Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout, Willis?

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence and respect knows where the title of this blog comes from.  If you don't, you're very young, and should disappear from the face of the earth.  (Happily drinking my Haterade.)

 

 Am I the only one noticing the unfortunate hairdo?

  

So that sounds like a legitimate question, but, alas, it ain't.  In Arnold's case, it was a statement of surprise at what his brother told him.  (Like cut your damn hair!)  Most of the time when people say this, on some level, they don't get what you're saying or refuse to believe it.

 

Hence the reason for the blog.  If you want to stop people from having this type of reaction all the time, you need to realize that it's not normally about what you say; it's about how you say it.  There's an aphorism that comes to mind:  "Life and death lie in the power of the tongue."  (I could REALLY go somewhere with that statement, but I won't--because I'm classy like that.)  That pretty much destroys the stupidity that is, "Stick and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."  Rubbish.  Utter rubbish.

 

In a previous article, I talked about paying attention to your audience.  Keep doing that.  But in paying attention to them, you also need to pay attention to how you're saying what you're saying.  Otherwise, they won't be your audience for very long.

 

Talking about how you say something deals with two things:  diction and intonation.  I know I promised not to scare you with my omniscience of linguistics, but I have to puff my chest a little sometimes.  (Works for Pam Anderson.)  You'll get over it.  For this posting, we'll focus on diction.

 

So "diction" simply means the words that you choose.  As in "diction-ary."  Duh!  So just like a dictionary has a bunch of words in it that have all types of meaning, your diction is a bunch of words that have all types of meanings and that you lob at people like you're Serena Williams playing against some poor sap that she's about to epically dominate:

 

Her She-Hulk legs are all the proof you need that she's bad.

 

 

Here's a real-life example:

Peter:  I have a question about this project you just gave me.  I don't quite understand your instructions.

Xavier:  The instructions were clear.  An elementary-school student would understand them.

Peter:  . . .

Yeah, this interaction was all about diction.  Even if my intonation was appropriate, Peter would still have punched me in the face.  Why?  My word choice sucked out loud.  "Elementary-school student?" Really?  This was a poor interaction because my diction wasn't appropriate to the situation or the person in front of me.

The words you choose can have an influence on another person:  either positive or negative.  So you have to be mindful of what you say.  Keep in mind that I'm not referring to political correctness, where you don't know whether to call someone black, African American, or colored.  (If you are truly confused about that last word, please move to Antarctica.  Naked.)  We are talking about making sure your diction aligns with the needs of the person in front of you.

For example, I have a fairly strong personality.  I'm not easily offended by much.  So when people talk to me or have to provide me feedback, my expectation is that their language be straightforward and supported by facts.  I don't need lead-up compliments; just give it to me.  This is distinct from my partner, Steve.  He appreciates feedback just like any rational person, but when providing it, he needs to understand the positive things he has done before talking about correction.  Here's an example:

Steve to Xavier:  You didn't pay this bill on time.  What gives?

Xavier to Steve:  I got a notice that the electric bill hasn't been paid yet.  You're always on top of stuff like this, but I know you have been really busy with school lately.  Have you had a chance to mail the payment?

Does it irritate me that I can't just come out like a fool on Steve?  Sure, it does!  In both of the cases, our lights are about to turned off, and the goal of the question is to find out how we can prevent that.  The diction in both cases is noticeably different, and it should be.  Steve and I have different communication needs.  And in both cases, the chance that we would respond defensively to the question is low.

Diction becomes seriously important when it comes to business and dealing with customers.  I talk about this extensively in my Customer Service Lost blog.  Not paying attention to the words that your customer can understand will send them running faster than a crack-head to a drug dealer.

So if you want to avoid the following response from people:

WTF you say?!

Pay attention to your word choice.

This posting is not intended for prized MMA fighters, since they can pretty much say whatever they want and get away with it.

Truly Spellbound

If you're like any respectable, God-fearing American who worships all things reality television but can't seem to find Minnesota on a map of the world, you get spellbound easily.  I mean, you get spellbound over the following:

• Angelina Jolie
• Oprah Winfrey
• Angelina Jolie
• bacon
• Angelina Jolie

Someone must have Photoshopped the pole out of this picture.

It's okay to be spellbound by these people and food items, I guess.  It's not okay to be spellbound over some embarrassing grammatical mistake that you made or that you stumbled across in your everyday reading.  (You do read every day, right?)

