LEND ME YOUR EAR: THOSE NIGGLING LITTLE POINTS OF LIGHT

First, let me repeat that firstly, secondly, and thirdly are not condoned by careful writers, and this holds true whatever the length of the list. Policy makers seem not to know this.

Usually, if doubt exists, it's safe to cut the final ly off modifiers. President Bush finally got the message about "more importantly", and practiced "more important" throughout a recent TV appearance. This should have earned him at least 10 points of light with the linguistic community.

Oddly, no one objects to thankfully, gratefully, mercifully, or even oddly, used in the same sense, but the impact is different. Overuse has caused importantly, the adverb, to replace important, the adjective. As a result, we hear or read statements such as: "Your children's education is the most importantly thing in their life"; "His clerical garb helped him look more importantly."

Worse still, the misuse precipitates the addition of ly to other adjectives. A cereal company has a radio announcer telling us how to keep "that beautifully body" of ours healthy. A Wall Street reporter declared that "separately housing construction" was picking up. A high school senior, drooling over Miss America, sighed, "Didn't she look fantastically?"

Then there is that wide-spread habit of making everyone "feel badly." I've stopped counting the times I have explained in these columns the use of adjectives with linking verbs. A linking verb is one that expresses being, feeling, seeming, or any other verb used to connect the subject with a predicate noun or predicate adjective. All linking verbs require the adjective as modifiers: "Our delivery boy seems honest," not honestly; "The child appears bright enough," not brightly; "He left school early because he felt bad," not badly.

Eight or 10 years ago, "It was so fun" began buzzing all over the country. "So fun" in place of "so much fun" still startles me, but "so fantasy" from a movie star "It's something to fantasy in my life" knocked the props from under me and I still haven't recovered. This may explain why my legs tend to crumble at times.

Everyone who watches or listens to panel discussions over the air must be fed up with the apples and oranges being currently served fellow-panelists today. Both apples and oranges are classified as fruit, so I never know what the critics mean when they interrupt with, "Now you're comparing apples and oranges." In view of the subject matter, usually political, the speakers are as confused as I or they wouldn't have to resort to this worn-out bit of doublespeak.

If there is an expression we hear more often than "apples and oranges", it has to be "each and every." Educators as well as politicians are over-fond of this redundancy, and it appears in print as often as in speech. Other cliches saturating the airwaves and newsprint these days without our consent are "between a rock and a hard place", "can of worms", "barking up the wrong tree", "cart before the horse," and "taking the bull by the horns." Familiars of this ilk only dim the light for us, and win no points for the politically desperate.

Requests to clarify other cloudy issues reach us regularly. Among those coming from elderlies is the title Ms. Some believe Ms. is a recent coinage for women of doubtful character or repute specifically, women who live with lovers without benefit of marriage. Webster's Ninth gives 1940 as the official entry date for Ms., defining it as a title for women whose marital status is not known or irrelevant. American Heritage calls it a title of courtesy or respect for women whose status is unknown. Heritage grants Ms. the same status as Mr., though no dictionary sanctions Mr. and Ms. as a couple. The only proper title for a married couple is still Mr. and Mrs.

Strangers may address me as Miss or Ms. I do not respond favorably to adults I've never met or young girls who call me by my given name. Once, a teenager who came to clean for me asked whether to address me as Ileen or Aleen. I told her my name was Miss Lorberg. She understood my message, and we both scored a few niggling points of light.