Author: admin

This week, I attended a stimulating “Lunch n’ Learn” hosted by the Saskatoon Chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Host Jacqueline Gallagher (VP of Recruiting, David Aplin) chaired a discussion that featured Alex Fallon (President and CEO of Saskatoon Regional Economic Development Authority [SREDA]) and Derek Lothian (VP of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters; and Executive Director of the recently formed Saskatchewan Manufacturers’ Centre of Excellence [SMCoE]).

You could say that the topic was not original. What Millennials are like in the workplace has been debated for years (Millennials were earlier called “Gen Y,” those age 33 and under, or born between 1981 and 2000). By contrast to Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, the discussion focused on what Millennials’ contributions will be. What aspirations, values and practices they have. Since I meet Millennials frequently in the work that I do, I gladly took in the talk.

Gallagher provided the background that there are 8.9 Million Millennials in Canada, who account for 29% of our labour force. Their life defining events have included 9/11, the Digital Age (since they embrace the technology they were raised with) and the Global Financial Crisis. Although it’s ultimately reductive to characterize a generation in this way, Gallagher (citing Karsh and Templin’s book, Manager 3.0: Millennials’ Guide to Rewriting the Rules of Management) reported that Millennials tend to be collaborative (working in teams rather than alone). They are often flexible in their work (e.g. often valuing family time more than work time). They are often transparent (sharing information that they know with peers). Evidence shows that they are casual in their approach to work (preferring an informal office environment). And they seek balance in their lives (perhaps not “balancing” work with life, so much as integrating work with it). The Millennials whom I shared discussion at the event were also obviously often tech-savvy and confident. Gallagher said that they tend to “vote with their feet,” if a job or organization does not meet their needs and interests.

The same study Gallagher said that this generation is concerned about how things get done. But they often don’t care about why or when.

Fallon and Lothian, like Gallagher, are Millennials themselves, but shared insights borne of their experience working in the high stakes government of the UK and Ontario.

Continue reading “On Millennials in Business (and Beyond) . . .”

In a recent blog posting in his “Usage Tip of the Day,” American etymologist Bryan Garner explains how to use the term “just deserts.”

Garner notes that the term, which means “the treatment one deserves,” is “occasionally misrendered ‘just desserts.’ Sometimes, of course, it’s a playful pun . . . . But sometimes it’s sloppiness or pure ignorance — e.g. ‘The deliciously wicked Francis Urquhart gets his just desserts [should read “just deserts”] in this third installment of the story’ ” (“Best Bets,” Commercial Appeal (Memphis, 21 Feb. 1997, E2).

Garner also notes that in the above example, “the adverb ‘deliciously’ creates a nonsensical echo in the word ‘desserts.’ ” Too bad that this word play was based on an error in usage.

Using “just desserts” is one error that I’ve made in conversation many times, in the past. Have you done so, as well?

It’s good to know what the correct version is, despite my susceptibility to chocolate and cake!

What are your linguistic or grammatical bugbears? Please share them with me and I’ll use them in upcoming postings.

My last blog posting looked at lost literary references and “malapropisms” (errors in references that usually have a comic effect).

Perhaps coincidentally, one of Bryan Garner’s “Usage Tips of the Day” this week delved further into malapropisms, arguing that “deliberate errors in reference go back to Shakespeare’s day” and not only to Sheridan’s 18^th Century play (The Rivals) whose character (Mrs. Malaprop, named for “mal à propos,” or “inappropriately” ) gave the rhetorical strategy its name.

Garner says that in a malapropism “deliberate errors . . . [are] usually for comic effect,” always in the mouths of lower class characters who are unsuccessfully aping the usage of their social and intellectual betters and saying something quite different (sometimes scandalously different) from what they meant to say” (Garner, March 17, 2015).

An example of Shakespeare’s use of malapropism that Garner cites is Elbow (the “incompetent constable in Measure for Measure) who refers to a bawdy house as a “respected [suspected] house.”

I recall Mrs. Malaprop referring to another character in The Rivals as “the very pineapple [pinnacle] of politeness.”

Malapropisms usually have a comic effect, but that effect relies on the reader having greater knowledge and recognition than the incompetent character. In less obvious examples, some 21^st Century readers won’t get the joke. They won’t recognize the error.

