Kirk Mahoney . com

I heard this last evening on the City of Houston’s HTV television channel.

Problem:
The word “tangent” is not a verb.

Explanation:
The person who said (quote) “Tangenting here, …” (unquote) was Harry J. Hayes, Director of the Solid Waste Department for the City of Houston.

Mr. Hayes was talking to the television interviewer about Houston’s recycling program, and he wanted to take the conversation in a tangential direction.

Unfortunately, the word “tangent” is not a verb, so “tangenting” is nonsensical.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following combinations (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “tangent” — 15,300,000 matches
• “tangential” — 3,390,000 matches
• “tangentially” — 1,080,000 matches
• “tangenting” — 3,750 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the word “tangent” or one of its variations correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of greater than 4,080-to-1, which is superb.

Solution:
“Going tangentially here, …”