Valek challenges role of health prevention; peers mull jibe v. jive.

If glass ceiling appeals to you as a nineties metaphor, you should also favor sticky floor. Anne Soukhanov, executive editor of American Heritage III, made these observations in her usage column in December's Atlantic Monthly.

"sticky floor -- noun, a condition in which women and minority men in entry-level or low-wage positions find themselves unable to advance: 'While the "glass ceiling" keeps a select group of women from government's top jobs, more than half of all women employed by state and local governments work on the "sticky floor" of low-paying, low-mobility jobs' (Catherine White Berheide in Women in Public Service: A Bulletin of the Center for Women in Government)." Credit for the coinage goes to Skidmore College associate professor Berheide, who "chose the term for its reverberations with glass ceiling and because it evokes dead-end work." Soukhanov added: "The plural, sticky floors, has since come to be used in reference to academia as well, to denote the plight of those women and minority men unable to obtain tenured faculty positions."

Tag-teaming with Random House's Jesse Sheidlower, U.S. News & World Report writer Gerald Parshall included this take on sticky floor in his recent roundup: "A substratum of menial jobs that offer no chance for improvement in the status or income. The unfortunates on the sticky floor are worse off than women or blacks who hit a glass ceiling ... The glass ceiling lets people rise part way. The sticky floor glues souls to the bottom of the economic scale."

* Wilma K. Mathews, ABC, writes from her communications consulting and training aerie in Phoenix to sigh, "I still cling to the childish belief that editorial writers are more careful about their grammar, syntax, and use of figures of speech (than other writers)." That said, she circled the following sentence in The Arizona Republic and added, "Perhaps that's why I despair when I come across a mistake such as this ...."

"(One viewpoint on conservation) doesn't quite jive with (another point)."

The editorialist wants jibe, which American Heritage III shows on p. 968 to mean "To be in accord; agree: Your figures jibe with mine. |Origin unknown.~" On p. 969 appear eight definitions of jive, none of which jibes with the editorialist's usage. (Soundalike gibe means "to make taunting, heckling, or jeering remarks," e.g., "Don't make gibes about my using jive for jibe!").

* ABC Ray Valek, communication services manager at University of Chicago Hospitals, was doing his homework, studying an article on health-care reform published in Healthcare Marketing Report. Says Valek, "I was interested to have one of the experts quoted in the article ... tell me that 'health prevention will become more important.'"

Looking at the tearsheets Valek included with his letter, one finds this linguistic nonfeasance magnified by the editorial format: Questions to experts were printed boldface above each response, and the one that started all this read "What About Health Prevention Programs?" So we find a staff writer who doesn't read what he's written; an editor who doesn't rewrite what she reads; a proofreader who's not keen enough to jot in "Query author"; "experts" who won't ask, "Excuse me, did you say 'health prevention?'"; and -- finally -- an article that evokes scornful merriment studded with gibes.

I think I shall fire off an indignant letter to Atlanta, home of the national Centers for Health Control and Prevention. |N.B. -- dictionaries display healthcare and health care; adjective, health-care.~

* Things weren't going a whole lot better for the editors of the Nursing Bulletin on Health Care Reform, published by the American Nurses Association, Washington, D.C. Reporting on reform hearings, they said "These Subcommittees ... are chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Rep. Cardiss Collins (D-IL), respectfully." Whistle blower Michael Villaire, IABC member and managing editor of Critical Care Nurse, Aliso Viejo, Calif., said "Nice to know some legislators execute the duties of their offices with respect." I shall fire off another indignant letter, this one signed "Respectively yours."

* Last October in this excellent space there was occasion to condemn a wordcare giver for spelling voila the way she heard it: wallah. Today she is not alone. A person taking a poll on Prodigy mishandled some data, reigned innocence, got properly busted, and finally caved in by saying touche. But you know what got e-mailed: To-shay! Oy vay. May they never be asked to spell trousseau.

* Webster's Medical Desk Dictionary, published in 1986 as the first ever written by professional dictionary editors, is now out as an update whose name reflects the company's efforts to regain brandname exclusivity -- Merriam-Webster's Medical D.D.

Its 55,000 main entries include more than 1,000 biographies of women and men whose names are now part of the medical vocabulary. New entries include MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), attention deficit disorder, surgicenter, T4 cell, and blunt trauma. At U.S. $24.95 it's an excellent adjunct for editors in these times of, like, you know, health prevention.

Alden Wood, lecturer on editorial procedures at Simmons College, Boston, Mass., writes and lectures on language usage. He is a retired insurance industry vice president of advertising and public relations (his Internet address is awood