About fake blogs again

An experienced writer told me that the term "fake blog" may imply certain controversial concepts, thus when I keep telling people and writing about my fake blogs, it could have negative implications. 

Sure, "fictional blog" is more accurate, but I still like the term "fake blog." But when I looked up examples, saw how the phrase is used, and even asked AI, everything was sinister; nothing showed up as a mere fictional attempt to write in another voice. Many places mention the fake blog that Walmart/Edelman set up, and Wikipedia's description of fake blogs is about deception and mockery: "appears to originate from a credible, non-biased and independent source, but which in fact is created by a company or organization for the purpose of marketing a product, service, or political viewpoint."

Yikes. I'm not doing that at all, just having fun. And I still like the term because it's succinct and punchy, just two syllables. I'm just writing in the voice of someone else, such as Tyler Perry did with Madea in the book that I just finished, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life. It's incredible that Tyler Perry was able to write more than 200 pages in a character's voice. That's what I'm doing, but I'm doing it via blogs, and I'm not making any money off of them and am forever toiling in obscurity. Tyler Perry is on a whole other level and is an A-list content creator, entertainer, businessman, celebrity, wealthy guy, etc. I'm obviously not; I just like to explore ideas, take notes, and create something from them. 

So as for now, I'm still going to use the term "fake blog" and I am still writing there frequently. At this point, it's a combination of fun and is sort of like a sketchbook, working out ideas, characters, and action, but in a journal form. Maybe I'll formalize it, give it structure, and publish something as a short booklet on Amazon. 

Sort of

I was going to write a long post about how I've noticed that people have been using "sort of" in their speech more often, such as hearing in a discussion or panel, "Tell us what you think of your experience and how it sort of affected your views." It's like people want to be polite and evasive instead of speaking in a straightforward manner. 

Then I found a thorough analysis which includes the declaration, "Using 'kind of/sort of' allows a speaker to moderate their statements and build in some vagueness and wiggle room. It’s a way to hedge one’s bets should someone take offense or question what’s been said."

That makes sense. It's a kind of softening statement. I also hear it in corporate meetings, organizational discussions, etc. I'm not saying it should never be used, because I've also been in meetings where someone was arguing and falsely accusing people, offending people while getting a pass for their vitriolic expressions. I'd rather hear "sort of" than scorched-earth yelling, where the speaker does not acknowledge or respect others' humanity. 

But it is a trend, and the blog post I discovered also exposed me to the Google Ngram Viewer, which I had no idea existed, and which I'll start using from now on to see patterns of language use.

And btw--I started saying "like" a lot in the past decade because I don't always want to appear blunt. So if I'm saying something, I might slow down and add "like" to cushion my words and make me seem less assertive. I really shouldn't do that and should just be who I am, but I deal with different kinds of people so I sometimes attempt to soften my delivery. Which probably doesn't work anyway because it doesn't sound too intelligent [n]or eloquent.

p.s. the e-book version of my debut novel is still at Amazon, and the price for the print version has been reduced: buy at the Eckhartz Press site.

No worries

A lot of people are now saying "no worries." It's a trendy phrase that I wasn't going to comment on until I heard someone use it in the wrong way. 

This is what happened: I made an appointment, which was cancelled a day before. I rescheduled the appointment and arrived a bit early. As I was waiting, the receptionist said that the person I was waiting for was going to be late, and asked if I could reschedule for three hours later. It wasn't the best situation, but I decided to go to the gym and get something to eat to make the delay worthwhile. I said okay, and the receptionist said "no worries." Let me break this down.

Receptionist: Sorry, she can't make it on time. Can you come back at 3:45?

Me: Okay. I'll see you later.

Receptionist: No worries.

Hmmm. Why would she say "no worries" if I'm the one who was inconvenienced? After all, this was the second cancellation from their end, so I should be saying "no worries." I didn't even say anything to prompt her to respond "no worries." I just said "okay."

