October 27, 2009, 8:00 am — Updated: 5:27 pm -->Words We Love Too MuchBy Philip B. Corbett

Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style.

I’ve steered away from my give-this-word-a-rest refrain recently. For one thing, these are among the most subjective judgments — one person’s handy shorthand is another’s grating cliché. And I was afraid that if I denounced too many words as overused or worn out, our writers wouldn’t have much left to work with.

I needn’t have worried, of course; these screeds have little discernible effect. Still, I ran into one too many “famouslys” recently, and I couldn’t help myself. In many cases, “famously” is completely superfluous; in other instances, there’s a more precise way to say what we mean.

Some recent examples:

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At a White House meeting in mid-March, in which the counterinsurgency policy was initially presented, Mr. Biden famously began to stake out his position that a larger military presence in Afghanistan could breed resentment among Afghans and would be politically untenable at home.

Yes, the fact that Biden holds this position has been widely reported. But the fact that he began staking out this stance at a particular White House meeting in mid-March could surely be famous only among a handful of Washington reporters with exceptionally good memories.

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Former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas famously broke an antique chair during a cabinet meeting before losing 110 pounds, becoming a presidential contender and writing a self-help book, “Quit Digging Your Grave With a Knife and Fork.”

Is “famously” supposed to make me think that everyone knows this story except me? Perhaps what we wanted to convey was something more like “Huckabee drew wide attention in Arkansas when …”

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From that varied background, Brees [the New Orleans quarterback] developed nimble footwork in the pocket, deft movement that safety Darren Sharper, in his 13th season, described as the best he has ever seen. Brees combined that with uncanny vision to overcome what he famously lacked in height (he is listed at 6 feet).

Hard to see what the word adds here, except to make those of us who didn’t know how tall he is feel out of it.

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Not every former governor has a portrait hanging in the Capitol. Mario M. Cuomo has famously — and rather cantankerously — refused to allow an artist to paint his likeness.

Again, outside of Albany-watchers, I’m not sure how famous his refusal really is. Perhaps we meant something more like, “Cuomo has made a point of refusing …”?

 

In a Word

This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other editing missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and sharp-eyed readers.

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“My CD’s,” he said. “I regret that. That was a mistake.” He had 3,500 of them. Country, blues, jazz, rock. They went to a collector, after he put them on his computer, and iPod. But the iPod is not the same, he said. The music sounded better on the CD’s.

We changed our style several years ago on plurals like this. Here’s what the current “plurals” entry in The Times’s stylebook says:

But do not use apostrophes for plurals of abbreviations without periods, or for plurals formed from figures: TVs, PCs, DVDs; 1990s, 747s, size 7s.

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After New Ads, iDoubts Grow About a Verizon iPhone

It no longer seems clever, if it ever did, to attach an “i” to words in articles and headlines about Apple.

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Top aides in the Obama administration waxed on the Sunday news shows about their relationship with Fox News, the current media nemesis of the latest White House team.

“Wax” as an intransitive verb means “grow.” It is occasionally used in an extended sense to mean “become,” in expressions like “She waxed sentimental.” A further extension yields colloquial expressions like “He waxed on and on about it.” None of those uses really covers this case.

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Dr. Hagerty sounded surprised at the news but not alarmed, because most of the pigs, or perhaps all, that were at the state fair at the same time as a group of 4-H children who became ill were to be sent to the slaughterhouse shortly afterward.

This convoluted sentence made for tough going. Let’s hope no one, in confusion, read the highlighted phrase as a unit.

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[Caption online] Alan Ceballos at his building in the Bronx. He lives in a subsidized two-bedroom apartment for about the same price that he payed previously for a market-rate one-bedroom.

Make it “paid,” of course.

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