Why not use words like select, hand-pick, or tailor, and give curate a rest?
Literally of the Month
CNN Opinion column on U.S. economic policy: “The administration is literally painted into a corner after its own spending spree.”
Word of the Month
gracile
Pronounced gra-sile, it’s an adjective meaning slender, physically slight.
Buy The War on Words book at the Hockessin BookShelf, at Huxley & Hiro Booksellers, or on Amazon. Or email me at ryearick@comcast.net.
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