Grammar Moses: Is the president having contractions?

Decades ago, we had an occasional and unofficial departmental memo titled "Heard around the newsroom" that recounted the most notable quotes of the day uttered by someone on staff. I've seen social media pages devoted to such things, so I'm sure this tradition was not unique to us.

This is my version of that.

En route to a meeting recently I overheard a conversation in which someone described something unfamiliar to her as being "unchartered waters."

It's a wonder people don't run and hide when they see me coming.

The term is "uncharted waters," which in its literal sense means an area that has not been mapped and therefore is unfamiliar.

I imagine "unchartered waters" would be that which is too choppy for charter boats to sail on.

Scattergories

I heard a radio weather forecaster predict there would be a "scattering" of rain showers and thought to myself: column item!

This is one of those instances in which I thought I knew something but ended up learning something instead. You wouldn't believe how often that happens and how delighted I am when it does.

I was certain the word he should have used was "smattering."

Then I consulted my dictionaries.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the noun "scattering" as "a small, dispersed amount of something." Think freckles.

It defines "smattering" as "a small amount of something."

Aha, you might exclaim, those are synonyms!

I'll admit they're pretty close, but it's the scattershot distribution of showers that the forecaster was trying to describe. So, he chose the better word.

Bravo, weather guy.

I'd like a ruling

Buckle up, dear readers. I'm going to wade into the swampy water of politics for a spell.

Erik Wemple of The Washington Post wrote a fascinating column that explores the flap over whether President Donald Trump told The Wall Street Journal "I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea" or "I'd probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong Un of North Korea."

In it, Wemple takes Trump's full statement about his relationship with President Xi Jinping of China, President Shinzo Abe of Japan and (potentially?) Kim and parses the sentences.

"There are five statements ... four of which aren't in dispute," he writes. "Those four ,,, are all in the present tense, indicative mood - meaning that they are statements of fact or belief. Perhaps because Trump was stringing together several such sentences, the Journal defaulted to a present-indicative transcription of the disputed sentence.

"What Trump claims, however, is that he changed up the mood of his verb in the disputed sentence ... That's a significant change, one involving the conditional mood, which is a way of expressing a thought that is dependent on some other outcome."

Trump's statement does not offer under what circumstances he would be chummy with Kim, but then again the president is largely imprecise with his language. And that leaves many of us guessing at what he means.

The war of recordings the White House and the Journal posted online gives me no clear winner in this spitting match. I didn't hear a contraction, but then I don't have sophisticated playback equipment.

I can't remember as much interest in such a tiny word since President Clinton parsed the definition of "is" during his impeachment proceedings.

Write - and speak - carefully!

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