War on Words

A writer/editor’s slightly snarky and relentless crusade to eliminate grammatical gaffes from our everyday communications

Compiled from the popular column in Out & About Magazine

THE WAR ON WORDS

A monthly column in which we attempt, however futilely, to defend the English language against misuse and abuse

By Bob Yearick

MEDIA WATCH • Gabe Lacques, in USA TODAY: “There’s intangibles, for certain.” This contraction is misused constantly by old reliable Gabe and others. Intangibles, a plural, means the verb should be are. • USA TODAY subhead: “Saints face potential crisis if neither Winston nor Hill can’t elevate their games.” Changing can’t to can would have corrected this double negative. • Matt Breen, in The Philadelphia Inquirer: “The Phillies hit four homers, which equaled the amount they hit in the previous four games.” Yo, Matt, when dealing with countable nouns, like, for instance, homers, use number. • Also in the Inky, we had this from Eagles reporter Jeff McLane: “Kelly, like Pederson, wasn’t adverse to analytics.” That should be averse — opposed, having a strong dislike. Jeff gets kudos, however, for his gracious response when notified of his miscue: “Ah thanks! Will fix.” • A reader submits this from the Blue Delaware blog: “Tim Murphy resigned in disgrace in the face of duel sex and bullying scandals.” The blogger really meant dual, referring to two distinct types of scandals. A duel is a combat between two persons, things, or ideas. • National Public Radio, the medium of choice among progressives and intellectuals (allegedly), is not without fault. Two recent examples: 1. “The main reason were the benefits that they would receive” – NPR announcer discussing why people change jobs. The subject is reason, so the verb should be was. 2. Another NPR commentator scored this double comparative: “They felt more safer at the airport in Kabul.” • Nick Federoff, purveyor of a syndicated radio show on gardening, commits a couple of gaffes on his website. First, there is this: “A little introduction as to whom I am” (should be who). Further on: “Sporting a foot-long beard and an equally outrageous personality, Federoff’s national award-winning weekly radio show has been on the air since May 1986.” That long modifier is meant to describe Federoff, but as constructed the sentence refers to his radio show.

DEPARTMENT OF REDUNDANCIES DEPT. • A reader caught Chrissy Evert, covering the U.S. Open, say that a player “is currently without a coach right now.” • Reporting on a Novak Djokovic match at the Open, an Associated Press correspondent wrote this: “. . . the ultimate outcome seemed fairly

Word of the Month

Janus-faced

Pronounced janus-fayst, it means having two sharply contrasting aspects or characteristics; insincere or deceitful – after Janus, the Roman god of doors, gates, and transitions. obvious after all of about 15 minutes.” Ultimate is superfluous here. • And good ol’ Gabe Lacques, still at USA TODAY, came through for us again: “He led the American League in homes runs in 2013 and 2015 but also led the league in strikeouts as well.” Gotta cut back on those qualifiers, Gabe. • A reader heard Sharrie Williams, on Philadelphia’s Channel 6 Action News, inexplicably refer to “victims coming off a ship vessel.” Choose one or the other, but not both. • And finally, Josh Tolentino, writing in The Inquirer’s sports pages: “Traditionally, starters typically don’t play in the preseason finale.” See previous item.

HOW LONG, OH LORD, HOW LONG? (In which we call out misuse of that most maligned punctuation mark, the apostrophe)

Isabel Hughes, writing in the Wilmington News Journal: “While the devices are not fix-all’s, studies have shown cameras and light can reduce crime.” Why, we ask, is an apostrophe needed there?

QUASHING THIS TREND

Reader Mimi Gregor laments the mistaken use of squash where quash should be the choice. She cites two recent examples from TNJ: • “The best way to squash this [the Delta variant] and to prevent future mutations and more serious variants is everybody gets vaccinated now,” Rattay said. • And in an op-ed piece by Scott Jennings there was this: “But let’s be honest — liberals have long desired the power to squash conservative speech, even before today’s concerns about vaccine hesitancy.”

The careful writer uses squash only when referring to physically flattening something by crushing or squeezing. Quash should be used in the figurative sense, meaning to cancel, put an end to, suppress.

LITERALLY OF THE MONTH

With the advent of another football season, we will be treated, again and again, to that old referee’s refrain: “The previous play is under further review,” which implies that it has already been reviewed.

