clear and concise

A Dirty Look at the AMA Manual of Style

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Remember how much fun you had reading The Elements of Style? How about the times you yukked it up over the ambiguity examples in Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition? Here is a classic to jog your memory:

As soon as the students had left the classrooms, the custodians cleaned them.

That’s entertainment!

You can revisit those days of abandon in the quest for clear writing, even if no one seems to chuckle when they consult the AMA Manual of Style. Maybe this owes to its being a behemoth. If you wish to consult the manual with a smile instead of grim determination, the opportunities are there.

Every so often, a nonassociation style guide becomes a bestseller. Such a chartbuster assumes that usage matters, and that correct usage rules and examples entertain and inform. Authors have climbed the list with pragmatism (thanks, Susan Thurman), charm (hi, Mary Norris), innuendo (I’m talking to you, Lynne Truss), or light-heartedness (howdy, Bill Bryson).

Some even go dirty, quick and dirty, as in Mignon Fogarty’s amazing Grammar Girl. I understand this. A down and dirty read (a basic, practical review and not a backstreet editing assignation) is often called for when deadlines loom.

But pragmatic or dirty, these bestsellers put their readers in good hands. That they entertain and inform offers a springboard for a quick dive into the ways that the style manual, in addition to assuring you that you’re in good hands, can entertain as it informs. Here is a representative down and dirty look at a portion of the manual.

If you hand out Halloween candy, you have seen the proverbial “fun size,” a bite that only leaves you wanting more unless it is a Butterfinger. My idea of fun size would be a candy bar as big as my arm. However, any amount of candy is fun (except a Butterfinger), so in that spirit, small can be fun size. By my original standard, the 1010-page Manual of Style is already fun size, but chapter 11 offers the overlooked qualities of being thought-provoking and entertaining. (So do chapters 7-10, 12, and 13, but that is another post.)

The online manual can take you right to 11 without the papercuts, but the idea is to look at its alignment with the tone of popular usage books. From a certain vantage, this chapter could stand as a compact usage book alongside other usage books that sell well. A fun size AMA style guide!

The “Correct and Preferred Usage” chapter starts with 2 fun quotations, one with empathy for proofreaders and another that mentions a porcupine. The entries begin with word choice examples aplenty (similar to Bryson’s look at troublesome words), with italicized labels and directives that establish a hierarchy (Incorrect, Correct, Also Correct, Avoid, Preferred, Also, and the apotheosis of middle ground, Acceptable).

Sometimes a truth plainly spoken is in itself amusing, and that truth can orient you toward correcting descriptive language. The entry “abnormal, normal, negative, positive” indicates “Examinations and laboratory tests and studies are not in themselves abnormal, normal, negative, or positive.” If you have gone around allowing authors to describe tests as negative, it can be bracing to see such clear direction.

The entry for Jargon offers a similar plain-spokenness. “….[D]rugs are usually neither systemic nor local but are given for systemic or local effect.” Parallelism can sharpen a keen awareness of specificity.

Because redundant words are always funny according to natural law, section 11.2, with its eye-opening list of redundancies, expendable words, and incomparable phrases, can supply abundant levity. You will also encounter a well-known quotation from Yogi Berra.

The legal profession once advocated plain language (ha ha!). Everyone talks about jargon, but the AMA Manual of Style does something about it. Granted, you can violate the manual’s jargon directives and still be allowed to walk around freely, vote, and drive a car, but if you see what Morris Fishbein wrote on page 408, you will never want to use jargon again. Even by accident or in an emergency.

Chapter 11 contains scores of other usage grace notes. Shakespeare’s Polonius says, “brevity is the soul of wit,” and you can verify that by looking up “describe, report” for an example. Even one of the longer entries (“because of, caused by, due to, owing to”) ends with a lovely Clue to usage (a one-off category) that brings it all home in 3 lines.

One-off labels nod toward the gray areas of usage, which are usually skillfully handled in style guides. The manual may be a behemoth, and another one-off category, Possible exception, under “adherence, compliance,” may help explain why. This example shows its accommodation of nuance. Nuance can take space.

Across its chapters, the manual draws from literature (Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, Mark Twain, Toni Morrison) for contextual quotations. Medical editing embraces the humanities in its quest for clarity.

