Tag Archives: English

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What’s in a name?

Google and others are currently investing a billion dollars or so in . . . well, in what? An invention that has, at best, a dubious name.

Now, assigning a name that attracts attention and doesn’t intentionally mislead is no easy task. (I’m ignoring, for now, names whose sole purpose is to deceive consumers – something akin to “Healthy Cigarettes.”) So consider for a moment the race to develop a car that moves along without an active, engaged, human driver. Of which, judging from what I see when I walk around the city, there are many.

The current leader in the name-race is driverless car. I have a problem with that term. You can’t invent what already exists. True, humans sit behind the steering wheels of today’s driverless cars, but because the drivers are applying makeup, changing the CD, or uploading to Instagram, the vehicles are essentially driverless.

First runner-up is self-driving car, building on the tradition of self-cleaning oven, self-defrosting freezer, and other devices that replace human labor. In my view, this term is better, but picky grammarian that I am, I question the self portion of the name. Can an inanimate object have a self? If the lasagna drips out of the pan and sizzles on the oven floor (a frequent occurrence in my household), can the oven object? Does the freezer know that I have expired food stored in it? I rest my case.

Then there’s the robotic car. But how to differentiate between the sedan that turns left at the corner while human occupants send out selfies (Look at me! I’m inside a robot car!) and one that moves along, sans humans, to sweep the streets or scoop up poop? Plus, a robot car sounds like just the thing to transport sci-fi creatures that have artificial intelligence, unlimited working hours, and no need for health insurance beyond the occasional reboot.

On to autonomous. I liked this one until I looked up the official definition of autonomous and found that it means “independent,” “operating according to its own laws,” or “not governed by outside forces.” Do I have to mention the hefty DMV manual filled with rules a potential driver is supposed to know before receiving a license?

Not that licensees actually obey those rules. In fact, in tests of driverless, self-driving, robotic, or autonomous (pick your favorite label) cars, accidents occurred for the most human of reasons. Other vehicles – those with a human in charge – didn’t follow the rules. Hardly any came to a complete stop at a stop sign, for example. Non-human operated vehicles sat indefinitely, waiting with machine patience, for their chance to cross the intersection. I’d nominate that last term but somehow, somewhere (and probably in New York City) a German Shepherd is tooling along behind the wheel while its human companion considers the pros and cons of doggy daycare and leaves the driving to the canine.

If you have any suggestions for this automotive achievement, let me know. I’m off to walk the streets of Manhattan, self-walking and semi-autonomously. I’ll let you know if I run across any driverless cars, or if any run across me.

Don’t blame me!

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Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office declaring that “the buck stops here.” Harry’s acknowledgement of responsibility is, unfortunately, not trending right now. Instead, blame-shifting is on the rise. Take a look at this sign, taped to the door of a major telecommunications company:

Management’s to blame

It’s worth noting that in front of the door is a single, short step. We’re not talking stoop here, or terrace, or anything other than the standard dirty, cracked, Manhattan sidewalk and what might reasonably be termed a ledge.

Some questions arise:

(1) Given the exorbitant rates for cellphone service, can’t the company afford a professionally printed sign? The morning I snapped this photo the paper was taped flat, but by the afternoon, the edges had curled up. Should I worry about network maintenance if the company can’t pay for a real sign?

(2) Has the property management been walking in and out of the building every day, tripping over passersby who sat on the ledge – er, I mean step? This building is near my home, and I’ve seen people sitting in front of it only once. On folding chairs. Striking workers tired of picketing, they weren’t barbecuing, just passing around sandwiches, listening to music, and generally having a fine old time. When the strike ended, everyone went away. Why the sign? Fear of copycat tailgating?

(3) Who is property management? The building, a giant windowless pile of brick, has been a telephone-company outpost since the dial-up era. Yet the sign appears to deflect responsibility to a nameless management. Maybe the person who printed the sign wanted backup authority? It’s not just me, a lowly secretary, who forbids you a seat. It’s them. Pay attention. Or should I say, ***ATTENTION***?

