Talk Radio Hard Hit by Rental Car?

In "The Elephants of Style," I discuss how the terms rental car and hard hit have become so ingrained that people use them even in contexts in which car rental and hit hard would be much more natural.

Add talk radio to that list.

Yes, there is a phenomenon called talk radio. But that doesn't mean you have to refer to radio talk shows as talk-radio shows, or to radio talk-show hosts as talk-radio hosts.

(There must be a fancy term for such sancrosanctization of word combinations. Mr. Safire?)

Little Change, Big Difference

In editing a story on the shootings this week on the Indian reservation in Minnesota, I changed a reference to "a horde of media" descending upon the reservation to "a media horde."

What's the difference? Well, one makes sense and one doesn't. If you insist that media is and always will be a plural noun, you're stuck with the meaning of "more than one medium." Even if a medium in this sense (the concept of television? the concept of radio?) could swarm an Indian reservation, there aren't enough of them to constitute a horde. Media in this case is short for news media, so you have probably four: print, radio, television and the online world. Subdivide those all you want -- you won't end up with more than a dozen or so. Hardly a horde.

If, like me, you recognize that media when used that way is a mass noun, you see that horde of media makes even less sense. You wouldn't say horde of military or horde of judiciary, but military horde and judiciary horde -- and media horde -- are fine. It's a horde of people from the media, which works whether media is singular or plural.

I Rant, and Rave

Actually, I rant and rave. The headline contains a superfluous comma of the sort that seems to occur especially often in newspaper writing. Technically, a compound predicate does not merit a comma. In real life, the "take a breath" comma, as I call it, is occasionally appropriate when the wording is unwieldy or when a dramatic pause of sorts is desired.

Not to pick on any particular writer or editor, but a story I recently handled contained a wealth of examples.

They are skeptical of the Pentagon's ability to substitute air and naval power, and believe strongly that what the country needs is a bigger Army.

No. "And" doesn't believe; they believe. Because there's a chance that a reader would think the Pentagon is doing the believing, the best option here is to keep the comma and repeat the they:

They are skeptical of the Pentagon's ability to substitute air and naval power, and they believe strongly that what the country needs is a bigger Army.

It's possible that the presence of and twice in in four words tricked the editor into thinking this was an example of the serial-comma exception for newspapers that ordinarily don't use serial commas (toast, juice, milk and Trix, but toast, juice, and ham and eggs).

To be sure, the military has also benefited from two years of war-zone rotations, and from a historical perspective is holding up better than many analysts expected.

No. "From a historical perspective" isn't holding up better than expected; the military is holding up better than expected. As with the first example, the comma is a good idea -- it just needs to be accompanied with a restatement of the subject.

To be sure, the military has also benefited from two years of war-zone rotations, and from a historical perspective it is holding up better than many analysts expected.

And another:

The Army shrank from 40 active-duty and National Guard divisions during the Vietnam War to 28 when the Cold War ended, and has 18 now.

No. "And" doesn't have 18 divisions now; the Army does. Two options here:

The Army shrank from 40 active-duty and National Guard divisions during the Vietnam War to 28 when the Cold War ended, and it has 18 now.

Or:

The Army shrank from 40 active-duty and National Guard divisions during the Vietnam War to 28 when the Cold War ended and has 18 now.

Another one:

The Army met 94 percent of its target for getting first-term soldiers to reenlist, and hit 96 percent among those in mid-career.

No. "And" didn't hit 96 percent; the Army did. Again, two options:

The Army met 94 percent of its target for getting first-term soldiers to reenlist, and it hit 96 percent among those in mid-career.

Or:

The Army met 94 percent of its target for getting first-term soldiers to reenlist and hit 96 percent among those in mid-career.

Finally:

Today, Shelley is on duty in what he calls a "one-man fighting hole" on another battlefield -- a Marine recruiting station in Lexington Park, Md., in St. Mary's County -- with a mission to persuade young men and women to enlist, and probably go to war.

Yes! This is a good example of a pause for effect. The going-to-war part isn't a straightforward part of the persuasion; it's a necessary consequence of the other things he's persuading people to do.

Also, 1040 Is Different From 401(k)

I'm seeing a fair number of references to tax returns when the writer means tax refunds.

Today's Axiom

There's nothing easier in newspaper criticism than taking pot shots at editing. In other words, no matter how accomplished an editor you are, you will commit errors that fourth-graders will notice. In other other words, the eagle-eyed reader who makes an excellent point about something you let slip through could well be functionally illiterate. In other other other words, the managing editor who might fire you for missing two errors in a story wouldn't necessarily have caught any of the 48 other errors you fixed.

More on 'E-Mail' vs. 'ROTFLMAO'

The good guys lose, but I make a cameo appearance in an article about the poll.

Hear Here

Here is the episode of the National Public Radio show "A Way With Words" that includes Martha Barnette's mercifully brief interview with me. It's an interesting show, co-hosted by Richard Lederer, but if you're the impatient type you can skip ahead to the 14:30 mark to hear my segment.

The link will be replaced with the newest episode March 19.

whoknew?

Apparently Roy Blount Jr. is on my side (with a startlingly similar argument) on the whole uhmail thing.

That's That

A reader recently wrote to say that one of the best bits of writing advice he had ever received was "you can eliminate the word 'that' from 99.5 percent of all writing."

My reply was on the contrarian side. Such advice, I think, has been taken too literally, and I find myself inserting that more often than deleting it.

From "Lapsing Into a Comma":

A misguided principle of the editing-by-rote school is to delete the word that whenever possible. It's often possible, but that doesn't mean it's desirable. Tin-eared editors chanting the mantra "Omit needless words" produce staccato ridiculousness that, in addition to sounding awful, can cause readers to stumble. Observe:

He declared his love for her had died.

So you're reading along and you find that he declared his love for her. How sweet! Then you get to the end of the sentence and realize you've been misled. He declared that his love for her had died.

Believe is one of the big danger words for the that-averse. Often I'm reading about how the Democrats believe Bush (How sweet!), only to find that they actually believe that Bush did something wrong.

Or how about: They think Bush did something wrong. (Look, Ma, no that!) Are you shuddering at the word think? Don't be afraid. There's nothing wrong with think, just as there's nothing wrong with get. If your search-and-replace function is loaded to stick in believe and receive because the one-syllable words aren't good enough for edumacated individuals, well, cut it out.