After reading National Geographic' s November issue, a reader wrote that she had learned a new word, “diurnal.” She and her office looked it up online, then one of her colleagues passed the definition along to her 12-year-old son, who took the word to school. The son’s teacher gave her students an assignment to see how many unfamiliar words they could find in National Geographic.

It just shows you the power of print and is a prime example of how our magazine can both educate and entertain.

Determining when it’s appropriate to use a technical term or an obscure word—and possibly make readers stop reading and either run to their dictionaries or put the magazine down entirely—can be subjective. Words familiar to one person because of background or interests may be totally unfamiliar to another.

I remember my confusion as a young journalist in 1968 when, right out of college (with a history major and literature minor), I attended my first NASA press briefing, just before the launch of Apollo 8 (yes, I’ve been in this field a long time). Jargon like “delta V” and “translunar injection burn” almost propelled me into orbit, but before long I was easily spouting those phrases with the best of the press and finding that they helped me communicate clearly and precisely with astronauts, engineers, and scientists. Using them in the pages of National Geographic was a different matter. There they needed explanation.

Earlier this year, while preparing a photo portfolio celebrating the landscape of the Altiplano in Bolivia, editors and researchers debated wording in a picture caption and whether or not to use “sublimate,” the scientifically correct term, rather than “vaporize,” one that would be more immediately clear to a reader. Because our context was not scientific, we opted for the more familiar word and a more general definition, but not before an argument was made that there’s nothing wrong with sometimes making our readers stretch.

“Sublimate” would not have thrown me because it’s a word I learned while working on those space science articles years ago. However, even now, after decades of researching and editing, I find that I occasionally need to refer to a dictionary—for terms such as palimpsest, etiolated, and beef tea.

I hope I never stop learning. And, by the way, the word “diurnal” is the antonym of “nocturnal,” and means being active primarily during the day.

In today’s world of sound bites and text messaging and email, when grammar is barely taught in schools, I fear that precision and correctness in word usage is declining. At least that’s what I conclude from the frequency with which I correct intelligent writers on the misuse of words like comprise and including or hear a reporter on television use that when who is correct.

On the other hand, when I do see or hear such terms used correctly, the writer or speaker climbs in my estimation, and I briefly feel hope for the future. Then, usually, reality hits. I predict that eventually common misusage will override correctness and future style guides, perhaps within my own lifetime, will no longer distinguish between comprise and compose.

Here, for those who still care about such distinctions, are guidelines from the National Geographic Style Manual on the proper use of those words: 

            The whole comprises its parts; the parts compose
            the whole.

            Do not write comprised of: The group comprised
            four men, not the group was comprised
            of four men.

            Four men composed the group or the
            group was composed of four men, not four men
            comprised the group.

And here are some recent examples:

•    “Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population.” (I spotted this sentence in the August 14 New York Times and in my opinion it does not fit the definition of “the whole comprises the parts.” To be correct, the sentence should read, “A majority of the nation’s population will comprise ethnic and racial minorities.” Not very mellifluous to the ear, is it? No wonder few know how to use comprise correctly.)

•    “The new force comprises 70 percent of all the matter and energy in the universe.” (National Geographic, November 2007)

•    “Yellowstone National Park comprises 3,472 square miles of forest and grasslands and waters.” (National Geographic, October 2006)

•    “Today the ‘downtown’ is comprised of a few houses and two small general stores.” (This comes from an early draft. The final wording in the National Geographic, January 2005, does not even use comprise.)   

How many of you readers have rules for including and are you careful with who and that?

Last weekend the scorching weather forced me finally to turn on the AC and take refuge inside away from weeding and pruning. I dipped into Jimmy Buffett’s A Pirate Looks at Fifty and, in a section where the author reminisced about his school days and writing about his summer experiences, encountered the phrase “in 400 words or less.”

Hmmm. In 400 words or less? In 400 words or fewer? Is one correct and the other wrong?

Much as I like to be neat and tidy, much as I see value in clear, consistent rules for writing, I also think we grammar gurus can be too dictatorial, insisting that there is only one correct way. We become Theodore Bernstein’s Miss Thistlebottom, expressing our own pedantic rights and wrongs.

Fewer/Less is not one of Miss Thistlebottom’s hobgoblins, yet I can imagine her saying, “ ‘Word’ is definitely a countable noun and ‘fewer’ should be used with countable nouns. Therefore one should say, ‘In 400 words or fewer.’ ”

But wait, Miss Thistlebottom. Can it not be argued that “400 words” is a quantity, a collective noun of sorts, as Mr. Bernstein himself argues in The Careful Writer? Shouldn’t Mr. Buffett be allowed to write “400 words or less” as a proper and accepted idiom? Shouldn’t grocery checkout signs be allowed to say “15 items or less,” which is easier on my ear than “15 items or fewer”?

I find myself favoring “less” in such instances, but tolerantly allowing others the use of “fewer.” This is a point of grammar that can be negotiated.

A colleague comments: “I agree with you that 15 items or less is fine. I just like the fact that where I shop uses the more formal form!”

