Are they illegal immigrants or undocumented students? Both

Immigration is such a hot-button issue that even the words used to write about the topic get debated.

"Illegal" and "undocumented" are two of the terms that are often questioned. Reader R.J. Johnson of North Hollywood found them both in an Aug. 24 article about a rally in support of the California Dream Act, which would allow college students who are illegal immigrants to qualify for public financial aid.

"In the lead-in to Teresa Watanabe's article, the words used are 'the undocumented.' But in the actual article, Watanabe uses the phrase 'illegal immigrants,'" Johnson wrote.

"L.A. Times, which is it?"

Well, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

The Times' Style and Usage Guide advocates the use of "illegal immigrants" when referring to "citizens of foreign countries who have come to the country with no passport, visa or other document to show that they are entitled to visit, work or live in the United States."

It continues: "The term 'undocumented immigrant' is acceptable as a synonym for 'illegal immigrant' under certain conditions, such as when a form of the word 'illegal' already appears in a sentence."

And that's just how Watanabe used the terms in her opening paragraph:

Scores of students, teachers and other advocates for illegal immigrants are launching rallies, phone drives and petition campaigns this week for what they see as their best hope to win access to public financial aid for undocumented college students.

Other widely used stylebooks agree with the usage. The Associated Press stylebook, which is taught in journalism schools and used across the news industry, has a similar entry. The New York Times stylebook's ruling is more limited, advocating the use of "illegal immigrant" but calling "undocumented" a euphemism.

Reader Sue Martin thought both terms were wrong. She wrote: "Regarding correct English, you refer to these students as illegal 'immigrants.' The correct term is 'aliens.' Writers for the L.A. Times continuously make this mistake."

But the L.A. Times' stylebook doesn’t consider it a mistake. It advises against using the term "alien" unless it's in a direct quote.

The New York Times' stylebook is more explicit. It says that "alien," while technically correct, "often conveys overtones of menace or strangeness."

The L.A. Times' first stylebook, in 1979, did advocate the use of "illegal aliens," calling it "the simplest term." However, by 1995, the ruling had changed to "illegal immigrant."

Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, who leads the newsroom's style committee, said that "illegal immigrant" is "the preferred neutral, unbiased term that will work in almost all uses."

"We do think through these things at length," Fuhrmann said. "We tend to reflect what we're hearing from our sources and our readers."

--Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Students rally in downtown Los Angeles on Aug. 23 in support of AB 131, the California Dream Act. Credit: Genero Molina / Los Angeles Times

 

More thoughts on Jerry Brown's grammatical gaffe

“Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?”  --Clarence Darrow

This is a postscript to Saturday's “Postscript” column. A post-Postscript, if you will.

In the column, reader Gene Axelrod questioned whether Gov. Jerry Brown, describing his fear at seeing a child at the edge of a steep drop-off at Yosemite National Park, actually said: "If they slipped, they would have went right over."

And, Axelrod wondered, did The Times "forget to insert the signal [sic] after 'went' "?

The discussion led to some follow-up questions and comments from readers.

Tony Newhall of Valencia saw a missed opportunity to explain what was wrong with Brown's quote:

"Shouldn't you have added a short sentence saying Mr. Axelrod was bothered that the governor used the past tense 'went' when he should have used the past participle 'gone' (as in 'they would have gone right over.')?"

And two readers thought the discussion ignored a pronoun problem.

"What about he/they?" asked Walter Hall. "Wasn't it equally grammatically egregious for the governor to switch from third person singular (looking at him) to third person plural (If they slipped)?"

Brian Fodera of Los Angeles agreed. "So much thought and ink was devoted to whether the governor should have gone with 'gone'  instead of 'went' that the governor's twice referring to a young boy as 'they' managed to slip through without remark," he wrote.

They’re both good points. The quote was a mess, grammatically.

Fodera added: "Perhaps the governor's quote should have read: 'It made me shake just looking at him. It's dangerous. If they [sic] slipped, they [sic] would have went [sic] right over.' "

Speaking of "sic," Newhall also suggested that a definition would have been helpful. He's right.

From Webster's New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition: "used within brackets, [sic], to show that a quoted passage, esp. one containing some error or something questionable, is precisely reproduced."

However, as Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann noted in the column, The Times' style and usage guide advises against the use of "sic" unless it is part of the material being quoted, such as a transcript. "If it is necessary to note an error in quoted matter, it's best to simply point it out," the stylebook entry says.

"Our avoidance of the term is in keeping with our general approach of not altering quotes or interfering through the overuse of brackets," Fuhrmann said.

Giuseppe Mirelli of Los Angeles was concerned that The Times had downplayed the grammatical error.

