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- Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!hookup!torn!nott!uotcsi2!misrael
- From: misrael@csi.uottawa.ca (Mark Israel)
- Newsgroups: alt.usage.english,alt.answers,news.answers
- Subject: alt.usage.english FAQ
- Followup-To: poster
- Date: 7 Sep 1994 18:01:17 GMT
- Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, University of Ottawa
- Lines: 2639
- Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU
- Expires: Sun, 5 Oct 1994 00:00:00 GMT
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- Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.usage.english:27297 alt.answers:4353 news.answers:25316
-
- Archive-name: alt-usage-english-faq
- Posting-Frequency: monthly
- Last-modified: 25 May 1994
-
- Sorry, I'm still busy -- this is the same FAQ file that you saw last
- time. There's a large backlog of suggestions and contributions, which
- I sincerely appreciate and will process when I have the time.
-
- misrael@csi.uottawa.ca Mark Israel
-
-
- THE ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH FAQ FILE
- ------------------------------
-
- by Mark Israel
- misrael@csi.uottawa.ca
- Last updated: 25 May 1994
-
- 1. Please send suggestions/flames/praise to me by e-mail rather than
- post them to the newsgroup. The purpose of an FAQ file is to
- reduce traffic, not increase it.
-
- 2. This is in no sense an "official" FAQ file. Feel free to start
- your own. I certainly can't stop you.
-
- 3. Don't expect me to add a topic unless you're willing to
- contribute the entry for that topic. Thanks to all who *have*
- contributed!
-
- Table of Contents
- -----------------
-
- Welcome to alt.usage.english!
- guidelines for posting
- other related newsgroups
-
- recommended books
- dictionaries
- online dictionaries
- general reference
- grammars
- books on linguistics
- books on usage
- books that discriminate synonyms
- style manuals
- books on mathematical exposition
- books on phrasal verbs
- books on phrase origins
- books on Britishisms, Canadianisms, etc.
- books on "bias-free"/"politically correct" language
- books on group names
-
- artificial dialects
- Basic English
- E-prime
-
- pronunciation
- how to represent pronunciation in ASCII
- rhotic vs non-rhotic, intrusive "r"
- words pronounced differently according to context
- words whose spelling has influenced their pronunciation
-
- usage disputes
- "acronym"
- "alright"
- "between you and I"
- "could care less"
- "different to", "different than"
- double "is"
- "due to"
- gender-neutral pronouns
- "hopefully", "thankfully"
- "It's me" vs "it is I"
- "less" vs "fewer"
- "more/most/very unique"
- "none is" vs "none are"
- plurals
- plurals of Latin and Greek words
- plurals => English singulars
- preposition at end
- repeated words after abbreviations
- "shall" vs "will", "would" vs "should"
- "that" vs "which"
- the the hoi polloi debate
- "you saying" vs "your saying"
-
- punctuation
- "." after abbreviations
- ," vs ",
- "A, B and C" vs "A, B, and C"
-
- foreigners' FAQs
- "a"/"an" before abbreviations
- "A number of..."
- when to use "the"
- subjunctive
-
- word origins
- "bug"="defect"
- "Caesarean section"
- "canola"
- "crap"
- "fuck"
- "hooker"
- "kangaroo"
- "loo"
- "O.K."
- "posh"
- "quiz"
- "scot-free"
- "sirloin"/"baron of beef"
- "SOS"
- "spoonerism"
- "tip"
- "titsling"/"brassiere"
- "wog"
- "ye" = "the"
-
- phrase origins
- "blue moon"
- "Bob's your uncle"
- "to call a spade a spade"
- "The die is cast"
- "dressed to the nines"
- "Elementary, my dear Watson!"
- "The exception proves the rule"
- "face the music"
- "Go figure"
- "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste" (Desiderata)
- "Let them eat cake"
- "mind your p's and q's"
- "more honoured in the breach than in the observance"
- "rule of thumb"
- "son of a gun"
- "spitting image"/"spit and image"
- "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
- "the whole nine yards"
-
- miscellany
- deliberate mistakes in dictionaries
- list of language terms
- commonest words
- What words are their own antonym?
- Biblical sense of "to know"
- postfix "not"
- origin of the dollar sign
-
- spelling
- diacritics
- "-ize" vs "-ise"
- possessive apostrophes
-
- ====================================================================
-
- WELCOME TO ALT.USAGE.ENGLISH!
- -----------------------------
-
- alt.usage.english is a newsgroup where we discuss the English
- language (and also occasionally other languages). We discuss
- how particular words, phrases, and syntactic forms are used; how
- they originated; and where in the English-speaking world they're
- prevalent. (All this is called "description".) We also discuss
- how we think they *should* be used ("prescription").
-
- alt.usage.english is for everyone, *not* only for linguists,
- native speakers, or descriptivists.
-
- Guidelines for posting
- ----------------------
-
- Things you may want to consider avoiding when posting here:
-
- (1) re-opening topics (such as "hopefully") that experience has
- shown lead to circular debate. (One function of the FAQ file
- is to point out topics that have already been discussed ad
- nauseam.)
-
- (2) questions that can be answered by simple reference to a
- dictionary.
-
- (3) generalities. If you make a statement like: "Here in the U.S.
- we NEVER say 'different to'", "Retroflex 'r' is ONLY used in North
- America", or "'Eh' ALWAYS rhymes with 'pay'", chances are that
- someone will pounce on you with a counterexample.
-
- (4) assertions that one variety of English is "true English".
-
- (5) sloppy writing (as distinct from simple slips like typing
- errors, or errors from someone whose native language is not
- English). Keep in mind that the regulars on alt.usage.english are
- probably less willing than the general population to suffer sloppy
- writers gladly; and that each article is written by one person, but
- read perhaps by thousands, so the convenience of the readers really
- ought to have priority over the convenience of the writer. Again,
- this is *not* to discourage non-native speakers from posting;
- readers will be able to detect that you're writing in a foreign
- language, and will make allowances for this.
-
- (6) expressions of exasperation. In the course of debate, you
- may encounter positions based on premises radically different
- from yours and perhaps surprisingly novel to you. Saying things
- like "Oh, please", "That's absurd", "Give me a break", or "Go
- teach your grandmother to suck eggs, my man" is unlikely to win
- your opponent over.
-
- You really *are* welcome to post here! Don't let the impatient
- tone of this FAQ frighten you off.
-
- Other related newsgroups
- ------------------------
-
- There are other newsgroups which also discuss the English
- language. bit.listserv.words-l (which is a redistribution of a
- BITNET mailing list -- not all machines on Usenet carry these) is
- also billed to be for "English language discussion", but its
- participants engage in a lot more socializing and general chitchat
- than we do.
-
- sci.lang is where most of the professional linguists hang out.
- Discussions tend to be about linguistic methodology (rather than
- *particular* words and phrases), and prescription is severely
- frowned upon there. Newbies post many things there that would
- better be posted here.
-
- alt.flame.spelling (which fewer sites carry than carry
- alt.usage.english) is the place to criticize other people's
- spelling. We try to avoid doing that here (although some of us do
- get provoked if you spell language terms wrong. It's "consensus",
- not "concensus"; "diphthong", not "dipthong"; "grammar", not
- "grammer"; "guttural", not "gutteral"; and "pronunciation", not
- "pronounciation").
-
- rec.puzzles is a better place than here to ask questions like
- "What English words end in '-gry' or '-endous'?", "What words
- contain 'vv'?", "What words have 'e' pronounced as /I/?", "What Pig
- Latin words are also words?", or "How do you punctuate 'John where
- Bill had had had had had had had had had had the approval of the
- teacher' or 'That that is is that that is not is not that that is
- not is not that that is is that it it is' to get comprehensible
- text?" But, before you post such a question there, make sure it's
- not answered in the rec.puzzles archive, available by anonymous ftp
- from rtfm.mit.edu; the relevant section is in the directory
- pub/usenet/news.answers/puzzles/archive/language .
-
- Language features peculiar to the U.K. get discussed in
- soc.culture.british as well as here. Before posting to either
- newsgroup on this subject, you should check out Jeremy Smith's
- British-American dictionary, available by anonymous ftp from
- ftp.csos.orst.edu as pub/networking/bigfun/usuk_dictionary.txt .
-
- If you have a (language-related or other) peeve that you want
- to mention but don't particularly want to justify, you can try
- alt.peeves. ("What is your pet peeve?" is *not* a frequently asked
- question in alt.usage.english, although we frequently get
- unsolicited answers to it. If you're new to this group, chances are
- excellent that your particular pet peeve is something that has
- already been discussed to death by the regulars.)
-
- If you're interested in the peculiarities of language as used by
- computer users, get the Jargon File by anonymous ftp from
- prep.ai.mit.edu (18.71.0.38) under pub/gnu (also available in
- paperback form as _The New Hacker's Dictionary_, ed. Eric S.
- Raymond, 2nd edition, MIT Press, 1993, ISBN 0-262-68079-3). This is
- also the place to find answers to questions like "How do you
- pronounce '#'?" You can discuss hacker language further in the
- newsgroup alt.folklore.computers.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- RECOMMENDED BOOKS
- -----------------
- Dictionaries
- ------------
-
- The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), 2nd ed. (OED2) (Oxford
- University Press, 1989, 20 vols.; compact edition, 1991 ISBN
- 0-19-861258-3; additions series, 2 vols., 1993, ISBN 0-19-861292-3
- and 0-19-861299-0), has no rivals as a historical dictionary of the
- English language. It is too large for the editors to keep all of
- it up-to-date, and hence should not be relied on for precise
- definitions of technical terms, or for consistent usage labels.
-
- Webster's Third New International Dictionary (Merriam-Webster,
- 1961, ISBN 0-87779-206-1) (W3) is the unabridged dictionary to check
- for 20th-century U.S. citations of word use, and for precise
- definitions of technical terms too rare to appear in collegiate
- dictionaries. People sometimes cite W3 with a later date. These
- later dates refer to the addenda section at the front, *not* to the
- body of the dictionary, which is unchanged since 1961. W3 was
- widely criticized by schoolteachers and others for its lack of usage
- labels; e.g., it gives "imply" as one of the meanings of "infer" and
- "flout" as one of the meanings of "flaunt", without indicating that
- these are disputed usage. Others have defended the lack of usage
- labels. An anthology devoted to the controversy is _Dictionaries
- and THAT Dictionary: A Case Book of the Aims of Lexicographers and
- the Targets of Reviewers_, ed. James Sledd and Wilma R. Ebbitt
- (Scott Foresman, 1962).
-
- Please don't refer to any dictionary simply as "Webster's".
- _Books in Print_ has 5 columns of book titles beginning with
- "Webster's"!
-
- Among collegiate dictionaries, the ones most frequently mentioned
- here are Collins English Dictionary (3rd edition, HarperCollins, 1991,
- ISBN 0-00-433287-3) and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth
- Edition (Merriam-Webster, 1993, ISBN 0-919028-25-X) (MWCD10).
- Merriam-Webster publishes sub-editions of its collegiate dictionaries,
- so look at the copyright date to see exactly what you have. Chamber's
- English Dictionary (1991, ISBN 0-550102507) is the standard dictionary
- for British crossword compilers and scrabble players.
-
- If you're interested in etymology, get The American Heritage
- Dictionary of the English Language (3rd edition, Houghton Mifflin,
- 1992, ISBN 0-395-44895-6) (AHD3) or Henry Cecil Wyld's _Universal
- English Dictionary_ (Wordsworth, reprinted from 1932, ISBN
- 1-85326-940-9). These are two of the few dictionaries that trace
- words back to their reconstructed Indo-European (Aryan) roots.
-
- Although AHD3 looks larger than a collegiate dictionary, its
- word count puts it in the collegiate range. If you want an
- up-to-date dictionary that is larger than a collegiate, get the
- Random House Unabridged Dictionary (2nd edition, Random House,
- revised 1993, ISBN 0-679-42917-4) (RHUD2).
-
- Online dictionaries
- -------------------
-
- The OED is available on CD ROM for PCs, and server-style for Unix
- systems. For info on obtaining the Unix version in North America,
- phone the Open Text Corporation in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada:
- (519) 571-7111. Info from Alex Lange: The online OED is encoded
- with the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), which is ISO
- 8879:1986 and is discussed in obscure detail on the comp.text.sgml
- newsgroup. The funny-looking escape codes beginning with "&" are
- known as "text entity references". The ISO has defined a slew of
- such for use with SGML: publishing symbols, math and scientific
- symbols, and so on. A good place to start for information about
- SGML and its uses is an article "SGML Frees Information", Byte,
- June 1992.
-
- Info from Graham Toal: The Webster Server is best accessed via
- the "webster" program (use the archie service to find it). An old
- Webster's dictionary (not the one used by the NeXT or the Webster
- Server, though it looks as if it might have been that version's
- grandfather) is available by anonymous ftp from src.doc.ic.ac.uk
- in the directory media/literary/dictionaries . Roget's Thesaurus
- (1911 version, out of copyright) is available from
- mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu as pub/etext/etext91/roget13.txt .
- black.ox.ac.uk has Collins English Dictionary (1st edition)
- converted to a Prolog fact base; the Oxford Advanced Learner's
- Dictionary; and the MRC Psycholinguistic Database (150,837 word
- forms, expanded from the headwords in the Shorter Oxford, with info
- about 26 different linguistic properties). Read the conditions of
- use for the Oxford Text Archive materials before using; most texts
- are available for scholarly use and research only.
-
- General reference
- -----------------
-
- _The Oxford Companion to the English Language_ (ed. Tom McArthur,
- Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-214183-X) is an
- encyclopedia with a wealth of information on various dialects, on
- lexicography, and almost everything else except individual words
- and expressions. _Success With Words_ (Reader's Digest, 1983, ISBN
- 0-88850-117-X) is especially suitable for beginners.
