Month: May 2008

“Remote Control”

Devolution toward Simpler

I have been thinking about this one for awhile.

It seems to me that we ought to use “remote controller” to refer to the device that controls a television set.

I believe that the use of “control” in place of “controller” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

This is analogous to the use of “install” in place of “installer”; many people like to drop the third syllable because it is simpler to say or write the two-syllable word than to say or write the three-syllable word.

The argument against using “install” as a noun is much stronger than the argument against using “control” as a noun. The latter argument already has been lost, it seems.

In contrast, it is worth asking people who use “install” as a noun whether they mean “installer” or “installation”; ask this in a group, and you will get conflicting answers. The conflicting answers make the respondents realize that they had different meanings in mind.

That illustrates why word choice matters. Pick an overloaded word with equally weighted definitions, and your audience of listeners or readers will have conflicting opinions about what you said or wrote. Pick a word with a clear definition, and your audience will have a clear understanding of what you meant.

“…, and etcetera.”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Redundancies

I heard this during a telephone call yesterday.

Problem:
The phrase is redundant.

Explanation:
The noun “etcetera” — abbreviated as “etc.” — means and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

So “and etcetera” literally means and and other unspecified things of the same type or class.

For fun, I searched Google for “and etcetera” (including the quotation marks) and found about 67,200 matches.

Suspecting that this was only part of the story, I then searched Google for “and etc.” (including the quotation marks) and found about 9,280,000 matches.

Combining the matches for the abbreviated and unabbreviated forms, that’s over 9.3 million matches for this redundant phrase!

Solution:
“…, etcetera.”

“Dutties”

Misspellings, Nouns

My wife saw this on a sign in a high-school attendance office.

Problem:
The noun is misspelled.

Explanation:
The sign directed the student assistants in the office to pay attention to their responsibilities.

You might have to say this aloud a few times to get it.

The sign writer meant “Duties” when she wrote “Dutties” instead.

I believe that the writer saw nothing wrong with the misspelling, given that “Dutties” was in a one-inch font on the sign.

What’s sad is that this appeared on an official sign in a high school. Either nobody saw the misspelled word, or nobody had the nerve to tell someone in the attendance office about it.

Solution:
“Duties”