Hand Jive
Hello World,
And so here we find ourselves on the other side of Daylight Saving Time, and lived to tell the tale, and even St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, with all of its anachronistic parades and various panoply along with it, not to mention, green beer. Last Friday, I took the day off from work for my birthday, and it was a lovely and peaceful day, where I had a chance to relax and enjoy myself, and then we went out to dinner, which is always a treat. After that, it was presents, and there were no complaints on that score, I can tell you that. Although possibly my favorite part of the day was an electronic birthday greeting from a colleague who sincerely wished me a very "Happy 29th," and right about now, I'm thinking that has a pretty nice ring to it.
Meanwhile, back at the employer of last resort in our fair city, one of our departments organized a bridal shower for their secretary who is getting married next month, and many of us were glad to be invited to join in the festivities. I found out later this was supposed to be a surprise, which certainly made us old-timers roar with laughter, because the one thing that has never been able to survive in the hospital environment, for as long as we've all been there, is a secret. I said flat-out that a surprise shower would be absolutely impossible, in spite of voluminous HIPAA regulations and decades' worth of educational training on confidentiality and privacy policies. Or as the director of Practice Management famously quipped: "People here know things about me that my own family doesn't even know."
Speaking of things we might be better off not knowing, we have the following unsolicited (one supposes) testimonials from patient families, about the quality care they received from our medical professionals, or at least, that's what I think they're trying to tell us:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Once I arrived, I was surrounded by the most caring ER staff,
who immediately comforted me and made me fell "right at home"
until my family arrived.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Personally, I'm hoping that no one made this person fell, in spite of what it says, because that would probably be of no help at all, and would be unlikely to induce anyone to write us a nice letter afterward. Obviously, this is one of those cases where the spell-checker is not going to help you avoid using the word "fell" instead of "feel," either the person who originally wrote the note, or the secretary retyping it for distribution. The next one certainly had room for improvement:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
During my Mother's stay, both she and our family members
have had with the nurses and aides have been exceptional.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, sometimes you just don't even know where to begin. You can read that sentence numerous times, over and over again, and find that there is no increase in comprehension at any point, no matter how many times you do that, I promise. I can't even tell if they left out a word, or what went wrong for the meaning to get so lost that it never showed up again. And in fairness to the writer, once again the error could have been on the part of the person transcribing the message for distribution, but even here, I can't figure out what they did to foul it up so completely. At our house, we would blame this kind of thing on the horoscope computer, but HIPAA regulations prevent me from checking the hospital census to see if the horoscope computer's mother was one of our patients.
On the other hand, things in the local newspaper have fared no better, starting with a couple from the Sports section, where they were just a little too eager to get their ideas across, and perhaps as a result, their brains (such as they are) were moving too fast for their fingers to keep up:
====================
Raymond Felton had
17 points and 15 assists
in the Knicks' win over the
Wizards, who have yet win
a game on the road.
====================
Well, the spell-checker is really not going to help you if you just plain leave a word out, unless "yet win" is a newly accepted construction nowadays. And we all know what I always say about going back and looking over what you've written (what a concept!) or God forbid, having actual editors whose job it is to catch these blatant kinds of routine lapses. The next one suffers the same sort of problem, but as routine lapses go, at least adds an element of entertainment, however inadvertent:
====================
In a league known for its trash-talking, even the NFL has
gotten of hand, so says Ray Anderson, the vice president of
football operations ...
====================
I'm certainly hoping that our pal Ray did not really say "gotten of hand," which not only doesn't mean anything, but even if it did, doesn't sound like it would have meant what he wanted to convey anyway. In fact, if they were trying to rein in trash-talk, that might very well be one of the expressions that would not make the cut, I'm thinking, and poor old Ray would find himself sitting on the wrong side of the trash-talking fence this time around, and no one to blame but himself.
Going in a different, but no better, direction is a recent front page story about local flooding, with this inapt quote from AccuWeather meteorologist Mike Pigott:
======================
"This storm will certainly
exasperate flooding problems ... "
======================
Well, you don't even know if you should laugh or cry sometimes, and gnashing of teeth might not be out of order either. Here again, you have no way of knowing if the speaker simply misused the term "exasperate" when he meant "exacerbate" (one hopes) or whether it was the newspaper that printed it incorrectly, but you wouldn't think in this day and age, that it would be beyond the possibilities that someone would catch this error before the newspaper was actually out on the streets, and spoiling everyone's breakfast with its shoddy grammar. I don't know if the flooding problems were exasperated, but I can tell you for sure that I certainly was exasperated, and that's putting it mildly. Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, before the mass extinction of the editors, when newspapers didn't just print any old word they felt like, as long as it was close enough to the word it was supposed to be, alas.
