27 August 2010
Did you know that by saying you are nauseous, you are saying that you are causing nausea? Chemicals are nauseous and rollercoasters are nauseous, but you are not. … Well, I’m sure we can all be nauseous, but no one wants to be around us at those times.
If you are feeling sick from chemicals or rollercoasters, you are nauseated. I know… everyone says “nauseous,” but it’s poor usage.
27 August 2010
Someone recently said about the design of a modern 1950′s house, “It’s classical.” I looked around and wondered, “Where? I don’t see traditional architecture. I don’t see Greek architecture.” Then I realized that he meant to say, “It’s classic.”
It’s classic like a classic car, a classic film, a classic excuse, or a classic moment. It’s a refined, timeless, and established model.
Classical also defines an established model; however, the model dates to an early tradition, such as the classical music of the 18th and 19th centuries or classical colonial architecture. When one studies humanities and general sciences, which universities have been teaching for over one hundred years, he or she takes a classical curriculum.
Classical continues through the past to define the traditions of Greek and Roman antiquity. For example, a classical scholar studies classical Roman art or classical Greek literature.
I suppose that someday, in a futuristic setting, people will call 1950′s architecture classical because it will be in class of design tradition all its own. It’s not considered traditional yet, though; it’s still modern by today’s standards.
10 June 2010
This week’s crossword puzzle had a clue that befuddled me because what it wanted for an answer is not a real word, and the clue didn’t have a question mark on it, as is customary for an answer that stretches our understanding of synonymous relationships or is a figure-of-speech.
The clue was “emits a beam of light,” and the answer had five letters in it. I struggled with it right to the end; shines had too many letter, rays had too few. A laser emits a beam of light, but lases couldn’t be the answer, I thought, because L.A.S.E.R. is an acronym that stands for “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation;” it is not a word. When I finally looked to my favorite online dictionary for its opinion, I was surprised to find an entry for lase; although the dictionary’s editors indicated that it is a back-formation from the word laser, I object to its legitimization because I know that laser came first, and I know that L.A.S.E.R. is not a word!
I suppose that if I was younger, and didn’t know that the term I commonly heard as laser was an acronym, I might argue that this is an example of evolution of the language… After all, all other forms of light radiate, or widen out in a circular manner from their point of origin, rather than maintain a (nearly) consistent diameter, so the words we used to describe light before the L.A.S.E.R. was invented, like shine and ray, might be considered insufficient to describe the highly focused beam of light emitted from a L.A.S.E.R. device.
The older me would counter that we already have words commonly used to describe L.A.S.E.R. light, and don’t need to complicate the language by adding a backwardly-derived root for a non-existent word. We commonly instruct our children not to shine their laser light toys in anyone’s eyes, and we commonly refer to L.A.S.E.R. light as a beam of light, so to say that it beams or shines is grammatically correct, and adequately describes the light emitted by a L.A.S.E.R.
The younger me makes a good point, but the older me wins by demonstrating that adding a new word to our lexicon to describe L.A.S.E.R. light is unnecessary. You wouldn’t instruct your child not to ‘lase that light in his eyes,’ would you? The crossword puzzle editor’s clue, “emits a beam of light,” was flawed because emit and beam are redundant as he used them; he may as well have written it as “emits an emission of light,” or “beams a beam of light.”
15 April 2010
Less means ‘not as much’. Fewer means ‘not as many’.
A shower takes less water than a bath, so take fewer baths and more showers.
This can be tricky when referring to quantities. For example, we say less than six weeks, not fewer than six weeks, because we are not referring to six individual weeks, but to a single period of time lasting six weeks.
However, it is always strictly incorrect to refer to less people. People are individuals and come in numbers, not in amounts.
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/lessfewer
Use fewer with objects that can be counted one-by-one.
Use less with qualities or quantities that cannot be individually counted.
Incorrect: There were less days below freezing last winter.
Correct: There were fewer days below freezing last winter.
(Days can be counted.)Correct: I drank less water than she did.
(Water cannot be counted individually here.)
When referring to time or money, less is normally used even with numbers. Specific units of time or money use fewer only in cases where individual items are referred to.
Examples: I have less than an hour to do this work.I have less time to do this work.
I have less money than I need.
I have less than twenty dollars.
He worked fewer hours than I did.
