'Who's on First?' With Orange Vests

Headlines are hard enough to write without the morbidly comical complications of trying to convey the idea of a hunter (allegedly) going on a deadly shooting spree. (The alleged gunman? Well, no, of course he was a gunman. Six killed? Six what? Etc., etc.)

Tell Me Something I Don't Know

The context is clear, and, for that matter, readers aren't blank slates. Does anybody see the need for "former presidents" once, let alone twice, in this passage?

A president's approval rating is considered a key indicator of re-election chances. Former presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were re-elected with approval ratings in the mid-50s, and former presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter lost when their ratings fell to 40 percent or below.

Some Things, You Just Have to Memorize

Here's one such pair: Longtime (adj.) is solid, but long-standing (adj.) is hyphenated.

When Kansas City Isn't a Kansas City

In "Kansas City" you'll find a small style point and a larger exercise in balancing common sense with copy-editor geekiness. (Also, I understand, some crazy little women.)

Most stylebooks leave "Kansas City" off their "dateline cities" lists, meaning that you must specify in datelines and on first reference "Kansas City, Mo." or "Kansas City, Kan." Your common-sense instincts might say, "Aw, c'mon, of course 'Kansas City' alone means the big city in Missouri and not the not-so-big city in Kansas!"

But listen to your geek side on this one. For every 10 people who know that Kansas City means Kansas City, Mo., there are probably three who "know" that you're leaving off the Kansas part because it's part of the city's name. If you mean the Missouri city alone, you need to spell that out.

On the other hand, don't let the stylebook bully you into insisting on a state in references to the Kansas City area or Kansas City television and radio stations or even Kansas City-style barbecue.

There Oughtta Be a Word

Some common errors hint at gaps in the language. Host as a verb and gender meaning "sex" are two examples that filled those gaps so well they can no longer be considered errors. Other examples that may never grow into acceptance but sound stubbornly right while being wrong:

Bemused. You know, bemused -- looking at a person or a situation with slightly amused detachment, perhaps with a wry smile or even a shake of the head.

The word doesn't mean that, of course, even though that's what most writers think it means; it means something closer to "confused."

Webster's New World:

bemuse

1. to muddle or stupefy
2. to plunge in thought; preoccupy: usually in the passive voice

The standard copy-editor trick is to change bemused to amused, and indeed that's about the best we can do, but I find it not quite satisfactory. We need a word that means "quietly and slightly amused."

Officious. As I wrote in "Lapsing Into a Comma," the mistaken meaning sounds so right. The Transportation Security Administration stooge who makes a big Barney Fife show of inspecting your sneaker -- officious! The Six Flags ride monitor who points out that you're encroaching on the do-not-pass yellow line by an eighth of an inch -- officious!

The hint of "official" makes this an understandable mistake, but the word actually means almost the opposite.

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:

volunteering one's services where they are neither asked nor needed

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language:

Marked by excessive eagerness in offering unwanted services or advice to others.

Webster's New World does hint at some overlap with the mistaken meaning (my italics):

offering unnecessary and unwanted advice or services; meddlesome, esp. in a highhanded or overbearing way

Bizarrely, in the world of diplomacy, officious flies in the face of the "official" thing even more, meaning "informal or unofficial."

Monger. My third offering in the "they should mean this, but they don't" category might be a little more controversial, because I'm not sure how many people share my former misapprehension.

If you're a whoremonger, doesn't that mean you really, really enjoy using the services of whores? Fishmonger? You crave seafood.

A -monger, of course, is a seller, so a whoremonger is actually a pimp, but aren't many or most uses of powermonger intended to mean "power hound" rather than "power broker"?

The brilliant singer-songwriter Joe Pernice sings of an ex-girlfriend as a "life-sucking powermonger," which obviously means desiring power rather than doling it out. The error isn't limited to pop music. From CanadianChristianity.com:

Ncube's presentation suggested that the Zimbabwean president is a "powermonger . . . who is prepared to kill for power."

From Slate:

Essentially, [Dr.] Strangelove is the story of a few deluded powermongers who destroy the world because they can't admit they're wrong.

From a letter to the editor in Florida Today:

One has to wonder how different our country would be today if George W. Bush had listened to his wife, his father and mother instead of Don Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Karen Hughes, Karl Rove and Andrew Card. It's obvious that none of those powermongers were looking after the best interests of Bush or our country.

A headline in Crain's Chicago Business:

Rant control: Control freaks, opinionated nonconformists and powermongers make condo association meetings the scene of fireworks-and the occasional fistfight

I've known the true meaning of fishmonger and the like for decades now, but I still think mong just screams craving and desire, as in "I'm really monging some fish right now -- let's go to McCormick and Schmick's!"