Tag Archives: grammar

September 14, 2010 · 6:08 am

Absolute adjectives confound absolutely

Someone recently took me up on my Red Pen Invitation, which encourages readers to point out my mistakes if they choose. By the way, she wasn’t the first.

Commenting on last Friday’s post about first jobs, the reader questioned my use of “very first,” suggesting the phrase was redundant. She was right to challenge me. There can be only one first.

After giving this some thought, I concluded that my error wasn’t necessarily one of redundancy. Redundancy occurs when both words mean the same thing, e.g., “sum total.” Rather, I was guilty of  inappropriately modifying an absolute adjective.

I should have known better. After all, I’m the first to preach about “very unique.” Something is unique or it isn’t. There’s no “very” about it. 

An absolute adjective cannot be intensified or compared. It can’t be more. It can’t be less. It can’t be very or extremely or somewhat or a little. It just is.

The problem is that there doesn’t appear to be an authoritative list of absolute adjectives, at least that I can find. Maybe it’s an abstract better left as the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart characterized obscenity (and the late Sen. Jesse Helms said about pornography), “I know it when I see it.” 

The obvious ones are: unique, pregnant, perfect, true and, of course, dead. Which won’t keep me from singing the famed lyrics of the Wizard of Oz when, upon the demise of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Munchkin coroner pronounces her “not only merely dead. She’s really, most sincerely dead.”

How well do you know your absolute adjectives? Take this quiz and find out. After you have finished that, maybe you can help me find an absolute list of absolute adjectives. Maybe it doesn’t exist.

Perhaps Theodore M. Bernstein was onto something when he wrote in Miss Thistlebottom’s Hobgoblins: The Careful Writer’s Guide to the Taboos, Bugbears, and Outmoded Rules of English Usage, “If one wishes to niggle, almost any adjective can be regarded as an absolute. But common sense tells us to avoid any such binding position.”

All niggling aside, I will add “first” to my list of absolutes.

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September 8, 2010 · 8:13 am

Painful contraction

I have long wondered about the phrase “aren’t I?” As contractions go, it runs afoul of the norm and this bothers me.

It was only recently that it bugged me enough to do some digging.

Logic would dictate that the proper phrase be “am I not?” But how would it be contracted?

“Are you not?”  is really “are not you?”and is contracted as “aren’t you?” This makes sense.

But here’s the problem. “Are” does not agree with “I” in a sentence. “Am” does:  I am. I am not. Am I not? Am not I? So then why not “amn’t I?”

Well, I consulted a lot of sources, and each took me deeper into obscurity.

This might not be the absolute truth, but what I gleaned from all I read is that “aren’t I” is incorrect but accepted. Just like plenty of words and phrases we’ve talked about here.

It also seems that, at one time, “amn’t I?” may actually have been considered correct in contemporary Scottish-English as an informal contraction of “am I not?”

Further, some say “ain’t” may have first come about as an attempt to contract “am I not” and later became used colloquially in lieu of “are not” and “has not.” Ain’t that something?

There is also a theory that “amn’t” made appearances as “an’t” in 18th century texts but, when pronounced by the British, sounded more like “ahnt” and later became “aren’t.”

I’ll bet there are readers who know the answer to this mystery and would be willing to share it with the rest of us.

Aren’t I just opening up a can of worms?

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August 13, 2010 · 8:55 am

Disastrous dialect

Something has been bothering me and I wonder if I might run it by you.

Has anyone else noticed that people who are interviewed on television after witnessing a disaster or other extraordinary occurrence often use horrendous grammar?

I don’t know if it’s television news media exploiting innocent bystanders, whether disasters tend to occur more often in places inhabited by the less educated or if the combination of trauma and a news camera causes people to bungle their speech.

It seems to me that, far more often than not, when asked what they saw, these witnesses begin with “I seen it…”  Whether it’s a tornado coming at them or a crime taking place before their eyes, they say they “seen it comin’.” 

I have noticed this consistently over time, on local stations, major morning programs and network evening news. It pains me to be so judgmental but the pattern is too prevalent to ignore.

You might have heard that yesterday severe storms hit the Washington, D.C., area, crippling much of the Metro region with fallen trees and power lines. As one of the fortunate few who had electricity, I was able to watch the news coverage on television. I heard “I seen it” from multiple witnesses on multiple channels throughout the day.

Not only do these witnesses say they “seen” something, but some also use “come” as past tense, as in, “it come up behind me.”

One doesn’t have to travel far to find pockets of people who either never learned the basics or have chosen to abandon them. It troubles me enough that I find such poor speech distasteful, but it troubles me even more to see the spotlight on people who speak this way. I can’t quite pinpoint why.

