It’s a crazy market, the investors were told by the columnist,
and they had to protect themselves. So they shouldn’t accept
“verbal assurances” that their fund managers were making the
right decisions; they needed it in writing. A court in
Tennessee, meanwhile, ruled that “an employee who made “an oral
or verbal complaint against an employer” was protected against
retaliation. So does “verbal” mean “spoken” or “written”? Yes.
And therein lies the imprecision. “Verbal” simply means
“expressed in words”; the form of the words is not specified. If
you put the words to paper or screen, or to stone tablet, they
are “written.” If they’re spoken, they’re “oral.” But sometimes
we act as if we’re back in grade school, when words that sounded
dirty made us, er, titter. We avoid those words for fear of
being misinterpreted. As a result, many writers avoid saying
“oral” and say “verbal” instead. Why this should be so is not
clear. After all, colleges have no problem giving “oral exams,”
doctors can openly advertise a spe