-
- Books on linguistics
- --------------------
-
- David Crystal _The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language_ Cambridge
- University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-521-26438-3
-
- David Crystal _A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics_
- Blackwell, 1985, ISBN 0-631-14081-6
-
- William Bright, ed. _International Encyclopedia of Linguistics_
- 4 vols., Oxford University Press, 1992, ISBN 0-19-505196-3
-
- R. E. Asher, ed. _The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics_
- 10 vols., Pergamon, 1994, ISBN 0-08-035943-4
-
- Grammars
- --------
-
- Randolph Quirk et al. _A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
- Language_ Longman, 1985, ISBN 0-582-51734-6
-
- Otto Jespersen _A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles_
- 7 volumes, Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1909-1949.
-
- Books on usage
- --------------
-
- The best survey of the history of usage disputes and how
- they correlate with actual usage is Webster's Dictionary of English
- Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1989, ISBN 0-87779-032-9 (WDEU).
-
- Among conservative prescriptivists, the most highly respected
- usage book is the Dictionary of Modern English Usage, by H. W.
- Fowler -- 1st edition, 1926 (MEU); 2nd edition, revised by Sir
- Ernest Gowers, Oxford University Press, 1965, ISBN 0-19-281389-7
- (MEU2). Robert Burchfield (who edited the OED supplement) was
- supposedly working on a 3rd edition, although nothing seems to
- have come of this.
-
- _The Elements of Style_ by William Strunk and E. B. White
- (Macmillan, 3rd ed. 1979) and Wilson Follett's _Modern American
- Usage_ (Hill and Wang, 1966) have their partisans here, although
- they aren't as *widely* respected as Fowler.
-
- Liberals most often refer to the Dictionary of Contemporary
- American Usage, by Bergen Evans and Cornelia Evans (Random House,
- 1957, ISBN 0-8022-0973-4 -- out of print).
-
- Books that discriminate synonyms
- --------------------------------
-
- _Webster's New Dictionary of Synonyms_, Merriam-Webster, 1984,
- ISBN 0-87779-241-0
-
- Style manuals
- -------------
-
- _The Chicago Manual of Style_ (University of Chicago Press,
- 1982, ISBN 0-226-10390-0) covers manuscript preparation; copy-
- editing; proofs; rights and permissions; typography; and format
- of tables, captions, bibliographies, and indexes.
-
- Book on mathematical exposition
- -------------------------------
-
- Norman E. Steenrod, Paul R. Halmos, Menahem M. Schiffer, Jean A.
- Dieudonne _How to Write Mathematics_ American Mathematical
- Society, 1973, ISBN 0-8218-0055-8.
-
- Books on phrasal verbs
- ----------------------
-
- A. P. Cowie and Ronald Mackin _Oxford Dictionary of Current
- Idiomatic English: Verbs with Prepositions and Particles, Vol. I_
- OUP, 1975, ISBN 0-19-431145-7
-
- Rosemary Courtney _Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs_ Longman,
- 1983, ISBN 0-582-55530-2
-
- F. T. Wood _English Verbal Idioms_ London: Macmillan, 1966,
- ISBN 0-333-09673-8
-
- F. T. Wood _English Prepositional Idioms_ London: Macmillan, 1969,
- ISBN 0-333-10391-2
-
- Books on Britishisms, Canadianisms, etc.
- ----------------------------------------
-
- There are many *hundreds* of differences between British and
- American English. From time to time, we get threads in which
- each post mentions *one* of these differences. Because such a
- thread can go on for ever, it's helpful to delimit the topic
- more narrowly.
-
- The books to get are _The Hutchinson British/American Dictionary_
- by Norman Moss (Arrow, 1990, ISBN 0-09-978230-8); _British English,
- A to Zed_ by Norman W. Schur (Facts on File, 1987, ISBN
- 0-8160-1635-6); and _Modern American Usage_ by H. W. Horwill
- (OUP, 2nd ed., 1935).
-
- Jeremy Smith (jeremy@csos.orst.edu) has compiled his own
- British-American dictionary, available by anonymous ftp from
- ftp.csos.orst.edu as pub/networking/bigfun/usuk_dictionary.txt .
- He plans to publish it as a paperback.
-
- For Australian English, see _The Macquarie Dictionary of
- Australian Colloquial Language_ (Macquarie, 1988,
- ISBN 0-949757-41-1); _The Macquarie Dictionary_ (Macquarie, 1981,
- ISBN 0-949757-00-4); _The Australian National Dictionary_ (Oxford
- University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-19-55736-5); or _The Dinkum
- Dictionary_ (Viking O'Nell, 1988, ISBN 0-670-90419-8).
-
- For New Zealand English, there's the _Heinemann New Zealand
- Dictionary_, ed. H. W. Orseman (Heinemann, 1979, ISBN
- 0-86863-373-9); and _A Personal Kiwi-Yankee Slanguage Dictionary_,
- by Louis S. Leland Jr. (McIndoe, 1987, ISBN 0-86868-001-X).
-
- For South African English, see _A Dictionary of South African
- English_, ed. Jean Branford (OUP, 3rd ed., 1987, ISBN
- 0-19-570427-4).
-
- For Canadian English, see _A Dictionary of Canadianisms on
- Historical Principles_ (Gage, 1967, ISBN 0-7715-1976-1); the
- _Penguin Canadian Dictionary_ (Copp, 1990, ISBN 0-670-81970-0); or
- the _Gage Canadian Dictionary_ (Gage, 1982, ISBN 0-7715-9660-X).
-
- Books on phrase origins
- -----------------------
-
- Robert Hendrickson _The Henry Holt Encyclopedia of Word and
- Phrase Origins_ Henry Holt, 1987, ISBN 0-8050-1251-6
-
- Nigel Rees _Bloomsbury Dictionary of Phrase and Allusion_
- Bloomsbury, 1991, ISBN 0-7475-1217-5
-
- Christine Anmer _Have a Nice Day -- No Problem! : A
- Dictionary of Cliches_ Plume Penguin, 1992, ISBN
- 0-452-27004-9
-
- Ivor H. Evans, ed. _Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_
- Harper & Row, 1981, ISBN 0-02-418230-3
-
- Books on "bias-free"/"politically correct" language
- ---------------------------------------------------
-
- Rosalie Maggio _The Bias-Free Word Finder: A Dictionary of
- Nondiscriminatory Language_ Beacon, 1992, ISBN 0-8070-6003-8
-
- Nigel Rees _The Politically Correct Phrasebook: What They
- Say You Can and Cannot Say in the 1990s_ Bloomsbury, 1993,
- ISBN 0-7475-1426-7
-
- Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf _The Official Politically
- Correct Dictionary and Handbook_, Villard, 1993, ISBN
- 0-679-74944-6
-
- Books on group names
- --------------------
-
- James Lipton _An Exaltation of Larks_ Viking Penguin, 1991,
- ISBN 0-670-3044-6
-
- ====================================================================
-
- ARTIFICIAL DIALECTS
- -------------------
-
- Basic English
- -------------
-
- Basic English (where "Basic" stands for "British American
- Scientific International Commercial") is a subset of English with
- a base vocabulary of 850 words, propounded by C. K. Ogden in 1929.
- Look under "Ogden" in your library's author index if you're
- interested. (We're not.)
-
- E-prime
- -------
-
- E-prime is a subset of standard idiomatic English that eschews
- all forms of the verb "to be" (e.g., you can't say "You are an ass"
- or "You an ass", but you can say "You act like an ass"). The
- original reference is D. David Bourland, Jr., "A linguistic note:
- write in E-prime" _General Semantics Bulletin_, 1965/1966, 32 and
- 33, 60-61. Albert Ellis wrote a book in E-prime (_Sex and the
- Liberated Man_). You can also look at the April 1992 issue of the
- _Atlantic_ if you're interested. (We're not.) The following book
- contains articles both pro and con on E-Prime: _To Be or Not: An
- E-Prime Anthology_, ed. D. David Bourland and Paul D. Johnston,
- International Society for General Semantics, 1991, ISBN
- 0-918970-38-5.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- PRONUNCIATION
- -------------
-
- How to represent pronunciation in ASCII
- ---------------------------------------
-
- Beware of using ad hoc methods to indicate pronunciation. The
- problem with ad hoc methods is that they often wrongly assume your
- dialect to have certain features in common with the readers'
- dialect. You may pronounce "bother" to rhyme with "father"; some of
- the readers here don't. You may pronounce "cot" and "caught" alike;
- some of the readers here don't. You may pronounce "caught" and
- "court" alike; some of the readers here don't.
-
- The standard way to represent pronunciation (used in the latest
- British Dictionaries and by linguists worldwide) is the
- International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For a complete guide to
- the IPA, see _Phonetic Symbol Guide_ by Geoffrey K. Pullum and
- William A. Ladusaw (University of Chicago Press, 1986, ISBN
- 0-226-68532-2). IPA uses many special symbols; on the Net, where
- we're restricted to ASCII symbols, we must find a way to make do.
-
- The following scheme is due to Evan Kirshenbaum. I show here
- only examples for the sounds most often referred to in this
- newsgroup. The examples transcribe British Received Pronunciation
- (RP) except as noted. For Evan's complete scheme, illustrated
- with examples from U.S. English, see Evan's own regular posts here
- and to sci.lang, or send e-mail to Evan (kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com).
-
- The consonant symbols [b], [d], [f], [h], [k], [l], [m], [n], [p],
- [r], [s], [t], [v], [w], [z] have their usual English values.
-
- [A] = [<script a>] as in "calm" /kA:m/, French "bas" /bA/
- [A.] = [<turned script a>] as in "odd" /A.d/ (Not much used to
- transcribe U.S. pronunciation; the tendency is to use [A]
- or [O] instead.)
- [a] as in French "ami" /ami/, German "Mann" /man/, Italian "pasta"
- /'pasta/, Chicago "pop" /pap/, Boston "park" /pa:k/.
- Also in diphthongs: "dive" /daIv/, "out" /aUt/
- [C] = [<c cedilla>] as in German "ich" /IC/
- [D] = [<edh>] as in "this" /DIs/
- [E] = [<epsilon>] as in "end" /End/
- [e] as in "eight" /eIt/, "chaos" /'keA.s/
- [g] as in "get" /gEt/
- [I] = [<iota>] as in "it" /It/
- [I.] = [<small capital y>] as in German "Gl"uck" /glI.k/
- [i] as in "eat" /i:t/
- [j] as in "yes" /jEs/
- [N] = [<eng>] as in "hang" /h&N/
- [O] = [<open o>] as in "all" /O:l/, "oil" /OIl/
- [o] as in U.S. "old" /oUld/, French "beau" /bo/
- [R] = [<right-hook schwa>], equivalent to /@r/, /r-/, or even /V"r/
- [S] = [<esh>] as in "ship" /SIp/
- [T] = [<theta>] as in "thin" /TIn/
- [t!] = [<turned t>] as in "tsk-tsk" or "tut-tut" /t! t!/
- [U] = [<upsilon>] as in "pull" /pUl/
- [u] as in "ooze" /u:z/
- [V] = [<turned v>] as in "up" /Vp/
- [V"] = [<reversed epsilon>] as in "fern" /fV":n/ (rhotic /fV"rn/)
- [W] = [<o-e ligature>] as in French "heure" /Wr/,
- German "K"opfe" /'kWpf@/
- [x] as in Scots "loch" /lA.x/, German "Bach" /bax/
- [Y] = [<slashed o>] as in French "peu" /pY/, German "sch"on" /SYn/,
- Scots "guidwillie" /gYd'wIli/
- [y] as in French "lune" /lyn/, German "m"ude" /'myd@/
- [Z] = [<yogh>] as in "beige" /beIZ/
- [&] = [<ash>] as in "ash" /&S/
- [@] = [<schwa>] as in "lemon" /'lEm@n/
- [?] = [<glottal>] as in "uh-oh" /V?ou/
- [*] = [<fish-hook r>], a short tap of the tongue use by some U.S.
- speakers in "pedal", "petal", and by Scots speakers in
- "pearl": all /pE*@l/
- - previous consonant syllabic as in "bundle" /'bVnd@l/ or /'bVndl-/,
- "button" /bVt@n/ or /bVtn-/
- ~~ previous sound nasalized
- : previous sound lengthened
- ; previous sound palatalized
- ' following syllable has primary stress
- , following syllable has secondary stress
-
- Here is the scheme compared with the transcriptions in 4 U.S.
- dictionaries. (Most British dictionaries now use IPA for their
- transcriptions.)
-
- Merriam-Webster American Heritage Random House Webster's New World
-
- [A] a umlaut a umlaut a umlaut a umlaut
- [A.] (merged with [A]) o breve o (merged with [A])
- [a] a overdot (merged with [A]) A a overdot
- /AI/ i macron i macron i macron i macron
- /AU/ a u overdot ou ou ou
- [C] (merged with [x]) (merged with [x]) (merged with [x]) H
- [D] th underlined th in italics th slashed th in italics
- /dZ/ j j j j
- [E] e e breve e e
- /E@/ a schwa a circumflex a circumflex (merged with [e])
- /eI/ a macron a macron a macron a macron
- [g] g g g g
- [I] i i breve i i
- [I.] ue ligature (merged with [y]) (merged with [y]) (merged with [y])
- [i] e macron e macron e macron e macron
- [j] y y y y
- [N] <eng> ng ng <eng>
- [O] o overdot o circumflex o circumflex o circumflex
- /OI/ o overdot i oi oi oi ligature
- /oU/ o macron o macron o macron o macron
- [S] sh sh sh sh ligature
- [T] th th th th ligature
- /tS/ ch ch ch ch ligature
- [U] u overdot oo breve oo breve oo
- [u] u umlaut oo macron oo macron oo macron
- [V] (merged with [@]) u breve u u
- [V"] (merged with [@]) u circumflex u circumflex u circumflex
- [W] oe ligature oe ligature OE ligature o umlaut
- [x] k underlined KH KH kh ligature
- [Y] oe ligature macron (merged with [W]) (merged with [W]) (merged with [W])
- [y] ue ligature macron u umlaut Y u umlaut
- [Z] zh zh zh zh ligature
- [&] a a breve a a
- [@] schwa schwa schwa schwa
- - superscript schwa syllabicity mark unmarked '
-
- rhotic vs non-rhotic, intrusive "r"
- -----------------------------------
-
- A rhotic speaker is one who pronounces as a consonant postvocalic
- "r", i.e. the "r" after a vowel in words like "world" /wV"rld/. A
- nonrhotic speaker either does not pronounce the "r" at all /wV"ld/
- or pronounces it as a schwa /wV"@ld/. British Received
- Pronunciation (RP) and many other dialects of English are nonrhotic.
