Words to Watch

1. As of March 2007, Arkansas is clamping down on misspellings of the state's possessive form. They now insist on Arkansas's First Lady, Arkansas's interests, and Arkansas's pride in its scenic beauty. These correct spellings are consistent with the general rule that all singular nouns, when they become possessive, add apostrophe and "s."

2. In the Embarrassing Mistakes File, here is another entry. Website makers tout their database by writing:
"This page attempts to collect the largest sources of quotations and related items (proverbs, sayings, maxims, amorphisms, slogans, clichés, etc.)."
But there is no such thing as an amorphism, as their spell checker would have told them. They meant aphorism.

3. Another embarrassing error appears because writers failed to think about what a word meant: "If you look at your day and see all the tolerations you put up with, no wonder you leave stressed."

Those writers might have benefited from a good thesaurus and dictionary. They probably meant "and see all the annoyances you tolerate…."

4. Finally, there is the person who wrote, "After the accident, my car was a total right off." This person meant "a total write-off."

U.S. Army Professional Writing Collection

Surfing the Web, I stumbled upon our Army's collection of scholarly articles at www.army.mil/professionalwriting/. One article was entitled "Breaking the Tether of Fuel." Its first sentences required me to read them twice before I pieced together their (rather simple) meaning. Whatever happened to clear and frequent active verbs? Whatever happened to putting the old information in the sentence's beginning?

Here is what I read:
During the advance on Baghdad, senior Marine and Army field commanders had many significant interdependent variables to contemplate in addition to the capability and intent of the Iraqi forces before them. In order to maintain both the velocity and operational tempo of their highly mobile forces located across a wide battlespace, the subject of fuel was an ever-present consideration. Much time, energy, and continuous analysis was put into determining when, or if, a culminating point would be reached due to this vital resource. (Flesch Reading Ease 18.7, grade level 12.0)

Here is what some military pundit could have written:
While US field commanders advanced on Baghdad, they worried not only about what Iraqi forces could do and intended. They had to move their highly mobile forces across a wide battlespace; so they worried constantly about fuel. They continuously analyzed supply and use variables to learn when their fuel would run out.

In my opinion, the longer a general must spend decoding flowery language, the less time she has to think strategically, learn about her people, and achieve every soldier's dream: unemployment. (My writing in this post has a Flesch Reading Ease of 49.4 and a grade level of 9.9.)

Dyslexia

You know the first-grader who doesn't seem to understand phonics? The fifth grader who avoids reading and whose handwriting looks like insect tracks? The adult who says, "I brought the things over there, and I saw how they had the stuff so that's where I told him to put it"?

Any of these people might be dyslexic. I've been reading about dyslexia for years, and working with two dyslexic children about whom I care deeply. I've benefited from talks with a brilliant scientist friend who himself has an unusual cognitive style. Here's what I've found.

The best book on dyslexia is probably Overcoming Dyslexia (2003) by Sally Shaywitz, MD. The subtitle is "a new and complete science-based program for reading problems at any level."

Shaywitz's book builds, I think, on the linguistic science in Why Our Children Can't Read And What We Can Do About It (1997) by Diane McGuinness, Ph.D. McGuinness constructs an elaborate foundation of detailed linguistic analysis of English, which leads up to a section of "practical solutions." These solutions are consistent with the later ones that Shaywitz presents. The solutions are ways of teaching reading that concentrate on linking sounds with the wide variety of letters or syllables that represent them. This linking process is what daunts people with dyslexia.

Shaywitz emphasizes the other mental strengths that surround the dyslexic person's phonemic weakness. This emphasis on developing compensatory cognitive strengths is broadened in another good book, The Myth of Laziness by Mel Levine, MD.

In short, for the poor reader (at any age), there is now understanding--and help.