You Don’t Say

I downloaded “The Blueprint for Change, Barack Obama’s Plan for America” last week from the campaign’s Web site. It’s good reading, and I think Obama has a good plan for America.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a good proofreader. The plan is riddled with a bunch of Proofreading 101 mistakes.

Take this sentence, for example, from the Health Care section of the plan:

The insurance business today is dominated by a small group of large companies that has been gobbling up their rivals.

A good proofreader, regardless of political affiliation, would cringe at the mistake in that sentence.

The dependent clause, that has been gobbling up their rivals, modifies or explains the plural noun companies. So the verb in the clause should be in the plural form: that have been gobbling up. That long prepositional phrase should read of large companies that have been gobbling up their rivals.

Then there’s this gaffe in capitalization in a subheading, also in the Health Care section:

Too Little is Spent on Prevention and Public Health

I won’t argue with the position stated in the subhead, but as a proofreader, I’d flag that lowercase is.  Is is a verb. In titles, headlines, and subheadings, all verbs–even two-letter ones like is–take a capital letter.

Yes, these are minor mistakes and don’t diminish the merits of Obama’s plan. But there are too many of these minor mistakes–I counted 10 in the first 12 pages–for such an important document.

Come on, Obama, you raised $66 million in August. Surely there’s enough cash in the campaign coffers to afford a proofreader or two.

Invitations to wine tastings are always welcome, even if they contain usage mistakes, as did the one I received this week. In part, it read:

Of all the influences on Chile’s wine industry, perhaps the most notable was Claude Gay, who brought more than 60 clippings to Santiago, including all the principle grapes of Bordeaux.

The principle grapes of Bordeaux? Even with a glass or two of wine, I know that principle should be principal.

Here’s an easy way to remember how these two words are used:

• Principle is used only as a noun. It means a rule, code of conduct, or truth (e.g., the principle of self-determination, a woman of principle).
• Principal is usually an adjective meaning chief or most important (e.g., the principal ingredient). It can also be a noun, usually meaning the person in charge of a school or a sum of money.

Confusing the two words is a common mistake, so don’t take it too hard if you didn’t spot the mistake in the wine tasting invitation. Even the country’s principal newspaper, the New York Times, has published articles misusing the two words (see: A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, by Bryan A. Garner, Oxford University Press, 1998).

If you’re not sure whether to use principle or principal, try the substitution test. Replace principle or principal with either rule (or truth) or chief. For example:

The chief grapes of Bordeaux. The principal grapes of Bordeaux.

Now let’s uncork that wine!

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.

In the school district office where I work, we have a new HP laserjet photocopy machine. Instructions and messages pop up on a small digital screen, and you need a pass code to use the machine. Despite its many features–bound-book copying, two-sided copies, collating, stapling, automatic paper selection–I don’t like the machine very much. It’s slower than the previous copier, and I can never remember the pass code.

Which is all beside the point.

Last week, after I punched in the pass code, I got this message on the little screen: ORDER CARTRIDGE LESS THAN 3000 PAGES

Just like that–all caps, no punctuation. The message was hard to read for that reason, and I read it twice before I got it. I made a mental note to inform the secretary who handles the supply ordering.

On the way back to my desk, I thought about the message. Less than 3000 pages? Shouldn’t that be fewer than 3000 pages?

Maybe not, although conventional wisdom has it that fewer is used with plural nouns (fewer pages, fewer cars) and less is used to describe amounts and quantities (less energy, less money).

Think about expressions like in 25 words or less or less than 100 miles to go in which the 25 words and the 100 miles are thought of as whole quantities. Could the same rationale be applied to 3000 pages?

Maybe the folks who programmed the copier tossed this question around and decided on the whole quantity rationale. Or maybe they just wanted to use shorter words so they would all fit on that small screen.

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.