"Apparent" and reality

Is there any such thing as an “apparent heart attack”? In a post at Visual Thesaurus, Merrill Perlman takes on that journalistic bugaboo. She cites me as a defender of the usage (siding with the Associated Press, versus Bryan Garner and any number of grizzled editors), and so I am, but she doesn't really explain the arguments for the defense. (Her own recommendation is cautious: Use it when you must, if your editor allows it.)

So I thought I'd resurrect my 2008 piece here, before it disappears behind the Globe's paywall. (The Perlman article is already behind a paywall, but buy yourself a Visual Thesaurus subscription for $19.95. You won’t regret it.) 

And while I'm being argumentative, let me dissent from another of Perlman's rulings. "If you do use an adverb, be sure to put it in the right place," she says. That is, write "she died, apparently of a heart attack," not "she apparently died of a heart attack." This is a variation on the placement-of-only fetish, and it's just as misguided. In most contexts, "she apparently died of a heart attack" would be the normal word order, just as in "he probably died of fright" or "they reportedly survived by eating worms." And there's nothing wrong with "Apparently she died of a heart attack," either. Let's not go looking for trouble.

"The Word," Boston Globe, Jan. 6, 2008
"One of my pet peeves is 'he died of an apparent heart attack,' a reader and former newspaperman wrote recently. (His name, alas, has been lost to an e-mail mishap.) "Try as I might," he said, "I have been unable to find an 'apparent heart attack' on any list of maladies that might kill someone."

His peeve is not one of the best known, but it's familiar to many journalists. The New York Times style manual cautions writers not to report "apparent" heart attacks or robberies: "Only real heart attacks and robbery attempts are dangerous," it says. Instead, write "Apparently, he died of a heart attack."

Bryan Garner offers similar advice in Garner's Modern American Usage, along with an analysis of the problem: "The adverb apparently gets morphed into an adjective and paired with the wrong word (a noun) when logically it should modify a verb," he says. "A person may die 'apparently of a heart attack' but one doesn't die 'of an apparent heart attack."'

As usage issues go, the apparent argument is fairly new. The Times used the phrase "apparent heart attack" as early as the 1920s, but the earliest objection I've found comes only in 1965, in a book by Roy Copperud, a journalism professor and usage writer. Copperud called "apparent heart attack" ambiguous, arguing that it might imply that the ailment was merely psychosomatic. By 1980, though, he was backing off: "Critics say sentences like this are ambiguous, though no one misunderstands ... the intention," he admitted.

Others remained steadfast in opposition: Morton S. Freeman (no relation!), in a 1990 usage book, banned the expression outright, because "an apparent heart attack is not fatal."

Now, I'm not especially fond of the apparent heart attack construction. But the arguments against it have holes you could drive an ambulance through.

First, some critics are cheating on the definition: When they say "apparent" heart attacks aren't fatal, they want to imply that apparent is the opposite of actual -- that it means "unreal." Not so: it means possibly unreal, says the American Heritage: "Appearing as such but not necessarily so; seeming; an apparent advantage."

Yes, the apparent heart attack might turn out to be something else -- indigestion or a stage performance, say. But apparent doesn't mean "not genuine"; it only means "not verified."

Then there's the matter of syntax. Garner claims we must say "He apparently died of a heart attack" because apparent, an adjective, would have to modify a noun; we need apparently, the adverb, because we're modifying the verb, died.

But apparently isn't, in fact, modifying the verb in that approved sentence. The deceased didn't "apparently die" (unless he's missing and only presumed dead). If he's dead, then "he died"; apparently modifies the prepositional phrase, "of a heart attack."

As for the adverb getting "morphed" into an adjective, as Garner speculates -- well, apparent is already an adjective. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has been used in this sense - "Appearing to the senses or mind, as distinct from (though not necessarily opposed to) what really is; seeming" -- since the mid-17th century.

So if it's not the sense, and not the syntax, what's really wrong with "apparent heart attack"? Maybe it's the company it keeps. That apparent is journalistic shorthand, often used, like reportedly and allegedly, as a hedge against the uncertainties of breaking news.

I suspect that's the real reason usage writers dislike apparent; they lump it together with "fled on foot" and "slay suspect nabbed" and other condensed cliches of the trade.

Oddly, though, the apparent stigma applies only to crimes and fatalities. The Times bans "apparent" heart attacks, but in the past year it has allowed "an apparent trade dispute," "an apparent reference to the border with Iraq," "an apparent friendly-fire episode," "an apparent gaffe," and more. All these apparents mean "seeming" or "presumed," just like the banned apparent modifying "heart attack."

So it looks as if apparent heart attack is merely another random peeve, a usage plucked out for special abuse while similar constructions get a pass. If you think it's overused jargon, of course, it's fair to argue against it. But let's be clear: the debate is not about "ambiguity" or grammar; it's just a question of taste.