Key to the City

I don't remember the nightmare, but it bolted me out of bed. The clock showed I hadn't set the alarm and was late for work. I grabbed my keys and hopped toward the front door while putting on trousers, socks, shoes, and shirt. Half dressed, I tried unlocking the car door parked on the curb. It would not open. I darted back into the house. Honey, my car key doesn't work for some reason, may I have yours? Don't you remember today is D-Day? D-Day? Don't you remember I took ownership of the car and changed the key as part of the divorce agreement? What divorce agreement? You forgot you signed it? When? What difference does when make? How am I going to get to work? How should I know? Where's my phone? Don't you know it's always where you last put it? Why would I ask if I did? Do you remember that you stayed here last night as a courtesy I extended to you? What? Are you telling me you forgot that this house is no longer yours and I changed the house keys as part of the divorce agreement?

The walk to the train station, the wait for the train, the train ride itself, the run from the train to the office were painfully slow. I rushed into the office and said good morning to whoever I passed, but they all returned my greetings with strange stares. I tried unlocking my office, but couldn't get in. My manager walked up to me. What are you doing here? The key doesn't work. We changed the key. Why? You don't work here anymore. Since when? Close of business yesterday. Why didn't anyone tell me? You weren't around as usual. 

It was nine thirty and I had a hundred bucks in my pocket and the door to the bar across the street was wide open. The owner Charlie was there cleaning up the place and airing it out. Charlie, if I help you get things in order, will you sell me a bourbon neat? If you want to drink this early, knock yourself out. I took the chairs off the tables, swept the floor, and bought a bourbon. Charlie worked at the bar on his laptop all along. The only words we shared were, Give me another, Here you go. The more I drank, the cleaner and emptier the bar looked.

Six or seven shots and a hundred dollars later, I walked out of the bar with nothing in my pocket but three useless keys. I decided to walk home, wherever home now was. Down the block in City Hall Park, there was some commotion going on. A big crowd of people was cheering below the City Hall steps. At the top of the steps was the mayor handing the key to the city to someone famous, but I couldn't make him out. The crowd was chanting some rap lyrics, so I figured he was a recording artist. I stood there with a plan. After the rapper shook the mayor's hand and thanked his mother, music producer, entourage, and fans, he walked down the steps to embrace his following. I couldn't have planned it better. He was high-fiving some devotees and taking selfies with others, flashing his key to the city. He was heading in my direction, and I drew closer to him to quicken the process. Just when he stood in front of me, he raised his right arm for a high-five. From his left hand, I snatched his key to the city and made off for the busy streets hoping to disappear in the crowd. The rapper chased after me followed by two bodyguards, a half dozen police officers, and even some of his fans. But catching everyone by surprise gave me a pretty good head start. I was just a few steps from finding shelter in the mass of tourists and businesspeople scurrying around town. My heart was about to explode, in part because of the chase and in part because of the thrill of having the key to the city. Who would have thought this day would turn out so great?

Founded in 1996

August 2 marked the thirtieth anniversary of my quitting a steady, secure job to become the sole proprietor of a risky business in the educational services sector. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 19% of such businesses fail within their first year, 46% fail within five years, and 61% after ten years. I'm not a big-time gambler, so I sometimes shake my head in bewilderment that I decided to go solo. Why would I take such a big risk at age 42 with a mortgage and two daughters, ages 14 and 11, meaning a quarter million dollars in college bills ahead of me, to walk away from a job with a reasonable salary, pension, health benefits, a company car, and good friends?  

I had a long time to answer this question. For seven years, I prepared myself to walk away from a role that I ultimately spend 19 years doing by calculating my potential income across the expanse of industry changes, learning whatever I could about the operational side of the business I wanted to enter, and honing my skills to succeed at it. I would have been happy with an equivalent income since I was fortunate to have a wife who had healthcare benefits from her work as a public-school teacher. Throughout those seven years, I continually weighed the pluses and minuses of going into business for myself.

It turns out that my predicted disadvantages and advantages, as well as my ultimate decision, were spot on. 

Starting with the downside, I would never again get a paid vacation, holiday, or sick day. I would work for billable time. I would lose the company car and the healthcare benefit. I would sit on a frozen abysmally low pension from my job, not payable for another 23 years, and I would no longer be able to contribute to a 403B plan reserved for nonprofit employees. I would have to surrender the company car, so I would now have to buy one of my own. Although I did not belong to a union, I enjoyed job security in an autonomous, specialized role. I would also miss the camaraderie of several friends.  

