I like to write. I like the precision of communication that well-crafted writing provides. I don’t claim to be a good writer but I do like it. It’s a skill that has a shelf-life: if you do not continue to write, your ability rots. It’ll come back if you pick it up but it isn’t like riding a bike. One of the best books that I have ever read about writing is by Stephen King and it is called “on writing”. I have been a King fan for a very long time and reading that book, which is part autobiography, part writing manual and part “insight” was a revolutionary thing for me. King doesn’t have much regard for the whole “outline as structure, words for fill” drill that was taught to most of us in elementary school but he is hot and heavy on usage and grammer. I’m not a grammer nazi but I agree with King that correct usage (to the extent you can pull it off) is a good thing. I try to get it right and it really irritates me when others who should get it right don’t try.
So, with all of that, my two latest pets: “concerning”. seriously. People find things “concerning”. Look up the word and you’ll not find anything about using the word that way. I was was watching MSNBC and Fox this morning and hosts on both shows talked about how the slow response of NYC to dig out two feet of snow was “concerning” (the people on Fox being singularly irritating as they would be the first to hammer Bloomberg if he proposed building enough capacity to dig out from a once in a 100 year storm). It’s not concerning you idiots. It might be alarming, agrivating, irritating or a bazillion other words but it is not “concerning”. These are people who make their living communicating and they can’t be troubled to get it right. Morons! This is foolishness up with which I will not put!
Number Two: This one isn’t so much a usage problem but a factual one. Have you ever seen a TV news segment about some chemical or drug that “increases your chance of death by 20% !!” (or other alarming percentage)? This irritates the crap out of me. See, nothing will increase your chance of death. It is now and remains forevermore, 100%. A particular thing might decrease or increase your chance of death from that thing but rarely are the segments that precise. Nobody here gets out alive.
Here endeth the rant….
December 29, 2010 at 10:21 am
I do agree that it is annoying when people use the wrong word.
However, concering the word “concerning”, according to Dictionary.com, it can be used as an adjective meaning, “worrying or troublesome”.
Therefore, the amount of snow can be concerning or cause for concern.
Now, concerning the percentage of death, I completely agree. That is also one of my pet peeves.
Have a great day!
December 29, 2010 at 10:41 am
I was only concerned about the snow to the extent that it might extend my mother-in-law’s stay with us.
Therefore I decreased my chances of an early death due to apoplectic fit by driving her to Quantico and putting her on the train home yesterday.
I am now doing penance.
I love your blog, Andy, keep writing. Rev. Stuart Schadt at Trinity Episcopal has started a local blog. Hope to see others springing up in 2011.
I haven’t read Stephen King’s book, but I’ve been doing the Artist’s Way with a fellow writer. We meet once a week to touch base and read what we’ve written. I’m on my second short story. Before, my own writing was always on the back burner. Deadlines and accountability help.
December 29, 2010 at 10:58 am
J:
You have, uknowingly, opened up a second front in my craziness…;) I’m not overly in love with the World english dictionary (which you reference). They seem to add a lot of slang and colloquial language to their dictionary. I do believe language should evolve and english certainly doesn’t belong to England (contrary to what my mother believes) but it should do so slowly. Common usage is no reason to put something in a dictionary.
Sorry but that’s just another peeve…:)
December 29, 2010 at 11:07 am
A:
I agree, but someday we will be forced to leave our Oldspeak behind….
December 29, 2010 at 11:11 am
yes, but slowly…:)
December 29, 2010 at 11:28 am
the improper use of “concerning” is “nauseous”, which is causing me to properly feel “nauseated”.
December 29, 2010 at 2:39 pm
It is of grave concern to me that concerned citizens concern themselves with such consternating subject material.
December 29, 2010 at 3:23 pm
“outline as structure, words to fill”
Fox News should send their personnel back to school to learn such as the method is the basis for American Standard English.
I agree with Andy about some of the sites online which (in theroy) give correct usage. Since when is a preposition (even in the Queen’s English) an adjective?
