Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style. (Some frequently asked questions are here.)
Times readers are literate and well educated. But privately, away from the cocktail party, some of them may wonder: what exactly does “jejune” mean, anyway? If someone put a gun to my head, could I give a precise definition of “atavistic”?
Fortunately, for our online readers, help is readily available. Double-click any word in an article and a question mark appears; click the question mark and you get a definition from the American Heritage dictionary.
Following up on a popular After Deadline post from last year, my colleague James Robinson, with help from Jeremy Safran, once again compiled a list of the 50 words that most often stumped the world’s most brilliant newspaper readers. (O.K., in one case, 4,734 of those savants searched in vain for the definition of a word coined as a joke by a mischievous columnist.)
A few caveats about our data. Obviously, how often a word is looked up by NYTimes.com readers depends in part on how often it’s used and how many people read a particular article (and unfortunately, the function doesn’t yet work on our blogs). Also, we eliminated from the list several common words like “said” and “with” that apparently showed up because people clicked on them inadvertently.
With that in mind, check out the top-50 list, then return to this post for a few observations.
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As you no doubt realized, the entry with the highest rate of “look-ups per use” isn’t really a word at all. “Baldenfreude” is a “nonce word” — a one-time coinage, in this case Maureen Dowd’s fanciful twist on “schadenfreude.” (Faithful After Deadline readers may recall my previous commentary on that German import.)
Several real foreign terms also made the list, which should remind us to be cautious in venturing from English in our writing. There were two Latin phrases — “sui generis” (a repeat entry from last year, meaning “unique”), and “mirabile dictu” (“wonderful to tell”).
“Kristallnacht” is there — somewhat surprisingly, I thought — along with “omertà” and “renminbi.” “Hubris,” “crèches” and “démarche” are foreign words that seem firmly established in English, but that still present hurdles for many readers.
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We all have blind spots in our vocabulary. Going through the list without benefit of context, I’ll admit — somewhat reluctantly — that there were at least two words for which I couldn’t formulate coherent definitions: “démarche” (“a line of action; move or countermove”) and “cynosure” (“a person or thing that is a center of attention or interest”). I might have been able to puzzle them out in context, but standing alone, they stumped me.
For some reason “cynosure” (which can be pronounced with a short or long vowel sound in the first syllable) seems to be crosswired in my brain with the completely unrelated “sinecure” (“an office or position providing income but requiring little work”).
Perhaps the Greek roots would help me figure out “cynosure”? No, not this time: it comes from the Greek for “dog’s tail.” So how did it acquire its current meaning? Apparently “the Dog’s Tail” is what we now call the Little Dipper, the constellation that includes the North Star. Thus the “center of attention or interest.”
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Besides “sui generis,” other encore appearances from last year’s list include “antediluvian” (a favorite of mine, referring to the time before the Flood), “solipsistic,” “peripatetic” and “ersatz.” These, apparently, are words we simply cannot do without — so study up, dear reader.
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But even the most studious readers are likely to stumble over at least some of these words. I don’t suggest banning any of them — in some cases they may be the perfect choice, and we refuse to talk down to readers or dumb down our prose.
Still, we should remember that this is journalism, not philology. Our readers, smart as they are, are often in a hurry. They may be standing on the subway or skimming a story over breakfast. Let’s not make them work any harder than necessary.
In a Word
This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers.
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All of which made her wonder why, with a fulsome résumé and a social calendar to match, she felt “really unsettled in ways I couldn’t acknowledge or even explain.”
Best avoided. The first definition of “fulsome” in our newsroom dictionary is “disgusting or offensive, esp. because excessive or insincere [fulsome praise].” While the secondary meaning “full, ample” has become more common, the ambiguity and negative connotation distract close readers. “Full,” “ample” or perhaps “impressive” would have worked here.
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Mr. Conroy is appealing the conviction. He testified that he lied to the police when he told them he stabbed Mr. Lucero because he wanted to protect another teenager, whom he said had confessed to him to stabbing Mr. Lucero.
Recorded announcement: Make it “who.”
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Michelle Obama on Thursday announced that five foundations — the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, the Omidyar Network, the Skoll Foundation, the Open Society Institute and the Benificus Foundation — would provide a total of $45 million to match the money the government plans to grant to nonprofit groups through its Social Innovation Fund, which will help expand social programs that have proven successful.
The Times’s stylebook and the dictionary both prefer “proved.”
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Among those in the tense, packed courtroom gallery this week was the mother of one of the men who says Mr. Burge abused him.
Better: “the mother of a man who says he was abused by Mr. Burge.”
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While there is a numbing amount of ritual threats and counterthreats involved in any crisis with North Korea, there are several big differences between the current one and other confrontations over the past 20 years.
An awkward construction, partly because “amount” should be used with bulk quantities, not with separate, countable things.
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The prosecutor general, Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, announced on Tuesday that sentences had been “finalized” for 250 detained protesters, with nearly 11 of them sentenced to death — adding to the 9 political prisoners who have been executed since the protests broke out.
A strange lack of precision.
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After Deadline examines questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times. It is adapted from a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards, who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual.