There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little more flattering than receiving a letter, call or e-mail from a reader in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gotcha\u00e2\u20ac\u009d moment. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I caught a typo in your last column. You were supposed to have spelled it \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcproofreader,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 not \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpoofreader.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, yes, the first spelling is what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find in the dictionary. The second \u00e2\u20ac\u201d done for effect, honest \u00e2\u20ac\u201d usually appears in this column.<\/p>\n
I once read a list of disclaimers for aging, one that when people reach my age, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve earned the right to be eccentric, as in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nobody should argue with me for that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the way I do things.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d In addition, many attribute to us extreme forgetfulness. Just look at most of the senior-based jokes and cartoons in the popular media.<\/p>\n
But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not pleading any of these. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a cop-out to blame our eccentricities on age. Haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we seen some of the same quirks that afflict the elderly manifested in the young? How many students one-third my age have used the excuse, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I forgot to bring my term paper\u00e2\u20ac\u009d?<\/p>\n
As an unrepentant language cop, I chase words and commas. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written entire columns on single words, and this column might shape up to be one of those.<\/p>\n
In short, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy over haplology, defined as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the collapse of two identical or very similar adjacent syllables into one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sometimes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to make the tongue perform complex gymnastics and catch every syllable. The examples my dictionary uses for haplology are reducing \u00e2\u20ac\u0153library\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberry\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probably\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult for some people to juxtapose two such similar sounds.<\/p>\n
Well, for years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve taken \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d both as a spoken and a written word, a step farther. I go directly to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prolly.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yes, I realize it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a Trujillo-type verbal coinage, but isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a 70-year-old allowed some leeway? Oops, forgot I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not going to use age as my crutch or justification.<\/p>\n
I came across \u00e2\u20ac\u0153haplology\u00e2\u20ac\u009d while reading about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nictate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as part of a vocabulary service available online. The web site explains that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nictate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to wink, to blink,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d used to be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nictitate\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (note the extra syllable and three t\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s). The word has nothing to do with smoking or addiction. And the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pacifist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d used to carry an extra syllable, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pacificist.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all a matter of economy of effort: We tend to pronounce words in the easiest way, as it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rough to navigate through any word, like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lollapolooza,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nurses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pronounced nurseses) with so many repeated and difficult sounds.<\/p>\n
And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I struggle with words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153necessitate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I elide, or cut off one or two syllables. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll use \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decide\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but avoid \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decision,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because of something about telling the brain to switch between a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153surd\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sonant\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sound, or between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153voiced\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153voiceless\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sounds. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the difference between the sounds of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153z\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153s,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the former sound not existing in Spanish.<\/p>\n
In my experience with newspapers in Illinois decades ago, I tried to strip the language not only of repeated sounds but of unnecessary letters as well. The bosses allowed me some freedom \u00e2\u20ac\u201d but only when I wrote my own columns, not general news. They allowed me to shorten \u00e2\u20ac\u0153though\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tho,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153through\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thru\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u201d surprisingly \u00e2\u20ac\u201d even \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thorough\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thoro.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d But when I wrote \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thought,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the managing editor balked. She explained it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t my job \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to, in a very bold way, take such liberties with the language, especially with our literate reading public.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Well, I thot wrong.<\/p>\n
Upon first looking into the hap-word, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t snap that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spelled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153haplology.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I read the word as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hapology,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and it seems here as if we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve performed haplology on this very word.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s common in English speech to drop one of a pair of repeated sounds. A nice irony is that haplology is just the sort of word to which haplology happens.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Sister Mary Penas Severas, my sixth-grade teacher at Immaculate Conception School, would never have tolerated the instances of split infinitives above.<\/p>\n
But first, a disclosure: Some of my best friends are prone to, on several occasions, split infinitives (as I just did), and to my knowledge no classmate ever required treatment in the ER for such splits.<\/p>\n
A split infinitive, really, is merely the insertion of a word between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the infinitive verb, such as Star Trek\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to boldly go where no man has gone before.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Only language purists seem to get upset over such splits. What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s egregious, however, is inserting a long string of words between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153to\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and the infinitive, as demonstrated in the sentence about my experience in Illinois.<\/p>\n
And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing to wink at.<\/p>\n
Haplology, then, I can best remember by extracting the peculiar \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lol\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the middle of the word, which has become texting shorthand for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153laughing out loud.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d A friend, a dedicated texter, labels me as naive and uninformed, saying the lexicon of cell phone abbreviations is far more advanced than I realize.<\/p>\n
He ended his text message \u00e2\u20ac\u201d tapped in, he said, while driving \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rof.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I have no clue. And do I even want to know? What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s happening to our language?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Jeanette Yara, bilingual liaison for West Las Vegas Schools, e-mailed to say she enjoys reading the names I give to nuns, my former teachers, at Immaculate Conception School, which I attended for 12 or more years. Now, now, does Jeanette really believe I tinker with the nuns\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 names?<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
And Sally Hanson, a former copy reader at the Optic, e-mailed about a recent column in which I lamented that Vangie, a teenager whom I invited on a lavish date, responded only with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153whatever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Sally\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s take on Vangie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s response softens the hurt after all these years. She wrote, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Vangie wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t putting you down, she was saying she was so thrilled you asked her out that whatever you wanted to do was fine with her. I know because I attended my 50th high school reunion last weekend and it all came back to me. My old boyfriend was there \u00e2\u20ac\u201d with his wife. Whatever.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s little more flattering than receiving a letter, call or e-mail from a reader in a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gotcha\u00e2\u20ac\u009d moment. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I caught a typo in your last column. You were supposed to have spelled it \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcproofreader,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 not \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpoofreader.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Well, yes, the first spelling is what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll find in the dictionary. The second \u00e2\u20ac\u201d done for effect, honest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":487,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions\/487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}