American English language not for sissies

Being in the journalism business gives me a unique perspective on the American English language and how people use it. Or rather, misuse it.

As journalists, we at SBJ ad-here to a stylebook, to rules of grammar and punctuation, as well as dozens of little picky modifications to the rules particular to journalism or to our own paper. We're certainly not perfect, but we are obsessed with striving toward perfection.

I am a rules person. I don't run red lights, even if I'm the only person at an intersection at 3 a.m. and there's not another soul, let alone a police officer, for miles. This makes me a great copy editor, but, needless to say, no fun to drive around with at 3 a.m.

Working with the language, rolling up your sleeves and sifting through the guts, is not a job for sissies. (It may, however, be an ideal career choice for ob-sessive compulsives.) The language is subtle. It can bite.

The challenge is this: On the one hand, the language is not static. The language is a living thing that changes all the time. However, clarity of communication means adhering to rules, to definitions, to standards. It means not giving way to changes in the spoken language that fly in the face of the rules until we absolutely have to: changes like using "party" as a verb.

At the same time, the English language is unique in that it allows writers to go on and on, for pages and pages, using beautiful phrases and lofty, multisyllabic words, and in the end, not say a damned thing.

The following are some of my pet peeves as an editor. You could also call it "things you'll never see in the Business Journal," or, in some cases, "things you almost saw in the Business Journal."

Regardless, here's what makes the editor crazy:

Writers who use "additionally" and "also" in the same sentence.

Writers who use "according to" more than once in a single story.

People who describe a transfer of power by saying someone is "passing the reigns" to someone else. It should be "reins," the steering equipment used on a horse, implying control. If I'm the reigning editor, and I pass that power to someone else, I have relinquished my reign. But note, only the one.

When someone "compliments" you on your appearance, it's spelled with an "I." When two things work well together, they "complement" each other, with an "E."

The word "they" is not gender-neutral singular. In other words, if you refer to an individual, you can't later say "they" did this, "they" did that or "they" did the other. It's "he" or "she." There is no gender neutral singular except "it" in the English language, and the rules say that "it" only applies to inanimate objects, not people.

Hey, as I tell my staff, I didn't invent the English language, I just enforce it.

Embattled. This word, through misuse, has come to mean under attack when what it really means is ready for battle.

Paper tiger. I saw this one in a quote. Someone referred to a paper-intensive process as a "paper tiger." A paper tiger is actually something or someone that appears to pose a threat but is actually powerless.

Like English teachers everywhere, I often despair that people will ever learn the difference between "there," "they're" and "their."

Qualifying superlatives: Saying "very unique" is like saying "slightly dead." It's unique, or it isn't. It's dead, or it's not. Period.

"A lot," as in "there are a lot of problems with the way people spell," is two words. There is another word, "allot," but it means to apportion to divide by shares.

Creative attribution, such as "cried," "exclaimed" or, God help us, "ejaculated."

I could go on ... and on ... and on, but I won't. I think you get the idea.

(Clarissa A. French is managing editor of the Springfield Business Journal.)