The Right Word in the Right Place at the Right Time by William Safire

“patient care, directing hiring policies, supervising order clerks, repairing automobiles, reconciling financial records” are the examples given. The last four of those listed begin with gerunds; why, then, does “patient care” have no - ing ? To be in proper parallel, it should be “caring for patients.”
    At least that was a series of examples not masquerading as a sentence; correctly, with no verb, no period was placed at the end. However, in what is called the ancestry question (more precisely the lineage question), we read “Italian, Jamaican, African Am., Cambodian, … Taiwanese, Ukrainian, and so on.” The “and so on” tries to make it all-inclusive, but there is no verb to make it a sentence—and yet in this instance a period is put at the end. No style is followed. And why, when no other group is followed by “Am.,” is “African” so designated—and without a hyphen to boot?
    Hats off to the writers for sticking to past practice in identifying aboriginal Americans as “American Indians” and not the confusing “Native Americans.” That last could mean anyone born in America, in contrast to “Naturalized Americans,” citizens born elsewhere. Past designations as Eskimo and Aleut are now lumped together as “Alaska Native.”
    Thus, the sensitive question of “What is this person’s race?” has three main categories: (1) the above “American Indian or Alaska Native,” which follows (2) “white” and three choices of names for (3) the other—“Black, African Am., or Negro.” The Census Bureau explains that the terminology changes with each generation and that “Negro” was put in so that older members of the group would not feel outdated. What about whites from South Africa? I presume the form presumes that they will choose to describe themselves as white. In a triumph of inclusive self-differentiation, eleven other racial groups are listed, from “Asian Indian” to “Samoan,” with blank space left for anyone to write in “Some other race.”
    Language has its limitations. In the question about relationships, the form includes, among others, “Husband/wife, Natural-born son/daughter, Adopted son/daughter.” That “Natural-born” seems awkward; obviously it is there to distinguish between what the Bible colorfully called “the fruit of one’s loins” and an adopted child. But with artificial insemination and test-tube babies in the mix, what is natural and what is not?
    The delicious bureaucratic euphemism POSSLQ is gone. “Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters,” which appeared in the 1990 census, has been replaced by two categories: “Housemate/Roommate,” who shares living quarters “primarily to share expenses,” and the new “Unmarried Partner.” Says the bureau: “Mark the ‘Unmarried Partner’ box if the person is not related to Person 1, shares living quarters, and who [ who should be dropped] has a close personal relationship with Person 1.”
    Prediction: In the 2010 census, this last category will be listed as “Lovers.” Also, the form writers will be warier about their use and abuse of commas.

    The main objection I found to the Census Form—the grammatico-usage-style matters aside—was that it asked about the people living in the house on April 1, 2000. So I held on to the form for mailing on or after the 1st, since, God knows, anything can happen in a week.
    Then publicity started appearing about how everyone had to send in the form BY April 1st. I don’t have at hand the birth and death rates in the U.S., but I assume the former outdoes the latter since things seem to be getting more and more crowded, but there surely must be a difference between the figures for, say, the 25th of March, when I completed the form, and the 1st of April.
    I am sure that the people at the Census Bureau are well-intentioned and trying very hard; but it is a pity that they really haven’t a clue as to what in hell they are doing or in the simple