Grammar Moses: True cleverness is timeless

True cleverness is timeless.

Take this from William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," written 419 years ago: "Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."

Does that not ooze contemporary sarcasm? That old saw remains in heavy circulation.

So I was not surprised while researching the origin of a pass-along email full of goodies that it has been shared and reshared in various forms on the internet at least as far back as 2001.

Even though I found a version of it in the Daily Parker blog, posted when the World Trade Center towers were still standing, the content was credited as a submission from "M.B."

For all I know, M.B. was Mel Brooks.

So I'm giving up on giving credit where credit is due.

Without further ado, here are some definitions for the modern age. I've warned you before, I'm partial to puns:

• Arbitraitor: a cook who leaves Arby's to work at McDonald's.

• Bernadette: the act of torching a mortgage.

• Burglarize: what a crook sees with.

• Avoidable: what a bullfighter tries to do.

• Eyedropper: clumsy ophthalmologist.

• Counterfeiter: a contractor who redoes kitchens.

• Eclipse: what an English barber does for a living.

• Heroes: what a man in a boat does.

• Parasites: what you see from the Eiffel Tower.

• Paradox: two physicians.

• Relief: what trees do in the spring.

• Rubberneck: what you do to relax your wife.

• Selfish: what the owner of a seafood store does.

• Paradigms: 20 cents.

Concession stand

Herm Faubl wrote to me two years ago with a simple question that until now I've failed to address.

"Perhaps this year will be different because one of the presidential candidates has suggested he may not concede and the other has been urged to never concede," Herm wrote recently.

"I blame Walter Cronkite, 'the most trusted man on television.' He began using the phrase 'conceded defeat' when in fact the losing candidate was 'conceding victory.'

"I know it was Cronkite because it jarred my ears every time he said it. Before Cronkite, a reporter would say 'Smith conceded victory.'

"You concede when you give up something. In war the losing side is forced to concede land. In chess the loser concedes the win to the opponent.

"I have read many 19th-century novels. In battles, fights, business deals or love triangles, the loser will often say, 'I concede victory, you won' or words to that effect."

Herm is correct on both counts.

To "concede" is to relinquish something, whether land or an election.

The common misuse of "conceded defeat" can't be laid entirely at Walter Cronkite's feat.

According to Google's Ngram Viewer, which I'm thrilled to report has been updated to 2019, use of the phrase "conceded defeat" began to really outpace "conceded victory" in books about the time Cronkite was born in 1916.

By the time he took over at the "CBS Evening News" in 1962, "conceded defeat" was used five times as often (not five times more often, people!) as "conceded victory."

In 2018, it was 19 times as popular.

Now that Herm and I have exposed this travesty, I'm confident that by 2028 this trend will have been reversed.

And that is my concession speech.

Mea culpa

In last week's column I mistakenly referred to the man-eating plant in "Little Shop of Horrors" as "Seymour." Rick Moranis played Seymour - a plant-loving human. The loquacious plant was called "Audrey II."

Forgive me.

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.