This don’t-blame-me sign is one example of a common type:

The manufacturer’s to blame!

The sign implies that you pay what the manufacturer demands, and not a penny more. The store owner takes no profit. The rent is a charitable contribution, as are the utilities and staff salaries. Right? Or, perhaps the store has ceded its pricing authority to the manufacturer, who applies an algorithm that includes the store’s expenses? Either way, it’s don’t blame me.

A variation on this theme is “lowest prices allowed by law.” I see this phrase on signs atop cigarette racks. Does this statement mean that the store gives you the smokes for free, except for taxes it merrily sends along to the state, city, or wherever? Doubtful.

That’s it for now. If you want more examples, you’re out of luck. I don’t write the signs. I just post what appears. Don’t blame me.

Do you have insurances?

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Lately, every time someone mentions a problem with a doctor, prescription, or what physicians call procedures (which are operations to the rest of us), everyone nods and cites Obamacare as the cause. (I have no idea whether they’re right.)

I’m therefore assuming that this problem too will be blamed on the Affordable Care Act:

Insurance policies?

Do you have health insurances? This physical therapy office accepts them, or I should say it, because insurance has traditionally been correct only as a singular form. Following that rule, the sign should say health insurance plans or types of health insurance. However, the word may be changing to reflect the comparisons we all have to make these days between one health insurance plan and another. Recently I’ve seen several signs advertising clinics that accept many insurances or most insurances. Language evolves, and anyone who doesn’t like the direction of its evolution can always blame this expression on Obamacare (or politicians, who are always an easy and generally a justified target).

Here’s another plural issue, this time with a singular form (menu) in a spot where a plural makes more sense:

No menu?

For non-New Yorkers, I should explain that the many restaurants delivering takeout food like to slip menus (plural) under the front doors of apartment buildings, hoping that hungry citizens returning from work will pick one up and order dinner from it. More likely, of course, is that a hungry citizen will step on a menu and do a floppy-armed dance maneuver to recover balance – and then retrieve the offending piece of paper and order dinner from it. Building superintendents and doormen wage war on menu-distributors and the mess they generate. This sign is one tactic, probably ineffective and definitely grammatically incorrect. It is, however, polite.

One more plural, with a twist:

Refiles?

The interesting part of this sign, on a phone store, is the third item: “Prepaid Refiles.” I don’t usually mock spelling, but this one was too tempting. Can’t you picture the clerk, file in hand, sawing away at your phone’s rough edges? Or placing the phone in a file marked “way too many photos” instead of “judicious use of photo capacity”? I’m assuming the sign-writer intended to say “Refills,” but perhaps not. I’m a novice in the phone world. In fact, when I go into a store to “refile” my device, the clerk generally laughs at its antiquity. So if there’s another meaning, please let me know.

Disclaimer: Part of this post originally appeared as a separate page under the category, “Signs of the City,” which I am gradually dismantling.

Time to get to sea

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The narrator of Moby Dick explains that when he feels the urge to walk, “methodically knocking people’s hats off,” it is “time to get to sea.” I know exactly how he feels, because late August in New York has turned me into an even grumpier grammarian than usual.

Two signs illustrate my point. Here’s the first:

What’s with the “pre”?

I’ve become accustomed to reading ads for a “One Day Sale!” that begins on Friday and ends on Sunday, not to mention “pre-Christmas sales” that start on December 26th and last until the following Christmas Eve. But I barely managed not to rip this sign off the window of a store selling housewares and linens. Why should I shop during a pre sale? (And what happened to the hyphen?) I imagine two possible situations: (1) Buy this blanket today, pre sale, for $50. Tomorrow the same blanket costs $30. (2) The pre sale price of the blanket is $30. Once you buy it, though, you owe the store $50. That’s the price at the time of sale.

I couldn’t resist either scenario, so I bought a silk flower during the pre sale. The price tag read $5.99. The sign over the flower display read “Up to Half Off!” The clerk charged me $1.95. Do the math, as I did, and you’ll discover why a popular t-shirt declares “5 out of 4 people don’t understand fractions.”

