Geoprofessionals write more than just about any other professionals, are constantly under the gun to produce now, and are personally liable for every word they write in their professional capacities. And because the best legal evidence always is what’s in writing, wise geoprofessionals want to be certain that what they say is unambiguous, so it is not subject to interpretation and so limits the ability of others to claim,

“What the geoprofessional wrote was ambiguous, making the geoprofessional liable for the consequences because professionals are supposed to write clearly.”

Words to the wise:

Unless you are trying to be ambiguous, always select words that have the fewest alternative meanings. Therefore, when you want to discuss causality, use “because,” because “since” has a meaning with respect to time, and because “as” – popular usage notwithstanding – does not mean “because.” Likewise, when you’re talking in terms of quantity, use “more than” instead of “over,” because “over” has more meanings than “more than.”

Engage in such exercises not only to help reduce ambiguity, but also to remind yourself that, by choosing words effectively, you perform more professionally. The career you protect will be your own.

“You, too, can have the vocabulary of a Harvard English major.” You’ve probably seen that advertisement in airline magazines, suggesting that you, too, can develop knowledge of words that other people don’t know, making them feel stupid and, thus, elevating your own self-image.

As it so happens, Dr. English is a Harvard English major, and the only others he knows who use words most people don’t understand are just plain rude. After all, why say “eleemosynary” when “charitable” will do just as well? Why say “have a predilection for” when all it means is “like”?

What about you? How secure or insecure are you about your language skills? The more you opt for the simple alternative, the more secure you are.

It’s pretty common for people to mishear a word or phrase and then go on to use it improperly, and it’s also pretty common for those who recognize the corruption to say nothing about it, so as not to offend the user.

Just a few you may be familiar with:

An early adapter : would be someone among the first to modify something for a new purpose. What’s almost always meant is early adopter; someone who is among the first to start using something new, like an iPhone.

Take a different tact : makes no sense. What’s meant is take a different tack, which refers to the course taken by a boat; generally a zigzag course when heading into the wind.

Unchartered waters : could mean water that charter boats aren’t seen in an area. The correct expression – uncharted waters – refers to new areas that have not yet been mapped (a map being a chart). The phrase is also used metaphorically to indicate a new situation for a person.

Throws of passion : could refer to what Stephen Strasburg hurls for the Washington Nationals, but when pitching woo is the topic, it’s throes of passion.

All and all is used by people who are trying to express “In summary” but don’t realize that all in all is the phrase that does it.

Butt-naked : is used (incorrectly) because the correct phrase – buck-naked – doesn’t seem to make sense. (“Buck” was a term used sarcastically to refer to African-American slaves and American Indians, who, at the time the word was applied, were imagined as savages in the woods.)

Remember the old days when you had to submit a paper that contained at least 1,500 words, so you did everything you possibly could to add words when your count came up short? All the words you added were worthless, of course, except to the extent that they got you to where you had to be numbers wise. And that’s when you decided that a technical career was the career for you, only to learn (too late now!) that geoprofessionals probably write more than almost all other professionals. The good news: You graduated. The bad news: You’re still likely to be using worthless words that sap energy from your writing, tarnish your image as a professional, or, worse, create a significant liability exposure.

All: This is one of the most dangerous words of all. It means “no exceptions whatsoever, no matter how tiny.” Still, so many people use it all the time. For a technical professional, it’s not just a bad habit, it’s outright dangerous. Bottom line: Get into the habit of not using it at all. (Removing “of all” at the end of the first sentence of this paragraph and “at all” from the end of the fifth have no impact on meaning; they simply reduce the word count, making the writing less off-putting, and lower the risk. In the third sentence, removing “all the time” does the same thing the other two deletions would do, and more: It eliminates an outright lie created by use of a colloquialism. “All the time,” colloquially, means “frequently,” not continuously, ceaselessly, endlessly, and so on. But professionals are supposed to be able to express their thoughts clearly and reliably. What to do? Just delete “all the time.” It results in fewer words and enhanced accuracy. (Use other colloquialisms cautiously, too: Replace “for a duration of 48 hours” with “for 48 hours“; use “100 yards” instead of “a distance of 100 yards“; try “now” as a substitute for “at this point in time.”)

