Archive for October, 2007
No matter what talents (not many) he displayed on the floor on "Dancing With the Stars," and no matter how well he runs a professional basketball operation, [tag]Mark Cuban[/tag] can butcher the English language with the best of us.
Here’s a NotPhrase he used on TV tonight and one I sometimes use myself: "A whole ‘nother thing."
I’m not sure how one would correct that. "A whole other thing altogether" would seem to be the most logical and correct usage. Or use "a different matter altogether"–there you go!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the folks at the Oxford dictionary haven’t already added ‘nother, but they probably spelled it nother.
I keep chalking up abuses of the English language for my hoped-for ultimate word on correct English usage in my book Fast Food English.
In my English composition class this past week, I sat through (maybe I should say thru, huh?) endless presentations where, without exception, the presenters used there for the possessive their.
In general, native English users in the United States have a hard time with the possessive, often using it’s for its–and the list goes on. (Clue: possessive pronouns never–should be easy to remember–use apostrophes.)
I owe this one to Copyblogger, who runs a blog on copyediting; in his latest e-mailing, he pointed out that people nowadays (or should I say, like my students, now days) get all confused over the apostrophe and use it to form plurals. He used the example of the erroneous boy’s for boys.
However, I’ve got an example closer to home. Each morning when I drive down my street, I see a see in front of someone’s home that says, "The Smith’s" (name changed to protect the guilty).
Now, even if you put a noun behind this construction to make it a true possessive, such as The Smith’s House, it would still be incorrect because Smith is not plural. Smiths is, just as Joneses is for Jones. Simple pluralization rules apply, which I’ll broach one day in my Building Blocks series.
For now, I’ll just point out the abuse.
It’s either a large leather suitcase with two compartments, or a combination of two words to form one new word. What is it?
Of course, if you read the title, you’ll surmise that it’s portmanteau.
What you’re reading here is a portmanteau–a combination of Web and log, or blog.
Other notable examples are smog (smoke and fog), motel (motor and hotel) and brunch (breakfast and lunch).
Collectively, these are all portmanteaux.
In tribute to actress [tag]Deborah Kerr[/tag], who passed away yesterday at 86, I offer here a clip of her kiss on the beach with [tag]Burt Lancaster[/tag], arguably the most famous scene in film history, certainly in terms of the sheer number of still photographs showing the kiss (okay, so this has nothing to do with English, but Ms. Kerr was British):
The dictionary definiation of bloviate is "to speak pompously," and if that doesn’t sum up people with causes in America, nothing does. So my guess is that, if you hate Bill O’Reilly, you’re probably a far-left ideologue and/or a bloviator (the two usually go hand in hand).
Sorry.
Main verbs often need helper verbs to complete their meaning, and these helpers are called auxiliary verbs.
For instance, you’re thinking of going out to dinner, so you say to your roommate: "I may go out to dinner tonight and try that new restaurant."
If go is the main verb, what is the auxiliary? Of course, it’s may.
Auxiliary verbs are often arranged into two groups, those that have to be joined to a main verb and those that can either stand alone or help a main verb.
Auxiliary verbs that can also be main verbs: be, being, been; am, is, are, was, were; have, has, had; do, does, did.
Auxiliary verbs that must appear with main verbs: can, could; may, might; shall, should; will, would; must, ought (to).
When you hear sports jock radio and TV hosts using the word quintessential, you have to wonder if the world really understands what’s essential and what’s quintessential?
In short, essential means "indispensable," while quintessential means "the most typical."
I think most people just opt for quintessential because it sounds so fancy-schmancy without stopping to think about what they really mean.
I have no ready examples, but the next time you hear someone use quintessential, ask yourself if that person means "indispensable" or "most typical."
Generally, I hate seeing slang and misused English words suddenly accepted as standard English by the dictionary people (who authorized them anyway?), but a NotWord making its rounds does have several things going for it.
Plutonomy is not in any dictionary, so let’s look at its definition courtesy of the blog One Stop Thought Shop:
In a "[tag]plutonomy[/tag]," according to Citigroup global strategist [tag]Ajay Kapur[/tag], economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few. Canada and Britain fall into that category too, he says, the euro zone and Japan much less so.
There may be some truth to the fact that our society’s economic survival hinges on the consumption and spending habits of the super rich, so coining a word like plutonomy provides a useful shortcut to describe this phenomenon.
Right now, it seems to be a neutral term, descriptive rather than judgmental, but if you hear Hillary and the Democrats start using it, then you’ll know it’s been morphed into a pejorative.
Plutonomy may be safe from the hands of the politicians, however. It’s just too obscure and hard to remember for mass consumption. Instead, the old saw about "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" will no doubt fill the Democrats’ carpetbags until time itself ceases.
They’re rewriting the English language to make it more phonetic. That’s about the only conclusion I, a non-video-gamer, can draw when I come across words like lewt.
Which means?
Loot, of course. Just like it sounds.
For further reference, check the site TenTonHammer.com.
I’m just going to stick to the real basics of English verb tenses in this posting (no need at this time to muddy the waters with complications like perfect tenses and conditional tenses, etc.).
Keeping matters fundamental, let’s say that English has three basic tenses: past, present and future.
We’ll start with the present with the verb to be. Example: "I am in my living room right now typing on my computer." Here, the present tense of the verb be is am because it is singular first person.
Past tense: "Last night I was in my living room watching the baseball playoffs." Here the first person past single form of be is was.
Future tense: "Tomorrow morning I will be in my living room reading the newspaper." Here the future form is will be.
I actually started with one of the more difficult verbs in English because its form changes depending on whether the subject is singular or plural or first (I, we), second (you, you) or third (he, she, it, they) person.
Most regular verbs are much simpler. They become singular by adding an s at the end and become past tense by adding an ed at the end. Future tense is indicated by adding a will before the verb.
Let’s look at the verb walk: I walk, he walks, they walk. I walked, he walked, they walked. I will walk, he will walk, they will walk.
Fairly straightforward, those, but look at one of the many irregular verbs in English, in this case eat: I eat, he eats, they eat. I ate, he ate, they ate. I will eat, he will eat, they will eat. See how the past tense is irregular.
Unfortunately, in English you have to memorize the irregular verbs in all their forms. Here’s a list to get you started.
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