Some 21^st Century readers don’t recognize literary allusions, be they straightforward or ironic. Literary history and culture are definitely being lost, when students would rather “google” a quotation than research and read the original text.

The problem isn’t limited to studies of academic English literature. Garner cites a modern lawyer’s confusion between “meretricious” (superficially attractive but false) and “meritorious” (likely to succeed on the merits of the case).

Here are some others that he cites, also from the field of law:

“infinitesimal” (very small) vs. “infinite” (boundless)

“nefarious” (evil) vs. “multifarious” (greatly varied)

“voracity” (greediness with food) vs. “veracity” (truthfulness)

“serial” (consisting of or taking place in a series) vs “surreal”   (bizarre, having qualities of surrealism)

Journalists also often cite confusions such as that between “infamous” (terrible) and “famous” (well known) in a story referring to the “crime that occurred at the infamous Stanfield’s Underwear factory.”

Younger generations may view the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) or other reference volumes online now, but some won’t bother.  Canonical texts that I was trained to read as an undergraduate are increasingly overlooked (and not only by the students in class who have always preferred to watch “the movie,” instead of reading the book  . . . .)

I don’t mean to say that we are not gaining culturally through Rap or Hip Hop music, poetry contests over social media and the like. But in a time when technology experts sing the praises of how portable devices vastly improve our lives, we should recognize that they also gobble up time and energy that were once invested in old-fashioned reading.

If you work with or hire a freelance writer and/or editor, how important is it to you that they know their literary (or legal or journalistic) history, terminology and avoid malapropisms or other errors?

How much more do people need to read and study in order to build and maintain a literary and/or historical background that is important for all disciplines of writing — be it academic, creative, journalism, business writing or another?

“In the past our culture’s body of common knowledge — its frame of reference, its possibility of comprehensible allusion — changed slowly and superficially; the amount added to it or taken away from it, in any ten years, was surprisingly small. Now in any ten years a surprisingly large proportion of the whole is replaced.” (Randall Jarrell, A Sad Heart at the Supermarket 74 [1962]).

American Etymologist Bryan Garner cited the above quotation (from American poet Randall Jarrell) to support the argument he made in his recent blog that allusions to classic (western) literary texts are becoming increasingly unknown to new generations of readers. These students and armchair bookworms don’t recognize references to specific lines of poetry, drama or verse, including such as prominent as Shakespeare’s.

Garner gives the example that students will recognize the “To be or not to be” phrase of Hamlet’s soliloquy , but miss the lesser known portion of that same speech, where the Danish prince refers to “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” (Hamlet 3.1.61-62, emphasis added).

You may ask: why does it matter, anyway?

Garner (who tries not to be pedantic in his analysis), argues that such an “allusion works well even for the reader who doesn’t recognize the Shakespearean echo. Ideally, the words in an allusion flatter those who recognize it while not bothering those who don’t” (“Tip of the Day,” February 17, 2015).

The function of literary allusions has been discussed by scholars for generations and influences many forms of art. But Garner says that a (correct) “allusion, if it isn’t too arcane, can add substantially to the subtlety and effectiveness of writing. To work, the allusion should refer to a common body of literature with which every cultured person is familiar.”

But he goes on to acknowledge: “Increasingly, though, there isn’t any such body of literature. . . . So it’s hard to bring off a good allusion if it doesn’t relate to current events or popular culture.”

Those of us who studied literary classics in the age before Google, mobile technology and social media, it can be hard not to feel sad at how reading and writing have changed, in the last 10 to 15 years. So much seems lost. And yet, writers like celebrated marketer, cultural critic and poetry lover Seth Godin (to name only one) find much in today’s world that is creative, rigourous, and involves readers or consumers who can participate (more than ever before) in the making of art.

Mistakes in literary allusion made by inexperienced speakers can become humourous (or embarrassing, depending on your point-of-view). Such is evident with malaproprisms (i.e. quotations whose errors inadvertently become funny).  Many years ago, I recall hearing a student misquote those much cited Robert Browning lines (from “Andrea del Sarto”):  “Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his gasp [sic – “grasp”] / Or what’s a heaven for?”  Literary allusion is bungled there.

Garner doesn’t take sides on the issue of lost literary reference. He instead notices its passing. What is your view of misrecognized or unrecognized classic reading, writing and artistic history? What do you notice has been gained? If you write for the business world, how has the creative landscape changed through quoted authorities, buzz words and other elements, in recent years?