Nitpicking

I know I'm picking nits here.

(Do you know the origin of "picking nits?" If not, you'll find it interesting. Look it up.)

One of the local reporters on a TV newscast the other night said, "The mayor's problem centers around funding."

That's my nit number one. Things don't "center around." The center is a point. It doesn't move around. A problem might center on, or it might revolve around, but it just can't center around. The laws of physics are immutable.

So if the hapless reporter wanted to preserve the cliché, which is tired from overuse and should be put to bed, she should have said, "The mayor's problem revolves around money."

Or better still, "The mayor's problem is money."

I read a quote in the paper the other day that provided nit number two for me to pick. It's about the word "comprise." It's a simple word meaning to include or consist of. But so many people get it wrong. RIGHT: "The team comprises nine players."

I've almost given up on nit number three. It's about "begging the question."

To beg the question is to commit the error of using circular reasoning. It all goes back to Aristotelian Logic and petitio principii. Unless you're really good at arguing and you really understand the logic of arguments, it's probably best to leave this one alone. Many people have come to think that "to beg the question" means the same thing as "to raise the question." It doesn't.

My advice, for what it's worth, is just don't use it. If you do use it, some people will think you're wrong, whatever you say. Just say "raise the question." That's probably what you mean anyway.

I don't harbor a great urge to pick nits. When it comes to English, I lean in the direction of descriptivism more than prescriptivism. (For example, I believe my nit number three above is about to undergo a sea change.)

The language evolves. It is not frozen in an ice-cube.

Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales centuries ago in the English that existed then. "Whan that aprill with his shoures soote/The droghte of march hath perced to the roote/And bathed every veyne in swich licour ..."

How many of us can translate that into today's idiom? Common speech has changed dramatically since the 14th century, so much so that if we were transported back to Chaucer's England, we'd not understand much of what the locals said.

Is Chaucer's English where the language should have stopped evolving? Is Shakespeare's? Is Faulkner's or Hemmingway's?

I think not. English will, despite any nits I or others might pick, will continue to grow and change.

The call of the siren

I was reminded the other day when I was driving on East Broad Street near St. John's Church of a story that my mother often told me over the years about my reaction to the sound of fire or police sirens when I was a toddler.

She said they scared me badly, and I would scream and cry.

She eventually decided to be (and she would never have used this word) proactive. She picked up the phone and called Fire Station No. 1 at 25th and Broad, the firehouse that served our neighborhood.

She told whoever answered the phone about her/my problem and asked for a big favor: "Can I bring my son to the firehouse and let him meet a fireman and see the fire trucks?"

They set a date for our visit, and when we showed up, the entire station turned out to make us feel welcome. We toured the firehouse -- including the pole down which the firemen would slide from their quarters on the second floor to their fire trucks below -- and the firemen explained everything in terms that a 3-year-old could understand.

Then comes the only part of the story that I remember myself: A fireman lifted me up, put me in the driver's seat of a beautifully polished red and gold fire engine, and he let me ring the bell.

My mom said that I was captivated by these firemen and their handsome firehouse.

And she always ended her telling of the story the same way: "And you never cried again when you heard a siren. Instead, you wanted to go visit the firehouse."

                                                 *       *       *

The firehouse at 25th and Broad is no more.

It was built in about 1870 at 306 North 25th Street and upgraded just after the turn of the century. The photo above shows the firehouse as it was at the time of my visit as a young child.

In 1962 the city built a replacement firehouse, the present one, at 308 North 24th Street, a block west of the old firehouse. The plot of land on which the old fire station stood is now a graceful public space, Patrick Henry Park.

I nailed down the historical facts (and acquired the image above) with the assistance of Christina Smith of Richmond Fire and Emergency Services and John Hinant, a former Fire Captain who retired after 38 years with the Richmond Fire Department.

I am grateful for their help.