Please don’t dismiss “I seen it” and “it come up” as colloquial because frankly, I’m tired of colloquialism being used to condone poor grammar. Admittedly, I am the first to begin a sentence with a conjunction or end one with a preposition when style authorities allow it in certain instances. It’s a fine line but, if we accept “where are you at?” before long every violation of good grammar will be embraced in the name of popular culture. 

If any members of the media happen to read this, perhaps they’d be willing to offer insight into why the witnesses they interview so often seem to speak this way. Perhaps they could also explain why, when people appear in the studio after seeing someone fall into a well or take a steak knife through the temple, they almost always appear in t-shirts and ball caps. If you were being interviewed on national television, from a studio in Midtown Manhattan, would you show up in shorts and a cap? Do producers believe this lends some particular folksy charm and, if so, are they intentionally making witnesses look like bumpkins? Worse, are they coaching people to say “I seen it?” 

I doubt this is the case. Either way, if anyone has answers, I am eager to put these haunting thoughts to rest.

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July 28, 2010 · 7:39 am

Waiting on Godot

My parents were sticklers when it came to teaching us proper speech.  I look forward to sharing more examples later, but one particular lesson comes to mind today.

One approach my father took in teaching life lessons was to warn me about certain behaviors and then say, “Don’t ever do that.”  For example, before I began learning how to drive, he once said, “notice how some drivers make a turn and go immediately into the middle lane.  Don’t ever do that.”  Instead, he instructed, turn into the closest lane and then change lanes gradually.  Even though at the time I didn’t have any personal context, I came to see that he was right; plenty of drivers make these sloppy and dangerous turns.  And I don’t ever do that.

Another time, he warned me that some people say “wait on,” when they mean “wait for.”

I had never heard anyone say “wait on” in any way except correctly.  My father assured me that someday I’d hear someone ask, “what are you waiting on?” and, when I did, he wanted to be sure I didn’t repeat it.  It might be a regional thing, he said; still, “Don’t ever do that.”

I listened for it but it was years before I noticed anyone saying “wait on” in lieu of “wait for.”  I was in the car with my new fiancé, behind another car at a stop light.  The light turned green.  The car in front of us didn’t move.  My then-fiancé honked the horn, stuck his head out the window and shouted, “What are ya waitin’ on?”  The moment about which my father warned me had come.

Let’s just remember that to wait for is to await or expect  someone or something.  To wait on is to serve, as a waiter waits on a restaurant patron.  Unfortunately, to wait on is still misused quite often.

John Mayer is “Waiting on the world to change,” as 30 years ago, Mick Jagger was “Waiting on a friend.”  It could be that the friend was laid up and needed waiting on.

Just this month, we read the following in sports headlines:

  • David Lee Waiting on LeBron
  • Brett Favre Waiting on Ankle to Heal
  • Waiting on Kovalchuk: Why Steve Yzerman should trade for Simon Gagne

Perhaps it’s one of those errors that, having gone colloquial, will in time be condoned by official sources.  That doesn’t appear to have happened yet, thank goodness.

Is it too late to turn the tide?  Or is it worth putting out a reminder and a tip for keeping it straight?

Maybe we can think about the Samuel Beckett play, “Waiting for Godot,” the title of which has become colloquial itself.

We recall that, in the play, the two main characters are waiting for a third, named Godot, who never comes.  The expression “waiting for Godot” has come to mean waiting for something that will never happen, or is futile.  I certainly hope by expecting to turn the tide, we are not waiting for Godot.

Or do we just simply reprimand ourselves, or our friends who ask “what are you waiting on?”  “Don’t ever do that.”

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July 24, 2010 · 8:37 am

Centesimal celebration

I am tired of talking about me.  When I posted my first blog entry in late March, I expressed discomfort about blogs in general, because people tend to use them as platforms for talking about themselves, and I just didn’t want to do that.

Today, on the occasion of Word Nymph’s 100th blog entry, let’s take a look at some others.

If you are reading this from the Word Nymph site (as opposed to a subscription e-mail), look toward the right of the screen and scroll down just a bit.  You will see a section entitled Blogroll, and a list of half a dozen blogs I visit regularly.

But first, let’s talk about me—and why I’ve chosen these six.

I am interested in broadcast news, as a viewer of course.  Not just the Holly Hunter movie, but live television news.  I watch as much of it as a working person can fit into a day.  In Advancing the Story, veteran journalists Deborah Potter and Deb Halpern Wenger provide an enlightened glimpse into broadcast media—the art and the science, the complexities and the nuances.  Their recent piece on interviewing victims was inspired.

