Do you use too many exclamation marks? Stop it!!!

My newest post at Exordium:

In Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, Katherine Bindley writes of the debate over whether exclamation marks are overused. It is an issue teachers in particular should read, they being among the most cavalier of exclamation mark users. 

How many times have you seen a note from a teacher that reads, “You did a great job!!!” or “It’s so good to have you in the class!!!” “Awesome!!!”

Let’s admit it: There are some teachers who end literally every sentence with an exclamation mark. 

It isn’t as if we are more enthusiastic than we used to be. John Keilman at the Chicago Tribune writes: 

This grammatical sea change has been a rough transition for a lot of us old timers, given that our teachers trained us to regard exclamation points as the Donald Trump of punctuation: loud, overbearing and best endured in small doses. Using them for anything but the most passionate interjection was the sign of a lunatic or an airhead. 

But oh, how times have changed!!!

Read the rest here.

Why Spelling Matters: L. A. school district didn't notice capitalization error in terrorist threat

This is beautiful. The entire Los Angeles Unified School District shut down today because of an e-mail terrorism threat from someone who identified himself as a jihadist. But New York schools received the same threat and considered it a hoax.

Why? Because of a spelling error.

Here is NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, explaining one of the reasons New York decided not to close its schools:

Bratton said one reason authorities believed the email was a hoax was because the word Allah was not capitalized: "The language in the email would lead us to believe that this is not a jihadist initiative... That would be incredible to think that any jihadist would not spell Allah with a capital 'A.'"

So the literate police in New York noticed something that the semi-literate educators in L.A. missed, causing the huge West coast school district to lose a whole school day.

The Grammar Guy: Should one accept the singular "they"? The Washington Post says, "Yes." I say "No"

Below is an interesting discussion I had with Steven Greydamus this morning on his Facebook page on the issue of the singular "they." Steven had posted an article from MentalFloss.com about the Washington Post Style Guide including the singular "they" (as a way to avoid "he" or "she" or "he/sh"/"he or she, etc. in noun/verb agreement) as an acceptable English form. Here is the discussion:

Martin Cothran Another sign of the decline of Western culture.

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Steven D. Greydanus Martin: What part of "Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Lewis Carroll, Kipling, and C.S. Lewis" is confusing to you? Not to mention the King James Bible! Shakespeare and the King James Bible practically ARE the English language. Not to mention Chaucer, Spenser, Robert Lewis Stevenson, Walt Whitman, Shaw, Edith Wharton, and George Orwell. If these are all indicative the "decline of Western culture," pray tell when was the height?

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Martin Cothran I wish I could accept your noble argument. However (and the story you posted completely ignored this), the reason we are even talking about this is not because anyone is trying to mimic the greats, but because we are neutering the language. The reason we are being forced to use "they" is because it is considered politically incorrect to use the generic "he." So our choices are "he/she," "he or she," "she" (a common, mostly academic affectation), or "they." We are talking about this because of the political manipulation of our language. That may be fine with you, but I'm sticking with Jacques Barzun on this one, and they can pry the generic "he" out of my cold, dead, editor's hand.

Like · Reply · 1 hr

Steven D. Greydanus Wishing to preserve generic "he" is one thing, and wishing to defend Western civilization against the forces of inclusivism may be noble; however, rejecting singular "they" as grammatically wrong because it aids the inclusivists is unhistorical and, um, aphilological? Language is what we have made it, and plural "they" is not a corruption. End of story.

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Shane Coombs It's too early on a weekend for me to decide which side of the argument this favors, but I think it's more accurate to say that ALL language is corruption. The way languages develop, just about every word and rule forms from the corruption of earlier ones.

Like · Reply · 53 mins

Martin Cothran Well, I was being intentionally hyperbolic, but I guess there was no way for you to know that. Still, I didn't know there were prescriptive philological and historical rules for the acceptance of linguistic innovations that one could be said to violate. If there are, can we change them in the name of innovation? If I were arguing for usage as the criterion upon which to judge the acceptability of linguistic innovation, I would stay away from invoking prescriptive rules. It can do nothing but undermine my argument. Language may be "what we have made it," (which is true only because it is a tautology), but the question here is whether we SHOULD change or accept a change in official English. Your argument, I think, is that we should accept it if it has precedent among the great English writers of the past. I guess I am thinking that if we use that principle, we will have opened a linguistic Pandora's Box. One look at Shakespeare's English, incredible as it was in its context, should be a warning against it. Chaucer should stop you in your tracks. For example, should we accept Shakespeare's spelling as a part of officially acceptable English?