For a good time, read chapter 11 of the AMA Manual of Style.  It shares some of the endearing qualities of the bestselling usage guides (except, I think, innuendo). Review the material when you aren’t searching for an answer. It’s not just for reference anymore.—Timothy Gray

 

Get to the Point!

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Here comes Hank. Too late, he’s spotted you, and now you’re in for another story—or rather, a litany of unnecessary details. “I said this, and she said that, and then I said, ‘Really!’” Hank never edits himself; he simply tells you E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G until you’re screaming inwardly, “Get to the point!”

While editing manuscripts, I periodically encounter a “Hank” author. Every tidbit of information is important and, in his view, absolutely necessary. Along with his manuscript, which includes the maximum-allowed 5 tables and/or figures, he provides a Supplement that comprises 3 eMethods sections, an eResults, 14 eTables, and 9 eFigures. Data, data, and more data, until the Supplement resembles a closet stuffed by an 8-year-old who was told to clean her room. Everything. It’s all in there.

Consider the busy physician-reader. After perusing the array of freshly published articles in the journal website’s New Online section, she may click on Hank’s title and see that long list of supplemental material populating the scholar’s margin. However transparent the author endeavored to be by providing so much information, she doesn’t have time to read it all now; she needs summaries.

AMA style advocates that “tables and figures demonstrate relationships among data and other types of information” and that “a figure should be used if the relationships are complex….Like a paragraph, each…figure should be cohesive and focused.”

With that reader in mind, the manuscript editor reformats the author’s originally supplied figures to journal style and hones each one to present the material clearly. No chartjunk, no extraneous elements, no distracting line treatments.

Flow diagrams show the numerical progression of patients through the study: the number screened for inclusion, the number excluded for these reasons, the number enrolled, and the number at each stage, with those excluded or lost to follow-up at each stage also accounted for. The last box shows how many patients made it to the end of the study or were included in the primary analysis. From top to bottom, the progression of numbers makes perfect arithmetic sense.

Figures of multiple clinical, radiologic, or histologic images are labeled to guide the reader: before surgery, 6 months after surgery, 2 years later; magnetic resonance images of brains from patients 1 and 4; or specimens from a healthy individual and a patient with disease preceding another from the patient 1 year after treatment.

Graphs are appropriate to the data presented: bars for frequencies, data markers and error bars for summary data, forest plots for meta-analyses. All axes and ticks are clearly labeled, curves are identified by direct labeling or by the inclusion of concise figure keys, and bars and data markers are a solid color for the patients who received treatment and without color for those who received placebo. The numbers of patients at risk at each time point lend additional meaning to Kaplan-Meier survival curves. Forest plots include numerical data in addition to the illustrated plot points, with labels on either side of the graph’s vertical line at 1.0 to indicate whether each data marker’s location favored treatment or no treatment.

Back to our reader. Time is short, so she starts with the abstract. Words are read quickly, their meaning filtered through her years of accumulated knowledge and absorbed. She takes in the tables next. Row upon row of data; numbers represent baseline characteristics, laboratory results, and statistical analysis. Again, the numbers are filtered for meaning and digested for information that can help the reader treat her own patients. She studies the figures, and their meaning is immediately apparent: the bar for affected patients from one age group is taller, a survival curve is higher and longer for patients who received the lower dosage, the difference between 2 clinical images before and after treatment is obvious. No filter needed. Instantly clear. Results from years of the author’s research are visually summarized, seen by the reader, grasped, and understood.

The Supplement stands ready for closer investigation, but first the point must not be obscured. State it—illustrate it—clearly.—Connie Manno, ELS

 

 

 

Discard the Rest

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For several years, I have had a healthy curiosity with minimalism. I’ve listened to TED talks and watched documentaries about the topic and pared down my items accordingly. Last year, I read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo. The author describes a process in which you go through every item you own, keep only what sparks joy or is necessary, and discard the rest. Once you have tidied up your belongings, your mind is free to tackle other issues. This process resonated with me, perhaps because it seemed quite similar to my approach to medical editing.

