The bigger the better? How irregular

I am not a coffee drinker, generally. I am one of those supercilious types who sips on green tea while others pollute their bodies. As I write, a large cup of Lipton peppermint and cinnamon tea is steaming away by my keyboard. However, occasionally, when no-one is looking, I do indulge in the odd latte.

Sunday afternoon was just such an occasion. On the way home from a wedding, as I scampered across Victoria station juggling a couple of bags and a slight hangover, Delice de France caught my eye (or my nostrils).

I ordered a brie and bacon croissant and a latte. "A regular latte?" asked the man. Yes, a regular latte. The more-than-£5 bill was a bit of a shocker, but hey, it's London.

And
then
came
the
coffee.

The man behind the counter put the crane into gear and started cranking. Slowly, my coffee rose into view. The counter groaned as it took the weight. I shouldered my bags and with both hands, reached out to lift the cup. As I took possession, my muscles trembled under the strain. Finally, a passing security chap, resplendent in fluorescent yellow, hailed one of those beeping cars, which eventually transported me and my swimming pool of coffee to platform 18.

Well, something like that, anyway.

"Regular". Are you serious?

Let me read to you from the OED, Delice de France.

regular
denoting merchandise, especially food or drink, of average, medium or standard size

So how big is an average, medium, standard, regular coffee? Well call me old-fashioned, but shouldn't this be... umm... the regular size you make at home? Y'know, an average cup. A normal one, if you will. Say about 10 ounces? So then a 'small' would be perhaps 8oz and a large would be 12oz. But no. I am pretty sure that I was given a good 16oz of latte – that, fellow pedants, is a pint. A pint!

Now I admit that I shouldn't have fallen for the old "a regular latte?" marketing trick. But still. This is silly. One pint of coffee and milk is not regular. In fact, I would argue that it is highly irregular. Most of it was milk, so... that's the best part of 261 calories and 9.1 grams of fat. If I'd known that, I'd have gone for chocolate cake instead, dammit.

Political parties listen up! First one to promise legislation on appropriate use of adjectives of size gets my vote. No more primo, medio and massimo, Costa. No more tall, grande and venti, Starbucks. No more ridiculous regulars, Delice. C'mon, Mr Brown, Mr Cameron, Mr Clegg. Last one there's a Tory!

Googling my plight, I discovered this post from a disgruntled Starbucks customer protesting against being made to say 'venti'. Very funny.

Oh, those cheeky prepositions!

Well I brought this upon myself and I won't pretend otherwise.
I asked for questions – and boy, did I get them.

Young Mr Ball at the Bureau of Investigative Hackery twittered gleefully: 'Tackle with/from/of. I know it's "bored with" but "died of"? "died from"? "made of"? HELP.'

Well Mr Ball, the main thing to say is that it's a big sticky mess – but you knew that already. So here goes. Perhaps not my wittiest ever post, but I hope it is at least useful to some.

I'm going for the 'made of/with/from' chestnut first, as it's one that has been gently bothering me for a while. I couldn't find a nice clean guide on this anywhere, so I have racked my brains (yes, I believe it is racked, not wracked) and come up with a working model. Well, it works for me, anyway... but I am certainly open to being further enlightened.

• Use made of if the material retains its original properties: "the chair is made of wood."
• Use made from if the material's original properties have changed: "paper is made from wood."
• Use made with to describe an addition to usual components – "Battenburg cake is made with ground almonds." (I can't think of any non-cooking example of when you would use this.)

'Die' was an easy one. Nice simple explanation in the OED:

die
the normal constructions are to die of (a malady, hunger, old age, etc) or to die from ( a wound, inattention, etc).

Anyone bored yet? And if so, are you bored with me, by me, or of me, you ungrateful beasts? If it's the third, you have a regrettable tendency, so read on! According to Fowler's:

bore
The normal constructions are with with or with by: they were bored with being left alone in the country; he became bored with Patrick; they were bored by the party political broadcasts. A regrettable tendency has emerged in recent years to construe the verb with of.

And then there's the old favourite, compare. It is almost always written as compared to, but almost always should be compared with. The former is only used to describe similarity, whereas the latter is used for contrasts and, well, comparisons.

Even The Times and the Guardian style guides agree:

The Times:
compare with/to compare with (the more common use) when differences or contrasts are the point - “compare the saints with the devils” or “compared with last year's figures” etc; compare to for likenesses - “compare this image to a damsel fair”

Guardian:
compare to/with
The former means liken to, the latter means make a comparison: so unless you are specifically likening someone or something to someone or something else (eg Nothing Compares 2 U), use compare with. A former lord chancellor compared himself to Cardinal Wolsey because he believed he was like Wolsey; I might compare him with Wolsey to assess their relative merits

Ah, but that's not the end of the story. There are more. Different from/to (not than, please), scared of/by... But surely, that's enough for one day.

Art desk in teaching-subs-a-word shocker!

Brace yourselves.

A brace, as a collective noun, does not mean what I thought it did.

