Un-progress: Let’s make it easy to close programs inadvertently!

Years ago, I recall, it was pretty much universal that when you supplied the keystroke(s) that closed a program, you’d be asked, “Do you really want to close this program?” Then you’d either confirm — with a “Y,” typically — or, if the cancellation had been accidentally, you’d say “No, thanks,” probably with an “N.”

This intelligent design feature was presumably based on what software engineers knew from their own experience: Everyone makes typing errors, so accidental closing are a not-infrequent irritant–and helping to avoid them was sensible and courteous. Moreover, you weren’t exactly slowed down when you did want to cancel. You quickly got used to adding the confirming ”Y” to the closing keystrokes automatically, which added only an unnoticeable sliver of a second to the time necessary to close.  

But somehow that little fail-safe has been eliminated from many programs, thus permitting an annoyance that used to be routinely prevented. That’s a fine example of negative progress in design, a truly dumb and inconsiderate un-improvement — and, inevitably, it seems to have become very common now.  Consider the geniuses at Google, for example, in their photo-handling program Picasa, and the geniuses at Photoshop: All that brainpower doesn’t provide enough thoughtfulness to supply their programs’ ejection seats with a safety switch.  

P.S. For any users who might not wish to supply that confirming keystroke, programs could obviously make that feature optional, thereby satisfying everyone. But to do so would allow customization in a way that would actually accommodate users; and that’s a concept that is ignored with such widespread enthusiasm that it deserves its own post.

Why don’t literary classics have numbered-paragraph versions?

The Bible and Shakespeare have been provided with foolproof systems of citation (chapter and verse, or act, scene and line) — which makes sense, since they’re our greatest sources of literary references and quotations that people may wish to cite or look up.

Still, it’s odd that no one ever seems to have thought of providing paragraph numbers in the margins of literary classics. You wouldn’t want to have these included in every edition, of course. But a standard numbering in scholarly editions would certainly have aided literary criticism and research greatly through all the past centuries. How much easier for all if a writer could give the exact location of what’s being discussed — so that readers would not have to flip through all the pages of a fat Dickens chapter, for example. 

Today, of course, the classics are increasingly available online, so that their text is searchable — but computer text searches still don’t provide the kind of search clarity that paragraph numbering would allow. A Pride and Prejudice critic might have noted that toward the end of Chapter number so-and-so, Elizabeth finds Darcy particularly irritating. To find that area, you’d still have to hunt for “Darcy” through several pages — and even then you might not be sure you’d found the reference. How much handier if a critic could mention that this occurs in Chapter so-and-so, paragraphs 390 and 411-15.

Another quibble with this suggestion might be that paragraphing is not always standard. But in many — probably most — classics, it is, indeed.

Why hasn’t this ever been done? With online texts, it would be relatively easy to add, of course, so that even if not ever adopted in hard copy — or if hard copies become extinct — this practice could be applied online and might help writers and readers in the future.

  

The “deep throat” of oral agreements

“Oral” — as in “oral agreement” — is pretty much disappearing, replaced — incorrectly — by “verbal agreement.”

Why incorrectly? Well, etymologically, “oral” (from the Latin oralis, based on os, mouth) means “related to the mouth,” or by extension, speech, so an “oral agreement” meant (and still means) a spoken agreement, one not written down. Since most important agreements are written down, an “oral agreement” has always been a significant special category, particularly in legal matters. Meanwhile, “verbal” (from the Latin verbum, word) includes anything consisting of words–which would of course encompass both spoken and written language. So the phrase ”verbal agreement” is not only broad — it includes spoken agreements and  written contracts — but it incorporates what’s generally a redundancy, since almost all human agreements are made of words. Of course, there are exceptions: semaphor-flag communication, and kisses between new lovers. And to confuse things a bit more, an “unspoken agreement” does have meaning: an agreement arrived at by custom or habit, without being made explicit (like a tacit understanding between neighbors to keep their dogs leashed). 

