Grammar Moses: A nonpology means never having to say you're sorry

If you know my wife, you won't be surprised to learn that she introduces me to new words all of the time.

Usually, it involves an injustice she would like to correct, if you catch my drift.

She just ran breathlessly from her office in the sunroom, traversing the family room and kitchen in record time, to visit me in my office in the dining room to teach me a new word: "nonpology."

That word was used to describe the halfhearted apology issued by a woman who was called out for not having her dog on a leash in a protected area in Central Park. She responded to the suggestion by calling police to claim her life was being threatened by a black man and later, pressed for a response by TV news people, sort of said she was sorry.

"Nosology" is short for "non-apology," in which the apologist doesn't really mean what she's saying.

After scouring the internet, I found some variations.

A popular one is the "ifpology," in which the person apologies for what he or she said, "if it offended anyone."

If you've been on the receiving end of an ifpology, your blood pressure spikes and steam comes out of your ears.

Then there is the old "mistakes were made" apology, which, to my knowledge, has not yet been abbreviated. In this case, the apologist admits that mistakes were made but does not admit to any culpability. When President Bill Clinton went on TV to apologize for the scandal that brought about his impeachment, one headline referred to it as a "sorta culpa."

The object of my anger

"My question concerns the use of 'he' or 'him,'" wrote Fred Mann. "In an article in the Daily Herald sports section today, I read a sentence that said, ' ... what happened in 1967, when a dust-up between him and owner Charles O. Finley ...' Who had the dust-up? 'He' had the dust-up. Thank you for setting me straight."

I admitted to Fred - and now to you - that I was the kid in high school English class who despised diagraming sentences. I hated learning parts of speech, though I realized that being able to articulate my language would allow me to maintain my path to enlightenment. So I leaned on my ear (ouch!) to help me through it.

Consider this: "He," "she" and "they" are subject pronouns and "her," "him" and "them" are object pronouns.

That's simple enough.

When describing Charlie and the other person, would you use "they?" Try it out.

"What happened in 1967, when a dust-up between they ..." simply hurts your ears.

You would say "a dust-up between them."

So you would refer to the person squabbling with Charlie as "him" instead of "he."

The dust-up is the subject; Charlie and Mr. X are objects.

Fred's rephrasing of the sentence - "He had the dust-up" - turns Charlie's foe into the subject, where he rightfully earns a "he" for a pronoun.

Service with a smile

Reader Bill Johnson sent me a photo of a sign at his local meat market that offered, well, a mixed message.

It reads: "Thank you for allowing us to service you."

In deference to the business, which I hear is very good, I will not be sharing the photo.

"I am pretty confident the words don't match the intended message," Bill wrote.

Knowing that Bill is an engineer by profession and not an expert in animal husbandry, I was impressed by his observation.

Yes, cars are serviced. Furnaces are serviced.

In a very different way, livestock is serviced on stud farms. And, it can be argued, johns are serviced by prostitutes.

However, people are "served" by businesses.

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.