Editor's Corner

As we move further away from summer (okay, it was a sweltering 90 degrees here yesterday), I thought place names might be a good topic to look at today, since some of the photos that go with this information are very “vacationy” and make me want to visit all these places.

This information is from an article called the Surprising Stories Behind 50 Country Names. I picked five stories because of the space needed for photos, and also because some of the stories are not really very surprising. 😊

Here are the winners of the day (the photo of each follows the place name and description):

Anguilla

This Caribbean island is long and thin, and its shape most likely prompted somebody — Christopher Columbus, according to some theories, but more probably French explorers — to name it for the eel, “anguilla” in Italian, “anguila” in Spanish, and “anguille” in French.

Barbados

This Caribbean island takes its name from the Portuguese phrase “os barbados,” the bearded ones, most likely a reference to the bearded fig tree (Ficus citrifolia) that grows all over the island and has long hanging roots thought to resemble facial hair. (The tree is depicted on the Barbados coat of arms.)

Cameroon

Portuguese explorers in the 16th century called this West African region’s principle river Rio dos Camarões, or river of shrimp, for the abundance of those crustaceans found there. That name evolved into Cameroon. (The river is now called the Wouri.)

Greenland

How did this ice-covered island end up getting called Greenland? It apparently got the name Grønland (Greenland in Norwegian) from the Norwegian adventurer Erik Thorvaldsson, better known as Erik the Red, in 985 A.D. The popular explanation is that he dubbed it that as a public relations measure, to encourage colonization. Ice core and mollusk shell data, however, indicate that between 800 and 1300 A.D., island temperatures were considerably warmer than they are today, so maybe he was simply reacting to a verdant landscape that has long since disappeared.

Honduras

This Central American country takes its name from the Spanish word “hondura,” meaning depth, for the deep anchorage in the Bay of Trujillo off the northern coast.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a great day!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Sorry for the second email, but the chart in my previous email included a mistake. Here is the correct pronunciation chart. Sorry for the confusion!

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Extension: 765432

Symitar Documentation Services

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The term “just deserts” has come up twice in a very short span of time, so I thought it would be a tasty topic to discuss today.

One of the questions I received is this: “Is the spelling ‘just deserts’ or ‘just desserts’? Are we referring to sweet treats; the hot, arid environment; or something else altogether?”

There’s a reason people are confused. The term “just deserts” is pronounced like the sweet treat but it is spelled like the environment. So, what’s up with that?

Let’s start with the word dessert, whichis a noun thatrefers to a sweet treat you eat after dinner. It’s spelled with two s’s and is pronounced de-ZERT. You can remember that dessert has two s’s because you always want more.

On the other hand, the word desert, with one s,has a few different definitions. It can be a noun that refers to the arid environment, and in that case, it is pronounced DEH-zert. But it can also be a verb that means “to abandon,” and when used in this context, it is pronounced like the sweet treat: de-ZERT.That makes desert a homograph: a word that is spelled the same but differs in meaning, derivation, or pronunciation.

And here’s where it gets interesting. Desert also has a less common meaning: a deserved reward of punishment. And that gives us a little more insight about “just deserts,” which actually indicates that someone got a punishment they deserve, not their favorite cake. And in this context, it is pronounced like the sweet treat. Confused yet? Maybe this chart will help:

And if you’re interested in the etymology of the term “just deserts,” according to Merriam-Webster, it was first used in the mid-1500s. Originally, you might have heard “just desert” instead of “just deserts,” and it didn’t always have an ominous connotation. At one time, it referred to anything deserved—good or bad.

Enjoy your day and your glorious just desert (or dessert if you’ve got a sweet tooth).

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Ext: 765432

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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Dear Editrix,

How about the word lickspittle? I’d never seen it until I read it in an article the other day.

Love,

Mom

Over the years, I think Donna, Jackie, Ben, and I have each written about acronyms and initialisms, yet they still seem to be a thorn in the side of many people. One of the largest complaints is that they are overused. Amen to that, brothers and sisters!

