Grammar Moses: What's worse ... too many nouns or cannibalistic deer?

While cleaning out my moldering list of unread emails, I uncovered some beauties that I wish I'd addressed sooner.

"Why are my children exclaiming 'Out of sight!' when I can clearly see the source of their glee?" wrote one man. "I was shocked to see President Nixon embarrass himself on that X-rated 'Laugh In' television show last week and had to get up to turn off the set. What's happened to English with this generation? Harry Truman wouldn't have put up with this nonsense."

OK, so the emails weren't that old. But a few were from when the trees were just getting their leaves.

So, as atonement for my thoughtlessness, I'll dredge up several of them now.

Flied?

Marty Robinson writes: "From your AP source on the Cubs-Dodger game June 25:

'Yasmani Grandal flew out to the warning track in center field.' I'd like to have seen that. My guess is that he flied out."

No, Grandal did not hop on an ultralight aircraft and zip into the outfield. He hit a fly ball that was caught. He "flied out."

There are many similar examples. If you took a second job to make ends meet, you moonlighted (not moonlit.) If you let your spouse believe that the extra cash was for a new couch and not to pay off your gambling debts, then you spinned it to her (not spun.)

Over him?

Elliott McDaniel asked whether it's more appropriate to say "a car ran him over" or "a car ran over him."

Elliott is in the "ran over him" camp.

"Ran him over" is idiomatic. It's what I learned as a kid. I'm sure I engaged in hyperbole as a tyke, complaining that Jimmy Hernandez had tried to "run me over" with his bike.

I can't find any good evidence in online discussions or dictionaries to favor one construction over the other.

However, it does feel like there is evil intent when you say "ran him over."

And the construction feels very narrow in scope. You wouldn't say the car ran the sewer cover over. Or the car ran the discarded shoe over. You'd say the car ran over the sewer cover or over the shoe.

Too many nouns

Rob Neff had a number of things on his mind when he finally decided to write to me, but I found one fascinating.

"There is a small town near where I grew up in northern Minnesota called Turtle River. The town sits on a lake (not on the river, oddly, which is on the other side of the lake.) The lake is called Turtle River Lake. Then there's the road going to the lake, appropriately called Turtle River Lake Road. I'm waiting for somebody to build a golf course on that road. Then it would need a sign reading: 'Turtle River Lake Road Golf Course Entrance.' That would be seven nouns to refer to one thing."

That made me think of the village of Lake in the Hills. There are four lakes in town, so which is the one lake to which the town name refers? Why isn't the town called Lakes in the Hills? And why isn't the namesake lake called Lake in the Hills Lake?

These are the things that keep me up at night.

Cannibalistic deer?

Jake Griffin, our Suburban Tax Watchdog editor, pointed out an odd news release from the governor's office:

"Today, I veto Senate Bill 2493, which would direct the University of Illinois Prairie Research Institute to conduct a study on the health and social effects of supplemental deer feeding on the wild deer population outside of deer hunting season."

Were the governor's people to put a hyphen between "deer" and "feeding" you would be talking about whether giving wild deer additional food is a good thing.

Without the hyphen, you have deer eating other deer.

And outside hunting season, to boot!

Hyphens save lives.

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.