THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407220003
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
Last weekend, the newspaper paid its final respects to retired editor and wordsmith Jim Henderson, who died earlier this month.
By respects, I'm not just talking about the touching and humorous remembrance by staff writer Dave Addis.
I'm also referring to the special effort made for the Saturday, July 16, newspaper. The goal was to create an edition that would pass the Henderson test - good grammar, good reporting and a minimum of ``jackassery'' - and to apply this lesson to every other paper we put out.
Did we succeed? Pretty well, but not perfectly. Several readers nailed us for using the wrong military jargon on a story about a carrier fire, which had 13 sailors treated by medics in an infirmary.
As the callers pointed out, there are no medics in the Navy - they're hospital corpsmen. And the infirmary is a sick bay. (Don't blame writer Jack Dorsey - he didn't write either one!)
Military lingo was one of Henderson's specialties, but he kept a watchful eye everywhere. A regular caller to the public editor's office after his retirement, he'd apologize for bothering us, then vent his spleen on the latest ``stupid'' error.
In the Henderson tradition, here are recent glitches spotted by you, our watchful readers.
KNOCK-KNEED HORSE. Can a horse's legs be akimbo? That's how they were described in a Daily Break feature.
``Well,'' said reader Barbara Zimmer, ``arms can be akimbo, meaning when your hands are on your hips and your elbows splay out.'' But not legs, especially not when they're also described as knock-kneed.
According to a stack of reference books, ``akimbo'' was probably a mispronunication of the Middle English in kene bowe, which meant ``in keen bow'' or ``in a sharp bend.'' Another possible derivation was the Old Norse kengboginn - keng meaning bent, bogi a bow.
Two dictionaries defined akimbo a la Zimmer, meaning arms only. However, a third added: ``Set in a bent position i.e. a tailor sitting with legs akimbo.''
Presumably, the tailor wasn't knock-kneed.
TRIED BUT NOT TRUE. In an e-mail message, Fred Meyett complained about the use and abuse of ``try and'' as in, ``The City Councilman will try and bring about. . . '' Meyett added: ``You need a `try and' monitor.''
Meyett is right. The phrase is taboo in grammar circles. In ``Words on Words: A Dictionary for Writers and Others Who Care About Words,'' author John B. Bremner writes that this type of phrasing is ``an example of hendiadys, from Greek hen dia dyoin, one by two, the linking of two words with a conjunction to express one idea. ``Try and do better'' really means ``to try and to do.''
Indeed, we must ``try to do better'' on this one.
HERE YE, HERE YE. Those Horrible Homonyms continue to plague us. Nearly a dozen callers pointed out a People column item that had this egregious lapse: ``Comments you'd rather not here. . . ''
And several noticed that a Senate debate story had candidate J. Marshall Coleman ``wanting to put the breaks on the Bill Clinton Express.''
Slightly more esoteric was a recent article referring to a jeweler's loop. It should be loupe, defined as ``a small, high-powered magnifying lens.''
A wire story about the Dutch army considering compulsory haircuts had one brigade ``already foregoing the ponytails and beards.'' I see that one all the time - foregoing means preceding, forgoing is doing without.
And a review of the movie ``Speed'' refers to ``putting the pedal to the medal'' (instead of metal), meaning to drive at full speed. We didn't show our mettle on that one.
Then there was the Daily Break headline, ``It's not easy to boast a cat's immune system.'' I'll say. It's not easy to boost it, either.
And boost/boast aren't even sound-alikes - at least, not in any part of the country that I've lived in.
``It disturbs me that such errors are there because I am scared the language is going to become degraded,'' said Susan Artemis, a Norfolk pianist who'd like to be an editor one day.
Those errors disturb us, too. Computer spell-checks catch misspelled words, but it still takes the human eye to pick out the misused ones.
PET PANSIES. And there was the reader who pointed out that we don't know our flora (plants) from our fauna (animals).
``Audrey is in charge of the fauna,'' stated a recent gardening story. ``She has planted pansies, marigolds and wisteria in surrounding beds.''
Indeed, Audrey is in charge of the flora. According to my reference books, Flora was the Roman goddess of flowers.
Fauna was the sister or wife (maybe both?) of the god Faunus, patron of farming and animals. In Greek mythology, he was known as Pan - the goatlike deity who liked to prance around and play the flute.
End of classics lesson, but not an end of the grammar lesson. Henderson's legacy lives on - in our writers, editors and all of you who let us know when we slip up. MEMO: Call the public editor at 446-2475, or send a computer message to
lynn(AT)infi.net. by CNB