Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this phrase in a Range Rover advertisement on television this morning.

The adjective “residual” seems to have been adopted by Land Rover as a euphemism for the adjective “resale”.

The adjective “resale” could have sounded too cheap to the advertising decision-makers at Land Rover.

Or Land Rover’s advertising team might have decided that the adjective “resale” reminds new-car buyers that one day they will be selling those cars.

And reminding a new-car buyer that one day he or she will sell that car probably is not something that a car manufacturer wants at the top of a buyer’s mind.

Contrary to my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis, it seems that Land Rover preferred a four-syllable, eight-character word over a two-syllable, six-letter word that says the same thing.

But that is a frequent characteristic of euphemisms: People go out of their way to avoid what they believe will be perceived negatively.

If you find yourself saying or writing a longer word when you know that a shorter word will express the same thing, notice whether you are trying to hide a negative perception behind that longer word.

I heard about this phrase yesterday at a party.

Problem:
The modifier of “dress” is incorrect.

Explanation:
My friends Erik and Nickie F. told me yesterday about this phrase.

It seems that someone was trying to refer to a dress made of sewn-together sequins.

Apparently the originator of the phrase “sequenced dress” heard the plural noun “sequins” — spelled S-E-Q-U-I-N-S — perhaps mispronounced as the verb “sequence” — spelled S-E-Q-U-E-N-C-E — and then added a “d” to make it an adjective to modify the noun “dress”.

The potential for things to go astray in the English language never ceases to amaze me.

Solution:
“sequined dress”

I saw a technical document refer to “pixilation” when it should have referred to “pixelation” instead.

Problem:
The nouns “pixilation” and “pixelation” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
I was reviewing some technical documents about a month ago.

They referred to “picture pixilation” in the television signals coming from various set-top boxes.

They should have used “pixelation” — spelled P-I-X-E-L-A-T-I-O-N — instead of “pixilation” — spelled P-I-X-I-L-A-T-I-O-N.

The noun “pixie” — spelled P-I-X-I-E — was coined in the early 1600s to refer to a sprite or fairy, especially a mischievous one.

So the primary meaning of the noun “pixilation” is the state or quality of being pixilated — spelled P-I-X-I-L-A-T-E-D — which is an Americanism from the mid-1800s that combines the word “pixie” with the word “titillated” to mean amusingly silly, prankish, or whimsical.

The noun “pixel” — spelled P-I-X-E-L — was coined in the late 1960s as something of a contraction of “picture element” to refer to the smallest element of an image that can be managed and presented by a video display system.

And the primary meaning of the noun “pixelation” is the display of a digitized image such that the pattern of pixels is obvious to the naked eye.

Solution:
Think “pixie” when using “pixilation”. Think “pixel” when using “pixelation”.

The notorious Hugo Chávez has been president of Venezuela, a Spanish-speaking country, since 1999.

I believe that many Americans ten years later still pronounce the “H” in his first name, even though the letter “h” in Spanish is silent, because of their ignorance about this aspect of the Spanish language.

Aggravating that ignorance, perhaps, is the fact that the name “Hugo” in American speech is often pronounced with a hard “H” — as when meteorologists repeatedly referred in 1989 to Hurricane Hugo.

What puzzles me more is the pronunciation of the C-H in his surname as if it were spelled S-H instead.

Many Americans know that they should pronounce the C-H in the Spanish words “chico” and “chihuahua” just as they pronounce the C-H in “church” and “chapel” and other English words.

But somehow they get thrown by the C-H in Chávez and end up pronouncing the name as if it were Shávez — with an S-H — instead.

Maybe the confusion comes from the S-H pronunciation of the beginnings of the surnames of such French personalities as Marc Chagall and Maurice Chevalier.

Given the strong influence of French on the English language, this could explain the mispronunciation of Chávez as Shávez.

Another explanation is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis: It is simpler to pronounce the “soft” S-H found in words such as “shoot” and “shout” than it is to pronounce the “hard” C-H found in words such as “chore” and “chow”.

What do you think? Let me know!

I saw this last week on an order form.

Problem:
This word is misspelled.

Explanation:
The order form had an area at the bottom where the customer was supposed to sign his or her name.

