Don't name your child Brenden. I mean Brandon.

This post is not an indictment of the name Brandon or Brendan if one of these names happens to be your name or if you have assigned your child one of these names. 

I've had friends and former students named both Brendan and Brandon, and are perfectly lovely people.

But if you're in the market for a future baby name, I suggest that you avoid these two names completely whenever possible. They create constant confusion and force the bearer of the name to repeat his name again and again, emphasizing pronunciation in order to avoid confusion.

In just the last two weeks, I have watched two Brendans go through conversations almost exactly like this:

Brendan: Hi, I'm Brendan.
Other: I'm sorry. Is that Brendan or Brandon?
Brendan: Brendan.
Other: Brendan?
Brendan: Yes, Brendan.

This doesn't seem like a big deal, but try doing it again and again for a lifetime. 

Naturally, Brendans and Brandons will tell you that their names are perfectly fine and the occasional confusion and constant repetition isn't a big deal, but this is because they have lived with their name for all their lives. It's part of their identity. Of course they like their name.  

Only self absorbed drama queens (both male and female) and people who hate their mothers complain about their first or middle names.   

Objectively speaking, Brandon and Brendan are difficult and cumbersome when compared to most other names. Spare your child a lifetime of confusion. 

If you're trying to choose between Brandon and Paul, go with Paul.

Brendan or David? Go with David.

Brandon or Brenden? There's no hope for you. 

This sign is decidedly less specific than it needs to be

Teachers must stop assigning problems to students in math class, but apparently they need to stop assigning equations, too.

About a week ago I vowed to stop using the word "problem" when asking a question in math, and for good reason, I think.

I proposed using the word "equation" when asking a student to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. 

It turns out that "equation" is the wrong word, too. My friend, who is a physicist, points this out in his comment to my post. I'm posting his comment hear, broken it into paragraphs to make the reading easier but otherwise unaltered.  

This is the same person who once explained to me that an email actually has physical weight. 

I'm still not sure what word to use in place of "problem" but apparently it won't be equation. 

_________________________

Equation isn't the correct term. An equation is a relationship between numbers (i.e., it doesn't involve missing values).

If you want you could call it a puzzle (as is suggested by Linda): figure out what the missing number is. However, puzzle implies that this requested work is something that will require some type of deductive, inductive or creative thinking. In an addition, subtraction, multiplication or division "problem", though, we are hoping for a more rote response.

Therefore, if problem is unappealing, then I would argue for using "question". At the end of a reading assignment, we already ask them comprehension questions. They get multiple choice and fill in the blank questions in other disciplines.

But math is better than those. Shouldn't it have its own terminology as a meritorious distinction? And, a really good math problem is one that does cause us to think; it is a puzzle, or better yet a game. In actuality, though, is it not that math is nothing more than logical deductions based on the definition of the number line. Shall we then agree to say "Deduce by mathematical inference the answer to the following:"?

One of the most remarkable pieces of writing in New York Times history - for reasons that will surprise you

A New York Times piece from July 2009 entitled Cronkite’s Signature: Approachable Authority is truly remarkable. 

It's not remarkable because of the content. The information and insight into Walter Cronkite is interesting but hardly groundbreaking or revelatory. 

And it's not remarkable because of the writing style or particular assemblage of words. It's well written and effective but certainly not Pulitzer worthy.

No, the reason this piece is truly remarkable is because of the two corrections that immediately follow it. Both the size of the corrections (273 words long in contrast to a piece that is 997 words in length) and the particular errors made cause this piece to stand out as one for the ages. 

Read the piece if you'd like, but unless you are a fan of Walter Cronkite, there is no need.

Just read this correction. You will be astounded. 

