Mendacity, Mendacious, Mendicant

Ooh, I love words!

Okay, Folks, pay attention:

Mendacity (n) means deceit; hiding a lie within a truth. Ex. "I'm an award-winning public speaker" might suggest far more prestige than the ribbons earned at my club!!

The adjective form of mendacity is mendacious.

Mendicant (adj) means beggar, supplicant - completely different meaning from deceitful.

Proximal v. Proximate v. Approximate

Oh, Boy! What a mess...

Overheard recently: "The proximal tourniquet time was 3 minutes." Really??? Proximal (adj.) means located near to the center, or near the point of attachment. Proximate (adj.) means closest in relationship, immediate, as in "The deer crossing the street was the proximate cause of the accident. When discussing or measuring time, the correct word is approximate (adj.).  In the case of the overheard sentence, the correct adjective should have been approximate.

Instillation vs. installation

Both words are nouns in this case.

Instillation (n.) means filling up, implanting, infusing; in another sense, it means inspiring, inculcating. Ex. "The doctor recommended the instillation of eye drops at bedtime."

Installation (n) means putting in place, setting up. Induction, investiture, inauguration. Ex. "The new officers were installed."

When you instill, you put something in, as in medicine. When you install, you set up or build or inaugurate.

My Poor Ears! They're Getting a Workout Today!

Overheard by a professional, American born: "...it was examined in a systemic fashion ..." Wouldn't you prefer systematic???

Pain, My Poor Ears!

Overheard, from a "professional," American born: "Him and his wife told me ..."

Basic! What the heck did you do in elementary school? Him and his wife??? Oh, be still my ears!

"He had recently underwent ..."

Oh, my poor ears!

If this were an isolated instance, I wouldn't write about it, but it's not - it's all too common, I'm afraid, including such oddities as "I should have went ..."

What are these people doing in school?!?

Better question: What do they teach them in school? Are the teachers themselves so ignorant? Are there no standards when writing essays? Are classes in grammar and vocabulary so deficient?

This is my soap box: Proper conjugations should be taught in grammar school, and by the time someone reaches the professional ranks, such "rank" errors ought to be gone for good!

The above two examples were spoken by professionals.

"I think that sucks!"

Folks, that expression has sadly become part of our everyday lexicon.  It is ubiquitous in its use. Even otherwise professional people use it with impunity.  It's all over the internet, in all types of media, representing the gamut of articles.

And it's repulsive.

As with other objectionable figures of speech, expletives of various kinds, or casual idioms, "that sucks" is neither elegant, professional, nor even acceptable in any sense of the word.  Unless you are discussing one of the instincts of the newborn, that word should be eliminated from your vernacular.  If you are not discussing the method of drinking through a straw, eliminate that word from your vocabulary.  The only other use for it might be if you are part of a group of school children gathered in the locker rooms debating the merits of a bad grade.

With a tip of the hat to Seth Stevenson, who eloquently wrote about the passe nature of the word in his article, Suck It Up, I must state that I still find the word offensive, abrasive, and downright inappropriate.  I don't care that it's been part of everyday language for a long time; I don't care that no one associates fellatio with the word anymore; I don't care that most people don't even know what it means, or that it's a "concise, emphatic" way to say something is no good. I still find it objectionable.

Another word has been part of the English lexicon far longer than sucks, and yet is still considered taboo in polite society.  Ah, but this does beg the question: Are we a polite society anymore? I no more enjoy hearing "fuck this place; this is fucked up" in a public place, than I do sucks. Call me old fashioned, that's okay, I don't mind.

How long a word has been in usage should not be the overriding criterion for keeping it going. Surely, we are all aware of objectionable words that have seen their time pass. The current social debate even concerns names as old as the sport they represent: the Redskins.

No, how long a word has been in existence is not an excuse to continue using it.

It is clear that Mr. Stevenson's use of the English language is masterful.  He writes flawlessly, with perfect grammar and superb vocabulary, all skills and talents dear to my heart. But his arguments are not as sentient.

The word sucks - along with his other notables mentioned in his article - are vulgar and offensive. That he claims they more efficiently express our emotions is to condemn us to a further deterioration of our language. Surely, someone as well spoken as Mr. Stevenson could find an effective way of speaking his mind without resorting to those expletives - indeed, he may well invent some.

Amenable vs amiable

"The tear is not amiable to surgical repair at this time."  Huh??? Amiable means friendly.

