Month: March 2008

“… something that I and our team appreciate.”

Common English Blunders

I saw this in an email message.

Problem:
The writer incorrectly put himself first.

Explanation:
There seems to be a growing lack of courtesy in spoken and written American English.

One place where this lack of courtesy appears is in word order.

In particular, some speakers and writers put themselves before others in lists. Here are some examples:

  • “I and James are going to the store.”
  • “Please give it to me and him.”
  • “His work over the years is something that I and our team appreciate.”

I don’t know whether these writers and speakers were “absent that day in English class” or whether they’ve forgotten what they learned, but the standard, which is based on courtesy, is to put others before oneself in a list.

Rewriting the above examples, we get the following:

  • “James and I are going to the store.”
  • “Please give it to him and me.”
  • “His work over the years is something that our team and I appreciate.”

Solution:
“… something that our team and I appreciate.”

“Maybe there’s some truth to the fact …”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns

I heard Susan Estrich say this during a Fox News Channel interview a couple of days ago.

Problem:
A fact by definition is true, so “some truth to the fact” makes no sense.

Explanation:
The phrase “some truth to the fact” is, unfortunately, a common English blunder.

I don’t know whether this political advisor to former President William Clinton made this blunder honestly or was using the political double-speak to which so many advisors fall prey.

If it was an honest blunder, then I believe that it was consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler (Try it!) to say “fact” than to say “claim” — the correct final noun for this phrase.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following phrases (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “some truth to the fact” — 273,000 matches
  • “some truth to the claim” — 15,200 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase incorrectly vs. correctly by a ratio of 17.96:1, which is dreadful! (“Oh, the humanity!”)

Solution:
“Maybe there’s some truth to the claim …”

“LOW CALORIE HYDRATOR”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Nouns

I saw this during a Gatorade G2 television commercial.

Problem:
A hyphen is missing.

Explanation:
When an adjective plus a noun modify another noun, the adjective and first noun must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun.

So the adjective “LOW” plus the first noun “CALORIE” must be joined with a hyphen to form the modifier of the second noun “HYDRATOR”.

Unfortunately, many advertising copywriters believe that it is appropriate to drop required hyphens in their advertising copy. I disagree.

Although this is not the best example, there are many examples where the absence of a required hyphen leads to confusion and double- or triple-pass reading of copy to understand what the copywriter meant.

Solution:
“LOW-CALORIE HYDRATOR”