Misused Word of the Day: Focus

"Focus" is not so much a misused word as it is a word that should almost never be used. Strictly speaking, it is only appropriate in the context of one particular object, namely a lens. Hence:

A servant apologized to the baroness that the new photograph of her eldest son was out of focus.

There. That was easy, wasn’t it? Secondly, in its figurative sense, the word can be a synonym for "clarity" (as a noun) or "concentrate" (as a verb). Thus:

He sought to build a mental image of his beloved after she left for the high seas, but his memories of their night together lacked focus. Try as he might, he could not focus on his duties at the Custom-House until he was assured of her safe passage.

However, the frequent difficulties with this word are best illustrated by returning to the original sentence. I will modify it as follows:

A servant focused on his apology to the baroness that the new photograph of her eldest son was out of focus.

It is unclear whether our imaginary writer is trying to alter the meaning of the sentence or simply pad it with extra syllables. Either way, the new word, "focus," is worse than useless. To prove my point, I need only to show what happens when you use it three times instead of twice. The short answer is, nothing. The meaning remains the same. As such:

A servant focused on focusing on his apology to the baroness that the new photograph of her eldest son was out of focus.

And wait, I can add one more:

A servant focused on keeping his focus on focusing on his apology to the baroness that the new photograph of her eldest son was out of focus.

But wait, we can still add more!

A servant focused on holding his focus on focusing on his apology to the baroness that his opinion of the new photograph of her eldest son was, regrettably, focused on its lack of focus.

"Focus" is used as a substitute for "to do" or "to think." But here and in every other instance where the word is used in this fashion, it is impossible to determine whether "to do" or "to think" is the intended meaning. Does the servant’s "focusing" on his apology mean that he is apologizing right now? Or is he holed up in a garret, shivering with fear, thinking about the apology he is required to give the next morning? Or, perhaps he is walking into the breakfast room and preparing to apologize as soon as he can summon up the courage to do so. Or, at the same time, since the verb implies a larger picture beyond the area of focus, he could be talking to the baroness about any number of unrelated matters, such as the number of eggs it will be necessary to pluck from the hen-house, even though the major part of the conversation, the "focus," is in his apology. We may well conclude that the sentence has lost its focus.

The absurdity is heightened when "focus" is used in front of a verb, as indeed it sometimes is. Witness:

The mobsters focused on spreading terror and mayhem all over the city.

This should read:

The mobsters spread terror and mayhem all over the city.

Or:

The mobsters usually spread terror and mayhem all over the city, except when they decided to take the night off to eat fried chicken and play a round of billiards.

Or:

The mobsters thought very hard about spreading terror and mayhem all over the city, but they weren’t quite sure if they were up for it.

But let’s return to a more common example:

This article in The Tahitian Journal of Home Economics focuses on coconuts.

It should read:

This article in The Tahitian Journal of Home Economics is about coconuts.

However, we can do even better with a more specific topic sentence. For example:

This article celebrates the coconut with 300 unique recipes.

Or:

This essay argues on religious grounds that it is wrong to eat coconuts.

Or:

This article uses the coconut as an extended metaphor for a globalized society that has left the villages of Polynesia far behind.

Unfortunately, the last three examples are only possible for those who have read and understood the article. For those who haven’t, the word "focus" provides a convenient substitute for knowledge. It also removes the possibility of argument. Any conclusion you reach about the essay may or may not be defensible, but a debate over whether or not it "focuses" on coconuts is likely to be rather dull.

Which brings me to an example of the word in its natural habitat, the PowerPoint presentation:

Our division is focused on achieving results.

What are they saying? That they are going to achieve results? Or maybe that they will "focus" really, really hard on the results but possibly fall short of achieving them? Or maybe they are committed to achieving results in theory but not in practice. We don’t know what they mean, and, most likely, they don’t either.