Watch Out For Those Carnal Sins

Two months ago, a writer for the Copley News Service turned out a feature story on spring cleaning. She had plenty of good advice: Hire some help, get organized and "resist the urge to store the things you don't need - the carnal sin of many junkaholics."

Hoo, boy! If accumulating junk has become a carnal sin, many of us had better run to confession. The feature writer wanted "cardinal sin," a term I cannot find clearly defined anywhere. The word "cardinal" stems from a Latin root for "hinge," something pivotal, but that's all I know. The cardinal virtues, for the record, are justice, prudence, temperance and bravery.

I digress. My theme for the day is carelessness! It must be among those cardinal sins. It was carelessness that affected an ad writer for Zebra Technologies Corp. last fall. In its ad in The Wall Street Journal, the company described itself as a leader in bar code labels that has experienced "unpresidented growth." For a major company to be unpresidented is probably unprecedented, but you never know. `Unsurpassed by no one'

In Fredericksburg, Va., a real-estate firm congratulated a woman who had qualified as a certified commercial investment member. According to an ad in The Free Lance-Star, she is "unsurpassed by no one." You can say this for the ad: It got attention. Six readers mailed me a clipping.

In the Indiana Daily Student, a feature writer turned out a piece on scuba diving. He explained that scuba is "an anacronym for `self-contained underwater breathing apparatus.' " The word he wanted was "acronym," a word formed from the first letters of a phrase, such as WAC. An anachronism is a misplacement of something in time - teenagers performing a minuet at a high-school prom.

Carelessness evidently is an international sin. The Financial Times of London commented on delays by the International Monetary Fund in aiding Russia in economic reforms. "The longer the IMF prevaricates, the less likely it is these reforms will occur."

Come now! Prevaricates? Surely the IMF wasn't actually lying to the Russians. One hopes not. The IMF more likely was procrastinating, a venial sin, but often an exasperating one.

On that note, a tut-tut to a headline writer on The Island Packet of Hilton Head, N.C. "Hurricane exasperates supply problem," read the item. The four-dollar word he wanted was "exacerbates," to make something worse. Light shade of difference

If we wanted to make change out of that four-dollar word, we might note some nickels and dimes. Maybe there is a shade of difference between "to exacerbate" and "to aggravate," but it's a light shade. I believe we might exacerbate a quarrel by adding insult to injury. We may aggravate an infected cut by scratching it.

Then, too, a fellow might acerbate a broken relationship with his girl by demanding his ring back. He would be souring the affair.

Copyright 1993, Universal Press Syndicate

The Writer's Art by James J. Kilpatrick appears Sunday in the Scene section. Address comments or questions to Writer's Art, c/o Newsroom, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111.