Check out political hammer and thongs…is it Cliff's Notes?

Communication World, June, 2001 by Alden Wood

Conor Leeson, who is corporate communication manager at Euroclear, Brussels, rang my e-bell recently with "Here are a couple of beauties I came across, both courtesy of 'Morning Ireland', the morning news e-mail service from RTE Online. RTE is the national broadcasting corporation of Ireland. The first conjures up [a] disturbing image of politicians cavorting in G-strings...."

Headline: "Fisheries Ministers Agree on Quotas." Lede: "They were at it hammer and thongs until the early hours...."

Perhaps we will all share Leeson's lament at the second item: "Road Safety Association Launches New Assault on Wrecklessness." Honk if you favor wreckless driving.

The only other cite involving Belgium that I've spotted is this from The Boston Globe: "Just last month, China hired a Belgium company...." Not likely; would one hire a Japan company? An Italy corporation? A Germany firm? Needed here is proper adjective Belgian, which can cross-dress as the noun identifying a native or inhabitant. CW thanks Leeson the Wreckless.

* A prominent Midwestern newsletter for writers tells in its April 2 issue about a guide called "How to read the annual report" calls it "A Cliff's Notes for annual reports." You got a problem with that? Hope so. Dr Pepper has no period; Cliffs Notes, Inc., Lincoln, Neb., has no'.

* May you enjoy this retro-read dated January 1969: "Writing in the October 29 Boston Herald Traveler, Grover G. Hall, Jr., used this sentence to make a point about a meeting in Baltimore at which H.L. Mencken biographer William Manchester spoke: 'Only about a hundred persons turned out, and the face cards in the Baltimore deck were largely missing."' A memorable metaphor, you may agree. The source was reporting magazine (now Communication World), published by ICIE, the International Council of Industrial Editors (now IABC); the editor was Larry Ragan (now Gloria Gordon). The pullquote ran in a usage column titled The Typochondriac, which survives as the sib of Wood on Words.

* It was Jean-Baptiste-Alphonse Karr, a French journalist-novelist who flourished in the 1800s, who left to us the rememberable sentence "The more things change, the more they remain the same." And ain't it the truth. Remember the comma flaw? Also called the comma fault or comma splice, the phrase is defined in the 4TH edition of The American Heritage Dictionary as "n. Improper use of a comma to join two independent clauses." Wearing a slightly different sweater it's a run-on or fused sentence, and it remains the bane of student composition... and of many who are no longer students, but could surely use an occasional squint into the rearview.

I was reminded of this by the final line in a full-page, four-color ad paid for by Mutual of America Life Insurance Co. It ran in Newsweek. It read "People like Mary, Bill and Stan work hard for us, the least we can do is the same for them."

The sentence aches for a simple semicolon; for the steadying hand the mark extends to the reader. One wonders why the presumed professional copywriter blew it off; do some consider clarity to be elitist nowadays? What an appalling thought.

* IABC's estimable belletrist Kathleen Much e-notes "Alden, it might be time to cover the homonyms jell and gel in your CW column. I've run into sloppy usage four times in one morning."

Done! Verb gel, according to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary; 10Th ed., means only "to change into or take on the form of a gel." And noun gel generally identifies a substance resembling jelly inconsistency, as in hair-styling gel. Jell, discovers the pilgrim, means "to come to the consistency of jelly." If you have a hassle with this, you will enjoy telling a newbie to English how to pronounce vaseline v. baseline.

Alden Wood, APR, lecturer on editodal procedures at Simmons College, Boston, Mass., writes and lectures on language usage. He is a retired insurance industry vice president of advertising and public relations. His e-dress is WoodonWords@aol.com