Dreyer's English
Page 21
*18 Confidential to publishing professionals: You’ve got to stop referring to forewords as “forwards” or, worse, “forwords.” I thank you.
*19 Hanging, get it?
*20 From Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire:
BLANCHE: Poker is so fascinating. Could I kibitz?
STANLEY: You could not.
*21 Or, yes, a person. Get it out of your system.
*22 That said, one does occasionally speak, simply, of hens laying, as a vocation; this is one of those instances in which “lay” is an intransitive verb: No object is called for.
*23 Conjugating “to lie” in the sense of to tell a whopper is pretty easy, so I’m parking it down here at the bottom of the page: I lie, I am lying, I lied, I have lied.
*24 The word “percolate” is so strongly linked in the modern mind to the pop-pop-popping of a coffee percolator that many people, I find, are surprised to learn that percolating is not bubbling but the filtering of a liquid (e.g., water) through a solid (e.g., ground coffee). Percolation is not what occurs in the dome at the top of a percolator; it’s what’s going on underneath.
*25 According to a 2000 Wired article, whose author spoke to the hotel’s PR flak, “The building’s current name dates back to the early 1990s…when its former owner deliberately chose to spell ‘Millennium’ with a single n….He was well aware that the spelling was wrong [but] figured the small aberration in nomenclature would make the hotel stand out from the crowd.” In the immortal words of Maureen McCormick, “Sure, Jan.”
*26 Also known as clam diggers or Capri pants.
*27 I love a word with an assortment of punctuation, don’t you?: no-man’s-land, will-o’-the-wisp.
*28 Best use of “staunch” ever? Out of the mouth of Edith “Little Edie” Bouvier Beale, in the 1975 documentary Grey Gardens, by Albert and David Maysles. “A staunch woman…S-T-A-U-N-C-H. There’s nothing worse, I’m telling you. They don’t weaken. No matter what.” You should watch it. Go. I’ll wait here.
I THINK I CAN SAFELY SAY that no rational person is hubristic enough to type “Zbigniew Brzezinski” or “Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn” or “Shohreh Aghdashloo” without first checking the spelling of the name, but the number of less formidable-looking proper nouns that wind up misspelled in manuscripts and, if copy editors and proofreaders are not vigilant, in finished books is vast. In response to a few near misses and at least one published oops, which I cop to below, I began keeping this list years ago; in fact, it’s the germ of the book you’re now reading, and I have a great sentimental attachment to it. And I never seem to be able to stop adding things to it.*1
I suppose I might just say “If it starts with a capital letter, look it up” and end this chapter right here, but where would be the fun in that?
PEOPLE*2
BUD ABBOTT
Of the comedy team Abbott and (Lou) Costello, whose “Who’s on first?” routine is an acknowledged delight but whose perhaps lesser-known Bagel Street sketch (also known as the Susquehanna Hat Company sketch) is one of the funniest things in the history of Western civilization.
Two t’s in Abbott.
A single-t abbot, for the record, is the fellow in charge of a monastery.
PEDRO ALMODÓVAR
Film director.
The acute accent*3 sits over the second, not the first, o in his surname.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
Fairytalist.
Not “Anderson.”
ANN-MARGRET
Actress.*4 Singer. Erstwhile kitten with a whip.
Not “Margaret,” and: Mind the hyphen.
ATTILA
Hun.
Not “Atilla.”
DAN AYKROYD
Comedian. Half of the Blues Brothers.
Not “Ackroyd” (though that’s the correct spelling for Agatha Christie’s Roger-who-was-killed).
“Ghostbuster” is one word, by the way.
ELIZABETH BENNET
Headstrong heroine of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Just the one t in Bennet.
It’s not “Jane Austin.” Does that bear mentioning? I fear that it does.
PIETER BRUEGEL THE ELDER
Sixteenth-century Flemish painter, the Matthew McConaughey of his era, as no one can ever quite remember how to spell his name, likely because it is also spelled Brueghel or Breughel. His eldest son, also named Pieter, generally referred to as Pieter Brueghel the Younger, also vacillated on the spelling of the family name. Which happily suggests that no matter how you spell it, you can defend your choice.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
A.k.a. Siddhartha Gautama, a.k.a. the Buddha.
Sage.
Not “the Bhudda.”
Also, then, not “Bhuddist” but “Buddhist.”
WARREN BUFFETT
Billionaire.
Not “Buffet,” which would make him a serve-yourself meal.
Here’s a head-scratcher, though: Why does no one seem ever to misspell singer Jimmy Buffett’s name?
JULIUS CAESAR
Roman emperor after whom caesarean delivery was likely not named.