-
- Many nonrhotic speakers (including RP speakers, but excluding
- most nonrhotic speakers in the southern U.S.) use a "linking r" --
- they don't pronounce "r" in "for" by itself /fO/, but they do
- pronounce the first "r" in "for ever" /fO 'rEv@/. Linking "r"
- differs from French liaison in that the former happens in any
- phonetically appropriate context, whereas the latter also needs
- the right syntactic context.
-
- A further development of "linking r" is "intrusive r".
- Intrusive-r speakers, because the vowels in "law" (which they
- pronounce the same as "lore") and "idea" (which they pronounce
- to rhyme with "fear") are identical for them to vowels spelled
- with "r", intrude an r in such phrases as "law [r]and order" and
- "The idea [r]of it!" They do NOT intrude an [r] after vowels that
- are never spelled with an "r". Some people blanch at intrusive r,
- but most RP speakers now use it.
-
- Words pronounced differently according to context
- -------------------------------------------------
-
- There is a general tendency in English whereby when a word with a
- stressed final syllable is followed by another word without a pause,
- the stress moves forward: "kangaROO", but "KANGaroo court";
- "afterNOON", but "AFTernoon nap"; "above BOARD", but "an aBOVEboard
- deal". This happens chiefly in noun phrases, but not exclusively so
- ("acquiESCE" versus "ACquiesce readily"). Consider also "Chinese"
- and all numbers ending in "-teen".
-
- When "have to" means "must", the [v] in "have" becomes an [f].
- Similarly, in "has to", [z] becomes [s]. When "used to" and
- "supposed to" are used in their senses of "formerly" and "ought",
- the "-sed" is pronounced /st/; when they're used in other senses,
- it's /zd/.
-
- In many dialects, "the" is pronounced /D@/ before a consonant,
- and /DI/ before a vowel. Many foreigners learning English are
- taught this rule explicitly. Native English speakers are also
- taught this rule when we sing in choirs. (We do it instinctively in
- rapid speech; but in the slower pace of singing, it has to be
- brought to our conscious attention.)
-
- Words whose spelling has influenced their pronunciation
- -------------------------------------------------------
-
- "Cocaine" used to be pronounced /'cocain/ (3 syllables).
- "Waistcoat" used to be pronounced /'wEskIt/. "Humble" and "human"
- were borrowed from French with no [h] in their pronunciation.
-
- "Zoo" is an abbreviation of "zoological garden". The (popular
- but stigmatized) pronunciation of "zoological" as /zu@'lA.dZik@l/
- (as opposed to /zo@'lA.dZik@l/) is due to the influence of "zoo".
-
- "Elephant" was "olifaunt" in Middle English, but its spelling was
- restored to reflect the Latin "elephantus". Similarly, "crocodile"
- was "cokedrill".
-
- "Golf" is Scots. The traditional Scots pronunciation is /gof/.
- "Ralph" was traditionally pronounced /ref/ in Britain -- Gilbert and
- Sullivan rhymed it with "waif" in _H.M.S. Pinafore_; that's how the
- composer Ralph Vaughan Williams pronounced his name; and even today
- actor Ralph Fiennes (of _Schindler's List_ fame) is said to
- pronounce his name /ref faInz/.
-
- "Medicine" and "regiment" were two-syllable words in the 19th
- century: /'mEdsIn/ and /'rEdZm@nt/. /'mEdsIn/ can still be heard
- in RP.
-
- King Arthur would have pronounced his name /'artur/.
-
- The new pronunciations in such cases are called "spelling
- pronunciations". The "speak-as-you-spell movement" is described in
- the MEU2 article on "pronunciation".
-
- ====================================================================
-
- USAGE DISPUTES
- --------------
-
- "acronym"
- ---------
-
- Strictly, an acronym is a string of initial letters pronounceable
- as a word, such as "NATO". Abbreviations like "NBC" have been
- variously designated "alphabetisms" and "initialisms", although some
- people do call them acronyms. WDEU says, "Dictionaries, however,
- do not make this distinction [between acronyms and initialisms]
- because writers in general do not"; but two or the best known books
- on acronyms are titled _Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations
- Dictionary_ (19th ed., Gale 1993) and _Concise Dictionary of
- Acronyms and Initialisms_ (Facts on File, 1988).
-
-
- "alright"
- ---------
-
- The spelling "alright" is recorded from 1887. It was defended
- by Fowler (in one of the Society for Pure English tracts, not in
- MEU), on the analogy of "almighty" and "altogether", and on the
- grounds that "The answers are alright" (= "The answers are O.K.") is
- less ambiguous than "The answers are all right" (which could mean
- "All the answers are right".) But it is still widely condemned.
-
- "between you and I"
- -------------------
-
- The prescriptive rule is to use "you and I" in the same contexts
- as "I", and "you and me" in the same contexts as "me". But English
- speakers have a tendency to regard such compounds as units, so that
- some speakers use "you and me" exclusively, and others use "you and
- I" exclusively, although such practices "have no place in modern
- edited prose" (WDEU). "Between you and I" was used by Shakespeare
- in _The Merchant of Venice_. Since this antedates the teaching of
- English grammar, it is probably NOT "hypercorrection". (This is
- mentioned merely to caution against the hypercorrection theory, not
- to defend the phrase.) Shakespeare also used "between you and me".
-
- "could care less"
- -----------------
-
- The idiom "couldn't care less", meaning "doesn't care at all"
- (the meaning in full is "cares so little that he couldn't possibly
- care less"), originated in Britain around 1940. "Could care less",
- which is used with the same meaning, developed in the U.S. around
- 1960. We get disputes about whether the latter was originally a
- mis-hearing of the former; whether it was originally ironic; or
- whether it arose from uses where the negative element was separated
- from "could" ("None of these writers could care less...") Meaning-
- saving elaborations have also been suggested, e.g., "If I cared even
- one iota -- which I don't --, then I could care less"; "I could care
- less, but I'd have to try."
-
- An earlier transition in which "not" was dropped was the one that
- gave us "but" in the sense of "only". ("I will not say but one
- word", where "but" meant "(anything) except", became "I will say but
- one word.")
-
- Other idioms that say the opposite of what they mean include:
- "head over heels" (which could mean turning cartwheels, i.e. "head
- over heels over head over heels", but is also used to mean "upside-
- down", i.e. "heels over head"); "Don't sneeze more than you can
- help", (meaning "more than you cannot help"; "help" here means
- "prevent"); "It's hard to open, much less acknowledge, the letters"
- (where "less" means "harder", i.e. "more"); "I shouldn't wonder if
- it didn't rain"; "I miss not seeing you"; and "I turned my life
- around 360 degrees" -- not to mention undisputedly ironic phrases
- like "fat chance", "Thanks a *lot*", and "I should worry".
-
- "different to", "different than"
- --------------------------------
-
- "Different from" is the construction that no one will object to.
- "Different to" is fairly common informally in Britain, but rare in
- the U.S. "Different than" is sometimes used to avoid the cumbersome
- "different from that which", etc. (e.g. "a very different Pamela
- than I used to leave all company and pleasure for" -- Samuel
- Richardson). Some U.S. speakers use "different than" exclusively.
- Some people have insisted on "different from" on the grounds that
- "from" is required after "to differ". But Fowler points out that
- there are many other adjectives that do not conform to the
- construction of their parent verbs (e.g., "accords with", but
- "according to"; "derogates from", but "derogatory to").
-
- double "is"
- -----------
-
- Double "is", as in "The reason is, is that..." is a recent U.S.
- development, much decried. Of course, "What this is, is..." is
- undisputedly correct.
-
- "due to"
- --------
-
- "Due to" meaning "caused by" is undisputedly correct in contexts
- where "due" can be construed as an adjective (e.g., "failure due to
- carelessness"). Its use in contexts where "due" is an adverb
- ("He failed due to carelessness") has been disputed. Fowler says
- that "_due to_ is often used by the illiterate as though it had
- passed, like _owing to_, into a mere compound preposition". But
- Fowler was writing in 1926; what hadn't happened then may well
- have happened by now.
-
- Gender-neutral pronouns
- -----------------------
-
- Singular "they" (as in "Everyone was blowing their nose"), which
- has been used in English since the time of Chaucer, has gained
- popularity recently as a result of the move towards gender-neutral
- language. Prescriptive grammarians have traditionally (since 1795,
- although the actual practice goes right back to 1200) prescribed
- "Everyone was blowing his nose."
-
- Proposals for other gender-neutral pronouns get made from time to
- time, and some can be found in actual use ("sie" and "hir" are
- the ones most frequently found on Usenet). Cecil Adams, in _Return
- of the Straight Dope_ (Ballantine, 1994, ISBN 0-345-38111-4) says
- that some eighty such terms have been proposed, the first of them in
- the 1850s.
-
- Discussions about gender-neutral pronouns tend to go round and
- round and never reach a conclusion. Please refrain.
-
- (We also get disputes about the use of the word "gender" in the
- sense of "sex", i.e. whether a human being is male or female.
- This also dates from the 14th century. By 1900 it was restricted
- to jocular use, but has now been revived because of the "sexual
- relations" sense of "sex".)
-
- "hopefully", "thankfully"
- -------------------------
-
- The OED's first citation for "hopefully" in the passive sense
- (= "It is to be hoped that") is from 1932, but no unmistakable
- citation has been found between then and 1954. (WDEU has three
- ambiguous citations dated 1941, 1951, and 1954.) WDEU's first
- citation for the passive sense of "thankfully" (= "We can be
- thankful that") is from 1963. These uses became popular in the
- early '60s, and have been widely criticized on the grounds that
- they should have been "hopably" and "thankably" (on the analogy of
- "predictably", "regrettably", "inexplicably", etc.). You'll find
- "hopefully" defended in "Mathematical Writing", a set of lecture
- notes from one of Knuth's courses.
-
- The disputed, passive use of "hopefully" is often referred to as
- "sentence-modifying"; but it can also modify a single word, as is
- hopefully clear from this example. :-)
-
- Discussions about these words go round and round for ever without
- reaching a conclusion. We advise you to refrain.
-
- "It's me" vs "It is I"
- ----------------------
- (freely adapted from an article by Roger Lustig)
-
- Fowler says: "_me_ is technically wrong in _It wasn't me_ etc.;
- but the phrase being of its very nature colloquial, such a lapse is
- of no importance".
-
- The rule for what he and others consider technically right is
- *not* (as is commonly misstated) that the nominative should *always*
- be used after "to be". Rather, it is that "to be" should link two
- noun phrases of the same case, whether this be nominative or
- accusative:
-
- I believe that he is I. Who do you believe that he is?
- I believe him to be me. Whom do you believe him to be?
-
- According to the traditional grammar being used here, "to be" is not
- a transitive verb, but a *copulative* verb. When you say that A is
- B, you don't imply that A, by being B, is doing something to B.
- (After all, B is also doing it to A.) Other verbs considered
- copulative are "to become", "to remain", "to seem", and "to look".
-
- Sometimes in English, though, "to be" does seem to have the
- force of a transitive verb; e.g., in Gelett Burgess's:
-
- I never saw a Purple Cow,
- I never hope to see one;
- But I can tell you, anyhow,
- I'd rather see than be one.
-
- The occurrence of "It's me", etc., is no doubt partly due to this
- perceived transitive force. In the French _C'est moi_, often cited
- as analogous, _moi_ is not in the accusative, but a special form
- known as the "disjunctive", used for emphasis. If _etre_ were a
- transitive verb in French, _C'est moi_ would be _Ce m'est_.
-
- In languages like German and Latin that inflect between the
- nominative and the accusative, B in "A is B" is nominative just like
- A. In English, no nouns and only a few personal pronouns ("I",
- "we", "thou", "he", "she", "they" and "who") inflect between the
- nominative and the accusative. In other words, we've gotten out of
- the habit, for the most part.
-
- Also, in English we derive meaning from word position, far more
- than one would in Latin, somewhat more than in German, even. In
- those languages, one can rearrange sentences drastically for
- rhetorical or other purposes without confusion (heh) because
- inflections (endings, etc.) tell you how the words relate to one
- another. In English, "The dog ate the cat" and "The cat ate the
- dog" are utterly different in meaning, and if we wish to have the
- former meaning with "cat" prior to "dog" in the sentence, we have to
- say "The cat was eaten by the dog" (change of voice) or "It is the
- cat that the dog ate." In German, one can reverse the meaning by
- inflecting the word (or its article): _Der Hund ass die Katze_ and
- _Den Hund ass die Katze_ reverse the meaning of who ate whom.
- In Latin, things are even more flexible: almost any word order will
- do:
- Feles edit canem
- Feles canem edit
- Canem edit feles
- Canem feles edit
- Edit canem feles
- Edit feles canem
- all mean the same, the choice of word order being made perhaps for
- rhetorical or poetic purpose.
