Back in the Saddle

I was out of town for a week celebrating Thanksgiving, new additions to my family (two of my cousins are new parents), and one of my best friend's weddings. It was a great, albeit exhausting, trip.

I arrived back in New York this morning and went straight to school -- luggage in tow -- because my flight was delayed. And what better reception could I ask for than for my professor to revert back to his old, grammatically incorrect, ways? Now it's just funny... supposively.

Not Interchangeable

Bleeding ears breed scathing sneers and virtual jeers. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to wax sarcastic in the name of grammatical perfection. Perhaps I'm a bit on edge as deadlines and graduation loom, but today I heard a writer misspeak in a way that is laughable and, also, sad. Writers, after all, are supposed to know words, right? Or, at the very least, they should actively (and constantly) consult dictionaries to resolve discrepancies.

The culprit: A poor, unknowing, aspiring writer.
The crime: Word felony in the first degree.

She discussed coloring a story with narrative vignettes. In describing them, she meant to say anecdotes.

From Dictionary.com:

an·ec·dote
-noun
a short account of a particular incident or event of an interesting or amusing nature, often biographical.

[Origin: 1670–80; < NL anecdota or F anecdotes < LGk, Gk anékdota things unpublished (referring esp. to Procopius' unpublished memoirs of Justinian and Theodora), neut. pl. of anékdotos, equiv. to an- an-1 + ékdotos given out, verbal adj. of ekdidónai to give out, publish (ek- ec- + didónai to give)]

—Synonyms story, yarn, reminiscence.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

But, to my obvious infuriation (once again, I don't mean to be harsh, it's just one of those days), she said antidotes.

an·ti·dote
noun, verb, -dot·ed, -dot·ing.
–noun
1. a medicine or other remedy for counteracting the effects of poison, disease, etc.
2. something that prevents or counteracts injurious or unwanted effects: Good jobs are the best antidote to teenage crime.
–verb (used with object)
3. to counteract with an antidote: Medication was given to antidote the poison the child had swallowed.
[Origin: 1400–50; late ME (< MF) < L antidotum < Gk antídoton something given against (i.e., for counteracting), equiv. to anti- anti- + dotón neut. of dotós given, verbid of didónai to give; akin to datum]

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Now who can provide an antidote for this vexing anecdote? It might be a Budweiser day.

Wear With Care

Ever since screen-printed t-shirts became popular (When did this happen, anyway? Was the iconic "I Love New York" t-shirt the pioneer in cultivating an obsession with shirts emblazoned with everything from ping pong to political statements?), everyone from pre-teens to posh fashionistas have worn their emotions on their, er, chests.

On my lunch break today (I work in SoHo, which is both really fun and simultaneously detrimental to my meager bank account) I strolled by one of the many Broadway (the street, not the cluster of currently curtained plays and musicals due to a stagehand strike) boutiques that this elite shopping district has to offer. I stopped in my tracks upon reading one of the shirts in the window: "Seasons Change, So Do Boyfriend."

Ahem. If it's not grammatically correct, please, totally hip fashion designer, don't put it on a t-shirt, unless, of course, the mistake is obviously on purpose.

Toward or Towards?

I was doing some copy-editing at my internship this morning (side-note: I love that I get to copy-edit at my internship) when I came across the word towards. This is not a word I had previously contemplated, however, I always instinctively use toward without the s. As is my practice when I come across something I don't readily know, I decided to look it up.

Upon investigation, it turns out there isn't a difference. That's right, feel free to use toward and towards interchangeably. The only slight distinction is that towards is most commonly associated with British English, while toward is most often used in American English. Nevertheless, both are correct.

Check out Merriam-Webster's definition here.

A Little Class, A Lot of Sass

It's not a secret that I am highly perturbed by the mispronunciation of supposedly. I am increasingly annoyed each time I hear it, and even more so when it comes from the mouth of my accomplished working journalist of a graduate school professor. I have class once a week, and each week, it never fails, nor does it cease to amaze me. Supposively inevitably slips out.

You can certainly imagine my surprise, then, at the strange turn of events this week. Occasionally we read excerpts from nonfiction work aloud in class, and then go on to discuss the passages with regard to style, tone, content, methodology of reporting, etc. My professor was reading an excerpt from Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test when he came upon the word supposedly. I was reading a bit ahead, and I flinched. In reading the word, would he also mispronounce it, even with the -ED- plain to see and no -IVE- in sight? What would become of this momentous occasion?

Well, folks, history was made. He read, "supposedly," perfectly. Now if only he could commit that to memory.