Another complaint is that when they are used, people do not explain what they stand for. My primary message today is that if you use acronyms and initialisms, you need to explain what they stand for the first time you use them.

But first, let’s have a little refresher. An abbreviation is the shortened form of a word, like “vs.” instead of “versus,” or “avg.” instead of “average.” Therefore, acronyms and initialisms are often considered abbreviations. Acronyms are abbreviations that are pronounced like words (EASE, HELOC, MICR). Initialisms are abbreviations that are pronounced by saying each letter (AIX, OS, PTO).

When you use an acronym or initialism that is not commonly known, the JHA rule is to spell it out the first time and put the abbreviation in parentheses. (If you aren’t sure how common it is, err on the side of caution and spell it out.) After you spell it out with the abbreviation once, you can use the abbreviation alone. For example:

• We could all save money and improve the way we do things if we practiced continuous process improvement (CPI). CPI has cut costs in several departments and prevented waste in others.
• Use the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) method to manage the new user experience (UX) project with single sign-on (SSO). We think people will really look forward to SSO because it is such a time saver.

While that might seem like a lot of “’splainin’ to do, Lucy,” imagine this: your email is being read by someone in another department, or possibly a new employee. It only takes a second to spell things out the first time so that your audience isn’t reading or hearing the acronyms like this the first time:

• Use the PDCA method to manage the new UX project with SSO.

If you need some assistance, we have these Symitar resources:

• Symitar Acronyms
• Standard Report Abbreviations (Episys)

If you would like to read more about acronyms and initialisms, you can revisit these Editor’s Corner posts:

• Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations
• Using Periods in Acronyms and Initialisms
• A Little More About Acronyms and Initialisms

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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Dear Editrix,

There’s a tiger team for Episys PowerFrame. There’s a tiger team for SEDB/SSDB. Every time I turn around, there’s a tiger popping up here at Symitar. Where did this term “tiger team” come from?

Signed,

On Safari

Dear Mr. Safari,

A couple of weeks ago, one of our fearless leaders asked me about the origin of the word copacetic. I found several answers, but professional etymologists did not give any of them the thumbs up. Today, you ask me about tiger teams, and I feel a little sad that, again, I cannot provide a definitive answer. But many resources claim they know the origin of this term, so we’ll look at those.

First, though, let me provide a definition of tiger team: a tiger team is a group of specialists that join together to solve a specific problem.

Second, I will tell you that I found several different branches of the U.S. military claiming it was theirs, including the Navy and the Marines. I guess that makes sense, since tigers are fierce. (Okay, that didn’t come out right.)

I found many more sites that pin it to NASA and the Apollo 13 team (1970). From a site called Trextel, here is the information I found, also repeated on other websites:

While the term originated at NASA, and the most famous instance is undoubtedly the Apollo 13 Tiger Team (they did, after all, receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom), the term is now generally applied to a high-functioning team of specialists who come together to complete a specific project.

Wikipedia mentions a paper written in 1964, as an earlier use of the term. It says:

A paper entitled Program Management in Design and Development used the term tiger teams and defined it as "a team of undomesticated and uninhibited technical specialists, selected for their experience, energy, and imagination, and assigned to track down relentlessly every possible source of failure in a spacecraft subsystem."

My favorite information, however, is a different comment from the same Wikipedia article:

Jane Goodall, [KC – English primatologist and anthropologist] among others, has noted that tigers are not cooperative animals and has suggested referring to chimpanzee teams because of the intense cooperation that occurs in chimpanzee social groups.

So, there you have it! I hope that satisfies some of your curiosity.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

619-542-6773 | Ext: 766773

Symitar Documentation Services

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Good morning, writers and readers. It’s another fine day—a good day to think about noun strings (a definition is upcoming).