On the upside was the possibility of earning more income, but that was not a guarantee. I would have greater control of my time, even though I never shied from 75- to 90-hour workweeks. Important to me was the constant challenge of finding creative solutions to my clients' problems. I love learning, and surviving in this business depended on obtaining a great deal of self-education to stay at the top of my game. Without a boss, I would feel independent to make choices that mattered to me. I would never again argue with management. I would have only myself to blame for making poor decisions, holding on to bad clients, and partnering with ineffective collaborators.

It all has worked out. Despite formidable challenges, including recessions, natural disasters, an epidemic, and clients' strategic changes, I have earned far more than I expected, so my daughters went to colleges I would not have otherwise been able to afford, and my financial future is more secure. I traveled for work to China, India, and throughout the United States. I worked for some of the largest companies and municipalities in the world, and I have worked with brilliant, diligent people who have made me smarter. I remain close to my friends from my old job 30 years later.

Yes, risks arise in leaving a dependable job for an unknown future in a private business. I would not recommend it for everyone, but the ride continues to be worth it for me.

A Thank-You Letter to Benjamin Bass

Strand Bookstore, New York City. Photo by Ajay Suresh

Dear Benjamin Bass, 

When as a struggling Lithuanian immigrant you founded the Strand Bookstore nearly a century ago in 1927, I'm sure you wanted to see the day when it would flourish. And you did, long before you died 51 years later. Your store continues to be a must-visit spot for travelers around the world who come to New York City, whether to buy a reasonably priced, hard-to-find book or to satisfy their curiosity about the store's mammoth size (18 miles of books, as your tagline says).  

You were alive when I first frequented your store in 1971 as a City University of New York student living 12 miles away in the Bronx, and although I now live 32 miles away, I still stop by whenever I can. I look at the hundreds of used books on my shelf that I've bought in excellent condition and at affordable prices from Strand, realizing that I owe much of my education to you. In truth, your legacy is one of the reasons I hesitate to move much farther away. 

So thank you for offering the perfect deal to the millions of people who have wanted to be educated or entertained through the endless, transformative power of books. I have always felt that when it comes to the book business, the customer always gets the better end of the bargain. We can reread the same book at different ages in our life and discover how much we have changed. This might be a good time for me to acknowledge your business model as a labor of love, too. Finally, thank you for believing in the magic of books and for being such an important part of my life. Here's to the next hundred years.

With appreciation and admiration,

Phil Vassallo

On Forgetting Words

In a dream last night, a friend pointed to the vertical groove between his nose and lip and asked me for the word identifying it. I couldn't recall no matter how hard I tried. I learned the word in the third grade, when I was eight years old, but I just couldn't name it. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. in a Porto, Portugal hotel room, realizing I couldn't recall the word in my waking life either. So I looked it up on my phone as my wife slept peacefully beside me. Philtrum. A word I have not used, or probably seen, since I learned it more than six decades ago. How could I forget? My name, Phil, starts the word!

In a sweat, I started going through other visible body parts: eye, iris, pupil, lens, cornea, eyebrow, eyelash, then down to my foot, heel, Achilles tendon, ankle, ball or plantar fascia, toes, instep—what's the formal word for instep? Another one that sent me to my Google assistant: dorsum. Darn, another forgotten word! I was experiencing a waking nightmare. Was I at the doorstep of dementia? I kept naming body parts, like a child counting sheep, until I fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later pleased that I recalled philtrum and dorsum, but doubting I'd remember them for long. My minor difficulty made me think of the poem "Forgetfulness" by Billy Collins. When I first read it more than thirty years ago, I found it amusing, but it reflected my reality more and more as time passed. 

When a more focused temperament grounded me, a familiar adage came to mind: If you don't use it, you lose it. Philtrum, philtrum, philtrum, philtrum. Dorsum, dorsum, dorsum, dorsum.

Toilet Humor: Watch What You Say!

East side, West side, it makes no difference when it comes to communicating clearly. People know not what they say, at least some of the time. Take the three photos on the left as evidence. I snapped shots of these signs, from top to bottom of a wall above a urinal in a men's restroom in a New Haven, Connecticut restaurant; a toilet door in a men's restroom in a Maui, Hawaii restaurant; and a bathroom wall in a hotel room in Kennebunkport, Maine. 

