It may not have escaped your notice that Americans like to sue each other. One of our great modern thinkers, “Weird Al” Yankovic, even wrote a song about it (in part: “I’ll sue ya, I’ll take all your money / I’ll sue ya, if you even look at me funny!”). One thing that really gets our litigious juices going is when someone says nasty things about us, either in speech or in print. Yes, today’s topic is libel and slander (mostly libel, though; more on the difference later). If you are a writer who writes about real people, it’s something you should keep in mind.

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Welcome to another edition of Questions for a Language Ninja, where the Ninja explores common grammar and usage issues that, hopefully, at least one other person will find important. Let’s get going!

Q: Why is it that common expressions like “cheer up,” “clean up,” “mess up,” “calm down,” and “make up” don’t have an opposite adverb equivalent? Shouldn’t we be able to logically say “clean down?”

A: We should, and we would – if English language usage was governed entirely by logic. Alas, it is not.

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Advertising, like language, is no modern phenomenon. Today, we’re so overburdened with ads that advertising has garnered a negative connotation. “Ugh, how can we get ads off of Facebook?” or “Why can’t they skip the ads before the movie starts?” are common 21^st century woes.

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A time-honored practice in writing is…let’s call it “borrowing.” You see someone else’s clever turn of phrase, a few words that perfectly describe what you’re trying to convey, a zinger pun, and you decide to use it in your own writing. Maybe you change the words around to fit your situation, or maybe you don’t, but it’s just harmless borrowing, right?

But borrowing can be a bit like eating Girl Scout cookies. Just a couple, you think, or maybe a few more—dang, those Samoas are good!—and pretty soon the whole box is gone.

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The Language Ninja is hoping you are having a splendid middle-of-February, and that your Valentine’s Day was a wonderful celebration of affection between you and the one you love most. For the Ninja, it was a day largely spent weeping. Let’s get started!

Q: When is it appropriate to use “I,” “me,” or “myself” in a sentence?

A: If you are an elected official giving a press conference or a director of marketing giving a presentation, it is mandatory that you use “myself” in any instance you might possibly be tempted to use “me” or “I.” No, it isn’t “correct;” it just makes you sound important.

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I’ve always had a thing for Valentine’s Day that I can’t explain. Maybe it’s the incongruous combination of red and pink. Or maybe it’s the stupid puns on hokey valentines and cheap, terrible candy. Could be the hearts, because I really do love hearts. Beyond all those solidly rational reasons, though, my absolute favorite thing about this holiday is that it’s an entire day built around celebrating something that, in the day-to-day, is all too often taken for granted: your special someone.

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Remember the neutral male pronoun? In case that sounds like jargon to you, let me provide an example:

If a student hopes to earn an A on his final report, he should not only study all the previous course material, but also bring his teacher gifts and perform various other tasks that serve to boost his favoritism ratings.

While this is clearly objectively excellent advice, notice the consistently male pronouns. Am I writing to a class of only male students? Am I assuming that only the male students are required to perform brown-nosing acrobatics while the female students are naturally gifted enough to earn A’s on their own? Do only the male students care about their grades? This is so confusing!

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Do you engage in risky writing? Or, more to the point, should you?

I’m not talking about Charlie Hebdo-style cartoons, or even the kind of novel that forced Salman Rushdie into hiding for years. I’m talking about garden-variety edginess for rhetorical effect: strong language, subtle references to sex, drugs, alcohol, bodily functions, taboos of various kinds… you get the idea. Where do you draw the line? How far (and how often) do you cross over it before a little bit becomes too much?

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Hello, and welcome to the first Questions for a Language Ninja of 2015! May this year bring many and sundry language-related treats for web content-readers to enjoy, and for the Language Ninja to lightheartedly ridicule. Let’s get started!

Q: Which language trend would you like to see abandoned in 2015?

A: Without question, the Ninja would like the suffix “–ista” to be jettisoned from the popular English lexicon, permanently. Does the addition of “-ista” to a subject really cause anyone to think that the title is suddenly weighty or fabulously European? The Ninja is overdosing on cute.

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Happy holidays!

Let’s get this festive Questions for a Language Ninja party started with a few topics that really bother her questions from her legions of devoted fans:

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