Part of our job as editors is to remove redundancy in manuscripts—to tidy it up, if you will. We go through a manuscript word for word and carefully discard what phrases or words that do not serve the science (with the author’s approval, of course). Omitting unnecessary words can improve readability. In making an author’s work clearer and more concise, readers are able to tackle other issues, such as responding to the research or designing their own studies. Moreover, scientific writing should be as precise as possible to avoid misinterpretation. Below are some tips, adapted from AMA Manual of Style 11.1.

Some common redundancies that can typically be avoided (redundant words are italicized):

  • first initiated
  • skin rash
  • herein we describe
  • past history
  • period of time, time period, point in time
  • whether or not [unless the intent is to give equal emphasis to the alternative]
  • younger [older] than 50 years of age

Here are some common words and phrases that can usually be omitted without affecting meaning:

  • as already stated
  • it goes without saying
  • it is important [interesting] to note
  • it was demonstrated that
  • take steps to

And here are some expressions to avoid and what to use instead:

Avoid Better
in terms of in, of, for
an increased [decreased] number of more [fewer]
as the result of because of
during the time that while
in close proximity to near
in regard to, with regard to about, regarding
the majority of most
have an effect [impact] on affect

When editing and reducing redundancy, a balance must be struck. Deleting or rewriting too much may lead to accidentally altering the author’s intended meaning, which could adversely affect the author-editor relationship or perhaps even result in a correction after publication. I have been tempted to rewrite sentences, but I have to remind myself that this is the author’s work, not mine. Our responsibility as manuscript editors is to make a research paper as readable as possible so the science is the main focus.—Iris Y. Lo

Readability

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A common assumption about those of us who copy edit science papers is that we have a science background. Some of us do, but by no means all. After [mumble-number] years in the medical publishing field, I might feel like I “practically” went to medical school, but I did not. I could probably take out your gallbladder, though. Want to let me try?

Anyway, as long as you are a good reader, writer, thinker, and editor, and know your way around IMRAD, it is possible to edit a manuscript on a wholly unfamiliar topic. The authors are the content experts; the paper has (probably) been through peer review; and the copy editors have skills, coffee, and Google.

When a paper is excruciatingly hard to edit, it’s not usually because of the science but because of the writing. Some authors pile up jargon like hoarders collect cans of beans, as protection against the deadly apocalypse of someone being able to read their article without feeling squashed by the weight of all those words. Why settle for a teeny nothing word like “use” when “utilize” sounds so much more important? Why give us actual data when you can just talk about “trends” and “robustness”? Make sure you add a lot of “it has been shown that” and “the fact that.” And make sure you start every sentence in the Discussion section with “furthermore” or “moreover”!

Real talk from Nature: “You can always look up jargon, but with a poorly constructed sentence you’re on your own.” The best-case scenario between author and manuscript editor is a partnership—we don’t want to be on our own! We want to help explain complicated things in a simple way, and that often starts with authors picking the most direct words available.—Brenda Gregoline, ELS

Quiz Yourself

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There are 5 instances of jargon in the following sentence. Can you identify them all?

The patient’s physical exam findings were unremarkable and her labs were in the normal range, so she was released from the emergency room and prepped for surgery.

Highlight below for the answer:

The patient’s physical examination findings were unremarkable and her laboratory test results were in the reference range, so she was released from the emergency department and prepared for surgery.

Words and phrases that can be understood in conversation but are vague, confusing, or depersonalizing are generally inappropriate in formal scientific writing. See §11.4 of the AMA Manual of Style for a list of jargon.—Laura King, ELS

Quiz Bowl: Sentence Structure

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One of the challenges for medical editors is to synthesize a great deal of information into clear, readable prose. To accomplish this task, we often have to wade through a murky bog of confusing comparisons, run-on sentences, or large amounts of data. We must tread lightly so as not to distort the meaning of the text or the accuracy of the data, but tread we must.

This month’s style quiz gives users the opportunity to practice their editing skills in a more substantive manner. The quiz provides 6 examples of convoluted text that require a fine editorial hand. The following is one example from the quiz:

Adolescent participants (aged 13-17 years) were recruited from 9 pediatric and family medicine clinics located in 3 urban areas in Washington State in the Group Health system from April 1, 2010, through March 31, 2011, that were selected because of their greater patient diversity and higher number of adolescent patients.