 

In a previous post, I sagaciously--yep, sagaciously--wrote about text-speak, and how it really isn't the death of the English language.  But in another post, I wrote about knowing your audience.  Stop being one dimensional and start cerebrally multitasking and putting those posts together to get the gist of what I am going to talk about here:  Pay attention to how you write!

 

So here's the deal:  Grammar and spelling does do matter.  You just can't write how the hell you feel like you want to write.  Well, actually, you can, but you'll end up being more embarrassing than Shaq trying to be a cop.

 

Oh, dear.

 



You have to pay attention if you want to keep a shred of credibility in your professional life.  As an editor, I see this all the time in the work that I am reviewing.  Some of the errors are understandable:  You're moving fast to get something done, and you mix up a word or two.  Gotcha.  Other errors are just opportunities for me to take a screen shot and. . .wait.  Never mind.  Some of my clients are probably reading this blog.

 

So now it's time to list the top-three errors that come across my desk that leave me spellbound.  Try to keep your composure here.  You're a professional, remember?

 

#1:  Your versus You're

 

You don't want to make the distinction in a text message to your drug dealer?  No worries.  But make this mistake when you're writing a financial analysis for your employer, and you're pretty much guaranteed to lose credibility, not to mention screw up something royally for your company.  Dumb.

 

Here's an example of how these words are confused and misused:

• "You're attention to this matter is required."
• "I know that your the only one who can create these complex formulas in Excel for me."

The only attention that is required is to horrific grammar in the first sentence.  And the only thing that'll be complex for you is the unemployment form you'll have to complete when you're fired from you're job for clearly lying about you're educational background during the interview process.  Liar.

 

Let's get to business.  "Your" is a pronoun and a possessive one at that.  What that means is that you use it when you want to show possession of something else.  In complex usage, it's used before a gerund.  Impressed with my omniscience in language?  You should be.

 

"You're" is a contraction, meaning that it actually is "you" and "are."  Basically, at some point in the evolution of the English language, people got so lazy that they got sick of the strenuous labor of putting an "a" in "are."  So they decided to save time by removing one character--the "a"--and replacing it with another character--the apostrophe.  Apparently, there's an impressive efficiency gain in writing one character that takes one second to make versus another one that takes 1.0000001 seconds to make.  See.  Time-saving!  Anyway, you use "you're" when you need a subject--"you"--and a verb--"are" or " 're."

 

Simple enough.

 

#2:  Who versus Whom

 

I talked about this distinction in a previous blog posting.  The reality is that "whom" is dying and should be gone by the end of this generation.  (One can only hope.)  So why in the hell are people trying to use it in everyday and business language?

 

If you must use it, please use it correctly.  If you don't, you will sound completely, utterly dumb.  I mean, like Paris Hilton-Nicole Ritchie lovechild dumb.  You can read my prior post about the function that the "who" and "whom" words serve in the English language.  In simple terms, "who" either connects one sentence to an incomplete sentence, as in, "That's the man who is going to the prom with her," or functions as the subject of a sentence, as in, "Who wants some food?"  (Carnie Wilson does, that's who!)  It actually gets much more complicated than that, but we'll stop there. 

 

Yet this is what I'll often come across:  "I am the one whom will lead the meeting."  Seriously?  You couldn't even lead yourself out of a can of alphabet soup.  Just stop.

 

My suggestion:  Just use "who" all the time.  You'll save face.  If someone corrects you by saying you should have used "whom," you have my permission to call the person a pretentious douche, followed by punching him/her in the face.  *Legal disclaimer goes here*

 

#3:  Inappropriate Use of Reflexive Pronouns

 

I get it.  You want to sound super professional in the business world.  So instead of saying, "He'll give the proposal to Tameka and me," you instead say, "He'll give the proposal to Tameka and myself."  Yeah, no.

 

A reflexive pronoun is a word that reflects back on itself, as in "myself," "yourself," etc.  If you are the subject of the sentence and you want to direct the action of the sentence back to you, use a reflexive pronoun.  For example, "I gave myself a headache from all the screaming I did today."  "I" is the subject of the sentence.  "Gave" is the action of the sentence.  "Myself" is the word that catches it before it flows throughout the rest of the sentence, and it's the word that lobs it right back to the subject--hitting it smack-dab in the face.

 

So obviously, the usage in the first paragraph is just all out wrong.  My thought is that people think that reflexive pronouns sound regal, so they want to be a king or queen for the moment.  We already have enough of them in world.  We don't need pretenders to the throne, thank you.

 

That's the top three.  But trust me:  There are many, many, many, many more issues that I see that come to my desk, like missing transition words, adverb abuse, illogical thinking, and run-on sentences.