But it didn't stop there. I was walking back to the place to go to my newly scheduled appointment, when my phone rang. It was half an hour before the appointment was supposed to start.

Receptionist: Sorry, she can't come in. Can you reschedule another day?

Me: What about tomorrow?

Receptionist: No, she's not available tomorrow either. She's not available until Wednesday.

Me: I work all day and night Wednesday, so I'm not free. 

Receptionist: What about next weekend?

Me: Okay.

Receptionist: No worries.

Again, nothing I said would prompt her to respond "no worries." There were now three cancellations. The last cancellation was right before the rescheduled appointment, and there was no reason for me to be in that neighborhood; I'd gone there just for the appointment. This would be a more appropriate use of the phrase:

Receptionist: Sorry about all of the inconvenience.

Me: No worries.

But there was no apology from the business for me to respond to their flakiness with "no worries," though I don't use that phrase anyway. I think the receptionist has heard "no worries" so often in our culture that she's made it part of her own speaking style, but it's really supposed to replace "no problem," which I still use. Maybe the newer trend is to just say "no worries" independent of a context because it's become cool or something. Btw--it's a phrase that came from Australia, at least according to Meghan Jones from Reader's Digest (I inherited a subscription from my mother-in-law and still subscribe).

Now that "no worries" has saturated the speaking culture, I'm wondering if there's room for a new trend, such as saying "de nada."

Spam conversation

A while ago (not too long ago but long enough that I don't remember the exact date...maybe a few months ago), I was at an event (I remember where but don't want to be specific in case the person sees this and knows it's them...because it definitely is) and was talking to someone who seemed interesting. They had come to the event alone and I was surprised that they were so talkative, because usually people seem more shy when they go to something alone. Maybe they spoke more to me because I was volunteering and was in a more central location, which meant that people could easily walk up and ask where the restroom was or just chat a bit before they moved on. But this person really took the time to talk, and since I like talking to people (because I'm merely a fake introvert), I went along. We talked about the suburb they live in and other things that I can't remember.

And it's not unintentional that I pretty much wiped the specifics of the conversation from my mind, because it ended up as spam. Spam is usually encountered via email and social media, when someone hacks your account or when a sleazy person or group gets your email and bombards you with unwanted messages. Well spam conversation is similar. It's where a person is talking to you for a purpose that has nothing to do with you but what you can do for them--more blatantly, to sell you something.

In my case, that person was talking to me because they wanted me to sign up for their services (again, I won't be specific, but trust me, I remember what it is, that it's a service that requires clients). The person was with a reputable company and it wasn't a scam, as spam email often is, but it really blindsided me and annoyed me to the point that I abruptly stopped the conversation. When they continued to try to convince me to at least meet with them to discuss stuff, I bluntly said I'm not interested, and felt like I had been duped. Of course, they gave me their card (which I think I still have as a spam-conversation souvenir) even after I said I wasn't interested.

Basically, people who go to a benign function and use it to get more sales seem like they're there to use people, not to enjoy the function. And having a friendly conversation that masks their true intention--to get a sale--is manipulative and deceptive. So I'm calling that spam, and I'm surprised that I didn't see it coming, probably because the person didn't seem like a salesperson. But that's their skill, I suppose, and why they can afford to live in the nice burbs (assuming that they have a nice house there).

A number of

This is interesting timing because, as I said in my last post, I wanted to discuss the issue of what seems like a collective noun, "a number of," and whether it should be "is" or "are." And this week, someone was writing something at work, and he asked me if he should say "a number of is or are." After we had a brief conversation about it, I told him it should be "a number is," but now I realized I was wrong (but maybe it was right for the context? I don't remember what the sentence was; it made sense at the time).

I encounter "number of" many times in my work (usually "the number of") and saw "a number of" recently in something I had to copy edit. I hesitated when I saw that because it's very tempting to use "is" due to focusing on the first part of the sentence, which is "a number." But the Oxford Living Dictionary says it's supposed to be are: "A number of people are waiting for the bus." But that makes sense to me, too, because "people" is close to "are" and it sounds right.

