Some like it spat

Over at Language Log, Mark Liberman has a nice analysis of the nouning of "spat upon," as reported in today's New York Times story,  "When Passengers Spit, Bus Drivers Take Months Off." When a city bus driver is spat on (or at) by a passenger, apparently the incident is now routinely called "a spat upon."

But the headline on page one of the print edition was not the same as the one Mark saw on the Web. My paper had "Spit Upon, Some Bus Drivers Go on Paid Leave for Months." That use of spit reflects Times style -- the verb is supposed to be spit in present, past, and past participial uses, spit-spit-spit. But in this case, that creates an inconsistency: The story is about an assault that officials refer to as "a spat upon," and editors can hardly change that to conform to NYT style.

I don't know whether the online hed was changed in order to eliminate the style disparity; the writer's own use of the dispreferred past tense -- "More than 80 drivers reported being spat upon" -- remains in the text of the Web version. But editing it would have been a sensible decision, since both versions are OK. In fact, Bryan Garner, in Garner's Modern American Usage, lists spit-spat-spat, spit-spat-spit, and spit-spit-spit as possible conjugations of the verb.

He prefers spat for past tense and participle, as I do, though I don't share his impression that spit is "dialectal." (I learned spat in my Ohio youth, but I've heard past-tense spit all over.) And the OED has examples of past-tense forms like spytted and spytte long before spat, which has been circulating for a mere 500 years.

After so long a standoff, I suppose there's no hope for a quick resolution of the spit-spat conflict. But it's nice to see spat holding its ground in New York. Maybe the Times will be moved to reconsider its style choice. 

Over your dead body? Yup.

My Globe colleague Sam Allis has an old-fashioned language rant in today's paper, hating on some verbings (old fave impact, '70s invention transition, recent revivals caveat and friend). His rousing conclusion: "Just because people ... are using 'unfriend' as a verb doesn't mean we all have to sink with them."

Really, Sam, has all my work been in vain? Of course that's what it means. I'm going to put this down to deadline pressure, an excuse I can totally get behind. But let's try not to make the world an even dumber place, OK?

"Entendre" at the singles bar

An entendre that wasn't doubled caught my eye in this NYT story on search optimization last Sunday (yes, I've been neglecting my duties here). David Carr wrote about headlines like "Obama Rejects Rush Limbaugh Golf Match: Rush ‘Can Play With Himself'" that

It’s digital nirvana: two highly searched proper nouns followed by a smutty entendre, a headline that both the red and the blue may be compelled to click, and the readers of the site can have a laugh while the headline delivers great visibility out on the Web.

"A smutty entendre"? I had never seen entendre used this way, as shorthand for double entendre, but if chauvinism can stand in for male chauvinism and graphic for pornographic, there's no reason entendre -- which English uses only in double entendre, a phrase with two senses, one usually risque -- couldn't take the same path.

But it hasn't gone more than one baby step along the route, a web search suggests. "An entendre"  appears 15 times in Nexis newspapers, with citations back to 1988, if we throw out the uses (another 20 or so) that are explicit plays on double entendre -- "barman, give me an entendre and make it a double," and so forth.

Some of these entendres seem to be plain misuse: The idea that Chicago had 400 famous people "was an entendre, a joke, a tongue in cheek," said a founder of a social network there. A student music reviewer used the word to mean simply a non-dirty pun: "Musicaphile ...[is] etymologically sound ('sound' is an entendre though granted not a very funny one)."

But those who employ the naked entendre generally intend it as Carr did, as a short form of double entendre. From the US: "[Mae West] could deliver an entendre just perfectly." From Australia: Dame Edna "adroitly pivots on an entendre." And from England: "The 'Confessions' movies were 'Carry On' films minus an entendre."

Google News takes the solo entendre back to 1969 -- "[she] can put more into an entendre than an old vaudeville comic" -- but again, examples are sparse. Even Google-wide, there are only 360 uses (if the words double and triple are blocked). Still, most of those are recent and youthful, and if the usage does spread, that's where we'll see it first.

Let's get it on

For a week or so, we've all been hearing about the alleged evidence that early humans and Neanderthals interbred. Like the millions of others who once read "Clan of the Cave Bear," I wasn't as surprised as I might have been. It was possible then, it's possible now, and nobody knows for sure.

But I was taken aback when, a couple of hours ago, I heard the WBUR tease for the 7 p.m. repeat of Tom Ashbrook's show, and the announcer said there was genetic proof that  "humans made it with Neanderthals."

Whoa, I thought -- that's a bit slangy (and racy) for a straight program tease, no? And yeah, it would have been, if that's what the man had said. But the next time it aired,  I heard what I think he was really saying: "humans MATED WITH Neanderthals."

The same thing, to be sure -- and yet, how different. After all, "making it" is what specific couples do, and it doesn't necessarily leave permanent DNA evidence. "Mated with" is a species-wide activity, and it implies the existence of offspring. (And as I listen to the broadcast, Tom seems to be using "interbred" instead of "mated with," a better choice both for auditory clarity and for accuracy.)

I'm going to blame John McIntyre for my mishearing, since he wrote so recently about the necessity for a copy editor to have a dirty mind, ever vigilant for the double entendre. I haven't been on dirt patrol for years, but I guess it's like riding a bicycle -- you never forget the fundamentals.