One more, on a Manhattan outpost of a major wireless network:

Where?

I won’t comment on the fact that the sign unwisely separates Mexico from Latin America, even though Mexico is, in fact, part of Latin America. Instead, I’ll focus on what’s FREE. As written, the sign implies that the caller has to be in Mexico & Latin America to talk and text without charge. Okay, many New Yorkers travel south, so perhaps the sign means that with this wireless plan, they can take their phones and communicate without paying a cent (or a peso or a boliviano or a colon or a something else). Also possible: New Yorkers can call or text people in Mexico & Latin America from New York – or from somewhere else. I didn’t go into this store, so I can’t give you a definitive answer.

See what I mean about grumpy? If you have a boat I can borrow, please let me know. It’s time to get to sea.

Capital Offenses

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A completely unscientific survey of signs in New York City reveals that very few sign-writers understand the conventions of capitalization. Or perhaps they do, and don’t care. Or maybe the store owners wish to associate themselves with the iMac and iPad, with the hope that unconventional capitalization will lead to the level of success Apple enjoys. Regardless, capital offenses abound.

Some sign-writers opt for all caps:

Nothing wrong with this practice – on signs – though all-caps employed to “shout” in emails and blog comments can be quite annoying.

Other signs strew capital letters randomly:

Notice the “State of the Art Subway Line.” Nothing in Standard English calls for capital letters in those words. Perhaps the sign-writer was excited about the “Second Avenue Subway Project,” which I capitalized, as did the sign-writer, because that’s the name of something, in this case a construction site that was originally scheduled for completion years ago and, contrary to what the sign says, shows no sign of being ready by 2016 – or 2017, for that matter. By the way, in Standard English the word “the” is usually not part of a name and therefore is written in lowercase (non-caps).

One more capital letter sign, on a Fifth Avenue store:

Note “the Renovation”!

The usual practice is to capitalize the name of important historical eras, such as the Enlightenment (which lasted a century, give or take a few years) or the Middle Ages (which endured for maybe 1000 years). This store apparently believes that their construction work will go on for quite a while and hit the history books, or at least Wikipedia.

Full disclosure: part of this post was originally a separate page in the “Signs of the City” section, which I am slowing dismantling and placing in the “posts” portion of this site. As far too many signs say, sorry for the inconvenience.

What’s in a Name

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I’m a baseball fan, but even so I can’t avoid a flash of annoyance when I hear the term “World Series” applied to a set of teams based in cities as far north as Southern Canada, as far south as the Southern United States, and as far east and west as the North American coastline. True, players come from a larger assortment of countries than in earlier times, but a real “World Series” ought to include Japanese and South American teams, at the very least.

That said, it occurs to me that coming up with inclusive and sensitive names is a tough task. When I was preparing to study at the University of Madrid, my US-based Spanish teachers told me that the answer to the question “What are you?” was not “American” (americana) but the Spanish equivalent of “United Statesonian” (estadounidensa). If I called myself americana, the teachers explained, listeners would object because the term rightly applies to South Americans also. My teachers gave me one alternative – norteamericana (North American). No one seemed concerned about Canadians’ feelings, an attitude that unfortunately persists in many areas of US policy.

Of course, the very first time I fielded the “What are you?” question from a Spaniard, estadounidensa was met with a blank look and then “Oh, you mean you’re American.” Mindful of classmates from South America, Central America, and yes, Canada, I never could bring myself to say that I was an americana. So I settled on neorquina (New Yorker) and everyone was happy.

My family went through a similar process. My grandparents answered “Austrian” when asked about their homeland because their village was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when they emigrated. My parents claimed “Yugoslavia” as the ancestral site, while I say that my background is “Croatian.”

And then there are states. Some are easy (Californian, Texan, and New Yorker, though the distinction between the city and state in that last one may be problematic). But what do you call a resident of Connecticut? The only answer I’ve heard is Nutmegger, because apparently Connecticut calls itself “the Nutmeg State.” How widespread is that knowledge?

