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1. Book Presentation
Usage and Abusage and Mind the Gaffe

2. Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
2/22/2013 2
and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

3. Agenda
• Ambiguity
• Disguised conjunctions
• Tautology
• Vogue words
• What’s next?
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

4. Let’s eat Grandma!
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

5. Ambiguity
• Woolliness
• Obscurity
• Punctuation
• Catachresis
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

6. Woolliness
Woolly. Lacking in definiteness or incisiveness; ‘muzzy’; confused and hazy.
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

7. Obscurity
“Without distinction of idea, there cannot be distinction of speech – or style”
- Partridge
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

8. Punctuation
“Great care ought to be had in writing, for the due observation of points:
for, the neglect thereof will prevent the sense.” (Richard Hodges, 1644)
Let’s eat, Grandma!
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

9. Catachresis
A word misused. It is fault in writing; an improper use of words;
etymologically, ‘contrary to usage-ness’.
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

10. Example
Source: My Facebook account
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

11. Example
Source: www.myindiapictures.com
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

12. Example
Source: www.myindiapictures.com
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

13. Example
Source: www.myindiapictures.com
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

14. Ambiguity?
The truth is:
“We see what we want to see.
We understand what we want to understand.”
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

15. Tautology
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

16. Disguised Conjunctions
• “According to…” instead of “As per…”
• “In reference to” instead of “Referring to…”
• “… for obtaining” instead of “to obtain…”
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

17. Example
“As per, ‘in accordance with’, is such a horrible commercialese that even merchant
princes are less than riotously happy when their secretaries wish it on them.”
– Partridge
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

18. Example
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

19. Example
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

20. Example
Source: www.csl.sri.com
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

21. Tautology
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

22. Tautology
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

23. Tautology
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

24. Example
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

25. Example
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

26. Example
Book Presentation on Usage and Abusage
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

27. Tautology
Do you want me to repeat that again for you?
Are you serious?
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

28. Vogue Words
Vogue word is a fashionable word or phrase.
Use words, such as the following with caution:
• Breakthrough, for a major advancement or discovery
• Clone, for identical copy (!)
• Deploy, for ‘to use; place’. One deploys forces or arguments
• Dimension, for ‘aspect; facet’
• Escalate (both transitive and intransitive), for ‘rise; expand’
• Guidelines, for ‘principles; criteria guiding action’
• input, for anything contributed to a system
• Subjective, for ‘biased’
• Target, for ‘goal; objective’. It is absurdly used in ‘to exceed one’s target’,
since the idea of a target is to hit it.
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

29. Example
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

30. What’s Next?
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

31. What’s Next?
• Follow KISS
• 6Cs: Clarity, Correctness, Comprehensiveness, Cohesiveness, Conciseness,
Consistency (One C was added during the standards’ meeting for process
of editing)
• Write for business-users’
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

32. What’s Next?
“Like persons, words cannot always be taken for granted.”
- Partridge
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and Mind the Gaffe by Suyog Ketkar

33. Tanjooberrymutts!
Suyog Ketkar