In any case, ”oral agreement” is now becoming almost universally displaced by ”verbal agreement” — so that “verbal” is used as though it meant “spoken,” at least in this one phrase. The reason is intriguing: I suspect that the word “oral” has become a bit naughty for the front parlor, as it were. After the sexual revolution made open discussion of sex a commonplace, the phrase “oral sex” became more frequently encountered than ever before. Moreover, ”oral” isn’t commonly used, otherwise; in fact – and here’s the key point — in most contexts today, outside of medicine and science, the word “oral” is rarely encountered without “sex” after it. So people – even those who knew what an “oral agreement” was – may have shied away from that phrase. (”Then we reached an oral agreement.” “Where? Behind the stairs?”) And since “verbal” sounded vaguely similar to those who don’t watch language carefully (i.e., most people), it became used as a less socially-charged substitute.

What to do about this? Depends on which way you want to risk embarrassment. You could use the right phrase, perhaps feeling that tinge of impropriety, or give in and use the wrong phrase, knowing you’re displaying (and furthering) ignorance. Your call. In any case, the world is definitely on the road to the wrong usage.

Now I lie me down to sleep (said the editor)

So many mistakes with lie/lay occur that it does seem the distinction may have been completely lost, or is rapidly getting there. It’s still irritating in professional writing, though — at least, it is to some of us. New York magazine, May 12, 2008, page 33: “In the worst-case scenario, you could . . . lay down in the trough between the rails.” Oh, please. Nobody at the mag knew this was wrong? One verb is intransitive, one is not. It’s not nuclear physics.  

P. S.  Yet the mixup doesn’t seem so bad in certain song lyrics: Dylan’s “Lay, Lady, Lay” kinda seems to work. Maybe that’s because the key line–”Lay across my big brass bed”–is in fact taken from the blues world, and may somehow bring along the built-in ”distressed” quality of antique folk material (as with, say, double negatives).  On the other hand, Kenny Rogers’ “She Believes in Me” included the same error, but in a way – ”While she lays dreaming . . .” – that seems truly ugly. That’s a fairly old country hit, at this point, and may have been an “early adopter,” and so a leader in drilling the wrong usage into American ears. But country fans are a different demographic from professional editors, with different preferred usages (leastways, that used to be the case).

 

Let’s stop begging that confusing question

To “beg the question” has a clear traditional meaning, which concerns an error of logic. It means that while you are supposedly addressing a question in order to prove it, your argument is flawed: One of your basic steps assumes the truth of what you are about to prove. In effect, then, you are arguing in a circle and proving nothing.

But the verb “beg” here is certainly confusing. And we are in an era when such niceties of formal discourse have been overlooked so long that the term has, in common use, lost its meaning. People rarely employ it properly, in its traditional (i.e., correct) sense. But many obviously feel that it lends a nicely upper-crust tone, so they grab it and use it to express a much simpler concept than it actually involves. That is, they use “begs the question” as if it meant ”raises the question [of X, Y or Z].”

A suggestion, then: Since the original meaning is now becoming more and more obscure to most of us, let’s avoid it, except in formal writing, by and for people who understand the phrase. In everyday contexts, let’s just say something like this, when we need to: “Your argument here is incorrect, because it assumes what you’re trying to prove.” And, on the other hand, when we want to say that “this raises the question [of X],” why not actually say “this raises the question [of X]” — rather than being highfalutin and totally wrong?

Every writer should keep their eyes open

English has some singular/plural issues, as in a situation when — for example –”The speech was so boring, everyone began shutting their eyes.”  To avoid both that mistake and the too-formal kind of fix (”his or her eyes”), a rewrite is typically necessary. That often takes more than simple re-jiggering, but an actual rewrite — e.g., “eyelids began drooping everywhere.”

In any case, what’s truly surprising (and irritating, to anyone who knows better) is to see text–in particular, professionally-written text–that manages to create such a problem when it’s not even there.

Here’s a truly astoundingly inept example, and from the FIRST sentence of an article in the New York Times, no less, of August 21, 2008, page D4, “All-Around Appeal” (are the Times editors asleep?): “Each with an Olympic gold medal to call their own, the gymnasts Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson prepared to part ways after sharing the long road to stardom.” How could it not occur to anyone at the paper of record–writer or editors–that the first phrase cried out for “to call HER own”? It’s not just a question of complete ignorance of basic usage (how can “each” be followed by “their”???); you’d need a tin ear too. to think “their own” was fine, in that sentence.  

