Nouns

“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”

“Summarization” vs. “Summary”

Nouns, Versus

I recently heard someone on a conference call use “summarization” when he should have used “summary” instead.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The noun “summarization” means the act or process of creating or preparing a summary.

The noun “summary” means a brief recapitulation of facts or previously made statements.

During the aforementioned conference call, one of the attendees asked another attendee, “Could you please give us a summarization of what happened the other day?”

What he should have asked is, “Could you please give us a summary of what happened the other day?”

I believe that the use of “-ation” words such as “summarization” as substitutes for the words from which they are derived (such as “summary”) originates from a lack of confidence by the speaker or writer (who wants to sound smarter than he is).

Solution:
Use “summarization” when talking about the process of creating a summary; otherwise, use “summary”.