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Grammar Moses: Is it for us to say whether CEOs 'earn' $10M?

Do you remember the Smith Barney TV ad from 1979 in which a very proper John Houseman says, "Good investments don't walk up, bite you on the bottom and say, 'We're here.' Finding them takes good, old-fashioned hard work, research ... .

"Smith Barney ... they make money the old-fashioned way. They eaaaaarn it."

That one stuck with me. It states very clearly that earning something requires hard work.

Steve Samer of Grayslake and I are of the same mind.

He wrote that one of his pet peeves is "a repeated usage error in business news stories' use of the wrong word in reports on the huge incomes given to some top corporate executives. News stories often say something like this: 'Last year, Smith earned $10 million as president of the XYZ Corp."

"'Earned' means the money was well deserved. In most instances, 'was paid' is the correct neutral terminology for a news story."

Right you are, Steve. If you don't want to make any judgments about someone's work ethic, write that the person was paid X or made X dollars. In business stories, that neutrality is something we aim for.

If you do want to imply someone worked hard for the money, you simply can use "earned."

That's not something you would have wanted to say to Donna Summer, though. "She earns the money" just doesn't have the same lyrical quality as "She works hard for the money."

In the same vein, Margaret McDonald, who gave me a good idea for last week's column, took exception to the common use of another word that has a specific evaluative meaning.

"Another pet peeve: the frequent use of 'lady' as a synonym for 'woman.'" Margaret wrote. "As in, 'She was the first lady president of Rotary.'"

Margaret's point is that by calling the woman in question a "lady," the writer confers upon her an air of primness and properness.

Consider "That's no lady - that's my wife!" if you need another example.

Watch out for those words that have very specific meanings when a neutral word will serve you much better.

Not quite the same

"Purposely" is the adverb you should use when describing something that is done deliberately. "Intentionally" is a good synonym.

If your kids are always late to dinner, tell them purposely that you'll be eating at 5:30 so they'll be home by the time the meatloaf comes out of the oven at 6.

"Purposefully" is another adverb describes the actions of someone who is resolute or an act done with determination.

When you decide to tell your boss you want a raise, stomp into his office purposefully, lean over his desk, stare him in the eye and threaten to quit if he doesn't fork over some cash.

I, of course, would never recommend that course of action.

The last word

Here are a couple of my house rules at the paper. Even The Associated Press has thrown in the towel on the matter, but I still feel strongly about it.

Someone isn't under 18. Someone is younger than 18.

Similarly, you aren't over 30 years old; you're older than 30.

This applies to a variety of measures. To me, over and under are positional words that suggest a spatial relationship between two things.

As I said, they're my house rules, so unless you work for me you may ignore this.

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is assistant vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.

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