Highlight for answer:

Adolescent participants (aged 13-17 years) were recruited from 9 pediatric and family medicine clinics in the Group Health system from April 1, 2010, through March 31, 2011. Clinics located in 3 urban areas in Washington State were selected for their greater patient diversity and higher number of adolescent patients.

Obviously, there are numerous ways to edit the original sentence. We provide just one example of many. Perhaps you found an even better way; if so, leave us a comment.

If you’re interested in more practice, check out the full quiz on the AMA Manual of Style website.—Laura King, MA, ELS

Ex Libris: Grammar Girl’s 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time

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Of all the books in Grammar Girl’s 101 words series, 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time is probably the most useful for editors. This books lists 101 words that, as author Mignon Fogarty puts it, “are only sort of wrong.” These words are particularly challenging for editors. Do we bow to convention and allow established usage to reign or do we forge new ground (as editors often do) by insisting on up-to-date usage? With this book, Grammar Girl guides the way.

Each entry in 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time begins with a response to the question, “What’s the trouble?” In her response, Fogarty points out why the designated word is troublesome. For example, in the entry on healthy, she writes, “Some people insist that carrots aren’t healthy; they’re healthful because only healthful can mean ‘conducive to health.’” After outlining the trouble, Fogarty details the history of the problem. For healthy, she writes, “Healthy has long been used to describe things that improve your constitution. Healthful gained ground against healthy starting in the late 1880s, but healthy fought back and now, although healthful isn’t wrong, healthy is the dominant Standard English word we use when describing fruits, vegetables, exercise, and other things we hope will make us live longer.” Finally, Fogarty answers the question all editors ask themselves, “What should you do?” In the case of “healthy,” she states, “Ignore anyone who says you have to use healthful instead of healthy (unless you’re trying to feign an ‘old-timey’ air).” Fogarty concludes each entry with 1 to 2 quotations from pop culture sources (as she does throughout the 101 words series).

There are numerous entries in 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time that are applicable to the medical editor and that support (and occasionally refute) information found in the AMA Manual of Style. The following is a table of terms commonly found in medical editing and an explanation of how the AMA and Grammar Girl handle each term.

