Daily Writing Tips, one of my favorite blogs, has some thoughtful observations about the difference between written language and spoken language. (You can find the blog at dailywritingtips.com.)

He’s talking here about phrases like “so to speak” and “In my opinion,” but the difference between the written and spoken words goes much deeper. A transcript is a “written record of someone’s comments, rather than the prepared script for a speech.”

“Readers expect your prose to be direct and dynamic,” and the spoken word is not. It’s riddled with “um”s and “uh”s, self interruptions, reactions to distractions, and lazy speech. You know can be a bid to buy more time or a request for reassurance that the listener is actively listening and understands your point.

There are a wealth of differences between the spoken word and the written word, and most people don’t give them a second thought. But that is precisely the focus of transcription. A transcript of the spoken word edited to the expectations of the written word would be unrecognizable.

Recently, I wrote about word patronage, the often-unnecessary inclusion of self-referential expressions as “as you will” and “so to speak” in one’s writing. This post expands on that one to recommend that you inspect your writing for anything that smacks of spoken English.

If you’ve ever seen a transcript of an extended discourse — a written record of someone’s comments, rather than the prepared script for a speech — you’ll understand how widely spoken and written English can diverge.

Spontaneous speech, at least, is riddled with qualifications and equivocations. It’s easy enough to dispose of “um”s and “uh”s, “well”s and “you know”s when converting a transcript to an essay, but writers should purge their prose of other utterances, words, and phrases as well that add a lot to a word count but little to a description or an argument. (See this post, for instance, for a list of adjectival intensifiers and their adverbial forms to avoid.)

In addition, omit hedging phrases such as “as I see it,” “from my point of view,” “in my opinion,” and “it seems to me.” Search and destroy such pompous filler as “be that as it may” or “other things being equal.” These are all understandable (though not necessarily forgivable) indulgences in spoken English, whether impromptu or rehearsed — at best, they’re nearly meaningless phrases one tosses off while thinking of what to say next, and at worst, they clutter a speech, distracting and discouraging listeners. But readers expect your prose to be direct and dynamic, and there’s no place for such self-gratification in written form.

Q. Should there be a comma after “also” when it begins a sentence?

CMOS Answers: Yes, an introductory “also” would normally be followed by a comma. The relevant rule is the one that applies to an introductory adverb like the word yes in the previous sentence (see CMOS 6.34). Note, however, that after an introductory adverbial phrase rather than a single word, the comma can often be omitted, particularly if the phrase is short (see CMOS 6.31). So,

As of late 1999 our Y2K fears still seemed warranted.

but

Also, many of us were new to computers back then.

Q. Hi. I’m working on a label for an image in a printed brochure. The entire label is “bison shoulder blade hoe.” How would you punctuate that—with an en dash (“bison–shoulder blade hoe”)? Or hyphens (“bison-shoulder-blade hoe” or “bison shoulder-blade hoe”)? I was thinking that technically an en dash would be correct according to CMOS 6.80, but that seems too formal and, as CMOS states, unlikely to be noticed by most. There is no room to reword it. Thank you!

Q. Regarding open compounds, would an en dash be correct in “Mr. Potato Head–like head” and “rubbing alcohol–soaked cotton”? Thank you!

CMOS Answers: See CMOS 7.85: “With the exception of proper nouns (such as United States) and compounds formed by an adverb ending in ly plus an adjective (see 7.86), it is never incorrect to hyphenate adjectival compounds before a noun.” The goal of adding such hyphens is to clarify the meaning of the text.

To start with the bison, that example refers to a hoe fashioned from a bison’s shoulder blade. The three relevant terms are bison, shoulder blade, and hoe, so the clearest version is the last: “bison shoulder-blade hoe.”

We agree that an en dash wouldn’t work all that well; in “bison–shoulder blade hoe,” readers would need to recognize “shoulder blade” as a distinct compound before “hoe.” You’d be better off leaving the words open (“bison shoulder blade hoe”), trusting readers to sort out the modifiers without the help of hyphens or dashes. Or you could use two hyphens (“bison-shoulder-blade hoe”), but that doesn’t single out “shoulder blade” either, so the uncluttered open version is better.

As for the second question, it would be hard to improve on “Mr. Potato Head–like head,” where the en dash provides a perfect illustration of the principles covered in CMOS 6.80. And though the en dash is technically correct also in “rubbing alcohol–soaked cotton,” we’d advise rephrasing: “cotton soaked in rubbing alcohol.” Readers then won’t have to mentally sort out the string of modifiers to identify “rubbing alcohol,” a compound that, like “shoulder blade” in the bison example, lacks Mr. Potato Head’s prominent initial caps. Nor would “rubbing-alcohol soaked cotton” work; participles like “soaked” always require a hyphen in that position (see the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.89, sec. 2, under “noun + participle”).