We all know that technical and business writing needs to be concise. Let’s face it, people aren’t reading this kind of material for pleasure (not sane people, anyway); they’re reading to get specific information or because they need to complete a task. Because the writing needs to be concise, writers sometimes make the mistake of trying to fit too much information into too few words. They often use long noun strings that are hard for readers to unpack; a noun string is a group of nouns jammed together, like this:

• We will focus on front-office employee efficiency enhancement procedures development.

Now that’s a doozy! I count six nouns in a row (one of them hyphenated). If you tend to use noun strings in your writing, you’re not alone. Technical writing is rife with them. However, our goal is to ensure that our writing is easy to understand. And long noun strings hinder comprehension. That means you should break up long noun strings to two nouns in a row—three at most. And you can do that by reversing the word order.

Exactly how do you do that? When you need to revise a long noun string, a fairly easy way to do it is to start at the end of the noun string and work your way back. In our example (repeated below), the last noun is development:

• We will focus on front-office employee efficiency enhancement procedures development.

So, we’ll move development up, but we need to change the form of the word development to a gerund (an “ing” word)—stick with me, I think this will start to make sense in a minute:

• We will focus on developing…

There are usually multiple ways to revise. For instance, you could also say “We will focus on the development of…” I chose developing because it’s shorter. The goals are to break up the noun string and to be clear and concise.

Now we just continue moving backward—and the sentence kind of falls into place:

• We will focus on developing procedures…

The next noun enhancement becomes a verb: to enhance:

• We will focus on developing procedures to enhance…

Continuing backward, we add the word efficiency:

• We will focus on developing procedures to enhance the efficiency…

And the final phrase front-office employees can stay as it is because front-office is working as an adjective that clarifies which employees we’re discussing. We end up with this:

• We will focus on developing procedures to enhance the efficiency of front-office employees.

We could say “…to enhance the efficiency of employees in the front office” but again, I opted for the shorter revision.

If this seems a little confusing, don’t worry so much about the “form of the word” (noun, verb, gerund). Think more about starting at the end of the noun string and working your way back—that’s the trick. Let’s try another example:

• I had to complete a workplace conflict management course.

Start at the end of the noun string:

• I had to complete a course…

Now what makes sense when breaking up those last three nouns? You have a few options: you could leave conflict management together since it’s a common phrase, or you could break it up:

• I had to complete a course on conflict management…
• I had to complete a course for managing conflict…

And now just finish it off:

• I had to complete a course on conflict management in the workplace.
• I had to complete a course for managing conflict in the workplace.

This process takes a little practice, but after a few revisions, I think you’ll find that the writing gets easier. And I can tell you for sure that the reading will be easier for your audience.

If you’re interested, here are a couple more sentences you can practice on:

• You must sign the information disclosure authorization form.
• I found a useful online mortgage payment calculation tool.

Scroll down to see possible revisions.

• You must sign the form to authorize the disclosure of information.
• I found a useful online tool for calculating mortgage payments.

Thanks for sticking with me today. This was a long one. You get extra points for reading to the end. 😊

Donna Bradley Burcher | Senior Technical Editor | Symitar®

8985 Balboa Ave. | San Diego, CA 92123 | Ph. 619.278.0432 | Ext: 765432

About Editor’s Corner

Editor’s Corner keeps your communication skills sharp by providing information on grammar, punctuation, JHA style, and all things English. As editors, we spend our days reading, researching, and revising other people’s writing. We love to spend a few extra minutes to share what we learn with you and keep it fun while we’re doing it.

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A few weeks ago, I announced Merriam-Webster’s addition of they/them/their as singular, non-binary pronouns. In response, my manager sent me an interesting article on the word “you.” It explains how we went from “thou” (second person singular) and you (second person plural), to just “you” to mean one person or many people. But the story doesn’t end there, and that is what this article is about. I had to cut pieces out because it was a little long, but if you want to read the whole thing, it is here: The Surprising Origins of the Phrase ‘You Guys’byAllan Metcalf.