But it's not enough for something to just "sound right" when writing or editing, because it's more formal than speaking, and we can usually break the rules in spoken English.

According to Editage, "Do not be misled by the indefinite article a in that expression: the expression is always used to indicate more than one of something and therefore takes a plural noun and a plural verb."

They also discuss "the number of," and now that I'm thinking of it, I see it way more often, which pretty much everyone says should be singular, such as "the number of plants in each pot was 25." In that case I've been right, and I'm glad my instincts were correct.

After much thought and online searching, I think I found the best explanation for this phrase at ESL Library: "a number of means many...it is serving the same role in the sentence as a quantifier such as 'many,' 'a lot of,' 'lots of,' 'hundreds of,' etc."

So from now on, I won't think twice about making "a number of" plural! I feel like I've read the equivalent of a booklet on that topic!

A variety of is or are?

I've been proofreading and copy editing and just analyzing English for years, but sometimes I get stuck on collective nouns. For instance, I recently saw "A variety of methods was used." That seems correct because the focus on the sentence is "a variety." Just in case, though, I did a search online, and the conflicting information is worrisome. Many articles and books have "was used," so it seems legitimate. But when I did a search for "were used," there are many articles using that as well. So what's the correct usage?

Well, if I were to use "variety" related to the articles and books I found, I would say "a variety of articles and books show" instead of "a variety of articles and books shows" because I want to emphasize the plurality of "articles and books" instead of "variety," which is singular. I guess that falls in to the "proximity agreement" concept, because I'm "relying on the noun that is closest to the verb to determine whether the verb is singular or plural."

I ended up keeping "A variety of methods was used" because I felt that the emphasis was on "variety." But if it said "A variety of methods were used," I probably would've kept that as well, because it "sounds right" and a lot of people online seem to agree. Many sources say that if it's preceded by "the," then "variety of" would be singular. But if it's "a," then it's not.

So am I wrong? I don't think so, because I still think the emphasis is on "variety," plus "of..." is a preposition, and it seems like prepositions create subsets of the main subject. But according to language nerds discussing this stuff online, I'm wrong because it's "a." And what doesn't help is that the Oxford learner dictionary seems to contradict itself; they say (ha ha, I'm breaking the grammar rule here; I should say "it says") "There is a wide variety of..." but later on they say "A plural verb is needed after a/an (large, wide, etc.) variety of...A variety of reasons were given."

I like Grammar Girl's explanation; it seems more forgiving: "Some people get tripped up when a prepositional phrase comes after a collective noun that is the subject of a sentence. For example, if you're talking about 'a large group of students,' 'group' is the collective noun and the subject of the sentence; however, it's easy to get distracted by the prepositional phrase 'of students' because it sounds plural. The thing to remember is that the verb takes its cue from the subject of the sentence--'a large group'--and not from the prepositional phrase that modifies the subject. In cases like this, just ignore the prepositional phrase 'of students' and take your cue from the real subject: 'a large group'.”

So according to GG, I'm correct. Plus American English (which I'm a native speaker of [of which I'm a native speaker]) uses the singular, while Brits use plural. And just to make sure, I asked a writing group that I sometimes meet with what they think, and all of them agree with what I did.

Thus I think I made the right decision, though I'm still struggling with "a number of," which I'll discuss in another post.

Adjunct professor or adjunct instructor?

Or adjunct faculty? A lot of people are caught up in titles. One title that gets thrown around the business world is "adjunct professor." A while ago, I did some work for a very talented person who has great advice about things (I want to be vague to not risk offending anyone). They were really an expert in their field. At one point, I had to help write a bio, and part of it said "adjunct professor" at a major university. I questioned someone else to see if that was truly the title, and since they didn't want to offend the expert, they didn't ask. So we went with that, since that's what they labeled themselves (excuse my misuse of pronouns, but I don't want to define the person as male or female).

