Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Copy editor can’t stop editing people’s bad grammar
DEAR CAROLYN: As a professional copy editor, I am very aware of how people use words, which has led me into a habit I hate. When I talk with people, I often find myself editing their grammar and correcting their mistakes in my head. (I never actually tell them — I know how obnoxious that would be!) People who pepper their conversation with garbage words — “like,” “you know,” “I mean,” “do you know what I’m saying?” — drive me crazy, and sometimes I am so braced for the next one I lose track of what they’re saying. These are people I work with, live with, love; I want to stop! How?
— Like, You Know
DEAR READER: You cut off the emotional reward for judging, and amplify the reward for accepting.
It’s habit now, so use a (mental) manual override: You are not inherently better for your word use, you are merely better trained.
What you have is expertise — the way a mechanic has expertise, or a chef, or a surgeon, or a wide receiver.
I suppose an NFL wide receiver might scoff at me if I laid out for a pass, but unless my life takes a strange turn, he won’t get the opportunity. A trained writer, meanwhile, marinates in speech from people who weren’t taught the nuances of lay vs. lie, or pedagogically hassled out of extraneous likes. Yet prevalence doesn’t make one kind of judging more appropriate, just less absurd.
If you don’t think they’re analogous, lean in for a closer look. Just because (almost) everyone uses language and not everyone plays football doesn’t mean the role of training and expertise are any less germane. It takes only exposure to learn a language but years of training to master one. Not everyone has access to that training, and some who do will either decline to put in the work or have other battles to fight.
And where it is a matter of innate ability — well, we all have some strengths and lack others.
So. Every time you flinch at garbage words, link “like” to empathy a la Pavlov: Imagine the speaker dropping passes or singing off-key or staring helplessly under a car’s hood, and offer the same degree of acceptance. They’re good at all kinds of things — just not this. And you even love some of them, which certainly helps.
DEAR CAROLYN: Our daughter is a recently married physician in residency — read: long, grueling hours, little flexibility.
Problem: Her mother-inlaw plans vacations without consulting with our daughter, so our daughter is either not able to go or must trade shifts to attend. Trading is stressful and the shifts she gets are worse than those she gives.
MIL’s perspective is that she should be able to plan and go on a family vacation with whoever can join since, in her words, “she’s not the one with a challenging career.”
This seems not only mean-spirited and exclusive, but also potentially damaging to the newlyweds’ relationship. And it puts the husband in a tough spot. He is supportive but also trying to stay out of the fire.
What is the most appropriate response from our daughter, and from her husband?
— Left Out
DEAR READER: The one they figure out for themselves.
It’s a real challenge and the mother-in-law does sound mean-spirited. A pox on her for it.
But my standing is pretty much the same as yours here: Until they ask us, our job is to trust them to work it out. If they do ask: Advise wife and husband to stand up for their marriage as one.