Correction: July 22, 2009 
An appraisal on Saturday about Walter Cronkite’s career included a number of errors. In some copies, it misstated the date that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed and referred incorrectly to Mr. Cronkite’s coverage of D-Day. Dr. King was killed on April 4, 1968, not April 30. Mr. Cronkite covered the D-Day landing from a warplane; he did not storm the beaches. In addition, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on July 20, 1969, not July 26. “The CBS Evening News” overtook “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” on NBC in the ratings during the 1967-68 television season, not after Chet Huntley retired in 1970. A communications satellite used to relay correspondents’ reports from around the world was Telstar, not Telestar. Howard K. Smith was not one of the CBS correspondents Mr. Cronkite would turn to for reports from the field after he became anchor of “The CBS Evening News” in 1962; he left CBS before Mr. Cronkite was the anchor. Because of an editing error, the appraisal also misstated the name of the news agency for which Mr. Cronkite was Moscow bureau chief after World War II. At that time it was United Press, not United Press International.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 1, 2009 
An appraisal on July 18 about Walter Cronkite’s career misstated the name of the ABC evening news broadcast. While the program was called “World News Tonight” when Charles Gibson became anchor in May 2006, it is now “World News With Charles Gibson,” not “World News Tonight With Charles Gibson.”

Firemen became firefighters. Penmanship became handwriting. Great. But there's one gender neutral word I can't support.

Firemen became firefighters.
A serious improvement. I'd rather be a firefighter than a fireman. 

Stewardess became flight attendant.
Also an improvement.  

Policemen became police officer.
A solid choice. I'd rather call a police officer for help than a policeman. 

Mailman became mail carrier. 
Fine. More descriptive, even.

Penmanship became handwriting.
A more modern alternative.  

Waiter and waitress became server. 
I don't love it, but I can live with it. 

Freshmen became first year students.
A little awkward. Not the greatest. But I can live with it if I must.

I appreciate the attempt to create a more gender-neutral language, particularly when so many of these words traditionally skewed male. 

But there's one that I just can't get behind:

Fisherman has become fisher. 

In 2013, Washington state completed a six year process of rewriting their laws so that they were written using gender neutral terminology. Certain words like manhole cover remained because a better alternative could not be found, but fisherman became fisher, and I hate it.

And it's not only Washington who has adopted the new word. Many websites and news organizations acknowledge fisher as an appropriate alternative to fisherman.

I'm not saying that fisherman is the right word. I'm saying that despite it's obvious male slant, fisherman is a hell of a lot better than fisher. 

But I'm open to better options. I asked my students for alternatives, and their suggestions weren't all that appealing, either. 

Fisher person
Fish hunter
Fish catcher

To be honest, they didn't love these ideas, either. They also agreed that fisher was a terrible alternative.

One of them pointed out that a fisher is actually a small mammal that doesn't eat fish.

Another terrible use of the word.

So I'm looking for an alternative to fisher, and until I find one, I think I'm going stick with the admittedly male leaning and possibly sexist word fisherman.

Sometimes a word - even when wrong - just feels right. 

I don't know any professional fishermen - male or female - but I can't help but think that they would agree with me.

Mike Pesca's favorite sentences of 2015 (and mine)

Back in January, Mike Pesca of Slate's The Gist discussed some of his favorite sentences of 2015. When Pesca attributed the sentence to someone., I included the attribution. 

• Bill Raftery on how he enjoys learning something and immediately sharing it: "That's why I went into broadcasting rather than espionage." 
• "It's easier to condemn than to figure out the charge."
• "They're against changing the flag because that's against they're identity. I don't mean the flag is their identity. Being against change is their identity." - Mike Pesca 
• "Grief is our compensation for death."
• "Some voters do not share democratic values, and politicians must appeal to them as well." 
• "The tradeoff of living in a country where California gets to set the standard on auto emissions is that Texas gets to set the standards on textbooks." - Mike Pesca
• Frank Luntz, acknowledging the anxiety of Trump voters: "But they're also out for revenge."
• "Bravery is easy when you defend yourself from other. Humanity is more difficult. It's when you defend others from yourself." - Nino Markovich of Montenegro 

Like Pesca, I am a serial collector of words, sentences, dialogue, images, and ideas. You can't write five novels, three musicals, a magazine column, and a blog post every day for almost ten years without being a good listener and connector of ideas. 