Fine, if they wanted to call themselves that, it's their business, and their life to live. I'm more into accuracy than sounding impressive (though I have told people that I've written news for a top CBS Radio station, and they were impressed, which made me feel briefly important). I didn't really think about the "adjunct" label until I was looking at another successful businessperson's LinkedIn profile, where they called themselves an "adjunct professor." I did a search online including the person's name, "adjunct professor" title, and school. And guess what? I couldn't find it. I couldn't even find a syllabus or class listing, even though they're considered as prominent in the digital "space" (I use that term because it's a buzzword and I want to be pretentious). And at the school's website, they call such people overall "adjunct faculty" and label some individuals "adjunct instructor." No "professor" in that list!

I did some brief additional research on the term, which took like 5 minutes, and that's only because I texted a real academic who's a true professor at a prestigious university and is busy (I'm not naming them either because they didn't know that I was asking them for this blog post), and they didn't respond within seconds. Otherwise, without the wait time, the pure "research" time took possibly 30 seconds. I asked the person, who kindly took a few minutes out of their day at an academic conference at another prestigious university, what they thought of the "adjunct professor" label. They said (texted) that it's a real title, and to my follow-up question about people using the title who aren't academics but just teach at a university, Real Professor (RP) said they "don't attach much to the difference."

I was surprised, but then again, the RP isn't snobby and doesn't seem to feel like they're superior to anyone, whether they're educated or not. Even though they've achieved the impossible by securing a tenure-track position (purposeful fragment). It's like becoming a successful actor!

I would've done more "research" on this topic because I work in a robust department at a major research university, where professors, adjuncts, and students have impressive degrees or are participating in serious, world-changing projects. But the semester is over, so I didn't see any professors to ask. Even a super-smart, accomplished, PhD-plus 先輩 is out of town participating in some important worldwide conference or something as an internationally recognized expert, so I couldn't ask them either. Also, I didn't want to email them (I'm using the weird pronoun again) with such an insignificant question. To me, it's important, but people like that have way bigger fish to fry.

So is it wrong or inaccurate to use "professor" after adjunct? People in academia don't throw that label around (in my opinion), as evidenced by this adjunct's sad essay about the harsh lifestyle. They call themselves (no name or gender was given, thus weird pronoun again) "instructor" and use the word "adjuncts." That's what people at schools or in academia tend to do. But businesspeople tend to want to dress it up to impress clients or whatever.

There's also an interesting discussion about such terms at Metafilter, where I never post but often lurk to not feel alone in my queries.

Temporary autonomous zone

I was at a very unconventional party recently (which happens every year), and I was talking to someone who's been going there for a while. She's now become part of the creation, providing visual effects to the increasingly elaborate production. We briefly talked above the dominating eclectic mix of DJ-d music, and I said that it's a place where people can relax and be goofy and have fun. She called it a "temporary autonomous zone."

I looked online to see if anyone else has used such an expression, and found it most prominently featured as a book. But I'm pretty sure she wasn't aware of that. What she meant was that the party and other such events are spaces where people can be themselves and express themselves as they want.

It's pretty plain that as we get older and have more responsibilities, or even want to stay well-employed, we don't encounter any autonomous zones outside of our own living spaces. Also, people's definitions of such a space differ. For instance, my idea of being free is just totally being myself, no matter where I am. Other people want a certain public place to participate in such freedom with others (such as Burning Man, where the concept has been expressed via Zone Trips that were created by the Cacophony Society). Maybe that's how she came up with the phrase, since she's been to Burning Man and its satellite events.

I suspect that the TAZ concept will become more mainstream because I've noticed that mainstream culture tends to take on concepts and phrases that originate on the periphery of society and in alternative subcultures. There are so many examples of such linguistic evolution that I'm sure someone wrote a book on it.

I did a quick search and already found a major media outlet use the term recently (though it's so overloaded it crashed my computer while I was writing this).