They were having their own problems in the Life & Style section, first with this feature story about the Academy Awards, which began by throwing statistics at us in a headlong fashion:
=======================
More than 37.6 million viewers
watched with baited breath ...
=======================
Now, I never do understand why people insist on using phrases that they obviously don't understand, such as "bated breath," and then don't bother to look them up to make sure that they aren't making a grammatical fool of themselves, until you're up to your eyebrows in plucky stars described as "troopers," or someone whose interest has been "peaked," or telling someone else to go "pedal" their papers elsewhere. After a while, it's homophones run amuck - excuse me, I mean, amok - and devil take the hindmost. Our friends at enotes.com, in an explanation of the "bated breath" phrase used in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," were having none of it, and although identified it as a "much misunderstood phrase," nonetheless never mention the word "bait" at any point in their commentary. So for all of you anglers out there, aiming to reel in the Bard on this one, I'm afraid you're on your own.
I find that the other one makes even less sense, but for a different reason, in an article about cleaning stains off of clothing and shoes:
=======================
Dip a clean, soft rag, ring out
most of the excess moisture, and
wipe off salt stains. Repeat as needed,
and let leather fully dry before wearing.
Products are also available,
including follow-up leather conditioner.
=======================
Yes, they really did use the term "ring out" in place of "wring out," and for heaven's sake, you shouldn't even need the spell-checker to keep from making an elementary mistake that even the most backward schoolchild would be able to avoid. It's enough to make us language purists ring our hands, and feel like we've been put through the ringer, at least in the "Holiday For W's" version of this column. But besides all that, I'm afraid I'm not really in the ballpark with them on the part about "products are also available." By giving the hypothetical products no modifiers of any kind - such as "specialty," "shoe care," "related," or even "commercial" - the whole sentence stops short of having any meaning whatsoever, as it sinks under the weight of every miscellaneous product in the entire world that might be available. At our house, we would say that the cock-eyed horoscope computer churned that one out, after coming back from visiting its mother in the hospital, but unfortunately, HIPAA regulations prevent me from compromising the privacy of our patients. However, if its mother was having a bridal shower at the hospital, well then, all bets would be off, and as Ray Anderson can tell you, it wouldn't take long before this sort of thing had completely gotten of hand, by golly.
Elle
And so here we find ourselves on the other side of Daylight Saving Time, and lived to tell the tale, and even St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, with all of its anachronistic parades and various panoply along with it, not to mention, green beer. Last Friday, I took the day off from work for my birthday, and it was a lovely and peaceful day, where I had a chance to relax and enjoy myself, and then we went out to dinner, which is always a treat. After that, it was presents, and there were no complaints on that score, I can tell you that. Although possibly my favorite part of the day was an electronic birthday greeting from a colleague who sincerely wished me a very "Happy 29th," and right about now, I'm thinking that has a pretty nice ring to it.
Meanwhile, back at the employer of last resort in our fair city, one of our departments organized a bridal shower for their secretary who is getting married next month, and many of us were glad to be invited to join in the festivities. I found out later this was supposed to be a surprise, which certainly made us old-timers roar with laughter, because the one thing that has never been able to survive in the hospital environment, for as long as we've all been there, is a secret. I said flat-out that a surprise shower would be absolutely impossible, in spite of voluminous HIPAA regulations and decades' worth of educational training on confidentiality and privacy policies. Or as the director of Practice Management famously quipped: "People here know things about me that my own family doesn't even know."
Speaking of things we might be better off not knowing, we have the following unsolicited (one supposes) testimonials from patient families, about the quality care they received from our medical professionals, or at least, that's what I think they're trying to tell us:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Once I arrived, I was surrounded by the most caring ER staff,
who immediately comforted me and made me fell "right at home"
until my family arrived.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Personally, I'm hoping that no one made this person fell, in spite of what it says, because that would probably be of no help at all, and would be unlikely to induce anyone to write us a nice letter afterward. Obviously, this is one of those cases where the spell-checker is not going to help you avoid using the word "fell" instead of "feel," either the person who originally wrote the note, or the secretary retyping it for distribution. The next one certainly had room for improvement:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
During my Mother's stay, both she and our family members
have had with the nurses and aides have been exceptional.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, sometimes you just don't even know where to begin. You can read that sentence numerous times, over and over again, and find that there is no increase in comprehension at any point, no matter how many times you do that, I promise. I can't even tell if they left out a word, or what went wrong for the meaning to get so lost that it never showed up again. And in fairness to the writer, once again the error could have been on the part of the person transcribing the message for distribution, but even here, I can't figure out what they did to foul it up so completely. At our house, we would blame this kind of thing on the horoscope computer, but HIPAA regulations prevent me from checking the hospital census to see if the horoscope computer's mother was one of our patients.