Currently: Replacing a suspected-worthless word with its opposite is an easy way to tell if the word is really worthless (with “really” as just used being itself worthless (and “itself” as just used also being worthless)). As examples, even though they’re spoken far more often than they’re written, “Our lines are currently busy.” or “I’m currently away from my desk.” Given that “Our lines were really busy yesterday.” or “I’m going to be away from my desk sometime next week.” make no sense, “currently” should be eliminated.

(Note that the tense of the verb – the present in both examples – itself conveys “currently.”)

Apply the same test to “past experience,” “different examples,” “existing debt,” “successfully delivered,” “intended objectives,” “diametrically opposed,” “disorganized mess,” “received correspondence,” “end result,” and the “personally” of “Personally, I believe that….”

Subjective modifiers – like “hot” – are worse than worthless, because what the writer conceives as hot is most likely not what a reader – let alone all readers – regard as hot; e.g., the temperature hit 80F and the writer wrote, “It’s a hot day today.” The reader, from Tucson, Arizona, reads “hot day” and imagines it to be 110F wherever the writer was at the time of writing. “Very” – as in “very hot” doesn’t help, given that “very” is worthless, as is the “particularly” of “particularly hot.” “Several” falls into that category: Just how many are several? Even worse, and responsible for at least one claim we know of, “a number of.”

Some modifiers are worthless when they are used to add something to an absolute word; e.g., the “more” of “more perfect,””more ideal,” or “more unique.” “Perfect” and “ideal” are the top rungs of the ladder. If someone considers something “more perfect” or “more ideal,” whatever it is that the something is being compared to is less than perfect or ideal. (That’s why “fullest” is illogical and, as such, worthless.) “Unique” means one of a kind. Because something cannot be “more one of a kind” than something else, “more unusual” or “odder” – among other words and phrases – can be used to convey the intent.

You don’t need to use “as follows” to introduce a list; readers can see a list follows the colon you should use. Likewise, “Finally“is often unnecessary when writing the last paragraph, because readers can see it’s the last paragraph. (When finishing an oral address, people can assume that “finally” happened when you’re done talking.)

“You, too, can have the vocabulary of a Harvard English major.” You’ve probably seen that advertisement in airline magazines, suggesting that you, too, can develop knowledge of words that other people don’t know, making them feel stupid and, thus, elevating your own self-image.

As it so happens, Dr. English is a Harvard English major, and the only others I know who use words others don’t understand are totally rude. I mean, really, why say “eleemosynary” when “charitable” will do just as well? Why say “have a predilection for” when all it means is “like”? And, at a lower level, why say “utilize” when all it means is “use”?

What about you? How secure or insecure are you about your language skills? The more you opt for the simple alternative, the more secure you are.

Why can’t we all get along? Because we’re animals, meaning that conflict is inevitable as long as food, mates, and territory are limited. (In the case of humans, add money to that list.) These conditions are aggravated at work because the workplace is commonly a small, closed system where recognition, promotions, and raises are in great demand but extremely short supply. In other words, no matter how effective a firm’s leaders believe their management systems may be, people and their different personalities, ethics, and outlooks create situations that make it impossible to minimize conflict. NOT! In fact, effective management can reduce conflict, and – that being the case – one can surmise that employee conflict can be a sign of ineffective management, frequently associated with the following issues.

Centralized functions like HR, IT, and marketing can create conflicts because they put all the related resource eggs in one basket. Try to put enough eggs in the basket to meet all usual needs, or possibly consider an alternative or supplementary resource-distribution method.

Lack of accountability can leave people lost, resulting in finger-pointing, backstabbing, and other forms of conflict. (“She got the promotion I should have gotten, because….”) Lack of accountability commonly manifests itself when poorly defined objectives and/or metrics result in poorly constructed bonus, compensation, and promotion programs.

Shared or unclear responsibilities are blueprints for conflict. If responsibilities are to be shared, they must be clearly circumscribed: In fact, who is responsible for what? For that matter, any responsibility should be closely delineated, to help prevent people from stepping on one another’s toes.

Unstructured compensation and review systems are perennial conflict creators, because employees have little knowledge of: how they’re regarded by superiors, peers, and other coworkers; what they need to do to improve; the objectives management would like them to achieve in the upcoming months.Unstructured systems take on a veneer of structure by rewarding tenure rather than merit or embracing criteria that are vague and subject to interpretation, resulting in more exceptions than rules.