After rebooting my computer and trying to tame the source, I've decided to quote the section here because the LA Weekly site is still loading all its plug-ins and whatnot, and if I try to scroll through the article it slows down the whole loading experience (and eventually freezes), which you might encounter as well; in other words, I want you to avoid the annoying reading experience that I'm still having while writing this post. "What began as a combination art installation and chill-out area has grown into a sort of festival within the festival — a temporary autonomous zone..."

Wow, what a frustrating way to confirm the use of the phrase. Thus sidenote: websites should quit overloading their content with lots of auxiliary/spy-type junk!

"Cost synergies" means "layoffs"

I saw this self-congratulatory article about the corporate merger between CBS and another company: Spinning Off Radio Is A Great Transaction For CBS, gleefully concluding that "the combined company is expected to generate meaningful cost synergies."

Suspecting it was corporate-speak for something more plain (or more sinister), I looked up what "cost synergy" means. Investopedia doesn't pull any punches: "The savings in operating costs usually come in the form of laying off employees. Often this term is used in press releases to add a politically correct spin to bad news."

So if you see such a phrase, it might mean you're losing your job, or your coworkers will.

A conscientious bottle

Wow, this silver polish is very conscientious: they included the phrase "plus shake space" after they indicated the content size. I wonder if anyone complained about an inaccuracy, which caused them to put that phrase in. It's specific enough to seem like a type of disclaimer. I don't think I've ever seen this on a bottle. Interesting!

In conversation with

I often see the phrase "in conversation with" at all kinds of literary and cultural events, and even in some places in the media. I saw on Wikipedia that it's a show on BBC Radio (though I couldn't find it at the station's site).

Here's an example of something I usually see: "John Smith in conversation with author Jane Doe". I've seen that phrase so often, I'm starting to think it sounds pretentious.

Why can't they just say "John Smith talks with author Jane Doe"? It's more direct and not so distant-sounding, as if they're trying to sound like they want to remain removed from any actual activity. Maybe they think it's too pedestrian to say "talks with", but it's better than using the haughty "in conversation with".

Maybe I'll start to use that phrase to replace the more mundane English that I use daily. For instance, yesterday I was in conversation with my boss about a student. I was also in conversation with a coworker about some CD's. Tomorrow I will be in conversation with someone about a website they want revised.

Yeah, that sounds like fun :p

Slag off

I found a really good relationship advice site that is obviously written by a Brit, because there are various phrases that I never hear in the US.

I was reading an interesting blog post over there, and came upon the phrase "slag off", which I've never used. According to Using English (a good resource for ESL teachers and learners), it means "criticize heavily", as in "I slagged her brochure off because the design was awful."

Maybe I should start using that phrase to see people's perplexed reactions :D

Executive producer

I see the title "executive producer" thrown around the radio biz, but most of those people are "just" producers (I put "just" in quotes because there's nothing wrong with being a producer without the "executive" in front of it). I've stayed silent about this embellished title, but I've seen it so often, I can't help but talk about it now.

It seems that the TV and film industries have lots of executive producers, and there are several sources of the definition out there. One site says "an executive producer is someone who is either financing a film, or is representing a studio or party that is financing a film." And other sites mention films and TV too, but I don't see any definitions for radio executive producers. Even Wikipedia doesn't mention radio in their list of types of executive producers.

I know a very successful producer of a top morning show who doesn't call himself "executive producer," even though he has a few people working below him. He just says "producer". I think because he cares more about the quality of work he does than the title. But I've noticed that people who have *no* people working for them will call themselves "executive producers" on their resume, in their voicemails, and wherever else they can broadcast their importance.

So if you see that title, ask them what they're executive of, and who they supervised. Chances are that very few of them actually called the shots on the show or worked alone, except for the occasional intern.

New phrase as seen on TV

Rod Blagojevich, my former governor and neighbor, was on the Today Show, and used a new phrase: "super sensationalization".