Term AMA Grammar Girl
African American “For terms such as white, black, and African American, manuscripts editors should follow author usage. … In the United States, the term African American may be preferred to black (not, however, that this term should be allowed only for US citizens of African descent).” “For Americans of African descent, use African American or black. If the person you are describing is from another country, use another appropriate term, such as Caribbean American.”
Aggravate “When an existing condition is made worse, more serious, or more severe, it is aggravated (also, exacerbated), not irritated.” “In formal situations or if you’re feeling especially sticklerish, avoid using aggravate to mean ‘irritate.’”
Billion “The word million signifies the quantity 106, while billion signifies the quantity 109. Although billion has traditionally signified 1012 (1 million million) in Britain, many British medical journals now use billion to indicate the quantity 109. A number may be expressed in million rather than billion if the latter term could create ambiguity. In that case, the decimal should be moved 3 places to the right. Trillion should be used to denote the quantity 1012.” “Today you can safely use billion to mean 1,000,000,000.” When you are reading old or translated documents, however, be aware of their country of origin and remember that the meaning of billion could be 1,000,000,000,000.”
Data “…retain the use of the plural verb with data in all situations.” “In general writing, if information won’t work because you’re using data as a mass noun to mean ‘information collected in a scientific way,’ data can be singular; however, in scientific writing, always treat data as plural.”
Gender “Sex is defined as the classification of living things as male or female according to their reproductive organs and functions assigned by chromosomal complement. Gender refers to a person’s self-representation as man or woman or how that person is responded to be social institutions on the basis of the person’s gender presentation.” “Gender is a social construct, so when you ask someone’s gender, you’re asking whether a person wants to be perceived as what society calls males or society calls female. … If your readers are likely to be extremely squeamish about sex, it’s OK to use gender as a replacement for sex, but if not, try to keep the distinction between the two words.”
Media “In the sense of laboratory culture or contrast media, medium should be used for the singular and media for the plural.” “When media is used as a collective noun, it’s fine to use a singular verb.”
Over “Time: Over may mean either more than or during (for a period of). In cases in which ambiguity might arise, over should be avoided and more than used. … Age: When referring to age groups, over and under should be replaced by the more precise older than and younger than.” “Unless you work for a publication that follows AP style, freely use over to mean more than if it works better in your sentence.”
Percent “The term percent derives from the Latin per centum, meaning by the hundred, or in, to, or for every hundred. The term percent and the symbol % should be used with specific numbers. Percentage is a more general term for any number or amount that can be stated as a percent. Percentile is defined as the value on a scale of 100 that indicates the percentage of the distribution that is equal to or below it.” “When you are writing about increases or decreases in measurements that are themselves percents, it’s often important to be painfully clear whether you changes are percent changes or percentage point changes.  For example, if 6 percent of students attended swim meets last year, and 8 percent of students attended swim meets this year, that’s a 33 percent increase in attendance, but an increase of only 2 percentage points.”
Preventive “As adjectives, preventive and its derivative preventative are equal in meaning. JAMA and the Archives Journals prefer preventive.” “You may certainly choose to use the sleeker preventive, but don’t chide people who prefer the longer form.”
Since “Since should be avoided when it could be construed to mean ‘from the time of’ or ‘from the time that.’” “Don’t be afraid to use since as a synonym for because. Just be sure you aren’t creating ambiguous sentences.”
Unique “An adjective denoting an absolute or extreme state or quality does not logically admit of quantification or comparison. Thus, we do not, or should not, say deadest, more perfect, or somewhat unique. It is generally acceptable, however, to modify adjectives of this kind with adverbs such as almost, apparently, fortunately, nearly, probably, and regrettably. … [Unique] should not be used with a comparative (more, less), superlative (most, least), or quantifying (quite, slightly, very) modifier.” “Unique is an absolute term, but it’s common to hear people modify it, saying such things a very unique. Grammarians call adjectives such as unique, dead, and impossible ‘ungradable.’ It means they can’t be more of what they already are. … Unique means ‘one of a kind’ or ‘having no equal,’ and things can’t become more unique. … Gradable terms can be modified down, however. For example, almost unique is fine. … Reserve unique for things that are truly one of a kind.”
Utilize “Use is almost always preferable to utilize, which has the specific meaning ‘to find a profitable or practical use for,’ suggesting the discovery of a new use for something. However, even where this meaning is intended, use would be acceptable.” “Often, you can replace utilize with use and your sentence will mean the same thing and sound less stuffy. Utilize does have its uses, though. It conveys more of a sense of using something specifically for a purpose or for profit than use does. … Don’t use utilize just because it sounds like a fancy word. When in doubt, choose use. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to use utilize when you’re confident that it’s the right word.”

The above table is meant as a guide for the editor. As always, usage depends on whom you’re writing for and what you’re writing. However, before editors can make decisions on usage, they need to know the options and the reasoning behind them. Both the AMA Manual of Style and Grammar Girl’s 101 Troublesome Words You’ll Master in No Time provide useful guidance on how to handle some of the trickier terms encountered while editing.—Laura King, MA, ELS

Going the Distance: Further or Farther?

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A medical editor who in a manuscript meeting asks, “Should we take this manuscript farther?” sparks the idea for this discussion on the grounds that farther suggests distance and further, “quantity or degree.”1

 
Once decided, the examples of variant use jump unexpectedly forward without my having to crack a book:

• Jack Shephard, spinal surgeon and Lost castaway, pauses amid the lush tropical foliage to ask his guide to Jacob’s lighthouse, “How much further, Hurley?”2 He’s a spine surgeon, not a brain surgeon, I think smugly, feeling confirmed in my theory that fictional characters are only as smart as the people who create them.
• The writer of a blurb on the Adventure Cycle Association itinerary3 for a guided bicycle trip in the Blue Ridge Mountains gets it right when describing what’s in store for riders after they reach Mabry Mill: “Approximately five miles farther down the road, you might want to take a detour of less than a mile off the parkway for a tour and a taste at the popular Chateau Morrisette winery.”
• I am sitting at an Italian restaurant celebrating the birthdays of 2 manuscript editors. Talking about my running schedule, I say that my weekly distance “will extend further.” I pause. “That would be farther.” I smile, lift my brows, and announce that I have selected further and farther for my blog entry.

