Sound
Alike Errors
“To”
and “too,” “affect” and
“effect,” …
These
are errors which occur because two
words sound similar or the same, but
are spelled differently and have
different meanings. Some of the more
common soundalike errors:
“Compliment”
and “complement”
A
“compliment” is a pleasantry, an
expression of goodwill, admiration,
or respect; “he complimented my
typing skills.” As a verb, it
means “to pay someone a
compliment.” On the other hand,
“complement” means “a complete
set,” or “to complete or to fit
well together with,” as in “I
have the normal complement of
fingers and toes” or “Bob and
Jill complement one another
beautifully as business partners.”
“Allude”
and “elude”
To
“allude” to something means to
refer to it, usually indirectly;
“far be it from me to allude to my
esteemed rival’s history of wombat
abuse.” “Elude,” though, means
to escape or avoid; “the suspect
eluded police capture by slipping
out the window.”
“To”
and “too”
“Too”
means “also” or “to a great
extent.” “To” means “in the
direction of” or indicates an
infinitive. You go to the
store; if someone else goes along
with you, then she goes too.
If fifteen people go with you,
that’s far too many to take
one car.
“Accept”
and “except”
To
“accept” something means to
receive that thing; you accept a
reward, you accept blame, you accept
a FedEx package. “Except” means
“with the exclusion of” or
“but;” for instance, “I work
every day except Saturday and
Sunday.” Just think: E is for
Except, E is for Exclusion.
“Affect”
and “effect”
These
two words are entirely different
parts of speech. “Affect” is a
verb: “Your insults do not affect
me.” “Effect” is generally a
noun; that is, it is an actual
thing. Slings and arrows have an
effect on me; they injure me, and
the injuries are things. “You
cannot affect me; your idle chatter
has no effect on me.”
Confusing
this issue somewhat is that the word
“affect,” when the emphasis is
placed on the first syllable, is
used in the psychiatric community to
mean “emotion” or
“demeanor,” as in “Bob
presents a flat affect when you talk
to him” (that is, Bob shows no
emotion or expression when you’re
speaking to him); and the word
“effect” can be used as a verb
to mean “make” or “change,”
as in “to effect an improvement in
the situation.”
“Allowed”
and “aloud”
“Allowed”
means “permitted,” as in “I am
not allowed to go to the party
tomorrow.” “Aloud” means
“out loud,” as in “Read the
book aloud.” The word “aloud”
has the word “loud” in it, which
makes these two easy to remember.
“Advise”
and “advice”
These
two words are also different parts
of speech. “Advise” is a verb;
you advise someone
to do something. “As your lawyer,
I advise you to keep your mouth
shut.” It’s pronounced “advize.”
“Advice” is something that you
give someone, or someone gives you.
“I did not follow my lawyer’s
advice, and now I’m in trouble.”
“Desert”
and “dessert” and “deserts”
This
is a very common confusion, even
among people who really ought to
know better. A “desert” is a
place with no water; “We are
reading a book about the Sahara
Desert.” As a verb, “desert”
means “to abandon,” as in “I
may have to desert my Hummer if gas
keeps getting more expensive.” On
the other hand, “dessert” is the
treat you have after a meal, as in
“Can I have apple pie for dessert
tonight?”
This
one gets really confusing when you
see or hear the phrase “just
deserts.” Many people erroneously
believe that this should be “just
desserts;” however, the word
“deserts” in this case is an
archaic expression meaning “that
which someone deserves.” A
person’s “deserts” once meant
“the thing a person deserves to
have;” thus, “just deserts”
means “those things it is just for
one to have.”
“Discreet”
and “discrete”
These
words sound the same, but are
completely unrelated. “Discreet”
means “unobtrusive” or “with
good judgement,” as in “If you
are going to follow someone, it’s
best to be discreet.” A person who
is discreet shows discretion, as in
“Discretion is the better part of
valor.” “Discrete,” on the
other hand, means “made up of
distinct parts,” as in “A
telephone has three discrete parts:
a handset, a base, and a cord.”
“Lose”
and “loose”
“Lose”
is pronounced “looze.” It means
“to misplace,” as in “I always
lose my car keys,” or “to be
defeated,” as in “We will lose
the game without Bob.” “Loose”
means “not tight” (“This shirt
is too loose on me”), or “not
confined” (“the dog got loose
when the door on his kennel
broke”).
“Site”
and “sight” and “cite”
“Site”
is a place. “Sight” is having to
do with vision. “We went to the
crash site” means “we went to
the place where the crash
happened;” “the enemy is in
sight” means “the enemy is
visible.” This is a web site,
meaning “a place on the Web,”
not a web sight.
“Cite,” which is pronounced just
like “site,” is entirely
different; it means to quote, as in
“Can you cite any studies that
prove what you’re saying?”
“Then”
and “than”
“Then”
has to do with time, as in “We
went to the store, then we went to
the movies” or “When you finish
your homework, then you can go
outside.” On the other hand,
“than” is a conjunction used in
comparisons: “He is older than she
is,” or “that is easier said
than done.”
“Brakes”
and “breaks”
“Brakes”
are devices used to stop a moving
machine, such as a car. “Breaks”
is what happens when something hits
something else too hard. If the
brakes on your car fail, your car
breaks when it hits the wall; a
broken brake leads to a broken car.