 Inspired by his list of favorite sentences, I went to my Evernote to recover some of my own favorite sentences from 2015:

• “What is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.” - Don Draper
• "In a world where superheroes, and more importantly super-villains, exist, being a glazier must be a great job." - Michael Maloney
• "He was the fourth of three children."
• "Whisper to yourself what you love most, and that's how you can be brave." - Clara Dicks
• "The saddest of all the ribbons is the white ribbon." - Matthew Dicks
• "You make me want to come to school every day, and that is what every teacher should try to do before everything else. All the other stuff isn't as important as that. Just fill the classroom with hilariousness and love." - a former student (currently in eighth grade) writing to me
• "None of us marry perfection, we marry potential." - Elder Robert D. Hales
• “I trust my story. I always betray my heart with my tongue.” - Clara Dicks while reading Neil Gaiman's Instructions

"Close to the chest" or "close to the vest?" The answer annoys the hell out of me.

I've heard this idiom spoken both ways:

• "Play your cards close to the vest."
• "Play your cards close to the chest."

So I wondered: Which of these is correct?

The answer: Both.

There is no definitive answer to this question. While it appears that "close to the vest" appeared first, "close to the chest" followed almost immediately, and today, both are used with equal frequency.

This annoys the hell out of me. I want there to be an answer. I want one of these idioms to be correct, and frankly, I want it to be "close to the vest."

This middling, indecisive linguistic uncertainty is stupid. 

As a writer, I'm thrilled with a variety of ways to express a single idea, but that variety should contain some actual variation rather than two words (vest and chest) that essentially mean the same thing in this context and rhyme. 

And it shouldn't be the result of an inability to decide upon a correct way of expressing a specific idiom.  

So I'm taking a stand. I say that "close to the vest" is correct and those who say "close to the chest" are heathens and cretins and socially unacceptable monsters. Linguistic criminals. Language murderers.

Disagree with my selection? Unsure if I'm right? Do a Google image search on "close to the vest" and "close to the chest" and see which set of images more closely capture the meaning of this idiom and which set of images make you marginally uncomfortable. 

Who is with me?

FYI: "Drives me up the wall" is an idiom.

My first grade daughter: "I love Charlie, even when he drives me up the wall."

She paused. Smiled. Then continued.

"By the way, 'drives me up the wall' is an idiom. I learned it in school. Do you know what an idiom is, Daddy?"

Impressive vocabulary and outstanding musical taste

Seven year-old Clara told three year-old Charlie, "I only have the capacity to listen to Brass Monkey once at a time, so stop singing it please."

Yes, she used the word "capacity."

And yes, Charlie was singing The Beastie Boys' Brass Monkey. Credit my wife for my children's outstanding taste in music. 

Charlie's response: "You're a funky monkey, Clara."

My kids are killing it today. 

"An urban community" is a far cry from eating paste

My daughter, Clara, celebrated her seventh birthday Saturday. 

At the party, I asked her where one of her friends was. 

She said, "Oh, she lives in an urban community - you know, a place like Hartford - so it may take her a little while to get here."

An urban community.

First grade has changed quite a bit since I spent my time eating paste. 

Heart beeps

My three year-old son discovered his mother's heartbeat today.

He calls them "heart beeps."  

Don't you dare correct him. 

The strangest thing about the octopus.

There are many, many strange things about the octopus.

• They have three hearts.
• They're the only invertebrates capable of using tools.
• They can open childproof pill bottles.   

But here is the strangest:

There are three plural forms of octopus:

octopuses, octopi, and octopodes

• Currently, octopuses is the most common plural form in the US as well as the UK. 
• Octopodes is rarely used but perfectly acceptable.
• Octopi is frequently used but considered incorrect by most grammarians.

Rose City Park Church: The sign is real, and the message is fantastic, despite my suggestions for revision.

I assumed that this sign was a fake when I saw it, but no. It's real. 

It's also both shocking and refreshing. As a person who would like to believe in God and an afterlife but has been unable to do so, a logical, sensible, rational message like this makes religion seem so much more accessible.