Methinks that person meant amenable, which means ready for, disposed to, in a condition for.

"A open wound," and "a optional stock"

This drives me crazy.  Batty!  What the heck is going on with people dropping the "n" when combining two vowels?! "All this proved to be a excellent source of information."  Ouch on the ears! These phrases were spoken by an otherwise highly-educated person! It's heard pervasively throughout the English lexicon nowadays.  It's AWFUL.  It's not cool!

"I had a accident"

It's not just Millenials who commit these unconscionable gaffes in popular speech - it's also doctors and lawyers, and even some journalists on national media.  It's atrocious.  From spelling errors, no doubt compounded by the shorthand required in texting, or Hollywood that has seen fit to turn all pronouns indiscriminately to the subjective, "I" ("between you and I," or "she gave you and I a nice gift," etc., etc., ad nauseum), now there is the dropping of the liaison "n" when two vowels are conjoined, as in "I had an accident."  It's heard everywhere; it's even written everywhere. Right there on Google, third in line, is "How do you find a interest rate." The English language is a precious gift.  To adulterate it seems a terrible practice, a sad practice, and does not bode well for Millenials, many of whom are mourning the sad economy or the dearth of jobs.  I wonder if jobs - or the economy, for that matter - would suffer as much if they focused as much on developing their brains as they do on the latest thumb-damaging gadgets.

One's brain and ability to think and extrapolate are some of the greatest gifts any of us will ever have - along with our health.  To suppress it; to refuse to educate it; to insist on drifting through life staring down on tiny screens and encouraging carpal tunnel syndrome is regrettable.  Somehow that word just doesn't do justice to the passion I feel.

Another one just came across the wires: "He is a 84-year-old man." Hurts the ears!

Body Language

In a recent TV program, Secrets of Body Language, on the esteemed History Channel, the narrator spoke of the when describing Yasser Arafat's obsequious back-patting and attempts to defer to his colleague as a sign of "apparent geniality."

"We pay so much attention to the words people speak; but remember, 93% of human communication is delivered through body language."

I posted that quote (of an experiment conducted by Albert Mehrabian in the 1960s and widely misinterpreted), onto LinkedIn, and started a firestorm, with people coming out of the woodwork eschewing that quote as outdated, a "myth," long ago refuted by other so-called experts.  The problem is not the quote, so much as the ongoing misinterpretation of the masses, even experts. Wikipedia has a great write-up about Mehrabian and the experiment in question that is worth reading.

In short, the experiment attempted to examine the elements of communication, including verbal, as well as non-verbal elements.  Mehrabian concluded that there are three basic elements in all face-to-face communication:

• Words
• Tone of voice
• Nonverbal behavior, such as facial expressions.

Note, importantly, that the experiment is very narrow in focus; moreover, the experiment was for face-to-face communication.  Surely, not all communication is conducted face to face, which adds another dimension to examining communication in general.  Nonetheless, in every respect, these experiments in communication assume human communication - we all know, of course, that communication occurs between and among species, but that's another story.

Elusive v Illusive

Elusive and illusive sound very much alike in spoken speech.  As with most sound-alikes, they mean quite different things.  Both are adjectives.

Elusive (adj.) describes something that is fleeting, hard to pin down, vague, mysterious, as an elusive feeling one might have, obscure.  The root verb is elude, which means to escape, disappear or evade.  Ex. The interpretation of the dream was elusive. 

Illusive (adj.) relates to the word illusion, fantasy, something that is not real, magic, false and unreal. Although illusive is correct, a better use of this adjective would be illusory. No matter: It still means deceptive, as an illusion.  Ex. The so-called shortage and hence value of diamonds is an illusory phenomenon, created by those companies that wish to maintain their monopoly on the supply.

Conjugation of Verbs

No, this is not Back to School - rather, it is a rap on the knuckles to all those who have eschewed whatever was learned in school in favor of a more casual approach, to wit: "...the lecture was began with an announcement ..."

To be sure, English is a difficult language.  Embrace it.  Be proud of it.  It is, after all, the accepted international language of the United Nations.  But, truth be told, all languages are "difficult," if one wants to speak them correctly, and there is quite a bit of merit in doing so.  Conjugating verbs is one aspect of speaking correctly.

Take the verb to begin.  It is an irregular verb, in that it does not conform to the "usual" conjugations for such verbs as to dance or to walk.  The present tense of to begin is fairly straightforward: I begin, you begin, he/she/it begins, etc., but the past tenses are more onerous, especially when getting into subjunctives and conditionals (what?), or, worse, the past perfect (huh?) or pluperfect (!).  Are your eyes crossed yet?  Not to worry - contact lenses to the rescue.