It’s
“per se,” not “per say.”
Per
se is
Latin for “of itself.” It means
“intrinsically,” as in “a
state government is not a sovereign
entity per se, but is
subsumed under the Federal
government.”
Errors
in Pronunciation
“Imput,”
“forte” …
The
word “vice” in “vice versa” is
not pronounced “vis-uh.”
“Vice
versa” is Latin for “order
reversed;” for example, “I
sometimes chase my cat around the
room, and vice versa” means “I
sometimes chase my cat around the
room, and the cat sometimes chases
me.” People sometimes pronounce
the “vice” as though it were a
two-syllable word rhyming with
“versa,” as in “vis-uh vers-uh,”
which is incorrect, at least in
modern pronounciation. (It’s been
recently pointed out to me that the
original Latin would probably have
been pronounced ‘Wi-ke Wer-sa’
or ‘Vi-che Ver-sa,’ rather than
as it’s typically pronounced today
‘Vise Ver-sa’–though in no
case is ‘Vis-uh’ correct.)
It’s
“input,” not “imput.”
“Input”
is what you feed into a system–you
offer someone your input, you feed
input into a computer program. It
literally comes from “something
you put in.” More
and more often, people are spelling
it “imput,” particularly online;
this points, I think, to an error in
pronunciation.
The
word forte is
most properly pronounced “fort,”
not “for-TE” or “for-TAY”
“Forte”
derives from the French “fort,”
meaning “strong.” A person’s
“forte” is his strongest talent,
as in “running a business is
Bill’s forte.” It’s often
pronounced as two syllables, “for-TAY,”
in the United States, though this is
not technically correct; that
pronunciation would be more correct
if the word had derived from
Italian, not French.
Note:
Apparently, there is some debate
about the proper pronunciation of
this word. My references list
“fort” as the correct
pronunciation, but the
Merriam-Webster online reference has
this to say:
we
have a word derived from French
that in its “strong point”
sense has no entirely satisfactory
pronunciation. Usage writers have
denigrated \’for-”tA\ and
\’for-tE\ because they reflect
the influence of the
Italian-derived “forte.” Their
recommended pronunciation
\’fort\, however, does not
exactly reflect French either: the
French would write the word “le
fort” and would rhyme it with
English “for.” So you can take
your choice, knowing that someone
somewhere will dislike whichever
variant you choose.
It’s
“espresso,” not “expresso.”
There
is no hard “K” sound in the name
of the popular coffee beverage,
legions of Starbucks cashiers to the
contrary.
Pronouns
and Apostrophes
“Its”
and “it’s,” “you’re” and
“your,” …
“You’re”
vs “your,” “they’re” vs
“there” and “their”
If
a pronoun has an apostrophe in it,
it’s a contraction. “You’re”
means “you are,” always.
“Your” means “belonging to
you.”
The
same is true of “they’re” and
“their.” “They’re” has an
apostrophe; it is a contraction. It
means “they are.” “Their”
means “belonging to them.”
“There” means “somewhere that
is not here.”
“Its”
and “it’s”
This
is probably the single most common
grammar mistake on earth. People get
confused about this one because they
remember a rule from their childhood
days: possessive nouns get an
apostrophe. “That is Bob’s
car.” “That is the horse’s
barn.”
Problem
is, the word “it”
is not a noun. It’s a pronoun! Pronouns
never, ever, ever get an apostrophe
to indicate possession. Think about
it: You don’t say “mi’ne” or
“hi’s” or “her’s”–and
you don’t say “your’s” or
“it’s” to indicate possession.
“It’s”
means “it is” or “it has.” If
you get confused, take out
“it’s” and put in “it is.”
If the sentence makes no sense, don’t
use the apostrophe.
“A
group of people is going to the
movies,” “a bunch of marbles is on
the floor” …
The
subject of a sentence and the verb of
a sentence must agree with one
another: “A person is smart, people
are dumb,
stupid panicky animals.” This can
get a little complicated, though, when
there are prepositional phrases
between the subject and the verb: “A bunch of
people spells trouble.”
The
subject of a sentence is never found
in a prepositional phrase; if a noun
appears after a word like of,
the one thing you can be sure of is
that it’s not the subject.
Collective nouns such as “group”
and “bunch” and “pile” are
singular, not plural; the plural
versions are groups, bunches,
and piles. So you would
say “A group is going” or “Two
groups are going.”
When
a prepositional phrase follows the
subject, the verb must still agree
with the subject, not the
prepositional phrase. So you would say
“A groupof
people is going
to the movies,” not “a group of
people are going to the
movies”–the phrase ‘of people’
is a prepositional phrase, and is not
the subject of the sentence.
On
a similar note, the proper
first-person pronouns used as objects
of prepositions and active verbs are
“me” and “us,” not “I” and
“we.” For example, “can you give Tommy
and me a
ride to the store” is correct;
“can you give Tommy and I a ride to
the store” is not. When you remove
Tommy from the equation, this becomes
easier to see; you would say “Can
you give me a ride” but never “Can
you give I a ride” or “Can you
give myself a ride.”
Errors
in Construction
“Orientate,”
“preventative,” …
These
are errors which occur when someone
attempts to add prefixes or suffixes
to a word inappropriately, resulting
in an awkward or incorrect
construction.