Not “Ceasar.”
The salad—born, untraumatically, not in Rome but in Mexico—is also Caesar.
The Messrs. Chavez (activist) and Romero (Joker), among many others, were Cesars.
NICOLAS CAGE
Film actor.
Not “Nicholas.”
Nephew of film director Francis Ford Coppola and cousin of FFC’s daughter, film director Sofia Coppola, whose surname is occasionally misspelled “Copolla.” (Italian words with double consonants seem to confound people; be on your guard.)
ROSANNE CASH
Singer/songwriter/writing writer.
Most definitely not “Roseanne.”
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
Tragically lost opportunity.
A two-l Hillary.
Novelist Mantel and actress Swank are one-l Hilarys.
PATRICIA CORNWELL
Novelist and Jack the Ripper obsessive.
Not “Cornwall.”
NOËL COWARD
Actor, playwright, composer, lyricist, director, generally busy fellow.
The diaeresis—the New Yorker–beloved mark often affectionately but, in this and all other non-German-language cases, inaccurately referred to as an umlaut—is not optional.
ALEISTER CROWLEY
Pansexual occultist.
You’ll more often run into Alistairs and Alastairs (Alastair Sim, for instance, the preeminent cinematic Scrooge).
E. E. CUMMINGS
Edward Estlin Cummings, in full. Poet.
His name is not “e. e. cummings.”*5
A Note on Initials
Random House style favors even spacing overall for names featuring two initials, that is:
E. E. Cummings (rather than E.E. Cummings)
T. S. Eliot (rather than T.S. Eliot)
H. L. Mencken (you get the point)
to say nothing of
George R. R. Martin
For names featuring three initials, go with the more compact
J.R.R. Tolkien
for instance, because on the page, J. R. R. Tolkien, not unlike the Peter Jackson films taken from his books, goes on for bloody ever.
More and more often I’m seeing, for people who truly use their initials as a first name, such stylings as
PJ Harvey
and
KT Tunstall
which I think look spiffy and make good sense, an enviably fine combination.
Mostly one wants to strike a balance between one’s editorial preferences and the preferences of the people who own the na
mes.
CECIL B. DEMILLE
Spectacular director.
The family name was de Mille, and that’s how Cecil B. signed his name. But for business purposes and onscreen credits, he used the more imposing DeMille, so thus we refer to him.
Cecil’s brother, also a director (and a screenwriter), was William de Mille.
William’s daughter was the choreographer Agnes de Mille.
CRUELLA DE VIL
Puppy-coat-craving archvillainess.
Not “de Ville,” as I often encounter it.
While we’re here: Dodie Smith’s 1956 novel is The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The 1961 Disney animated film thereof was first released as One Hundred and One Dalmatians; it’s now generally marketed as 101 Dalmatians, which is the official title of the 1996 live-action remake.
The spotted dogs are not “Dalmations,” though that error attempts to happen every so often.
W.E.B. DU BOIS
Writer and civil rights activist.
His surname is correctly rendered “Du Bois” and not (as for Tennessee Williams’s Blanche) “DuBois.”
And it’s pronounced not “doo-BWAH” (which would be correct for Blanche) but “doo-BOYZ.”
T. S. ELIOT
Person ultimately responsible for Cats.
This is your reminder always to look up Eliots, Elyots, Elliots, and Elliotts.
PHILEAS FOGG
Hero of Jules Verne’s La tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours, a.k.a. Around the World in Eighty Days.
Not “Phineas.”
MAHATMA GANDHI
Nonviolent revolutionary.
Born Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.
“Mahatma,” by the way, isn’t a name per se. It’s a Sanskrit honorific, meaning “great soul.”
All that taken into account, the surname is not “Ghandi,” as it’s misspelled with dismaying frequency.
THEODOR GEISEL
A.k.a. Dr. Seuss.
Cat in the Hat creator.
Not a Theodore with a second e.*6
There are more Theodors out there than one might at first imagine, including the philosopher surnamed Adorno and the Zionist surnamed Herzl.*7
ALLEN GINSBERG
Beat poet.
Always verify the name of anyone who is named Allen, Allan, Alan, Ginsberg, Ginsburg (Ruth Bader, for instance), or even Ginzburg.
JAKE GYLLENHAAL
Actor.
Also, for that matter, Maggie Gyllenhaal, his sister. Actress.
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Composer.
This, above, is his own anglicized version of his name; in the original German he’s Georg Friedrich Händel.
LILLIAN HELLMAN
Playwright, screenwriter, memoirist, of whom writer Mary McCarthy once commented, “Every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the,’ ” which is one of the most jaw-droppingly deft insults ever hurled (and for which Hellman sued; wouldn’t you?).
