LET'S COMMUNICATE 
Agriculture Communication Newsletter 
June 2002, No. 78

CONTENTS 

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD 
TIMELY TOPICS 
A COPYRIGHT MYTH

 

WRITE THE RIGHT WORD

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."-- Johan Wolfgang von Goethe

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The Trained Professional Watch happened upon a sentence that is technically correct but could be more clear. In a wire service item about the battle against methamphetamine appears: "Necessary ingredients of meth include ephedrine, which can be found in over-the-counter cold medicine, rubbing alcohol, drain cleaner and coffee filters." No grammatical errors. No misused words. But as I read it (granted I was only partially into my first cup of coffee after a short night's sleep) my first reaction was: Ephedrine can be found in rubbing alcohol? In drain cleaner? Surely not in coffee filters! Then the cobwebs cleared. But maybe the parenthetical commas around "which can be found in over-the- counter cold medicine" aren't strong enough. Setting the phrase off with dashes or parentheses could help avoid even temporary confusion.

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A sharp-eyed marketing specialist joined the Trained Professional Watch Posse by pointing out what can only be called a silly mistake. A short item about smuggling honey bees into Canada (not a major issue on my personal radar screen, but...) contained the statement: "No charges have been MAID." The correct word is obviously MADE. But the story does contain such other silliness as "dealt a stinging blow" and "created a buzz," so it just might have been done on purpose; if so I don't get it. So we have two possible lessons: Get the word right, and don't let "cuteness" interfere with your message.

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A reader forwarded a piece that began: "It had been a rough day, so when I walked into the party I was very chalant, despite my efforts to appear gruntled and consolate," then went on to describe a descript person in a state of total array with kempt hair and shevelled clothing who moved in a gainly way. This of course is poking fun at the phenomenon in the English language of words with negative prefixes that don't have a positive counterpart. After all, if you are disgruntled, why can't you also be gruntled? I've seen this described as the "lost positive," the assumption being that at some point in the development of the language the positive forms were real words. For reasons unknown to modern Anglophones they no longer exist. And spellcheckers refuse to acknowledge most of them, if you needed any more proof.

TIMELY TOPICS

Our NDSU Agriculture Web site (www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu) is centered around five major subject matter areas and a search option. We also have a recent updates, timely topics and a feature site column. Your help is needed to identify timely topics. You are the eyes and the ears of the NDSU Extension Service. Please be on watch for topics that are hot or will be hot so we can direct our Web visitors to resources covering those topics. This portion of our Web site allows us to be proactive versus reactive. Please e-mail your timely topics suggestions to the Webmaster at: drice@ndsuext.nodak.edu (Dave Rice)

A COPYRIGHT MYTH

One of the "myths" concerning copyright law is that using copyrighted material is legal if the user credits the source. False. Copyright law makes no such provision. Crediting the source should be part of a "used by permission" statement. Crediting the source in a "fair use" situation is both common courtesy and a way to avoid plagiarism charges (note recent problems of Stephen Ambrose, for example).