On the other hand, things in the local newspaper have fared no better, starting with a couple from the Sports section, where they were just a little too eager to get their ideas across, and perhaps as a result, their brains (such as they are) were moving too fast for their fingers to keep up:
====================
Raymond Felton had
17 points and 15 assists
in the Knicks' win over the
Wizards, who have yet win
a game on the road.
====================
Well, the spell-checker is really not going to help you if you just plain leave a word out, unless "yet win" is a newly accepted construction nowadays. And we all know what I always say about going back and looking over what you've written (what a concept!) or God forbid, having actual editors whose job it is to catch these blatant kinds of routine lapses. The next one suffers the same sort of problem, but as routine lapses go, at least adds an element of entertainment, however inadvertent:
====================
In a league known for its trash-talking, even the NFL has
gotten of hand, so says Ray Anderson, the vice president of
football operations ...
====================
I'm certainly hoping that our pal Ray did not really say "gotten of hand," which not only doesn't mean anything, but even if it did, doesn't sound like it would have meant what he wanted to convey anyway. In fact, if they were trying to rein in trash-talk, that might very well be one of the expressions that would not make the cut, I'm thinking, and poor old Ray would find himself sitting on the wrong side of the trash-talking fence this time around, and no one to blame but himself.
Going in a different, but no better, direction is a recent front page story about local flooding, with this inapt quote from AccuWeather meteorologist Mike Pigott:
======================
"This storm will certainly
exasperate flooding problems ... "
======================
Well, you don't even know if you should laugh or cry sometimes, and gnashing of teeth might not be out of order either. Here again, you have no way of knowing if the speaker simply misused the term "exasperate" when he meant "exacerbate" (one hopes) or whether it was the newspaper that printed it incorrectly, but you wouldn't think in this day and age, that it would be beyond the possibilities that someone would catch this error before the newspaper was actually out on the streets, and spoiling everyone's breakfast with its shoddy grammar. I don't know if the flooding problems were exasperated, but I can tell you for sure that I certainly was exasperated, and that's putting it mildly. Ah, for those halcyon days of yore, before the mass extinction of the editors, when newspapers didn't just print any old word they felt like, as long as it was close enough to the word it was supposed to be, alas.
They were having their own problems in the Life & Style section, first with this feature story about the Academy Awards, which began by throwing statistics at us in a headlong fashion:
=======================
More than 37.6 million viewers
watched with baited breath ...
=======================
Now, I never do understand why people insist on using phrases that they obviously don't understand, such as "bated breath," and then don't bother to look them up to make sure that they aren't making a grammatical fool of themselves, until you're up to your eyebrows in plucky stars described as "troopers," or someone whose interest has been "peaked," or telling someone else to go "pedal" their papers elsewhere. After a while, it's homophones run amuck - excuse me, I mean, amok - and devil take the hindmost. Our friends at enotes.com, in an explanation of the "bated breath" phrase used in Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice," were having none of it, and although identified it as a "much misunderstood phrase," nonetheless never mention the word "bait" at any point in their commentary. So for all of you anglers out there, aiming to reel in the Bard on this one, I'm afraid you're on your own.
I find that the other one makes even less sense, but for a different reason, in an article about cleaning stains off of clothing and shoes:
=======================
Dip a clean, soft rag, ring out
most of the excess moisture, and
wipe off salt stains. Repeat as needed,
and let leather fully dry before wearing.
Products are also available,
including follow-up leather conditioner.
=======================
Yes, they really did use the term "ring out" in place of "wring out," and for heaven's sake, you shouldn't even need the spell-checker to keep from making an elementary mistake that even the most backward schoolchild would be able to avoid. It's enough to make us language purists ring our hands, and feel like we've been put through the ringer, at least in the "Holiday For W's" version of this column. But besides all that, I'm afraid I'm not really in the ballpark with them on the part about "products are also available." By giving the hypothetical products no modifiers of any kind - such as "specialty," "shoe care," "related," or even "commercial" - the whole sentence stops short of having any meaning whatsoever, as it sinks under the weight of every miscellaneous product in the entire world that might be available. At our house, we would say that the cock-eyed horoscope computer churned that one out, after coming back from visiting its mother in the hospital, but unfortunately, HIPAA regulations prevent me from compromising the privacy of our patients. However, if its mother was having a bridal shower at the hospital, well then, all bets would be off, and as Ray Anderson can tell you, it wouldn't take long before this sort of thing had completely gotten of hand, by golly.
Elle
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:28 PM
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