You Don’t Say

A phone conversation with my cousin Susan in Tucson presented this challenge: Is it correct to use couple (to mean two or a few) by itself as an adjective or must it be used with of. In other words, which is correct–a couple drinks or a couple of drinks?

Good question, Susan.

Here’s the answer: It’s up to you. Depending on the situation, you can go either way.

I first checked my Merriam-Websters’ Collegiate (11th Edition), which has a separate entry for couple as an adjective, along with a usage note. According to M-W, using couple by itself as an adjective is “common in speech and writing that is not meant to be formal or elevated.” We can take that to mean that in casual, informal circumstances, there’s nothing wrong with saying or writing a couple drinks.

Three other sources I checked offer different advice. Bryan Garner’s A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, and The Associated Press Stylebook all agree that couple as an adjective without of is poor usage. The Times and AP might be taking that stand because newspaper writing could be considered a more formal type of writing.

The next time I get to Tucson, Susan, let’s grab a couple drinks and talk about it.

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.

At Bed, Bath & Beyond the other day, Tony, a, friendly, young clerk, rang up my purchases. He handed me the receipt, and I said “Thank you.” To which he replied, “No problem.”

That response still throws me, because I’m expecting to hear “You’re welcome.” But no problem, like awesome and dude, is part of the jargon, the patois, of a generation. Not my generation, as you may have guessed.

Nevertheless, I have a problem with no problem replacing you’re welcome.

In the first place, any reasonable request I make as a paying customer (not a guest, but that will be the subject of another posting) in a store or restaurant should not be perceived as a problem. That’s what Tony et al are getting paid for—to provide service and respond to my requests. So my thank you when services are rendered is a way of acknowledging that my request has been met and the job has been done properly or adequately. Nothing more, nothing less. Seems to me that the appropriate response is you’re welcome, not no problem.

Much like don’t mention it, no problem suggests that someone has performed a favor above and beyond the call of duty. Bringing a cocktail to the table or ringing up a simple transaction hardly qualifies.

Language is dynamic and reflects a society’s changing attitudes and values. In today’s society, in which flip-flops, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt have become the standard go-anywhere uniform, the lines between formal and informal have been blurred almost beyond recognition. There is little formal social hierarchy anymore, and the message is that we’re all peers. In a world where restaurant servers and grocery store clerks call customers by their first names, you’re welcome may seem too formal. Today’s hyper-casualness demands something more insouciant, something more nonchalant.

I guess that means I’d better get used to no problem. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.