The Hostility of Camaraderie
by Suzanne Hadley Gosselin on 07/17/2007 at 1:30 PM
Any fellow editors or wordsmiths out there know how satisfying it is to discover a mistake. That is why I practically began foaming at the mouth when I read Ted's post on attitudes toward the church. In the portion where he describes why he values a church that emphasizes homeschooling, Ted wrote: "I wasn't homeschooled, but do find a comradery among those who choose to homeschool."
I immediately sent him a know-it-all e-mail pointing out his misspelling of the word "camaraderie." I was quickly rebuffed by Ted, who pointed out that there are, in fact, two spellings of the word. Dictionary.com and Websters both list "comradery" as an acceptable spelling while the (more uptight?) Oxford Dictionary cites it as a misspelling: "Camaraderie is routinely misspelled comraderie, comraderie, and even comradery because of the mistaken association with comrade."
I took our dilemma to the Focus periodicals copy chief, who wrote: "I usually see 'camaraderie,' and that's the version I'd go with, since it's originally a French word, and that retains the French spelling."
It seems there is no definitive opinion on the spelling of camaraderie. And, I'll admit, that bugs me. But it did provide a lively discussion (that perhaps built camaraderie) between three editors. The takeaway value for me—don't be so quick to point out the mistakes of others. Thanks for the nerdy exchange, Ted.
1. Ted Slater said the following at 1:38 PM on Jul 17:
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Thanks for this post, Suzanne. It's good to have you as a comrade in this fight against grammatical sloppiness. Or is that "camarad"? Hmf.
Here are (is?) a couple of sentences to get our fellow English snobs in a bunch:
1) A preposition is a bad thing to end a sentence with.
2) It's incorrect to frivolously split infinitives.
I could think of more, but I'll leave it up to our dear commenters.
BTW, does it bother anyone else, in light of our Faith's being composed of a collection of absolutes (or, put differently, that a collection of absolutes comprise our Faith), that there'd be something that's such a big part of our lives -- our words and the ways we use them -- that's got gray (grey?) areas?
2. BDB said the following at 1:55 PM on Jul 17:
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But how did it impact your esprit de corps?
3. Carrie said the following at 2:01 PM on Jul 17:
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Yes, it bothers me that (our) language is not more absolute. I am guilty of both crimes that Ted committed, quite often. However, uniformity is everything.
4. Dawn said the following at 2:15 PM on Jul 17:
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I'm trying not to cry while I read this post. LOL.
I am one of those picky ones, emailing Ted (ad nauseum, I'm afraid) if a typo slips through.
Why is it that I can see the typos of others but mine escape my notice? Planks and specks, I suppose.
5. erin said the following at 2:34 PM on Jul 17:
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So am I to understand that it's okay to split infinitives if it's not done frivolously? :)
While we're talking about grammar conundrums, is it e-mail or email? I prefer the non-hyphenated form but am wondering if there is a preferred spelling.
6. Steve Watters said the following at 2:34 PM on Jul 17:
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I wonder how many Teds or Suzannes will be around a few years from now as our texting-on-the-fly culture gets looser and looser on spelling and grammar.
"Whts gonna hppen to comrottery then?"
7. Melissa said the following at 2:37 PM on Jul 17:
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Ah, the English language... filled with words like raccoon, camaraderie, onomatopoeia, and bling. I'm constantly amazed how others can learn English as a foreign language; it's difficult enough for us to use correctly the majority of the time.
8. v@v said the following at 2:52 PM on Jul 17:
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I work in editorial myself -- it kills me, all these changes in words, new 'acceptable' spellings; neologisms that are a result of slaughtering the language -- how soon, people of the world, before "irregardless" becomes acceptable? Pronunciate a new verb (rather than pronounce or enunciate)? And "conversate" an accepted staple of the langauge? woe to us. :-)
I suggest giving AP Stylebooks and dictionaries as gifts from now on.
9. Keb said the following at 3:13 PM on Jul 17:
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I teach English in Japan (well, until the end of the month) and it -is- hard for them to learn it. Take a simple word like "Like". How many different ways do we use it? "He was all like, I like her, but, like, it's like I don't know what she likes..." Even "up" is used in various phrases in ways that make no sense taken by themselves--wake up, give up, pick up, look up...