Can we keep up with partitions, annexations, and nicknames when we apply a name to someone’s ethnicity or citizenship? Probably not. The best policy may be to go for the detail (“her grandparents lived in Prague before World War II”) but this method crashes and burns when it hits the widespread American (oops – I mean United Statesonian) ignorance of geography.

I’ll stop here, hoping for suggestions on naming from anyone reading this post, because I don’t have a solution. Besides, it’s time to watch the “Miss Universe” pageant.

Traffic and other problems

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Full disclosure: This post used to be a “page” under the heading “Signs of the City.” I’ve decided to change pages into posts, as I include signs in nearly every post and my original notion of two separate categories didn’t work. So if the content of this post Iooks familiar, you’re not hallucinating.

I found myself staring at the sign (from the sidewalk) for several minutes, trying to decipher its meaning. See what you think:

And after 46th Street they turn into pumpkins?

A number of questions arise. First, why “passenger”? If more than one rider is present, is the taxis allowed in the bus lane? Second, what happens after 46th Street? Are any taxis allowed, with or without a passenger, or are no taxis allowed at all? No doubt you are thinking that the people who really need to know what this sign means – taxi drivers – already do, so clarity is unimportant. Not likely. I salute the hardworking, often immigrant drivers who brave NYC traffic daily, but I also know that many are hanging onto the English language with one toenail. I recall the driver who responded, when I asked him to take me to the Port Authority Bus Terminal (a place he had never heard of), “first day this America my.” That’s a direct quote, which brings me to my third question. How likely is it that a taxi driver will cause an accident while puzzling out the rules laid down by this sign?

This sign, on the other hand, is quite clear:

Avoiding double trouble

Handwritten, over-taped, and obviously heartfelt. This store wants NO PETS. The owner may discriminate against Fido, but at least the message is unambiguous. The head-scratching aspect comes from the repetition. Did the owner try a simple “NO PETS” line that failed to keep animals away? Or is the owner a proponent of the “more is more” philosophy of life?

Don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue. I haven’t a clue.

Playing Favorites

Fisherperson?

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Some years ago, while I was teaching Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “The Fish,” a student stumbled over the proper term for the person who caught the animal. He started out with “fisherm…” and then stopped himself and went with “fisherperson.” Fisherperson? Really? I consider myself a feminist, but even I was taken aback by this word. It was fair, of course, because both men and women go fishing. But it sounded like something a late-night television host would mock. Yet what is the alternative? Fisher? Trout-worker? Marine life catcher? Perhaps letter carrier and firefighter also sounded strange when they first entered the language in place of postman and fireman.

I thought about this issue when I saw this sign on a construction project:

A single-sex project.

Only men work there? Or are only the male workers dangerous? Neither meaning is likely, so the sign is incorrect. The habit of assuming that a male term is understood to include both men and women – the “masculine universal” – has been out of favor, and for very good reason, for many years. Yet “MEN AND WOMEN WORKING ABOVE” seems artificial. How about “DANGER: CONSTRUCTION ABOVE”? Or, “WATCH OUT! WE’RE WORKING UP HERE!”

Here’s another sign:

No more “busboys”?

Okay, busboy doesn’t work, not least because some of those doing this job are a couple of decades past boyhood (or girlhood). I can’t really support busser, as buss is a slang word for “kiss.” Table cleaner isn’t accurate, nor is plate remover. So, I’m stumped. Any suggestions?

The larger point is that language changes slowly, especially when it’s tied to a social movement, in this case feminism. And yes, gendered language matters. Children asked to draw a scene with cavemen hardly ever include women, while those asked to draw cave people more or less balance the sexes. So we do need these changes if we’re to see possibilities and eventual equality. Along the way, though, we may have to deal with some fisherpeople.

Grammarian in the City

Snarky remarks on language I see and hear in New York City

Tag Archives: English

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