Q. With a compound subject, does the verb number change when the conjunction “and” is replaced by “and then”? For example: “Swimming in the ocean and then running a marathon require/requires great endurance.” I’m told CMOS 5.138 applies and the verb should be plural (“require”). But it seems to me “and then” has combined the two actions into a sequence (as one) which would take the singular “requires.”

CMOS Answers: Two subjects joined by and can sometimes be considered singular. The test is whether the subjects express a single idea or more than one. In your example, what requires endurance is the combined action of swimming in the ocean and running a marathon—a continuous feat of athletic activity. The adverb “then” makes this clear.

But adding “then” won’t always make a plural compound subject singular. Consider the following sentence, in which the subjects clearly take a plural verb: “A bandage and then an ice pack were placed on the wound.” On the other hand, you can write a sentence with a compound-but-singular subject without the help of “then.” For example, “Peanut butter and jelly is the best thing to happen to sandwiches since sliced bread.”

So it’s best to consider such sentences on a case-by-case basis.

The Chicago Manual of Style 17th edition text © 2017 by The University of Chicago. The Chicago Manual of Style 16th edition text © 2010 by The University of Chicago. The Chicago Manual of Style Online © 2006, 2007, 2010, 2017 by The University of Chicago. The Chicago Manual of Style is a registered trademark of The University of Chicago.

Do you read Heather Cox Richardson’s blog, Letters from an American? It’s brilliant, but her piece on the 4th of July is one of her most stirring.

Open in browser

July 3, 2022

Heather Cox RichardsonJul 4

And on July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, declaring: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

For all the fact that the congressmen got around the sticky little problem of Black and Indigenous slavery by defining “men” as “white men,” and for all that it never crossed their minds that women might also have rights, the Declaration of Independence was an astonishingly radical document. In a world that had been dominated by a small class of rich men for so long that most people simply accepted that they should be forever tied to their status at birth, a group of upstart legislators on the edges of a continent declared that no man was born better than any other.

America was founded on the radical idea that all men are created equal.

What the founders declared self-evident was not so clear eighty-seven years later, when southern white men went to war to reshape America into a nation in which African Americans, Indigenous Americans, Chinese, and Irish were locked into a lower status than whites. In that era, equality had become a “proposition,” rather than “self-evident.”

“Four score and seven years ago,” Abraham Lincoln reminded Americans, “our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” In 1863, Lincoln explained, the Civil War was “testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

It did, of course. The Confederate rebellion failed. The United States endured, and Americans began to expand the idea that all men are created equal to include Black men, men of color, and eventually to include women.

But just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.

The men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, pledged their “Lives, [their] Fortunes and [their] sacred Honor” to defend the idea of human equality. Ever since then, Americans have sacrificed their own fortunes, honor, and even their lives, for that principle. Lincoln reminded Civil War Americans of those sacrifices when he urged the people of his era to “take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Words to live by in 2022.

I was born in the 1950s and I’m one of these white-haired ladies. It’s important to remember, too, that those early founders largely represented slave-holding interests. We are being misled again by some with power and wealth.

I was ten years into starting my own business when The Apprentice first launched, and I was thrilled at the opportunity to learn from a successful businessman. I read the book, and my office staff and I even bet on who would be fired this week! It can be hard to see a huckster for what he is. But that seems to be a big part of our job as citizens in a country created by this radical declaration.

It can be discouraging to keep fighting for what seems so simple and clear. I think we need to get back to basics. You know another document stated it even more simply, “Love they neighbor as theyself.”

A respondent to Heather Cox Richardson’s post cited this note from Dan Rather.

“What we should celebrate on the Fourth is less what happened on that day in 1776 and more what followed. Our Founding Fathers, deeply flawed though many of them were, set in motion a revolution in thought that far exceeded their imaginations. The principles they defined, once documented in writing, ceased to be theirs to own and shape. That people like Frederick Douglass, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a century later, should seek to narrow the chasm between our aspiration and our reality is as much a part of July 4 as faded words on parchment.

And that could be a guide for us today. We, as individuals and as a people, can choose not to let those who will divide us define this day. We can choose not to let those who seek to disassemble our progress determine our path forward; not to allow the forces of intolerance, autocracy, and lawlessness to claim our star-spangled banner.”

Dan Rather

OHA Member Site | OHA Website

In this issue…

2022 Call for Posters

Scholarships to the Annual Meeting

OHA Awards

Assessing the Role of race and Power in Oral History Theory and Practice, a (virtual) Symposium

Town Hall on OHA Culture of Service

RFP/SOW for an Accessibility Guide and Goals Consultant

Call for Posters

The OHA invites you to apply to exhibit a research poster related to your oral history project at our 2022 annual meeting in Los Angeles. As part of the program, we will host a Poster Session on Saturday, October 22, 10:00 a.m. We invite your proposal to display a research poster as part of that session. Posters can be related to any oral history projects. We welcome posters related to human stories in all their diversity, but especially those exploring this year’s theme, “Walking Through the Fire: Human Perseverance in Times of Turmoil.”