Around the 5:55 mark in this video, he says:

"And the super sensationalization that the media gets involved in, just because someone's been accused of things that aren't true..."

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Curiosity hasn't killed that cat

Recently, Studs Terkel celebrated his 95th birthday, and he said, "Curiosity did not kill this cat" which is a great modification of the idiom (proverb) curiosity killed the cat. It basically means that you have to be careful about being too curious, or you will get in trouble or be harmed. So Terkel is saying that his curiosity did not kill him--he actually made a successful career out of it. Lucky guy.

But why does that phrase involve a cat? The earliest reference is from a 16th century British play, but it involved the concept of "worry". Shakespeare used it that way too. But

The earliest known printed reference to the actual phrase occurred in The Washington Post on 4 March 1916 (page 6): CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

because the curiosity of a cat literally killed it when it went somewhere it shouldn't have gone, was trapped, and died.

What I don't get is that people think the proverb means that people shouldn't ask too many personal questions. Sure, that's probably a part of the meaning, but it doesn't encompass its entirety.

Mom

I talked before about how Thai people (or some, at least) laugh online: by using "5" because it is "ha" in Thai. So someone will say 555 to show laughter instead of what we do, which is "lol" (laugh out loud).

Well Austin (an interesting and nice guy who I actually know offline from my Japanese class) had another nifty idea: say "mom" when wanting to laugh online, because "haha" is mother in Japanese. So, if something is funny, instead of typing "lol," he might type "mom". The only problem is that he'll have to explain the whole thought process: how it started with a conversation about the Thai use of "ha" for 5 and how that led to the Japanese use of "ha ha", which all came from the need for an alternative to "lol."

I'm still not a fan of "lol"--it looks cumbersome.

The trenchant gamine

For some reason, I've been curious about Judy Garland's parents because she lived a tragic, short life, and had lots of talent. So I wanted to know what type of background she came from. I don't have the time nor desire to read a biography, but I came upon a good review of one.

Things were going fine until I read this sentence: "Now the gamine was overlaid with the trenchant sophisticate."

I was an English major and am obviously into language, but I could not understand what that sentence meant, even by trying to understand it in context (one of the rules of reading comprehension).

Gamine means "a playfully mischievous girl or young woman." When I saw that word, I had no idea that it implied a female, or even a human being.

Trenchant is a word I should know, but it obviously hasn't stuck yet: "vigorous; effective; energetic."

So now that sentence makes sense, and I can continue to finish the article before I move on to all the stuff I have to do today.

Internet ghetto

I was talking about MySpace with someone, and they shuddered and said it was the "ghetto of the internet." It works for some people, but it can get quite sleazy at times, especially when you log on and there are half-dressed people looking at you beneath gaudy flashing ads, or when you get invites to join murky groups or friend requests from people whose pictures do not include clothes. I think it's much easier to find quality people through blogs than to wade through the muck to reach similar people in the online ghetto.

And it's a lot easier to hack--there are predators all over trying to get your personal information by sending phony emails or posting false bulletins. I read blogs every day, but I haven't been visiting MySpace that much.

Make money

I was reading an excerpt of Ayn Rand's money "lecture" or what seems to be a character's soliloquy and saw this statement:

If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose—because it contains all the others—the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to MAKE money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before...

Is that true? That sounds preposterous--there must be some language or culture in the world that has the phrase "to make money." Also, human history is so old that it doesn't seem possible that the U.S., which is a relatively young country, would be the first to create it--we speak a derivative of British English, which itself comes from a mish-mosh of other languages that have been around for a long time.

White, no sugar

I've never heard of this term to describe tea with milk: white. Well, I'm assuming it means tea with milk, because when someone asked Lynley if he wanted tea, he said, "White, no sugar."

I found that phrase at a BBC site underneath a picture of Prince William, who I'm assuming said that (or would, since the article was about summer jobs) because it says, "Mine's white no sugar, William."

I can't imagine anyone saying that in Da Windy City, or anywhere else in this big land.