It’s
“administer,” not
“administrate.”
When
you supervise something, or when you
apply something or dispense
something, you are
“administering” that thing, not
“administrating” that thing. You
would correctly say “Bob will
administer bandages and aspirin,”
not “Bob will administrate
bandages and aspirin.” (Some
references are beginning to
recognize “administrate” as an
acceptable, but less preferred,
alternative.)
It’s
“preventive,” not
“preventative.”
Something
which is designed to prevent
something else from happening is a preventive measure,
as in “aspirin can act as
preventive medicine for heart
attacks.”
It’s
“orient,” not “orientate.”
When
you have your bearings, you are
properly “oriented.” The process
of becoming oriented is called
“orientation,” but if you are
giving something or someone its
bearings, you are orienting it, not
orientating it.
It’s
“regardless,” not
“irregardless.”
This
one is a bit confusing, because
“irrespective” is the correct
form of “not respective” (as in
“all employees receive the same
vacation benefits irrespective of
their seniority”), but the correct
form of “without regard to” is
“regardless,” not
“irregardless.”
It’s
“empathic,” not “empathetic.”
“Empathy”
is the ability to understand and
identify with another person’s
feelings. A person who has a high
degree of empathy is a person who is
good at understanding the feelings
of other people, and is said to be
“empathic.”
Errors
in Meaning, Understanding, and Usage
“I
couldn’t care less,” “nothing
fazes me,” …
These
are errors which occur because two
words may be confused, or because
someone has misstated a common
expression and hasn’t really thought
about it. Some of these may involve
soundalike errors as well. For
example:
“Exacerbate”
and “exasperate.”
These
two words are pronounced
differently, but often confused in
writing. “Exacerbate” is
pronounced like “eg-ZA-ser-bate”
and means “to make worse,” as in
“skydiving may exacerbate a torn
ligament” or “shooting people
may exacerbate hostilities.” On
the other hand, “exasperate,”
which is pronounced “eg-ZAS-peh-rate,”
means “to irritate or annoy,” as
in “sitting in traffic really
exasperates me.”
It’s
“bated breath,” not “baited
breath.”
The
word “bated” is archaic, and
almost never used any more. It’s a
derivation of “abated,” which
meaned “lessened.”
To
have “bated breath” means to be
holding one’s breath (literally,
one’s breathing has been abated),
because of some emotion such as fear
or anticipation. “I had bated
breath” is the equivalent of
saying “I held my breath.” “I
had baited breath,” on the other
hand, means “my breath smells like
bait,” which is kind of nasty.
“Dominant”
and “dominate.”
These
two words are often confused, but
they’re entirely different parts
of speech. “Dominant” is an
adjective (“The pack is led by the
dominant male”) or, in the BDSM
subculture, a noun (a “dominant”
is a person who assumes the
controlling role in erotic power
exchange). “Dominate” is a verb
that means to exert control over;
“The dominant male in the wolf
pack dominates the other wolves.”
When
speaking of agreement, it’s
“jibe,” not “jive.”
To
“jibe” means to agree, as in His
account of the crime did not jibe
with the other eyewitness accounts. “Jive”
is a style of dance.
“Literally”
means “actually.”
Something
is literally true if it is actually
true; “literally” is the
opposite of “metaphorically” or
“figuratively.” So if you say
“I am so happy I am literally
walking on air,” what you mean is
you are so happy that your body is
now violating the law of gravity and
your feet are no longer in contact
with the ground.
Many
people say “literally” when they
mean “figuratively.” If you are
hungry, but you are not in the
hospital being treated for
malnourishment, you are not
“literally starving.”
One
thing can not be “more unique”
than another, or “very unique.”
“Unique”
means “one of a kind.” It’s
based on the Latin “unus,”
meaning “one.” Something can not
be “very one-of-a-kind” or
“more one-of-a-kind” than
another; the word “unique”
should not be used with modifiers.
Something
that is not directly relevant is
“beside the point,” not “besides
the point.”
When
a particular part of a conversation
or argument is not directly relevant
to the main point of that
conversation or argument, but is
tangentially related, it is said to
be “beside the point”–that is,
not directly on point. “Besides
the point” is incorrect usage;
“besides” means “except” or
“in addition to,” so it seems
likely that this confusion may have
arisen from the idea that the
expression means “that is in
addition to the point,” which is
not correct.
“Bald-faced
liar” and “bold-faced liar” are
both correct, but mean different
things.
I’m
often asked which is the correct
expression, “He was a bald-faced
liar” or “She was a bold-faced
liar.” Both expressions are
correct; “bald-faced liar” is a
modern expression, and “bold-faced
liar” dates back to the 1500s.
A
“bald-faced liar” is a person
who tells simple, obvious lies.
“Bald” in this context means
“unadorned” or “obvious,”
rather than “hairless.” A
“bold-faced liar” is a person
who lies in a strong, confident,
self-certain way; the expression
“bold-faced” literally means
“in a bold manner.”
There
is a third variant as well, which is
not often used: “bare-faced
liar.” It means something slightly
different as well; according to
Merriam-Webster, “bare-faced” is
an idiom meaning “without
scruples.” A “bare-faced liar”
is an unethical or unscrupulous
liar.