Only one n in Hellman.
Hellmann’s, with two n’s, is a brand of mayonnaise.
O. HENRY
Pen name of twisty-ending-short-story writer William Sydney Porter.
Not “O’Henry.”
The candy bar is Oh Henry!; it was not, as many people think, named after baseball player Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron.
KATHARINE HEPBURN
Radiant personality and occasionally brilliant actress.
Not “Katherine.”
PEE-WEE HERMAN
Alter ego of comedian Paul Reubens. Note the hyphen, note the lowercase w.
The nickname of the major-league shortstop Harold Peter Henry Reese is Pee Wee.
ADOLF HITLER
Genocidal maniac democratically elected to run an ostensibly enlightened nation.
It’s not “Adolph.”
I can’t, apparently, say that enough.
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Goddess.
One l in Holiday.
JUDY HOLLIDAY
Actress.
Two l’s in Holliday.
ANJELICA HUSTON
Actress.
Not “Angelica.”
Lot of actresses in this list, are there not.
ALEJANDRO G. IÑÁRRITU
Mexican filmmaker.
The back-to-back diacriticals are distinctive.
The full title of his Academy Award–winning film Birdman is, please note, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), which manages to be both distinctive and bothersome.
COUSIN ITT
Short, hirsute Addams relation.
SCARLETT JOHANSSON
Actress.
Two t’s in Scarlett, like in Scarlett O’Hara.
MADELINE KAHN
Actress, often outrageously funny.
Not “Madeleine.”
While we’re here:
Ludwig Bemelmans’s storybook schoolgirl (“In an old house in Paris, that was covered with vines,” etc.) is also Madeline.
The Proustian pastry is a madeleine.
The first female secretary of state in U.S. history was Madeleine Albright.
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
Soviet shoe banger.
You’d think that people would always look up a tricky name like Khrushchev. You’d be wrong.
FREDDY KRUEGER
Frequenter of Elm Street.
Not “Kreuger.” And not “Kruger.” And not “Kroger.”
SHIA LABEOUF
I appreciate people who take the time to spell this odd actor’s odd name correctly. In a more sensible French-cognizant world, it would be spelled LeBoeuf.
K. D. LANG
Musician.
All-lowercase names are a matter of copyeditorial delicacy. I lean toward honoring the preference of the name’s owner. One might, on first mention, to avoid any possible confusion, drop in a parenthetical along the lines of “(who styles her name thus),” but you probably won’t be happy with how fussbudgety it looks. This sort of thing is, I suppose, a matter of taste, of context, of fame, of reader familiarity.
(Same indeed goes for people who make their way through life mononymically, e.g., Cher and Beyoncé, neither of whom, to be sure, requires a “who styles her name thus.”)
VIVIEN LEIGH
Actress.
Not “Vivian.”
LEONARDO DA VINCI
Quite literally, Renaissance man.
He’s set here between Leigh and Lévi-Strauss rather than up among the D’s because his name is, indeed, Leonardo and he oughtn’t to be referred to as “Da Vinci.” Vinci is where he was from; it’s not his name. That novel by Dan Brown has done much to blunt this particular point, but getting this right remains a laudable thing to do.
CLAUDE LÉVI-STRAUSS
Anthropologist.
(The unrelated company that makes the jeans is Levi Strauss.)
ROY LICHTENSTEIN
Pop artist.
I occasionally see the spelling of his name confused with that of the little landlocked European country hemmed in by Switzerland and Austria, which are themselves landlocked, and which is the Principality of Liechtenstein.
PATTI LUPONE
Singing actress.
Not “Lupone.”
This is not a woman you want to mess with, so get it right.
MACBETH
Thane.
Not “MacBeth.”
It’s the wise writer who looks up any name starting with Mac- or Mc-, whether it belongs to an apple (McIntosh) or to a computer (Macintosh), or to James Abbott McNeill Whistler (painter), Fred MacMurray (actor), or John D. MacDonald (author).
While we’re here: The theatrical superstition against uttering the name Macbe
th is often misrepresented. One may safely utter it, say, walking down Forty-fourth Street or at a table at Sardi’s. Or while reading this book aloud. One may not utter it, except during rehearsals or performances, in a theater. Thus the euphemisms “the Scottish play,” “the Scottish lord,” etc.
MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY
Actor.
His surname is impossible to spell correctly.
IAN MCKELLEN
Actor.
His name is—inexplicably, I’d say; one might just as easily get it right as get it wrong—often misrendered “McKellan.”