The only occasion in which you might say, “I have fewer than twenty dollars,” would be when you were talking about specific dollar bills or coins, such as “I have fewer than twenty silver dollars in my collection.”
http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000214.htm
15 April 2010
When instructing or asking someone to do something in a particular manner, the suffix ‘ly’ should be added to the root word. The word safe is a noun, so telling someone to “drive safe,” is telling him to drive a repository for storing valuables or to drive a vehicle that is called safe. Since the word drive is an action word, it is a verb. Words used to describe an action are called adverbs, similarly to the way adjectives describe nouns.
14 April 2010
Crossword puzzles are excellent tools for expanding one’s problem-solving skills and vocabulary, but the “tricks” some editors use to complete the puzzle can lead the unknowing, who look at crossword puzzles as authoritative sources for information, to believe that these tricks represent correct spelling.
This particular puzzle contained two instances of letters being spelled as words: 26 Across – Pluralizing letter, and 34 Down – Sweater alternative to crew or turtle. 26 Across is the least offensive of these because the clue referred to a letter, a singular item that should require only one space, but the three blank spaces for the answer made it apparent that the editor wanted to spell the letter phonetically, as if it was a word. I think this particular example is less problematic than 34 Down because I doubt that people will start spelling the letter S as though it was a word.
Alphabetic letters are basic symbols that represent particular sounds. The English language uses those symbols in sequences to spell words that are composed of multiple sounds. Since letters represent sounds, it doesn’t make sense for letters to be spelled as though they were words. Doing so would have us speaking words by stating the names of the letter they are spelled with, so the simple, single-syllable word ‘dog‘ would be pronounced ‘dee-oh-jee,’ or as we teach children how to pronounce words in grammar school, ‘duh-ahh-ghu.’
34 Down, where the answer the editor wanted was ‘vee,’ as in V-neck T-shirt, is more problematic because of the growing number of people who don’t seem to know that a V-neckline was so named because it resembles the letter V, not because its proper name is Vee. Similarly, people often think that T-shirt is spelled ‘tee shirt.‘ Are crossword puzzles to blame for this deteroration? No. I believe that the reason people spell letters as words is due to a problem with orally-dependent languages — people tend to repeat what they hear and spell it phonetically without understanding the context or source for words and names, or bothering to use a dictionary before writing what they hear.
A common set of letters to be spelled as a word, often in crossword puzzles, is M.C., spelled as ‘emcee.’ While I like to believe that crossword puzzle editors know that the letters M.C. are initials representing the term, ‘Master of Ceremonies,’ I am not convinced that the average person knows it. We are inherently lazy people, in that we like to carry-out tasks with the greatest amount of efficiency, which is why we shorten frequently used terms to their initials (acronyms), and use contractions, like ‘I’m’ to save a syllable’s time and breath, rather than say ‘I am.’ If people knew that ‘M.C.‘ was a two-letter acronym, and not a word, I think they would rather write the two letters, than spell-out the five-letter “word” ‘emcee.’
I don’t have a solution to suggest for this problem. Given the tendency for people to rely solely on oral transmission of the language, part of me wants to suggest that crossword puzzle editors refrain from creative puzzle-making, but the other part of me appreciates creativity and enjoys such tricks in word games.
18 January 2010
Administrate. I’ve seen it in blogs and heard it being used by television hosts. Similarly to the way “conversate” came into use as a backwards attempt to find the root word for conversation (which is converse), I believe that “administrate” has recently come into use by people who don’t know that “administer” is the basis for “administration.”
The word administer comes from “minister,” meaning “to serve.” To administer something is to dispense or to manage. A webmaster is responsible for administering a website; the president of a business is its administrator; a pharmacist administers medications.
When added to the end of a word, the suffix “-tion” indicates that the object is actively being performed. Administration is the act of administering, not administrating, the same way conversation is the act of conversing, not conversating; the “t” that people believe belongs to the root word, actually belongs to the suffix. The administration department in an organization is a group of people who collectively administer the business under the direction of its chief administrator.
Although modern dictionaries contain entries for the word administrate, its use was apparently introduced by people who don’t understand how we construct words and conjugate verb forms, and didn’t realize that the root word they were looking for already existed — the word administration could not exist without its root, “administer.”
24 December 2009
When we count 10 of something, we start with number one (1) and end with ten (10). Ten is the last number in the first set of 10, 20 is the last number in a second set of ten, etc.; it follows then, that 100 is the last number in a set of one hundred, and 1,000 is the last number in a set of one thousand. When we take 10 steps, we count to one after completing the first step from a starting point (zero). Once the foot has been lifted towards the first step, we say that the first step is being taken, meaning that it is actively being processed, but it is not counted as a step until it has been completed.
