Category Archives: Now trending

Observing and all too often criticizing language trends

Shopping Guide

Shopping season, in altered form like everything else in 2020, is upon us. It seems appropriate to warn you that the appearance of certain words automatically raises the asking price, though not necessarily the quality. Take a look:

Describe anything with a British-sounding word, such as bespoke, and you can add at least 20% to the price. Even after deducting 10% for spelling (dissapoint), the store still comes out ahead. Same with this photo:

Chemists can charge much more than pharmacists, and this store has both. The chemists are presumably in Britain and selling their products in a Manhattan pharmacy. Or something like that.

Old-looking words also up the bill:

The shopkeeper (not shoppekeeper) thinks you’ll read this sign and picture yourself wearing a hoop skirt or a tricorn hat. (I’m betting the store owner, like me, is a little fuzzy about history.) Back to language: Double the P in shop and the prices double too. The E probably adds another 5%.

My pet peeve (one of about a million, I admit):

Purveyors? Somebody memorized a vocabulary list and by golly is going to use it! If sellers get $1 for whatever the specialty is, a purveyor deserves $2, right?

Last and maybe least (though it’s a race to the bottom):

Curated? I’m happy to have an art museum curate its collection. But if our favorites in the snack-food category are curated, they’re overpriced.

Moral of the story: Buyer beware. You beware, too, of prices and most of all, of Covid-19.

How Do I Look?

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I’ve been Zooming around a lot lately. I’ve had virtual dinners with friends, virtual classes (on both sides of the virtual desk), virtual doctor visits, and some virtual interviews about my new book. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for 25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way, which debuted this week.) What I haven’t had is the ability to ignore my appearance while Zooming. I suspect I’m not alone. In fact, I bet the first humans fretted over their skin and hair whenever they knelt to drink from a pond.

These New York City signs, snapped pre-pandemic, indicate a whole new level of obsession. First up, skin:

I admit that German Black Forest sounds authoritative, though why those ingredients should surpass, say, the Appalachians I could not explain. And what has to happen for something to be wild crafted? Is a deer or a bear involved? A squirrel? For me, the words that tip this sign into lunacy are the last three. Does anyone create a system designed not to work?

A little more skin:

Given the lack of hyphens, this shop may be offering a consultation about the camera you use to check your scalp. Or, the store may have its own special scalp camera. Either way: eww. Why would you want to stare at follicles and record the experience for posterity?

Now, hair. Here’s a message I agree with:

Keep each tress to yourself, please! It should be easy to avoid passing one, if you’re Zooming. Not so easy, but much more important: stay safe!

Pandemicked

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Podding up with my son’s family in Seattle, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language that has emerged during this dire period. Some terms I love: Quarantini, anyone? I’m also very fond of pod, a repurposed word now applied to the group you’ve chosen or been stuck with as quarantine-mates. I especially like its verb forms, “podding” and “podded.” Ditto for “pandemic,” as you probably guessed from the title of this post.

But not all pandemic vocabulary is helpful. My word-alarm rings when I see something like this package label:

This bit of literary nonexcellence describes a cloth mask, and was written, I imagine, with a translation program that lost its way, if it ever had a way. I’m assuming that carry is “wear” and, because the mask was folded in half, that divide the opposite side means “unfold.” Did the manufacturer really have to explain that? Would anyone wear a folded mask with both loops hanging over the same ear? (Don’t answer that. These days, the absurd seems all too possible.) Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to deciphering anti-external will stick dust power. I am similarly stumped by wash the poison. Both must have something to do with the virus, because in 2020 everything circles back to Corona. Pun intended.

Here’s a pre-pandemic sign that caters to the anxiety and ignorance far too often attached to physical well-being:

First there’s the phrase itself. I’m not a medical professional, but isn’t all health based on what’s going on at the cellular level? Can you have a disease or condition that doesn’t involve cells? Then there’s the location of the sign, the window of a spa. No offense to the hard-working employees, but I really don’t want anyone but a doctor to mess with my cells.

One more, also pre-pandemic but more important now than ever:

This is what we all have to do to get through to the other side of our 2020 nightmare: PULL a little harder. Remember that! Also, wash away the poison once a day, and look for kindness, compassion, and duty within yourself, as far down as your cellular level.

On Location

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Perhaps as a consequence of being cooped in, I’ve found myself thinking about the importance of location. An example:

I snapped this photo during a pre-pandemic shopping trip to a department store. The store was in North America, and the escalator next to this sign was in limbo, or maybe the repair shop. Either way, an elevator in CHINA was not in any way a convenience.

Moving on to another sort of location:

Et tu, New York Times? I thought I could count on my hometown newspaper to place descriptions in the proper location. I don’t know much about history or mathematical predictions, but I do know that the modifier that was used for D-Day should appear after method.

Another location problem, courtesy of my friend Ellie:

I can only conclude that whoever wrote this sign has really, really long arms.

Last one:

Say you’re driving a taxi. What happens after 46th Street? Does your passenger — or your car — go directly to jail without passing Go and collecting $200? Turn into a pumpkin? And what happens if you’re driving a couple or a group? Can your vehicle legally remain in bus lanes after 46 St?

This signs may be confusing, but one thing could not be clearer: the correct location in 2020 is socially distant. Stay safe and well!

Regarding Irregardless

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Regardless first appeared in the mid-16th century as a description meaning “not worthy of attention.” That definition is obsolete, but perhaps it shouldn’t be. In fact, it may be the best label for the current debate about irregardless, which reignited last week when Merriam Webster defended the inclusion of irregardless in its dictionary. Much outrage ensued, regardless of the fact that Merriam Webster and many other respected dictionaries have listed the word for years. All label it “nonstandard” and some “humorous.”

As I write this, many issues are indeed worthy of attention: the pandemic, injustice, and climate change, to name just three. In that context irregardless can’t compete. In fact, even had 2020 not proved to be a strong candidate for “Scariest Year of Our Lifetime,” the status of irregardless would mostly be irrelevant.

Granted, it’s a double-negative. The prefix ir- means “without,” as does the suffix -less, so irregardless, as many commentators have pointed out, effectively translates to “without without regard.” English sometimes adds two negatives and gets a positive (“I couldn’t not ask for a raise,” for example, means “I had to ask for a raise”), yet no one thinks the Rolling Stones are expressing contentment with “I can’t get no satisfaction.” Anyone who knows what regardless means also knows what irregardless means.

Here’s the thing: language lives. It often moves from (1) that’s not a real word! to (2) it’s a real word but educated people don’t use it to (3) class, remember to double the R when you write “irregardless.” We’re currently in stage two.

Regardless of everything I just wrote, I do support standards, and I most definitely support teaching them. Like it or not, what executives and academics deem “proper” matters when it comes time to hire, fire, and grade. Knowing the rules is important — but so is knowing that rules change. Irregardless of my personal preference for regardless, irregardless may someday switch from “nonstandard” to “standard.” I suspect the world, and the English language, will survive.

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