Rantings of a sub-editor

November 22, 2010

Not my Howard

Filed under: affair,Uncategorized,word choice — substuff @ 4:32 pm
Tags: , ,

Here’s a tricky little question for you: when is an affair an affair? I am talking affairs of the heart and the bedroom here, rather than affairs of state.

I was alerted to this last week while reading a story about my favourite Take That member Howard Donald (well, at least joint favourite, anyway – Jason Orange will always have a place in my heart too). According to The Evening Standard, a court had lifted a super-injunction that the lovely Howard had taken out on a former lover: Take That star Howard Donald has no right to keep his affair secret, judges rule. But while The Evening Standard described it as an “affair” throughout the story, the Metro the next day described it as a “relationship” and the woman concerned as his “girlfriend”: Take That’s Howard Donald’s super-injunction lifted by court (mmm… great headline there).

To me, the word ”affair” implies that infidelity is involved. In this case, there appears to be no suggestion that either of the parties were married or in another relationship. Neither was this a fling - it began in 2000 and ended last year. So is there any justification for describing it as an affair, other than that it sounds sexier than “relationship”? It strikes me that “an affair” and “a love affair” are also subtly different – the former suggests infidelity, but the latter suggests (non-permanent) romance.

This prompted two more questions in my mind:

1. If two people have a relationship, but one of them is also in another (presumably more permanent) relationship, are they both having an affair? Or only the cheating party?

2. If a newspaper refers to a relationship or “love affair” as “an affair”, thus suggesting infidelity where there was none – could there be a case for libel?

October 18, 2010

A lairy question

Filed under: lairy,word choice — substuff @ 11:54 am
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“He gets so lairy when he’s drunk”, “God, you’re in such a lair today”, “Stop lairing at me”. You all talk like this, right? Apparently not.

This is the language of my West Sussex youth, and I’d assumed that it was common everywhere. But an email from my mum last week made me stop and think – and y’know what, I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say “lairy” in years. Is that because it’s gone out of fashion, or because I now mostly hang around in London, or because these days I’m a bit so-middle-class-it-hurts?

Mum writes: “Laura and I were trying to explain to our Bangladeshi/Huddersfield pupil the meaning of ‘larey’ – he just kept asking why – what is the origin???  Can’t get much from the internet – is it in OE or is it just a fabricated word?” 

A quick Google shows that the spellings lairy and larey are both common, but the definitions vary wildly depending on location. In Australia, for example, it means tastelessly dressed. In Scotland, drunk. And in England, aggressive.

I can’t work out whether it comes from lair or leery – both are cited in various places. Both seem plausible, too. From the OED:

Lair
a wild animal’s resting place

Leery
knowing, sly

Alternatively, of course, it could be a twist on blairy, as in “like Tony Blair”.

Here are some of the regional variations. I don’t think I’ve ever found a word that varied so wildly.

From the excellent Australian National Dictionary Centre:

Lairy is widely used in Australia to mean either `flashily dressed, showy’ or `socially unacceptable’. Lairy is thought to have come into Australian English around the end of the nineteenth century from the British slang term leery, meaning `wide awake, knowing, sharp, streetwise’.

The verb lair is most frequently used as a verb phrase in combination with up to mean `behave in the manner of a lair,’ and has produced another adjectival use as in G. Savage, The House Tibet (1989): At Legal Aid I got landed with this callous bitch all laired up with these big shoulder pads and earrings like baby crocodiles.

By the 1950s the verb had produced a new extended form, lairise, with an identical meaning. In 1960 for example the Northern Territory News commented: All they seem to think of these days is lairizing around in ten-gallon hats, flash, colored shirts, gabardine riding breeches and polished riding boots chasing a bit of fluff. And in 1987 The Australian, in its description of a football match, said: Certain players… instead of doing the percentage things… turned it into a bit of show-off time and started lairising.

