The San Diego Historical Society has identified Bill Swank, who lives in Clairemont, as \u201cSan Diego\u2019s preeminent baseball historian.\u201d Here\u2019s a message I recently received from Bill,followed by my response:<\/p>\n
DEAR RICHARD: Young people often substitute \u201cNo problem,\u201d for \u201cThank you.\u201d Recently, I took my wife to a popular, upscale restaurant for our 40th weddinganniversary dinner. Over the years, we have often gone to this establishment to celebrate special events. Now I hold my wife\u2019s arm at all times, because she is blind.The host led us to a booth. In the past, a host or hostess of a restaurant would politely help seat female guests. Booths can be difficult to navigate. Frequently, the table can be pulledout or rotated.<\/p>\n
The young host stood watching as I helped my wife.<\/p>\n
I explained that she is blind.<\/p>\n
He said, \u201cNo problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, problem?<\/p>\n
Clearly, we were having a problem because of my wife\u2019s blindness.<\/p>\n
During our dinner, our waitress was equally insensitive and used the same phrase more than once. Although we experienced problems from the start, we were being told, \u201cNo problem.\u201d\u00a0In the future, returning to this restaurant will be \u201cno problem.\u201d It\u2019s \u201cadios.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEAR BILL: I too have a problem with \u201cno problem.\u201d When someone says, \u201cThank you\u201d to me, I respond, \u201cYou\u2019re welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
At a restaurant, I ask my server for extra tomatoes on my salad. When they deliver the tomatoes, I say, \u201cThank you\u201d \u2014 and they respond, \u201cNo problem.\u201d I want to grab my server bythe collar and snarl, \u201cOf course it\u2019s no problem! It\u2019s your job!\u201d<\/p>\n
If, on the other hand, when someone acts a + b the c of d (alphabetically that stands for \u201cabove and beyond the call of duty\u201d), I am more accepting.<\/p>\n
I was recently manning my book booth at a convention and found that I was short on small bills. A kindly woman offered $1 and $5 bills for my larger ones, explaining that shealways carries small bills for vendors who need them. To my \u201cThank you\u201d she said, \u201cNo problem.\u201d That was copacetic with me because she had acted a + b the c of d.<\/p>\n
DEAR RICHARD: I don\u2019t know if you look at the comic page, except, of course, to read \u201cLuann,\u201d but I saw this apostrophe catastrophe in a recent \u201cDennis the Menace\u201d cartoon: \u201cLady\u2019sStyles.\u201d \u2013 Greg Evans, \u201cLuAnn\u201d cartoonist, San Marcos<\/p>\n
I do read the majority of comic strips in the Union-Tribune, one of the few American newspapers that publishes more than two full pages of cartoons and comic strips. Brimming with wit and wisdom, \u201cLuAnn\u201d is among my favorites. \u201cLady\u2019s Styles\u201d indeed qualifies what I call an apostrophe catastrophe or a prepostrophe. A possessive apostrophe informs the reader about of or for what comes before it. In this case, the style is for ladies, not just a lady, so the sign should have read \u201cLadies\u2019 Styles.\u201d<\/p>\n
DEAR RICHARD: I thought you would enjoy this \u201cMorning Joe\u201d caption about literacy in America: \u201cU.S. Students are Reading Less Books Cover-to-Cover.\u201d -Harriet Wolpoff, Clairemont<\/p>\n
Ack! There are too many ironies in the fire when a caption about literacy confuses the adjectives less and fewer.<\/p>\n
We see this error everywhere, including the plague of plaques in supermarket express lines that say, \u201c8 Items or Less.\u201d They should read, \u201c8 Items or Fewer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Less means \u201cnot so much\u201d and refers to amount or quantity. Fewer means \u201cnot so many\u201d and refers to number, things that are countable \u201cless courage\u201d but \u201cfewer virtues\u201d; \u201cless nutrition\u201d but \u201cfewer calories\u201d With those omnipresent supermarket signs and with those contests asking for responses in \u201c25 words or less,\u201d when will we ever learn?<\/p>\n
Please note, gentle readers, the related confusion between the nouns number and amount, as in \u201cA great amount of San Diegans read the Union-Tribune.\u201d Like fewer, use number, not amount, to referto persons or things that can be counted. Like less, use amount to refer to quantities. Number tells how many; amount tells how much.<\/p>\n
Please also note that studies show that reading real-world books and newspapers increases brain power and lifespan. As Dr. Seuss wrote, \u201cThe more that you read, the more youwill know. The more that you read, the more places you\u2019ll go.\u201d I hope that one of those places will be the KPBS San Diego Book Festival at the USD on Saturday, Aug. 22, 10 a.m.-4p.m. I\u2019dlove to chat with you there.<\/p>\n
Please send your questions and comments about language to richardhlederer@gmail.com website: verbivore.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Historical Society has identified Bill Swank, who lives in Clairemont, as \u201cSan Diego\u2019s preeminent baseball…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":420818,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[23,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-420817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-local-news","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420817","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420817"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420817\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/420818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}