-
- English is pretty much the opposite of that: hardly any
- inflection, great emphasis on order. As a result, things have
- gotten a little irregular with the personal pronouns. And there's
- uncertainty as to how to use them; the usual rules aren't there,
- because the usual word needs no rules, being the same for nominative
- and accusative.
-
- The final factor is the traditional use of Latin grammatical
- concepts to teach English grammar. This historical quirk dates to
- the 17th century, and has never quite left us. From this we get the
- Latin-derived rule, which Fowler still acknowledges. And we *do*
- follow that rule to some extent: "Who are they?" (not "Who are
- them?" or "Whom are they?") "We are they!" (in response to the
- preceding) "It is I who am at fault." "That's the man who
- he is."
-
- But not always. "It is me" is attested since the 16th Century.
- (Speakers who would substitute "me" for "I" in the "It is I who am
- at fault" example would also sacrifice the agreement of person, and
- substitute "is" for "am".)
-
- "less" vs "fewer"
- ----------------
-
- The rule usually encountered is: use "fewer" for things you
- count (individually), and "less" for things you measure: "fewer
- apples", "less water". Since "less" is also used as an adverb
- ("less successful"), "fewer" helps to distinguish "fewer successful
- professionals" (fewer professionals who are successful) from "less
- successful professionals" (professionals who are less successful).
- "Less" has been used in the sense of "fewer" since the time of King
- Alfred the Great, and is still common in that sense, especially
- informally in the U.S., but in Fowler's day it was so rare in
- British English that he didn't even mention it.
-
- "more/most/very unique"
- -----------------------
-
- Fowler and other conservatives urge restricting the meaning
- of "unique" to "having no like or equal". (OED says "in this sense,
- readopted from French at the end of the 18th Century and regarded as
- a foreign word down to the middle of the 19th.") Used in this
- sense, it is an incomparable: either something is "unique" or it
- isn't, and there can be no degrees of uniqueness. Those who use
- phrases like "more unique", "most unique", and "very unique"
- are using "unique" in the weaker sense of "unusual, distinctive".
-
- "none is" vs "none are"
- -----------------------
-
- With mass nouns, you have to use the singular. ("None of the
- wheat is...") With count nouns, you can use either the singular or
- the plural. ("None of the books is..." or "None of the books
- are...") Usually, the plural sounds more natural, unless you're
- trying to emphasize the idea of "not one", or if the words that
- follow work better in the singular.
-
- The fullest (prescriptive) treatment is in Eric Partridge's book
- _Usage and Abusage_ (Penguin, 1970, 0-14-051024-9). In the original
- edition Partridge had prescribed the singular in certain cases, but
- a rather long-winded letter from a correspondent persuaded him to
- retract.
-
- Plurals of Latin/Greek words
- ----------------------------
-
- Not all Latin words ending in "-us" had plurals in "-i".
- "Apparatus", "hiatus", "impetus", "nexus", "plexus", "prospectus",
- and "status" were 4th declension in Latin, and had plurals in "-us"
- with a long "u". "Corpus", "genus", and "opus" were 3rd declension,
- with plurals "corpora", "genera", and "opera". "Omnibus" and
- "rebus" were not nominative nouns in Latin. "Ignoramus" was not a
- noun in Latin. "Caucus" and "syllabus" were not Latin words.
-
- Not all classical words ending in "-a" had plurals in "-ae".
- "Anathema", "aroma", "bema", "carcinoma", "charisma", "diploma",
- "dogma", "drama", "edema", "enema", "enigma", "lemma", "lymphoma",
- "magma", "melisma", "miasma", "sarcoma", "schema", "soma", "stigma",
- "stoma", and "trauma" are from Greek, where they had plurals in
- "-ata". "Quota" was not a noun in Latin. (It comes from the
- Latin expression _quota pars_, where _quota_ is the feminine
- form of an interrogative pronoun meaning "what number". In *that*
- use, it did have plural _quotae_, but in English the only plural
- is "quotas".)
-
- If in doubt, consult a dictionary (or use the English plural in
- "-s" or "-es"). One plural that you *will* find in U.S.
- dictionaries, "octopi", raises the ire of purists (the Greek plural
- is "octopodes").
-
- The classical-style plurals of "penis" and "clitoris" are "penes"
- /'piniz/ and "clitorides" /klI'tOrIdiz/.
-
- Foreign plurals => English singulars
- ------------------------------------
-
- Some uses of classical plurals as singulars in English are
- undisputed: "opera", "stamina". "Agenda" once excited controversy
- but is now accepted. Others are the subject of current controversy:
- "data" (used by Winston Churchill!), "erotica", "insignia", "media",
- "regalia", "trivia". Yet others are still widely stigmatized:
- "bacteria", "candelabra", "criteria", "curricula", "phenomena",
- "strata".
-
- "Bona fides", "kudos", and "minutia" are singulars in Latin or
- Greek.
-
- "Graffiti" (plural in Italian) is disputed in English. But
- "zucchini" (also plural in Italian) is always the singular form in
- English (the English plural is "zucchinis"). The names of types
- of pasta (cannelloni, cappelletti, ditali, fettucini, fusilli,
- gnocchi, linguini, macaroni, manicotti, ravioli, rigati, rigatoni,
- spaghetti, spaghettini, tagliarini, tortellini, vermicelli, ziti)
- are treated as mass nouns in English: they take singular verbs,
- but plurals are not made from them.
-
- Preposition at end
- ------------------
-
- Yes, yes, we've all heard the following anecdotes:
-
- (1) Winston Churchill was editing a proof of one of his books, when
- he noticed that an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill's
- sentences so that it wouldn't end with a preposition. Churchill
- scribbled in the margin, "This is the sort of English up with which
- I will not put." (This is often quoted with "arrant nonsense"
- substituted for "English", or with other variations. The Oxford
- English Dictionary cites Sir Ernest Gowers' _Plain Words_ (1948),
- where the anecdote begins, "It is said that Churchill..."; so we
- don't know exactly what Churchill wrote.)
-
- (2) The Guinness Book of (World) Records used to have a category
- for "most prepositions at end". The incumbent record was a sentence
- put into the mouth of a boy who didn't want to be read excerpts from
- a book about Australia as a bedtime story: "What did you bring that
- book that I don't want to be read to from out of about 'Down Under'
- up for?" Mark Brader (msb@sq.com -- all this is to the best of his
- recollection; he didn't save the letter, and doesn't have access to
- the British editions) wrote to Guinness, asking: "What did you say
- that the sentence with the most prepositions at the end was 'What
- did you bring that book that I don't want to be read to from out of
- about "Down Under" up for?' for? The preceding sentence has one
- more." Norris McWhirter replied, promising to include this
- improvement in the next British edition, but actually it seems that
- Guinness, no doubt eventually realising that this could be done
- recursively, dropped the category.
-
- (3) "Excuse me, where is the library at?"
- "Here at Hahvahd, we never end a sentence with a preposition."
- "O.K. Excuse me, where is the library at, *asshole*?"
-
- Fowler and nearly every other respected prescriptivist see
- NOTHING wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition; Fowler
- calls it a "superstition". ("Never end a sentence with a
- preposition" is how the superstition is usually stated, although it
- would "naturally" extend to any placement of a preposition later
- than the noun or pronoun it governs.) Indeed, Fowler considers "a
- good land to live in" grammatically superior to "a good land in
- which to live", since one cannot say *"a good land which to
- inhabit".
-
- Repeated words after abbreviations
- ----------------------------------
-
- Disputes occur about the legitimacy of placing after an acronym/
- initialism the last word that is abbreviated in it, e.g., "AC
- current", "the HIV virus". "AC" and "HIV" by themselves will
- certainly suffice in most contexts. But such collocations tend to
- become regarded as irreducible and uninterpretable words. "The
- SNOBOL language" and "BASIC code" are as good as "the BASIC
- language" and "SNOBOL code"; and why should "an LED display" be
- reasonable, but not "an LCD display"?
-
- "shall" vs "will", "should" vs "would"
- --------------------------------------
-
- The traditional rules for using these (based on the usage of
- educated Southern Englishmen in the 18th and 19th centuries) are
- quite intricate, and require some choices ("Should you like to see
- London?"; "The doctor thought I should die") that are no longer
- idiomatically reasonable. But if you're dead set on learning them,
- they're set out in _The King's English_, by Fowler and Fowler
- (OUP, 1931, ISBN 0-19-881330-9). Usage outside England has always
- been different: the old joke, where the Irishman cries for help:
- "I will drown and no one shall save me" and the Englishman mistakes
- this for a suicide resolution, is contrived, in that an Irishman
- would far more likely say "no one will save me."
-
- "that" vs "which"
- -----------------
-
- In "The family that prays together stays together", the clause
- "that prays together" is called a RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE because it
- restricts the main statement to a limited class of family. In
- "The family, which is the basic unit of human society, is
- weakening", "which ... society" is called a NONRESTRICTIVE CLAUSE
- because it makes an additional assertion about the family without
- restricting the main statement.
-
- It is generally agreed that nonrestrictive clauses should be
- set off by commas; restrictive clauses, not. Nonrestrictive
- clauses are now nearly always introduced by "which" or "who"
- (although "that" was common in earlier centuries). Fowler
- encourages us to begin restrictive clauses with "that"; but this
- is not a binding rule (although some copy-editors do go on "which
- hunts"), and indeed is not possible if a preposition is to precede
- the relative pronoun.
-
- the the "hoi polloi" debate
- ---------------------------
-
- Yes, "hoi" means "the" in Greek, but the first 5 citations in the
- OED, and the most famous use of this phrase in English (in Gilbert
- and Sullivan's operetta _Iolanthe_), put "the" in front of "hoi".
- This is not a unique case: words like "alchemy", "alcohol",
- "algebra", "alligator", and "lacrosse" incorporate articles from
- other languages, but can still be prefixed in English with "the".
- "The El Alamein" (a World War II battle in El Alamein, Egypt)
- contains THREE articles.
-
- you saying
- ----------
-
- In "You saying you're sorry alters the case", the subject of
- "alters" is not "you", since the verb is singular. Fowler called
- this construction the "fused participle", and recommended "Your
- saying..." instead. The fused participle *can* lead to ambiguity:
- does "Citizens participating helped the project" mean "Those
- citizens who participated helped the project", or "The fact that
- citizens participated helped the project"? (Placing commas
- around "participating" would yield a third meaning.) Appending an
- apostrophe to "citizens" would make the second meaning clear.
-
- Other commentators have been less critical of the fused
- participle than Fowler. Jespersen traces the construction as the
- last in a series of developments where gerunds, which originally
- functioned strictly as nouns, have taken on more and more verb-like
- properties ("the showing of mercy" => "showing of mercy" => "showing
- mercy"). Partridge defends the construction by citing lexical
- noun-plus-gerund compounds. In most of these (e.g.,
- "time-sharing"), the noun functions as the object of the gerund, but
- in some recent compounds (e.g., "machine learning"), it functions as
- the subject.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- PUNCTUATION
- -----------
-
- "." after abbreviations
- -----------------------
-
- Fowler recommends putting a "." only after abbreviations that do
- not include the last letter of the word they're abbreviating, e.g.,
- "Capt." for captain but "Cpl" for corporal. In some English-
- speaking countries, many people follow this rule, but not in the
- U.S., where "Mr." and "Dr." prevail.
-
- ", vs ,"
- --------
-
- In the days when printing used raised bits of metal, "." and
- "," were the most delicate, and tended to lose their moorings
- if they had a '"' on one side and a blank space on the other.
- Hence the convention arose of always using '."' and ',"' rather
- than '".' and '",', regardless of logic.
-
- Fowler was a strong advocate of logical placement of punctuation
- marks, i.e. only placing them inside the quotation marks if they
- were part of the quoted matter. This scheme has gained ground,
- and is especially popular among computer users, and others who
- wish to make clear exactly what is and what is not being quoted.
-
- Some people insist that '."' and ',"' LOOK better, but Fowler
- calls them "really mere conservatives, masquerading only as
- aesthetes".
-
- "A, B and C" vs "A, B, and C"
- -----------------------------
-
- This is known as the "serial comma" dispute. Both styles are
- common. The latter form (recommended by Fowler, and more common in
- the U.S. than elsewhere) may assist clarity in passages like "I
- ordered sandwiches today. I ordered turkey, salami, peanut butter
- and jelly, and roast beef." Without that last comma, one would have
- a MIGHTY weird sandwich! -- Gabe Wiener. James Pierce says that an
- author whose custom it was *not* to use the comma dedicated a novel:
- "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God."
-
- ====================================================================
-
- FOREIGNERS' FAQS
- ----------------
-
- Non-native speakers are often unnecessarily cautious in their use
- of English. Someone once posted to alt.usage.english from Japan,
- asking, "What is the correct thing to say if one is being assaulted:
- 'Help!' or 'Help me!'?" Not only are they both correct; there was
- a whole slew of responses asking, "Why the heck would you worry
- about correctness at a time like that?"
-
- It may happen that your post's greatest departure from English
- idiom is something unrelated to what you are asking about. If you
- like, say "Please correct any errors in this post"; otherwise, those
- who answer you may out of politeness refrain from offering a
- correction.
-
- Although not so stratified as some languages, English does have
- different stylistic levels. In a popular song, you may hear: "It
- don't make much difference." When speaking to a friend, you will
- probably want to say: "It doesn't make much difference." If you
- are writing a formal report, you may want to render it as: "It
- makes little difference." So it's helpful if when posting, you
- specify the stylistic level that you're enquiring about.
-
- If you prefer to make a query by e-mail, rather than posting to
- the whole Net, you can send it to the Purdue University Online
- Writing Lab. Send e-mail to "owl@sage.cc.purdue.edu".