Overly structured compensation and review systems can be just as problematical, especially when their lack of flexibility prevents managers from recognizing rising stars by giving them a career ladder that helps them rise faster.

Poorly managed growth can create conflict when it results in an organization holding on to fundamental processes – like those associated with forecasting, operational and strategic planning, and budgeting – that worked well for the smaller organization that used to exist, but no longer does.

The “Peter Principle” holds that some people get promoted to a position they are not qualified for, and they stay in that position until they finally get it right. Which they usually never do. The result?Qualified individuals get stuck working for a boss or coworker they disrespect, creating conflicts between the qualified and the unqualified, as well as the decision-makers who, for whatever reason, are unwilling to replace the unqualified with those who are capable.

One of the nicer features of GBA’s webinars is the speakers’ willingness to answer questions. An important question came in after the webcast of “Think. Be Accurate.”, a John Bachner-led presentation focusing on commonly used words and phrases that can be dangerous. What follows is an edited version of the Q&A exchanges involved.

Tim wrote:
Good afternoon, John.

We just finished watching “Think. Be Accurate.” at our office and I have a question with regard to one of the phrases you brought up. We often use the phrase “in general accordance with project plans and specifications” in our field reports. We aren’t typically on site full-time and we therefore don’t want to make a guarantee that the work we observed was performed in full accordance with the project plans and specifications. However, it seems reasonable that we ought to tie our observations to the project plans and specifications, because if not, why are we even out there? In your experience, is there a phrase that is more suitable than “in general accordance with”?

Thanks for the lively presentation. I appreciate the ways you push the geo community towards excellence.
– Tim

John’s response…

Thanks for writing, Tim. Here’s how I see it.

If you were on the witness stand and opposing counsel asked, “What exactly does ‘in general accordance with project plans and specifications’ mean?” what would you say? I guess it would have to be along the lines of, “Well, it means we don’t have enough knowledge to know if full compliance was achieved, because we are not on site to look over everyone’s shoulder 24/7.”

Fact is, though, what you do is a far cry from that. You are providing that level of service the owner selected to satisfy the owner’s desire to assess whether or not a constructor is fulfilling its QC obligation to achieve certain specified conditions. I believe “in general accordance with project plans and specifications” creates an unwarranted sense of security and, therefore, is something you should not be saying. And why are you making that assessment when, in reality, it is the client who should draw the conclusions, because the client specified the extent of security it wants?

I believe a better statement might be:

“Our [observation and/or testing], as documented via the daily field reports included in Appendix A, indicate that the specific work portion we [observed and/or tested] met specifications of the contract. Please recognize that construction observation and testing conducted for quality-assurance purposes customarily involves direct observation and/or testing of less than one percent of the overall work that the observation and testing data are applied to evaluate. As such, you must base your conclusions about the overall work’s compliance with specifications on inferences you draw from the data we have developed, in accordance with the scope of service you authorized. If you believe the data we have developed are insufficient, we will be pleased to recommend and conduct additional observation and/or testing.”

Bearing in mind that I am not an attorney, Tim, this may be enough to get the point across. The conclusions to be reached should be reached by the client, not you. You’re there to provide data. The client has restricted the amount of data it wants, based on its own risk/cost evaluation. If you say “general compliance” and it’s not in compliance – general or otherwise – I believe you would be creating a risk for yourself that doesn’t really belong to you.

To which Tim responded…

Thanks for your thoughts on this topic, John, I agree with you that trying to defend that phrase on the witness stand would be uncomfortable, to say the least. Often, both the local municipality and the owner are looking to us for confirmation that the work was completed according to plans and specifications. If we put in too many limiting phrases, it’s likely the municipality would balk and direct us to complete enough field observation to be able to make a conclusive statement. We’ll need to talk about this internally and see how we can more accurately portray our work. Thanks for taking the time to get back to me.

John then offered…

Hi, Tim. Feasibly you could try something like what follows. It’s shorter but still explains the risks involved; i.e., you are doing what doctors do when they obtain informed consent from a patient. Your clients need to know that they DO NOT want you to say anything stronger, because that could make you liable for the contractor’s work, something for which you are not insured.

“Based upon inferences we have drawn from our [observation and/or testing], as documented by the daily field reports included in Appendix A, it is our professional opinion that the constructor is achieving specified conditions. Please recognize that construction observation and testing are sampling functions that involve direct observation and/or testing of less than one percent of the overall work that the observation and testing data are applied to evaluate.”