The order-form creator misspelled “Signatures” as “Signitures” — with an “i” in the middle — perhaps because of confusion from words such as “signify” — spelled S-I-G-N-I-F-Y — or perhaps because of mispronunciation of the letter “a” in the word “signatures”.

“Signify” dates back to the early 1200s and comes from the Latin word “significare”, which means to make a sign.

In contrast, “signature” dates back to around 1530 and comes from the Latin word “signare”, which means to mark.

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

• “signature” — with the letter “a” in the middle — 185,000,000 matches
• “signatures” — with the letter “a” in the middle — 34,700,000 matches
• “signiture” — with the letter “i” in the middle — 384,000 matches
• “signitures” — with the letter “i” in the middle — 57,700 matches

Combining the singular and plural results, this tells me that Web authors have used the correct letter “a” over the incorrect letter “i” by a ratio of 497-to-1, which is excellent. However, over 400 thousand misspellings is a bit troubling.

Solution:
“Signatures”

I saw this yesterday in a document about the maximum download speed made available by an Internet service provider.

Problem:
The provider misstated the download speed by one billion times!

Explanation:
The Internet service provider (ISP) was bragging about the maximum download speed that any of its customers could obtain.

The ISP was trying to say that the maximum speed was twelve megabits per second.

The ISP correctly wrote the final three letters correctly because lowercase-B-P-S stands for “bits per second”.

The problem is with the initial, lowercase “m”.

Lowercase “m” stands for milli, the prefix that means 1/1000 and is found in words such as “millimeter”.

The ISP should have used uppercase “M”, which stands for mega, the prefix that means one million and is found in words such as “megapixel”.

So “1 mbps” (with a lowercase “m”) is one billionth as fast as “1 Mbps” (with an uppercase “M”).

Solution:
“12 Mbps”

I heard this last week on a conference call.

Problem:
The speaker pluralized the wrong word.

Explanation:
Someone made a comment during a conference call.

The call’s facilitator responded to the comment by saying, “I have two train of thoughts on that.”

Given that “two” modifies “train” and not “thought”, the word “train” — not the word “thought” — should have been pluralized.

This type of mistake is a common English blunder in spoken American English because avoiding it requires one to think quickly beyond the common pattern of putting the pluralizing S or E-S at the very end of a concept, which in this case is “train of thought”.

Another example of this type of mistake is pluralizing “attorney general” by saying the incorrect phrase “attorney generals” instead of the correct phrase “attorneys general”.

Solution:
“I have two trains of thought on that.”

I noticed this a week ago.

I was stepping through television channels, looking for something good to watch, when I saw what clearly was a religious TV program.

A woman was speaking directly into the camera, and “Pastor Preasha Hilliard” appeared as part of the banner at the bottom of the TV screen.

I do not know whether Pastor Hilliard was given that name as a child or she chose that name later in life.

But you have to admit that Preasha sounds a lot like “preacher”.

I do not believe that it is a coincidence that Preasha is involved with preaching.

Names mean things.

My wife saw this a week ago in an email message.

Problem:
The modifier of “picnic” is incorrect.

Explanation:
My wife got what appeared to be an often-forwarded email message about being safe with mayonnaise, which has a reputation for spoiling quickly when not refrigerated.

The message referred to the popularity of mayonnaise in meal items that are commonly found on picnics.

The message included the phrase “quaint essential picnic”.

A spelling checker would not have caught the problem in this phrase.

Except perhaps to suggest a comma between the word “quaint” and the word “essential”, a grammar checker would not have caught the real problem, either.

The solution comes from saying “quaint essential” to oneself quickly and appreciating that the email message writer probably was attempting to convert an unrecognized word into two words that he or she already knew.

Solution:
“quintessential picnic”

I saw this last Sunday on a sign.

Problem:
A possessive apostrophe is missing.

Explanation:
I saw a magnetic sign attached to a pickup truck last Sunday.

The sign’s title was “Mobile Mikes Tile Service”, with no apostrophe anywhere, and there was contact and other information beneath the title.

Nothing on the sign implied that there was more than one person named Mike, so I assume that there is just one “Mike” who runs the business.

Oddly, although many sign makers make the mistake of inserting an apostrophe where it does not belong, this sign’s maker omitted an apostrophe where it did belong.

Solution:
“Mobile Mike’s Tile Service”