The top one is intentionally funny, but the bottom two are unintentionally so. Most English-reading people who understand metaphorical language would laugh at the top sign if they were standing at that urinal. But the middle, unwittingly a double entendre, conjures an image of David spying on Bathsheba as she bathed, and the bottom one is more like a solecism, evoking a scene too revolting to explain in this blog.

How do we guard against creating such unintended meanings and logical errors? The wicked side of me would answer, "Why guard against them? They're funny. The more, the merrier." But my professional side must say that in serious writing, from business messages dramatic scripts to novels, we should avoid them, and we can do so by carefully examining syntax (word order) and diction (word choice). Errors in semantics are most  common when we are rushed or careless. All the current writing tools notwithstanding, including AI, we need to make a final careful read before pressing send. 

I Know the Way

Apple Maps says it's this way, Google Maps says it's that way. Either way will take a long time. I know another way anyway, and it's not that bad a way, so I'll go my way. 

AllRecipes.com says cook it this way, Food.com says cook it that way; either way is complicated. I know my way is simpler, and it's tasty but I'll never know if it's tastier than the AllRecipe or Food ways unless I try them. But I don't care because I like my way, so I'll cook it my way.

Instagram says wear it this way, TikTok says wear it that way; either way seems ostentatious. I know my way is inconspicuous, but I like it that way, so I'll wear it my way.

The Pattern app says this will happen to me, the Sanctuary app says that will happen to me. Either happening is distasteful and uncomfortable to me. I plan to do something reckless, maybe dangerous, but far more tasteful and comfortable, so I'll do it my way.

The battery of my phone died, and I'm still here. That doesn't matter anymore. I know the way.

There Are Two Ways

There are two ways to do some things, but it's not as simple as saying it's the right way or the wrong way.

There are two ways of driving to my house, the direct route and the scenic route. I would not call the scenic route the indirect route, because both drives seem direct enough. It's just that the direct route has two fewer traffic lights and one less turn through the town center but does not offer a view of the river, as the scenic route does. When alone, I choose the route based not on time but on my state of mind. When I think of myself I take the direct route, and when I think of you I take the scenic route. 

There are two ways to walk to the park, the shorter route about four hundred meters past the homeless men sifting through trash cans and urinating in the gutter when they aren't lying in a death trance against a graffiti-riddled abandoned tenement, or the longer route about five hundred meters along a cobbled path beneath a canopy of trees upon which black-capped chickadees, goldfinches, and scrub jays sing while hopping from branch, fluttering their wings, and defacating on the path below. The choice seems just about equal to me, and I take them both whether I am alone (the shorter route) or with you (the longer route).

There are two places we can go out for a drink, the local bar or the high-end bar. The local bar is not a low-end bar. In fact, it is greater than a high-end bar if you don't mind drinking by the landlocked town square and if you prefer drinking alongside the locals, the people who know the news of the community, the history of the bar, the quirks and penchants of the patrons, and the mixology of the bartenders. All night either a juke box plays the Great American Songbook or the player piano spins Tin Pan Alley tunes. The high-end bar is so called only because it overlooks the bay, which allows the proprietor to charge more for the drinks. But it's a throwback too. Dark wood planks cover the floor, wall, and ceilings. A candlelit chandelier flickers over the center of the room, four gas lights glow on the walls of each corner, sawdust is littered across the floor, and a black woodburning cast iron pot belly stove covers the center of the room. Warm Guinness is on tap. A neighborhood quartet commands a round table in a far corner plays Irish folk songs between sips of whisky on fiddle, banjo, tin whistle, and bodhrán. Both locals and out-of-towners go there. We go to the local bar when we have more time on our hands and to the high-end bar when we have less.

And you tell me there are two ways of loving you, the way I want to love you and the way you want me to love you. You say neither is the bad way, but they are different. As you put it, one is the sensory way and the other the soulful way, one way that fuses you into everyone and everything around you so that  you are in harmony with my world and one that masks everyone and everything around you so that only you come into focus and the world disappears. You have not told me which is the way I want to love you, and which is the way you want me to love you. And I have not asked, nor will I. But you tell me I love you both ways. 

