09.07.08
Stopit! Shutup!
Rollover Beethoven and tell Tchaikovski the news: Stop putting spaces in verb phrases. Such as demonstrated in this email I just received:
Now, many English-speakers would write that as “Roll over your 401(k),” but I fear that such speakers are becoming increasingly rare. The practice of compounding verb phrases is continuing to pick up. Or pickup.
Don’t get me wrong. I find nothing wrong with compounding. I tend to accept and generate compound words more quickly than others. I write website when others still prefer web site. And in my more lyrical fiction endeavors, I’ve written of, for example, “moonshards” to describe scattered light within a forest.
And there’s nothing wrong with language change—as long as it fills a void or brings additional communicative flexibility . . . and doesn’t confuse, introduce grammatical nonsense, or just plain ol’ sound stupid:
- Confusion: To embellish my previous smartass example, consider “Pickup the truck.” Versus “Pick up the truck.”
- Introducing grammatical nonsense: Consider an instruction you wouldn’t be shocked to see nowadays on a web page (and I believe lax website instruction-writing is at the root of much of this odd compounding): “To get started to rollover your 401(k), signup and login.” On the surface such construction seems clear. “Rollover your 401(k)” sounds nearly identical to “Roll over your 401(k)” (nearly, and more on that in a moment). But how do I express the fact that I am now acting on that instruction? “I am rolling over” or “I am rollovering”? Past tense: “I rolled over” or “I rollovered”?
- Bonus item: Failing to mirror spoken sound. Say “The rollover is dead” aloud, and then say “Roll over and play dead.” Compare the compact (more concrete?) noun versus the flowing, more fluid verb phrase. Form and content.
- Sounding stupid: Well, I always do that. But let’s return to our first example. “To get started to rollover your 401(k), signup and login.” Why not “To getstarted,” as long as we’re at it?
Or, for that matter, why not “whynot”?. And with that, I’ll stopit and shutup now.
(Musical side note: “Roll Over Beethoven” to me is like “On Broadway”—a fabulous, core rock and roll song of which there is no definitive version. That said, I deeply love the Electric Light Orchestra rendition. Check out the video below for that version, additionally delightful because Richard Pryor introduces the song, and YouTube—compound word and all—does indeed call it “Roll Over.”)
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