-
- "a"/"an" before abbreviations
- -----------------------------
-
- "A" is used before words beginning with consonants; "an", before
- words beginning with vowels. This is determined by sound, not
- spelling ("a history", "an hour", "a unit", "a European", "a one").
- Formerly, "an" was usual before unaccented syllables beginning with
- "h" ("an historian", "an hotel"); these are "now obsolescent" in
- British English (Collins English Dictionary), although "an
- historian" is retained in more dialects than "an hotel".
-
- Before abbreviations, the choice of "a"/"an" depends on how
- the abbreviation is pronounced: "a NATO spokesman" (because "NATO"
- is pronounced /'neItoU/); "an NBC spokesman" (because "NBC" is
- pronounced /Enbi'si/) "a NY spokesman" (because "NY" is read as
- "New York (state)").
-
- A problem: how can a foreigner *tell* whether a particular
- abbreviation is pronounced as a word or not? Two non-foolproof
- guidelines:
-
- (1) It's more likely to be an acronym if it *looks* as if it could
- be an English word. "NATO" and "scuba" do; "UCLA" and "NAACP"
- don't.
-
- (2) It's more likely to be an acronym if it's a *long* sequence of
- letters. "US" is short; "EBCDIC" is too bloody long to say as
- "E-B-C-D-I-C". (But of course, abbreviations that can be broken
- down into groups, like "TCP/IP" and "AFL-CIO", are spelled out
- because the groups are short enough.)
-
- Is it "a FAQ" or "an FAQ"? Either is acceptable. "FAQ" is more
- likely to be mentally expanded to "frequently asked question" if
- you're talking about a *particular* (frequently asked) question
- than if you're talking about "an FAQ file".
-
- "A number of..."
- ----------------
-
- "A number of ..." always takes the plural. In "A number
- of employees were present", it's the employees who were present, not
- the number. "A number of" is just a fuzzy quantifier.
-
- On the other hand, "the number of..." always takes the singular:
- "The number of employees who were present was small." Here, it's
- the number that was small, not the employees.
-
- When to use "the"
- -----------------
-
- This is often quite tricky for those learning English. Somebody
- recommended a book, but I didn't save the posting. :-(
-
- The article "the" before a noun generally indicates one specific
- instance of the object named. For example, "I went to the school"
- refers to one school. (The context should establish which school
- is meant.) Such examples have the same meaning across most (all?)
- dialects of English.
-
- The construct <preposition><noun>, with no intervening article,
- often refers to a state of being rather than to an instance
- of the object named by the noun. The set of commonly used
- preposition-noun combinations varies from one dialect to another.
- Some examples are:
- I went to bed = I retired for the night. Even if I had the
- habit of sleeping on the floor, I would still say "I went
- to bed" and not "I went to floor".
- She is at university (Brit.) = She is in college (U.S.) = She
- is a student, enrolled in a particular type of tertiary
- institution. This sentence does not imply that she is now
- physically present on the campus.
- He was taken to hospital (Brit.) = He was hospitalized. (A
- U.S. speaker might say "to the hospital" even if there
- were several hospitals in the area.)
-
- Subjunctive
- -----------
-
- Present Subjunctive
-
- The present subjunctive is the same in form as the infinitive
- without "to". This is also the same form as the present indicative,
- except in the third person singular and in forms of the verb "to
- be".
-
- The present subjunctive is used:
-
- (1) in third-person commands: "Help, somebody save me!" Most third-
- person commands (although not those addressed to "somebody") are
- now prefixed with "let" instead. The following (current but
- set) formulas would probably use "let" if they were being
- coined today: "So be it"; "Manners be hanged!"; "... be
- damned"; "Be it known that..."; "Far be it from me to...";
- "Suffice it to say that..."
-
- (2) in third person wishes. Most third-person wishes are now
- prefixed with "may" instead, as would the following formulas be:
- "God save the Queen!"; "God bless you"; "God help you"; "Lord
- love a duck"; "Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy
- will be done."; "Heaven forbid!"; "The Devil take him!"; "Long
- live the king!"; "Perish the thought!"
-
- (3) in formulas where it means "No matter how..." or "Even if...":
- "Come what may, ..."; "Be that as it may, ..."; "Though all
- care be exercised..."; "Be he ever so..."
-
- (4) after "that" clauses to introduce a situation that the actor
- wants to bring about. Used to introduce a formal motion ("I move
- that Mr. Smith be appointed chairman"); after verbs like
- "demand", "insist", "propose", "prefer", "recommend", "resolve",
- "suggest"; and after phrases like "it is advisable/desirable/
- essential/fitting/imperative/important/necessary/urgent/vital
- that". "Should" can also be used in such clauses. This use of
- the subjunctive had become archaic in Britain in the first half
- of the 20th century, but has been revived under U.S. influence.
- Note the difference between "It is important that America has
- an adequate supply of hydrogen bombs" (America has an adequate
- supply of H-bombs, and this is important) and "It is important
- that America have an adequate supply of hydrogen bombs" (America
- probably *lacks* an adequate supply, and must acquire one).
-
- (5) after "lest". "Should" can also be used after "lest". After
- the synonymous "in case", the plain indicative is usual.
-
- (6) "Come...", meaning "When ... comes"
-
- Past Subjunctive
-
- The past subjunctive is the same in form as the past indicative,
- except in the past subjunctive singular of "to be", which is "were"
- instead of "was".
-
- The past subjunctive is used:
-
- (1) for counterfactual conditionals: "If I were..." or
- (literary) "Were I..." In informal English, substitution of
- the past indicative form ("If I was...") is common. But note
- that speakers who make this substitution are *still*
- distinguishing possible conditions from counterfactual ones,
- by a change of tense:
-
- Present Past
-
- Possible condition: "If I am" "If I was"
-
- Counterfactual condition: "If I were/was" "If I had been"
-
- "As if" and "as though" were originally always used to introduce
- counterfactuals, but are now often used in "looks as if",
- "sounds as though", etc., to introduce things that the speaker
- actually believes ("It looks as if" = "It appears that"). In
- such cases the present indicative is often used.
-
- Fowler says that there is no "sequence of moods" requirement in
- English: it's "if I were to say that I was wrong", not "if I
- were to say that I were wrong".
-
- (2) for counterfactual wishes: "I wish I were..."; "If only I
- were..."; (archaic) "Would that I were...". Again, substitution
- of the past indicative is common informally. Achievable wishes
- are usually expressed with various verbs plus the infinitive:
- "I wish to...", "I'd like you to..."
-
- (3) in literary English, sometimes to introduce the apodosis
- ("then" part) of a conditional: "then I were" = "then I would
- be".
-
- (4) in "as it were" (a formula indicating that the previous
- expression was coined for the occasion or was not quite
- precise -- literally, "as if it were so").
-
- ====================================================================
-
- WORD ORIGINS
- ------------
-
- "bug"="defect"
- --------------
-
- The 1947 incident often related by Grace Hopper, in which a
- technician solved a glitch in the Harvard Mark II computer by
- pulling a moth out from between the contacts of one of its relays,
- *did* happen. However, the log entry ("first actual case of bug
- being found") indicates that this is *not* the *origin* of this
- sense of "bug". It was used in 1899 in a reference to Thomas
- Edison. It may come from "bug" in the sense of "frightful object",
- which seems to be related to "bugbear" and "bogey", and goes back to
- 1588. See the Jargon File.
-
- "Caesarian section"
- -------------------
-
- The OED erroneously states that Julius Caesar was born by
- Caesarean section. But Caesarean section was always fatal in
- antiquity, and Julius' mother is known to have survived. "Caesarian
- section" may have been coined by someone who THOUGHT that Caesar was
- born this way; it may come from an order (Lex Caesarea) of the
- Caesars of Imperial Rome that any pregnant woman dying at or near
- term was to be delivered by C-section; or it may simply come from
- Latin _caedo_ "I cut".
-
- "canola"
- --------
-
- "Canola" is defined as "any of several varieties of the rape
- plant having seeds that contain no more than 5% erucic acid and no
- more than 3 mg per gram of glucosinolate". If you ever come across
- rapeseed oil that is *not* canola, I would avoid it, because erucic
- acid causes heart lesions, and glucosinolates cause thyroid
- enlargement and poor feed conversion!
- Rape plants have been an important source of edible oil for
- almost 4000 years. Canola was developed after World War II by two
- Canadian scientists, Baldur Stefansson and Richard Downey.
- "Canola" is variously explained as standing for "Canada oil, low
- acid", and as a blend of "Canada" and "colza". I imagine that
- "Mazola" (a brand name for corn [= "maize"] oil) had an influence.
- "Canola" was originally a trademark in Canada, but is now a
- generic term. It's the only term now in use here; some sources do
- say that canola was "formerly called rape".
- "Designer eggs", low-cholesterol eggs developed at the University
- of Alberta, are produced by adding canola and flax to the hens'
- diet.
-
- "crap"
- ------
-
- "Crap" does not derive from Thomas Crapper. Thomas Crapper
- (1837-1910) did exist and did make toilets. (At least 3 authors
- have gone into print asserting he was a hoax, but you can see some
- of his toilets at the Gladstone Pottery Museum, Uttoxeter Road,
- Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire ST3 1TQ, U.K.; phone
- +44 782 3113 78.) The word "crap" was imported into English from
- Dutch in the 15th century, with the meaning "chaff". It is
- recorded in the sense of "to defecate" from 1846; Thomas Crapper
- did not set up his business until 1861. Also, Thomas Crapper did
- not "invent" the flush toilet (the ancient Minoans had them); he
- merely improved the design.
-
- "fuck"
- ------
-
- "Fuck" does NOT stand for "for unlawful carnal knowledge" or
- "fornication under consent of the king". It is not an acronym for
- anything at all. It is a very old word, recorded in England since
- the 15th century (few acronyms pre-date the 20th century), with
- cognates in other Germanic languages (Middle Dutch _fokken_ = "to
- breed (cattle)"; Swedish dialect _fokka_ = "to copulate"). It may
- ultimately derive from the same root as "pugilist".
-
- "hooker"
- --------
-
- Contrary to what you may have read in Xaviera Hollander's book
- _The Happy Hooker_, the "prostitute" sense of "hooker" does NOT
- derive from Joseph "Fighting Joe" Hooker (1814-1879), a major
- general on the Union side of the U.S. civil war, whose men were
- alleged to frequent brothels. "Hooker" in this sense goes back to
- 1845 (see AHD3); the U.S. Civil War did not begin until 1861. It
- may come from the earlier sense of "thief" (which goes back to 1567,
- "to hook" meaning to steal), or it may refer to prostitutes' linking
- arms with their clients. A geographical Hook (Corlear's Hook in New
- York City, or the Hook of Holland) is also possible.
-
- "kangaroo"
- ----------
-
- "Kangaroo" does NOT derive from the aboriginal for "I don't
- understand". Captain James Cook's expedition learned the word
- from an aboriginal tribe that subsequently couldn't be identified.
- Since there were a *large* number of Australian aboriginal
- languages, and it has taken some time to record and catalogue the
- surviving ones, for many years the story that it meant "I don't
- understand" was plausible. The search was further complicated
- by the fact that many aboriginal languages imported the word
- *from* English. But if you consult an up-to-date English
- dictionary, such as RHUD2, you will see that "kangaroo" is derived
- from the Guugu-Yimidhirr (a language spoken near Cookstown, North
- Queensland) word _ga<eng>-urru_ "a large black or grey species
- of kangaroo".
-
- Similar stories are told about "llama" (a Quechua word, not
- from the Spanish _Como se llama?_ "What's it called?"); "indri"
- (this one DOES derive from the Malagasy word for "Look!"); and
- several place names, among them Canada (_kanata_ was the Huron-
- Iroquois word for "village, settlement"; Jacques Cartier is
- supposed to have mistaken this for the names of the country);
- Luzon (supposedly Tagalog for "What did you say?"); Nome (supposedly
- a printer's misreading of of a cartographer's query, "Name?");
- Senegal (supposedly from Wolof _senyu gal_ "our boats"); and
- Yucatan (supposedly = "I don't understand you").
-
- "loo"
- -----
-
- This British colloquial word for "toilet" was established by the
- 1920s. Suggested origins include: French _lieu d'aisance_ "place
- of easement"; French _Gardez l'eau!_ "Mind the water!" (supposedly
- said in the days before modern plumbing, when emptying chamber pots
- from upper-storey windows); "louvre", from the use of slatted
- screens for a makeshift lavatory; a misreading of the number "100";
- and a "water closet"/"Waterloo" joke. (James Joyce's _Ulysses_
- (1922) contains the following text: "O yes, mon loup. How much
- cost? Waterloo, water closet.")
-
- "O.K."
- ------
-
- This one has generated LOTS of folklore. The following list of
- suggested origins and info comes from MEU2, from Eric Partridge's
- _Dictionary of Historical Slang_ (1972 edition, Penguin,
- 0-14-081046-X), and from Cecil Adams' _More of the Straight Dope_
- (Ballantine, 1988, ISBN 0-345-34145-2). Thanks to Jeremy Smith for
- his help. The abbreviations on cracker boxes, shipping crates,
- cargoes of rum, et al., became synonymous with quality.
-
- "Oll korrekt, popularized by Old Kinderhook" is what's given in
- most up-to-date dictionaries.
-
- American "O.K.", abbreviation of Obadiah Kelly, a shipping agent
- American "O.K.", abbreviation of Old Keokuk, a Sac Indian chief
- American "O.K.", contraction of "oll korrect". This was the choice
- of a British judiciary committee that investigated the matter for
- a 1935 court case (MEU2), and was further documented by Columbia
- University professor Allen Walker Read in "The Evidence on
- 'O.K.', _Saturday Review of Literature_, 19 July 1941. A vogue
- for comically misspelled abbreviations began in Boston in the
- summer of 1838, and spread to New York and New Orleans in 1839.
