The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1957-01-11


Mr. Bruce Blven recently wrote for the Saturday Evening
Post later quoted condensed in the Readers gsan article
gives up the fight he has waged for years to
purify English language of six glarng He feels
that his efforts have been van that the will continue to
glare until they accepted new forms and recognized by
grammarians and photographers
The six errors these l. Misuse OF ke for as Misuse OF
unique ordinary adjective with comparative and supera
tive orms Misuse providing for provided Mishse of the
contact verb Misuse of data singular noun;
Misuse of literally for its opposite tgurdt'uety
Like is an adjective As is conjunction. Like should
be used unless the phrase similar can be substituted for
it, Therefore is to "You are like your father
ike modify say "Your writing is like your fathers
And it quite impossible that cigarette should taste good
like cigarette should the phrase must be- as cigarette
should"
The word unique means the only its kind
thing cannot be unique most unique rather unque
is either unique is not unique and there the end OF
the business Unique absolute word admitting no degrees
word like dead and IS manifest tnat notnns can De
somewhat dead, deader deadest except in quascomc
literary the of the conna mentioned in
nection with Mareys ghost
Providing (when geun) active participle to be
used adjective must have noun or
modify You cannot say with correctness that will be
day providing doesn't rain That isn't what you mean
for suggest that the day is providing something and the rest
the sentence doesn't follow through. No; what mean
is that it will be nice day provided it doesn't rain
The word noun and it must remain until
schooteachers solemn concave and the dictionaries In
official chorus proclaim it verb You make contact with
for instance when crowd him Off the sdewa)
contact him. The word even non had pest
kept the social significance column t technical
word suitable for the of electricians serves no needtul
purpose ordinary speech oun as verb 1t is an
offence especially have useful verbs such as
see vt talk NTH consult and many other NOT nclud
ing horrible phrase get in touch Nth which suggests game
of tag.
The word data Latin neuter noun in the plural and
therefore when it is subject requires plural The
singular is datum And by the bye in English the word is
pronounced dayuh with accent on the first syllable you
the word rhyme with word nat (Slmlarly the Woro
status is pronounced stays stduS Status to
rhyme with atice) We correctly say that the data hat s
the things gven fac of are to be found IN
such and such documents or books or archives
seems semiofca approval has already been given
to another Latin plural namely dsendo which means
noun Thus of egenda Too bad too bad Still you
are everasngy right when speak of "a list of agenda or
say "the agenda are as follows
Mr. Biven SAYS that many persons the word hterdy
when hey mean gurdiue Literally according to the
letter. hence of ALL what written or spelled out
letters To that written statement is literally ue Is
to say that exactly right its plain meaning and involves
no ambiguity doubetak But you cannot speak Oh
facts literally for facts unlike words and sentences are
not of letters Facts actually true not edy
reporters account of the facts may be hteraiy
true report.
We when the boss heard that he literally blew his top
One may hope he found it later and replaced IT carefully
The slang phrase bleo his piece OF ttgurdsOe speecn
and even when written not to be taken terdy
The day failed literally roze to death ms
uHueiStoou
fgurave expression merey the statement is voice
the tomb
Mr. Bven and his fellow copyreaders ought not to surren
der They should keep the good fight Maybe nei
are accomplishing than is apparent bad napits
OF speech and writing cannot be cured they can be- many
cases. prevented And there are SO many song
making for the corruption of language that shameful
to contemplate abandonment of all effort to keep
uncorrupted.
Foremost among agencies that keep steadily at work 70
rob speech its meaning and proper form are the
TV men who advertise commodities and other things These
are the lads who say Live and They taste good ike
cigarette should" and Like so and Like sao' anu I
call ordinary things Terrific marvellous fabulous amazing
For one Milton there thousand Ihroay teraes
naecb incorrect Interpretation and phrases mis-
accommodations gurgng utterance would be pity inueeo
Bven and Company were to let the conocass n
fare in remote (Which hardly anyone reads even
prooreader) have delaying effect upon tne