Like · Reply · 38 mins · Edited

Martin Cothran Shane, in a sense I agree with you, but I can tell you as someone having been involved in education for a number of years that the official rules do serve a useful purpose. You can't just accept anything. It is almost a cultural necessity to have some commonly-accepted reference point to which everyone can appeal in times of dispute. I'm not arguing for slavish adherence to a set of rules that were handed down from Sinai (or that inhabit Plato's realm of the ideal forms), but I'm thinking that Catholics of all people should appreciate the role of a central authority which exercises a sort of centripetal linguistic force.

Like · Reply · 35 mins

Words that Should Be Banned: "Impactful"

I'm starting a new and occasional series of posts on this blog about words vying for legitimacy which should, on the contrary, be eliminated from the language as soon as possible. The need for this increases the more the cultural barbarians assert their new found influence.

George Orwell once pointed out that it is not only true that the decadence of our civilization has bad effects on language, but that decadent language has bad effects on culture:

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.

In other words, saving language helps save civilization. So I have selected a word I heard just today, care of Michelle Obama, although it is hardly limited to the liberal lexicon. In fact, I just heard it the other day from a conservative radio talk show host. The word is ...

"Impactful."

Just typing it makes my cring. Here's the Urban Dictionary's entry on this "word" (which I place in quotation marks to underscore the tentative nature of its status as an actual word):

"Impactful": A non-existent word coined by corporate advertising, marketing and business drones to make their work sound far more useful, exciting and beneficial to humanity than it really is. This term is most frequently used in "team building" seminars and conferences in which said drones discuss the most effective ways to convince consumer zombies to purchase crap they clearly do not need or even want.

"Team building." Ugh. There's another one that needs to go.

When I hear a person use the term "impactful" my first thought is that he has read a few too many bureaucratic memos written by unimaginative people who, instead of reading competent literature, spend their time reading cheesy success books with titles like How to Maximize your Success Through Positive Habits. Or maybe that the person just doesn't read a all.

"Impactful" is a word created by taking a noun ("impact") and adding a suffix ("ful"), making it an adjective. This can work, but more often it does not. If you just don't have an ear for words (and anyone using a word like this is demonstrating that he doesn't), then ask yourself, "Does the expression that results from taking the word back apart and using it as a full expression sound right?" In other words, does it sound right to say, "full of impact"?

How can something be "full of impact"? By its very nature "impact" can only refer to the effect some one thing has on another. One thing "has an impact" on another. But nothing can be "full of impact" and therefore nothing can be "impactful."

Whenever the urge comes upon you to use this fake word, ask yourself whether there is not another word which expresses your thought better. I submit that there is no case in which another word, such as "effective," "meaningful," "constructive," or "significant" would not express the thought better. Oh, and don't replace it with "affecting," which is another word that needs to be banned.

Now that I have had to use this word several times, I feel like taking a shower. So if you'll excuse me...

What's that you say about grammar not being important any more?

This just in from the Eastern language front: Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit and founder of Dozuki:

“I am a grammar “stickler.” I have a “zero tolerance approach” to grammar mistakes that make people look stupid. Everyone who applies for a position at either of my companies, iFixit or Dozuki, takes a mandatory grammar test. If job hopefuls can’t distinguish between “to” and “too,” their applications go into the bin. Yes, language is constantly changing, but that doesn’t make grammar unimportant. Good grammar is credibility, especially on the internet. In blog posts, on Facebook statuses, in e-mails, and on company websites, your words are all you have. They are a projection of you in your physical absence. And, for better or worse, people judge you if you can’t tell the difference between their, there, and they’re.

Oh, and try making a mistake--I mean the least little typo--on an application for a legal internship.

The Grammar Guy assists you in using proper Twitter terminology

Dear Grammar Guy:

If the platform by which we communicate to the world is called "Twitter," then why do we call any discrete instance of it a "tweet"? Shouldn't we call it (or perhaps one who engages in it) a "twit"?

--Terminologically Confused

Dear Terminologically Confused,

You have a great point. Of course, the term 'twit' and the term 'tweet' have two entirely different conno...

[Sorry, your 140 character limit has been exceeded. Sorry for the inconvenience--The Twitter Team]