If 10 represents the last number in a set of ten, and the tenth item can’t be counted as part of a set of ten until it has been completed, whether we are talking about taking 10 steps or eating 10 crackers, then the set of ten can’t be considered complete until the 10th item or activity is complete. When a baby is born, his age can only be counted in seconds, until the first 60 have passed, then we can say that he is one minute old; he is one day old after the 24 hours of his first day have elapsed. A baby is not one year old until one year has passed. The months and days that pass before a baby turns one year old are called his first year, or year one. The days and months that follow after a child turns one year old are called his second year, but we don’t say that he is two until the second year has been completed, the same way a step is not counted as a step until it has been completed.
If this line of logic makes sense, why do people begin counting decades and centuries with years ending in zero? The Grec0-Roman calendar we use does not have a year zero; it starts with year one. Zero is nothing, and can’t be counted; it is a starting point. The year 10 is not the first year of a new decade, it is the last year in the first set of ten years in a century; 11 is the first year in the second decade of a century which ends upon the completion of the year 20. The years 1-100 represent the first century of the first millennium; the years 101-200 represent the second century of the first millennium. 1999 was not the last year of the 20th century, the year 2000 represents the last year of the second millennium. The correct sentiment in a popular song during 1999 should have been, “Tonight I’m gonna party likes it’s 2000.”
2001 was the first year of the 3rd millenium, or the first year of the first decade of the 21st century, which will conclude upon the close of the year 2100; like a new-born baby, its first year was not completed until the last second of the last minute of the last day of that year passed. 2009 is not the last year of the first decade of this century — it is the ninth year, and the ninth year will not be completed until we begin the year 2010. At the close of this year, Nine (9) years will have passed since the 21st century began.
9 December 2009
Although it has become popular in this digital age to use a single space between sentences instead of a double space, its basic purpose and usefulness has remained unchanged… To create a greater distinction between words and sentences. Single spaces separate words from each other; double spaces make it easier, amidst a sea of words and punctuation marks, to distinguish the beginnings and endings of sentences, regardless of the media used to transmit the written message.
I think the practice of single-spacing between sentences has become accepted partly because schools no longer teach typing classes, and partly because web page formatting requires the insertion of a special code in order for double spaces to be displayed, so that even when a typist enters a double-space, it is often ignored.
It troubles me that people no longer know how to format a letter, or write a greeting or salutation. I suppose it could be argued that, in the age of email, letter-writing skills have become out-dated, but neither etiquette nor communication will ever be outdated, and the rules of both help us understand each other’s intention and meaning.
It troubles me that high school students are expected to type-up their assignments in a word processor, but aren’t taught how to type. It troubles me that colleges don’t grade student assignments for spelling and punctuation – only for a demonstrated understanding of subject matter. We are supposed to know how to properly construct sentences before graduating from high school – college professors shouldn’t have to grade for spelling and punctuation, but even gross errors are regularly over-looked. Perhaps institutes of higher learning should not accept students who can’t demonstrate that they are familiar with the rules of our language, and are capable of communicating at higher levels.
I had college classmates in their thirties and forties who regularly received “A”s for assignments that would have received “F”s from a high school English teacher. This is the scourge of school systems that want to cram more and more information into our brains, at the expense of basic communication and problem-solving skills. We have so much information to process, that we no longer have the time to think about it, or the ability to communicate it in an intelligent way.
Is it better to cram our brains full of data, or to use our brains to think and communicate? What does it mean to be educated? Is education evident in someone’s ability to recite information from memory, or is it in his ability to think about the data he is presented with, to formulate intelligent opinions and to solve problems?
I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent here,but it all relates to the typing class U.S students are no longer offered (but should be required), in which basic communication and etiquette skills are taught, and the resulting degradation of our language. In this sea of information, does it not make reading easier when sentences have been separated by double-spaces, and are easier to find? Does it not look odd when words are separated by double-spaces? It’s hard to know which sentence they belong to.
14 November 2009
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is ‘UP.’
It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UPthe leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car. At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP. We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UPa list of the many ways UP is used.. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP…
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn’t rain for awhile, things dryUP.
One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now my time is UP, so……..it is time to shut UP!
Oh . . . one more thing:
What is the first thing you do in the morning & the last thing you do at night? U-P
(I received this in an email. – Lisa)
lisachelton
Tonja