You Don’t Say

I work on the 18th floor of a 29-story tower in downtown Los Angeles. We have regular fire drills, and recently we had an earthquake drill. During the fire drills, we evacuate five floors down. For earthquake drills, we “duck and cover.” During a real emergency, however, it may be necessary for us to evacuate the building and proceed to a designated safe area off the property.

So I was happy to notice that a “Safe Refuge Area Map” had been taped to the cabinet over the sink in the little coffee room around the corner from my cubicle. The map shows the location of the safe refuge. Now each time I get a cup of coffee, I’m reminded that if there’s a need to evacuate the building, I should proceed to a nearby parking lot.

Is it hitting below the belt to criticize good intentions, especially when the safety of others is concerned?

So let’s call this an observation rather than a criticism when I say that the term safe refuge is a redundancy.

Refuge means “shelter or protection from danger or distress” or a place that provides this shelter or protection. In other words, a safe place. By definition, a place can’t be a refuge if it’s not safe.

I wonder if the folks who produced the map had this discussion and decided to be redundant for the sake of emphasis. Or maybe they thought people might not understand what the term refuge meant, hence the descriptive safe. Perhaps they considered safe area or safe zone but decided on refuge because the term implies something more comprehensive.

I’m glad the “Safe Area Refuge Map” is taped on the cabinet in the coffee room. In the event of an evacuation, I’ll be happy to know where to go, whatever the place is called.

I don’t get much exercise during the week. Sure, there’s a treadmill in the exercise room of my condo building, but spending an hour on a treadmill is my idea of exercise hell because I get bored. So, most weekend mornings, after I have coffee and read the paper, I head out for an hour’s walk through my Studio City neighborhood. I try to focus and keep a strong, steady pace that will get my heart rate going.

Staying focused is a challenge, however, when I notice a sign like this one in front of the Sterling Salon and Spa on Ventura Boulevard:

Complementary valet parking

Complementary? With an “e?”

If the good folks at Sterling offer free valet parking to their customers, and I assume that ’s what the sign is meant to convey, then someone made a Spelling 101 mistake. When something is given free as a courtesy or favor, the correct word is complimentary, with an “i.” (Complimentary can also mean flattering, as in “After a visit to Sterling Salon, I received many complimentary comments about my hair style.”)

Complementary, with the “e,” has several different meanings, none of which mean free. A common usage of complementary is to describe things that fit together to form a whole or that fill out or complete something:

The Internet hasn’t killed the television–yet. In fact, according to a new study from Nielsen’s newly-formed TV/Internet Panel, television viewing and using the Internet are complementary activities. (from BizReport)

Come on, Sterling Salon and Spa. Keep your verbiage as well-groomed as your customers’ hair. You got it right on your Web site where you suggest we book a “complimentary consultation.” Fix that valet parking sign. Use nail polish or lipstick if necessary, but change that “e” to an “i.”

Better yet, keep things simpler–change complementary to free.

As an employee of the LA Unified School District, I have the opportunity each year to change my health benefits plan. Every fall, a letter arrives from the District informing me that the annual Open Enrollment, as it’s called, begins on November 1.

Here’s how this year’s letter begins:

Each year, the Health Benefits Committee, comprised of representatives from the LAUSD and each bargaining unit, review our benefits plans to determine if they are cost-effective….

Did you notice the subject-verb mistake? Committee is the subject of the sentence. As a collective noun, committee takes a singular verb. That means the verb should be reviews, not review.

OK, mistakes happen, especially when the subject and verb are separated by other words. But what’s the excuse for comprised of representatives? Although it’s a common expression, comprised of is wrong–always. The committee may be made up of representatives, or the committee may comprise representatives, but it’s never going to be comprised of something.

It was a banner week for misusing comprise. Here’s what else came across my desk last week:

From a professional journal for educational administrators:

The CTHSS [Connecticut Technical High School System], comprised of 17 regional locations, serves more than 10,500 students.

From an Internet news service, in an article about LA County Teachers of the Year:

The winning educators, comprised of 10 women and 2 men, teach a range of grades and subjects…. And in the same article, two paragraphs later, ….contestants submitted essays, lesson plans and other materials to judging panels comprised of peers.

Comprise means contain, made up of, or consist of. The nation (contains, is made up of, consists of) 50 states. If you’re conversant with active and passive voice, think of it this way–comprise is best used in the active voice followed by a direct object: The nation comprises 50 states.

At the risk of sounding like Joe Biden in a debate with Sarah Palin, let me repeat: comprised of  is always wrong.

The air is thick with gravitas these days. I started noticing it back in February during the Clinton-Obama debate at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood when Sen. Clinton identified gravitas as a necessary characteristic of the next commander in chief.

Leave it to a Democrat to use vocabulary that can only be understood by college graduates (which comprise less than 30 percent of US adults over 25). Can you imagine the Republicans, those sloganeering masters (”Drill, baby, drill.”), talking about gravitas?

Now it seems as if you can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine or listen to a news broadcast without encountering the word gravitas. My most recent encounter: an article in the New York Times online on September 12 by Jim Rutenberg about the Sarah Palin interviews with ABC-TV’s Charles Gibson. Mr. Rutenberg wrote, “In choosing Mr. Gibson as Ms. Palin’s interlocutor, the campaign was going with a journalist known for having a mild manner but the gravitas to be taken seriously.”

It’s a great-sounding word, but what does it mean? Most of us have probably not heard the word, let alone used it.

According to Merriam-Webster, gravitas means “high seriousness (as in a person’s bearing or treatment of a subject).” Definitions in other dictionaries are variations on the themes of seriousness, dignity, or solemnity.

With two months left in the presidential campaign, we’re bound to hear or see gravitas again. Let’s just hope the novelty of the word wears off before gravitas becomes a campaign cliche.

A Labor Day weekend trip to San Diego with my friend Peter found us wandering the confusing ramps and passageways of the multi-level Horton Plaza in the Gaslamp Quarter of downtown. We were in search of a slim-fit white dress shirt for Peter. Although the shopping expedition was unsuccessful, the plaza turned out to be an interesting place to visit for another reason.

Horton Plaza is one of the city’s top attractions. In fact, back in the mid-1980s, when it was built, Horton Plaza was a risky departure from conventional shopping center architecture. Its bright colors, ramps, angled walls and flowing spaces introduced a new architectural vernacular to commercial development. The success of Horton Plaza was a catalyst for further development in the rundown Gaslamp Quarter of downtown San Diego.

So I guess Horton Plaza has a right to boast. And so it does, with a giant wall-size banner proclaiming itself as “San Diego’s Most Unique Shopping Experience.” My quibble isn’t with Horton Plaza’s asserting its uniqueness, given its history (although for my money, if you’ve seen one Westfield shopping center, you’ve seen them all).

But I do challenge the “most unique” collocation. The word unique means one of a kind, without equal. There are no degrees of uniqueness. The word unique stands alone, without modifiers. The banner should proclaim “San Diego’s Unique Shopping Experience.” Granted, that claim seems to fall a bit flat. The ad copywriter probably thought the same thing and inserted the word most in an effort to strengthen the claim. In the world of advertising copywriting, in which everything purportedly is unique, the word has lost its meaning.

Hint to copywriter: It was a lame claim to begin with. Come up with something more original next time.