But once I crack the dictionary and English-language usage books, my smugness at knowing the difference between the two dissolves, for the words “have been used more or less interchangeably throughout most of their history,” says the 11th edition of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which allots 11 lines to a discussion of their usage differences, adding that they “are showing signs of diverging.” First, noting that they are not used differently as adverbs “whenever spatial, temporal, or metaphorical distance is involved,” the entry says they “diverge” when the meaning is not conveying distance. In that case, “further is used.” Furthermore, when used as a transitional adverb announcing that the sentence aims to advance a point, the entry says further is used, but farther is not. (However, further is usually changed to furthermore in JAMA in such instances.) Adjectivally, the usage entry continues, “Farther is taking over the meaning of distance.”

 
To put it in perspective, Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage devotes 3 columns to the discussion that begins, “About every usage commentator in the 20th century … has had something to say about farther and further… as to how they should be used or how they seem to be used.”1 This explanation comes after first noting that few of the commentators have ventured little beyond a 1906 “pronouncement”:

Farther should be used to designate longitudinal distance; further to signify quantity or degree.

Webster’s says that farther and further “are historically the same word” and concludes that their interchangeable use is after all “not surprising.” To buttress the claim that they have the same origin and that they did not stem from the word far, the Webster’s entry reports that, of the two, further is older and “appears to have originated as the comparative form of a Germanic ancestor of the English forth,” whereas “farther originated in Middle English as a variant of further that was influenced by the comparative (spelled ferre) of far (then spelled fer) which it (and further) eventually replaced.”

 
The rest of the entry provides examples of usage, noting when grammatical usage for one eclipses the use by the other. In modern English, Webster’s says that further “used in the sense ‘additional’ … has taken over…” But farther is more frequently used adjectivally when “literal or figurative distance is involved.”

 
The Chicago Manual of Style4 and The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual5 echo the 1906 pronouncement and distinguish the two by distance and degree. However, swerving slightly, the seventh edition of Scientific Style and Format6 suggests that the use of farther as an adverb works for physical or nonphysical distance and suggests that further be reserved for use as a transitive verb: “His theory did little to further our knowledge of the oldest galaxies.”

 
After examining the language usage explanations of the 2 words, perhaps the commentators who have not ventured further than the 1906 pronouncement offer the best understood explanation. I could go farther, but I won’t. —Beverly Stewart, MSJ

1. Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc; 1989.
2. Lighthouse. Lost. ABC television. February 23, 2010.
3. Adventure Cycling Association. Blue Ridge Bliss: tour itinerary. http://www.adventurecycling.org/tours/tourdetail.cfm?id=175&t=EV10&p=3. Accessed September 25, 2012.
4. The Chicago Manual of Style: The Essential Guide for Writers, Editors, and Publishers. 15th ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press; 2003.
5. Goldstein N, ed. The Associated Press Stylebook and Briefing on Media Law. New York, NY: Basic Books; 2007.
6. Council of Science Editors. Scientific Style and Format: The CSE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers. 7th ed. Reston, VA: Council of Science Editors in cooperation with Rockefeller University Press; 2006.

A Peek at a Trio of Homophones to Pique Your Interest and Provide Peak Enjoyment

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Grammarians who pen English usage guides do not seem piqued at the misuse of the words peek, peak, and pique. Theodore M. Bernstein notes only that piqued “takes [the] preposition at or by.” Even college-level writers’ guides make little fuss. Flipping to the usage sections of several writers’ guides, one finds a no-show for the peeks. Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, however, writes that “[t]hese homophones have a way of being muddled by nodding writers.” Relying on former newspaper columnist and grammarian James J. Kilpatrick, who had caught misuses among the peaks in various news publications, the entry notes that peak most frequently edged out its competitors and inappropriately made its way into print. The entry ends by warning writers “to keep the meaning in mind and match it to the correct spelling.”

English usage of peek is traced to 1374 and stems from the Middle English piken, which some sources speculate comes from the Middle Dutch kieken. Peek means “to glance at quickly, or to peer at furtively, as from a place of concealment.” As a verb, it means that something is “only partially visible…[t]iny crocuses peeked through the snow.” The expression peek-a-boo is “attested from 1599,” according to the Random House Dictionary.