Why I Came

I came to your wedding uninvited. You have known the groom for three years, I have known you three hours. With him you have traveled the world. With him you have seen hundred-year-old sea turtles circle your anchored schooner along the Great Barrier Reef, fed Atlantic puffins upon the rocky fields at the Cliffs of Moher, tasted freshly picked lechosa near Angel Falls, heard the thunder of bighorn sheep head-butting in the Grand Canyon, lost your breath at the radiance of the aurora borealis in Akureyri. With him an Indian Chief in Acoma explained the oneness of the earth and humanity, a Buddhist Lama in a Tibetan gompa described the sanctity of the balep he fed you, a Wiradjuri elder by the Wambuul River told of the secrets the sun and the moon keep, a Yanomami Pata Thëpë in an Amazon rain forest summoned the spirit of the macaw. 

But in only three hours, I, no longer a stranger to you, foreshadowed all these moments. I laid at your feet the mysteries of life, and you received them as if you had been waiting for me long before you knew my name. Yes, just for the unbearable delight of looking into your eyes, touching your cheek, holding your hand. I remember the warmth of your fingers closing around mine, then loosening, as if even then some merciful part of you was practicing leaving me. You would not have gone with him to these places and listened to those wise leaders if it were not for my urging. I beheld you, beheld you, beheld you, penniless, rich with passion and desire, not of the flesh but of the spirit. Is that not what you wanted? We met years ago, but I have never forgotten those three hours with you; they have outlived meals, cities, illnesses, prayers, every sensible attempt to call them small. I have always been with you—in the silence before sleep, in the instant before laughter, in every distance you crossed with him. Your union with him may endure, but your bond with me is of stone. We get one chance in this world. You were mine for less than an evening.

You know I am here, don't you? Without looking at me, you see me. I saw it when the music began: the smallest break in your smile, the breath you swallowed before anyone else could notice. I know you won’t approach me, though your husband will eject me from your wedding without ever knowing who I am. You won’t approach me because if you come near enough to hear me breathe, if you look at me once, you know my answer will be the same as when I came to you at the start of our three hours together years ago, when you were standing alone in Greenwich Village, or was it on the Croisette, or was it on the Grand Canal, or was it near the Chillon Castle, when you asked me, in a language you were learning, “Why did you come here?”

The Importance of Record Keeping

For writers, records are a working memory. A notebook, writing log, or even a spreadsheet preserves the small decisions that shape a project: when an idea appeared, why a paragraph was cut, where a source came from, which draft solved a problem, and what remains unfinished. Without those records, a writer may waste time reconstructing choices instead of building on them.

Good records protect momentum. Writing can happen in fragments, between appointments, after reading, or in response to a sudden phrase. A dated log of sessions, notes, questions, and next steps helps the writer return quickly to the work. It shows progress when the project feels stalled and reveals patterns, such as the hours when writing comes easiest, the obstacles that recur, and the habits that produce stronger sentences, paragraphs, and pages.

Records matter professionally as well. Writers who submit work need to track titles, markets, submission dates, responses, contracts, rights, payments, and follow-up deadlines. Such details prevent duplicate submissions, missed opportunities, and confusion over ownership or payment. Accurate notes and source records strengthen credibility and make fact-checking easier.

Most important, record keeping gives writers evidence of growth. Earlier drafts, rejected openings, research trails, and revision notes show how a piece became what it is. They remind writers that writing is not a single flash of inspiration but a series of choices, experiments, and returns. Keeping records honors that process and makes future work more deliberate, efficient, and confident.

I use two types of record for my creative works in progress: a 200-page paper notebook like the illustrated one in this post and Microsoft Word files. Whatever type you use, be sure to create a reliable notation system for easy reference.

AI and Education: The Struggle Continues

AI is already reshaping education, and schools cannot simply ban it and return to the old classroom. Recent reporting in the New York Times shows how quickly AI has participated in homework, essays, lesson planning, and classroom routines.
 
The biggest concern is academic honesty. “Student Cheating Is Becoming Impossible to Detect in an A.I. Era” (NY Times, June 18, 2026) explains that AI can help students generate or revise writing instantly, making take-home assignments harder to judge. And AI detectors are becoming less reliable, as AI, whose grammar is typically flawless, can insert predictable grammatical errors to disguise that it created the content. Thus, teachers can miss cheating or wrongly accuse honest students, creating more suspicion and less certainty among educators.