In the sample phrase above, there are two problems, one of which is much more egregious than the other.  First, the phrase is stated in the passive voice (the lecture was began).  To reframe the phrase for more impact, one might write "...we began the lecture by announcing ..."  But a much more troublesome error above is the conjugation of began, which in this case should be the pluperfect, was begun (the sequence is begin, began, begun).

I don't believe it is essential to know the nomenclature for the various conjugation iterations; what is important is to know how to apply the tenses, in which context, and what the appropriate tense should be.  Please refer to http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/begin.html, a website that provides all the permutations of correct conjugations.  Input your desired verb, and voila!

The Podium and the Lectern

Our society has morphed into casualness: casual attire, casual manners, casual lingo.  This being a blog about syntax and its vicissitudes, let's explore the differences between podium and lectern, two terms that are consistently used interchangeably.  In fact, they are neither the same, nor even synonyms.

Podium (n.) is a small platform where someone or something stands on.  A soapbox or stage.  The origin of the word is Latin for an elevated area or balcony, and from the Greek podion, meaning little foot. Also used in zoology to describe the foot-like part of a vertebrate limb.

Note, also, that the medical specialty for problems with the feet is called Podiatry. I'm sure you will recognize the root, "pod." Several terms are connected to this root, including dorsalis pedis, tinea pedis, pedicure, and more. The French word for foot is pied.

Lectern (n.) is a structure upon which to place one's reading material or notes or musical libreto.  From Latin derivative, legere or lectura (to read), or modern French, lecture (reading).  Indeed, the work lecture has been adopted into modern English, and means to speak, orate, instruct, or deliver a reprimand.

Is It Children's Books or Childrens Books?

Children is plural.  If you are using the possessive form, you must use the apostrophe, as in children's.  Any spelling other than this indicts you as a fundamental illiterate.

There are several possessive forms which can be confusing; indeed, which have changed over time.  For example, I was taught that if a word ends in ss, there is no need to add another s after the apostrophe, as in, "The business' accounting records had to be revised."  Nowadays, my understanding is that an s is needed after the apostrophe to denote the possessive form.  I welcome comments about this.

Likewise, "The Thomases' Pontiac was damaged in the crash," the apostrophe is clearly denoting the possessive form for the Thomases.  To my understanding, it's superfluous to add yet another s to clarify its meaning.

English can be tricky.  But so can life.  Embrace both.

Perfusion/Profusion

This is the age of txtng.  Y'know, LOL, TGIF, WOF (I don't know that one), and a lot of others, some alluding to profanity thinly veiled in a few letters, others just an extension of laziness.  Texting has become so popular, in fact, that a movement is under foot to allow school children the option of "creative spelling." What an egregious loss of the spirit of education, and the value of proper spelling imparts on the overall ability to read, to study, and progress in life.

The above sound-alikes are so easily mistaken one for the other.  In speech, they are hardly distinguishable.  In writing, their meanings are entirely distinct.

Perfusion (n) is the passage/seepage of fluid through tissue, through earth (as in rain), through an overcoat that is not waterproof.  In medicine, it is the process of delivering fluid to tissue or capillaries.  From French, perfuser, which means to pour over or through.

Profusion (n) means abundance.  "There was a profusion of poppies across the fields after the first rains."

Rein v. Reign

I love these sound-alikes! They can create such mischief.

"Would you like to reign in your comments, please?"  Folks, reign (n) refers to kingly ruling, of kingdoms and queens (TV show called "Reign"). Royal authority. Sovereign.  Ex. The reign of Queen Elizabeth of England is in its sixth decade." Or "Victoria's reign marked the turning point in the history of England."

Rein (n) by contrast refers to the reins of a horse, a fastening strap designed to control or guide the animal.  The word is also used metaphorically to hold back something, such as angry outbursts, for example.  A restraining influence.  From Latin retinere, to restrain.

Combining both words, "During his reign, the weak monarch had difficulty reining in his ambitious aides."

The Cold Organism and Employee Absenteeism

(All names have been changed to protect the guilty).

A long, long time ago, when I was very young, I worked at a lawyer's office.  The private investigator employed at the firm did not like me much - and I returned the favor.  He was one of the, a'hm, stupidest people I have ever met.  He was crude and crass, and simply unpleasant.  But he was also often funny.