Dear Sir:

I read your article in the July/August NewsLog promoting the newly released PowerPoint template focusing on the value of geoprofessional services. Here at TTL, the geotechnical-engineering side of the house has used this PowerPoint with some success. We have given our adaptation of the presentation four times over the last year, twice to client representatives and once each at ASCE and AIA meetings. At each of these, we were well received and sparked interest that led to some healthy conversations.

As in any endeavor, we learn as we go. I have a few tips to share with those who use this resource going forward:

• Address the value you provide in the beginning. Often, linear-thinking engineers and scientists bury the lead, thinking we must give all the background first and then reveal the outcome. Not so: Make your value statements first and say them with strength.
• Put your best presenter on this, one that engages and connects easily with people and speaks authoritatively from a position of leadership. This may not be your ace technical guru. No matter, your technical gurus can go along should questions arise outside the presenter’s expertise.
• Practice, both alone and in front of your staff. Also, take time to predict questions and come up with possible answers to prepare for this portion of your talk.
• Offer PDHs and AIA credit (this takes having your version of the presentation vetted through AIA). If you offer CEUs, you’ll always have groups wanting you to present.
• Finally, success will live and die in follow-up. Always reconnect later to capitalize on solid opportunities to prove your value, putting your words into action.
• Thanks for making these resources available. Best of luck to the member firms that put them to good use.

Richard D. Heckel, P.E.
C.O.O.
TTL, Inc.

Good times just have to be around the corner and, when they hit, your number-one need is going to be employees whom you can trust to get the job done well. But why settle for good when you can have extraordinary? The problem is finding them, of course. As it so happens, you can make that problem far less severe by taking some of the advice offered at a recent leadership conference summarized by Geoffrey James in Inc. Online.

Define “Extraordinary”

Among your own employees and others’ you know, who’s extraordinary? And more to the point, why? What are they able to do that makes them so special? Which of their attributes make them that way? Are they perfectionists? Are they focused on pleasing others, including client representatives and coworkers? Are they good “schmoozers”? Is it all of the above and then some? Figure it out! Write it down. And then identify observational methods that help you spot the traits you’re looking for. And be sure to also develop interview questions that may reveal what you need to know about a candidate’s attributes that might comprise or at least lead to the creation of “extraordinary.”

Develop a Candidate Pool

Mr. or Ms. Right is not likely to walk in the front door ten minutes after you tack a “position available” sign to it. That’s why you should make it clear that your firm is always on the look-out for top talent. Use your website, social media, newsletter, blog, and person-to-person contact to encourage people to learn more about your company and possibly come in for an “informational interview” at any time, whether or not you have a position open. If the interview makes you believe that “this is a person I want on our team as soon as we have a position open,” then you can bet the individual is extraordinary. Use the same types of tools – social media, et al. – to stay in touch with the person. Then, when the time is right….

Hire for Attitude

Experience can be overrated, especially because it may have involved methods you’re not too keen on. Besides, experience may not be all that valuable when your work environment is subject to change or when the next few years may bring an individual opportunities that will require development of new skills. Developing new attitudes is far more difficult, of course, and it’s attitude that truly makes people extraordinary. What is a person’s attitude? Does the individual possess the traits you’ve already identified as extraordinary?

Ask Extraordinary Questions

You’re not likely to learn a whole heckuva lot about a person’s traits or find extraordinary candidates by asking ordinary questions during an interview. You need to ask questions that folks cannot easily prepare for and that reveal character. Here’s an approach we really like: Rather than asking people about their greatest achievements, ask them to write down their two greatest achievements from grade school, two from high school, two from college, and two post-college, with at least one related to business. Then ask the candidate to identify the one that is the source of greatest satisfaction. This should give you a glimpse into what makes a prospective hire tick.

Look for Resiliency

No matter what the job, it will entail frustrations and disappointments. Extraordinary workers typically are able to learn from these and move forward. The not-so-extraordinary decide to move on. “What are some of the biggest disappointments you’ve ever experienced?” may be a good question, with follow-ups designed to indicate to what extent candidates were able to dust themselves off and move forward. “How’d you overcome that? How long did it take?”

