My Brilliant Careen (minicast)

Welcome to another summer minicast of A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

We’ll be back in a few weeks with a brand new season of hour-long episodes.

But right now, I’d like to share with you a phone call that seems appropriate for this time of year,

When many of us are packing our beach bags full of summer reeds.

We heard from a guy named Craig.

Craig lives in New York City, and lately he’s been reading lots of thrillers.

But there’s a word he keeps coming across that trips him up every single time.

What’s on your mind today?

Well, I had actually been listening to your show when I was down in Orange County,

And something that I had, I do a lot of reading for relaxation and pleasure,

Mostly fiction, thrillers, spy novels.

And over the last, about 10 years ago, in reading books,

In almost all the cases of these books, there’ll be a car chase,

And they use the word careening as a car careens around a corner.

Right.

But about 10 years or so ago, I all of a sudden started noticing that sometimes rather than careening,

The word careering would appear.

And at first I thought it was maybe spellcheck had gotten it wrong and changed it.

But a few years ago I started seeing more and more.

So maybe, I don’t know, 30% of the time now careering will be in that line rather than careening.

And so I looked up the definition of both because it didn’t seem correct to me.

And in looking at the definition now for careering, it might apply,

Though the definition doesn’t seem to work nearly as well as careening was.

And so I was curious, you know, has the use of the word changed over time,

Or are spell checkers changing this word to careering,

And it’s now part of the lexicon and just changing that way?

So we’re talking about careen, C-A-R-E-E-N, and career, C-A-R-E-E-R, right?

Correct.

Okay.

Yeah.

I find that so interesting that you’re looking at it that way, Craig, because historically

There have been some usage writers who have said careen should only be used when it involves

Kind of a rocking motion, you know, that when that car’s going around the curve that

It needs to be wobbling or something.

Otherwise, you use the word career.

But I haven’t seen the word career that much, and I don’t really use it that way,

Although technically that’s supposedly the right way to do it.

So careering is kind of to go crazily at high speed, and then careening has a couple meanings,

And the intransitive one is to go crazily at high speed but to kind of lean from side to side, right, or wobble back and forth?

Yeah, exactly.

The weird thing about careen is that it goes all the way back to a Latin word that means the keel of a ship,

And the earliest use of careen in English was literally to turn a ship over to work on it for repairs.

But that’s not the only meaning, though, right?

No, not anymore.

But you can see how careen came to have that wobbling sense.

But now both of them have that sense of rushing headlong.

And so either one is correct.

I think it’s really interesting, Craig, that you’ve mentioned that they talk about careening around a corner.

Because when a car or vehicle does careen around a corner at high speed,

It does kind of lean.

It tilts from side to side and actually does have a little bit more in common

With the traditional definition of something wobbly.

I don’t know.

It seems that it applies there.

I don’t have a problem with either word, though, Martha.

Do you?

I think that they’re subtly different.

They are subtly different, but I’m with Craig in that I think career is just a weird word to use there

Because of the other word career when you talk about the career that you’re following.

What do you think, Craig?

I don’t recall seeing that the use of career prior to maybe 10 years ago.

In that kind of writing, it just kind of jumped out, and like I say, I thought it was an error.

I actually looked in the new Webster’s, too, and they actually use, in the definition for careening,

A car careening around a corner.

And if you look at the career or careering, it’s to rush headlong.

It doesn’t come as close, at least when I read it, as to this headlong chase

Where all of a sudden you’re going around a tight corner and you may be leaning or careening.

Yeah, I think you’re going to find that what seems to be true isn’t.

I think you’re going to find that actually careening is becoming more popular than careering.

And many of the people who complain about these two words being confused actually say exactly that,

And that careening is wrongly taking over where careering should be used instead.

So I don’t believe that careering is becoming more popularly used.

I do think also that careen is more American than British.

I think you might hear careering.

Are you reading a lot of British writers?

Maybe that’s what’s going on.

Some, but probably more Americans, but some.

I didn’t take note of which books or which authors were using careering rather than careening.

Yeah, that might be something to look at.

What are you reading?

What are you reading right now?

What’s on your bedside table?

Well, I just finished Grisham’s The Appeal and Alex Berenson’s The Faithful Spy.

I don’t think either one of those had the word in it.

So I’ll have to take note the next time of the specific book and the author.

Well, your observations are great, and we’re glad to receive them.

Even though I don’t agree with them completely,

It’s interesting that you do notice some trends in your own consumption of literature.

Well, Craig, I’m with you.

I keep thinking spellcheck has gotten in there and messed around with things.

Well, that was why I was curious because, like I said, the first time it just seemed to be an error,

But it seems to be going more and more in that direction.

Yeah, spellcheck is guilty of a lot of things.

It’s possible.

Yep, and you know, there’s another word along these lines that we didn’t even talk about.

It’s carom, C-A-R-O-M, carom.

I love this word.

It means to collide and then rebound, to hit something and then bounce off.

And it comes from the Spanish word carambola, which means a type of billiard ball.

So, for example, somebody like John Grisham might write something like,

The careering car careened around the curve and then caromed off the guardrail.

Okay, maybe not.

Anyway, we’d love to know about interesting words you’ve encountered during your summer reading.

Email us anytime at words@waywordradio.org or call and leave a message.

The number is 1-877-929-9673.

That’s all for this minicast.

For A Way with Words, I’m Martha Barnette.

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