- They used "K.G." for "know go", "K.Y." for "know yuse", "N.S."
- for "nuff said", and "O.K." for "oll korrect".
- American "O.K.", abbreviation of Orrins-Kendall crackers
- American "O.K.", abbreviation of Otto Kaiser, American industrialist
- American "O.K. Club". "O.K." gained national currency in 1840 as
- the slogan of the "O.K. club", a club of supporters of then
- President Martin Van Buren, in allusion to his nickname, "Old
- Kinderhook" -- Van Buren was born in the village of Kinderhook,
- N.Y.
- Choctaw _(h)oke_ "it is so"
- English opposite of "K.O." ("knock out")
- Ewe (West African)
- Finnish _oikea_
- French dialect _oc_ = _oui_ "yes"
- French _Aux Cayes_, a place in Haiti noted for excellence of its rum
- French _aux quais_, stencilled on Puerto Rican rum specially
- selected for export
- German letters of rank appended to signature of Oberkommandant
- Latin _omnia correcta_ "all correct"
- Mandingo (West African) _o ke_ "that's it", "all right"
- Scots _och aye!_ "oh yes"
- Tewa _oh-ka(n)_ = "come here", "all right"
- Wolof (West African) "waw kay" = "yes indeed". Supported by Prof.
- J. Weisenfeld, professor of African and African-American religion
- at Columbia University. It was shown by Dr Davis Dalby ("The
- Etymology of O.K.", The Times, 14 January 1971) that similar
- expressions were used very early in the 19th century by Negroes
- of Jamaica, Surinam, and South Carolina: a Jamaican planter's
- diary of 1816 records a Negro as saying "Oh ki, massa, doctor no
- need be fright, we no want to hurt him." The use of "kay" alone
- is recorded in the speech of black Americans as far back as 1776;
- significantly, the emergence of O.K. among white Americans dates
- from a period when refugees from southern slavery were arriving
- in the north.
-
- "posh"
- ------
-
- "Posh" (probably) does NOT stand for "port out, starboard home".
- MWCD10, p. 27a, says, "our editors frequently have to explain to
- correspondents that the dictionary fails to state that the origin of
- _posh_ is in the initial letters of the phrase 'port out, starboard
- home' -- supposedly a shipping term for the cooler accommodations on
- steamships plying between Britain and India from the mid-nineteenth
- century on -- not because the story is unknown to us but because no
- evidence to support it has yet been produced. Some evidence exists
- that casts strong doubt on it; the word is not known earlier than
- 1918 (in a source unrelated to shipping), and the acronymic
- explanation does not appear until 1935."
-
- A tenable theory is that "posh" meant "halfpenny" (from Romany
- _posh_ "half") and then "money" before acquiring its present
- meaning. Or it may come from the slang "pot" (= "big", "a person
- of importance"). Or it may be a contraction of "polished".
-
- I got e-mail from someone whose grandmother claimed to have seen
- steamship tickets with "P.O.S.H." overprinted; but to convince us,
- you'll have to *find* one of these tickets and send a copy to
- Merriam-Webster.
-
- "quiz"
- ------
-
- This is first recorded in 1775 in the sense "an odd person". It
- is *doubtful* that "quiz" came from an alleged incident in which
- James Daly, a late-18th-century Dublin theatre manager, made a wager
- that he could introduce a new word into the English language
- overnight, and hired urchins to chalk the word "quiz" on every wall
- and billboard in Dublin. "Quiz" may come from the Latin "Qui es?"
- (= "Who are you?", the first question asked in Latin oral exams in
- grammar schools), or it may be a shortening of "inquisitive".
-
- "scot-free"
- -----------
-
- Like "hopscotch", this word for "without incurring any penalty"
- has no connection with frugal Scotsmen. In 12th-century England, a
- "scot" or "sceot" was a municipal tax paid to the local bailiff or
- sheriff (the word came from an Old Norse cognate of "shoot"/"shot",
- and meant "money thrown down"). The word "scot-free", which is
- recorded from the 13th century, referred to someone who succeeded in
- dodging these taxes. Later, the term was given wider currency when
- "scot" was used to mean the amount owed by a customer in a tavern:
- anyone who had a drink on the house went "scot-free". This "scot"
- was reinforced by the fact that the drinks ordered were "scotched",
- or marked on a slate, so that the landlord could keep track of how
- much the customer owed.
-
- "sirloin"/"baron of beef"
- -------------------------
-
- "Sirloin" comes from Old French _surlonge_, from _sur_ "above"
- and _loigne_ "loin". Its current spelling may have been influenced
- by a story that a King of England (variously said to be Henry VIII,
- James I, and Charles II) "knighted" this cut of beef because of
- its superiority.
-
- A "baron of beef" is a joint consisting of two sirloins left
- uncut at the backbone. This "baron" may have originated as a joke
- on "sirloin", or it may be an independent word.
-
- "SOS"
- -----
-
- SOS does NOT stand for "Save Our Ship/Souls", for "Stop Other
- Signals", for "Send Our Saviour/Succour", or for the Russian
- _Spasiti Ot Smerti_ ("save from death"). The letters, recommended
- at the international Radio Telegraph Conference of 1906 and
- officially adopted in 1908, were chosen because they were easy to
- remember, transmit, and understand in Morse code (... --- ...).
- They have no other significance.
-
- "spoonerism"
- ------------
-
- This term for exchanging parts of two different words in a phrase
- is named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner (1844-1930),
- Dean and Warden of New College, Oxford. The Oxford Dictionary of
- Quotations, 2nd edition (1953), attributed two famous spoonerisms
- to Dr. Spooner: "Kinquering congs their titles take", and "You have
- deliberately tasted two worms and you can leave Oxford by the town
- drain." (Other popular ones are: "a well boiled icicle", "a
- blushing crow", "a half-warmed fish", "our shoving leopard", "our
- queer old Dean", "My boy, it's kisstomary to cuss the bride", "When
- the boys come home from France, we'll have hags flung out", and
- "Pardon me, madam, you are occupewing my pie. May I sew you to
- another sheet?")
-
- But after the publication of _Spooner: A Biography_ by Sir
- William Hayter (W. H. Allen, 1976), the Oxford Dictionary of
- Quotations, 3rd edition (1979), gives only one spoonerism ("weight
- of rages"), and says: "Many other Spoonerisms, such as those given
- in the previous editions of O.D.Q., are now known to be apocryphal."
-
- "tip"
- -----
-
- "Tip", in the sense of "gratuity", does NOT stand for "to insure
- [i.e., ensure] politeness/promptness". It may derive from "tip" in
- the sense of "to tap, to strike lightly" or the sense of
- "extremity", both of which have cognates in other Germanic
- languages. Or it may be a shortening of "stipend".
-
- "titsling"/"brassiere"
- ----------------------
-
- "Brassiere" is first recorded in a Canadian advertisement of
- 1911. Dictionaries derive it from obsolete (17th century) French
- _brassiere_ "bodice", from Old French _braciere_ "arm protector",
- from _bras_ "arm".
-
- In the southern U.S., a bra is sometimes called a "tit-sling".
- This has an obvious derivation.
-
- Wallace Reyburn, to whom Thomas Crapper owes his current fame,
- wrote a later book describing a lawsuit over rights to the bra
- between a German designer, Otto Titzling, and a French designer,
- Philippe de Brassiere. Martin Gardner, in _Time Travel and Other
- Mathematical Bewilderments_ (Freeman, 1988, ISBN 0-7107-1925-8),
- p. 137, says: "The book by Wallace Reyburn _Flushed with Pride: The
- Story of Thomas Crapper_ does exist. For many years I assumed that
- Reyburn's book was the funniest plumbing hoax since H. L. Mencken
- wrote his fake history of the bathtub. [...] Reyburn wrote a later
- book titled _Bust-up: The Uplifting Tale of Otto Titzling and the
- Development of the Bra_. It turns out, though, that both Thomas
- Crapper and Otto Titzling were real people, and neither of
- Reyburn's books is entirely a hoax."
-
- "wog"
- -----
-
- "Wog", a chiefly British, derogatory word for someone from the
- Middle or Far East, does NOT stand for "Wealthy/Western/Wily/
- Wonderful/Worthy Oriental Gentleman", or for "Worker On Government
- service". It may be a shortening of "golliwog".
-
- "ye" = "the"
- ------------
-
- The "y" here is a representation of the obsolete letter thorn,
- which looked like "b" and "p" superimposed, and was pronounced
- [T] or [D] (the same as modern "th"). The pronunciation of "ye" in
- "Ye Olde Curiositie Shoppe" as /ji/, which you sometimes hear, is a
- spelling pronunciation.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- PHRASE ORIGINS
- --------------
-
- "blue moon" (notes by Philip Hiscock)
- -----------
-
- The phrase "blue moon" has been around a long time, well over 400
- years, but during that time its meaning has shifted around a lot. I
- have counted six different meanings which have been carried by the
- term, and at least four of them are still current today.
- The earliest uses of the term are in a phrase remarkably like
- early references to "green cheese". Both were used as examples
- of obvious absurdities about which there could be no argument. Four
- hundred years go, if someone said, "He would argue the moon was
- blue", the average 16th-centuryman would take it the way we take
- "He'd argue that black is white." The earliest citation is a 1528
- poem "Rede Me and Be Not Wroth": "Yf they say the mone is blewe/We
- must believe that it is true."
- This understanding of a blue moon's being absurd (the first
- meaning) led eventually to a second meaning, that of "never". To
- say that something would happen when the moon turned blue was like
- saying that it would happen on Tib's Eve (at least before Tib got a
- day near Christmas assigned to her).
- But of course, there are examples of the moon's actually turning
- blue; that's the third meaning: the moon's visually appearing blue.
- When the Indonesian volcano Krakatoa exploded in 1883, its dust
- turned sunsets green and the moon blue all around the world for the
- best part of two years. In 1927, a late monsoon in India set up
- conditions for a blue moon. And the moon here in Newfoundland was
- turned blue in 1951 when huge forest fires in Alberta threw smoke
- particles up into the sky. Even by the 19th century, it was clear
- that although visually blue moons were rare, they did happen from
- time to time. So the phrase "once in a blue moon" came about. It
- meant then exactly what it means today: that an event was fairly
- infrequent, but not quite regular enough to pinpoint. That's
- meaning number four, and today it is still the main one.
- I know of six songs which use "blue moon" as a symbol of sadness
- and loneliness. In half of them, the poor crooner's moon turns to
- gold when he gets his love at the end of the song. That's meaning
- number five: check your old Elvis Presley or Bill Monroe records
- for more information.
- Finally, in the 1980s, a sixth meaning was popularized (chiefly
- by the game Trivial Pursuit): the second full moon in a month. The
- earliest reference cited for this is The Maine Farmers' Almanac for
- 1937. Rumour has it that when there were two full moons in a
- calendar month, calendars would put the first in red, the second in
- blue.
-
- "Bob's your uncle"
- ------------------
-
- This British phrase means "all will be well" or "simple as that":
- "You go and ask for the job -- and he remembers your name -- and
- Bob's your uncle." It dates from circa 1890.
- P. Brendon, in _Eminent Edwardians_, 1979, suggests an origin:
- "When, in 1887, Balfour was unexpectedly promoted to the vital front
- line post of Chief Secretary for Ireland by his uncle Robert, Lord
- Salisbury (a stroke of nepotism that inspired the catch-phrase
- 'Bob's your uncle'), ..."
- Or it may have been prompted by the cant phrase "All is bob" =
- "all is safe."
- (Info from Eric Partridge's _Dictionary of Catch Phrases_, 2nd
- edition, revised by Paul Beale, Routledge, 1985, ISBN
- 0-415-05916-X.)
-
- "to call a spade a spade"
- -------------------------
-
- is NOT an ethnic slur.
- The ancient Greeks said "to call a kneading-trough a kneading-
- trough". This is first recorded in Aristophanes' play _The Clouds_,
- and also shows up in Plutarch's _Apophthegms_.
- In the Renaissance, Erasmus confused Plutarch's "kneading-trough"
- (sigma kappa alpha phi eta) with the Greek word for "digging tool"
- (sigma kappa alpha phi epsilon iota omicron nu), and rendered it in
- Latin as "ligo". Thence it was translated into English in 1542 by
- Nicholas Udall in his translation of Erasmus's version as "to call a
- spade [...] a spade".
- "To call a spade a bloody shovel" is not recorded until 1919.
- "Spade" in the sense of "Negro" is not recorded until 1928.
-
- This, of course, does *not* necessarily render the modern use of
- "to call a spade a spade" "politically correct". Rosalie Maggio, in
- _The Bias-Free Word-Finder_, writes: "The expression is associated
- with a racial slur and is to be avoided", and recommends using "to
- speak plainly" or other alternatives instead. In another entry, she
- writes: "Although by definition and derivation 'niggardly' and
- 'nigger' are completely unrelated, 'niggardly' is too close for
- comfort to a word with profoundly negative associations. Use
- instead one of the many available alternatives: stingy, miserly,
- parsimonious..." Beard and Cerf, in _The Official Politically
- Correct Handbook_, p. 123, report that an administrator at the
- University of California at Santa Cruz campaigned for the banning
- of such phrases like "a chink in his armor" and "a nip in the air",
- because "chink" and "nip" are also derogatory terms for "Chinese
- person" and "Japanese person" respectively. In the late 1970s in
- the U.S., a boycott of Sambo's Restaurant Chain was organized, even
- though the name "Sambo's" was a combination of the names of its two
- founders and did not come from the offensive word for dark-skinned
- person.
-
- "The die is cast."
- ------------------
-
- does NOT mean "The metal template has been molded." It's what
- Julius Caesar said on crossing the Rubicon. The "die" is a gambling
- die, and "cast" means thrown. (In the original Latin "Alea jacta
- est", "alea" actually denotes the *game* of dice, rather than the
- physical die.)
