DATE: Sunday, April 13, 1997                TAG: 9704130056

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL

                                            LENGTH:   55 lines

SOME SLIPS OF THE MOTHER TONGUE AND VERIFIABLE VERBOSITIES

It is one thing to pick up the misuse of out-of-the-way words and quite another to catch errors arising with commonplace ones, as Amelia Hitchings of Norfolk does in raising this question:

Don't good phone manners indicate we should say ``May I speak with'' in place of ``speak to''?

Yes, of course, now that she's brought it up.

Some of us are guilty of that sloppy usage, and not only on the telephone. Ever since Amelia pointed out that failing, I've been going around thinking, off and on, whether I've been saying in daily discourse, ``Let me talk with him'' on this or that problem or ``to him.''

One time to use ``to'' would seem to be if we're bawling out someone, giving him a ``talking to.''

And then there are occasions when we're talking ``at'' someone, nagging, without being sure we're getting through.

Georgette Constant of Virginia Beach and I were mulling over these distinctions the other day, and she recalled the refrain from ``Midnight Cowboy,'' the movie:

``Everybody's talking at me. I don't hear a word they're saying.''

The quickest way to catch someone's attention is to talk ``with'' and not ``at'' or ``to'' her or him.

Listening to a newscaster report on the ills of smoking tobacco, Martha Danklefs of Virginia Beach was taken aback to hear the word ``larynx'' pronounced ``larnicks.''

That would startle one.

Norfolk's Flora Goldman is annoyed, as am I, at the increasing use of ``preventative'' instead of clean, straight ``preventive'' as applied to medicine or maintenance or measures.

Long ago, in the 1930s, it was simply preventive medicine, but now preventative is gaining ground.

To some people, perhaps, that extra syllable ``ta'' lends more weight to the word and gives the impression that a pound instead of an ounce of prevention is being brought to bear.

To my ear, the longer form sounds pretentious, portentous, stuffy.

Imagine my surprise, consulting the closest dictionary, Random House, to discover that preventative is acceptable, although it is in second place behind preventive.

Looking further, into ``Fowler's Modern English Usage,'' I learn that both words are listed with preventative in second place, but that the two entered the language in the 17th century ``and they have been fighting it out ever since.''

Both are acceptable, ``and the most that can be said is that the shorter form is the more frequent of the two . . . and is the one recommended here for most contexts.''

My guess is that preventative has the momentum just now, and those of us who can't abide it should try to use preventive in conversations at least three times a day.

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