The application deadline is July 15.

Start your application here: https://www.oralhistory.org/call-for-posters/

Scholarships to the Annual Meeting

The Oral History Association’s annual scholarship program assists students, professionals, and community practitioners, etc. with travel funds so they may attend the annual meeting. Each year, OHA offers more than $10,000 in scholarship funds.

The application deadline is June 20.

To apply see our website: https://www.oralhistory.org/annual-meeting-scholarships/

OHA Awards:

OHA’s award season is here! The deadline for all nominations is July 1.

Annual Awards:

Article Award

Mason Muli-Media Awards

Book Award

Stetson Kennedy Vox Populi (“Voice of the People”) Annual Award

Biennial Awards:

Postsecondary Teaching Award (in even numbered years, 2018, 2020, etc.)

Find out more information here:https://www.oralhistory.org/award/

Assessing the Role of race and Power in Oral History Theory and Practice, a (virtual) Symposium

June 27-28, 2022

Oral historians from around the world will gather virtually for three days of discussion about the role of race and power in oral history theory and practice. Organized as a symposium, discussions will be based on pre-circulated papers posted on the conference website and made available to all registrants. Presentations based on these papers, as well as discussants’ comments, will be brief, allowing ample time for discussion and small, break-out group conversations. Each of the three days will include only two, well-spaced two-and-one-half-hour sessions, giving attendees the opportunity for focused attention in the context of their everyday lives.

Don’t forget to register soon! Find the program and registration information here: https://www.oralhistory.org/race-and-power-symposium/.

Town Hall on OHA Culture of Service

As our the OHA continues to work to be more inclusive and equitable, one important conversation we have been having is about our culture of service – like all professional associations, OHA relies almost entirely on volunteer labor.

We thought it might be helpful to provide a space for those who give their time to OHA to reflect on questions like these:

How did you get involved in OHA service?

What makes service possible?

What makes service meaningful?

What makes service rewarding?

What are the barriers to serving?

We will convene on May 24 to discuss these questions from 12-1:30 ET.

Register here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0oduivqj8sH9Bf0Ij7Wv3yynCKWFNnIQLa

RFP/SOW for an Accessibility Guide and Goals Consultant

The Oral History Association’s (OHA) Diversity Committee seeks a consultant to help the Committee create an initial “Accessibility Guide and Goals” of accessibility considerations for in-person and virtual events affiliated with the OHA. These events may range from routine meetings to public webinars and conferences. The “Guide and Goals” will be a resource for event organizers—some with little or no experience with accessibility supports—looking for guidance about or a way to ensure that they have considered and addressed a range of accessibility needs. It will include nuts-and-bolts items (such as ramps and not just stairs into the physical space) as well as those that provoke deep consideration but may not have definite answers (such as the time at which the event will take place).

Individuals and organizations/companies are invited to submit proposals for the work, due by 5:00pm EST on Friday, June 3, 2022.

Find the full RFP here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xxJ2sGdyka7Spv8yvExUlD7xUXgHMDJ7-OkNXS3xroc/edit?usp=sharing

I had never really heard this term before, but it’s not hard to imagine what it means. Here’s Dictionary.com’s explanation with an attribution to Molly Jong-Fast in The Atlantic and some examples.

SLANG DICTIONARY

rage farming

[ reyj fahr-ming ]

Published May 13, 2022

WHAT IS RAGE FARMING?

Rage farming is a slang term for the political tactic of intentionally provoking political opponents to create or increase exposure for one’s group or cause. The tactic is primarily associated with conservative and far-right political groups.

The term rage farming is always used critically. It is typically applied to the act of posting intentionally inflammatory content or otherwise trolling political opponents online to elicit a large number of angry responses, thus leading to widespread exposure for the original poster. However, the term may be applied to practices other than online posts, such as making inflammatory comments in interviews or speeches that will be widely covered by the media.

RELATED WORDS

political spectrum, brigading, bold-faced lie, shadow docket, shadow banning

WHERE DOES RAGE FARMING COME FROM?

The original use of the verb phrase rage farm to refer to a political tactic is often credited to researcher John Scott-Railton, who used it (in the form rage farmed) in a January 2022 Twitter post in reference to inflammatory online posts like those that had been recently made by the Texas GOP Twitter account.

The term was popularized by a January 2022 article in The Atlantic by Molly Jang-Fast titled “Owning the Libs Is the Only GOP Platform.” The term is thought to have gained popularity in part due to giving a name to a practice recognized as increasingly common by political observers, especially in the context of social media.

