COMING TO TERMS WITH WHATEVER OCCURS IN LANGUAGE

Letters from strangers citing new or unusual usages in language are always welcome. One such has come from a former Southeast Missouri State University music teacher who is also an auto-racing fan: the use of "off" as a noun.

In 1976, I was unable to get affordable lodging in Indianapolis because everything was reserved for the Indy 500. This limited my interview with the editor of Jack and Jill to a phone call, but my 16-year-old peeve against auto racing has ended with Professor Robert Restemyer's example: "So-and-so had a bad off in corner seven."

Professor Restemyer tells me this usage is quite common in racing magazines. Although dictionaries have not yet listed "off" as a noun, it tickles my funny-bone to say I've had a "bad off" if anything has gone wrong.

Less acceptable in my book is the use of "lower" for "fewer." Some weeks ago an AARP member announced that "older drivers have lower accidents than the young." Before the Memorial Day holiday, a radio staffer reported that "A higher incident of traffic accidents were expected." Mercy me! He meant a higher incidence of traffic accidents was expected. However, neither high nor low accidents will wash, though they might help kill English idiom.

According to a TV announcer, "excessible" amounts of lead in buildings in Leeds, Ala., are having a disastrous effect on school children. The speaker either considered "excessible" a better word than "excessive", or confused it with "accessible." The lack of general knowledge and limited vocabularies of young people now staffing the communications world is appalling. Another newcomer to the field has declared "We have a nation without conscious." Conscious what?

Information in general appears to have escaped many. A new voice promised his audience that a marching band would play a march on Memorial Day by John Philip. My friend Judge Bill surmised that John Philip was probably the illegitimate son of John Philip Sousa. Radio audiences also heard that a man had been found dead of smoke "hilation." Perhaps his daughter was Anni Hilation, and a smoker.

On a documentary featuring the use of a computer to help a young girl in a dentist's office accept braces, the narrator nominated the setting an "orthodenter office." If the orthodontist overheard, he was probably ready to practice older methods on the narrator.

In a recent issue of The New Yorker, a certain artist was accused of wearing "dominatrix fingernails." Whether the critic meant the artist is the mother of contemporary art and her fingernails dominate the art world, or only produce a domino effect, remains unclear.

"Domino effect" seems to be suffering from a severe case of deja vu. The expression, according to Webster's Ninth New Dictionary, has been around since 1966, though one reader thought it was a new buzz phrase. For years we were satisfied with "chain reaction." But how to connect either term with "dominatrix fingernails" is beyond me. There are limits to my ability to come to terms with everything that happens to our language.

"Coming to terms" is a convenient cliche as well as the title of one of language maven William Safire's books on language. So far I've covered only 20 pages, and garnered two eses to add to my collection: computerese and service-ese. But it was a weather forecaster who on Feb. 22, 1992, lamented his ignorance of groundhogese. This provided a light touch despite grave concerns voiced by boat and agriculture industries.

On a talk show featuring mothers who work outside the home and have children, one guest asked: "Why is this (problem) isolated to women alone?" Obviously, the lady meant "limited," but language was not the issue. Gender was.

In a review of "The Wizard of Oz" published in The New Yorker May 11, Salman Rushdie maintained that his memory is so bad his mother refers to it as his "forgettery." Followers of Ayatollah Khomeini have not permitted the poet to forget that his life is still in jeopardy, so "forgettery" has become obsolete without ever having made our dictionaries.