It is one of those words that has hovered on the periphery of my consciousness, never needing to be written or spoken (or looked up), just casually absorbed on occasion. I'd heard "a brace of pheasants" and suchlike and assigned it a vague meaning of 'several'.

Wrong!

Upon hearing the phrase "a brace of c***s" used to describe two, ahem, football players, I enquired as to the meaning and was told it meant 'two'. It is often used in sports commentary, apparently.

To the OED I went – and I tip my hat. Indeed it does mean two, or, more specifically, a pair.

brace:
a pair of something, typically of birds or mammals killed in hunting

Is cod a species or a specie?

That was the question the fresh desk threw at the subs desk amid the sweat and blood of press day. The senior reporter had been admonished at a fishy convention for using the word 'species' in the singular.

Having always used 'species' for both singular and plural uses, I began to sweat/glow slightly from the palms at this question. But the OED's response warmed my subby little heart.

Not only were the fresh desk and the subs desk victorious in their rightness (I was right, right, RIGHT I tell you), but the fish man was wrong. Terribly wrong. Mwah ha haaaa.

specie:
(mass noun)
money in the form of coins rather than notes

species:
noun (pl same)
a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding

So unless we are talking about cod coins, we'll stick with 'species' thank you ever so.

When "to" just won't quite do

Around this time last year there came a command from on high that dashes must no longer be used between two figures to show a minimum-to-maximum variation. To put that in English, "£60m-£70m" was banned. We were told to change our style guide to say that "to" must be used instead. So "£60m to £70m".

(This happens quite a lot here – hence we lower case "government" in all instances, much to - ahem - some people's chagrin.)

The reasoning behind the outlawing of the dash was that it was ugly. Perhaps so. However, there is a serious problem with substituting it with "to", which was demonstrated yesterday.

Defra's Milk Road Map commits farms to reduce water by 5% to 15% per litre of milk by 2010 and big dairies to cut water use by 30% by 2020.

Aside from the fact that the layperson could interpret this to mean water content in milk, rather than the water footprint of milk, the figures here are open to interpretation. Does it aim to reduce water usage by 5% and bring it to a level of 15%, or to reduce water usage by between 5% and 15%?

I strongly suspect the latter, as the former doesn't make much sense. We are awaiting confirmation... Watch this space.*

Regarding the dash/to issue, I think in most instances both can be avoided by the use of "between xxx and xxx".

*Anyone who finds him or herself actually watching this space is advised to seek medical advice.

How old is an infant?

My sources tell me voices and tempers were raised at The Sunday Times this weekend, over the subject of children. Or, more specifically, infants.

The story in question was that of five-year-old Sahil Saeed, who was kidnapped in Punjab on Friday.

The source of the editorial unrest was that the copy described the child as an 'infant' - a word that has two meanings in British English: 1) a schoolchild aged between five and seven; 2) a baby.

Although this was apparently a matter of great debate at The Sunday Times, the members of our subs desk unanimously agree that the prevailing meaning is 'baby'. A little investigation into the origins of the word (in the OED) was helpful:

from Latin infant- 'unable to speak', from in 'not' + fant- 'speaking' (from the verb fari)

But where are the rules? Neither The Times nor the Guardian style guides address the subject, and Fowler is of little assistance. And what of toddlers, babies, youths etc?

After some discussion, we have decided upon:

Baby/infant - up to 18 months
Toddler - 18 months to three years
Child - 18 months to 12 years??
Youth - 12 years to 18 years
Teenager - obvious

Erm... does anyone have a more specific guide?

Iconic behemoths

Behemoths roam the country! Beware, beware! Rarely, it seems, do we mention a large company without referring to it in the following paragraph as "the retail behemoth", "the soft drinks behemoth", "the lollipop behemoth" (okay, so I made the last one up) etc.

Let's take a moment here. A behemoth is a big scary monster, a "huge or monstrous creature", according to the OED.

More specifically, it is a big scary monster from the Book of Job.

Behold now the behemoth that I have made with you; he eats grass like cattle. Behold now his strength is in his loins and his power is in the navel of his belly. His tail hardens like a cedar; the sinews of his tendons are knit together. His limbs are as strong as copper, his bones as a load of iron. His is the first of God's ways; [only] his Maker can draw His sword [against him].

I would suggest, therefore, that this is not a synonym for 'supermarket'. Lets save it for the very big and powerful – and let's use it sparingly. It's a bloody fantastic word and deserves to be treated as such. Bring on the metaphors – but make them work.

Another one is 'iconic'. Now I know I have ranted about this before, but I'll say it again: it does not just mean impressive, well-established or famous.

Here's the OED definition:

icon:
a painting of Christ or another holy figure, typically in a traditional style on wood, venerated and used as an aid to devotion in the Byzantine or other Eastern churches.
A person or thing regarded as a representative symbol of something: this iron-jawed icon of American manhood

Iconic:
of, or relating to, the nature of an icon

So Coca-Cola is not iconic. Unless you worship it (yes, yes, I am sure there are those that do). Neither is the Cadbury bunny. Or L'Oreal's "because I'm worth it" strapline. The film Avatar could perhaps be referred to as iconic. Or the WeightWatchers points system. People do, after all, appear to be openly worshipping both. But again, let's keep 'iconic' true to its meaning and not use it willynilly to describe any old impressive thing.