In rage framing, the term farming is used in a figurative way that’s similar to how it’s used in terms for other practices, such as data farming.

WHO USES RAGE FARMING?

The term rage farming is used by critics of the political tactic, which is closely associated with conservative and far-right political groups.

JUST ADDED

rage farming, hermano, food coma, National Medal of Arts, Talk Like a Pirate Day

NOTE

This is not meant to be a formal definition of rage farming like most terms we define on Dictionary.com, but is rather an informal word summary that hopefully touches upon the key aspects of the meaning and usage of rage farming that will help our users expand their word mastery.

No, Microsoft isn’t censoring your politically incorrect language

1 MAY 2022

Yet again, Microsoft finds itself accused of “censoring” some “politically incorrect language” in another outbreak of the culture war.  It puts Office Watch in the unusual situation of defending Microsoft, using some facts about how Microsoft Word really works.

The headline example goes right to the heart of the current debate about transgender issues by highlighting Word’s reaction to “biologically female”.

If Word’s gender bias check is on (a big “if”) then it’ll suggest either “Assigned female at birth” or “Designated female at birth” as optional alternatives.  Or choose ‘Ignore’ and the blue dot underlines will go away.  There’s a similar response to the term “Biologically male”.

The topic has appeared again with a piece in the UK Telegraph “Microsoft Word is censoring you by altering your politically incorrect language”. Even the headline is wrong on two counts. Word does no censoring and doesn’t alter text either.

This has come up before in Has Microsoft Word gone ‘woke’ and politically correct? and the Gill Sans font debate, and again we’re not taking sides.  Anyone who wishes can discuss the topic, politely please, between yourselves.  We’ll add some factual light, rather than rhetorical heat. Our aim is to help Office Watchers and Word users understand what’s possible in Microsoft Word.

Buried down in the fifth paragraph of the Telegraph article is a note that users can opt in or out of the feature.  The article doesn’t mention that the ‘gender bias’ and similar options default OFF so most people won’t even know the options even exist.

“Microsoft appears to be trying to influence how people discuss social issues, … “ says one commentator quoted in the article.

How Word inclusiveness really works

Let’s look at the examples that have appeared in social media to see how modern Word really works plus similar words that are overlooked.

To see any of these extra checks you need to dig deep into Microsoft Word.  File | Options | Proofing | Writing Style | Grammar and refinements then scroll down to Inclusiveness.

Word 2021 and Word 2019 only have the Gender-Specific Language check.

All the Inclusiveness choices are OFF initially.  Only the user or their IT department can turn them on. The options are so deep in Word’s system, they are unlikely to be turned on accidentally.

Landlord or Policemen

“landlord” or “landlady” suggested replacements are “property owner” or “proprietor” which are gender-neutral but not the same definition.

“policemen” or “policewomen” have a gender-neutral suggestion “police officers”.

Bypass Inclusiveness tests with Capital letters or double quotes

As we’ve pointed out before, many of the grammar and other checks can be bypassed just with a capital letter or double quotes.

It’s not true that “Postman Pat” is corrected by Word (it’s a much-repeated ‘fact’ that is easily checked, but isn’t).

When capitalized, Word doesn’t flag “Postman” for inclusiveness because it’s a name (proper noun).

Double quotes will also bypass inclusiveness checks, but not single quotes.

Housewife vs Househusband

Another example that makes some people unhappy is “housewife”.  We’re surprised that ‘househusband’ doesn’t get the same treatment.  Both words are accepted spellings but only one has an inclusiveness warning. It’s an anomaly in the system.

“housewife” suggested replacements “stay-at-home spouse”, “stay at home parent” or “homemaker”

Google’s similar inclusiveness system flags “motherboard” but Word does not.

Microsoft’s response

Microsoft’s response is quite polite and bland.

“Microsoft understands that not every Editor suggestion may be suitable for all users and all scenarios. That’s why we let users be in control of their final output.

“Editor is a completely optional tool that users can turn on or turn off at any point. Editor does not make any autocorrections, all suggestions are just that – suggestions for the user to consider – and the user has control over which suggestions they choose to use, if any.

“In Word, users will have control at the critique/suggestion level as they will be able to turn on and off each one of them individually.”

A rewritten response

We like to see a stronger reply from Microsoft like this.

“You must be kidding; this is complete nonsense. Microsoft Office doesn’t censor customers.  Anyone using Word knows that Microsoft doesn’t tell our users what to write.

All the inclusiveness features in Word are OPTIONS that our customers can choose to use. There are choices to use grammar tests and even spell checks in Word are optional.

Inclusiveness options are not on for new installs, customers must choose to show the prompts.  Even then, the messages make SUGGESTIONS that each user can accept or reject. There’s even a specific “Ignore’ button provided.”

Which only goes to show why Office Watch will never launch a corporate PR subsidiary <g>.