And now we hear from New York magazine, May 12, 2008, page 37: “If Chloe Sevigny [wore] a potato sack, it wouldn’t take long before every other girl on the Lower East Side needed their potato sack.” [Italics in original.] What??? Here again, this particular problem doesn’t even exist, since only females were involved, and the sentence could–and should–have ended with “her potato sack.”  It would seem that here was someone vaguely aware that such constructions can be tricky, who then, in a mechanical avoidance reflex, managed to insert an error when there wasn’t any danger of one. Half-awake, evidently (with editors half-dozing along).

Suppose the problem in the New York article had existed? That is, what if the thought had applied to both sexes: “If  all the unisex trendies wore green jackets, it wouldn’t be long before everyone else on the Lower East Side needed. . . . ” This does present that “their/his-or-her” problem. Again, a rewrite would solve it: ”. . . it wouldn’t be long before every Lower East Side fashion-follower sported the same crucial garment.”

One reason to think Sony’s ad writers can’t write

From a recent Sony ad: “HERE’S 50,000 REASONS TO GET A BRAVIA HDTV NOW” (Sports Illustrated, Jan. 28, 2008, page 64). Okay: “Here is reasons.” In elementary school we learn some basic concepts. Here is the name of one: Singular. Here is the name of another: Plural.  Here is a rule: We have verbs for each of these, and the verbs are distinct. Is this difficult, Sony-Ad Dick and Sony-Ad Jane? Apparently so.

Account numbers — as difficult as possible, yes!

At this point in the computer age, you’d think certain basic conventions regarding account numbers would have been established. For example:

1. Why aren’t more account numbers presented in manageable form — e.g., in groups of four digits, like credit card numbers? That’s a reasonable approach, easy to deal with, and certainly could simplify things when reading account numbers, and especially when providing such numbers orally (see below). So why don’t more organizations divide their numbers this way, at least in what consumers see? Of course, an entity’s computer sytem might group numbers quite differently internally, but why can’t such a human-oriented approach be utilized when feasible, in printing numbers for humans to deal with? Obviously this wouldn’t apply to certain numbers — phone numbers, social security numbers — that already have traditional and manageable groupings. But what about all those other account numbers, so often absurdly long and/or confusingly grouped? More than four or five digits in a row is obviously hard for the eye to sort out. It’s a small irritation, but a frequent, needless and fixable one — and therefore, rather stupidly inconsiderate, no?

2. Since we’ve all been dealing with many numbers for well over half a century now, wouldn’t you think that a convention would have arisen in which, when supplying a number orally — especially on the phone — you would start by saying “In groups of four, it’s–” and then continue with the digits thus grouped (until you explain that you’re giving a final single digit, or two or three). Just wondering.

3. Banks and other check-printing organizations offer an absurd array of design choices to “personalize” your checks (as though that really asserts your individuality). Meanwhile, it has not occurred to even one of such organizations – at least, that I’ve seen — to include a series of small boxes to facilitate the writing and reading of the account number to which a payment should be credited (that is, your account with the utility, credit card company, and so on). Such a line of boxes might fit at the top, above the payor’s name; or perhaps below the line ending with the word “dollars.” In any case, this design feature would obviously promote clarity and tend to prevent payment errors. (Of course, if groups-of-four, as suggested above, ever became an accepted convention, the boxes might be similarly grouped.) You’d think this option is even more important than the chance to include pictures of Labrador retrievers, sailboats, or Disney characters. Why haven’t they taken care of this?  

Why aren’t phone menus ONLINE (duh)?