 

The gist of this posting is to absolutely, positively, most definitely (superfluous language) make you feel self-conscious about your writing.  While we will always make mistakes when writing simply because language changes all the time and we won't always be up-to-date with the changes, but let's try to pay attention as much as possible.  You're paycheck will thank you.

 

I just saved your career.  You're welcome.



The Dying English Language

So I am sure you have heard it a million times:

"The English language is dying.  I mean, just look at how Ke$ha spells her name.  And these damn rappers!  Why can't they realize that it's 'whores,' not "ho's!'"

Actually, the only thing that will be dying is you if you don't keep that blood pressure down over language use.  Seriously?

Is this really necessary?  Over a damn verb?

I am here to report to you that the English language is, in fact, not dying.  Just because people choose to use "u" for "you" in various settings doesn't mean the wife of the English language is getting ready to cash in on that million dollar life-insurance policy.

So why in the world are people saying that the language is dying then?  I'll tell you why:  ignorance and elitism.  I'll explain more, but first, we need to point out the two types of language people that you're going to run into--or probably have already run into:  descriptivists and prescriptivists.

Basically, a prescriptivist is a guy who says this kind of nonsense about language:

"And, in few words, I dare say; that of all the Studies of men, nothing may be sooner obtain'd, than this vicious abundance of Phrase, this trick of Metaphors, this volubility of Tongue, which makes so great a noise in the World. But I spend words in vain; for the evil is now so inveterate, that it is hard to know whom to blame, or where to begin to reform." - Thomas Sprat

I'm a polyglot, so let me translate:

"All you ghetto hood-rats with your slang and booty-popping music are destroying the purity of the God-created English language.  Oh, and I'm better than you!"

These prescriptivist guys come in different shapes and sizes.  They may be known as grammarians, language mavens, language purists, and a-holes.

Then you have the descriptivist who says:

"Descriptivism is a central tenet of what we regard as a scientific approach to the study of language: the very first requirement in any scientific investigation is to get the facts right." - R.L. Trask


In other words, "We don't care how you speak.  Just speak so we can study your words!"

So where does the ignorance part come in?  Well, you start with the language mavan having a conniption fit because I misspelled "mavan" a few words before.  He starts lecturing me about how much of an embarrassment I am to the human race for my mortal transgression, and how God probably won't forgive me--ever.  This is ignorant.  He's apparently not aware that language functions by two principles:

1. The ability to create new words as necessary
2. The agreement on the meaning of words

Number one means that language has to evolve as it encounters new human experiences.  We have to find ways to express these experiences, and sometimes the existing words in the language just don't do the trick.  Number two means that there are still limits that we have to place on language in order to prevent it from running amok.

Here's an example:  Say the kids o' the day come up with this new pastime of putting one's finger as close to the eye as possible to see who flinches first.  Other than "idiotic," there's no official English word to describe this new pastime, so they collectively start using "pokester," as in, "Dude, I just pokestered you!"  This word will adopt all the forms that other English words adopt.  It's a verb, so it follows a certain conjugation scheme.  It falls on the timeline, so the past-tense form may require an "-ed" at the end, or maybe not.  This is word creation and language evolution.

At the same time, people have to agree, usually unknowingly, that "pokester" can not be used in certain ways, such as an adjective, as in "That pokester cat is just too darn cute!"  Or maybe it can't be used to describe an already-existing word, as in "pokester" can not mean "car," "bus," or "Rosie O'Donnell."  This is called a systematic constraint.

To not be aware of this reality is to be ignorant.  But this is where the elitist part comes into play.  Many prescriptivists are aware of this; they just choose to ignore it.  The issue that they actually have is that they weren't the ones who came up with the words and who put the constraint on the meaning of other words.  If the English language encounters a new phenomenon, they should be the one to name it, and they should be the one to tell everyone what it is not.  This is elitist.  And pretty stupid.

What's become a sort of irritant to me is the assumption that people have of me when they find out that I'm an editor/writer.  "Oh, you must be judging me all the time on my writing!"  How do we say this in French?  "Le geeet reeel!"  I am not a language elitist in the least and proud of it!

Here's the moral of the story:  If you find yourself saying, "I can't stand when people say. . .," you're a language purist and should hop on a ship and go live on one of the Galapagos Islands.  Sure, there is a time and place for certain types of language.  Of course, I am not advocating that we shouldn't be mindful of our setting or audience.  But I am advocating that it's fine for people to take liberties with language.  They always have and always will.  The English we know today will not be the same English spoken 1,000 years from now.  And that's okay.  And u should be okay with it, 2.