 
In response to this challenge, teachers are redesigning lessons. “Adapting to a New World: Teachers on How A.I. Is Reshaping the Classroom” (NY Times, February 26, 2026) notes that teachers are bringing more writing into the classroom, asking students to describe their writing process and strategy. Others are using AI carefully for brainstorming, feedback, or practice while teaching students to recognize its limits.

 
“This Teacher Has Doubts About A.I. But He Won a Prize Using It” (NY Times, June 17, 2026) tells the story of a New York City teacher who won a prize with help from AI to create history lessons for his students while still having reservations about AI's use in the classroom. Teachers do not have to blindly accept every new tool, but they cannot ignore a technology students will—and should—continue to use. In fact, our very ambivalence should be the fuel to fire new ideas on when and how to use AI in the classroom, office, and boardroom. 

 
The goal should be responsible use: clear policies, better lessons, and practical assignments that teach students the difference between making AI a writing assistant and avoiding due diligence. AI may change how students write and study, but education should still help them think for themselves. 

A Return to the Lighthouse International Film Festival

For the fourth consecutive year, I attended the Lighthouse International Film Festival (LIFF) in Long Beach Island (LBI), New Jersey, from June 10 to 14. This year, the 5-day festival screened in 198 films from 31 nations in 4 venues scattered across the island. The films ranged from short length to feature length, narratives to documentaries, TV and web series to film house productions, and included specialties like darkhouse (horror), surfing, high school and college productions. Thus, much of the world and the entire film community were represented on the barrier island. And the entertainment, for the most part, was first rate.

To start with, LBI is a nice 5-day destination in early June, when the LIFF perennially runs. You can count on Atlantic surf walks along uncrowded beaches, or a lighthouse visit on the northernmost point of the island, sunrises on the beachside and sunsets on the bayside, plenty of specialty shops, great breakfast places like Uncle Will's or The Chicken or the Egg, and cool restaurants with bay views like the Bird and Betty's and Tucker's Tavern, or with a garden courtyard like The Gables, many of them with entertainment. So if you want to just lie low, LBI will give you that. 

During the film festival, I saw 40 shorts ranging from 2 to 25 minutes and 7 feature length movies, some of them exceptional, most notably Union County with Will Poulter (97 minutes) and 5th with Eric Roberts (16 minutes), both about people trying to overcome addiction. For most of these shows, the moviemakers or actors attend a Q & A directly after their film. 

One of best things about getting a festival pass for only $125 is the freedom to attend any of the movies as well as other special events, such as breakfasts and parties with the filmmakers. After a while, one feels they are a part of a community of like-minded people. Keep open early June 2027 to experience this singular event.

What's Standard English, Part 8: The F Word

I could get in trouble for this one.

I conclude this series with the word that prompted me to start it. While the F word is far from standard writing in the workplace, it is becoming increasingly pervasive in office speech, and you might find it here or there in writing. I have seen "WTF" in business text messages. You know what that means.

That spread does not mean the F word has lost its shock value. It still seems overtly and inappropriately aggressive, which is exactly why people use it. In speech, it may function as anger, emphasis, surprise, admiration, or even solidarity, depending on who says it, to whom, and under what circumstances. A close colleague may utter it jokingly and strengthen rapport; the same word from a manager in a tense moment may feel threatening or abusive. As with so much language, meaning lies not only in the word itself but in the relationship and context.

One thing for sure: Using the word would have ended a politician’s career a long time ago; now it’s little more than an understandable, innocuous sound bite.

The issue is bigger than one taboo word. It is about the steady migration of informal speech into professional environments. Workplaces now absorb the habits of texting, social media, streaming culture, and casual conversation far more quickly than they once did. What earlier generations would have considered plainly unprofessional may now pass without notice in some offices, especially in fast-moving, high-pressure, or highly familiar teams. The standard has certainly loosened.

It makes sense to remember that expanded acceptance is not the same as universal acceptance. A word that passes easily among peers may damage credibility with clients, offend a reader, or create risk in a difficult Human Resources situation.

Has the F word entered standard English? Not fully. But it has undeniably moved closer to the center of ordinary usage than many people are willing to admit. Standard English changes as culture changes, and professionalism now depends less on rigid rules than on audience, judgment, and timing.