Thus endeth my pontification the hyperbole by Fox News.
December 29, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I don’t think it would be “agrivating” but it might be aggravating.
December 30, 2010 at 12:29 am
That book is still my favorite thing King ever wrote.
December 30, 2010 at 8:47 am
I think this puts to rest the high and mighty attitude yankees have when it comes to snow. I’m so sick and tired of transplanted yankees telling us how wimpy we are when it comes to snow. When in their opinion only, the “greatest” city ever comes to a stop because of snow.
December 30, 2010 at 12:12 pm
You’re right COM, that is tiring…the other thing about the snow is that in no way is our experience here reflective of NYC. In the big city, you can’t simply push the snow out of the way – there is nowhere to put that much snow when you are dealing with city center buildings. You have to truck it out! That takes a lot of time and money. The big snow storms last year cost little ol’ Manassas a million bucks.
December 30, 2010 at 4:49 pm
Yep, 20″ of snow in the big apple during post-Christmas days when many workers are off with their families can be a real challenge. I’ve heard a lot of speculation in the press, but workers on vacation seems the only plausible explanation to me. It’s not like they’ve never received a bunch of snow there before. Made $5 per car digging cars out as a bx kid. Seemed like a lot back then!
December 30, 2010 at 4:55 pm
A million dollars is a lot of money to remove snow. It’s pretty amazing how much it does cost.
December 31, 2010 at 9:50 am
It amazed me. The problem was that is snowed so much there wasn’t anywhere to put the snow. If it snows a couple of inches, you can plow the snow into the end of a cul-de-sac. When it snows 2 feet, you have to truck it out.
We trucked it over to a parking lot at Osbourn and it ruined it – had to repave it this year.
December 31, 2010 at 11:04 am
Is the cost of fixing the damage left by plows figured into the million? There are three broken curbs resting in the grass around the parking lot at Weems Elementary — and this was a light snow. (I reported them to the fix-it form on the city website).
December 31, 2010 at 1:14 pm
While it’s true you can’t easily push the snow somewhere in downtown NYC, as tall as the buildings are there are many streets that get very little snow depending on the direction of the fall. Most snow storms don’t drop their snow straight down. But here in a City like ours, EVERY street gets pretty much the same amount of snow.
My thoughts are that NYC was caught asleep at the wheel. This particular snowfall didn’t come down THAT fast that with proper deployment of the vast resources they have at their disposal they couldn’t have kept up.
January 1, 2011 at 11:09 am
Dear Pedantic Answer Man,
How about the use of “refudiate” as a word?
Hope you don’t refuse to repudiate it.
January 1, 2011 at 6:12 pm
That pile of snow lasted a long time. BTW, that’s how the City of Buffalo does it. They move all of the snow to City owned lots.
January 1, 2011 at 7:42 pm
Steve, I caught that article and GOOGLED http://www.lssu.edu/banished to see the list of words that should be banished in 2011, I’m sure the list has gone VIRAL now, just like that video of the robber with the big stick attacking an employee at my neighborhood Super Mart. Talk about EPIC FAIL, I would never try to MAN UP and defend myself with a hammer – I’M JUST SAYING – give him the money, BFF! My personal A-HA MOMENT would be REFUDIATING the phrase MAMA GRIZZLIES, only because it conjures up pictures of mauled bodies and bloody campsites, not strong women politicians addressing THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. (BACK STORY: I had my share of wildlife encounters on the Appalachian Trail). Anyway, for a small university, Lake Superior State University has certainly upped its WOW FACTOR with “the list.”
January 5, 2011 at 1:10 pm
‘Irregardless’ has to be my unfavorite. The hatred for that misuse was instilled in me as a young kid by my parents.
January 11, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Gender. As in ”gender- based discrimination”. The proper term is ”sex- based discrimination”. Gender describes masculine/feminine forms of language, i.e., hermosa vs. hermoso…..
January 19, 2011 at 5:04 am
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