Most people hate phone menus, for good (and self-evident) reasons. So in this online era, why doesn’t it occur to the people who run help and support to offer their phone menus, in diagram form, on the company’s website? You could be informed of this option as soon as you dialed in. Then, if you happen to be at a computer, such a diagram would help you navigate through phone menu choices much more easily, with much less confusion, wasted time and backtracking. (And of course, such a diagram could also facilitate making the call directly by computer, for those who have such options.) I haven’t seen one company with the common sense to do this — though there must be some who have (?) — but the point is: Why don’t support people ALL know this would be a big help? How can so many not realize how this minor and relatively cost-free aid would be a big help to customers? P.S. While we’re on the subject . . . It’s irritating, patronizing and insulting to hear that “Our options have recently changed,” in the vast majority of cases when that’s obviously a blatantly transparent lie. (Do support people thiink such a repeated lie builds good relations?) Couldn’t the standard phrase at least be, “Listen carefully because some options may have changed”? Of course, that would be to treat customers as though they deserved respect and courtesy.

Each of such mistakes are ugly, no?

Newsweek, May 26, 2008, page 43: “Each of the 300 arriving ninth graders are randomly assigned to one of the houses. . . . ” [Italics added.] You’d think writers and editors could remember all the way back to five or six words earlier, wouldn’t you? It seems to me that major publications simply did not contain such elementary-school errors, years ago (of course, that could be my own aging recollections failing me).

“Laughing to the bank” — a pointless excursion

My earliest recollection of the original expression is in a quote attributed to Liberace when he was first making his mark. A born-too-soon proto-Elton John flamboyant, he somehow emerged in the upright 1950s, a period in which he inevitably endured a lot of metaphorical flamethrowing. Asked whether he was upset by some mocking commentary, he replied. ”Yes; I cried all the way to the bank.” Rimshot. Of course, the point of the phrase is the turnaround on the word “bank,” supplying the unexpectedly thumbed nose. So the “Yes, I cried” is sarcasm, but we don’t find out until the sentence’s end–which tells us the joke is on the speaker’s critics, and perhaps on us also. The subtext: Maybe YOU think I was bothered, but in fact,  I simply reminded myself–and now remind you–that what I’m criticized for is precisely what’s making me very successful. The whole point is the surprise in going from ”cried” to ”bank.” If the speaker were not apparently admitting upset at the start, there’d be nothing to reverse, and thus no point to the remark.

Yet people keep using the phrase with wording that includes some version of “I laughed all the way to the bank.” Since there’s no reversal here, the remark in that form typically has, in effect, no meaning whatsoever. It amounts to saying, “Yes, I was fine; and then I was fine.” You’d think that such a vacancy would be glaringly obvious (since the missing turnaround is not exactly a subtle kind of sarcasm).  But, uh–apparently, it’s not.

“In My Life”–seriously confused

Obviously, John Lennon was (usually) a brilliant lyricist. But that doesn’t mean he was perfect. It’s too bad that one of his finest songs is (spoiler coming) seriously weakened by a confusing contradiction–and one that the lyrics even emphasize, through repetition. The lyric begins with an affectionate look back at “places I’ll remember / all my life.” The things he’s remembering still “have their moments / With lovers and friends I still can recall”– because “I’ve loved them all.”
    True, he then says that all these “friends and lovers” are surpassed by his current love: “There is no one compares with you.” Okay; finding an ultimate love need hardly deny the significance of former loves. But then Lennon goes on to a completely inexplicable line that does totally negate that moving  introduction: ”And these memories lose their meaning / When I think of love as something new.” HUH? But the entire point of the song, up to that point, was to tell us strongly that his early memories have kept  their meaning.  Zig, zag.  And now he zigs again: He immediately goes on to re-state what he said at first (though he’s just denied it!): “Though I know I’ll never lose affection / For people and things that went before.” 
     What’s going on here? In a word (I think), carelessness. Obviously, he couldn’t have meant that line in the middle, the one saying, “These memories lose their meaning”–since most of the song says the precise opposite. In context, it seems he must have meant something like, “These memories change their meaning.” In fact, that modification creates a line in accord with all the rest of the song. Wonder why he didn’t do something like that, or insert some other such line? Or why no one else suggested that? (There was often collaboration on lyrics, as a lot of documentation indicates.)
     Addendum: Of course, Beatles songs often include lines that are illogical or even anti-logical, and sometimes that involves an intentional (and playful) paradox–but sometimes (as here) it seems to be just a puzzling and weakening contradiction. It’s a matter of opinion, of course, as to which situation we’re faced with. 
     For examples of the creative and playful paradox, I’d offer two. From “Yellow Submarine:” “And our friends are all on board. / Many more of them live next door.” That seems altogether too blunt to be a mistake. More interestingly, of course, there is this, from “Penny Lane:” “And though she feels as if she’s in a play / She is anyway.” That may be the ”This statement is false” of song lyrics (see the Wikipedia “Liar paradox”) – a nicely oscillating conundrum, which fits comfortably into the song’s aura of both (literary) absurdity and surrealism.  