Peak is traced to 1520-1530, perhaps from the Middle Low German words pick and pike, according to Random House. As a noun it has several meanings, some of which point to the top of a mountain, ridge, or summit. It can also be used to describe a “projecting part of a garment,” as in the bill of a hat. Nautically, it means the “upper most corner of a fore-and-aft sail” or the “narrow part of a ship’s bow.” As an intransitive verb, it means reaching “maximum capacity, value, or activity,” as in “My running pace peaked at 10 minutes per mile.” Similarly, as an adjective, reaching peak levels demonstrates that one has maxed out.

In a less common usage, those who grow sick or thin are sometimes spoken of as having peaked or “dwindled away” or, as an adjective, being peaked (2 syllables), “being pale and wan or emaciated: sickly.”

Emotion rules pique. It stems from the Vulgar Latin verb piccare, “to pick,” and its usage in English is traced to 1525-1535. It is menacingly linked with pickax and pike. As a noun, it is defined as “a transient feeling of wounded vanity.” Or, as one might say of a woman scorned, “She’s in a fit of pique.” But a woman moves quickly on, pique being a transient emotion. As a verb it means that someone has been “aroused” to “anger or resentment.” Or, as I like to use it, aroused to the state of curiosity.

Although they sound alike and to an extent they look alike, the piques are as different as … Has your interest peaked? (Begs for a pun, doesn’t it?)—Beverly Stewart, MSJ

Anticipate, Expect

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Although the use of anticipate and expect as synonyms is now largely accepted,1 at least in casual communications, the careful writer will do well to note that some authorities still hold that there is a subtle difference between them.1-3

Although both words refer to a person’s attitude toward a future event, they differ in what they convey about that attitude. For example, some observers hold that the difference between the words relates to the level of certainty toward the future event (ie, anticipate implies that a person is certain that the event will take place, whereas expect implies only that a person predicts that the event will take place3). However, this weak distinction is easily blurred, and in practice it seems that it is not often upheld. A stronger and more often upheld distinction maintains that anticipate is the stronger of the two words, connoting that some action has been taken to prepare for the foreseen event.2,3 This sense possibly arose from an early (late 1500s) use, “To seize or take possession of beforehand.”4 Although that use is now obsolete, by the early 1600s anticipate was being used to suggest simply “to take action beforehand,” a meaning still current.4 Bernstein points out that such action “Need not be taken so literally as to mean the performance of an overt act; it may simply connote an advance accommodation of the mind or the senses, even involuntarily, to the coming event.”2

In any case, if anticipate suggests the taking of some sort of action to prepare for an expected event, it seems clear that one should perhaps not use it when wishing to convey only simple expectation. Interestingly enough, even those who consider anticipate and expect synonyms do not extend the same acceptance to the synonymous use of unanticipated and unexpected.1

The misuse of anticipate in place of expect likely arose from the tendency common among writers and speakers to use larger words.5(pp22-23) It also is an example of what Garner terms “slipshod extension”5(pp22-23)—“the mistaken stretching of a word beyond its accepted meanings, the mistake lying in a misunderstanding of the true sense.”5(pp307-308) Garner further maintains that the use of anticipate in the sense of “to await eagerly” is also incorrect and points out that such use is also likely the result of slipshod extension.5(pp22-23)

The bottom line:

● Referring to a person’s attitude toward a future event? Using anticipate and expect interchangeably is likely acceptable in casual communications, but in more formal contexts one should take care to observe the subtle differences between them.

● Referring to the simple expectation of a foreseen event? Use expect.

● Referring to a state of taking action—whether that action be either concrete, mental, or emotional—in preparation for a foreseen event? Use anticipate.—Phil Sefton, ELS

1. Anticipate. The Free Dictionary website. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/p/anticipate. Accessed June 8, 2012.

2. Anticipate, expect. In: Bernstein TM. The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage. New York, NY: Athaneum; 1985:44-45.

3. Anticipate or Expect: What’s Next? Grammatically Correct website. http://www.uhv.edu/ac/newsletters/writing/grammartip2008.05.28.htm. Accessed June 8, 2012.

4. The Compact Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press; 1991: 58.

5. Anticipate. In: Garner BA. The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 2000.