Not all points of grammar can be negotiated. For instance, a pronoun used as a direct object must be in the objective case: me, not I. There is only one correct way to write “he invited my wife and me out to dinner.” To say “he invited my wife and I out to dinner” is just wrong, wrong, wrong.

It’s Sunday evening, and my husband and I are talking. I say something about “next Monday.”

“What?” he says. “You mean tomorrow?”

“No, of course not,” I say, impatiently. “Tomorrow is ‘this Monday.’ ”

It’s all very clear and logical in my mind, but I realize that my thought process is not everyone’s. If I meant tomorrow, should I have said, “this coming Monday”? Or better still, "tomorrow"? And for next Monday, “a week from tomorrow”? And then I wonder, when does “next” become “this”?

We’re both speaking English about a very simple concept, and there’s confusion. I conclude that even in conversation I should assume nothing—advice a lawyer once gave me. I resolve to be more precise, more patient.

And more understanding toward those whose first language is not English and who struggle to understand all the idiosyncrasies of its grammar and word usage. We who were reared speaking English should appreciate how challenging the language can be, even when speaking with another native speaker—and be sure we say clearly what we mean.

One of my regular correspondents is a numbers guy who also has an astute knowledge of grammar and word usage. This intrigues me, even though there are, no doubt, many people who excel at both math and verbal skills. For whatever reason, many of us tend to think that a person is strong in one or the other but not both, until reminded, as I once was by my child’s 8th-grade math teacher, that this is short-sighted and not necessarily true.

Numbers guy is cleaning out his basement and has presented me with a slim paperback volume titled S.O.S., Slips of Speech and How to Avoid Them, published in 1922 and written by the managing editor of Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary.

(Naturally when I read the author’s credentials, I was reminded of television’s Laugh-in and one of the stock phrases it made popular: “Look that up in your Funk & Wagnalls!” If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, you might want to Google the show. Better yet, Netflix it.)

Back to S.O.S., which has an amazing entry for gentlewoman:

        An evening newspaper recently announced
        that “Gentlewomen demand dainty underwear.”
        Strange, for the true gentlewoman “asks,”
        “requires,” or “requests” what she needs and
        contents herself with simple undergarments. . . .

The entry goes on, but you’ve got the gist.

Other entries bringing a smile to my face or raising an eyebrow:

•    Fresh for “cheeky” “may be expressive but is not refined.”

•    Breakneck speed is “an absurd phrase,” and angry mob is tautological, for a mob is a turbulent crowd or a riotous assembly.

•    Bunch (for people), cuss (as in “he was a mean cuss”), kid (when meaning “tease”), and slam (when meaning “decry”) are all considered vulgar.

•    Flapper is defined as “a very immoral young girl in her early teens.”

•    Poisonous should not be used of disposition yet one frequently hears, “She has a perfectly poisonous disposition.”

•    Inveigle is pronounced in-vee' gl not in-vay' gl.

Two of the longest entries have to do with the objective case (I or me, he or him) and when to use who or whom.  It appears that a grammarian’s work is never done.

Having perused S.O.S., I have renewed my commitment to keeping the National Geographic Style Manual up-to-date so that no future editor will be able to chuckle over its dictates. Thank you to the people who help me in this endeavor, especially the users who make suggestions and alert me to corrections. Keep up the good work!

The other day, listening to the radio while driving to work, I heard a nationally known print journalist say, “Do we want a President that . .  .” What’s wrong with “who,” I wondered, as he repeated “that.” Within minutes, a university law professor uttered the words “close proximity,” a ridiculous redundancy that has the same effect on me as chalk screeching across chalkboard. I held my breath, waiting for the next breach of proper usage, but nothing else made me flinch before I arrived at work.

In their professions, both journalists and lawyers need to be careful and exacting when it comes to words, at least when the words are in print. Do they not speak as carefully as they write? Or do they write as poorly as they speak and an editor comes along and corrects their errors? Or could it be that I’m the only one bothered by “close proximity”? I just came across the phrase in a book by Alexander McCall Smith, leading me to think that it may have become an accepted idiom for many people.

These thoughts brought to mind Luis Marden, a writer and photographer on the magazine’s staff for more than 40 years (and who continued to contribute to the National Geographic for another 20 years after he retired), who always spoke as eloquently and correctly as he wrote. In an article about Luis, in the November 2000 National Geographic, author Cathy Newman wrote:

        Language, nuanced and precise, was sacred
        to him. To place a word gracefully in front
        of the reader was as important as the proper
        presentation of a fly to a discriminating trout.
        Almost the right word was unacceptable. Only
        the right word would do.

Luis corrected people who misused words, such as “raised” instead of “reared,” and those who used redundancies, such as “opening gambit.” He once pointed out to me that true mahogany grows only in the Western Hemisphere, and similar wood from other parts of the globe must be identified as African mahogany or Philippine mahogany, an explanation I immediately inserted as an entry in the National Geographic Style Manual.

I am positive Luis would not tolerate "close proximity."  After all, as he once told my predecessor Margaret Bledsoe, "If we keep talking this television English, the next step will be "temper tantrum."