The Urban Dictionary, with perhaps slightly less authority, lists nine meanings (some of which are so similar as to be effectively the same). Here are a few:

England, esp South Coast. Pushy, angry. “Don’t get lairy with me!” “He gets so lairy when he’s had too much”.

Brighton slang for cheeky, particularily in the case of younger people ‘giving lair’ to older people. Lairing someone up is like winding them up, maliciously.

Getting inebriated and behaving obnoxiously for the amusement of all.

Something that misbehaves and is prone to deceit. It can also have vicious tendencies. “My bunny is a bad lairy-sauce.” (Okay… that’s just weird.)

Wictionary seems to sum it all up quite nicely:

lairy

  1. (Australian) vulgar and flashy
  2. (UK) touchy, aggressive or confrontational Don’t get lairy with me!
  3. (Northern England) drunk, intoxicated

So, three questions for you, fellow word nerds.

1. Have you heard this word?
2. What does it mean in your neck of the woods?
3. Anyone know how we got from lair and leery to lairy?

September 15, 2010

Holding firm on ‘company’

Filed under: firm/company,word choice — substuff @ 11:32 am
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A company and a firm are not the same thing. I hold firm on this mainly because my first chief sub, Dr Two-Degrees-in-Italian Davies, says it is so – and he has an annoying habit of being correct. However, it’s always good to question something if you don’t know the reason for it. Especially if you are being subjected to a barrage of “firms” and someone has just insinuated that by changing each one to “company” you are being a pointlessly pestilent pedant. The latter two, yes. But, I hope, never the former.

So I have been doing a little research. The results, I’m afraid to say, are far from conclusive. The best explanations come from the Guardian and The Times style guides, which both refer to a firm as a partnership.

The Times:
companies abbreviate to Co in, eg, John Brown & Co. Company is singular. Full points in company titles usually unnecessary, as in W H Smith and J Sainsbury. Do not abbreviate Ford of Europe to Fords, Swan Hunter to Swans etc. See Ltd, plc
NB. Do not confuse the words company and firm, even in headlines. A firm implies a business partnership, as in the legal or accountancy professions, estate agents etc

The Guardian:
firm strictly a partnership without limited liability, such as solicitors or accountants, but may be used in place of company in headlines

As “firm” usually refers to  solicitors, accountants and doctors (or even criminals and hooligans), I wonder if as well as specifying that the arrangement is a partnership, the word also implies that those involved are all experts in the same field – while a company may include members of several different fields. That’s just my own conjecture, though.

I have so far failed to find a crystal-clear explanation of the difference between the two terms. And the dictionary definitions are downright confusing.

OED (though I should mention that this is the “new edition for the 1990s”)
Company 3 a A commercial business, b (usually Co.) the partner or partners not named in the title of a firm
Firm 1 a a business concern b the partners in such a concern 2 a group of persons working together, esp. of hospital doctors and assistants

Collins
Company 4 a business enterprise 5 the members of an enterprise not specifically mentioned in the enterprise’s title
Firm 1 a business partnership 2 any commercial enterprise 3 a team of doctors and their assistants

 Anyone care to clear it all up with an elegant and devastating definition?

August 26, 2010

Whose gynaecologist is it anyway?

Filed under: gynaecologist,word choice — substuff @ 10:22 am

I need help!

I have just objected to a male colleague beginning a story “My gynaecologist is Jane Seymour’s father”.

Am I right to object? It was his mother’s gynaecologist, surely. The words “my gynaecologist”, spoken by a man, suggest to me that a) he is in fact at least partially female, and b) he has been seeing a doctor about some rather sensitive matters. This assertion has earned me an accusation of workplace bullying.

Just my warped mind?

The OED has this to say of gynaecology:
the science of the physiological functions and diseases of women and girls, esp those affecting the reproductive system.

August 7, 2010

For what it’s worth

Filed under: word choice,worth — substuff @ 2:47 pm
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This is not one of my tub-thumping posts – it is more of a reflective/opinion-gathering one.

