Myth: Don’t end a sentence with a preposition

Sir Winston Churchill supposedly* said this was “the kind of errant pedantry up with which I will not put.”

Now I ask you, does that really sound more natural than “That’s the kind of errant pedantry I will not put up with?”

No, obviously not.

Scholars are mainly the ones who fall for this baloney, but sometimes people who were traumatized by a misguided English composition teacher early in life will cling to it also.

Truth: There is no grammatical rule forbidding the ending of sentences with prepositions. But rhetoricians dislike such constructions because they make the end of the sentence feel weak. If I were inclined to edit the version attributed to Sir Winston, I would put “I will not put up with that kind of errant pedantry.” See? Ending with “errant pedantry” is strong.

But I’m not inclined to edit it, because it is funny.

*—There's no evidence to back up that story, but it does provide a useful example.

The Shackelton advert myth

Endurance sinking in Antarctica, November 1915
Royal Geographic Society

Among the lore of businesspeople is the story of the ad Ernest Shackleton reputedly placed in a London newspaper to recruit a crew for the Endurance expedition:

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honor and recognition in event of success.

The ad is generally said to have resulted in thousands of applications being sent to Shackelton. It’s usually cited to illustrate the idea that rewards are more important to workers than money.

The premise has some truth to it. For example, a group of teachers once toured the newsroom, and one of them asked about the cow on my desk. Betsy -- a 12-inch-high wooden figure of a Holstein -- was, I explained, a traveling trophy, passed from each employee of the month to the next.

The teacher noted how important such rewards are. “No one works for money.”

“Yes,” I said, “if everyone only worked for money, there would be no teachers and no one in the newsroom.”

They all found this rather funny.

But I’m not sure people work for “honor and recognition,” either.

During a June 4, 2010 public forum held in Orlando by the Task Force on Space Industry Workforce and Economic Development, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden said of the thousands of shuttle program workers who are being laid off, “they are not looking for a job. They are looking for something that will help them make a difference.”

That’s really why dedicated workers do whatever they do. That’s also why people leave jobs others think of as good ones: they’re not being given an opportunity to make a difference.

And that’s why five thousand people, by some accounts, applied to accompany Shackelton to the South Pole. But -- and you know I had to do some mythbusting here -- they were not replying to the above ad. So far, no one has proved that ad ever appeared.

Shackelton recruited by letter, in geography journals and in The Times (London), but his letters are very pragmatic and contain no dire predictions or promises of honor.

The folks over at The Antarctic Circle have been working for over ten years to find the original ad. Despite a $100 prize and many people combing through microfilm of London newspapers, no one has found it.

Since a Google search on the phrase “Shackelton ad” turns up The Antarctic Circle’s well-documented debunking, there is really no excuse for quoting the bogus ad.

For sincerity, try a dictionary

Simon Cataudo | stock.xchng

I've heard the one about "sincere" meaning "without wax" several times now, but I ran it through Google anyway, just to see what happened.

Oddly enough, it turns up in Dan Brown's novel Digital Fortress, which was published in 2008. Now I'm striving to remember whether I heard the "without wax" story before then. I don't think I did.

It has that pseudo-real factoid feeling Brown so well known for. He puts his version in a paragraph of pure exposition that any sensible editor would have struck and labeled "telling." He also sets his version in Spain, while the usual setting is ancient Rome. The standard version (and there are many) goes something like this:

Marble merchants used to disguise flaws in the marble by filling  them with wax. So honest marble merchants would advertise their wares as being "sine cera" -- without wax.

However, as even an Elementary Latin Dictionary can tell you, "sincere" is itself a Latin word meaning -- brace yourselves -- "honesty." It's probably related to "sincerus," which means "pure" or "entire."

Any good dictionary will give you the proper history of a word, so consider looking things up before including spurious folk etymologies in your article, speech, or novel.

Candy confusion

I once received an e-mail message that went something like this:

Photo by Gary Scott | www.garyslens.ca

“A candymaker in Indiana wanted to make a candy that would be a witness, so he made the Christmas candy cane. He incorporated several symbols from the birth, ministry and death of Jesus Christ.
“ … a stick of pure white, hard candy. White to symbolize the virgin birth and the sinless nature of Jesus, and hard to symbolize the solid rock, the foundation of the church …
“The candymaker made the candy in the form of a ‘J’ to represent the precious name of Jesus … it could also represent the staff of the ‘Good Shepherd’ …
“The candymaker stained it with red stripes … three small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Jesus received … the large red stripe was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross.
“Unfortunately, the candy became known as a candy cane — a meaningless decoration … but the meaning is still there for those who ‘have eyes to see and ears to hear.’ ”

There are even several children’s books that tell something like this story, calling it the “true” origin of the candy cane. The problem is, the “true” story changes with each retelling.

In some versions, the candy cane is said to have been a secret sign among persecuted Christians — although the persecution of Christians in Europe ended long before the invention of stick candy.

Straight white candy sticks have been around for centuries. According to the National Confectioners Association, the first cane-shaped candies in America appeared in Ohio, where, in 1847, a German-Swedish immigrant named August Imgard decorated his tree with them. The shape is meant to evoke not the letter J, but the shepherd's crook -- still religiously symbolic, if you think about it. Besides, you can hang a crook on a branch. Doesn't work so well in the "J" orientation.

The truth may seem boring in comparison to a fanciful story. Gracious, I'm in the business of telling fanciful stories. But we must be clear when we are using fairy tales to share our witness, and not pretend that fables are fact.

Inspirational anecdotes don't need to be faked

Motivational speakers often use true-life anecdotes to illustrate a topic, and this is a great tool. But of course it’s better if the true-life anecdotes really are true. Too often, speakers (and, dare I say it, writers) don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

One plum people pull out to show you shouldn’t be discouraged by failure is the one about how the inventors of the Post-it Note were supposedly trying to make a super-strong glue but failed—the glue turned out weak. They then converted their biggest failure into their biggest success.

Silver and Fry are featured on the Post-it anniversary page

A good story, but not true. The truth is less dramatic, but no less inspirational: Spencer Silver, a chemist at 3M, discovered a low-tack glue in 1968, but because he and his colleagues couldn’t come up with any marketable applications, it was shelved. A few years later, one of those colleagues—Art Fry—realized Silver’s temporary adhesive would hold bookmarks in place. After some brainstorming, the company came up with Post-it notes and other products using the glue.

Silver’s original project was only a “failure” in that initially they couldn’t think of a market for it. Jim Collins and Jerry I. Porras include the story in Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. They emphasize that Silver wasn’t looking for anything in particular. He was “following the principle of ‘experimental doodling,’” something 3M encourages. He was playing around to see what he could find.

The Post-it story is a good one. But, as Collins and Porras make clear, what it illustrates is the need for companies to foster creativity and allow risk-taking.

The “super-strong glue” story isn’t the only falsehood I’ve heard propagated by people seeking to inspire. In the future, I’ll tackle some of the others, and any more you care to bring to my attention. Because I believe if you're going to use a true-life anecdote to make your point, it really should be true.