"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual." ~ Mark Twain

An Oregon columnist wrote a nice list on "not your usual New Year's resolutions." Obviously, we're all sick of the hackneyed ones, like losing weight, exercise more, or get organized. She came up with 10 very reasonable ones, though number 10 is especially relevant for this board:

"Resolve to help your children clean up their English. Most of the world speaks the language better than we do in many cases. In your child's lifetime, it's only a matter of time until his 'And then he went, like, wow, awesome!' loses the job interview or client bid to his competitor's 'And then he said it was a good solution.' Set the example you want them to follow."

my usual resolutions have evolved to only one ==> To convert my list of Things To Do ..... to my list of Things I've Done.

Happy New Year to You, too.

~~~ jerry

Yes...I rather agree with Mark Twain on that.

Happy New Year!

I found a relevant column about New Year's resolutions for English in today's QT:

1. I will never again use a "the" in front of the Magna Carta, hoi polloi or Ukraine.
2. I will always in the future use a "the" in front of the Mahatma Gandhi.
3. I will always say Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear.
4. I will always pronounce "err" to rhyme with "fur."
5. I will always pronounce "vagaries" as "Va-GAIR-eez."
6. I will always remember that a picture is hung and a murderer is hanged.
7. I will always remember that it is not "possession is nine-tenths of the law" but "nine points of the law."
8. I will always remember that it is not "once more into the breach" but "once more unto the breach."
9. I will never again use "impact" as a verb.
10. I will never again use the phrase "very unique."
11. I will never again say "the reason is because."

I notice he uses will instead of shall, which implies his desire to do these things rather than the future impending.

1.The terms are all English ones now, and should probably follow Engtlish usage rather than that of the original languages. Otherwise, do we have to put hoi polloi into the accusative case when it's a direct object? Funny thing about the country formaerly known as The Ukraine: Ukrainian, like otherSlavic languages doesn't have a definite (or for that matter indefinite) article. The use of the in English is a tough one for non-native speakers to master. That being said, the Ukrainians should take our word for it. The name of their country should be The Ukraine.

2. There's another funny thing. In Hindi (or Sanskrit) there is no definite article. So, why do I have to use a the herre, but not with Magna Carta? Like most pop grammarians this fellow seems confused by his own vagaries (pronounced as all others do).

3. This is so wrong-headed I don't know quite what to make of it. Take a note from Charles the Fat and the Empress Mathilda.

4. Well, I happen to agree with this, but not for the same reason. The battle over the pronunciation of the verb to err has been lost. Get over it. Whenever I use the older pronuciation, I know I have to spend several minutes telling people a little history of the English language lecture. It never quite convinces them. (Good for them!) And it makes folks uncomfortable around me in the future. As I may tsk them if they say they'll flush something out, etc.

5. Too silly for words. [sic] And I shall always say tomato rather than tomato.

6., 7., and 8. Too tired to type, Must keep eyes open.

9. And I will always use to jeopard instead of the loathsome to jeopardize.

10. Intentionally left blank.

11. Nor shall I use since to mean because. Why? You have to ask?

Who died and made these whining ass god of English grammar?

You are hilarious, Zmj.

Until the last line, I was planning to email QT this response...but then I thought better of it.

In all fairness to QT, his column is often the place where uptight grammarians write in to complain about such things as pronouncing "err" to rhyme with "fur." This was a continued list (I want to find the first list) of complaints made during the year. I suspect there was a lot of tongue in cheek in his writing this, though I'm not sure. I don't know him personally or anything, though we have emailed back and forth, and he seems reasonable. He even mentioned Wordcraft once, and, on my urging, he encouraged the readers to use "epicaricacy" instead of "Schadenfreude"...thus the soft place in my heart for him! )

quote:

3. I will always say Smokey Bear, not Smokey the Bear.

In all fairness, zmjezhd, this is a name. Sticking an article in between the first and last name is quite silly. Imagine, "Paddington the bear", which is not his name at all, and sounds quite awkward to me.

I suppose that "Smokey the bear" is accurate, although again, it is awkward to constantly describe him with his species.

It's the name ... of a fictional character. I notice that Smokey Bear gets 223K ghits and Smokey the Bear gets 213K ghits. Rather close. The US Department of Agriculture which owns the name doesn't use the the.

While I didn't send QT Zmj's response to his New Years Resolutions, here are some of the other responses he has received (and then his replies back):

*William Gayle, a San Francisco reader, regarding QT's asking its readers to resolve never to use 'impact' as a verb, writes:

"I would respectfully ask that you add an admonition against the use of the word 'incent' as a verb. This usage is worse than the use of 'impact' as a verb because 'impact' is, at least, a word, albeit not a verb, whereas 'incent' is just a string of syllables. I say this despite the fact that it appears in some of the newer dictionaries. Perhaps it would be worth your time to invent a new word to satisfy the following definition: '- - - - - n. A string of syllables put forward as a neologism and which finds acceptance as such only among those of no discernment, e.g., incent, incentivize.' "