On the other hand, it frustrates me when "grammar nazis" refuse to acknowledge how cool it is that in a living language, things change over time. Words that didn't exist are invented, spread through the culture, and become part of the language. Grammatical structures change. Yes, it's important that we agree on the rules by which we communicate, or communication breaks down--but that doesn't require the formal, written rules to be followed dogmatically. Living languages evolve in beautiful ways, adopting structures and words from other languages (Japanese is full of borrowed words, just like English), and expanding the ways in which we can express ourselves.
Even so, I hope fervently that textspeak never becomes the norm. What a headache.
10. BDB said the following at 4:08 PM on Jul 17:
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v@v wrote:
>>I suggest giving AP Stylebooks and dictionaries as gifts from now on.<<
You know, every school I attended, and every degree program, had a different style book. It's all a mushy mess in my head, now. I just use "footnotes" in Microsoft Word because it looks cool.
Luckily, 80% of my professors couldn't remember what the rules are, either.
11. Ivy said the following at 5:54 PM on Jul 17:
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I have had this type of conversation several times with one of my friends. We've taken all the same English classes together, so we've read all of the other's papers. So far we have learned:
1. I am a verb nazi because I make her actually use verbs in sentences.
2. She is a "creative spelling" hater, because I can't spell to save my life.
:) I love English classes!
12. Jer said the following at 6:16 PM on Jul 17:
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I, for one, rather find the uncertainty of English (or perhaps its 'versatility') to be one of its finer qualities.
And that, comrades, is quite a good thing.
13. v@v said the following at 6:54 PM on Jul 17:
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Erin -- according to the AP (Associated Press) Stylebook, it's e-mail (with the hyphen), as is e-commerce, e-learning, etc.
BDB -- I must agree, I can't say I much remember the details of MLA vs. APA style. I think you may be confusing APA style (grammar, research writing, etc.) with AP (associated press) style, which is really a standard for journalistic writing in terms of how things should be written in news stories, etc.
For anyone who wants to add to their English OCD, it's a great book. Despite the fact I need it for work, it's a great little book to have around. It answers mind-boggling questions like: when to use comprise/compose; What cities don't require the state following them in a dateline; should it be JPEG, jpeg, or jpg? Just in case anyone cares. :-)
14. J said the following at 12:33 AM on Jul 18:
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Linguists talk about prescriptive and descriptive grammar. Prescriptive grammar is the grammar that grammar books tell you to use. Descriptive grammar is a way to describe the actual use of language when people speak. Some of our prescriptive grammar rules are kind of silly. For example, the "no split infinitive rule" actually came from Latin. In Latin, infinitives are single words, and therefore impossible to split. Why the rule was transferred into English seems silly to me, but I believe that it has something to do with the fact that the split infinitive was not part of the "prestige" dialect of English.
What would Star Trek be without "to boldly go where no man has gone before"?
I also don't see the need to put a capital letter on the word "internet," but not all dictionaries agree with me.
Ah -- our everchanging language.
15. BDB said the following at 12:42 AM on Jul 18:
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v@v wrote:
>>I think you may be confusing APA style (grammar, research writing, etc.) with AP (associated press) style, <<
Well, only one of my degrees used APA - political science. Then there's Turabian, and a bunch of biology classes using AMA, at least one class using MLA...
Oh, heck, here's a link:
http://www.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/workshop/citation.htm
16. Robert J Espe said the following at 8:42 AM on Jul 18:
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Mark Twain said he respected a man who could spell a word more than one way. And I can't find a source, but I think Ben Franklin said a man who couldn't had no imagination.
On the other hand, if you ever try to read anything written in the middle ages, trying to figure out that schykoens=chickens can be a headache (note that is one of 14 spelling variants of the same word appearing in the same extant recipe)
17. Carrie said the following at 9:28 AM on Jul 18:
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I think we all should speak Spanish.
18. Jan said the following at 10:18 AM on Jul 18:
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Living in the UK, I am constantly learning about the differences between British and American English. For example: tyre (tire), colour (color), economise (economize), centre (center), etc. I pity people who learn English as a second language!
19. BDB said the following at 11:23 AM on Jul 18:
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Too many linguists spoil the language.
20. Julia said the following at 1:08 PM on Jul 18:
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My favourite "non-word," Ginormous, was recently added to the dictionary.