“Disinterested”
and “uninterested” do not mean the
same thing!
The
word “disinterested” means
“impartial.” A judge in a
courtroom should be disinterested in
the outcome; that is, the judge
should not have any vested interest
one way or the other, and he should
be impartial to the issue being
determined.
“Uninterested”
means “not interested in;” for
example, “Bob is uninterested in
football” means Bob does not care
about football. A courtroom judge is
(or should be) disinterested, but he
is not uninterested!
“Disorganized”
and “unorganized” do not mean the
same thing!
The
word “unorganized” simply means
“not organized.” A cluttered
desk may be unorganized, yet the
person who works at it might still
be able to find everything on it.
“Disorganized” means “not
organized” with connotations of
dysfunction; it’s used to describe
something that is not only
unorganized, but unorganized in a
way that makes work difficult or
makes finding things impossible.
“Altogether”
and “all together” do not mean the
same thing!
“All
together” means “all in one
group,” as in “let’s keep the
socks all together.” On the other
hand, “altogether” means
“completely,” as in “His
speech was altogether full of hot
air.”
“Farther”
and “further” do not mean the same
thing!
“Farther”
is used when you are talking about
distance: “San Francisco is
farther from Tampa than Atlanta
is.” “Further” is used when
you’re speaking of abstract ideas
or talking metaphorically; “San
Francisco goes further to deal with
urban sprawl than Atlanta does.”
“Less”
and “fewer” do not mean the same
thing!
“Less”
is used in situations where you’re
talking about something that’s not
discrete or easily quantified:
“This car uses less gas than my
old car.” “Fewer,” on the
other hand, is used in situations
where you are talking about a
countable quantity of discrete
objects: “The express lane is only
for people with eight items or
fewer,” “fewer people voted for
John than for Jake.” The signs you
see in supermarkets reading
“Express Lane: Eight items or
less?” Wrong.
It’s
“for all intents and purposes,”
not “for all intensive purposes.”
“For
all intents and purposes” means
“for all practical purposes.”
Many people erroneously write “for
all intensive purposes,” which
would, presumably, mean for purposes
that are not casual, or perhaps for
purposes that are trivial–near to
the opposite of the phrase’s
intent.
When
the details of a plan or idea are
filled in, the plan or idea has been
“fleshed out,” not “flushed
out.”
One
talks metaphorically of taking an
idea that is sketchy–in other
words, the skeleton of an idea–and
“fleshing it out,” or completing
it. I’m not quite sure how one
would “flush out” an idea, but
the process doesn’t sound very
sanitary…
It’s
“embedded,” not “imbedded.”
“Embedded”
means “set within” or
“enclosed.” If you put a bottle
cap in wet cement, when it hardens,
the bottle cap becomes embedded in
the cement. An embedded computer
is a computer set in something else,
like a microwave oven or a cell
phone.
It’s
“pronunciation,” not “pronounciation.”
A
reader of this site pointed out to
me that this is an error I’d made
myself–right here on this very
page! “Pronounciation” is not
actually a word at all; the way a
word is pronounced is its
“pronunciation.”
Interestingly,
a Google search for “pronounciation,”
which is the error, turns up over a
million hits, whereas a search for
the correct “pronunciation”
turns up about 41 million hits,
which suggests that at least one in
41 people makes this mistake.
It’s
“shudder to think,” not “shutter
to think.”
To
“shudder” is to tremble, as from
fright; “shudder to think” means
“the thought of that is so
frightening (or disturbing or
whatever) that the very thought of
it is enough to make me shudder.”
It’s
“bear with me,” not “bare with
me.”
To
“bear” something means to carry
it, as in “to bear arms,” or to
toil with as a burden; “I can’t
bear this heavy backpack,” or,
more figuratively, “I can’t bear
this pain.” “Bear with me”
means “carry along with me;”
“bare with me” means “get
naked with me.”
It’s
“should have,” not “should
of.”
“Have”
is a verb; “of” is a
preposition. “I should have
gone” or “I would have gone if I
had the money” are correct. “I
should of gone” or “I would of
gone” are incorrect; the word
“gone” is not part of a
prepositional phrase.
Something
you make is your “handiwork,” not
your “handywork.”
The
word “handiwork” comes from the
Middle English handiwerk, which
in turn derives from the Old English hand
gework, literally,
“the work produced by the
hands.” It’s the result of your
skill or labor: “this model train
set is my handiwork.” A person
skilled with his hands, especially
at odd jobs, is said to be
“handy,” and a person who does a
number of odd jobs is sometimes
called a “handyman,” which is
probably how the confusion regarding
“handiwork” and “handywork”
got started. A handyman produces
handiwork, not handywork.
It’s
“death knell,” not “death
nail.”
The
word “knell” is an archaic term
meaning “to sound in an ominous
manner, as the ringing of a bell to
indicate a death or disaster.” A
“death knell” is literally the
sound of a funeral bell.
It’s
“A lot,” never “alot.”
“A
lot” is two words, as in “We
have a lot of food in the kitchen”
or “Florida is being hammered by a
lot of hurricanes this season.” It
means “A large quantity.” You
would never say “abunch;” it’s
two words–”a bunch.” Same
thing. And “allot” means
something else entirely; “allot”
is a verb, meaning “to assign”
or “to distribute,” as in “Bob
will allot one donut and one cup of
coffee to each attendee.”