How often have you heard the words "Styrofoam cup"? Whenever I hear such a statement or see it in print, I think that Dow Chemical has an uphill battle convincing the public that there is no such thing as a Styrofoam cup.

"What do you mean?" I hear you ask. It's true. Styrofoam is a trademark for a certain polystyrene foam used for insulation and some flower-arrangement material but never for cups and plates.

Responsible journalists honor trademarks. First and foremost by capitalizing them. Dictionaries, the National Geographic Style Manual, and trademark lists on the Web help determine if a word is a trademark. Dumpster, Ping-Pong, and Day-Glo are all trademarks.

Journalists should use a trademark only if what is being described is indeed the trademarked item and using the trademark is important in context. If the trademark is not significant, use a generic term—gigantic industrial trash bin (ugh!), table tennis, fluorescent pink.

Although trademark organizations advise journalists to use trademarks only as adjectives—never as nouns or verbs—I'm more relaxed when I come across such use, and I do allow it in the pages of National Geographic magazine. I once saw a Coca-Cola annual report that used its trademark as a noun: "a billion Coca-Colas ago was yesterday morning." Language Log recently wrote about a Zappos ad that used its trademark as a verb (I actually have a friend who constantly Zappos). And if a writer wants to talk about "a koala bear Velcroed to a tree trunk," I applaud the image. (Today an editor also has to think about product placement, even in print, but that's another issue.)

I respect trademarks, but I also respect good writing. Use trademarks judiciously to effectively convey your message—and remember to capitalize them.

I shuddered recently when a TV reporter, talking about a house fire, said the first floor was "decimated." Even though I’ve now accepted the word "decimate" to mean a significant decrease in a population, I have not accepted it as a synonym for "ruin." Originally the term referred to the Roman military practice of killing every tenth soldier to instill discipline in mutinous units, although for several hundred years it has been used to also mean any drastic reduction in numbers. Today it is commonly used to mean a sudden  population decrease, such as "the Indians were decimated by diseases" or "Asiatic cheetahs have been decimated by poaching and habitat loss."

Another definition I've come to accept is the current use of "tarmac" for any and all airport aprons. Technically the word means a tarmacadam paving material (capped Tarmac is a trademarked bituminous binder) used for roads, runways, and airport aprons. So, to a purist, saying that the President was greeted on the tarmac is similar to saying he was greeted on the concrete (assuming he was standing on concrete paving) or, if perhaps he were in rural Texas, greeted on the dirt. To most people today, however, "tarmac" means the area around a parked plane, no matter what that area is paved with. I’ve decided to join all the VIPs there, on the tarmac.

Can any writers tell me why "swath" has become an overwhelmingly popular synonym for "area," even when the area described is not at all a long, narrow strip. I fear I'm fighting a losing battle on this one.

However, I'm standing firm behind a "lectern" (the vertical furniture used by a speaker) and on the "podium" (the platform on which a lectern might rest). After all, evolution, even of language, is a gradual process.

I’ve just got a response from one of my pen pals—a reader of National Geographic who still corresponds via U.S. mail and thus is unlikely to see this blog—and I am saddened. He says: “I am sorry to hear that the editorial staff has lowered their standards. I had long held up National Geographic as a top example of correct grammar and punctuation but sadly can no longer do that.”

Have we really lowered our standards? And what egregious thing have we done?

For one, we do not use farther and further in the same way our reader does. He would use further only in the sense of “in addition to.” Our style has long been to use farther for true physical distance and further for all abstract and figurative contexts.

        He walked several miles farther.
        He divided each order further, into genera.
        The rollout of further marine preserves. . .
        Education, respect, and love go much further than. . .

But I suspect that difference of opinion is relatively minor compared with our disagreement on the use of due to as a preposition. The National Geographic Style Manual of the 1960s and 1970s had this to say about due to:

        Avoid, except when used to qualify a noun.
        Correct: His absence is due to illness.
        Incorrect: He is absent, due to illness.

In other words, we were sticking with those lexicologists who insist that due to cannot be used as a synonym for because of, that it can be used only as an adjective to modify a noun.

However, some time in the early 1980s, after consulting dictionaries and other usage guides, we changed our policy and determined there was nothing wrong with using due to as a preposition.

For instance, Random House Webster’s College Dictionary, says:      
Due to as a compound preposition meaning “because of, owing to” has been in idiomatic use since the 14th century. Some object to this use on the grounds that due to is historically an adjective, to be used predicatively: The explosion was due to a gas leak. Nevertheless prepositional use of due to is standard in all varieties of speech and writing.

American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says:
Due to has been widely used for many years as a compound preposition like owing to, but some critics have insisted that due should be used only as an adjective. . . . This seems a fine point, however, and since due to is widely used and understood, there seems little reason to avoid using it as a preposition.

So there we are. National Geographic style changed after thoughtful research and in keeping with current usage guides, but my pen pal thinks we have lowered our standards. I prefer to say we have different standards, and that ours is more sensitive to the times.