As ever, I’d be interested to hear what others think, so don’t hold back…

I put up the following post on Twitter yesterday:

 

Opinion on the ‘worth’ in this sentence? “Around 2,500 tonnes worth of CDs alone are thrown away each year.”

I should have phrased it better. I know very well that ‘worth’ is redundant in this sentence – I was hoping to stir up some furious responses, because this is one mistake that really bugs me. Tonnes worth? That’s crazy! Instead, I just got a couple of messages telling me to delete it. Thanks guys…

Last night I recounted this fascinating story to my boyfriend (I know, I know, we should get a room, right?) and he was satisfyingly horrified. We started mulling over where this error must stem from, and before long we realised it must be from when we talk about money – “£3,000′ worth of damage”, etc.

I, rather rashly, claimed that ’worth’ was still redundant, even when talking about monetary value. In fact, I claimed, it was always redundant. I say rashly, because I soon realised I was wrong and had to beat a hasty retreat. My boyfriend, on the other hand, claimed that it was always necessary to include it when talking about money. I guess that’s the difference when you put a news sub and an academic in a room together – one will always want to cut, cut, cut and the other will want to define. Anyway, in the end we  confused one another to such an extent that we thought it would be far wiser to concentrate on drinking wine instead.

Now, in the harsh light of day/dim light of the Sunday Times subs’ bench, my thinking is thus:

if you omit the ‘worth’, your sentence makes a claim about an actual, real-world transaction

if you include the ‘worth’, you are expressing a conceptual value

Bear with me, bear with me, I know that sounds like bollocks, but I’m getting there…

“The vandals caused £3,000 of damage” – this suggests that the repairs have been paid for, £3,000 has changed hands.

“The vandals caused £3,000′ worth of damage” – the repairs would cost £3,000, but may or may not be carried out. Or they would usually cost £3,000, but may have in fact been done for less.

We also tried out an example using years. Is there a difference between: “Mr Baker’s matchstick ship represents three years’ work” and “Mr Baker’s matchstick ship represents three years’ worth of work”?

To me, the former states clearly that the ship was worked on fairly solidly for three consecutive years. The latter is slightly more malleable – it could perhaps have taken a longer period overall, but with the work done less consistently. The work added up to three years – it was worth three years – but it may not have been, in actual fact, three years.

I’m beginning to think I’m making this more complicated than it needs to be. Anyone want to chip in?

Oh, and Ps. what the heck do you do with the possessive apostrophe in “three thousand pounds’ worth of damage” if you want to write it with “£3,000″? I’ve gone for “£3,000′ worth”, but I’m not entirely convinced.

July 14, 2010

It’s a fact: “actually” has its charms

Filed under: actually and in fact,word choice — substuff @ 11:52 am
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A few days ago, I received back a proof that had a little tutorial at the bottom. It said:

“Never use ‘in fact’ or ‘the fact is’ – they are redundant. Either something is a fact or it isn’t.”

Goodness, every day is a school day.

The original sentence said:

“Pay-as-you-go mobile phones are extremely popular. In fact, more than 50% of our readers have one.”

And my anonymous tutor had changed this to:

“Pay-as-you-go mobile phones are extremely popular and more than 50% of our readers have one.”

Bearing in mind that this is a chatty, informal and consumer-facing magazine and that the 50% figure is surprisingly high, I think the original sentence has more impact and has actually been made duller by the change.

However, he’s not alone. The Times style guide says:

fact that almost always an unnecessary circumlocution, so avoid (eg, “owing to the fact that” means because). See verbosity

 in fact can, in fact, almost invariably be omitted

The Guardian style guide doesn’t have any entries that I can find.

The episode got me thinking. “The sentence has actually been made duller”? Surely any ban on “in fact” or “the fact is” should also include “actually”, because similarly, it doesn’t have much of a meaning. But on that day I had used just that word in a feature about sales skullduggery.