It’s
a “moot point,” not a “mute
point.”
Something
is “moot” if it is debatable or
of undecided value; if you don’t
live in Florida, then the fact that
Florida residents get discounted
Disney World tickets is moot to you.
“Mute” means “unable to make a
sound.”
It’s
“hear hear,” not “here here.”
“Hear
hear” means something like the
more contemporary vernacular “I
hear you;” it indicates agreement
and assent. “Here here” means
“not over there there,” and
that’s just kind of silly.
It’s
“Lo and behold,” not “low and
behold.”
The
word “lo!” is a Middle English
expression of surprise. “Lo and
behold” is kind of the equivalent
of saying “Well, hey, look at
that!”
It’s
“Nothing fazes me,” not “nothing
phases me.”
To
“faze” is to disturb or
frighten. “She was unfazed”
means “she retained her
composure.” “He was unphased”
means “he was not made of a number
of waveforms that were in
synchronization.” Big difference,
folks.
“I
couldn’t care less,” not “I
could care less.”
“I
could care less” means “I do
care.” It would be possible for me
to care less, because I already
care. If I do not care at all–if
the amount I care about something is
zero–then it would be impossible
for me to care any less, because I
can’t care about something less
than a zero amount…I
couldn’t care less.
It’s
“etc,” not “ect.”
“Etc”
is an abbreviation for “et
cetera” (two words), which is
Latin for “and so forth.”
“Et” means “and,” which is
why “etc” is sometimes written
“&c”. “Etc” is correct.
“&c” is correct but archaic.
“Ect” is not, never has been,
and never will be correct.
The
abbreviations “ie” and “eg” do
not mean the same thing!
You
use “ie” when you mean “in
other words” or “that is to
say.” It’s Latin for “id est,”
which means “that is.” For
example: “He is a businessman; ie,
he makes his money by operating a
business.” On the other hand,
“eg” is used to mean “for
example.” It’s Latin for
“exempli gratia.” “I do not
like spectator sports–eg, football
and baseball.” Most properly, they
are written “i.e.” and
“e.g.,” though “ie” and
“eg” are becoming more common.
For
example: eg. In
other words: ie.
“Insure”
and “ensure” do not mean the same
thing either!
“Ensure”
means “to make sure of.”
Double-check your math on your tax
return to ensure you don’t get an
embarrassing phone call from the
IRS. “Insure,” on the other
hand, means “to provide insurance
for,” you insure your house in
order to ensure that you won’t be
financially ruined if it burns down.
To
be caught “between the devil and the
deep blue sea” does not mean
“between two unattractive
options.”
It
means “to be in a position where
you have no room to maneuver.”
There are two theories about the
origin of this expression. The first
is the idea that the ‘devil’ on
a wooden sailing ship was a term for
the main spar of the ship–a brace
that runs the whole length of the
ship from front to back, around
which the frame of the ship is
built. There is a very narrow
space–typically less than 3′
high–between a ship’s devil and
the bottom of the hull; this was
sometimes the space where the most
lowly members of a ship’s crew
slept, quite literally “between
the devil and the deep blue sea.”
It’s a very, very tiny space. The
other is that the seams on a wooden
ship near the waterline were often
referred to as the “devil,” and
that sealing these seams to keep
them watertight involved a sailor
being lowered over the side of the
ship on a rope, with a bucket of
sealing pitch; such a sailor was
dangling precariously “between the
devil and the deep blue sea.”
(I’ve seen one Web page which
claims that the expression predates
the days of wooden sailing ships,
but I haven’t seen any documented
usage of the term that dates back
that far.)
“You
have piqued my interest,” not “you
have peaked my interest” or “you
have peeked my interest.”
The
word “pique” (pronounced like
“peek”) means “to excite or
arouse.” “You have piqued my
interest” means “you have
aroused my interest”–that is, I
wasn’t interested before, but now
I am.
A
group is a “clique,” not a
“click”
“Clique”
is pronounced like “click.”
However, the meaning is completely
different. “Clique” was
originally a French word; hence the
weird spelling.
Something
that’s stylish is “chic,” not
“sheik”
“Chic”
is another confusing French import.
It’s pronounced like “sheik”
but means “elegant, stylish, or
sophisticated.”
It’s
“whet my appetite,” not “wet my
appetite.”
“Whet”
means “sharpen.” A tool that
sharpens a knife is called a
“whetstone.” To “whet”
one’s appetite means to sharpen
one’s appetite–”That appetizer
really whetted my appetite!” To
“wet” one’s appetite means to
make it soggy.
Language
in Flux
Usage
that’s changing
No
language ever stands still. The
English language is a dynamic, living
thing, and that means rules of grammar
can and do change over time. Words
become archaic; rules of grammar
change; even spelling and usage change
over time.
There
are many areas where English is in
transition right now. A few of them
are outlined below.
“Nauseated”
and “nauseous.”
Originally,
“nauseated” meant “sick to
your stomach;” if the smell of
tuna fish turns your stomach, you
can say that tuna makes you
nauseated. “Nauseous” meant
“causing nausea in others.” If
you are “nauseous,” that means
you make other people sick. However,
these two terms are used
interchangeably so often that some
references are now beginning to list
“nauseated” as a synonym for
“nauseous.”