What's Standard English, Part 7: :-) 😀 :-( 👍

The emoticons and symbols in the heading of this post represent the first time I have used them in the 21-year history of this blog—or anywhere, for that matter. I try to let my words speak for me in print. But that doesn't mean I am following some kind of usage convention. The standard is to use them. Such devices, once reserved for text messaging, have been the norm in business email for some time. They have specific meanings known by the writer and reader, so I suppose they count as language.

Still, their rise creates an interesting tension. Emojis can clarify tone in the quick, stripped-down medium of email. A brief “Thanks” may seem abrupt; “Thanks 🙂” may appear warm and appreciative. A thumbs-up can save a whole sentence. In fast-moving exchanges, these marks can do the work that facial expression, gesture, and speaking voice do in conversation.

On the other hand, they also blur the line between informal and formal writing. A smiling face or laughing symbol may seem harmless between teammates, yet the same mark may appear unserious in a difficult message, a disciplinary response, or a communication with a client. As with salutations, punctuation, and word choice, context governs everything. The writer must ask not merely, “Is this common?” but “Is this right for this reader and this moment?”

So are emoticons and emojis now part of Standard English? In practice, yes—at least in many everyday forms of digital writing. They may not belong in every document, and some writers and readers (like me) will resist them, but they are no longer fringe devices. They have become one more way that writers signal meaning, attitude, and relationship. Once again, the lesson is the same: standard English is not fixed. It changes because people do.

What's Standard English, Part 6: Ain't

This post ain't going to take long to read. Ain't might not have become more standardized in workplace writing, but it is becoming more common in speech. And you can bet that standardized speech eventually becomes standardized workplace writing. You can do your own research on this fact.

You'll never get an opponent to concede that ain't is Standard English, but you will win this one: Ain't has a long history of standard usage before it was discredited by prescriptive grammarians, and I completely understand why. We have standard contractions for you, we, and they are not (aren't) and he, she, and it is not (isn't). But we don't have one for I am not, although amn't has a history of standard English usage. Thus, we have ain't.

Since ain't has not disappeared from English for over three centuries, I believe it will become standard in both speech and writing. Ain't is gaining momentum.

What's Standard English, Part 5: Comma Splice

Consider these sentences:

• I am your technical consultant, you can contact me for any problem you encounter with the system.
• Margo is in the conference room, she is checking the technology for her presentation tomorrow.
• Please do not sign out during a break, doing so will make it harder for you to return to the program. 
• Thanks for your help, we will use your guidance throughout the project.

Grammatical purists would call all four examples comma splices, the technical error of substituting a period with a comma to separate two sentences. Yet four strong writers wrote them to me in emails that were otherwise flawless in complying with standard English rules. I am sure they were aware of the miscue, but they might have written them for various reasons, including variety in sentence composition, rebellion against stringent grammar rules, or carelessness amid volumes of writing tasks. 

The speed required of workers who need to process hundreds of emails a day has undoubtedly contributed to the rise of comma splices. For this reason, it is not easy to say any longer that comma splices are mistakes.

What's Standard English, Part 4: Compose / Comprise

If you keep getting it wrong long enough, don't worry. The wrong way will become the standard sooner or later. We learned the distinction between compose and comprise by remembering the whole comprises the parts and the parts compose the whole. Therefore, we might say, "Canada comprises 10 provinces and 3 territories" or "10 provinces and 3 territories compose Canada." Thus, using passive voice we should say, "Canada is composed of 10 provinces and 3 territories." Then "Canada is comprised of 10 provinces and 3 territories" should be considered nonstandard usage.

Really? You can spot is comprised of in respected publications such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. And once they use it, we all will. In fact, Merriam-Webster considers comprised of a standard phrase. Here is another case of the difficulty in defining and demanding standard English when English standards change.

What's Standard English? Part 3: Over / More Than

In the 1990s, an editor returned one of my articles with a correction. She replaced over with more than in the sentence "Over 1,500 students attend that high school." Even three decades ago, over was in use by pretty much everyone in such contexts. Grateful that my editor accepted my article for publication, I decided not to argue with her over this small point. I did not want to tell her that over has been in use in the English lexicon for more than a millennium.