Americans spell doughnut and colour wrong.
21. v@v said the following at 1:13 PM on Jul 18:
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Carrie -- Estoy de acuerdo contigo. Que viva el Espanol para siempre -- es el lenguaje oficial del Cielo.
BDB -- indeed, true.
22. Jessica said the following at 8:47 AM on Jul 19:
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English really is a difficult language to learn. I believe there are more exceptions to the rule than admissions to them. Y, estoy de acuerdo - !que viva el espanol para siempre!
23. Brian said the following at 11:21 AM on Jul 19:
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doughnut - donut
This came from the commercialization of "Dunkin' Donuts" and is NOT the official way Americans spell it.
I can't wait for someone to unceremoniously critique this post that I've probably disgraced myself with. ;-)
24. xeres said the following at 11:35 AM on Jul 19:
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haha,
English is a confusing language. For those who want relief regarding of grammar, buy Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference
25. Carrie said the following at 12:56 PM on Jul 19:
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¡Muchas gracias amigos! La lengua de los hispanos no es confudido para la gente, en general.
Aprenda la frase "Carrie tiene razón siempre".
26. BDB said the following at 3:05 PM on Jul 19:
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Another amusing book is Eats, Shoots and Leaves - it's on the importance of punctuation.
(As in a Panda eats shoots and leaves as parts of its diet.)
27. Lue-Yee said the following at 4:07 PM on Jul 19:
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It's good to have you as a comrade in this fight against grammatical sloppiness. Or is that "camarad"? Hmf.
Camarade, n'est-ce pas?
As a linguist(ics major), I don't take pleasure in seeing prescriptivists put people into language gaol. On the other hand, I'm absolutely anal-retentive about people getting both their tenses and their aspects right, this being a holdover from my early acquisition of English based on a Cantonese background. But I keep having to remind people that grammar does not mean orthography.
I'll admit, though, when I see written work I insist that the commas be used unambiguously, not only that the word order be well-adjusted for syntactic weight.
28. Athena said the following at 4:28 PM on Jul 19:
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I was just about to bring up the "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" book by Lynne Truss! Parts of it are more amusing than clarifying. I haven't finished it.
Hey, maybe we should all learn to speak Esperanto also.
29. Susie said the following at 12:47 PM on Jul 20:
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Erin: I usually go with e-mail, rather than email.
I must confess to not always being so great with grammar. (And I have a terrible habit of doing way too much comma splicing!) But misspellings drive me nuts!!! I'm actually known around my YWAM dorm as "the human spellcheck". (The drawback is that it is extremely hard to find Scrabble opponents.)
It is amazing to me though, the plethora of spellings and misspellings that have increasingly developed in the english language.
And I would like to learn portuguese. It's similar to spanish, but just different enough to be interesting. :)
30. BDB said the following at 3:00 PM on Jul 20:
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Lue-Yee wrote:
>> But I keep having to remind people that grammar does not mean orthography.<<
That's the study of birds, right?
31. Athena said the following at 4:55 PM on Jul 20:
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BDB, I think you must be thinking of ornithology. I looked it up just in case. My astronomy professor used to joke about people mixing up astronomy with astrology, and cosmology with cosmetology!
I always type "email" even though I know technically it should be "e-mail." Typing in hyphens just takes forever. Not sure if it's true for others, but maybe laptops are partly to blame for misspellings. Since they seem more touch-sensitive, it's just easier to hit the wrong key. As a result, I'd just use lower case whenever possible in my emails when I use a laptop.
32. Caron said the following at 9:44 PM on Mar 22:
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she should have written "among" three editors instead of "between"
33. Laurene said the following at 9:48 AM on Aug 13:
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THANK YOU for posting this! No wonder I can't spell it! I was actually looking up the proper spelling today when I found your article (because M$ Word keeps telling me that my spelling is wrong, but that is how I was taught to spell it!). I guess I will go with the Oxford spelling, but I really don't like it. The spelling looks wrong to me, like it's talking about Camas flowers, not comrades.
God bless you,
-Laurene
34. Sabriyya said the following at 8:02 AM on Sep 28:
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What a pleasure to read this witty, well-spelled flow of English OCD-ers (if that is a word).
From a Fellow OCD-er/ist/or -- whatever!