-
- "dressed to the nines"
- ----------------------
-
- This expression, meaning "very fashionably and elaborately
- dressed", is recorded from the 18th century. "The nine" or "the
- nines" were used to signify "superlative" in numerous other
- contexts. Theories include: 9, being the highest single-digit
- number, symbolized the best; a metanalysis of Old English _to
- then eyne_ "to the eyes"; and a reference to the 9 muses.
-
- "Elementary, my dear Watson!"
- -----------------------------
-
- does not occur as such in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock
- Holmes stories, although Holmes does exclaim "Elementary" in
- "The Crooked Man", and writes "My dear Watson" in "The Final
- Problem". The first recorded juxtaposition is in the 1929 film
- _The Return of Sherlock Holmes_ (the first of the series with
- sound).
- The original stories never mention an Inverness cape, a
- deerstalker hat, or a meerschaum pipe, either. Those props
- are due to illustrators and to actors.
-
- "The exception proves the rule."
- --------------------------------
-
- The common misconception about "The exception proves the rule"
- (which you will find in several books, including the _Dictionary
- of Misinformation_) is that "proves" means "tests". That is *not*
- the case, although "proof" *does* mean "test" in such phrases as
- "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
- As MEU says, "the original legal sense" of the "the exception
- proves the rule" is as follows: "'Special leave is given for men to
- be out of barracks tonight till 11.0 p.m.'; 'The exception proves
- the rule' means that this special leave implies a rule requiring
- men, except when an exception is made, to be in earlier. The value
- of this in interpreting statutes is plain."
- MEU2 adds: "'A rule is not proved by exceptions unless the
- exceptions themselves lead one to infer a rule' (Lord Atkin). The
- formula in full is _exceptio probat regulam in casibus non
- exceptis_." [That's Latin for "The exception proves the rule in
- cases not excepted."]
- The phrase seems to date from the 17th century. Below are the
- four seventeenth-century citations I could find. The first three
- are in the OED; the last is given in _A Dictionary of the Proverbs
- in England in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries_, by Morris
- Palmer Tilley.
- 1. 1617 Samuel Collins, _Epphata to F.T.; or, the Defence of the
- Bishop of Elie concerning his answer to Cardinall Ballarmine's
- Apologie_ 100: "Indefinites are equivalent to universalls
- especially where one exception being made, it is plaine that all
- others are thereby cut off, according to the rule Exceptio
- figit regulam in non exceptis." [Note that "figit" rather than
- "probat" is here used. "Probo" can mean any of "give official
- approval to", "put to the test", or "demonstrate the verity of";
- but "figo" can only mean "fix", "fasten", or "establish".]
- 2. 1640 Gilbert Watts, _Bacon's Advancement and proficience of
- learning_ VIII. iii. Aph. 17: "As exception strengthens the
- force of a Law in Cases not excepted, so enumeration weakens it
- in Cases not enumerated." [So when Lewis Carroll wrote "I am
- fond of children (except boys)", he affirmed his fondness for
- girls more strongly than he would have had he written merely "I
- am fond of children."]
- 3. 1664 John Wilson, _The Cheats_, To Reader: "For if I have shown
- the odd practices of two vain persons pretending to be what they
- are not, I think I have sufficiently justified the brave man
- even by this reason, that the exception proves the rule." [The
- OED (but not the other books I checked) gives the date as 1662.
- As far as I can tell from this scant context, Wilson seems to be
- saying, "My description of two cowardly cheats should serve to
- show you the bad consequences of not being brave, and hence
- convince you of the need for a rule: 'Be brave!'."]
- 4. 1666 Giovanni Torriano, _Piazza universale di proverbi italiani,
- or A Common Place of Italian Proverbs_ I, p. 80 "The exception
- gives Authority to the Rule." note 28, p. 242 "And the Latin
- says again, Exceptio probat Regulam."
- To convince us that *in this particular phrase* "proves" originally
- meant "tests", you will have to cite any quotations as old as or
- older than these to support your view.
-
- "face the music"
- ----------------
-
- This expression for "accept the unpleasant consequences" was
- first recorded in the U.S. around 1850. It may derive from musical
- theatre: a nervous actor would have to summon all his courage to
- face the audience across the orchestra pit. Or it may be one of
- three military references: an infantryman taking his place in the
- line of assembly; a cavalier keeping his restive horse still while
- the band starts to play; or a soldier being drummed out of his
- regiment.
-
- "Go figure"
- -----------
-
- This expands to "Go and figure it out", and means: "The reasons
- for the fact just stated are unknown and possibly unknowable. You
- can waste your time thinking about what they might be, if you
- choose, but you're not likely to accomplish anything." (Kivi
- Shapiro)
-
- "Go figure" comes from Yiddish _Gey vays_ "Go know". Leo Rosten,
- in _The Joys of Yinglish_ (Penguin, 1989 ISBN 0-452=2653406), says:
- "In English, one says, 'Go _and_ see [look, ask, tell]...' Using an
- imperative without any link to a conjunction is pure Yiddish, no
- doubt derived from the biblical phrase, translated literally:
- 'Go tell...' 'Go praise the Lord...' (In English this becomes
- 'Come, let us praise the Lord.')"
-
- Other English expressions said to derive from Yiddish include:
- "Big deal!" (_A Groyser kunst!_); "Bite your tongue" (_Bays dir di
- tsung_"); "bottom line" (_untershte shure_); "Eat your heart out"
- (_Es dir oys s'harts_); "Enough already!" (_Genug shoyn_); "for
- real" (_far emmes_); "If the shoe fits, wear it" (_Oyb der shukh
- past, kenstu im trogn_); "Look who's talking!" (_Kuk nor ver
- s'ret!_); "make like a" (_makh vi_); "shm-" as in "Fair, shmair";
- "Sez you" (_Azoy zugst du_); "Thanks a *lot*" (ironic) (_A shenem
- dank aykh_); and "That's for sure" (_Dos iz oyf zikher_).
-
- "Go placidly amid the noise and the haste" (Desiderata)
- -------------------------------------------------------
-
- "Desiderata" was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945). In
- 1956, the rector of St. Paul's Church in Baltimore, Maryland, used
- the poem in a collection of mimeographed inspirational material for
- his congregation. Someone printing it later said it was found in
- Old St. Paul's Church, dated 1692. The year 1692 was the founding
- date of the church and has nothing to do with the poem. See Fred
- D. Cavinder, "Desiderata", _TWA Ambassador_, Aug. 1973, pp. 14-15.
-
- "Let them eat cake!"
- --------------------
-
- The French is "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche" (*not* "gateau" as
- you might expect). And Queen Marie-Antoinette did *not* say this.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau attributed it to "a great princess" in book 6
- of his _Confessions_. _Confessions_ was published posthumously, but
- book 6 was written 2 or 3 years before Marie-Antoinette arrived in
- France in 1770.
-
- "mind your p's and q's"
- -----------------------
-
- This expression, meaning "be very careful to behave correctly",
- has been in use from the 17th century on. Theories include: an
- admonishment to children learning to write; an admonishment to
- typesetters (who had to look at the letters backwards); an
- admonishment to seamen not to soil their navy pea-jackets with
- their tarred "queues" (pigtails); "mind your pints and quarts";
- "mind your prices and quality"; and "mind your pieds and queues"
- (either feet and pigtails, or two dancing figures that had to be
- accurately performed).
- The most plausible explanation is the one given in the latest
- edition of Collins English Dictionary: an alteration of "Mind
- your 'please's and 'thank you's.
-
- "more honoured in the breach than in the observance"
- ----------------------------------------------------
-
- Shakespeare meant "BETTER broken than observed", not "more often
- broken than observed".
-
- "rule of thumb"
- ---------------
-
- This term for "a simple principle having wide application but not
- intended to be strictly accurate" dates from 1692. Helen Johnston
- cites Roderick Phillips _Untying the Knot: A Short History of
- Divorce_ (Cambridge UP, 1991), which claims that "rule of thumb"
- comes from an old law regulating wife-beating: "if a stick were
- used, it should not be thicker than a man's thumb." But thumbs were
- used to measure *lots* of things (the last joint is roughly one
- inch). The phrase may also come from ancient brewmasters' dipping
- their thumb in the brew to test the temperature of a batch; or from
- a guideline for tailors: "Twice around the thumb is once around the
- wrist..."
-
- "son of a gun"
- --------------
-
- dates from 1708; therefore, NOT son of a "shotgun marriage", which
- is only recorded from 1922. Possibly "cradled in the gun-carriage
- of a ship"; allegedly, the place traditionally given to women on
- board who went into labour -- the only space affording her any
- privacy and without blocking a gangway -- was between two guns. Or
- it may mean more simply "son of a soldier".
-
- "spit and image"/"spitting image"
- ---------------------------------
-
- These phrases mean "exact likeness". "Spitting image" is first
- recorded in 1901; "spit and image" is a bit older (from the late
- 19th century), which seems to refute the explanation "splitting
- image" (two split halves of the same tree). An older British
- expression is "He's the very spit of his father", which Eric
- Partridge, in his _Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_
- (Routledge, 1950) traces back to 1400: "He's ... as like these as
- th'hads't spit him." Either explanation are "so alike that even
- the spit out of their mouths is the same"; "speaking likeness"; and
- a corruption of "spirit".
-
- "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"
- ---------------------------
-
- "Wherefore" means "why", not "where".
-
- "the whole nine yards"
- ----------------------
-
- This phrase, meaning "all of it, everything" dates from at least
- the 1950s. The origin is a matter for speculation. 9 yards is not
- a particularly significant distance either in football or in the
- garment business (a man's three-piece suit requires about 7 square
- yards of cloth, and cloth is sold in bolts of 20 to 25 yards). The
- phrase may refer to the capacity of ready-mix concrete trucks, which
- averages about 9 cubic yards. See Cecil Adams, _More of the
- Straight Dope_, pp. 252-257.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- MISCELLANY
- ----------
-
- Do publishers put false info in dictionaries to catch plagiarists?
- ------------------------------------------------------------------
-
- From: david@frnk303.franklin.com (David Justice)
-
- > For what it's worth, I worked a few years at Merriam-Webster (late
- > 1980s) and can attest that we never deliberately inserted false
- > stuff for purposes of catching plagiarists. For one thing, every
- > dictionary I've ever examined has been all too full of
- > *un*intentional errors, and they could serve the same purpose.
-
- On the other hand, books such as _Who's Who_ do have fictitious
- entries.
-
- What is the language term for...?
- ---------------------------------
-
- It may be one of: "ablaut", "accidence", "acrolect",
- "adianoeta", "adnominal", "adnominatio", "adynaton", "agnosia",
- "agrammatism", "alexia", "alliteration", "alphabetism", "amblysia",
- "amphibol(og)y", "anacolouthon", "anacrusis", "anadiplosis",
- "anaphora", "anaptyxis", "anastrophe", "antiphrasis", "antisthecon",
- "antithimeria", "antonomasia", "aphaeresis", "aphasia", "aphesis",
- "apocope", "apocrisis", "aporia", "apophasis", "aposiopesis",
- "apostrophe", "aptronym", "asyndeton", "Aufhebung", "banausic",
- "bisociation", "brachylogy", "cacoetheses scribendi", "cacophemism",
- "calque", "catachresis", "cataphora", "catenative", "cheville",
- "chiasmus", "chronogram", "cledonism", "commoratio", "consonance",
- "constative", "coprolalia", "copulative", "crasis",
- "cruciverbalist", "cryptophasia", "deictic", "dilogy",
- "disjunctive", "dissimilation", "dittograph", "dontopedalogy",
- "dysgraphia", "dyslalia", "dyslexia", "dysphemism", "dysprosody",
- "dysrhythmia", "echolalia", "embo(lo)lalia", "enallage", "enclitic",
- "endophoric", "epanalepsis", "epanorthosis", "epexegetic",
- "epenthesis", "epitrope", "epizeuxis", "eponym", "equivoque",
- "etymon", "eusystolism", "exergasia", "exonym", "exophoric",
- "extraposition", "eye-word", "factitive", "festination", "fis
- phenomenon", "Fog Index", "frequentative", "glossogenetics",
- "glossolalia", "glottochronology", "glyph", "graphospasm", "hapax
- legomenon", "haplograph", "haplology", "hendiadys", "heteric",
- "heterogenium", "heterography", "heteronym", "heterophemy",
- "heterotopy", "hobson-jobson", "holophrasis", "honorific",
- "hypallage", "hyperbaton", "hyperbole", "hypocoristic", "hypophora",
- "hyponymy", "hypostatize", "hypotaxis", "idioglossa", "idiolect",
- "illeism", "ingressive", "isocolon", "isogloss", "klang
- association", "koine", "langue", "Lautgesetz", "ligature",
- "lipogram", "litotes", "logogram", "logogriph", "logomisia",
- "lucus a non lucendo", "macaronic", "macrology", "meiosis",
- "(a)melioration", "mendaciloquence", "merism", "metalepsis",
- "metallage", "metanalysis", "metaplasm", "metathesis", "metonymy",
- "Mischsprache", "mogigraphia", "mondegreen", "monepic",
- "monologophobia", "Mummerset", "mumpsimus", "mussitation",
- "mytheme", "noa word", "nomic", "nosism", "nothosonomia", "objective
- correlative", "obviative", "omphalopsychites", "onomasiology",
- "onomastic", "onomatopoeia", "oratio obliqua", "oxytone",
- "palindrome", "palinode", "paradiastole", "paragoge", "paragram",
- "paralinguistic", "paraph", "paraphasia", "paraplasm",
- "parasynesis", "parataxis", "parechesis", "parelcon", "pangram",
- "parimion", "parole", "paronomasia", "paronym", "paroxytone",
- "parrhesia", "pasigraphy", "patavinity", "patronymic", "pejoration",
- "periphrasis", "perpilocutionist", "phatic", "philophronesis",
- "phonaesthesia", "phonocentrism", "pleonasm", "ploce", "polyptoton",
- "polysemy", "polysyndeton", "privative", "proclitic", "prolepsis",
- "proparalepsis", "prosonomasia", "prosopopoeia", "prosthesis",
- "provection", "psittacism", "purr-word", "quadriliteralism",
- "quaesitio", "quote fact", "rebus", "reification", "rheme",
- "rhopalic", "sandhi", "scesis onomaton", "Schlimmbesserung",
- "semiotics", "sigmatism", "simile", "Sprachgef"uhl",
- "Stammbaumtheorie", "stichomythia", "subreption", "sumpsimus",
- "superordinate", "suprasegmental", "syllepsis", "symploce",
- "synaeresis", "synaesthesia", "synaloepha", "synchisis", "syncope",
- "synecdoche", "synesis", "systole", "tachygraphy", "tautology",
- "theophoric", "tmesis", "traduttori traditori", "trope",
- "univocalic", "Ursprache", "Wanderwort", "Wellentheorie",
- "Witzelsucht", "wordfact", "xenoepist", or "zeugma". Look 'em
- up. :-) (A good book to look them up in is _The Random House
- Dictionary for Writers and Readers_, by David Grambs (Random
- House, 1990, ISBN 0-679-72860-0.)
