Latest Peeves and Perps
-   This ... 
     Don't start a sentence with a "This" of unclear referent.  It
     might  seem to flow along nicely when you write it, but the
     reader often doesn't know what you mean: which previous 
    noun, idea, situation, or piece of the current paragraph are
      you pointing to with "This"?
     It is auite a common problem in scientific writing:
     I  dealt with it rather  academically
     in the original pet peeves doc., but the fix is easy.
        SIMPLY NEVER start a sentence with
     "This" unless the next word is a noun, and even then you have to be careful.
      So "This shows that...", or "This means..." or
     "This caused..." are BAD.  "This problem..." could be OK as long as there is
      no ambiguity about which problem you mean 
       (maybe several were mentioned previously).
     
  
-  "It's" for "its."
      Pernicious and ubiquitious.  Easy slip to make but also easy to
       search for and eradicate.
      I do it now and then, students do it  a lot , I've seen it in
       expensive advertising copy and
      best-selling novels, most recently one by Neal Stephenson.  Remember,
      "his, hers, its; NOT hi's, her's, it's".
     
-   Beg the question.  If you hear, read or (sorry) use this expression,
     chances are about 95% it's being misused.  It does NOT mean "suggests 
     (forcibly suggests, demands an answer to) the question".  It's a lame
     translation of  petitio principii , the classical (we're talking
     Cicero's time) logical fallacy of appealing to (hence "begging") the
     principle (hence "question") in order to prove the principle.  Best
     known example of question-begging:
     "Have you stopped beating your wife?" begs the question that
     wife-beating has taken place.  Considering the issue of how much trial
     lawyers' fees should be increased begs the question that they should get
     fees at all (instead of getting shot, for instance).  Sample perpetrators:
     well, I haven't seen it used right in the last 10 years, so everyone.
     
     
-   "Crescendo" for "climax" .  How did this get started?  Typical
     misuse: "The argument reached a crescendo."  Crescendo is the process of
     getting louder, not some sort of high point.  Wall St. Journal
     a particularly
     obnoxious perp here.
-   "Spectrums,  millenniums, datums," for "spectra,  etc."
     Gimme a  break.  This sort
     of insult (along with split infinitives) is why I stopped subscribing to
     the  Scientific American. .
-   "Going forward" for "in the future".  Actually, this is something
     people say but not something people tend to write.  Let's keep it that way.
     All of a sudden this business-speak
     has replaced a perfectly good prepositional phrase.
     It's quite common, especially in
     talks by deans and CEOs.  There's even a UR bureaucrat who says (I'm not making this up)
     "On a going forward basis".  Yikes.
-   "Everyday" for "every day". Presumably not a problem in scientific
     writing but you never know. The former is an adjective meaning
     'used, fit for, or coming every day', as in "great for everyday use".
     "Every day" is an adverb, meaning  'quotidian', or 'daily'.  
     WSJ gets this wrong all the time.
-   "Circa" for "a date in the past"/  For example, "This
     winery was built circa 1786", or a sign on a B&B: "Circa 1821".
    Circa means "around" in the sense of "approximately" and
     is used when the exact date is unknown.  Thus one tends
     to round to the nearest decade, half-century, or century, depending on the
     uncertainty.
Page Maintained by CB
Last modified: Thu Apr 21 09:12:15 2005