{"id":1416,"date":"2008-07-30T01:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-30T08:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2008-07-30T01:05:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-30T08:05:00","slug":"other_matters_language_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/2008\/07\/other_matters_language_1\/","title":{"rendered":"Other Matters: Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a plea for abandonment of an irritant that infests the English language. The phrase is “if you will.” Just now on a news program, an economic spokesman for one of the US presidential candidates (which one doesn’t matter; this is not a political comment) said, “if you will” nine times in the course of a ten-minute interview. In not one of those instances did “if you will” clarify, explain or inform. It only muddied understanding and interrupted thought. I think that I’ll adopt the practice of a friend. Whenever someone he’s speaking with says, “if you will,” he interrupts with, “I won’t.” <\/p>\n

\n\"She<\/span>Two editors of The Daily Telegraph<\/em> in London have corraled several hundred language misusages and obfuscations into a delightful little volume titled She Literally Exploded: The Daily Telegraph Infuriating Phrasebook<\/em>. <\/a>Sample entries:<\/p>\n

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<\/strong> They, them, their<\/strong>     Instead of he, him, his\/she, her<\/em>. A failure of pronouns to agree with verbs is a glaring grammatical error, but is embraced to avoid specifying sex: The caller withheld their number<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Basis<\/strong>     Used to form a cumbersome adverbial phrase instead of an adverb: on a daily basis<\/em>, instead of daily<\/em>; on a voluntary basis<\/em>, instead of voluntarily<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Concerns <\/strong>    After the stabbing, teachers’ representatives voiced concerns over classroom discipline.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This is a plea for abandonment of an irritant that infests the English language. The phrase is “if you will.” Just now on a news program, an economic spokesman for one of the US presidential candidates (which one doesn’t matter; this is not a political comment) said, “if you will” nine times in the course […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1416","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/rifftides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}