Yet Another Failure, This Time of Logic

I have no stake in the fight over requiring sprinklers in new houses. I wanted to make that clear from the beginning. I was, however, frustrated by the complete perversion of logic that this author perpetrates after chiding her opponents for the very same failure. Notice that her responses to the “red herrings” often consist, themselves, of red herrings.

Notice, also, her exaggeration of the number of deaths in home fires by over 9% (from 2,740 to 3,000) in an attempt to shore up her argument that the number of deaths, despite consisting of .55% of the total number of fires, is acceptable. This appears to be a response to an argument that was never made, as what sort of fool would contend that any deaths constitute an “acceptable” number? (I'm ignoring the red herring of automobile deaths for space considerations.)

The argument that sprinklers “only” cost $1.61 per square foot fails, as well. Regardless of the costs associated with whirlpools, nicer carpet, or any other voluntary upgrade, they remain voluntary. If this “refutation” intends to convince people that sprinklers should be required then you cannot compare those apples to this orange, logically. And she fails to respond to the allegation that sprinklers have not been proven to perform their intended function.

Indeed, the author attempts to say that the opponents of in-home sprinkler requirements had been wrong in the past about a different requirement and thus clearly could not be trusted to be correct about this one. Is anyone else rolling his or her eyes, by now?

I’ll not analyze the entire post here, but I wanted to share my outrage over what I see as propaganda and what is a clearly flawed set of reasons to require anything by law. Such poorly-written "refutations" make the organization for which they were written look shady rather than safety-conscious and lend weight to the very arguments purported to be disproven.

Sudden and Complete Acronym Failure

Imagine, if you will, that you read a press release that begins with the following sentence, more or less.

The City of Fargo has installed a HAWK Beacon (High Intensity Activated Crosswalk Beacon)...to aid pedestrians in crossing 40th Avenue S by Centennial Elementary School.

A laudable effort, no doubt, and one that may save the lives of incautious children. I, however, reacted not to the concept of the light but to the apparent inability of the people who created this thing to understand acronyms.

For those of you who don't see the problem here, let me explain. An acronym is a “word” made up of the first letters of a much longer name for something. They're exceedingly useful in talking about government, for example, because the names of agencies can be quite a mouthful. They also take up a lot of room on a page. Once you've explained the origin of the acronym you can write or talk about it and your audience will still know what you mean.

You cannot, however, take random letters from the name of a thing and create an “word” that you like. Doing so means that there is no way someone who sees the acronym would ever guess what those words may be. They might as well have named it a GENERA Beacon, because those letters appear in that order as well. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could just as well have been the NIN. The rules for making acronyms exist for a reason, you know.

What struck me even more strange was that HIAC sounds pretty high-tech and impressive, especially followed by the word beacon. HAWK gives me an impression of swooping and predation. Do I want small children crossing at the street where this HAWK stands, poised and ready? I'd rather a HIAC were watching out for their safety, sending out a beacon to drivers reminding them to be cautious. Wouldn't you?

Pray Tell Me What This Means

It's come to my attention that people commonly believe that Shakespeare coined the phrase "pray tell" and launched its popularity. It may be that he expanded the knowledge of the term, but in reality people used it long before ol' Will brought it to their attention. In this case, the word pray escapes religious connotations and grew from the Latin precari into preier in Old French, and then became preien, to beg or beseech.

Lest you think that precari the end of that particular language trail, the verb came from a Latin noun, prex, meaning a prayer or earnest request. A ha! Now you see how the same word can be used in both Christmas and "pagan" celebrations without any sort of religious qualms. Certainly Shakespeare had little to do with that. Happy holidays to you all, whether you're praying for world peace or simply asking your sister why she thought you'd like those socks.

Give Immemorial the High Sign

I have a habit of using archaic idioms and, as you can see from the existence of One Step Forward, becoming curious about their origins. The other day I told a co-worker that I would give her “the high sign” when I was ready for her and immediately wondered about that phrase’s history. Naturally, my friends, I thought that you might wonder the same thing.

While I discovered the term in many a dictionary and contentions that it dated back to first few years of the 20th century, I had some difficulty in uncovering the source of it. At first I thought that the high sign may have come from police or military terminology, because I could envision numerous situations in which non-verbal signals would be necessary in either field. Much to my disappointment, I’ve been unable to verify (or disprove) that theory. I’ve not yet given up the search, but I’ve no results to share just yet.

In the meantime, I read an odd phrase in an Arthur C Clarke novel that struck me as something an editor should have required him to change decades before this particular edition had been published. In the story, a robot was recalling its “immemorial memories”. I thought to look up the word immemorial before chiding Mr. Clarke here.

To my surprise, immemorial means something ancient, a thing so old that, in essence, people cannot remember a time when it did not exist. Since time immemorial, to me at least, I’ve assumed that immemorial meant that it came from a time before memory and thus could not be recalled, which meant that I took Mr. Clarke’s phrase to mean “memories so old they could not be remembered”. The subtle distinction makes a memorable difference, here. I thought I’d share these thoughts with you, in case you had a similar reaction to the phrase “immemorial memories”.

Halloween Horror in Headlines

For your edification, I'd selected a few of the least helpful headlines I've seen recently and attempted to explain just what, in my ever-so-humble opinion, has gone wrong with the things.

Feds balk at Google book deal, hopes for changes The Feds hope for changes, and Google hasn't made a deal to publish a book but to re-publish out-of-print books from many authors. This headline not only misleads readers but appears to confuse singular and plural—Feds hopes for changes—when adding the word “have” would at least have clarified the grammar. The writer of this mess thought brevity would work, but they were wrong.

EU officials warn of disappearing cod Foolishly, I thought this headline referred to the theft of a shipment of fish or perhaps to a prank pulled by a fishy magician. Imagine my surprise at reading that the poor cod faces extinction from overfishing. I feel bad for the cod and the writer of this ambiguous teaser-gone-wrong.

Mich. stares down 2nd govt. shutdown in 3 years So, three years from now Michigan will have a staring contest? Is the state trying to intimidate a shutdown for the second time within three years? Wait just one minute—Michigan is a state. It has no eyes. I'm confused, and that puts the authors of this headline in the wrong. Speaking of wrong...

White House stiffens against illegal immigrants Yes, I did find this one hilarious, but it was still a poor choice of words. I don't think a preposition exists that could have saved this one from the mental image that it generates. (Or do I just have a dirty mind? No, it must be the construction.)

I have more examples from published bits and pieces, but these headline horrors seemed only appropriate for a Halloween post. Please share any badly-written headlines you may have seen, as well. Unfortunately, writers do not limit such terrifyingly-bad language to one day a year.