The staff of the QT Abridged Too Far Dictionary of the English Language is at work on this.

And is open to suggestion.

*J.Z., a Chicago Ridge reader, regarding QT's noting that "err" should rhyme with "fur," writes:

"But the Merriam-Webster OnLine entry for 'err' has an audio link where the primary pronunciation is 'air.' A second link does have it rhyming with 'fur.' Several other dictionaries also use 'air' as the preferred pronunciation, as well. So it seems to me that one can't err when pronouncing it as air."

Or, then again, does it go to show that some dictionaries are full of hot ur?

"Daiquiri" is pronounced DYE-ker-ee, by the way.

*Richard Beran, a Glenview reader, writes:

"Thanks for your reminder to avoid saying 'the reason is because.' But what about the increasing [and increasingly annoying] use of the term 'on account of' in its place?"

It is worse than you imagine.

There are already 74 Google hits for "the reason is on account of."

There are also, by the way, as of now, 179 Google hits for "tap-dancing militant Islamic fundamentalists."

But that is another story.

I only found 94 Google sites for "tap-dancing militant Islamic fundamentalists." Perhaps this post will bring more, though.

In response to the fear that Japanese incindiary bombs could start a forest fire in the Pacific Northwest, the Forest Service organized the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign with the help of the Wartime Advertising Council. Walt Disney produced "Bambi" that same year and allowed the Forest Service to use Bambi on a fire prevention poster. The poster was a success, establishing the effectiveness of using an animal as a fire prevention symbol. The Bambi symbol, however, belonged to Walt Disney Productions, and was only on loan to the Forest Service for a year. The Forest Service wanted to find a symbol that belonged to the Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign (rather than pay royalties to Walt Disney) and came up with the idea of "Smokey Bear." The first Smokey Bear poster appeared on August 9, 1944.

The Los Tablos fire that began in Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico on May 9, 1950 and the Capitan Gap fire that began on May 6 were both believed to be caused by human carelessness. On May 9, a badly burned bear cub was found in the ruins. He was at first named "Hotfoot" because of his burns, but was later renamed "Smokey Bear" for the Fire Prevention Campaign. Smokey Bear was so popular and received so much mail that he was given his own zip code.

Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins wrote the song "Smokey the Bear," and it was copywrite in 1952.

Now, lets all sing . . . "With a Ranger's hat and shovel and a pair of dungarees . . ."

Tinman

The Japanese did bomb the mainland of the USA. Several seaplanes were despatched from a Japanese submarine and they droppeed incendries on forests in California. Result? No one noticed. It was assumed said fires were probably accidental, probably due to careless campers.
Now, if the same aircraft had dropped a bomb on Downtown LA? Well, the psychological impact would have been much different.

I believe someone actually died in one of those fires.

Wow, I never knew that, Erik. Interesting.

quote:

Several seaplanes were despatched from a Japanese submarine and they droppeed incendries on forests in California.

Hang on, I think you are confusing two stories here. There was an incident in which a Japanese sub shelled something in southern California.

Then there were the Japanese balloon bombs, but I'll let http://www.ww2guide.com/bombs.shtml take it from here:

Japanese Balloon Bombs
During 1944 and into 1945 the Japanese carried out a most unusual bombing campaign. Large paper balloons fitted with an ingenious mechanism for maintaining altitude during the 6,200 mi (9,970 km) 3-5 day trip across the Pacific to America were launched in great numbers. Each balloon carried a small incendiary device as it travelled at 25-170 mph (35-270 km/h) between 30,000-50,000 ft (9,144-15,240 m) altitude. The thinking was that the large forested areas of the United States could be set ablaze by the incendiary bombs dropped by these balloons. In November of 1944 the remains of some of these balloon bombs were discovered and reported. By March the following year reports indicated that roughly 100 of these balloon bombs were crossing the Pacific per month. On March 5, 1945 Mrs. Elsie Mitchell and five children were killed when they came upon one of the incendiary devices while out fishing at a lake. These were the only casualties of enemy action against the mainland of the United States during World War II. Altogether some 9,300 balloons were released during this campaign but with essentially no results as no forest fires resulted and less than a thousand of these weapons actually landed on American soil.

The article regarding a Japanese seaplane bombing the US was in a respected British aviation magazine. I'll try to find the article but I don't tend to keep magazines in any sort of order-they're in boxes in the loft! The thing was as it was a raid chosen for psychological reasons they made rather a bad choice to bomb a forest, because no-one noticed. It was one of the submarines which carried a seaplane in a special hanger in front of the conning tower. In all honesty I think it might have been just a single aircraft that carried out the raid, but aircraft it was. I'm aware of the balloon bombs and it definately was not one of those.