I am a lover of words, a lifelong learner and maker of mistakes.  I try to be tolerant of others’ mistakes but draw a big fat line between an earnest slip and steady patterns of egregious violation.  I have peeves that make me itch like a case of poison ivy.  I commend to you two blogs that illustrate blatant assaults on our language.  Please visit Apostrophe Abuse, study it and tell all your friends—be militant about it—that apostrophes do not make words plural.  Ninety-nine percent of the time, an “s” makes a noun plural, NO APOSTROPHE needed, or wanted.  My family and I are the Welches, not the Welch’s.  We are not having the Nelson’s over for dinner and we won’t be serving clam’s.  The blog will give you a good laugh and, I hope, a good lesson.  Let’s stop the abuse.

I am serious about punctuation.  What I’ve said about the apostrophe, likewise with quotation marks.  If we keep using them unnecessarily, they will become endangered and we won’t have them when we really need them—for quotations.  Please visit The “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks and notice how silly it looks to wrap serious punctuation around ordinary words willy-nilly.   If you want to make words stand out, there are plenty of text formats available, including italics (CTL + i), bold (CTL + b) and underline (CTL + u).  And if you must—and only if you must—ALL CAPS.  Please do not use quotation marks for emphasis.

I love English, but realize what we speak in the United States is American (I love that too).  I am also interested in all things international.  The Economist is a magazine that is read and respected by intelligent people throughout the international community.  It maintains a high standard of thought and writing, so when it launched a language blog, Johnson, earlier this summer, naturally, I signed up.  Check it out.

I love humor, possibly above all else.  My motto is “laughter heals” and I need a steady diet of it or I’ll die.  If you too need a chuckle a day, log on to The Sticky Egg.  The Egg posts every day, providing a full week’s worth of minimum daily hilarity, as the clever Carla Curtsinger muses about the entertainment biz and life in New York City.  She’ll also explain the origin of her moniker.  Be sure and check out her Blogroll.

I miss my kid.  He grew up in the blink of an eye, probably because I worked 12 hours a day and traveled regularly for the first 15 years of his life.  To bring back memories of having a child in the house, I get great enjoyment from the colorful tales of Cara Garretson, a  mother of two young kids, a gifted storyteller and a writer who works at home.  Time Out will make you smile.

But enough about me.

See you Monday.

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July 20, 2010 · 7:53 am

Beware of age

Yesterday’s disappointing news from the Gulf of Mexico has had me fixed on a particular word, one that seldom appears in good news. 

Not long after it seemed the cap on BP’s spewing oil well was going to hold and finally begin to contain the massive spill, something troublesome was discovered—seepage.

Seepage is never good.  It’s unintentional.  It’s messy.  It often means something is going somewhere it’s not supposed to.  If seepage is in your story, chances are, you’re in trouble.  Just when the higher-ups at BP were looking forward to exhaling, along came seepage.  The last thing the poor citizens and businesses along the Gulf Coast want to hear is seepage.

Yesterday, for whatever reason, the word leapt off its prominent spot on the front page and created little puddles in my brain.  But with every lame attempt to blot them up, more disturbing words ending in “age” came at me. 

“Age” is a common suffix, used, among other ways, to turn verbs into nouns, such as seepage.   It is also used to turn singular nouns into uncountable nouns, such as signage and plumage.  Signage and plumage are good things, and, if you were delivering news, you wouldn’t mind them in your story.  Acreage, coverage and cleavage are also nice things to have.

But all I thought about yesterday after reading about the seepage were all the other “age” words—most, oddly, beginning with “s”—that one would not want to have to use in his or her story, nor want to hear when receiving news.

Sewage isn’t something you want to hear about.  Steerage isn’t a desirable place.  If you are relying on your work or the product thereof, a stoppage is bad news, as is a shortage.  Don’t tell me about spillage, spoilage or soilage.  Slippage is unacceptable.  And absolutely no one wants to have to explain shrinkage.

Those are the “s” words.  Please don’t send me back to the beginning of the alphabet or we’ll have to talk about blockage, bondage, breakage and carnage.  So let’s not go there.

Before we move off yesterday’s front page story, let’s add “burbling” to the list of words that aren’t usually used in good news.

Note:   I first thought burbling was a portmanteau for bubble + gurgle, because isn’t that what the seepage is doing?  As it turns out, burble is also a scientific term.  It’s a turbulent eddy in fluid flow caused by roughness near the boundary surface or loss of energy in the laminar flowing fluid.  But then you all probably knew that.

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July 9, 2010 · 7:55 am

In a perfectly tense mood

While we are on a grammar roll, here’s another one. 

My interest comes about, as it often does, as a result of an aural assault by a well-meaning speaker.  Typically, once the bristle passes, I look up the pertinent rule to be sure I understand it.

This one has to do with a mishmash of subjunctive mood and conditional perfect and past perfect tenses and the errors people are prone to making with regard to these verb uses.