 

       

 

Everyone missed it

This one takes a little time and text to explain. Newsweek, May 5, 2008, page 31: “[H]e is one of those . . . intellectuals whom George W. Bush liked to ridicule as a Deke brother . . . and . . . as president .  . . (and, long before him, demagogues like . . . Father Charles Coughlin; Red-baiter Joe McCarthy . . . and . . . race-baiter Gov. George Wallace of Alabama.)” There’s a glaring and basic error in parallelism, because there’s no verb — express or implied — for the people included in parentheses. And “ridicule” does not work for them, the way the sentence is set up. It’s amazing that no editor (or any of the three, count ‘em, writers) saw this obvious error, or made the very easy fix: Just cut that initial “and” within the parentheses and replace it with two words–”(as did, long before him  . . . )”–and the sentence would read correctly, and as intended. 

We don’t “match to” people or things

Again, poor prepositions get battered. Newsweek, May 5, 2008, page 57: “[Eleanor Roosevelt] was no match to her rival.” Oh, my. When you don’t measure up, you’re no match for someone or something. It’s been that way a long time. Again–nobody edits, any more?

What’s “a member for”??

“Alonso is . . . a board member for both the . . . County Museum of Art and [the] Museum of Contemporary Art.” (Newark Star-Ledger,  May 11, 2008, Section 2, page 1). A major newspaper doesn’t know the word “member” is followed by “of”??? But would even a 4th-grader say “She’s a member for my club?” (Yes, the Houses of Parliament have ”members for” the areas they represent; but that’s certainly a special usage.)

Imagine — if people actually listened

It seems weird indeed that John Lennon, so notably crucified (as it were) in the media for saying the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” has gotten a permanent free pass in a lyric that attacks the bedrock institutions of the culture: Religion and capitalism. Imagine not only suggests but recommends that we think of the universe as having “no heaven,” and look forward to a world with ”no possessions.” That neatly encapsulates what the 50s famously excoriated as ”godless Communism,” and seems to be 100 percent opposed to what most Americans still believe. Yet the song has cropped up in the most sacrosant of settings — played at the Olympics and to wake up the astronauts, sung publicly by such conventional figures as Bill Clinton and Dolly Parton, and praised by Jimmy Carter (I’m partly relying on Wikipedia here), etc. Is this not beyond odd? To sing and/or apparently admire a lyric while managing to completely ignore its absolutely clear message? And would John be amused — or irritated?     

Speaking of ignorant . . .

Newsweek, May 5, 2008, page 39: “[T]he former president had proved himself . . . ignorant to  [ italics mine] the realities of the radio age.” Ignorant TO ?? Where has anyone heard or read this in English? In a major publication, yet. Astounding. Somebody might have been thinking “oblivous to” — but in any case, how many people at this magazine were oblivious to the stunning clunker that emerged?  

Live and let edit, Paul

Assuming this is the correct lyric — “But in this ever-changing world in which we live in” — then McCartney did something really redumb-dant with this: “in  which we live in.” Some people believe he’s singing ”in which we’re livin’,” a dropped-g phrase which avoids such absurdity. (And makes the same money, too.) But it’s hard to hear that crucial “we’re.” So I think the solecism is there, though I doubt if they’ll strip his knighthood for it, at this point.

Honey, we shrank the rules

It’s at least partly caused by that movie. Even the New York Times now misses the difference between the past tense and the past participle in some basic verbs. May 1, 2008, page C1, in “Squeezed in Europe,” we see: ”[T]he broad middle of the German work force . . . shrunk to 54 percent of the population. . . . ” Oops. So even the paper of record today sank — or sunk, film fans — under the new laxness.