2009 Words of the Year

16 November 2009

The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected their word of the year for 2009, and that word is unfriend. The runners up are here. (It’s a bit early to be selecting words. After all we’ve still got more than a month to go. But I guess like hanging Christmas decorations, this stuff gets earlier each year. And it isn’t very catchy to say, “Word of 15 November 2008 through 16 November 2009.)

Of course, we do a words of the year thing here too, but it’s a bit less formal. I don’t select a single word, but rather use the opportunity to learn about and generate discussion on new words and phrases that are out there. So post your suggestions here.

The American Dialect Society is collecting suggestions for their selection of word of the year and word of the decade. (The selection will be in early January, as it should be.) You can send them directly to woty AT americandialect.org. I’ll also be sending the best ones posted here to Grant Barrett and the nominating committee. 

Justice Scalia and “choate”

6 November 2009

I seem to be on a Supreme Court kick this week. This time it’s Justice Antonin Scalia attempting to school a lawyer on proper usage during oral arguments for Hemi Group v. City of New York held this past Tuesday:

MR. BARNHOUSE: The lawsuit would be...the lawsuit itself would be property, but the...but any recovery would not be property until it became choate, until there was an amount of money assigned to it.
JUSTICE SCALIA: There is no such adjective—I know we have used it, but there is no such adjective as “choate.” There is “inchoate,” but the opposite of “inchoate” is not “choate.”
MR. BARNHOUSE: All right.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Any more than the...I don’t know.
(Laughter.)
MR. BARNHOUSE: Well, I’m wrong on the...on the…
JUSTICE SCALIA: Exactly. Yes. It’s like “gruntled.”
MR. BARNHOUSE: But I think I am right on the law, Your Honor.
JUSTICE SCALIA: Exactly. “Disgruntled” and the opposite of “disgruntled” is “gruntled.”
MR. BARNHOUSE: Is “gruntled.”
(Laughter.)

Choate does appear in the OED, which the 2nd edition labels as “erroneous.” (A comment that is sure to disappear when it is updated for the 3rd edition.) Interestingly, the first citation is from another famous Supreme Court justice:

1878 O. W. HOLMES Let. 9 Dec. in Pollock-Holmes Lett. (1942) I. 11 Several of the State Courts have left equally amusing slips in the Reports [...] I have read in a California volume that the wife on marriage acquires an inchoate right of dower which by the death of the husband becomes choate.

There’s also a 1929 citation from Winston Churchill, so the word has some support from heavy hitters in the world of letters. Scalia might reconsider if he knew of these citations; then again, maybe not.

A search of Wordnik.com doesn’t turn up any other dictionary entries, but it does show a number of uses on the interwebs.

When Grammar Matters

5 November 2009

We’re all familiar with the image of the crotchety grammarian, going off on some pet peeve or perceived a"abuse" of the language. Most of the time, these people can be either ignored, or, if they’re in a position of authority like a teacher or boss, temporarily accommodated. But occasionally, someone’s misinterpretation of grammatical principles can have real consequences. And when that misinterpretation is done by a US Supreme Court justice, the situation can be downright scary.

Anita Krishnakumar over at the blog Concurring Opinions has a posting on how the Supreme Court uses (what they think is) the passive voice to interpret statutes.

The case of Jones v. United States (1999) the statute in question reads:

Whoever, possessing a firearm as defined in section 921 of this title, takes a motor vehicle [...] from the person or presence of another by force and violence or by intimidation, or attempts to do so, shall—

(1) be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both,

(2) if serious bodily injury (as defined in section 1365 of this title) results, be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 25 years, or both, and

(3) if death results, be fined under this title or imprisoned for any number of years up to life, or both.

Justice Kennedy, in a dissent joined by three other justices, concluded that “there is some significance in the use” of the passive voice sections (2) and (3), and significance in the use of the active voice in the main section, and presumably in section (1). Exactly what Kennedy is labeling as passive is unclear.

There are three primary verb phrases in the statute. All three are identical and passive, “shall be fined under this title or imprisoned.” Kennedy may be mislabeling the first of these, which is split between the main section and sub-section (1), as active.

Alternatively, he could be referring to the other three verb phrases in the statute, which are all active. The first of these is part of the subject, “whoever [...] takes.” The other two are conditional clauses in sub-sections (2) and (3), “if serious bodily injury [...] results” and “if death results.” Kennedy may be mistaking the two conditional clauses for passive constructions.

In either case, Kennedy has screwed something up. He either mislabels a passive construction as active, or he mislabels two active constructions as passive. Fortunately, in the decision of the court, Justice Souter gets the grammar right.

Is it too much to expect that the Supreme Court of the United States, if they are to use linguistic analysis in deciding cases, understand the basic principles of grammar?

Hat tip to Geoffrey Pullum over at Language Log.

Pullum’s Grammar Gravy Train

2 November 2009

Geoffrey Pullum points out a truly horrendous example of a bad grammar book over at Language Log. He indicates that more examples are coming. I hope so; he makes a valid point that grammar is one area where you can establish yourself as an expert without knowing the first thing about the subject. (The most famous case, of course, being Strunk and White and the passive voice.)

But I do disagree with him about the “fat royalty checks.” As the author of a reasonably well selling book on language, I can say with assurance that the checks aren’t so fat. It’s not a gig you do for the money. (Exception: Lynne Truss, whose execrable book was accompanied by an absolutely brilliant marketing campaign.)

McWhorter on Language Death

30 October 2009

John McWhorter contemplates whether language death is really all that bad a thing.

He very much reflects my opinion on the matter. While the loss of languages is a definite blow to linguistic research and understanding, socially its effects may actually be beneficial to the isolated speakers of the rare tongues that are dying. And besides, it is happening whether we like it or not and there seems to be very little we can do about it except record as much of the dying languages as we can before they are gone.