Look for Self-Motivation

Extraordinary employees don’t need constant motivation the way some top performers do. While, certainly, that doesn’t mean you should withhold frequent “attaboys,” it does mean that you shouldn’t have to constantly oversee a person, hold the person’s hand, and so on.

Speak with Real References

Plenty of people are likable and that trait can encourage others to give them a good reference. “She’s just a heckuva great gal” is encouraging, of course, but how likely is it that a candidate would identify references who may say negative things? Don’t limit your references to those identified on a candidate’s resume. Dig about a bit. For example, if a person worked on a certain project whose design team included a person or two you know, call them and ask about interactions they had with the candidate. When you hear “Great. I wish I had an opening for him,” then you know you have a winner, even if you don’t happen to have a spot just now.

We’ve written about the difference between “which” and “that”; how “which” tends to be more specific than “that,” but “that” usually works well and is easy. But what about the difference between “that” and “who”?

In fact, the two pronouns are not interchangeable at all, given that “who” refers to people and “that” refers to everything else (except for those folks who like to invest humanity in their pets, like Boston Terriers).

It seems to me that people would rather say “The lying, hired-gun expert that angry geoprofessionals virtually beat to a pulp” rather than “The lying, hired-gun expert whom angry geoprofessionals virtually beat to a pulp” because “that” doesn’t impose the quandary, “Is it ‘who’ or ‘whom’?”

The fact is, though, that “who” and “whom” are for people, and “that” isn’t. And as for “who vs. whom,” bear in mind that “whom” is merely the objective form of “who,” to be used as the object of a transitive verb or the object of a preposition.

“Including” does not mean “limited to.” Nonetheless, some people seem to write as though “including” doesn’t exist. What does? “Including, but not limited to.” How dumb does that sound? As dumb as eschewing “The alphabet includes A, B, and C.” in favor of “The alphabet includes, but is not limited to, A, B, and C.”

If you stated, “The alphabet comprises A, B, and C,” you’d be wrong, because comprises implies a limitation, which is why “The alphabet comprises 26 letters.” would be correct.

Of course, there are those who would also point out that “The alphabet currently comprises 26 letters,” in case you might confuse today’s alphabet with one that may come into existence sometime in the future.

And there also are some who would say, “The alphabet does not comprise 46 letters,” without indicating how many it does comprise. And, by all means, let’s give a big shout-out to those afflicted with PVA (passive-voice addiction), who would state, “The alphabet is comprised of 26 letters.”

Herodotus of Halicarnassus, the fifth-century BC Greek researcher and storyteller, is generally recognized as the world’s first historian. In his book The Histories, as translated by A.D. Godley in 1924, he supposedly wrote,

“It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.”

Sound familiar? Of course it does: That’s what some anonymous U.S. Post Office official decided was a pretty good description of mail carriers of the day, and so had inscribed on New York City’s James Farley Post Office, “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” a sentence often misrepresented as the U.S. Post Office motto. (From all appearances, the real motto is “Postage Due.”)

And it’s a good thing it’s not the real motto, because it comprises (just as Godley’s translation, we assume) a language error, given that neither, just like either, is restricted to a couple; i.e., not one or the other of two or, in either’s case, one or the other of two. The corrected version?

“Snow, rain, heat, or gloom of night doesn’t stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” (This kind of harkens to “unalienable” vs. “inalienable” as used in the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote “inalienable” and John Adams edited it to “unalienable,” which some people say is not a real word (like “reoccur”) and thus stands as proof that Harvard liberal-arts graduates like Adams are just a bunch of poorly educated liberal nitwits. As it so happens, however, either “inalienable” or “unalienable” is correct.)

Remember the “good old days” when interns were little more than free labor? (If you were an intern during that time, you may disagree about how good the old days were.) In fact, so many employers abused the internship concept that the U.S. Department of Labor stepped in to establish the following six criteria that you must meet to prevent an internship program from running afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) and triggering FLSA’s minimum-wage and overtime provisions.

• The internship experience is designed principally to benefit the intern.
• Interns do not displace regular employees, but each works under the close supervision of existing staff.
• The internship, even though it includes actual operation of the employer’s facilities, must provide training similar to that which interns would receive in an educational environment.
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the interns’ activities and, on occasion, interns’ activities may actually impede the employer’s operations.
• An intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship.
• The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.

