Grammar Moses: This column is neither a history lesson nor historic

Ted Utchen has a bee in his bonnet. Well, several. But this one is something the Wheaton resident has written me about at least twice.

Persistence wins the day, Ted.

"When you were back in high school, you took a chemistry class and then a physics class. You did NOT take a chemical class or a physical class," he wrote. "Sometimes we just have to use nouns as adjectives."

Yes, Ted, we do.

You might define a chemical class as a salt or an acid; you might define a physical class as Brad Pitt or ... me.

While few people would make the error Ted describes here, I don't think I'm overstepping too much when I say forms of the word "history" are misused more than they're employed correctly.

I'll let Ted take over for a while: "We go into all towns across the country, and we see so many county historical museums. Thus in Wheaton we have the DuPage County Historical Museum - but the museum itself ain't historical. It may actually have been built relatively recently. Rather it's the archives and materials inside the museum that are historical, not the building itself. And when you were in school, you took a history course (didn't you?) and not a historical course."

While I agree with the concept Ted puts forth, I take exception to his characterization of the museum. According to the "historical" museum's website, the building was designed by Charles Sumner (not the anti-slavery U.S. Senator) and erected 125 years ago by John Quincy Adams (not the President, albeit a distant relative) as a gift to the community in memory of his wife.

I would err on calling that a historic building.

The edifice has used as the DuPage Historical Museum only since 1967, a year I can remember, so I wouldn't consider it particularly historical.

You might ask, "Moses, what's the difference between historical and historic?"

• Historical means relating to history.

• Historic means important in history.

I'll paraphrase the remainder of Ted's missive.

A musical director, when you get down to it, is a person who directs "The Pirates of Penzance" and "Hair."

The person directs musicals.

Get it?

Someone who is in charge of the music for an organization should be called a music director, not a musical director or an artistic director.

Finally, Ted was perusing a newspaper from a Michigan town he used to live in that carried the sentence: "Five historical groups in XYZ County have come together to form a historical partnership ... to meet with the county finance committee to discuss putting a historical millage on the ballot."

I'm sure this is what sent Ted over the edge.

The sentence cannot work.

• All five organizations would have to be old.

• One cannot form something historical (old) because by its formation it is new.

• If one is to vote on a millage (a rate of taxation), then it would be a new rate and, therefore, not historical (old).

My guess is the sentence could be recast as: Five history (they deal with history) groups in XYZ County have come together to form a historic (important in history) partnership ... to meet with the county finance committee to discuss putting a tax-rate proposal on the ballot."

A previous Moses column addressed why it's "a historic" rather than "an historic." Check it out.

Finally, I took "millage" out altogether, because, really, who knows what a millage is?

Write carefully!

• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line.