My sentence was:

“In each case the sale price was contrasted with a ‘usual’ price that was never actually available.”

And although “actually” adds little in terms of meaning or content, I feel quite strongly that without it the sentence would be weaker.

To me it is a question of tone of voice. This magazine has quite a pally style. We abbreviate it’s, there’s, you’ve, for example. And in the case of these two features, there wasn’t much pressure on word count. In other words, surprise surprise, I think I was right to use “in fact” and “actually” in these cases. However, I doubt I would use either in a hard-hitting and tight news story for a newspaper.

So what does “actually” actually mean? My feeling is that it marks the surprising part of the sentence – the juicy or meaty bit, or the scandal. It’s also useful to signal a contradiction of the reader’s expectation – “Those who religiously eat turnips every day may be surprised to hear that they are actually bad for the nerves”. I put the question to a friend, as I am wont to do, and after some consideration he proclaimed it was the bit of the sentence that you accompany with a jabbing finger. “I can’t believe you actually [jab] did that!”

In my opinion, these words and phrases are far from redundant and imposing a “never use” rule is just miserable. It’s a matter of knowing when to use them - and when not to. As a matter of fact, I’m actually rather reticent to give them up.

June 25, 2010

On onto

Filed under: word choice — substuff @ 3:03 pm
Tags: , ,

 Finally, inspiration strikes! One of my colleagues today raised the question of whether it should be “put a charge on to” a card or “put a charge onto” a card. Myself and another sub immediately started shaking our heads and denouncing the one-word onto, and the style guide backed us up. But to be honest, although I know that ‘onto’ is a no-no and I always avoid it, I’m not sure why. To me, ‘onto’ and ‘on to’ have quite a distinct difference – the former meaning to move one object on to (onto?) another, and the latter having a meaning connected to distance or time, as in “moving on to”.

I looked it up in the dictionary on my desk - The Concise Oxford Dictionary: the new edition for the 1990s (what can I say, I’m the new girl!) - which took a somewhat ambivalent view.

onto:
to a position or state on or in contact with. The form onto is still not fully accepted in the way that into is, although it is in wide use. It is however useful in distinguishing sense as between we drove on to the beach  (i.e. in that direction) and we drove onto the beach (i.e. in contact with it)

The Guardian’s style guide says, militantly:

on to:
not onto
Kingsley Amis, perhaps slightly overstating the case for this, argued: “I have found by experience that no one persistently using onto writes anything much worth reading”

And the Times style guide says, rather promiscuously:

on to:
 unlike into, two words generally better than one, as in “she moved on to better things”, though “he collapsed onto the floor” is acceptable

And now that I think about it, I am beginning to feel quite passionately that there is a place in the world for ‘onto’. It has a distinct meaning and aids clarity and communication. We do it with ‘into’ and ‘in to’ – why not equal rights for ‘onto’? Who’s with me?

June 5, 2010

Enormity

Filed under: enormity,word choice — substuff @ 1:16 pm
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Look what I just found in the Sunday Times’s style guide. Well I never!

enormity:       is enormously misused; its primary meaning is dreadful wickedness. So “the enormity of Saddam’s crimes” is fine but “the enormity of the problem” is not. Use size or scale when that is what is meant.

May 5, 2010

Herald revisited

Filed under: herald,word choice — substuff @ 8:41 pm
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Last week I got my knickers in a twist about the verb to herald, prompted by the sentence: “Premier Foods is heralding the arrival of summer with a new Mr Kipling cake range based on classic ice cream flavours.”

At the time, I claimed: “herald should be used to describe a sign (quite often a natural sign) that something is going to happen, rather than a response to the knowledge that it is going to happen.”

However, almost as soon as I had published it, I started to have doubts. My initial understanding had been that the action of heralding something was generally natural, accidental or unpurposeful – in the way that a daffodil can herald the start of spring. But what about herald as a noun – the person who announces that something is to happen, or someone is to arrive? That role is certainly not natural, accidental or unpurposeful. And what about all the newspapers that have the word in their titles?