"It is quite alarming that an editor of a national newspaper finds that the improper use of verb tenses to be inconsequential when indeed it is consequential and imperative for clarity in expository writing," he wrote. "Our language is not evolving, as many claim it to be the case when a malapropism is admonished. Our language is devolving at a rapid pace thanks to educated people who marginalize good grammar."

RELATED:

Letters to the Editor: Good grammar in the paper

--Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Gov. Jerry Brown speaks at his Los Angeles office in June. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

 

In an ungrammatical quote, where's the [sic]?

Gene Axelrod of Huntington Beach was reading Tony Barboza's front page story Monday about dangers at Yosemite National Park when he reached this quote from Gov. Jerry Brown describing his reaction to a child standing near the edge of a steep drop-off in the park:

"It made me shake just looking at him. It's dangerous," Brown told the Associated Press. "If they slipped, they would have went right over."

The grammatical gaffe prompted Axelrod to write to The Times:

"Is our governor so uneducated and inarticulate that he actually said, 'If they slipped, they would have went right over'? Or did you forget to insert the signal [sic] after 'went'? ... Sorry, but the continuing degradation of our language annoys me."

The short answer, according to Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, is that The Times generally does not use "sic" in such circumstances.

The Times’ style and usage guide advises against the use of "sic" unless it is part of the material being quoted, such as in a transcript. "If it is necessary to note an error in quoted matter, it's best to simply point it out," the stylebook entry says.

Fuhrmann added, "Our avoidance of the term is in keeping with our general approach of not altering quotes or interfering through the overuse of brackets."

"From my reading, I would say it's rare to see 'sic' in an American newspaper."

Barboza noted that people don’t always speak in grammatically correct sentences. "Yet," he said, "a big part of our job as journalists is to report comments exactly how they are spoken. In this case I figured most people would read it and understand what he meant."

The Chicago Manual of Style, which is the standard outside the newspaper industry, might support Axelrod’s advocacy of "sic." It advises: "The device should be used only where it is relevant to call attention to such matters (and especially where readers might otherwise assume the mistake is in the transcription rather than the original) or where paraphrase or silent correction is inappropriate."

But Fuhrmann said, "I'm not convinced that Brown's relatively minor grammatical error was so notable that it merited being singled out."

RELATED:

Usage: 'Latino' preferred over 'Hispanic'

Expletives: A big ... deal

--Deirdre Edgar

Photo: Gov. Jerry Brown and wife Anne Gust Brown at Yosemite in July. Credit: Anne Gust Brown via Twitter

Usage: 'Latino' preferred over 'Hispanic'

A memo on usage from Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann to Times copy editors:

We have updated our rule on the use of Latino to reflect more accurately what the editors of the 1995 Times stylebook intended: that the term in virtually all cases is the appropriate choice over Hispanic, in keeping with the practices and sensibilities of residents of our region.

We offer this combined new listing in place of two separate and occasionally confusing former entries:

Latino, Hispanic: Latino is the umbrella term for people in the United States of Latin American descent. It refers to Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and others from the Spanish-speaking lands or cultures of Latin America. A Latino woman is a Latina. It is preferable to say that an individual is Mexican American, of Salvadoran descent and so forth, instead of using the umbrella term.

Keep in mind that Latino is an ethnic group, not a race category. Latinos may be of any race: white, black, Native American, Asian, mestizo, etc. Some speak Spanish; some don't. Some are U.S. born; others are immigrants.

Note: Hispanic is acceptable in quotes or in proper names. The U.S. Census Bureau uses terms such as "Hispanic or Latino" and "non-Hispanic or Latino" in its survey questions on ethnicity and race. Stories and graphics based on census information are allowed to use that language when it is essential to explain methodology, but we should otherwise use Latino to describe the people in question.

In describing the old entries as "occasionally confusing," we mean especially every 10 years upon the release of fresh census data. It was easy to see why many of us interpreted the old rules as not only an invitation to use Hispanic but, in census stories, a requirement to do so. The old entry on Hispanic said, in part, "Use Hispanic only in quotes, in proper names or reports based on census data."

So, to be clear: Latino should be used in nearly all contexts; the exceptions, as described in the revised entry, must truly be exceptional. The online stylebook has been updated accordingly.

[We thank our good friend Steve Padilla of the National assigning desk for his help in crafting the revised rule, as well as our retired colleague Frank Sotomayor, a member of the 1995 style committee who spotted an erroneous use of Hispanic a few months ago in a story citing 2010 census figures.]

 

Expletives: A big ... deal

For supporters of healthcare reform, President Obama’s signing of the legislation passed by the House on Sunday night was a big deal. A really big deal. A big … deal, according to Vice President Joe Biden, who filled in the blank with the f-word. Biden muttered the comment to Obama after introducing him at the bill-signing event, but a live microphone picked up the remark.

