A cursory ________ of the document was enough to reveal that the discrepancy in amounts resulted from an accounting error rather than fraud. a. review b. scrutiny

Answer: a

Explanation
Scrutiny means close examination and cursory means hasty and inattentive, so you can’t really have a cursory scrutiny. That doesn’t keep people from trying, though.  A quick Google search yields 23,800 hits for “cursory scrutiny.”

Cursory scrutiny is an oxymoron — a term made up of two contradictory words, like open secret, jumbo shrimp  and unbiased opinion.  I had a little look around to see if anyone had reported it as an oxymoron, but all the results I found were in references to other oxymorons. For example:

Having made my way through the article, though, I found myself started by this rather baffling conclusion:

Finally, the only other conclusion one can draw is that “European civilization” is an oxymoron. These horrors, Nazi and Communist, all arose out of European ideas, political and philosophical, being put into practice. Even the Cambodian genocide had its genesis in the cafes of Paris where Pol Pot got his ideas. Hitler got his ideas in the cafes of Vienna.

I don’t think that this holds up under even cursory scrutiny.  Read more

Here’s another:

The very name of this subdivision, the Miranda Canyon Preserve Subdivision, is an oxymoron that insults our intelligence. Even a cursory scrutiny of the proposal shows bad planning, bad engineering and very bad science. Read more

So these examples are people talking about oxymorons and cursory scrutiny but not aware that the former is an example of the latter. There should be a word for it.

Thanks to @Guy_in_PEI for the idea.
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___________________________, I’m attaching my tax records for the years 1987-2012. a. Per your request b. As per your request c. As you requested

Answer: c.

Explanation:
Per can mean according to or in accordance with — so it’s not wrong, exactly. People often use it to make their writing more formal, but it sounds fusty. Writing guides usually condemn it as jargon. As per is worse — it’s not only fusty but also redundant, which makes it silly. Silly and overly formal make for a bad combination, made all the sillier because it’s apparent that the writer is trying to sound very businesslike and official.

The Oxford dictionary of American usage and style (ed. Bryan A. Garner) lists examples:

“When used to mean ‘according to’ (per your request, per your order), the expression [per] is business jargon at its worst and should be avoided.” (Charles T. Brusaw et al., The Business Writer’s Handbook, 1987)

“As per: This hybrid is inexcusable. Instead of ‘as per your request,’ say ‘in accordance with your request’ or ‘in compliance with your request.’ (Maurice H. Weseen, Crowell’s dictionary of English Grammar, 1928)

As you requested is straightforward and, really, as formal as you ever need to be.

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Answer: It depends.

Explanation:
The standard expression is “cross that bridge when we come to it.” It means that you’ll deal with some potential event if and when it happens — it may not happen at all and if it does, it may be easier to see how to deal with it at that time.

“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it” is considered to be a mixed metaphor/malaphor: an erroneous mixing of two metaphors. In this case, it’s a combination of “cross that bridge when one comes to it” and “to burn one’s bridges,” meaning to take an action that will eliminate some potential option. For example, if you toss your venti latte in the recruiter’s face at a job fair, you’re likely burning your bridges with that company. So if it may be necessary to decisively eliminate some option in the future, it would make sense to say you’ll burn that bridge when you come to it. I don’t think anyone does say that, mind you, but it would make perfect sense.

And then, of course, the other option is to jump. Site director Peggy Rouse occasionally says, when we’re discussing some deeply undesirable potential event, “Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it.” Naturally, you don’t want to do it preemptively, as the undesirable event may never happen. And there hasn’t been anything that catastrophic yet. Should we come to the bridge we prefer not to cross, however, I picture us clasping hands like Thelma and Louise approaching that cliff and leaping. Unless we just decide to burn it instead.

So, anyway, what I’m saying is that I can see occasions for any of the three, depending on the particular bridge you’ve come to.

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Answer: Either, depending on how you pronounce “homage.”

Explanation:

I pronounce it ohm-ahj, and seeing it spelled as “a homage” makes me hear it in hillbilly. But that’s just me, and I do not rule the Internets.

The New York Times doesn’t either, but they certainly come much closer to global dominance than I do, so let’s see what Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) has to say:

The New York Times style guide does not specifically address the word homage, and in such matters the copy desk typically turns to Webster’s New World Dictionary for guidance. As with other leading American dictionaries, Webster’s New World currently recognizes two equally accepted pronunciations of the word: either HOM-ij or OM-ij. Since the pronunciation with “h” is listed first, that would favor “a homage” over “an homage.” (The Times has not been terribly consistent on this score, however. Since 2001, “a homage” has appeared in the paper 500 times, but “an homage” has appeared 407 times.) > Read more

OK. No help there.

The Grammarphobia Blog reports on the increasingly common use of the French spelling, hommage, which would always take “an” as the article because there’s no question about its pronunciation. On the other hand, it may be seen as an affectation beyond that of just pronouncing it in the French manner.  So we’re left with “make your choice and take your chances.”

Let’s try a Google poll:

An homage: 1,680,000

A homage: 978,000

Google poll results fairly decisive – maybe I do rule the Internets, after all. All right then — let’s stick with “an homage,” kids.

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Answer: b.

Explanation:
You may be seen as heartless — don’t be gutless, too. Call it what it is. Layoffs are understood; the other three terms are used to make it sound like harmless pruning.

Years ago, when I was in the direst straits of a freelance career, I wrote financial summaries: articles that organized and presented the essence of corporate conference calls, for the benefit of analysts. These were torturous for multiple reasons — not least the requirement that the reports be online about five seconds after the CEO’s last word.