Bravo, Tom Tate and company.

I'm also a fan of the Rose City Park United Methodist Church's mission statement (even though I despise the notion of mission statements): 

The Rose City Park United Methodist Church …

 “Where we share God’s love Compassionately and Inclusively

… through Radical Hospitality.”

I could do without the ellipses (of course), but they aren't egregious enough to ruin the spirit of the message.

But it's close.

I also find it amusing that Rose City Park refers to itself as both a city and a park when it's neither. It's actually a small, overpriced (Forbes, 2009) neighborhood in northeast Portland, Oregon.  

As a person who has read the Bible cover to cover three times, I might also suggest changing the word God to Jesus on their sign. Based upon Biblical text, I am quite certain that Jesus would prefer kind atheists over hateful Christians.

The God of the Bible (and particularly the Old Testament) wasn't nearly as reasonable or rational.   

3 verbal tics that you must stop

These may not seem like big deals, but they are. The world is oftentimes far too uninteresting a place, thanks to the inability to communicate with verve and aplomb.

The wasted words. The lack of vigor. Verbal tics that cause conversations to be grating upon the soul.    

Stop these three things now.

1. Thesis followed by evidence

I heard the perfect example of this on a podcast recently. A woman was discussing cheeseburger preferences when she said, "I don't do any condiments at all on my burger. No catsup. No mustard. No relish. No mayonnaise."

In conversation, we do not require a person's thesis statement to be followed by the supporting evidence. We are not writing a scholarly paper. Either summarize the evidence ("I don't do any condiments") or present the evidence (list the condiments), but please don't do both unless listing them will provoke an emotional response (a laugh, tears, surprise). 

We understand what "no condiments" means. No need to list the condiments, even for emphasis. We get it.

I hear this verbal tic all the time. I hate it so much.  

2. Laughing at your own statements.

If you are funny, other people will routinely laugh at the things you say. With rare exceptions, you are not supposed to laugh at the things you say. Yet this egregious and abrasive tic is surprisingly prevalent in the world. People make a statement and then laugh at that statement all the time. 

There are people who laugh at the end of almost everything they say.

I'm convinced that these people don't even realize that they're doing it, so please don't read this and assume it's not you. It might be. Pay attention to the way you speak. 

If this is you, stop it. We all hate you for it.   

3. Attempting to recall insignificant details at the expense of the momentum of a story.

How often have you been listening to a person tell a story, only to watch that story grind to a inexorable halt when the person telling the story begins to debate a meaningless detail?

Was the woman's name was Sally or Samantha?
Was the town was Bethesda or Barksdale?
Was it 1986 or 1987?

These are details that mean something to the storyteller but nothing to the audience, and when we tell stories, the audience's needs are the only ones that matter.

Stop fussing about details that won't ultimately change the story. Many, many things are required to tell a good story, and pacing is one of them. Making your audience (whether it's one person or one thousand people) feel like your story has energy and momentum is critical to maintaining their attention and ultimately entertaining them.

We don't care if her name was Sally or Samantha. We don't care if it happened in Bethesda or Barksdale. We don't care if it was '86 or '87. 

Just pick one and move on.  

A theory on the funniness of people who routinely interrupt others

Here's what I know:

Humor requires patience. The punch line is almost always the last thing to be said, and yet so many people want to say it first. They can't wait to get to the funny part, even though it's the waiting and the building that will make it funny. 

When I describe my living circumstances in my early twenties, I say it like this:

"I lived with a family of Jehovah's Witnesses in a converted pantry off the kitchen with a guy named Rick who spoke in tongues in his sleep and the family's indoor pet goat."

A bad storyteller - or an unfunny person - always wants to get to the goat as soon as possible (because it's the funniest part) rather than building to it. They say the funny part first and then fill in the rest of the details when they no longer serve to increase the humor.    

I hear this all the time. Both in regular conversation as well as storytelling onstage. 

Considering all this, here is what I suspect:

People who make it a habit of interrupting other people are the least funny people I know. These are people who can't wait to speak. Can't wait to insert their voice into the conversation. Can't wait even a second to interject.

