Month: December 2008

“Due to the graphic nature of this program viewer …”

Commas

I saw this at the beginning of a television program a few days ago.

Problem:
A comma is missing.

Explanation:
The TV program on truTV was titled “World’s Wildest Police Videos”.

The complete warning appeared in all-capital letters at the beginning of the program: “DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE OF THIS PROGRAM VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.”

A line break appeared after the word “NATURE”, and another line break appeared after the word “VIEWER”, so the warning was formatted as follows:

DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE
OF THIS PROGRAM VIEWER
DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

My first reaction to this warning was, “What is a PROGRAM VIEWER?”

Some sign and warning writers mistakenly claim that they can insert line breaks where commas should occur and therefore that a comma is unnecessary with these implied-comma line breaks.

If the warning writer for “World’s Wildest Police Videos” had followed that rule, then he or she would have created a warning that would have been formatted with a line break between “PROGRAM” and “VIEWER”:

DUE TO THE GRAPHIC NATURE
OF THIS PROGRAM
VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

But whoever entered the text for the warning screen could not even claim that he or she was using an implied comma between the word “PROGRAM” and the word “VIEWER”.

I believe that the warning writer was unaware of a basic principle about commas, which is that they indicate pauses. I otherwise could not explain how the writer could have read the warning aloud and not noticed that a comma was missing after the word “PROGRAM”.

Solution:
“Due to the graphic nature of this program, viewer …”

“The tool it’s self seems …”

Misspellings, Possessives, Pronouns

My wife saw this on Amazon.com.

Problem:
The reflexive pronoun is triply misspelled.

Explanation:
My wife was researching a carpentry tool on Amazon.com.

She was reading comments from those who had bought the tool when she came across “The tool it’s self seems …”.

The obvious solution is to replace I-T-APOSTROPHE-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F with the reflexive pronoun “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

What fascinates me is how the commenter managed to make three spelling mistakes in the process of misspelling this pronoun.

  1. Mistake #1 was to assume that reflexive pronouns are always formed by combining a possessive pronoun with the word “self”.
  2. Mistake #2 was to assume that a space should appear between such a possessive pronoun and the word “self”.
  3. Mistake #3 was to misspell the possessive pronoun “its” as I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.

Let us discuss these three mistakes in reverse order.

If we undo mistake #3, then we get “its self” — spelled I-T-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #2, then we get “itsself” — spelled I-T-S-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #1, then we get “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

Solution:
“The tool itself seems …”

“Phonics” vs. “Phonetics”

Nouns, Versus

I wondered the other day about these two words.

Problem:
One of these nouns formerly was a synonym for the other noun but now is not.

Explanation:
The noun “phonics”, which dates back to around the year 1680, refers to a way to teach spelling and reading based on the phonetic interpretation of ordinary spelling.

Put briefly, the primary meaning of the noun “phonetics”, which dates back to around the year 1840, is the study of speech sounds.

An obsolete meaning of the noun “phonics” is the noun “phonetics”.

Given that “phonics” is an older noun than “phonetics”, it seems that it was temporarily fashionable to use “phonics” as a synonym for “phonetics”, a much newer noun.

Note that one does not “teach phonics” unless one is teaching others how to use phonics for teaching spelling and reading.

For example, children in elementary school would not be “taught phonics”.

Instead, their teacher would “use phonics” to teach those children to read and spell, and that teacher would have been “taught phonics” by his or her college professor.

Solution:
Think “a way to teach” when thinking of the noun “phonics”; think “sounds” when thinking of the noun “phonetics”.