Flouting the usual thinking

An Aug. 9 story reported on a Garden Grove resident who, wanting to save water, installed an artificial lawn, only to discover that the city bans artificial turf.

The headline in print was: "Yards of fake grass flaunt lawn and order: Five cities in Orange County review bans on faux turf during state's current drought."

Several readers who didn't leave names did leave annoyed phone messages, along the lines of this one: "The article uses the word 'flaunt,' which means to show off. The word you want is 'flout.' Look it up in the dictionary."

Confronted by a summary of the readers' comments, Mark McGonigle, senior copy chief, responded that yes, the usual expression would be "flout law and order." And yes, that would have worked too. However, defending the headline but conceding the point, he said, "I think 'flaunt' works too, because she's making a display of her lawn and the fact that it stays green and orderly. I think it would have been better to say 'flout,' though, just so as not to raise the question in readers' minds."

Here's the Times stylebook entry on the two words in question:

flaunt, flout: To flaunt means to make an ostentatious, conspicuous or defiant display. To flout is to mock, to ignore, to show scorn or contempt for: He flouted good manners by flaunting his new wealth.

Photo: Jean Orban relaxes on her (fake) front yard. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Andy Eppink]

Hey....shouldn't this read 'ombudsperson'? You know, like spokesperson, garbageperson, policeperson, fireperson, fisherperson, pregnant person etc....
Someone's shirking their journalistic duty here. In the future read your latimes 'pc bible/stylesheet' before carelessly writing pls.

[Jamie Gold]

Thanks for the note, Andy. I am glad to have a job with a title -- readers' representative -- that doesn't force me to choose -man vs. -woman. The Times stylebook says this about "spokesman, spokeswoman," though: "Both are acceptable. If the sex of the individual is not known, use representative. Avoid spokesperson."

(On that note, I appreciate your writing "their" journalistic duty rather than of "his," but myself, I would have written "his.")

[plankbob]

For "lawn and order" to work, the proper word is flout. One doesn't flaunt law and order (unless you're impersonating Elvis showing off his special DEA agent badge).

[GEAH]

"Their" is plural and is no substitute for "his".

When the singular gender is unknown, "his" is correct. It's not sexist. It's simply the proper word. It has other meanings, too, which doesn't detract from this one.

[hurmata]

Copy chief McGonigle's argument is pathethically self contradictory. If one argues that the lady was "flaunting her lawn", then one is NOT arguing that she was thereby "flaunting the usual thinking" because the meat of the story is that her type of lawn goes against what is "the usual thinking" of the government of her city. Aside from this, part of the training of journalists is showing them lists of bloopers such as Malapropisms, and "flout - flaunt" is at the top of that list. Thus for any reporter or copy editor to "bloop" on this pair of words is a spectacular lapse.