“All
right” is generally more acceptable
than “alright.”
“All
right” means “okay.”
Literally, “all is right.”
It’s not one word. This rule is
beginning to bend, though; the
newest Oxford English Dictionary
lists “alright.” I get a lot of
email, pro and con, on the
acceptability of “alright,”
which is further confused by the
fact that some dictionaries and
books on English usage still condemn
it, while others have begun to
accept it.
“Judgment”
is generally more acceptable than “judgement.”
Traditionally,
one who judges another is said to
pass judgment.
Increasingly, more and more
reference texts are listing
“judgement” as an acceptable
variant to “judgment,” though
not everyone finds “judgement”
acceptable.
I
personally prefer “judgement,”
as I think it’s more logically
consistent. Other words ending in
the letter “e” keep that “e”
when adding a -ment suffix (as in
“atonement,” for example); and
the word derives most immediately
from the Middle Englishjugement,
so keeping the “e” seems
reasonable to me.
“Sneaked,”
not “snuck,” is generally the
preferred past tense of “sneak.”
In
formal or professional writing,
it’s generally considered more
proper to say “the burglar sneaked into
the room” than “the burglar snuck into
the room.” However, this rule is
also beginning to bend; my
dictionary considers “snuck” an
acceptable, but less preferred, past
tense form of “sneak.”
To
me, “snuck” sounds clumsy. While
I’ll grudgingly accede to the fact
that it’s a very common usage,
that doesn’t mean I have to like
it!
“Interface”
is properly a noun, not a verb.
An
interface is a place where two
different things come together or
interact with each other. A
physicist might talk about how light
diffracts at an air-water interface,
meaning the point where the air
meets the water; a computer
technician might speak of an
interface where a printer is
connected to a computer; a computer
programmer might speak of the
interface that a program presents
for interaction with a person.
The
first time I heard the word
“interface” used as a verb (as
in “Let’s see if we can get this
database server to interface with
this client”), I cringed. Then I
heard the word “interface” used
to refer to interactions between
people (as in “Let’s see if we
can have our sales reps interface
with the design department on that
issue”). Ugh!
This
usage is becoming common enough now
that some dictionaries have begun
listing “interface” as a verb.
Indeed,
modern English in popular usage
seems to be moving more and more in
the direction of blurring the line
between nouns and verbs; I saw a
bumper sticker a while ago reading
“Stop Noun Verbification: Don’t
Verb Your Nouns.”
Commas
in lists
In
the past, a list of words or phrases
separated by commas would include a
comma after each word or phrase in
the list: “I like apples, peaches,
pears, and bananas.” Today, it is
beincoming increasingly common to
omit the comma before the second to
last word in the list, and indeed
this is the preferred usage
according to some style manuals:
“I like apples, peaches, pears and
bananas.”
However,
this new usage creates potential
ambiguities. As a friend of mine
recently pointed out, in a sentence
such as “I am an expert at
hardware design, software and
firmware validation, analysis and
reverse engineering of products, and
user interfaces,” that final comma
is essential to making the sentence
comprehensible. Under the newer
preferred usage, the sentence would
read “I am an expert at hardware
design, software and firmware
validation, analysis and reverse
engineering of products and user
interfaces.” Without the comma, it
seems as though “analysis and
reverse engineering of products and
user interfaces” means “analysis
and reverse engineering of
products” and “analysis and
reverse engineering of user
interfaces”–that is, it is not
clear that “analysis and reverse
engineering” applies only to
“products” and does not modify
both “products” and “user
interfaces.”
Non-English
Plurals
“Data”
and “datum,” “phenomena” and
“phenomenon,” …
English
has a long history of borrowing words
from other languages–many of which
don’t follow standard English rules
for pluralization. As a result, there
are many English words which are
normally plural, but don’t look plural
because they don’t end in the letter
S. A partial list:
| Singular |
Plural |
| Datum |
Data |
| Phenomenon |
Phenomena |
| Stimulus |
Stimuli |
| Criterion |
Criteria |
| Die |
Dice |
| Graffito |
Graffiti |
| Medium |
Media |
| Stratum |
Strata |
| Nucleus |
Nuclei |
| Crisis |
Crises |
So
for example, you would never properly
say “The data shows I’m right”
(the correct form is “The data show I’m
right”), and you would never
properly say “The media is becoming
increasingly right-wing” (but rather
“The media are becoming
increasingly right-wing”).
“Media” in this sense means “all
the media used to distribute
information–eg, newspapers,
television, and radio.”
Just
for Fun
Debris is
the only English noun with no plural.
There are many English words for which
the singular and the plural are the
same, but in English, you can not
speak of a single piece of debris with
a singular form of the word. That is,
you would say “Space debris are
becoming a menace to satellites,”
but not “Space debris is becoming a
menace.”
We
often speak of being overwhelmed,
or talk of how something might overwhelm a
computer, but we rarely use whelm as
a verb. Yet in the strictest sense,
“to whelm” means “to overcome”
(particularly with an emotion); it is
therefore perfectly proper to say
something like “I was whelmed with
grief,” which means the same thing
as saying “I was overwhelmed with
grief.”
