Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this in a presentation to customer-support personnel.

Problem:
The word “back” is redundant in this expression.

Explanation:
The expression was part of advice to customer-support personnel:

“Come to work with a smile on your face! That smile then brightens everyone’s day[,] which reflects back to our customers. A smile goes a long way over the phone when providing Best in Class Service.”

The “re” in “reflect” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “reflects back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“… which reflects to our customers.”
OR, even better, given the full sentence,
“… which is transmitted to our customers.”

I came across a word — “irrespective” — that seems to explain how “irregardless” got coined.

Problem:
As I wrote last October, “irregardless” is meaningless in that it means the opposite of what is intended.

Explanation:
People use “irregardless” when they mean the adverb “regardless”.

I now believe that another source of confusion is the fact that “regardless” and “irrespective” have the same meaning.

Blend these two words together, and you get “irregardless”.

Solution:
“Regardless” or “Irrespective”

I saw this in an email message about worthwhile monthly goals.

Problem:
This goal negates itself.

Explanation:
This monthly goal seems to be written well.

The goal has “Create” — a popular verb for goal setters because one can usually determine (”measure”) whether something has been created.

The goal has “opportunities” — a very popular noun in the corporate world because businesses thrive on taking advantage of opportunities, wherever they may arise.

And the goal refers to process improvement, and who couldn’t love process improvement, right?!

Take a few moments to analyze the goal, though, and you find that it negates itself.

What is a process-improvement opportunity? It is an opportunity for process improvement.

What is an opportunity for process improvement? It is a situation where something is running inefficiently. In other words, it is an inefficient process.

In other words, Create two inefficient processes. is the actual meaning of this monthly goal.

Ouch! Surely, this is the opposite of what was intended. A good business might want to identify inefficient processes, or it might want to create suggestions for process improvement, but a good business would not want to create inefficient processes.

I believe that the writer got carried away with assembling popular corporate buzz-words into something that looked like a worthwhile goal but actually would be bad for business.

Solutions:
“Identify two process-improvement opportunities.”
“Create two process-improvement suggestions.”

I heard this on a TV show.

Problems:
1. The verb doesn’t match the subject.
2. Double-negation nullifies the speaker’s intended message.

Explanation:
1. The pronoun “she” does not go with the verb “do”, even if the verb is in a contraction with “not”. The pronoun “she” requires “does” (or “doesn’t”), as in “She does …” (or “She doesn’t …”).
2. The “not” in the contraction combined later in the sentence with the “no” in “no more” leads to a sentence with a double-negative. Assuming that the speaker wanted to tell the listener that the third-party female (to which the pronoun “she” referred) no longer loved the listener, “no” should have been replaced with “any” in the sentence.

I believe that there are two forces that led to this double-trouble sentence.

The first force is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis: the single-syllable “don’t” is simpler to say than the double-syllable “doesn’t”.

The second force, I believe, is the influence on American English today of a relatively large population of native-Spanish speakers. If one uses a negative Spanish pronoun, adjective or adverb after a verb, the verb must be preceded by “no” (which means the same as “no” in English) or another negative pronoun or adjective.

For example, the pronoun “nada” in Spanish means nothing, and “encontró” means (he/she/it) found.

So to say “He found nothing.” in Spanish requires us to write “Él no encontró nada.” or more simply “No encontró nada.” — NOT “Encontró nada.” (or “Él encontró nada.”), which native-English speakers expect when first learning Spanish.

In other words, the above Spanish construction could be called a double-negative that is non-self-negating, and the construction is the correct way to write or say a such a negative in Spanish. In contrast and as far as I know, all double-negative constructions in English ARE self-negating.

As more native-Spanish speakers in the U.S. learn English, they will tend to use — mistakenly — (self-negating) double-negatives in English because (non-self-negating) double-negatives are a required part of their native language.

Solution:
“She doesn’t love you any more.”

I heard this in a conference call.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “echo back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The verb ” echo ” means to return a signal or message, so the meaning of “echo back” would be to return back [sic] a signal or message.

The “re” in “return” means back. Therefore, one could argue that something that “echoes back” would never reach the original sender.

Solution:
“echo”

I often hear this.

Problem:
“Each person was prettier than the next.” is the opposite of what is meant.

Explanation:
“Each person was prettier than the next.” means that the next person is not as pretty as the current person. This means that the persons are becoming uglier as one steps through the sequence. When people say, “Each person was prettier than the next,” what they want to say is that the persons are becoming prettier as one steps through the sequence.

Solution:
“Each person was prettier than the previous.”

I frequently hear this.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “reply back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The “re” in “reply” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “reply back” would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“I’m waiting for him to reply.”

I frequently hear this.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “respond back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The “re” in “respond” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “response back” would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“Please respond.”

I frequently hear this.

Problem:
“I could care less” is the opposite of what is meant.

Explanation:
“I could care less” means that it is possible (”could”) for me to care less. This means that I do care at least a little. When people say, “I could care less,” what they want to say is that they have absolutely no care for whatever the target of their statement is. The only way that this is possible is for them not to be able (”couldn’t”) to care less.

I also believe that omission of “not” (or its contracted form) helps to prove my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to say “could” than to say “couldn’t”.

Solution:
“I couldn’t care less.”

I saw this in a company document.

Problem:
“Irregardless” is meaningless in that it means the opposite of what is intended.

Explanation:
People use “irregardless” when they mean the adverb ”regardless”. The confusion could come from the fact that some words can be negated with the “ir” prefix. “Irreverent” is the opposite of “reverent”; “irregardless” is meaningless, on the other hand.

Solution:
“Regardless”