By Bob Gaydos

 Okay, I wasn’t going to write about this because I figured it was too obtuse and nobody else would care about it. An indulgence on my part. But then it was Thursday and it was still bothering me since Sunday and I figured, what the heck, what is a blog for if  not to indulge oneself, obtusely or otherwise?

 So, once upon a time (for 30 years, actually), the incomparable William Safire wrote a column on language in The New York Times Magazine. As is its wont, The Times called it On Language. Safire, who was also a Pulitzer Prize-winning political columnist and a persistent defender of individual liberties, died last year. So did his column as far as I can tell.

 Oh, On Language is still there Sundays, but I have grown out of the habit of reading it. Last Sunday, though, the headline on the column caught my eye: “Why does Justice Antonin Scalia hate this word?”

 Since I hate Antonin Scalia, I had to know what word could get under his Original Intent skin. Now I don’t hate Scalia as much. (There’s a lesson in that, kiddies.)

 The word Scalia hates is choate.

 Choate?  I said to myself. Is that even a word? Isn’t it inchoate? And how the heck do you even say the word? Plus, who would ever use such a pretentious word? What the hell does it mean? And who gives a flying fig newton anyway? Aren’t there things to write about language that normal people use? Who is this moron Ben Zimmer wasting an entire page in The Times Magazine on a word nobody knows or uses or ever will use? And whatever happened to editors showing some common sense?

 Anyway, you get the picture.

 For the record, the “word” choate has apparently wormed its way into law dictionaries (what else) because of persistent use by lawyers, who have a tendency to the pretentious that begins with their insistence on calling themselves attorneys. The thing is, choate (OK, I’ll tell you how to pronounce it: KOH-it, or KOH-ate) is a bastardization of inchoate. I willingly confess this is the first time in more than 45 years of writing that I have ever used the word in any form. Inchoate means begun but not completed, partially done. I usually say incomplete. Choate has been taken by some — mostly lawyers — to mean the opposite of inchoate — completed.

 Scalia, bless his heart of stone, isn’t buying it. He knows from his Latin that the in-prefix of inchoate is not a negative. He told a lawyer who used choate as the opposite of inchoate that it’s like thinking the opposite of disgruntled is gruntled. Apparently, Scalia had made this point several times to lawyers appearing before the court.

 Good for him. But I repeat, who gives a fig and why waste the once-valuable space of the On Language column for such fussy nonsense when there is so much to find fault with in the way real Americans speak and write every day? Zimmer actually mentions one of them in his column — the use of irregardless to mean regardless. There is no good reason for this. One is a word, the other is the result of people thinking they will sound too smart and snooty if they say regardless, and of other people (parents, teachers, bosses) letting them get away with it.

 But I have my own pet peeves. One is when people try to sound smart and snooty by saying between you and I. Ugh. I don’t know how or why this started, but these things are like chicken pox — once they start, there’s no stopping the spread. This misplaced nominative case is often uttered on TV and radio sports “analysis” shows by current, former and would-be jocks. I know I shouldn’t go there expecting perfect English, but this is particularly irritating to me because it’s a bunch of guys trying to sound well-educated by ignoring basic education. It’s even more annoying when it shows up on non-sports talk shows. Apparently nobody feels comfortable telling someone that it’s wrong, so the usage continues.

 My current main language peeve is the interchangeable use of composed of and comprised of. This is usually done in writing because comprise sounds too snooty when you say it aloud. When you write it, it’s kind of like showing off. But they don’t mean the same thing, which will come as a surprise to the entire sports staff at the Times Herald-Record.

Compose, according to my handy Encarta computer dictionary tool, means to be the parts of something: to make something by combining together. Example: fertilizer is composed of organic compounds.  Comprise, on the other hand, means to include something: to incorporate or contain something; to consist of something: to be made up of something. Fertilizer comprises several organic compounds.
 
 Put it this way guys: Comprise is concerned with a whole having a number of parts. The team comprises (includes) nine players, pitcher, catcher, shortstop, etc. Active voice. But compose is concerned with parts making up a whole: The team is composed of nine players. Passive voice. Nothing is comprised of anything.
  
 Now, I realize this is probably an exercise in futility on my part, but someone has to start insisting that people who are paid to speak and write proper English do so. If not them, who? If any of this personal peevishness spreads like chicken pox, I will be happy. And if The Times insists that the On Language column concern itself again with words people actually use, between you and me, I will be extremely gruntled.

*  *  *

 If you have any language peeves of your own, I’d like to hear them. Please be gentle or even resist pointing out any mistakes I may have made in my own writing. I don’t get paid for this.

*  *  *

 P.S.S.: Scalia’s disgruntled example on inchoate got me to thinking about other non-opposite-words that could be formed by erroneously dropping an in. For example: Carcerate is not the opposite of incarcerate; Ert is not the opposite of inert; Fuse is not the opposite of infuse; Gest is not the opposite of ingest; Hale is not the opposite of inhale; Jure is not the opposite of injure; Quest is not the opposite of inquest (They’re actually kind of the same); Corrigible is not the opposite of incorrigible; Tuitive is not the opposite of intuitive; Vade is not the opposite of invade; Vasive is not the opposite of invasive; Vent is not the opposite of invent; veigle is not the opposite of inveigle and Evitable is not the opposite of inevitable — although I can imagine a lawyer arguing that Exhibits A, B and C do not lead to D, making his client’s guilt evitable.
 
 I promise to get more sleep.

Bob can be reached at zestoforange.com.

Tags: Bob Gaydos

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 5:07 pm and is filed under Bob Gaydos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.