There had been a rash of absenteeism among the employees, with colds and flus, and what have you.  One after the other, everyone seemed to be taking time off.  It was disruptive and annoying to be sure.  That it was sweltering July didn't matter.  The rest of the crew had gathered in the lunchroom one day, when Mr. Clem, the investigator, storms in, sees us all in one place, and decides to give us a piece of his mind.  He sets off on his soliloquy: "Girls, of course you're all sick.  You got kids at home, they bring colds home, and you're here in air conditioning, then you go outside into the heat, then you come back in, and there are so many orgasms in the air, of course you're gonna get sick ..."

Huh? "Oh, Mr. Clem, they're ORGANISMS!" We can still hear our boss laughing.

Etymology, entomology, superficial and superfluous - ah, and don't forget supercilious

I've heard them all, as in "Don't you want to know the entomology of that word?"  Huh?  No, ma'am, I don't.  I'd much rather know what its etymology is!

Entomology (n) is the study of insects.  Etymology the study of the origin of words. 

Superficial is not the same as superfluous or the same - or even similar to - supercilious. 

Superficial (adj) means concerning surface, the crust of something, the outer shell, anything that's only skin deep (Paris Hilton?), as in "Her new boyfriend is truly superficial," implying that he's an airhead (there are those who would have preferred that I use girlfriend, but this is an equal opportunity blog).  Superficial also describes a physical characteristic, as in "The superficial layers of Mars may contain some evidence of water."  Very simply, superficial is the opposite of deep, physically or emotionally.

Superfluous (adj) means excessive, extra, unnecessary, unneeded, as in, "She doused herself with another superfluous spray of perfume before returning to the table."

Ah, then, there's supercilious (adj), a nose-up-in-the-air haughtiness, snobbism.  Here I can break down the word into its components for clarity: "super" over, from the Latin superciliosus, meaning eyebrow.  A supercilious fellow is one who looks down his nose with raised eyebrows at his degenerate audience.  It is an unpleasant arrogance, disdain of people who think they are better than anyone else. 

Maggie Smith has played that well on several occasions.  Think the supercilious art dealer, or the demanding schoolteacher.

Eminence vs. Imminence

Eminence (n) is an honorific, a position of great position or distinction.  Ex. The eminent Pope Francis is coming to town.

Imminence (n) is the condition of something about to occur.  Ex. The imminence of her death was obvious to all.

You may combine both in a single sentence, as in "The imminent visit of the eminent Pope Francis spurred everyone to frenzied activity."

Both words sound similar when spoken; not so when written.  Spelling is important in conveying the proper message.

Incredulous vs. Incredible

To state that one is passive, the other active might not explain a thing.  To compare it to imply vs. infer might also not shed any light on the distinction between incredulous and incredible.

One is incredulous (adj.) if one cannot believe what is happening.  And that may be because what is happening may be incredible (adj.).  Got it?

Let's try another tack: A direct object is incredible, hard to believe.  You, as the receiver of that information, may not believe what's in front of your very eyes, and that makes you incredulous.  You are a disbeliever, a doubter, incredulous.  Science fiction may promote concepts which are hard to believe, or incredible.

Cela n'empeche pas...

Most of the entries here are for the English language, and for English speakers.  Be that as it may, the above expression, "Cela n'empeche pas" in French, has been rattling about in my brain, as I was trying to translate it into English.  I must say it is much more eloquent in French.  It means, "That does not preclude," or "That does not prevent," or "That does not impede" certain actions or consequences.  As an example, being female does not exclude one from running for president of the United States.  It just sounds better in French, and actually conveys a slightly subtler meaning which is not translatable. 

Another example might be, Being Christian does not preclude appreciation for other philosophies.

Mis-Pronouncing English

There are certain words that are most frequently mispronounced by certain ethnic groups, to wit: utilizing, positioned, observed, measuring, closing, as well as, present, etc.  These sample words are typically mispronounced as: utilicing, pocitioned, obcerved, meassuring, clocing, ass well ass, precent.

What's the problem? English is peculiar in that certain words containing an S, SS, or Z call for different pronunciations depending on the word.

When these words are heard as depicted above, with the expected Z sound pronounced as an SS sound, it distorts not only the language itself, but also sometimes the meaning of what is being said.  Curiously, the very offenders who substitute Z for SS often have absolutely no trouble at all pronouncing Z at the ends of words, as in tissues or milliliters.