I know that I recently talked about the fact that not everyone celebrates Christmas, but I don’t think that means the holiday should be ignored.
Many people care about Christmas, and many of those care about whether it will be a white Christmas–even those who typically despise snow.
From a weather perspective (remember, I’m a meteorologist, too), many of us will, indeed, have a white Christmas, which is defined as having at least an inch of snow on the ground on Christmas day.
It does not have to be snowing on Christmas day–just snow on the ground.
The tendency to say simple things in complicated ways is so common that over-inflated language could be a blog on its own.
You might say:
There is a tendency among professionals to use an excess of superfluous verbiage in attempt to facilitate effective collaboration and dialogue among peers, supervisors, and valued customers when performing professional tasks and dealing with potential issues and concerns on a daily basis. The overarching goal is to manufacture an accurate image of their advanced intellectual capabilities; however, this stilted and inflated approach is counterproductive and surprisingly inefficient.
Or, you could simply say:
We use too many words and too many big words to try and prove how smart we are, and it doesn’t work.
Warning: I’ve done my share of off-topic posts on the blog, but this one is more off-topic than most, so I’ve included this warning: Don’t blame me if the following offends your political sensibilities!
Politics is People
We often talk about politics in the United States as if it’s some sort of us-versus-them game, and that’s certainly been the case this week with the heated debate about taxes. Games though, don’t affect people’s lives, and politics is how we determine what kind of society we’re going to have.
Whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, or Independent, anyone making a reasonable analysis of the tax “compromise” will conclude that it’s much more advantageous to the rich than the middle class or the poor.
The argument can be made–and has been made for the past 30 years–that tax advantages for the rich is the best way to result in widespread wealth, but since the disparity between the rich and poor has grown during that time, it’s a shallow philosophical argument.
Wealth and Life Expectancy
The richer a country is, the higher the life expectancy is of its citizens. Also, the richer a segment of the population of a country is, the higher the life expectancy of that segment is versus the rest of the population.
Perhaps the only reason is obesity, which was the focus of the article. I doubt that, but even if that were true, we can expect the trend of decreasing life expectancy–at least when compared to nations with less wealth disparity–to continue based on our current political decisions.
I know that retailers always try to top each other during the Christmas shopping season, but Target has seemingly gotten carried away: Everything in the store is free, at least for me.
That’s because, according a recent advertisement sent to my home, I (or current resident) am a Target “guest.”
That makes Target at host, of course, and a host would never charge a guest for anything. When a host invites me to dinner, it’s free! When a host invites me on a weekend outing, it’s free!
When I host a party, I buy the cocktail wieners. When I host a birthday party, I would never charge for a piece of cake.
It’s free. It’s free. It’s free.
When I go into a store, I’m a customer, and the store is a retailer. That’s the relationship. It’s not a guest/host relationship.
But it’s good for me–because there have been a few things I’ve had my eye on.
This is something that originally appeared in a weather post on my weather blog (Cloudy and Cool) last year. It was a larger post about the possibility of a White Christmas for many. The weather part of the blog is not applicable now, but since Hanukkah is currently going on, this part is:
Not Everyone Celebrates Christmas!
When talking about Christmas, it seems silly to randomly substitute the word holidays in an attempt to be inclusive of others. A Christmas tree is not more inclusive if it’s called a holiday tree, and Christmas lights are not any less denominational when called holiday lights.
There’s a better way of being inclusive of non-Christians: Treat them with the respect they deserve.
For example, don’t wish someone who you know celebrates Hanukkah a “Happy Holiday” on December 25 when Hanukkah was three weeks earlier. Instead, wish them a Happy Hanukkah during Hanukkah. Similarly, don’t assume that people who you don’t know celebrate Christmas.
Also, don’t be upset if stores cater to people of all religions (or the non-religious) by talking about the entire holiday season rather than focusing on just Christmas.
There is a lot of discussion at this time of year about a war on Christmas by those who believe that Christmas is a national event, not a religious event.
We want to remind everyone that Christmas is a religious holiday that is not celebrated by everyone.
Did you run a grammar check, spell check, and tone check before sending that important e-mail to your boss?
If you were like me (until fairly recently), I didn’t know that it was possible to run a tone check–a program that checks for words, clauses, and sentences that “may convey unintended emotion or tone, then helps you re-write them.”
That quote was ToneCheck.com, which is offering to help by providing you with a tool that will check the tone of your e-mail.
We’re not endorsing the product or recommending that you add it to your computer, but it is true that the tone of communication is as important (or more important) than the words you choose. This is especially true of e-mail since people can’t see the non-verbal cues that might give the person the correct impression.
Personally, I’m guessing that common sense would work better than a computer program.
When you heard that refudiate, Sarah Palin’s mistaken combination of refute and repudiate, was made one of the New Oxford American Dictionary’s words of the year, I’m sure that the first thing you thought about was the rant that languageandgrammar.com was going to write.
We chose, instead, to allow Seth Meyers of Saturday Night Live to do our work for us since he did such a great job last weekend.
The second thing you probably thought of was how ridiculous the choice was. Seriously, refudiate? Come on, dictionary. It was two words slapped together by mistake by a politician, and by politician, I mean someone who prefers money to politics since Ms. Palin left her elected post 18 months early in order to earn more money.
I think that the reason to make a clear error a “word” of the year in this instance is because of the person who made the error and because of the interest it would generate for Oxford dictionary. Media and Web attention is often more important than substance for many.
Hmmmm…maybe Sarah and the Oxford Dictionary have a lot in common.
Wait! That’s right. I promised to let Mr. Meyers rant for us….
We have often noted that often repeated language and grammar errors seem to become “correct” usage. Wouldn’t it be weird if math used that philosophy? When enough people said 2+2=5, it would! It would still equal 4, of course, but it would also equal 5.
In the vein, I thought that I’d go off topic today and note a particularly pervasive myth that is constantly stated at this time of year:
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year.
Not only is it typically NOT the busiest travel day of the year, it’s often not even close–at least as far as air travel is concerned. As recently as 2008, there were 220 busier travel days that year.
Granted, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is still busiest travel day of the year for people who are willing to go a surprisingly long distance to eat turkey, which may very well be overcooked.
It’s surprising that the myth has survived as long as it has. First of all, there are records for such things. Second, while many people travel for the holiday, they’re not competing with business travelers for the most part–a large portion of normal travelers are staying at home.
By the way, if you are traveling, then you might want to check out my AOL News article on possible weather-related travel delays.
In case you hadn’t noticed, we changed the look of the blog recently. The most recent template didn’t highlight the pages on the site as well as this one does, so let me introduce (or re-introduce) some of the pages here.
Sherry’s Grammar List: This is a list of common grammar errors that Sherry Coven has written for the blog. This is the most popular page on the site.
Paul List: This is a list of Paul’s entries (not completely updated yet), which includes more language than traditional grammar posts.
Everything Language and Grammar 