language

Going Through a Phrase

by Mordechai Schiller

That Doesn’t Mean

What You Think It Means
P
ardon me while I hyperventilate. I’m coping with a bout of
catachresis.
Not to worry. You don’t need to pray for me, thank G-d.
Catachresis isn’t some dread disease, Heaven forbid. Garner’s
Modern English Usage defines it as “the mistaken use of a word or
phrase for another that is similar but does not have the same meaning.”
Sometimes editing feels like clearing a field from shells that didn’t go off.
The official term is unexploded ordnance — ammunition that was fired but
did not function and can still be dangerous. I’ve seen words like that.
I’m not talking about typos (I have Type O blood; I’m convinced that’s why
I’m a lousy typist). And I don’t mean who’s whom (a dying distinction); or
which-hunting (how many people really care about that?).
I’m talking about misused words like one in the first article I ever edit-
ed. The writer referred to a heart-rendering tragedy. It was heart-rending to
read.
“The verb rend (= to split, tear) has nothing to do with the verb render
(= to make, perform, provide). The errant phrase is particularly unpleasant
because one definition of render is ‘to boil down (fat)’” (Garner).
(This evokes the image of an extreme case of heart rendering — extracting
schmaltz from a fat-clogged heart; you shouldn’t know from it.)
I keep seeing presently (soon) when the writer meant to say currently
(now); or bussing (kissing) when the writer meant busing (transporting by

NEWSMAGAZINE 38 August 17, 2022


Going Through A Phrase
bus). Save bussing for kissing children goodbye at the
bus stop. “The difference
When someone writes in regards to instead of in
Mordechai
byregard Schiller
to, I can’t help but wonder to whom they’re send-
ing their regards.
I should admit that catachresis isn’t part of my work-
ing vocabulary. I’m more familiar with malapropisms —
the often-humorous misuse of a word when the speaker
actually means a similar word. The word comes from
a character in a play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in
1775, Mrs. Malaprop, who kept saying things like “as
headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile.”
A client of the advertising grand master David Ogilvy
told him, “Mr. Ogilvy, you have here the mucus of a good
idea.” With a clearer nose and clearer mind, the client
might have said, “...the nucleus of a good idea.”
I’m going to beat the holiday rush on confession here
and say I’ve been guilty of the sin of jargon — censured
by Sir Ernest Gowers in his guide The Complete Plain
Words:
“The proper meaning of jargon is writing that employs
technical words not commonly intelligible. Catachresis,
for instance, is grammarians’ jargon for using a word in
a wrong sense. When grammarians call writing jargon
merely because it is verbose, circumlocutory and flabby,
they themselves commit the sin of catachresis that they
denounce in others.”
Heaven forgive me.
In my own writing, I can be obsessed with finding
the mot juste — “the unique right word.” How import-
ant is the right word? Mark Twain wrote, “The differ-
ence between the almost right word and the right word
is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the
lightning bug and the lightning.”
In describing William Dean Howells’ writing, Twain
said, “A powerful agent is the right word: it lights the
reader’s way and makes it plain; a close approximation
to it will answer … but we do not welcome it and applaud
it and rejoice in it as we do when the right one blazes out
on us. Whenever we come upon one of those intensely
right words … the resulting effect is physical as well as
spiritual, and electrically prompt: it tingles exquisitely
around through the walls of the mouth and tastes as tart
and crisp and good as the autumn-butter that creams
the sumac-berry.”
Often, when I think I’ve come up with a really good
new word or title, I find it’s already been used. The title
of this column is a good example. So a hat tip to the
brother-and-sister team of Ross Petras and Kathryn
Petras, who wrote That Doesn’t Mean What You Think
It Means: The 150 Most Commonly Misused Words and
Their Tangled Histories.
A word I always have to look up is comprise. It’s
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language
between the almost
right word and the
right word is the…
difference between
the lightning bug
and the lightning.”
probably used more incorrectly than correctly.
“So what’s the problem?” ask the Petrases. “Well,
it goes against the traditional correct usage —
and logic. Traditionally, comprise is defined and
used in the active sense to mean ‘to constitute, to
consist of.’ … The whole comprises the parts.”
So, the Petrases explain, you would say, “The
house comprised five rooms,” not, “The house is
comprised of five rooms.” That’s the passive, and
it’s a big no-no to some who say we should use
“composed of” or “consists of” instead.”
(If you don’t have toddlers running around
looking for trouble, “no-no” is the parental equiv-
alent of Mayor Ed Koch’s street signs warning:
“Don’t Even THINK of Parking Here.”)
One pet peeve of word nerds is begs the
question, when the writer actually means raises
the question. (What do you feed a pet peeve? You
don’t need to feed it anything. It eats you up.)
“Begs the question is a formal logic term, a trans-
lation of the Latin petitio principii. … In logic, this
means you are trying to prove something based on
a premise that needs to be proved itself.”
The last time a writer I was editing begged the
question, I put a quarter in his cup.
He was pretty surprised, especially consider-
ing the fact that his cup was full of coffee.
When he protested, I said, “Keep the change.” n
Please send smiles, sticks and stones to
language@hamodia.com.
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