These are people who can't wait on a punchline.

But I'm not sure. It's just a theory. 

Thoughts?

Stop saying that women are beautiful.

I was speaking at a conference recently. There were seven speakers in all - five women and two men. Each of us was introduced prior to our talk by one of the organizers.

During the introductions of three of the five female speakers, the organizer mentioned the woman's physical appearance.

"... the brilliant and beautiful..."

"... not only is she beautiful, but she is a published expert in her field..."  

"... a beautiful woman with a bold vision..."

Pay attention to the way women are introduced at events like this in the future. Their physical appearance is often mentioned as a part of the introduction, and almost always by other women.

Conversely, men's physical appearance is never mentioned. I have been introduced hundreds of times prior to a speech, story, or talk, and my physical appearance has never been included in the list of accolades or accomplishments. 

This needs to stop, for a few reasons:

1. It's inappropriate. Physical appearance is irrelevant and should not be touted as a means of introducing a speaker. Doing so implies that beauty is just as important as the woman's professional accomplishments or academic pedigree. The last thing anyone should be talking about is what a woman looks like prior to listening to her speak.    
2. When you mention the beauty of one female speaker but fail to do so for another female speaker (or even a male speaker), you risk hurting the feelings or offending the speakers whose physical appearance was unmentioned. I couldn't help but wonder if the two women whose physical appearance was not mentioned at that recent conference noticed the difference in introductory content. It was also interesting to note that the two women whose beauty was not mentioned were African American, while the other three were white.   
3. Mentioning a woman's physical appearance during an introduction is sexist. The notion that we would include female appearance but not male appearance in an introduction implies that a woman's appearance is an important and relevant part of her value to society.   

Even if you can't agree with these first three reasons (and I honestly can't imagine any sane person not), here is one based solely on logic:

Unless the audience is comprised of blind people, mentioning that a woman is beautiful before she takes the stage is simply stating the obvious. The audience members are about to see the woman, and her beauty will therefore be apparent. From a logical standpoint, mentioning the physical appearance of a speaker is redundant and meaningless, because that beauty is about to take center stage.

This may seem like a small thing to you, but it is not. The perpetuation of the notion that a woman's physical appearance is an important part of her value and worth to society must be stopped whenever possible. This constant, public acknowledgement of the importance of a woman's appearance seems innocent enough, but it represents and reinforces the sexist, shallow, and stupid notions that we have about what is important in our culture. 

If you're introducing a female speaker, say nothing about her appearance. 

If you're a woman who is about to be introduced, make a point of asking that your physical appearance not be mentioned as a part of your introduction.

End this stupidity today. 

Two death bed mysteries and one piece of death bed advice

Why do we climb into bed at night but lie on our death bed? 

Strange. Right?

Speaking on death beds, why do so many people die in the absence of music? 

I have no intention of ever dying, but if I was ever lying on my death bed (merely hypothetical), there would be music playing at all times:

Springsteen. The Beatles. The Who. Van Morrison. The '80's metal bands of my youth.

Why die listening to the beeps and whirs of medical machinery or the hum of passing traffic? Give me Thunder Road, The Bright Side of the Road, and Paradise City.

I'd go out listening to the stuff that I love. You should, too. 

Would it be wrong for me to encourage my students to memorize this?

It is strange that I love both of these things equally?

This advice may seem trite and fairly obvious, but I also think it's almost always ignored, so it needs to be said as often as possible. 

And yet, at the same time, I love this just as much, despite it being so completely unlike the above statement.

My daughter's editorial proclivities bring me such joy for one special reason.

One of the unexpected joys of parenthood is discovering that your child does something that you have done in the past, without any prompting on your part. 

Recently, I've noticed that my daughter, Clara, changes the names of the people in the problems that her teacher assigns to her own name. 

I did the exact same thing when I was a kid.

My wife, Elysha, had seen what appeared to be squiggle marks over the names, but because she had not engaged in this practice as a child, she didn't understand what it meant. 

I knew immediately.  And I love it so much.