Grammatical purists seem pleased to put speakers and writers in a linguistic straitjacket with rules that have lain dead for a long time. They fail to consider three historical facts:

1. Language evolution is natural. For cultural, social, biological, and technological reasons, language changes. The world gets smaller, thanks to globalization and technology, so our loan words from other languages increase. Our ability, or inability, to properly pronounce words, such as the Philippine English gigil, now a standard English word, can change the way we spell it.

2. The difference between spoken and written language diminishes over time. Consider the grammatical marker that, as in I know that you know. Our elementary writing teachers would insist on using that in the sentence. But in speech, saying I know you know sounds fine. In time, dropping that in this sentence becomes the accepted writing standard.

3. Usage challenges have a long history. Upon researching etymology, you learn that every word is subject to changes that embellish, diminish, or eliminate them from the language. 

If you ever get called out for using over instead of more than, don't be like me back in the 1990s. Fight back. Believe me: over has been acceptable for over a thousand years.

What's Standard English? Part 2: Salutations

I have written about salutations on one or two occasions in the 21-year history of WORDS ON THE LINE because the topic remains popular among learners in my writing workshops and webinars and readers of this blog. I revisit salutations to show how standards change, which is the focus of this series.

In a post from 17 years ago, I mentioned that commonsense should dictate how you address executives, managers, supervisors, teammates, clients, and vendors. A later post 8 years ago suggested that you should let your organizational culture dictate how you address readers in your emails.

But the point here is we have gone a long way from the medieval "peace be with you, brother" for several reasons, one of them being that for centuries women too have been readers of messages. Another reason is the secularization of the workplace. Technology has also contributed to the need for shortcuts, and globalization has forced our hand to address people politely to compensate for our intentions getting lost in linguistic and cultural translations.

By the nineteenth century, we saw "Dear Sir" or "Dear Madam" become the standard. Then came email, which revolutionized the salutation to "Hi," "Hello," "Greetings," "Good morning," or "Good day" replacing the "Dear," and in most contexts first names replacing last names. Less formality. Then came the complete removal of "Mr." and "Ms." in deference to gender fluidity. Now we address people by their given and surnames, as in "Hi Max Friedman."

Still the questions persist: Is "Dear" in a salutation dead? Is it ever all right to write "Mr." or "Ms."? What if my organization is not as progressive about salutations? The two posts I mention in the second paragraph still hold true, yet no one can reasonably say only one salutation is right. It all comes down to a personal choice.

What's Standard English? Part 1: Overview

It's getting harder to decide what is Standard English today. The global view of this topic is that Standard English is British English, taught throughout Europe, Africa, Australia, and most of the Asia and the English-speaking Caribbean, while American English is taught in the United States, some of Asia, South America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm considering what we practice around the world as opposed to what we learned was proper English. In the business world, writers are pushing back against what constitutes a correct sentence, acceptable diction, and customary punctuation. I see comma splices especially becoming commonplace, writers assigning new meanings to everyday words, and new words not only flooding emails but pouring into dictionaries as acceptable usage. I'm beginning to see more violations of the norm than the norm. If that's true, then aren't the violations the norm? 

In this series, I will explore writing "standards" that most people ignore, whether they are driven by factors such as stylistic preferences, time constraints, or globalization and technology. There are many.

GenAI Summit Is Coming Soon

Providing financial services that educate the customer is a desired outcome of all banks, but when does that education slide into information overload? How does a financial advisor strike the delicate balance between exuding customer-centered transparency while still maintaining legally required client confidentiality? When does the unyielding due diligence required of financial analysis depart from reasonable flexibility? These questions have been challenging the industry since First Bank opened in 1791 during the George Washington Administration. 

Multiply these concerns by infinity because of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)! Sure, you can bet your assets that GenAI will be always more efficient, usually more comprehensive, and occasionally more rigorous than the best human researcher. But the problems GenAI poses, from downright refusing information requests to generating hallucinations, or seemingly credible lies, lays a crucible on the industry unlike any other.

The response to these conundrums is not easy, but you've got to start somewhere. A smart launching point would be the all-day AI in Banking Summit, presented by OnCourseLearning, on Wednesday, June 3, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. During that time, speakers (including me) will deliver six presentations ranging from 30 to 45 minutes over five hours on a wide range of topics merging banking concerns with the powerful, transformative force of GenAI. Do not miss it. You can register here.