Posted by Becky @ 10:30 pm Picking nits: Using a dictionary
October 20, 2007 | Picking nits, Words
I gave my son his first dictionary today. Will it be my excuse to say, “Look it up,” when he asks how to spell something? Maybe.
But I could say it’s more along the lines of the “teach a man to fish” idea, one that says, “Teach a child to learn how to use a dictionary, and he’ll learn how to spell.” Whenever I asked how to spell a word when I was growing up, my parents said, “There’s the dictionary. Look it up.”
Will my son enjoy nitpicking like I do? Doesn’t matter, really. He’ll probably be good at something I can’t fathom, like physics or poetry. I only hope he learns to love words and to have fun with them. I hope he learns that spellcheck is nice, but it never beats a good ol’ dictionary.
Me? I still use my dictionary almost every day. I love to nitpick – 2. (figuratively) to correct minutiae or find fault in unimportant details; to kvetch – which some might say makes me an OK editor. Is where you place a comma or hyphen an unimportant detail? Depends on how perfect you want your copy. Co-workers used to threaten to make me a T-shirt with “Is anal retentive hyphenated?” on it. That was, ahem, a rhetorical question, but of course I had an answer.
So … I need to pick some nits.
Why do people still call female students co-eds (or coeds), an outdated term from the days they were the exception rather than the rule on college campuses? It’s not technically incorrect; it’s just annoying.
Lots of students have been calling since school officials announced Saturday night that a USF co-ed had meningitis. — “USF Officials Urge Calm After Meningitis Infects Student,” Josh Poltilove, The Tampa Tribune, Sept. 23, 2007
This was partly because his staff had told me to be prepared to discuss the recent arrest of a USC coed for the murder of her newborn infant (the woman’s lawyer had cancelled at the last minute) rather than my book “The Case for Hillary Clinton.” — “Elizabeth And Hillary,” Susan Estrich, Sept. 21, 2007
The Women’s Shelter of East Texas sees victims of all ages, but counselors know from national studies, young coed’s are a likely target. — “Nacogdoches Gang Rape Reported/Rape Prevention,” Donna McCollum, Sept. 20, 2007
P.S. Coeds doesn’t need an apostrophe.
“Fordham coed sues over bedbugs in hotel dorm,” Jose Martinez, New York Daily News, Sept. 21, 2007
“MIT coed with fake bomb ‘art’ arrested,” Glen Johnson, The Associated Press, Sept. 21, 2007
…
More than 1.5 million tourists now visit the arctic each year, up from one million in the early 1990s, according to the U.N. Longer and warmer summers keep arctic seas freer of ice flows, so cruise ships can visit places that were once inaccessible — raising other environmental concerns. — Arctic Becomes Tourism Hot Spot, But Is That Cool? by Gautam Naik, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 24, 2007
Masses of floating ice are called floes. (I ain’t talking, “Mel, kiss my grits.”)
Kentucky Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher should have been a shoe-in for re-election this year. — “Kentucky Derby.” Jim Waters, The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 20, 2007
An obvious candidate is a shoo-in.
…
Because I’m a nitpicker, maybe that’s why I get a kick out of Regret the Error, which posts ”corrections, retractions, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the media,” and Undercover Black Man’s MPB (Misidentified Black Person) posts. If you like to pick nits, check them out.
Posted by Becky @ 10:30 pm 
October 20th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Nothing is better than winning an argument with a dictionary.
I do it at home, and I do it in the office.
Joy.
October 21st, 2007 at 2:10 pm
I think the coed thing is for the salacious associations with porn. It sounds so demeaning.
October 22nd, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I just spent a good fifteen minutes on Regret the Error. Love it.
October 24th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I like to use coed as shorthand for perky, wide-eyed, college-aged female. It seems to sum up the hollow naivite of a certain type of female college student.
P.S. Can you use your dictionary to tell me whether or not I’ve misspelled naivite and shorthand above? (One word or two for shorthand? hyphen? I don’t know. No time to look it up right now.)
October 24th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
“Spellcheck is nice but never beats a good ol’ dictionary.” Amen to that. I once wrote a story about the death penalty–specifically about the logjam of cases which were awaiting a Supreme Court decision. I used the phrase “finger in the dike” to describe the avalanche of executions Georgia was about to see if the ruling went a certain way. Guess how I misspelled “dike.”
November 2nd, 2007 at 2:09 am
I’m guessing that “Georgia” wasn’t a woman? ; )