Follow me on Twitter: @thewaronwords

NEED A SPEAKER FOR YOUR ORGANIZATION?

Contact me for a fun presentation on grammar: ryearick@comcast.net.

CREATING COMMON GROUND

The S E C O N D C H A N C E E M P L O Y M E N T C O L L A B O R A T I V E , an initiative launched with anchor funding from JPMorgan Chase, connects justice-involved citizens with stable career pathways in high-growth sectors such as banking, IT, and healthcare. Wilmington Alliance, along with their community and employer partners, work together to eliminate barriers to employment for justice involved citizens to create pathways for success through legal services, skills training, employment, and wraparound services. Current partners include Delaware Volunteer Legal Services, Wilmington HOPE Commission, the Delaware Center for Justice, NERDiT NOW, Peace by Piece, Goodwill of Delaware and Delaware County and Project New Start, with hopes to add more. The HOPE Commission's first digital literacy trainees have completed, and have received Microsoft certifications. Participants also have access to mentors and coaches which affords them the opportunity to build professional resumes, sharpen interviewing skills, and mitigate barriers through wraparound services and support. To further the impact the S E C O N D C H A N C E E M P L O Y M E N T

C O L L A B O R A T I V E

will host Expungement and Employment Expos throughout the city:

T h e f i r s t E x p u n g e m e n t a n d

t h e H o p e

O c t o b e r 16, 2021 E m p l o y m e n t E x p o

C o m m i s s i o n , o n w i l l b e

f r o m 11:00 a m – 3:00 p m . h o s t e d b y

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CONNECTING WITH MARKEE

Delaware-based business innovates all-in-one collaboration platform

Craig Doig has no qualms about going up against the Goliaths in the virtual communication and collaboration industry. Doig is the CEO of Yorklynbased Markee, which offers an appealing alternative for small businesses. For one, the web-based app resides at the customer’s domain.

“With products like Slack or Discord or Zoom, you have to become a customer,” Doig explains. “Markee takes that barrier away: Businesses can have a direct relationship with users.”

Because the business can put its brand on the platform, it resembles a proprietary product. Compare it to store-branded makeup or medical supplies produced by a third party but marketed as that store’s items.

The all-in-one Markee also accommodates internal and external meetings. “You can create virtual text rooms, virtual The Markee all-in-one virtual communication and collaboration meeting rooms, forums and notetaking spaces, then share platform allows businesses to have a direct relationship with users. them externally and internally,” Doig says.

But the sweet spot? Privacy.

“We’re one of the most privacy-based communication digital collaboration platform — all based on feedback from tools available,” Doig maintains. “Our video chats are HIPAA- customers.” compliant — all of our files are encrypted. We have no ‘vision’ Markee currently has 13 employees, including four into the product you’re using.” software developers. As the company expands, there are no

That’s a sharp departure from most Cloud-based plans to leave Delaware. “When people think of Markee, I companies, which use customer data for marketing purposes. want them to associate it with Delaware,” says Doig, a native “We don’t leverage any data,” Doig says. Other Markee perks Texan who moved here from Los Angeles. include file-sharing, widget capability, individual rooms, Seeking to build the state into a recognized tech hub polls, chats and Q&A features. with a deep talent pool, Markee is partnering with Code

Like many cutting-edge products and services, Markee Differently, which provides programming classes. “We want was born out of necessity. At the time, Doig was COO of to lift people up and provide jobs, particularly to those Short Order Production House in Wilmington, which risked who are changing career paths or are from underserved losing a significant client because its content-management neighborhoods,” Doig says. system wasn’t robust enough to reach 100-plus global sites. In turn, he hopes local businesses will support a homegrown

Fortunately, software developers like Zach Phillips were customizable meeting-and-collaboration platform. already on Short Order’s staff. It took only three weeks to “Markee,” says Doig, “wants to play a critical role in design Markee’s initial version, which synced digital content bringing jobs to Wilmington.” on multiple screens from a central location.

Doig and Phillips were onto something. In June 2020, they spun Markee off from Short Order – right in the middle Have a suggestion for our spotlight? of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the platform could Email us at innovate@choosedelaware.com handle the virtual events that replaced in-person workshops and conferences. Suddenly, the workforce was also using collaboration software. Markee had the virtual framework to enter that space.

“We really let our customers lead the development,” Doig says. “What do people actually need? We went from a digital signage company to a digital events company to a www.choosedelaware.com