Both fish and fishes are
accepted plurals of the word
“fish,” but the rules differ as to
which one is appropriate in diferent
contexts. Generally speaking, if you
are talking about any number of dead
fish, or any number of live fish of
the same species, you use “fish,”
as in The boat came back to
port with a hold full of fish. However,
if you are talking about live fish of
different species, you can use
“fishes,” as in Salt-water
fishes include several species of
sharks, eels, and salmon.
An alumnus is
a male graduate of a school; a female
graduate is an alumna.
When you’re talking about a group of
graduates, you use alumni if
all the graduates are male or if
there’s a mix of male and female
graduates; if all the graduates are
female, the proper form is alumnae.
The
plural of mouse is mice only
if you’re talking about rodents. If
you’re talking about a computer
mouse, the accepted plural is mouses.
The
Middle English root of “ruthless”
is “ruthe,” meaning
“compassion.” It has survived in
the Modern English ruthless (“without
compassion”), but its opposite, ruthful (“compassionate”)
is considered archaic and is rarely
used.
There
are a handful of other modern English
words which are typically used only in
their negative form as well. For
example, the word scathed means
“harmed” or “scorched;” we
often use unscathed (as
in “I made it through Doom 3
unscathed”) but rarely use
“scathed.” Likewise, the word licitmeans
“conforming to law” or “not
forbidden;” we often use it in the
negative form illicit (as
in “an illicit affair” or “an
illicit sale”) but rarely describe
things as “licit.”
Believe
it or not, not all rules of grammar
are good things. Indeed, a rule is
useful only when it seeks to enhance
and clarify communication; grammar
rules which don’t serve this
purpose are actually worse than
useless, as they tend to make a
language more rigid and inflexible.
“i”
before “e” except after
“c”…
…is
arguably the least useful
“rule” of English grammar, as
nearly as many words violate this
rule as follow it. The fact, is,
“ie” and “ei”
constructions simply have to be
memorized; there isn’t a hard
and fast rule to follow.
Many
words of German origin are spelled
“ei;” in German, “ie” is
pronounced as a long “e” and
“ei” is pronounced as a long
“i”. Words which violate this
rule also include words with
Middle English roots, such as
“heir,” “heist,”
“heinous,” “weird,” and
“seize.”
Split
Infinitives
Of
all the rules of English grammar
which serve little purpose, the most
obvious and least useful is the rule
which says “thou shalt not split
an infinitive.” An infinitive is
the “to” form of a verb; “to
look,” “to go,” and so on. A
“split infinitive” is a phrase
in which some word appears between
the “to” and the verb; “to
boldly go,” for example.
This
particular rule was actually
invented by one person, Bishop
Roberth Lowth. In 1762, he published
a book on English grammar, which has
exerted an evil influence on English
ever since. His reasoning for
prohibiting a split infinitive
was–get this–it’s impossible
to split an infinitive in Latin, so
it shouldn’t be done in English
either.
I
kid you not. That’s the reason
you’ve been told you must never,
ever split an infinitive–because
it’s impossible to do in Latin,
and in 1762 some yoyo decided that
English really ought to look more
like Latin, so anything you can’t
do in Latin you shouldn’t do in
English either.
Ending
a sentence with a preposition
The
rule that one must never end a
sentence with a preposition is just
as silly as the rule that one must
never split an infinitive, and in
fact the prohibition against ending
sentences with a preposition often
forces the speaker to use weird and
awkward sentence structures. This
point was most nobly illustrated by
none other than Winston Churchill,
who upon being told he couldn’t
end a sentence with a preposition,
replied “[That] is the sort of
bloody nonsense up with which I will
not put.” That says it all,
really.
Never
say “ain’t”
This
rule has more to do with ideas about
class and social standing than it
does with grammar. “Ain’t” has
traditionally been seen as a
low-class thing to say; the
prohibition against its use is based
more on an idea that “people who
are educated should never use such a
low-class word” than it is on any
serious rule of grammar or usage. In
fact, the word “ain’t” as a
contraction for “am not” serves
admirably where no other word
exists; “amn’t” is not a
recognized English word at all.
William Shakespeare used the word
“ain’t;” that’s good enough
for me!
Never
use a double negative
Bishop
Lowth, who gave us the rule against
splitting infinitives, also gave us
this rule. He believed that double
negatives should not be used because
they cancel each other out, and in
some cases it’s true; “I’m not
doing nothing” means “I am doing
something.”
However,
the opposite of a negative is not
always a positive. “I did not make
it through Doom 3 unscathed” is a
double negative, yet its meaning is
clear, and it’s much less awkward
than “I made it through Doom 3
scathed,” if indeed you can even
use “scathed” that way. Again,
Shakespeare used the odd double
negative, and I am not unimpressed
by that. A double negative, used
correctly, offers shades of meaning;
a double negative does not always
mean the same thing as a positive.
Punctuation
always belongs inside quotation marks
This
is a rule that didn’t used to be a
big deal, but technology has made it
problematic. Technical writing poses
special challenges; if you were to
see, for example, a written
instruction that said:
To
change to the proper directory, type
“cd ..”
it’s
not clear if you are expected to
type “cd .” or “cd ..” —
each is a valid Unix command, but
they do different things. If one
follows the conventional rules of
grammar, which say that a period
always belongs inside the quotation
marks, one runs the risk of creating
ambiguities.
