Reader questions: ‘Other’ as a verb? ‘Pivot’ prominence? | Angry Grammarian

Spring-cleaning is here, and the Angry Grammarian’s inbox is full. This week, let’s empty the mailbag.

As a baseball fan, I always used RBIs as the plural for RBI. Many have reasoned that, since the plural for run batted in is runs batted in, the plural for RBI should just be RBI, but phrases like “How many RBI does he have?” sound affected to me. What is your opinion? — Tom B.

The dictionary says RBI and RBIs are both acceptable plurals. But as with rpms (revolutions per minute), POWs (prisoners of war), and MBAs (masters of business administration), you need the S to pluralize them and not sound like an S-hole. Besides, you have bigger things to worry about, like why rpm isn’t capitalized like most other initialisms, and why there are so many MBAs out there. A singular MBA is a better MBA, if only because that means there’s one fewer of them.

Please discuss the word pivot, something which one now hears endlessly. It implies flexibility in decision-making, but it sounds way too acrobatic. — Ken R.

Don’t hate the circus. The noun pivot has been around since the 14th century. The verb is newer (mid-19th century), but since the late 1960s, usage has been steady. Maybe worry less about acrobatics and be a little more flexible in your word choice?

I’m emailing you to raise an issue of usage: your use of other as a verb. That is completely ungrammatical. It smacks of business-speak and is jarring to the eyes and to the ear. I would’ve hoped that, as a self-styled expert in proper grammar and usage, you’d never use it in that way. — Lisa R.

Speaking of flexibility, other has legitimate modern uses as an adjective (the other day), pronoun (something or other), noun (others are saying), adverb (the baby won’t eat other than by spoon-feeding), and, yes, verb (we too often other marginalized groups). Years ago, it was even a conjunction (gold other silver), but that was just showing off, and it went out of style with the Tudors. Other’s verb usage didn’t begin until the mid-1980s, so it’s still jarring to some. On the other hand, if you won’t acknowledge othering, then parts of speech aren’t the only thing you’re being intolerant toward.

I don’t know if it’s grammatically problematic, but I’d swear weaponize wasn’t a word until recently and now it’s everywhere. — Robert G.

Our personal experiences of the written word are rarely representative (see pivot, other), but in this case, you’re not all wrong. Weaponize was first documented as weaponise in 1938, but usage didn’t take off until the mid-1990s. After the Oxford English Dictionary added weaponize in 2008, the word’s prevalence skyrocketed. Although the word is new, your complaint is not. Elizabethan playwright Thomas Nashe claimed to have coined the -ize suffix, and caught hell for it. In 1594 he railed against “reprehenders, that complain of my boisterous compound words, and ending my Italianate coined verbs all in -ize.”

Lately I’ve been seeing purportedly used in news articles where what is meant is reportedly. Is this a new meaning for purportedly? — Jonny M.

Far from being interchangeable, the two words are sort of opposites. Reportedly means “according to report,” whereas purportedly means “allegedly” and lacks any sort of evidence. Purportedly, you can use purportedly in place of reportedly. Reportedly, that’s hogwash.

The Angry Grammarian, otherwise known as Jeffrey Barg, looks at how language, grammar, and punctuation shape our world, and appears biweekly. Send comments, questions, and functional shifts to jeff@theangrygrammarian.com.

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