So I have done a little more probing. And I must say, I am rather upset with the dictionary because it doesn’t quite say what I want it to say (ie. that I was right).

Here are the two main definitions from the OED:

herald (noun)
1. An official employed to make a ruler’s proclamations and carry ceremonial messages between heads of state
2. A person or thing that precedes and announces the approach of another (similar to harbinger)

herald (verb)
Proclaim the approach of; usher

And these are all very well and good. However, the closest definition of the meaning I ascribe to herald is found instead under foreshadow.

foreshadow
Serve as a type or presage of, prefigure; suggest or indicate (something to come)

But even this isn’t quite right. I’m thinking not so much of a presage, which is too close in meaning to omen, but a sign – perhaps a mystical one, perhaps just naturally occurring, but definitely not deliberate.

Is anyone with me here? Or am I totally barking up the wrong dictionary? If your responses unanimously tell me I have hallucinated this additional meaning, I promise to herald my admission of defeat by consuming at least three of the very Mr Kipling cakes that started this whole thing off. Every cloud…

(I’m not eating a Creme Egg for anyone though.)

In other news, I would like to announce that the addition of breasts to the blog has prompted a new hits-per-day record – even though the post wasn’t about sub-editing at all and only took a minute to put up. Sigh.

April 13, 2010

The bigger the better? How irregular

Filed under: regular,word choice — substuff @ 9:16 am

I am not a coffee drinker, generally. I am one of those supercilious types who sips on green tea while others pollute their bodies. As I write, a large cup of Lipton peppermint and cinnamon tea is steaming away by my keyboard. However, occasionally, when no-one is looking, I do indulge in the odd latte.

Sunday afternoon was just such an occasion. On the way home from a wedding, as I scampered across Victoria station juggling a couple of bags and a slight hangover, Delice de France caught my eye (or my nostrils).

I ordered a brie and bacon croissant and a latte. “A regular latte?” asked the man. Yes, a regular latte. The more-than-£5 bill was a bit of a shocker, but hey, it’s London.

And
then
came
the
coffee.

The man behind the counter put the crane into gear and started cranking. Slowly, my coffee rose into view. The counter groaned as it took the weight. I shouldered my bags and with both hands, reached out to lift the cup. As I took possession, my muscles trembled under the strain. Finally, a passing security chap, resplendent in fluorescent yellow, hailed one of those beeping cars, which eventually transported me and my swimming pool of coffee to platform 18.

Well, something like that, anyway.

“Regular”. Are you serious?

Let me read to you from the OED, Delice de France.

regular
denoting merchandise, especially food or drink, of average, medium or standard size

So how big is an average, medium, standard, regular coffee? Well call me old-fashioned, but shouldn’t this be… umm… the regular size you make at home? Y’know, an average cup. A normal one, if you will. Say about 10 ounces? So then a ‘small’ would be perhaps 8oz and a large would be 12oz. But no. I am pretty sure that I was given a good 16oz of latte – that, fellow pedants, is a pint. A pint!

Now I admit that I shouldn’t have fallen for the old “a regular latte?” marketing trick. But still. This is silly. One pint of coffee and milk is not regular. In fact, I would argue that it is highly irregular. Most of it was milk, so… that’s the best part of 261 calories and 9.1 grams of fat. If I’d known that, I’d have gone for chocolate cake instead, dammit.

Political parties listen up! First one to promise legislation on appropriate use of adjectives of size gets my vote. No more primo, medio and massimo, Costa. No more tall, grande and venti, Starbucks. No more ridiculous regulars, Delice. C’mon, Mr Brown, Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg. Last one there’s a Tory!

Googling my plight, I discovered this post from a disgruntled Starbucks customer protesting against being made to say ‘venti’. Very funny.

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