It’s
not just technical writing that
creates the problem, though. Even in
ordinary writing, this rule can
create weird situations:
Did
he really say “We will be there
soon?”
The
entire sentence is a question, but the
part inside the quotation marks is
not; writing according to the
conventional rules of grammar is
misleading, because you’re counting
on the reader to infer that the
quotation was a statement, even though
it ends in a question mark.
The
rule that I’d most humbly like to
propose is this: Punctuation
belongs inside quotation marks if and
only if that punctuation is actually
part of the quoted literal; otherwise,
it goes outside. (I’m
told that this is the way British
English is usually written, but
don’t know for a fact that this is
so.) I’ve recently received an email
which says that some public schools
here in the US are beginning to teach
that punctuation belongs inside the
quotation marks if the entire sentence
is quoted, but outside the quotation
marks if only part of the sentence is
a quotation. so perhaps this is
beginning to change in American
English as well.
Other
hyphen uses:
A
hyphen may be used to connect groups
of numbers, such as in dates (see
below), telephone numbers or sports
scores.
The
hyphen is sometimes used to hide
letters in words, as in G-d, although
an en-dash can be used as well for
stylistic purposes (“G–d”).
Examples
of usage:
Some
strong examples of semantic changes
caused by the placement of hyphens:
*
disease-causing poor nutrition,
meaning poor nutrition that causes
disease
* disease causing poor nutrition,
meaning a disease that causes poor
nutrition
*
a man-eating shark is a shark that
eats humans
* a man eating shark is a man who is
eating shark meat
*
a blue green sea is a contradiction
* a blue-green sea is a sea whose
colour is somewhere between blue and
green
Additional
examples of proper use:
*
text-only document or the document is
text-only
* Detroit-based organization or the
organization is Detroit-based
* state-of-the-art product or the
product is state-of-the-art (but The
state of the art is very advanced.
with no hyphen)
* board-certified strategy or the
strategy is board-certified
* thought-provoking argument or the
argument is thought-provoking
* time-sensitive error or the error is
time-sensitive
* case-sensitive password or the
password is case-sensitive
* government-issued photo ID or the
photo ID is government-issued (but
…is issued by the government with no
hyphen.)
* light-gathering surface or the
surface is light-gathering
* award-winning novel or the novel is
award-winning (but, more likely,
…won an award with no hyphen)
* web-based encyclopedia or the
encyclopedia is web-based
* fun-loving person or the person is
fun-loving
* how to wire-transfer funds
* how to tax-plan
* advertising-supported service or
service is advertising-supported (but,
better, …is supported by advertising
with no hyphen.)
* Rudolph Giuliani is an
Italian-American (but see hyphenated
American)
* list of China-related topics …list
of topics is China-related (but
…related to China with no hyphen)
* out-of-body experience
* near-death experience
* in surnames, for example Dominique
Strauss-Kahn
Note,
though, that many authoritative
sources, such as the Chicago
Manual of Style, recommend
writing commonplace compounds open
(i.e., without hyphen) when they
appear after the noun they modify and
when they are used adverbially. Thus
*
She always wears out-of-date clothes.
but
*
Her wardrobe is out of date.
Similarly,
for the adverbial use compare
*
The hand-to-hand combat was frightful.
and
*
They fought hand to hand in repulsing
the attack.
I
find these rules at http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp
very helpful.
Rule
1:
| Periods and
commas always go inside
quotation marks, even inside
single quotes. |
| Examples |
The sign changed from
“Walk,” to “Don’t
Walk,” to “Walk” again
within 30 seconds. |
| She said, “Hurry
up.” |
| She said, “He said,
‘Hurry up.’” |
Rule
2
| The placement of
question marks with quotes
follows logic. If a
question is in quotation
marks, the question mark should
be placed inside the quotation
marks. |
| Examples |
She asked, “Will you still
be my friend?” |
| |
Do you agree with the
saying, “All’s fair in
love and war“?
Here the question is outside
the quote. |
| NOTE |
Only one ending punctuation mark
is used with quotation marks.
Also, the stronger punctuation mark
wins. Therefore, no period
after war is used. |
Rule
3
When you have a
question outside quoted
material AND inside quoted
material, use only one question
mark and place it inside
the
quotation mark. |
| Example |
Did she say, “May I go?” |
Rule
4
| Use single
quotation marks for quotes
within quotes. Note that the
period goes inside all quote
marks. |
| Example |
He said, “Danea said,
‘Do not treat me that
way.’” |
Rule
5
| Use quotation
marks to set off a direct
quotation only. |
| Examples |
“When will you be here?”
he asked. |
| He asked when you will be
there. |
Rule
6
Do
not use quotation marks with quoted
material that is more than three lines
in length. Introduce the quotation
with a colon and leave a blank line
above and below the quoted material.
Single space the quoted material. Some
style manuals say to indent one-half
inch on both the left and right
margins; others say to indent only on
the left margin. Quotation marks are
not used.
Rule
7
When you are
quoting something that has a
spelling or grammar mistake or
presents material in a
confusing way, insert the term sic in
italics and enclose it in
brackets. Sic means,
“This
is the way the
original
material was.” |
| Example |
She wrote, “I would rather
die then [sic] be seen wearing
the same outfit as my sister
has on.”
Should be than, not then. |