… In addition to indicating an audience of two or more, the second-person plural (“you”) was trying to do double duty. It was becoming a sign of respect when addressed to one person. By implication, then, “thou” was stigmatized. If someone addressed you as “thou,” it became natural to assume that the speaker had less respect for you.

So over the course of around a thousand years, with plural “you” encroaching on the singular territory of “thou,” the latter finally gave up the struggle and yielded the singular second person to “you,” which was already the plural. Speakers and writers no longer could tell whether an instance of the second person was singular or plural.

For the next two centuries, people had to make do with this ambiguity, as they looked for a good way to signify a plural “you.”

They tried, for example, putting a plural “s” on “you,” making it “yous” or “youse,” both odd looking. Others tried adding a word after “you” to indicate plural: “you people,” “you folks” and “you ones,” or more colloquially “you-uns,” abbreviated “yinz.” Some added a word specifying the audience, like “you ladies.” None of these options had much widespread success, except for the special case of “you all,” also “y’all.”

Meanwhile, while no candidate was attractive enough to step into the shoes of “thou,” a word was born that would twist and turn on its way to success. It came from the terrifying near-success and utter defeat of the Gunpowder Plot, a scheme to explode 36 barrels of gunpowder under the House of Lords in London on Nov. 5, 1605, when Lords and Commons and bishops and other nobility and royalty gathered in that one room for the annual opening of Parliament. The arch-villain who nearly succeeded in blowing to bits hundreds of leading officials of King James’ Protestant government…was an English Catholic gentleman and soldier named Guy Fawkes. He was in the basement under the House of Lords, ready to light the fuses, when a search party caught him just in time.

Soon his name was on everyone’s lips, as he was interrogated, tortured, tried, convicted and executed before the end of January 1606….

That led to the pivotal moment in the history of “guy”: Parliament approved a “Fifth of November Act,” that is, “An act for publick thanksgiving to Almighty God every year on the fifth day of November.” The new holiday would feature special religious services during the day and bonfires at night, lighting fires to mock the man who hadn’t succeeded.

In the fires they burned effigies of the Pope, Guy Fawkes and other archenemies of the moment. They referred to the effigies of Fawkes as “guys.” And then some people began to use “guys” to refer to actual people: men of the lowest and most depraved kind. This was early in the 18th century, more than 200 years ago.

Scarcely anybody noticed, but speakers and writers then began to view “guys” (not Guy) more positively. “Guys” began to shift meaning, to become a term for working-class men, then every human male, from baby boys to ancient men. Speakers and writers found it useful to have a generic term that didn’t require differentiating among categories of males.

Then by the middle of the 20th century, women began using the word too. They increasingly used “you guys” when addressing others in the plural, regardless of gender. More and more speakers unconsciously voted for “guys,” till that was that: it was the people’s choice.

In recent years, some concerned citizens have pushed back against the idea that it’s an egalitarian term, embracing us all—and it is of course possible that language could once again change. But regardless of our reasons, until an alternative gets enough votes to replace it, “guys” will retain the top spot in the second person plural domain of the English language.

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Hello, my friends! I am up visiting my dad and working from my parents’ home office. I brought a lecture series up from San Diego—DVDs and a book on ancient Rome and the emperors, because I like a little light entertainment. My dad and I had a blast going through the first two lectures and I learned something I thought was very interesting. Without delving into the entire history of the Roman Empire, I thought I would just share a little bit with you.

Basically, after the death of Julius Caesar, and then the battle of Actium, Octavius took charge–but did not want to appear to be taking over, because he didn’t want to end up killed like his predecessor. Part of his cleverness was to give those around him supposed power and the illusion of choice—yet in the end, they all came back to him for approval.

Another amazing move he made was in choosing his new name and titles: Augustus, Princeps Primitatis, Imperator, and Pater Patriae. Here’s where it gets interesting word-wise.