Yes. Let that be a lesson to you, world!

Groundhog Day

These are treacherous times.

Our deputy features editor has just revealed that he yesterday inserted a clanger into his copy on purpose to see if I would pick it up and blog about it. A cheeky little trick to pull on a press day, I say.

The offending sentence was:

It felt like groundhog day all over again

I changed it to

It felt like Groundhog Day

And went on my merry way.

However, since he revealed his treachery this morning, I have started to ask myself whether I was right to change it. He meant to convey a feeling of something happening all over again, having already been repeated several times before. However... the actual (y'know, actual) Groundhog Day does not carry this meaning.

The OED says:

Groundhog Day:
2 February, when the groundhog is said to come out of its hole at the end of hibernation. If the animal sees its shadow - ie if the weather is sunny - it is said to portend six weeks more of winter weather.

The film of the same name, however, was about a TV weatherman who wakes up to the same day over and over again (can't imagine how that would feel) - and it was clearly to this meaning that my dear colleague was referring.

So... was I right to change it? Has the movie meaning superseded the dictionary meaning? Or did I effectively change his comment so that it likened a sustainability forum to a woodchuck coming out of its hole? Hmm...

Circumventing the ready meal

(A bit like Romancing the Stone, but less... er... romantic)

The wilds of Crawley appear fairly free of dastardly lexical deeds today. However, this one did raise a chuckle:

[Company] redesigned the packaging so that all the information was on a watch strap-shaped strip of cardboard circumventing the meal.

Alarm bells ring... rightly so, it transpires. The OED says:

Circumvent:
find a way around [an obstacle], overcome (a problem or difficulty) typically in a clever and surreptitious way: terrorists found the airport checks easy to circumvent.

Sneaky little cardboard strip!

The Guardian has a Word of Mouth blog post on foodie mispronunciations today, with such beauties as crudités pronounced "crudd-ites" and mange tout as "mango trout".

My favourite response so far comes from Pippatree:

Not a mispronunciation, but a mistranslation. As a student in a French conversation class, we were discussing food; fast food and ready meals in particular. I made the point that I thought there are too many preservatives in ready-prepared meals. Unfortunately and embarrassingly, 'preservative' in French is conservateur and not, as I assumed, préservatif, although too many condoms in ready meals would also be an issue for me.

The inner pervert

Lurking Tourette's syndrome: we all have it. My keyboard expressed it for me on Friday, by omitting the crucial 'o' in "the opportunities are countless". Yes, the crucial 'o' - not either of the ones in 'opportunity'. Anyway, now I have my shiny new keyboard (which is disappointingly silent and cannot be clattered upon, no matter how hard I bash), I'm safe - right?

Wrong!

In the words of Sage Davies: "We all have it latently and our subconscious is constantly trying to express it."

It's true. The BBC had a 'pubic' on its homepage the other day, where it should have had a 'public'. And a member of our subs desk recently transformed Richard Pennycook into Richard Pennycock in a headline (rectified before publishing – and no comment, one presumes, on Mr Pennycook).

That same person - let us not dillydally over what may or may not be weighing upon his/her mind - also recently wrote the following headline. Bear in mind this is in nice big print and the eye takes in the first line first...

Shuddering over past cock-
ups and mistakes? They
formed your best training

This was, I think wisely, changed to the following:

Shuddering over previous
cock-ups and errors? They
formed your best training

Last week, in his online Q&A, The Times' chief revise editor Richard Dixon admitted:

At the Telegraph, I innocently wrote a cricket headline: "Willey stands firm for unbeaten 97". It is memorable, at least to me and the poor chief sub who let it through.

And the chief sub here owns up to having had a rather red-faced moment as a trainee at the Reading Chronicle:

Willy gets cocky

It was a story about a little boy - called William - who dressed up as a chicken for a birthday party. Luckily, the proofreaders intervened.

The conclusion? Whether you know it or not, you have an inner pervert just waiting to get out. And the less you look like one on the outside, the more embarrassing it will be when it happens. How to avoid it? Put your dirty head on and look again!

Finally, I couldn't resist. The cock-up headline was just begging to be rewritten as a haiku - you know it. So, here's my offering:

Shuddering over
Cock-ups and errors now past?
They were your training.

Life of Bi

This is one of those niggly ones that crop up just infrequently enough to be forgotten.

I have gone to the oracle (The Times Style Guide), as follows:

bi
Its correct use is in Latin compounds, where it has the force of two, not half, such as bicentenary/bicentennial (a two-hundredth anniversary), or biennial (recurring every two years). Biannual means twice a year; to avoid confusion, write out twice a year.

Biweekly, meanwhile, is even stickier. According to Oxford, it can mean twice weekly or every two weeks. Best to steer clear and go for fortnightly and twice weekly, methinks.