Structure sentences with care
Sometimes, other newspapers have some funny things in them. And I’m not talking about their comics pages. I’ve been collecting examples for years.
One article was about more space being opened at Arlington National Cemetery.
The cemetery director, who must have earned an A in Bureaucratic Language 101, told a congressional panel that the expansion would open more than 27,000 “burial opportunities.”
I have heard a lot of euphemisms for matters related to death and dying, but this one was new. By “burial opportunities,” he simply means plots will be made available.
Why not say that?
In a different newspaper, a state official visited the area, so the headline read, “Attorney general addresses public safety issues at regional meeting.”
The problem here is that the headline could mean two things. One is that safety issues have arisen at this meeting. Or he will use the meeting to discuss this issue of safety.
I have seen worse examples of this, to be sure.
The governor praises the actions of the airline executives at conference.
The governor isn’t complimenting how the executives behave during the conference. He’s taking time at the meeting to praise the jobs they do elsewhere.
Here’s one more:
Teens invited to discuss childbirth at assembly
One locality wanted drivers to be safe:
Virginia motorists urged to be extra cautious in work zones
That’s a lot of concern for Virginia drivers. But anyone who isn’t from Virginia? Be as reckless as you want.
( Anonymous) high school fundraises for inflatable planetarium
I’ve never even heard of an inflatable planetarium. But the first thing I noticed was the use of “fundraise” as a verb. I scurried, virtually, to the AP Stylebook. Fundraiser is a noun; fundraising is an adjective or noun. The verb form is “raise funds,” not “fundraise.”
A Northern Virginia paper had a headline that read:
Firearms increase domestic abuse lethality in ( Anonymous) County
Nothing about domestic abuse should be sugarcoated. Why not say “death” instead of “lethality”?
IS IT ‘ I’ BEFORE ‘ E’?
I have had at least one niece for more than 30 years, yet every time I write the word, I have to stop to try to remember whether it’s “niece” or “neice.” Many times, I have to look it up to be sure. I don’t understand mental blocks such as this.
And I don’t feel as if I can count on the grammar rule that a reader asked about recently: “I before e except after c.” The problem with most grammar rules is that they often have dozens of exceptions. Maybe more.
The complete saying is: I before E except after C, Or when sounded as “a,” As in “neighbor” or “weigh.”
The rule works fine for many words. “I” is obediently before “e” in these words: Achieve, Belief, Chief, Piece Thief, Yield
The “i before e” part of the rule works well when the sound created by the vowels is “ee.”
Then comes the provocateur, the letter “c,” which
urges the “e” to go first. The “c” needs to come right before the “ei.”
Ceiling, Conceit, Deceit, Deceive, Perceive, Receipt
Then, other times, it doesn’t work. “Conscience” and “sufficient” have the “ie” after “c.” You’d think it would be “ei.”
The words that sound like “a” stick to the “except” rules in these cases.
Beige, Feign, Vein, Weight But then we have the words that flout the rule with abandon. These words have the “ee” vowel sound, and yet the “e” comes first:
Seize, Weird, Caffeine, Leisure
And, even worse, you also need to know that these words don’t follow the rules, either.
Counterfeit, Heifer, Foreign, Sovereign
Some optimists like to say, “It’s the exceptions that prove the rule.” When that notion is applied to grammar, I say, “Baloney.”
Sources: Various Virginia newspapers, Oxford Dictionaries, MerriamWebster, Daily Writing Tips, Word Detective.