Grammar Moses: 'Lodestar' is my word of the day

I just love it when a word truly makes it into the zeitgeist.

It must have been a red-letter day indeed when "zeitgeist" entered the zeitgeist around 1835.

I wrote about "dotard" right after Kim Jung Un used it to snipe back at President Donald Trump. It was the top-trending word on Merriam-Webster.com soon after that missive hit the Twitterverse.

As I write this on Wednesday night, "op-ed" leads the pack on the dictionary's website. You're getting close, people.

Dollars to doughnuts "lodestar" will reign before this column goes to print.

The New York Times this week ran an anonymous op-ed piece by a senior official in the White House that basically claims there is a group of high-level resisters to Trump who are working hard to blunt some of the president's behavior to keep the country on the rails while he's in office.

"We may no longer have Senator McCain," the op-ed reads. "But we will always have his example - a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our national dialogue. Mr. Trump may fear such honorable men, but we should revere them."

A "lodestar" is star that's used to guide a ship, especially the North Star.

I'm sure that those who analyze speech patterns will seize upon "lodestar" to reveal the unnamed writer.

Like "dotard," it's not in heavy circulation. I don't recall anyone's using it my presence. And the only references I can find on our website to it involve the name of a play and the name of a company based in Liechtenstein.

Who knew national politics could elicit discussion using words of more than four letters?

Sign of the times

Ed Krupka wrote to me about an ambiguous sign.

"A sign outside entrance 7 at Alexian Brothers Hospital Campus in Hoffman Estates reads 'Smoking prohibited 15 feet from building.' Does this mean I can light up five feet from this doorway? I took a picture of it to assure myself I was not dreaming."

I wouldn't try it, Ed. Smoking any distance from a building is dangerous business, but smoking next to a hospital borders on ironic.

"Must be 21 to play" seems terribly limiting, too, but it's the kind of shorthand we've come to expect from sign writers and advertisers who pay by the second.

Absolutely, positively!

I asked recently for what really pushes your buttons.

This from Bob Kopp: "I hate the use of ridiculous absolutes: 'We are going to end child hunger;' 'We are going to eliminate cancer;' 'We are going to save every abused animal,' Yesterday's headline was 'Fire could have been prevented.' Well, of course, it could have been prevented, but that isn't what the article was about. The article was about containment. If each unit or building (in the Prospect Heights apartment complex fire) was considered its own fire, the headline could have been 'Fires could have been prevented.'"

Hmmmm. I'm going to land in the middle on this one. Where does one fire end and the next one begin? California might have several simultaneous forest fire - they're clearly separate from one another - but unless there were many individually set fires at the apartment complex, I'm going to call the totality of it a (singular) fire.

I will agree, however, that "Fire could have been contained' is a better headline.

On the radio

A radio advertisement for a real estate outfit claimed that it's been helping people who've been "trying to sell their homes for more than 10 years."

Boy, those are hard cases.

If I couldn't sell my home for 10 years, I would consider dropping the price a bit or putting on a fresh coat of paint.

Oh, I see. The copy writer intended to convey the business had been in operation for 10 years. This might be better: "For more than 10 years, Joe Bob's realty service has been helping people sell their homes."

One thing before I go

I'll be on vacation for the next two weeks. Faced with the decision of putting out two special sections or writing two columns to tide you over, I elected to do the former. I will spare you the reruns, though that is an interesting idea for next time.

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. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.