On a side note, I would like to point out that America is a nation with a Latin name, settled at least 10,000 years ago by peoples whose descendants speak languages in 55 different families.

Its 50 constituent states have names taken from Native American languages (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming), Basque (Arizona), Dutch (Rhode Island), Spanish (Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, French (Delaware, Louisiana, Vermont), German (North Carolina, South Carolina), Greek (Georgia), Latin (Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia), Hawaiian (Hawai’i), Sanskrit (Indiana) and yes, Arabic (California).

The only states with arguably English names are Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, and Washington.

English has never been an official US language, nor should it be. Such a law would be a First Amendment violation (not to mention the Fourteenth), and that is reason enough. The world’s many languages bring beauty, poetry and literature to our shores, and introduce concepts that cannot be spoken in English; that is reason enough. Unless you are Native American, then your ancestors were immigrants, most likely mistrusted and mistreated; breaking that cycle is reason enough.

Via FailBlog, Chicanísima, Swam2Day. Also American (word) | History of the word and List of US state name etymologies on Wikipedia; ACLU Briefing Paper Number 6 – “English Only” on The ‘Lectric Law Library.

The expression is “throes of passion,” a cliché used to refer to vigorous lovemaking. It is employed here sarcastically in reference to the man’s self-abuse with a vacuum cleaner. A “throe” is a “severe spasm or vigorous struggle”; it’s not the most romantic word to use to refer to sex, but I didn’t invent the phrase.

Via FailBlog.

I could not help but notice your sign in Los Angeles International Airport, offering “complimentary” shoe shining services. Unfortunately, no matter to what degree you make postive comments regarding my shoes or anything else, the shoe shine will not be “complimentary.”

“Complimentary” means “expressing a compliment,” which is in this instance an “expression of admiration.” Marvin was rather complimentary of my new shoes; he said they were the finest Crocs he had ever seen.

What you mean, Marvin, is “complementary,” an unrelated word that means “that which completes something else.” In modern parlance this is abused to mean “a free service that goes along with another service,” although the original meaning often still applies. For instance, a hotel may offer a “complementary breakfast” with your room. The breakfast service “completes” the hotel stay. We hope you enjoyed your complementary orange slice and box of milk, or as we like to call it, the Continental Breakfast.

In your case, Marvin, the shoe shine service “completes” the airline’s services, which is a bit of a stretch, although in the context of a business trip it makes some sense. But what you’re really trying to say colloquially is that your service is free.

The word you want is “complementary.”

I understand that many bakery workers are recent immigrants, and their English may not be perfect. (This is not a criticism. The average immigrants command of English is far superior to my command of anything else, much to my personal shame.)

But just as medical professionals should know something about medicine and firefighters must be experts in fighting fires, people who get paid to write words (whether professional writers, editors and academics at one end of the spectrum, or sign makers and cake decorators at the other) should know how to spell. Certainly such a professional, whether highly paid or not, should celebrate learning, and perhaps even know how to spell it.

Via Cake Wrecks.

• dependant (person), dependent (adj.)
• dexterous (not “dextrous”)
• judgment
• restaurateur
• sacrilegious
• specialty (medicine), otherwise speciality
• wacky (never “whacky”)

Although an American, I am not a fan of “American” spellings. If it were up to me, we would write “colour,” “labour” and “flavour,” as well as “kilometre” and “theatre.” On the other hand, I have no idea how the British came up with “naïvety.”

Long ago I submitted a short story to several magazines. One editor wrote back that he enjoyed the piece (although he could not use it at that time), but he did not like the British spelling of certain words. The story was told in the first person, from the point-of-view of an Englishman. The point is that US editors will reflexively balk at the use of British spelling, even when it’s appropriate. My rule is to use the older spelling; and if this is unclear, use the British.

More info: Common spelling problems via The Economist Style Guide; “American and British English spelling differences” on Wikipedia.

Americana Exchange describes itself as a magazine about rare, antiquarian books (presumably ones with the word “descent” spelled properly).

As of this writing, Mr. Stillman’s headline has not been corrected. I suppose it is rather decent of him to leave it up for us.

Businesspeople love to make up new words.

There is nothing wrong with new words, as long as they (1) fulfill a need, (2) don’t replace a perfectly good existing word, and (3) are clever and well conceived.

For instance, “emoticon” is a necessary new word, as it gives a name to something that did not have a name before. It’s easy to remember (emotion + icon) and describes what it represents.

But “irregardless” is a terrible word, as it means exactly the same thing as “regardless.” This is a word coined out of ignorance, and it should be abolished from usage.

New words coined for use in business are added to dictionaries every year. But these words should be examined before we adopt them into standard use, even at work.

For example, “actionable,” meaning “capable of being acted upon,” is a useful new word. There isn’t a preexisting word — one would have to say “this item can be acted upon,” rather than the shorter and easier “this is actionable.” “Actionable” is also a legal term meaning “subject to or affording ground for an action or suit at law,” but it’s easy to differentiate the two uses in context.

As of 2009, if you use “actionable” outside of a work or legal environment, you’ll just sound like an ass. But in 20 years, who knows? “I want to you to go to the store.” “Well, I’m busy, but that’s actionable.”

On the other hand, there are absurd, unnecessary business words that just cause confusion. Like “buy-in,” as in “if you want to do this, you’ll have to get the boss to buy-in.” It just means the same thing as “agree” or “consent.” It’s unnecessary jargon, used in an attempt to sound smart. It fails.

Some business words make no sense at all. “Componentize?” As in “to make something a component?” Who uses this? What does it even mean?

Business people love to turn nouns into verbs. “Let’s dialogue with Joe about the projects he’s been tasked with managing.” What, business people don’t know how to “talk” or “assign?” Let’s just let nouns remain nouns.

Other goofy, unnecessary new words from the world of work include disintermediate, disambiguate, facetime, instantiate, mindshare, operationalize (gack!), productize (double gack!), and the entirely meaningless buzzword “value chain.”

Also, don’t misuse real words: paradigm, offline, proactive, synergy, granular, interface. If you want to meet with someone, then meet. Don’t “interface.”

In business communication, it’s a good idea to eschew obfuscation, as the saying goes. If there’s simpler way to say what you mean, then say it that way. Heavy use of jargon takes more effort, and will confuse anyone outside of your own profession.

That said, you can’t be ignorant of the jargon used by others in your work. If you don’t know what a commonly used business term means, even if you never use it, you’ll come across as if you don’t know what you’re doing. But the next time someone says “I’ll ping you with a value proposition that will drive our critical path to establishing core competencies,” just reply “yeah, you can email me with your idea how to figure out what the hell our company does.”