Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style. (Some frequently asked questions are here.)
The good news is that Times writers don’t feel the need to use the words panegyric, immiscible or Manichaean very often. That’s fortunate because the bad news is, when we do use them, a lot of readers don’t know what we’re talking about.
I know this thanks to my colleagues James Robinson and Jeremy Safran, who have once again compiled a list of the words readers look up most often with the dictionary function on NYTimes.com. (Double-click on any word in an online Times article and a question mark appears; click on the question mark to get a definition from American Heritage. Unfortunately the function doesn’t work on blogs, so you’re on your own for After Deadline.)
This year’s list includes a number of head-scratching favorites that also made the lists in 2010 and 2009 : inchoate, opprobrium and hubris are apparently as troublesome as ever, even to our well-read audience. On the other hand, such past standbys as solipsistic, peripatetic and antediluvian are missing. Did Times readers finally learn them? Did we give up and stop using them? Or did the readers give up and just turn to another story?
A few notes on the data. This year, we arranged the list by how many times a word was looked up per use, rather than by total number of look-ups. That highlights the most baffling words of all. We eliminated a few proper names and some commonplace words that were apparently clicked inadvertently. And because of quirks in the search process, there may be a small number of duplicate stories counted.
How many of these words stump you? More observations from me come after the list.
Of the 20 most daunting words, only two were used more than 30 times during the period covered (Jan. 1 through July 14): anathema and perfunctory. Now, I sometimes chide writers for using obscure words just to show off, but I’d say those two are fair game in The Times. Still, no shame in looking them up, just to be sure.
As in the past, certain foreign words are irresistible to us but troubling to our readers, who generally have a right to expect English from The Times. Omertà, samizdat and realpolitik all made the list, as did the one German word every Times writer finds indispensable: schadenfreude. Legerdemain has a long history in English, but still seems more foreign than familiar substitutes like “sleight of hand” or “deceit.”
In past years, I had to admit that such entries as phlogiston, sumptuary, démarche and cynosure forced me to do my own look-ups. If pressed, I think I could have come up with a ballpark definition of all the words on this year’s list, with the possible exception of “samizdat,” which I seem to repeatedly learn and then forget (it describes the underground publishing of banned literature in the old Soviet Union, or by extension any underground press).
As always, we should remember that our readers are harried and generally turn to us for news, not SAT prep. They don’t carry dictionaries on the subway and don’t necessarily want to double-click online just because a writer couldn’t resist a 50-cent flourish. Be judicious, and if possible offer deft context that will help readers understand less familiar words.
That said, we don’t want to water down our prose or sound like everyone else. Our readers are smart and expect writing that’s sophisticated, even challenging. Many Times readers probably delight in the occasional crepuscular, anomie or insouciance.
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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Her decision to smoke a marijuana cigarette outside a Manhattan bar where she was attending a bachelorette party landed Jaime Rutkowski in jail, threatened her life and lead to a lawsuit that on Monday yielded $125,000 from the city.
A surprisingly common slip. Make it “led.”
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Thankfully, this is something you can easily remedy, since it’s child’s play to make ice pops at home, as long as you have a blender or a food processor (and for some recipes, not even that); some ice-pop molds, either purchased or jerry-rigged; and a freezer.
The term is “jury-rigged” — not to be confused with “jerry-built.” (This was later fixed.)
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Jirik was injured and missed the first game, but he played in the second. Some Czechoslovakian players protested Communist rule by placing tape over the star in the Czechoslovak crest they wore on their sweaters, a symbol of the country’s allegiance to the Warsaw Pact.
Multiple choice? The second version is correct in our style.
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[Caption] On the Bedford Avenue subway platform in Brooklyn, like at subway stops across the city, the days when weekends offered plenty of room and seats are only a memory.
Make it “as at subway stops.”
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One of the most angriest speeches came from the former prime minister, Gordon Brown, making one of his rare appearances in the chamber since his election defeat 14 months ago,.
A little copy editing goes a long way, even for urgent breaking news on the Web. These errors did not survive in later versions of the article, but at least one early reader wrote to complain.
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He and other officers have been underscrutiny by trying to determine why the Metropolitan Police decided to strictly limit the initial phone-hacking inquiry in 2006. … Mr. Yates has been criticized for his decision not to reopen the investigation even though the police under his command possessed some 11,000 pages of largely unexamined evidence, some of in trash bags.
Here, too, in the rush to publish, we served our readers garbled prose.
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“I always have hope. Don’t you remember my campaign?” he said. “Even after two-and-a-half years, I continue to have hope.”
The attribution should come after the first full sentence of the quote. Also, no need for the hyphens here.
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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after weeks of urging Syria to carry out democratic reforms and end a brutal crackdown, has now turned decisively against President Bashar al-Assad, saying that he has lost legitimacy and that it has no interest in Mr. Assad keeping his grip on power.
This is a so-called fused-participle problem. The real object of the preposition “in” is the gerund “keeping.” Make it “in Mr. Assad’s keeping,” or rephrase.
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The population of children under age 5 in Manhattan has risen 32 percent in five years, while the number of seats at top independent schools has inched up by 400 in the past decade.
As a reader pointed out, the comparison would be clearer if we didn’t mix a percentage increase and a raw-number increase.
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The grand prize winner was Shree Bose of Fort Worth, who entered in the 17-18 age group and won a $50,000 scholarship, a trip to the Galapagos Islands and an internship at the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
The name of the island group takes an accent: Galápagos.
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The renovations were intended to update the electrical system and shore up the floors, which tended to shake during ritual dancing like that on the Simchat Torah holiday.
The Times’s stylebook calls for “Simhat Torah.”
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Picard was appointed in 2009 by a federal bankruptcy judge to try and recoup as much money as possible and distribute it to deserving victims of Madoff’s colossal fraud.
This construction is colloquial. Make it “to try to recoup.”
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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.
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