But that’s not all you need to consider:

A recent report reveals that a major publishing company – Condé Nast – has revised its mandates for unpaid interns in an apparent response to recent unpaid-internship lawsuits reportedly filed against Hearst Corporation and Fox Searchlight Pictures. Condé Nast’s rules hold that unpaid interns:

• Must receive college credit for the internship.
• Must be assigned to an official mentor.
• Must complete an HR orientation about where to report mistreatment or unreasonably long hours.
• May not intern at the company for more than one semester per calendar year, unless cleared by human resources.
• Must only work on tasks related to their internship assignment; personal errands are not allowed.
• Can only work until 7:00PM.
• Will be paid stipends of about $550 per semester.

While these rules seem to comport with DoL criteria, they go beyond it. Should you do the same? You may want to check with an attorney to be sure. In the meantime, you may want to obtain the DoL internship factsheet (https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm)

Selling professional services is different from selling products. People can look at, touch, and otherwise poke, prod, test, and evaluate a product before they decide to buy. And while whom they buy it from may be important, the fact is that the product itself usually takes primacy.

• Not so with professional services, where the decision to buy must be made before the service can be evaluated. So what does the client representative really buy? In a word, YOU. If the buyer likes you and trusts you, in part because you make the individual feel important to you, the sale is yours.
• So, what do you do to make the person feel important to you? We can tell you one thing you shouldn’t do, and that’s have your cell-phone number printed on your business card. What does the card say about you to a prospective-client rep when your cell-phone number is printed on it?
• It says, “I don’t care who you are. Call me any time of day or night. I don’t care. I don’t have a life.” Now imagine a situation where you take your card without a cell-phone number on it and write your cell-phone number on the back of the card just before you give it to the prospective-client rep.

What does the card say? It says, “Here’s my private number. Call me when you need me to help. You’re important to me.” Especially when it comes to relational sales, little things don’t mean “a lot.” They mean everything.

If you’re like many individuals who learned English in the U.S. school system, you were probably told that, when it came to titles, you should not capitalize “little words,” like “to” and “is.” In my humble opinion, such guidance is absolutely wrong (and no, that is not how I “really feel about it,” because how I “really feel about it” isn’t printable in this august (actually July and August) publication). Here’s the rule you should follow.

The first word of a title is always capitalized, except when the word begins with a letter that maybe shouldn’t be capitalized, like “e-mail.” (Note that “e-mail” is far preferred to “email” because “email” has more than one meaning, with the lesser- known meaning (but only after the development of e-mail) being a hard enamel obtained by heating special paints in a furnace.) In that case, e-Mail may do, although, because that looks somewhat strange, most people seem to be using E-mail; it’s your call. But I digress.

All other words in a title should be capitalized, with the exception of:

• articles (a, an, the);
• coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet), and
• prepositions (to, on, from, beneath, around, et al.).

The “little word” most commonly – and improperly – lower-cased probably is “is,” which should be capitalized because it’s a verb. “But it’s so little,” die-hard wrong-thinkers might say. Of course, the word “pi” is just as little, too, but even most die-hard wrong-thinkers wouldn’t think of belittling it via lower-case-in-a-title status.

Besides, if you’re going to lower-case “is,” then – logically – you would also have to lower-case “isn’t” (which in its uncontracted form in an improperly rendered title might otherwise have to look like “…is Not…” given that “not” is an adverb, unless one wants to argue that three-letter words also are little, which would open the floodgates), and, possibly, “would have been,” given that the latter, too, is just a variant of the verb “to be.”

Interestingly, the “to” of “to be” should be capitalized, because a word becomes a part of speech only when used in a sentence, and when “to” is used as part of the infinitive “to be,” it is not a preposition.

What part of speech is it? It could be an expletive, which is a word that otherwise has no meaning (such as “there” in “There is no reason for…” or “it” in “It is a wonderful day today.”) or an oath of some kind (a cuss word, if you will, a definition that emerged thanks to the Nixon tapes).

It could also be a particle, an old word given a new meaning by people who evidently were unaware that “expletive” already existed to fill the bill. In either case – expletive or particle – “to” would be capitalized. Thus, were one to have as a title “To Sing and To Dance” (or To Sing and To Dance were it a book), the “to” of “To Dance” would be capitalized, whereas the “to” of “Walking to Memphis” would be lower-cased, because “to” in that usage is a preposition.

If you have questions about English usage, send them along to Dr. English at info@geoprofessional.org…if you dare.