With his careful use of language and his choice of words, Augustus’ titles alone made people associate him with piety, citizenship, fearless military leadership, and fatherhood. It spread his “goodness” out over a lot of different areas that Romans cared about, and at the same time, allowed him to be one man in control of an empire. Many of his followers lacked his skills and talents, but that will be covered in the next few lectures we’ll watch. I hope this was as interesting to you as it was to me!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services

Dear Editrix,

This morning, I heard a ‘90s rock song with the following lyric: “And you just don’t get it / You keep it copacetic.”

I had only a vague idea of what “copacetic” meant, so when I got into work, I consulted Merriam-Webster. It gave the definition “very satisfactory; fine and dandy” and then, intriguingly, “origin unknown.”

Can you shed any light on the history of this word?

Rockin’ and wondering.

Dear Rockin’,

My first thought was that I’d heard this in a lot of movies, and I love mafia movies, so I was thinking maybe that where it was from. Then I realized I didn’t really have a clue, so I started digging a little deeper.

First, I started with my buddy at the Online Etymology Dictionary. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far. This is what he had to say:

copacetic (adj.)

"fine, excellent, going well," 1919, but it may have origins in 19c. U.S. Southern black speech. Origin unknown; suspects include Latin, Yiddish (Hebrew kol b’seder), Italian, Louisiana French (coupe-sétique), and Native American. Among linguists, none is considered especially convincing.

On the Stack Exchange, someone provided more information, but the question still wasn’t answered:

I once heard the late John Ciardi try to explain that the 1920s idiom, "copacetic" (meaning completely satisfactory), entered into the African-American vocabulary in Harlem from the days when Jews and African Americans lived there together. He argued that copacetic has the same meaning as the Israeli idiom "kol b’seder" which literally means "all is in order." The problem with that, said my Harlem-raised father-in-law, is that the Jews in Harlem spoke Yiddish and kol b’seder was not used in Yiddish. The dictionary I’ve got is not helpful. Can someone come up with a better explanation?

The answer was no.

A general Google search says this:

Copacetic is an unusual English language word in that it is one of the few words of unknown origin that is not considered slang in contemporary usage. Its use is found almost exclusively in North America. Its most likely origin comes from African American slang in the late 19th century.

I went a little further to see what Wiktionary said. It covers a lot of the different theories, including these (I have not made changes to the text, so it contains some errors):

• Nard Jones in Seattle (1972) mentions copacete as Chinook Jargon. He was from Seattle and rather old by then, and seems to have had more than a smattering of Chinook Jargon. He discusses at some length people roughly a generation older than him who were fluent. I myself moved to Seattle in 1977 and I would say that "copacetic" was and remains pretty current here. Pretty sure I’d rarely, if ever, heard it before coming here…. So, whatever its origins, it may be mostly a regionalism.
• The writer of The Disco Blog uses it annoyingly frequently and she appears to be American software developer.
• It is mentioned in the song Dirty Frank by Pearl Jam, from their first album Ten. The song tells the story, in a humorous way, of a bus driver that is a cannibal. It is mentioned in this verse: Keeps it clean, keeps it copaseptic // The little boys and girls, their heads are all collected. The way it is used here implies a meaning similar to copiously clean, aseptic or antiseptic.
• It is used in the Grateful Dead song "West LA Fadeaway" ca. 1982, in a phrase discussing the narrator’s job fencing stolen goods for the mob: "the pay was pathetic/it’s a shame those boys couldn’t be more copacetic."
• The blues/jazz/swing musician, Cab Calloway, included it (spelled ”kopasetic”) in the 1944 edition of his HIPSTER’S DICTIONARY (subtitled LANGUAGE OF JIVE). He defines it as “absolutely okay, the tops.” I heard it often while growing up white middle-class suburban in Alabama in the 1950s and 1960s.

So, the bottom line is that I didn’t find anything more definitive than the dictionary’s “unknown.” Interesting how many stories have come up to define it, however. I hope that makes this worth your while!

Kara Church

Technical Editor, Advisory

Symitar Documentation Services