To The Times, Biden’s use of the f-word is a big … deal in itself.  The Times has not published the f-word since 1998, and that was in excerpts from the Starr Report, an investigation of President Clinton by Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. And since 1985, The Times has never spelled out f-ing.

So, what to do in this case?

The Times’ guidelines on obscenity and taste issues state, in part:

Obscenities, profanity, vulgarities and coarse language, even in their milder forms, should not be used in The Times -- in print or online -- unless they are germane to the essence of a story.

Only compelling reasons -- uses that are essential to conveying a major point of a story or that are necessary to cast significant light on the character of a person being quoted -- are acceptable, and such instances will be extremely rare. Offending terms should be eliminated, or paraphrased (but without using language that still hints at the original), or excised by use of ellipses.

Do not replace an offending word with bracketed insertions such as [expletive deleted] or with hyphens or dashes, as this only invites the reader to fill in the blanks.

Was using the f-word essential to conveying the main point of the story, or would the usage cast significant light on Biden’s character?

No, said Richard Nelson, The Times’ national copy desk chief, who argued against using the word or setting it off with dashes. He thought the paper should follow the same standard as when then-Vice President Dick Cheney used the word in a curse at Sen. Patrick Leahy on the Senate floor in 2004. In that article, Cheney is quoted as having told Leahy, “Go … yourself.”

Additionally, the 2004 article was solely about the exchange between Cheney and Leahy. Biden’s quote was to appear as a side note to the larger news that Obama had signed the healthcare legislation.

So The Times used ellipses in Wednesday’s Page 1 article as well:

Vice President Joe Biden – as he embraced Obama – was caught by an open microphone using an obscenity, exclaiming, “This is a big ... deal.”

Coming out isn't a confession

A careful reader of The Times has called out the staff on a couple of recent occasions over use of language involving homosexuality.

An editorial Wednesday criticizing the anti-gay voting record of state Sen. Roy Ashburn said that Ashburn "confessed that he is gay" during an interview with a right-wing radio station.

In response to the editorial, reader Paul Grein wrote:

"I can't believe that The Times' style guide, in 2010, doesn't say that its writers should use neutral terms like 'discloses' or 'reveals' rather than inherently negative terms like 'confesses' or 'admits' when talking about someone's sexual orientation."

In fact the style guide does address this type of usage. The entry reads:

Avoid the words "acknowledged," "admitted" and "avowed" unless they are appropriate to the context, as when a person in the military is accused of being gay and admits or acknowledges that it is so. In other contexts, write openly gay or gay.

Nicholas Goldberg, editor of the editorial pages, explained the thinking behind the wording:

"I don’t think we meant the word 'confessed' to suggest that he had been doing something we considered wrong. We meant 'confessed' in the sense that he had denied and denied and denied something for years that he didn’t want people to know, and then he finally came out and admitted it. In that sense it was a classic confession, which the dictionary defines as ‘to acknowledge or disclose something damaging or inconvenient to oneself.'

"However, I see your point and, frankly, if it had been mentioned to me before deadline, I would've been happy to change it."

A separate usage question came up in an article Feb. 24 about the military’s "don’t ask, don’t tell" policy. That article described the policy as one that "allows gays to serve only as long as they keep their preferences hidden."

Grein had weighed in on this as well:

"Most people nowadays use the phrase 'sexual orientation' not 'sexual preferences' (and are they plural?) 'Preferences' suggests a mere 'preference' for one gender over the other. In most cases, with heterosexuals as well as gays and lesbians, it's more than just a preference."

The Times style guide gives similar counsel:

The term sexual orientation is preferred to sexual preference, sexual persuasion or other such terms.

The stylebook of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Assn. has even stronger language regarding "sexual preference":

Avoid. Politically charged term implying that sexuality is the result of a conscious choice.

I confess, I agree with Grein on both counts. The style guide does, too. 

--Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreadersrep

Happy National Grammar Day!

The Times regularly hears from readers about issues of language in its articles. Sometimes the problem is an incorrect word (stationery vs. stationary) or a misspelling (metastisize vs. metastasize), to cite two from the last week.  Other times, it’s subject-verb agreement, verb tenses or usage. 

In honor of National Grammar Day, here are a few recent grammar-related e-mails from the Readers’ Rep inbox:

Leonard Fenton, whose subject line read “Regularizing irregular past tense verb forms,” wrote:

I’ve been a daily reader of The Times for 40 years or so, and I am a little concerned to have noticed that grammatical standards have become gradually less rigorous at The Times in the past few years.  Most obviously, irregular past tense and past participles, those quirky and lovely holdovers from our language's youth, are being unnecessarily regularized.