For whatever reason, I never fully appreciated things like mood versus tense  until I studied foreign languages.  And still, I know them more intuitively than by the rules themselves.

If the following phrases make you bristle, then you don’t need the review.  If they sound perfectly fine, read on.

  1. “I wish I would have kept the appointment.”
  2. “If I would have known you were going, I’d have offered you a ride.”
  3. “If I was in your shoes, I’d be worried.”
  4. “If I would have went to the party, I would have had a good time.” 

You could drive yourself crazy reading all the rules.  But feel free.  They are long and involved and I’d probably miss some nuance in explaining it anyway.  I’ve included the relevant Wikipedia links above because they are the simplest and most accessible online sources for this purpose, in my opinion.

Or, you could simply train your ear to pick up on the errors and correct them before you speak.  Often, it simply means taking out “would” or changing “was” to “were,” but not always.  Here are some tricks you might use to keep it straight.  Maybe you have some of your own.

If you are tempted to say “I wish I would have . . .,” think about The Rolling Stones’ “I Wish I’d Never Met You” and remember to say, “I wish I had . . .”   No would.

If you are tempted to say “If I would have known . . .,” think of the 1950 song, “If I Knew You Were Comin’, I’d’ve Baked a Cake,” then say, “If I knew” or “If I had known…”   For you younger readers, the song was also sung on Sesame Street, so you’ve probably heard it.  Just try to get past the double contraction.

If you are tempted to say “If I was,” think of Fiddler on the Roof and the song, “If I Were a Rich Man.”  It’s were, not was.  Subjunctive mood, conditional perfect tense.  Or some might call it imperfect past subjunctive.

Finally, if you are tempted to utter the double whammy, “If I would have went,” then you are probably not reading this blog anyway.

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June 30, 2010 · 7:58 am

One less product to buy

Do we really need to go over this?

I have received suggestions from readers that I review the rule for “fewer” versus “less.”  I confess, I dismissed these because the rule is clear and I assumed most people knew the difference.  I am sorry to say I was wrong.

Last week I said I wouldn’t be taking Boniva or buying Honey Bunches of Oats for the same reason:  my boycott of products whose commercials contain grammatical errors.  Now I must add to the list MGD 64, the dieters’ version of Miller Genuine Draft.  According to its current television commercial, MGD 64 has “less calories” than other reduced-calorie beers.

I am too tired to rant again so soon over the ad industry’s growing disregard for correct language.  Instead, might I just ask, why not say “fewer calories?”   I am tempted to believe it is less an oversight than it is a presumption that “fewer” flies over the heads of Miller’s target demographic.  Please tell me I’m wrong.

Is it possible that advertising companies intentionally use poor grammar to appeal to a specific class of consumers?  The ad gurus at Grey Poupon hit their high-brow target with their famous commercial years ago.  Pardon me, but it seems Miller is deliberately going for a less sophisticated crowd with its overt illiteracy.

Everyone knows “less” refers to an amount of something, as in less beer.  “Fewer” refers to a number of something, as in “fewer calories.” 

Less snow, fewer snowflakes.  Less hair, fewer strands.  Yes, got it.

Now can we move on to something a little less obvious?

Postscript:  Speaking of intentional poor grammar, am I the only one wondering why yesterday South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham phrased his question to Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan, “Where were you at on Christmas Day?”  He knows better.

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June 3, 2010 · 7:31 am

Save the plural noun

At some point, while we were not paying attention, a whole bunch of plural word forms became singular.  

This is not just an occasional slip by an unknowing individual.  The singularization of plural word forms is being committed by well educated people who should know better.

Pick up the paper or turn on the news and you will hear how “the data shows” or “the media is” or that someone was “an alumni” of such-and-such university.  I’ve lost count of the number of times I have heard people with advanced degrees ask, “what was the criteria” for such and such.

Have we become afraid of using correct word forms because they “sound funny?”  I’ve had a number of readers tell me they sometimes hesitate to use a word correctly because it “sounds funny” or “seems weird.”  Perhaps certain word choices seem funny or weird because their correct uses are becoming so endangered they shock our ears.

At the same time, let us not shun our singular nouns, and instead embrace the news medium, medical datum, selection criterion and university alumnus.  If we turn our backs on these singular words, they will sound ever weirder and funnier and eventually, become extinct.  Then our children and their children will never know–or speak–the truth.

Similarly, when we are using the plural, let us avoid disagreement between noun and verb.  Let us set a good example with the data show, the media are, the criteria were, or the alumni give.

As many will point out, some modern sources have loosened their standards.  This is likely because they believe the tide of common practice is too high to suppress.  Kind of like white shoes before Memorial Day.

How sad.

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