Grammar Moses: Some thoughts just between you and me

If you're like me, you have framed your computer monitor with scraps of paper that contain really important bits of information: phone numbers, birthdays, doctor appointments, conjugations of tricky verbs, and the differences between homonyms, homophones, homographs, heteronyms and hemophiliacs.

You might be thinking I've already screwed up this column by using "between" in providing a choice that involves more than two things.

So begins today's lesson, which is a compendium of annoyances sent to me by our senior staff.

Opinion Page Editor Jim Slusher asked me to address the difference between "between" and "among."

In another century, I learned that one uses "between" to portray a choice involving two things and "among" to discuss a choice involving more than two.

Well, sort of, maybe, not exactly.

The Associated Press Stylebook supports that old maxim for the most part, though the entry is a bit wishy-washy. However, the Chicago Manual of Style goes into greater depth and gives more latitude to "between." That is the ruling I favor.

While you'd not use "among" to talk about two things, there are instances when you might use "between" with more than two.

If you talking about a choice involving secret societies, writing instruments and baroque music - three things that have no one-to-one relationship - you would use "among."

If you were talking about deciding whether the jazz band, the concert band or the Swedish melodic death metal band would open the school pep assembly, you would use "between," because the choices are all distinct things with one-to-one relationships.

Word to the wise: When you employ these prepositions, don't forget to use objective case pronouns, as in "between you and me," "between him and her" and "among us."

Take down pants

Journalism has its share of eyebrow-raising mnemonics to help us remember conventions. My favorite - one that sears the rule into any cub reporter's brain - is Take Down Pants, which reminds us of the order things generally fall in a sentence: Time, Date, Place.

That, of course, leads me to the definition of "debrief."

Neil Holdway, our assistant managing editor/copy desk, asked that I discuss the difference between "brief" and "debrief."

You might think the verbs are interchangeable, but to "brief" someone is to provide information or instructions. To "debrief" someone is to glean information from someone after a task. Rather than providing information, debriefing is a form of questioning.

Reform

Good middle-of-the-road journalists always try to eliminate loaded language - that is, words that intend to sway you toward a position in a news story. We edit with an eye toward this in our own reporting as well as wire service reports.

We're not always successful.

One of the most common coloring words is "reform."

Editor John Lampinen smartly suggested that we flag the word each time we run our copy through our spelling and style checker - and we have.

Take this sentence from a wire service story: "The governor also wants to reform the income tax system with a graduated tax based on income."

It's the governor's position that changing the income tax system is tantamount to reforming - or improving - it.

In a news story, we should avoid suggesting that what the governor is doing is good or bad. That should be saved for the editorial page.

We know our readers line up on both sides of this issue. The careless use of "reform" in most scenarios suggests that we're trying to steer readers in one direction.

We'll do our best to, er, reform.

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.