In the Feb. 27 article on Page A10, “The shows will go on,” the author uses the word “sneaked,” instead of “snuck.”  Times usage also often has “he dived,” instead of “ he dove,” and many other examples or regularizing irregular past participles.

We have already lost many lovely and interesting irregular past participles over the centuries, and having a major American newspaper contribute to the demise of proper usage is a shame.  Beautiful, fun, interesting words like slept, bitten, leapt, and wrung should keep their place in our complex and diverse language.

The Times relies on a standard dictionary for usage, and that is Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition. That is also the dictionary used by Associated Press for its AP Stylebook, which is very widely used in the newspaper industry. 

In Webster’s New World, “sneaked” is the past tense of “sneak.” Likewise, “dived” is the past tense of “dive.” And the 2009 AP Stylebook’s entry reads: “ ‘Sneaked.’ Preferred as past tense of ‘sneak.’ Do not use the colloquial ‘snuck.’ ”

However, Webster’s New World does give “slept” as the past tense of “sleep.” Hopefully we won’t be seeing “sleeped” anytime soon!

‘Today’ is so last week

Starting Monday, The Times is no longer using “today” to reference the day of the week in print or online. You notice I didn’t say that this change starts “today,” even though that’s what I mean.

Well, that’s what I mean if you’re reading this on the day it was published -- Monday, Feb. 1. However, this being the Internet, perhaps you came across this post several days later, and in that case “today” would be inaccurate. And therein lies the reason for this change.

As Assistant Managing Editor Henry Fuhrmann, who oversees copy desks as well as style and usage, explained to the newsroom staff:

Our decision reflects the growing intersection of our online and print journalism and the problems caused by “today,” “this afternoon” and so forth, in particular when we move material between one medium and the next. A common example is when a blog post is published for print.

Our concerns are philosophical as well, given that readers come to us from all over the world: “Today” may invite confusion, whereas the day of the week should be unambiguous.

The day of the week will be used within a six-day period. Beyond that, the month and date will be used. So, this change is taking place Monday on latimes.com. It will appear in Tuesday’s newspaper. Feb. 8 will begin the second week of this change.

Talk to you tomorrow. Er, Tuesday.

— Deirdre Edgar

Twitter: @LATreaders rep

When 'mediums' becomes the matter

The article reported on a change in staffing at The Times, a fairly serious matter. But some readers saw an equally worthy topic in the choice of a particular word. Gene Aker of Los Angeles, in fact, saw what he considered a misused word as a dire sign of the changing Times.

The line in question: "Two senior Los Angeles Times editors were given new responsibilities Thursday as part of an effort to create a 24-hour newsroom serving multiple mediums."

"Mediums? Individuals through whom others seek to communicate with the dead? Do you even have a copy desk these days?" Aker wrote, wondering if this apparent goof reflected "the downward spiral of the quality of your newspaper."

(Aker wasn't alone in seeing the specter of psychics in that phrase. On Friday Alan Mutter's Reflections of a Newsosaur blog had a post featured an exchange about the word.)

In fact, Times copy editors put some consideration into using "mediums" (the word, not the psychics). Henry Fuhrmann, who oversees style and grammar in the newsroom, explained in a note to Aker.

Word choices from the political season

As the campaign heats up and the number of politics stories increases, so do the complaints and comments about coverage.  A post on this journal in coming days will tally reaction to recent front-page stories on Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. Meanwhile, word choices from three stories last week each brought multiple comments. In two cases, readers said they saw editorial opinion: in one, a headline that seemed to suggest that the $700-billion financial bailout proposal was in the national interest, and in the other, a story that seemed to bestow on a Democratic candidate an honorific that wasn't given to the GOP candidate.

The third was a matter of subject-verb agreement. In an indication of how grammar can incite in some people the same passion that politics does in others, that one brought nearly 20 complaints.

Manor vs. manner

A story in Business about when sexy becomes too sexy gave rise to an entirely different sort of debate among some readers whose focus is grammar, not underwear: Is it "to the manner born" or "to the manor born"?

The criticisms come in no matter which way The Times spells it (for the record, the phrase "to the manor born" has been used three times in the past three years; the spelling has been "manner" eight times).

The most recent article, which spelled it correctly, was about the CEO of Victoria's Secret revisiting the chain's reputation in light of its disappointing financial performance. A few readers got past the references to sex appeal to question the Shakespearean reference in a comment from Chief Executive Sharen J. Turney. Turney said that the brand's original story line was about a "to-the-manner-born Londoner named Victoria whose lacy underthings, we assume, were her little secret."

No "holiday closings" box, and lessons on "lay" vs. "lie"

What they lacked in size (a small box; a three-letter word) they made up for in meaning. Editors in the California section neglected to tell readers what offices were closed on Monday, the federal holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr.; and a headline used "lay" instead of "lie."