But I think the worst part was listening to the euphemistic BS dished up by so many executives, the weasel words that allowed them to express things in ways that didn’t make the stockholders uncomfortable. It’s hard to cheer openly for “We saved $35 million in payroll expenses by laying off 30% of the men and women who worked for us,” even if that translates to money in your pocket. On the other hand, if you call it a “headcount reduction,” “downsizing” or — the worst — “rightsizing,” well, yay. The company had a headcount reduction. It was downsized; it was rightsized. And lo, it was profitable.

Sometimes downsizing is differentiated from layoffs as a permanent change. However, anyone that’s ever been laid off knows that it may be permanent. Rightsizing, on the other hand, rests on the assumption that there should never have been so many employees in the first place. Silly corporations!

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Here’s the classic example: Mistakes were made.

You’re hoping that will come across as calm acceptance of the fact that something has — somehow! — gone wrong. In reality, it translates to “I made some mistakes but I’m a pompous twit and cannot admit to it. Furthermore, I think you’re such a dimwit that you won’t realize.” It’s like having your mom walk into the room where you stand alone, empty glass in hand and puddle at your feet, and say “Milk was spilt.”

There are times when the passive voice is the best option but that’s not when you’re trying to wriggle out of taking responsibility for something.

If you say mistakes were made, you’re making another one as you speak.

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a. The company got approval because the accountant missed something.
b. The company was penalized because the accountant missed something.
c. The company got approval because the accountant was keeping an eye on things.
d. The company was penalized because the accountant was keeping an eye on things.

Answer: It’s impossible to know.

Explanation:
Both oversight and sanction are contranyms: words that have two opposite meanings. Contranyms are a special example of polysemy, which describes things with multiple related (in this case contrary) meanings.

Mental Floss explains:

1. Sanction (via French, from Latin sanctio(n-), from sancire ‘ratify,’) can mean ‘give official permission or approval for (an action)’ or conversely, ‘impose a penalty on.’
*
2. Oversight is the noun form of two verbs with contrary meanings, “oversee” and “overlook.” “Oversee,” from Old English ofersēon ‘look at from above,’ means ‘supervise’ (medieval Latin for the same thing: super- ‘over’ + videre ‘to see.’) “Overlook” usually means the opposite: ‘to fail to see or observe; to pass over without noticing; to disregard, ignore.’

Contranyms are also known as auto-antonyms, and Janus words, for the two-faced god:

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (Latin: Ianus) is the god of beginnings and transitions,[1] thence also of gates, doors, passages, endings and time. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. The Romans named the month of January (Ianuarius) in his honor.

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Answer: a. Include b if you want to.

Explanation:
In the IT world, as elsewhere, “issue” is a common weasel word. Similar to a euphemism, a weasel word is often used to downplay the seriousness of an event or to squirm away from blame. In this case, service was interrupted because your servers were down. Saying the problem was “user connectivity issues” makes it sound like not only is the ISP blameless, it’s probably the customer’s fault.

David Platt takes issue with issue:

My e-mail service went down last month for a full day. When it finally came back up, I received an apology from its administrator, saying: “users experienced e-mail connectivity issues.” Bullhockey, Mr. Administrator. I did not experience “an issue.” I experienced the lack of e-mail because your servers were down. I experienced the waste of my time, the delay of my projects and the loss of my income. I experienced anger at your enterprise, which promised reliability but didn’t deliver. And I experienced even greater anger at your attempt to downplay your malpractice by using that worst of all weasel words: “issue.”

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Answer: a.

Explanation:
File this one under “Words to Ressurect.” Resistentialism is defined in Paul Hellweg’s Insomniac’s Dictionary as the “seemingly spiteful behavior manifested by inanimate objects.” Surely, that’s not a word that we should retire. With the proliferation of devices and their frequent nasty turns, you’d think that we’d need it more than ever.

The British humorist Paul Jennings coined the term for a spoof on existentialism that was published in The Spectator in April 1948.

The Oxford English Dictionary says resistentialism is a “mock philosophy which maintains that inanimate objects are hostile to humans” created from the Latin res, meaning thing(s), and French résister, meaning to resist, with existentialism.

Charles Harrington Elster wrote about resistentialism in the New York Times:

Although Jennings coined the word in jest, I must object to Oxford’s dubbing resistentialism a “mock philosophy.” There is nothing mock or sham about it, as anyone who has ever had to call a plumber on a Sunday morning to unclog a refractory toilet will attest.

Resistentialism is featured in the Obsolete Word of the Day blog.

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Answer: c.

Explanation:
Cue, in this context, comes from the theater. It’s something that happens in a play that signals a particular line or action to an actor. When the actor hears her cue, she knows its time to say or do whatever follows it. In speech, people sometimes shorten this up as “that’s my cue.”

At the Globe Theatre, back in the 16th century, the cues for Shakespearean actors were their actual lines whispered from backstage. Modern actors have to respond to less direct cues — they’re more like landmarks that indicate where to turn off a highway.

A queue, on the other hand, is a line-up. In fact, if you take Macarena as your cue to leave the wedding dance, you might find yourself queuing to leave.

Let’s see how people are doing with this one…

Google Poll:
My queue to leave: 133,000
My cue to leave: 453,000
My que to leave: 542,000

So, apparently more people get this wrong than right online. And their choice, que, is not actually a word.

Welp, that’s my cue.

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