-
- Commonest words
- ---------------
-
- From Anthony Bayer:
-
- The following list of 250 words is taken from a study done by
- McNally and Murray in 1962. The words are laid out in a chart of 5
- groups, with group 1 being the most common, and group 5 the least
- common of what the authors consider to be the 20 000 words in an
- average vocabulary. Each group also occupies an area of the chart
- in proportion to frequency of use, and within each group, words are
- arranged alphabetically.
-
- G1
- a and he I in is it of that the to was
-
- G2
- all are as at be but are for had have him his not on one said so
- they we with you
-
- G3
- about an back been before big by call came can come could did do
- down first from get go has her here if into just like little look
- made make me more much must my no new now off old only or our other
- out over right see she some their them then there this two up want
- well went were what when where which who will your
-
- G4
- after again always am another any apple ask away baby bad bag ball
- because bed best bird black blue book box boy bring bus car cat
- children cow cup day dinner dog doll don't door eat egg end every
- farm fast father fell find fish five fly found four fun gave girl
- give going good got green hand hat head help hill home horse house
- how jam jump keep know last left let letter live long man many may
- me men milk money morning mother Mrs name never next night nothing
- once open own picture pig place play put rabbit ran read red road
- room round run sat saw say school sea shop should sing sister sit
- soon stop street sun table take tea tell than these thing think
- three time today too top toy train tree under us very walk water
- white why wish woman work would year yes
-
- Gp 5
- The next 19 750 words in their list (not printed)
-
- What words are their own antonym?
- ---------------------------------
-
- Richard Lederer, in _Crazy English_ (Pocket Books, 1989, ISBN
- 0-671-68907-X), calls these "contranyms". They can be divided into
- homographs (same spelling) and homophones (same pronunciation).
-
- The homographs include:
- apparent = seeming, clear ("heir apparent")
- aught = all, nothing
- bill = invoice, money
- bolt = to secure, to run away
- buckle = to fasten,
- to fall apart ("buildings buckle at an earthquake")
- certain = definite, unspecified
- cleave = to separate, to join
- clip = to fasten, to detach
- commencement = beginning, conclusion ("high school commencement")
- comprise = to contain, [disputed] to compose
- critical = opposed to ("critical of"), essential to ("critical to")
- custom = usual, special
- dress = to put items on, to remove items from ("dress the chicken")
- dust = to remove fine particles, to add fine particles
- fast = rapid, unmoving
- fix = to restore, to castrate
- give out = to produce, to stop being produced
- handicap = advantage (in golf), disadvantage
- help = to assist, to prevent ("I cannot help it if...")
- hoi polloi = the common people, [disputed] the elite
- hold up = to support, to delay
- impregnable = invulnerable, [disputed] impregnatable
- infer = to take a hint, [disputed] to hint
- keep up = to continue to fall (rain),to remain up
- left = departed from, remaining
- let = to permit, [archaic] to hinder
- literally = actually, [disputed] figuratively
- model = archetype, copy
- moot = debatable, [disputed] not worthy of debate
- nauseous = nauseating, [disputed] nauseated
- note = promise to pay, money
- out = visible (stars), invisible (lights)
- oversight = care, error
- peep = to look quietly, to beep
- peer = noble, person of equal rank
- put out = to generate ("candle puts out light"), to extinguish
- puzzle = to pose a problem, to solve a problem
- qualified = competent, limited
- quantum = very small, very large ("quantum leap")
- quite = rather, completely
- ravel = entangle, disentangle
- rent = to buy temporary use of, to sell temporary use of
- resign = to quit, [hyphen recommended] to sign up again
- sanction = to approve of, [disputed] to punish [The use of
- "sanction" as a noun meaning "punishment" is undisputed.]
- sanguine = hopeful, [obsolete for "sanguinary"] murderous
- scan = to examine carefully, [disputed] to glance at quickly
- screen = to view, to hide from view
- seeded = with seeds, without seeds
- skin = to cover with, to remove outer covering
- substitute = to put (something) in something else's place,
- [disputed] to replace (something) with something else
- strike = to miss (baseball), to hit
- table = [British] to propose, [U.S.] to set aside
- temper = calmness, passion
- think better of = to admire more, to be suspicious of
- trim = to put things on ("trim a Christmas tree"),
- to take things off
- trip = to stumble, to move gracefully ("trip the light fantastic")
- unbending = rigid, relaxing
- undersexed = having a lower-than-normal sex drive,
- [disputed] sexually deprived
- wear = to endure through use, to decay through use
- weather = to withstand, to wear away
- wind up = to start ("wind up a watch"), to end
- with = alongside, against
-
- A couple of homophones:
- aural, oral = heard, spoken
- raise, raze = erect, tear down
-
- Biblical sense of "to know"
- ---------------------------
-
- Some people say things like: "It is not correct that it is the
- biblical meaning. The biblical meaning of a man knowing a woman is
- such total love as to know all about her, which includes
- intercourse. It is not an evasive term for one-night stands."
- Not so. The Biblical sense of "to know" is simply "to fuck", as
- you can see from Genesis 19:4-8 : "[...] the men of Sodom
- compassed the house round [...] and they called unto Lot, and said
- unto him, 'Where are the men which came in to thee this night?
- Bring them out unto us, that we may KNOW them.' And Lot [...] said
- [...] 'Behold now, I have two daughters which have not KNOWN man;
- let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you [...]'"
- The Hebrew word here is "yada" (yod daleth ayin). The Greek
- word "ginosko" (gamma iota nu omega sigma kappa omega) is used
- similarly in the New Testament.
-
- Postfix "not"
- -------------
-
- Is assertion followed by "not" a recent American neologism?
- NOT! "I love thee not" was the regular word order in Shakespeare's
- day. Examples including the pause are harder to find, but
- e. e. cummings wrote a poem beginning:
-
- pity this busy monster manunkind
- not.
-
- Credit to David Murray for bringing the cummings example to our
- attention. And Wanda Keown found the following in Fritz Leiber's
- _Conjure Wife_ (1943): "Norman thought: Country parsonage?
- Healthy mental atmosphere, not!"
-
- The construction owes its present popularity to the "Wayne's
- World" skits in the U.S. TV show _Saturday Night Live_. The first
- use in SNL was in the 1970s in a skit with Jane Curtin and Steve
- Martin. (It is said that the writers of these skits encountered
- the practice when it was a fad in their high school in the Toronto
- suburb of Scarborough.) Another phrase that comes from SNL is
- "Isn't that special?" (the Church Lady, played by Dana Carvey).
-
- Origin of the dollar sign (notes by Mark Brader)
- -------------------------
-
- It is sometimes said that the dollar sign's origin is a narrow
- "U" superimposed over a wide "S", "U.S." being short for "United
- States." This is wrong, and the correct explanation also tells why
- the $ sign is used both for dollars and for pesos in various
- countries. The explanation is not widely known, maybe because not
- many people would think to look for it in _A History of Mathematical
- Notations, Volume II: Notations Mainly in Higher Mathematics_ by
- Florian Cajori (published in 1929 and reprinted in 1952, by Open
- Court Press). Cajori acknowledges the "U.S." theory and a number of
- others, but, after examining many 18th-century manuscripts, finds
- that there is simply no evidence to support those theories.
- Spanish pesos were also called piastres, Spanish dollars, and
- pieces of eight. And they were circulated in many parts of the
- world, much as U.S. dollars are today. The coins were so well known
- that, when the U.S. got around to issuing its own silver coinage
- (U.S. dollar coins first appeared in 1794), it simply replicated the
- Spanish unit's weight and hence value, and even one of its names; so
- it was natural to use the same symbol.
- Since three of the four names given above for the Spanish dollar
- start with p (and pluralize with s), it was natural for
- abbreviations like p and ps to be used. Sometimes ps was written
- s
- as P -- P with a superscript s. The superscript was a common way
- of rendering abbreviated endings of words -- we see vestiges of it
- today in the way some people write "10th". Now, what happens if you
- write P with a superscript s *fast*, because it's part of a long
- document that you have to hand-write because you can't wait for the
- typewriter to be invented, let alone the word-processor? Naturally,
- you join the letters. Well, now look at the top part of the
- resulting symbol. There's the $ sign! Reduce the P to a single
- stroke and you have the form of the $ with a double vertical; omit
- it altogether and you get the single vertical.
- And yes, both these forms are original. Cajori reproduces 14
- $ signs from a diary written in 1776; 11 of them have the single
- stroke, which was the more common form to the end of the century,
- and 3 have the double stroke.
- Although the $ sign originally referred to a Spanish coin, it was
- the revolting British -> American colonists who made the transition
- from ps to the new sign. (This is apparently also why we write $1
- instead of 1$; it mimics the British use of the pound sign.) So,
- while it did not originally refer to the U.S. dollar, the symbol
- does legitimately claim its origins in that country.
-
- ====================================================================
-
- SPELLING
- --------
-
- Diacritics
- ----------
-
- You can use diaereses in words like "naive" and "cooperate" if
- you want. The use of diacritics has been declining because of
- Linotypes and computers that didn't allow them.
-
- "-ize" vs "-ise"
- ---------------
-
- The following words are always spelled with "-ise": advertise,
- advise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise,
- despise, devise, disguise, enterprise, excise, exercise,
- (dis/en)franchise, improvise, incise, merchandise, premise, revise,
- supervise, surmise, surprise, televise. (At least, they're *almost*
- always spelled that way: "advertize", "merchandize", and "surprize"
- ARE listed in some collegiate dictionaries, but are not the usual
- forms anywhere.) A useful mnemonic is that, except "improvise",
- none of these make nouns in "-isation" or "-ization". (Exceptions
- in the other direction are "aggrandize", "criticize", and
- "recognize".)
-
- "Apprise" means "to inform"; "apprize" means "to appreciate".
- British "prise open" = U.S. "pry open".
-
- For other verbs, "-ize" is usual in the U.S. and recommended by
- Fowler, although "-ise" is also used in Britain. Fowler recommends
- "-yse" in "analyse", "catalyse", and "paralyse", although "-yze" is
- usual in the U.S.
-
- Where to put apostrophes in possessive forms
- --------------------------------------------
-
- by Peter Moylan
-
- PRONOUNS
-
- The ONLY personal possessive pronoun with an apostrophe is "one's".
-
- .----------------------------------------------------------------------.
- | The words "his", "its", "whose", "their" do NOT contain apostrophes. |
- | Nor do words like "hers", "ours", "yours", "theirs". |
- | (Would you say "mi'ne"?) |
- '----------------------------------------------------------------------'
-
- The forms "it's", "they're", and "who's" are contractions for "it
- is", "they are", and "who is" respectively. (Or sometimes "it has",
- etc.) They have nothing to do with possessive pronouns.
-
- The apostrophe does occur in the possessive case of indefinite
- pronouns (anybody's, someone's, and so on).
-
- NOUNS
-
- 1. The standard rule: Use 's for the singular possessive, and a
- bare apostrophe after the plural suffix for the plural
- possessive. For example:
-
- Singular Plural
- Nominative dog dogs
- Possessive dog's dogs'
-
- 2. Nouns ending with an [s] or [z] sound (this includes words ending
- in "x", "ce", and similar examples): The plural suffix is -es
- rather than -s (unless there's already an "e" at the end, as in
- the "-ce" words), but otherwise the rule is the same as above:
-
- Singular Plural
- Nominative class classes
- Possessive class's classes'
-
- (The possessive plural is what is wanted in "the Joneses'".
- This is short for "the Joneses' house", which is not "the
- Jones's house".)
-
- There are, however, examples where the singular possessive suffix
- is a bare apostrophe:
-
- Singular Plural
- Nominative patience patiences
- Possessive patience' patiences'
-
- (In most such examples, the plural is rarely used.) For nouns in
- this category, many people would consider the 's suffix and the
- bare apostrophe to be acceptable alternatives. The rules listed
- below may be taken as "most common practice", but they are
- not absolute.
-
- A. The 's suffix is preferred for one-syllable words (grass's) or
- where the final syllable has a primary or secondary stress
- (collapse's);
-
- B. The bare apostrophe is preferred:
- - for words ending in -nce (stance');
- - for many classical names (Aristophanes', Jesus', Moses');
- - where the juxtaposition of two or more [s] sounds would
- cause an awkwardness in pronunciation (thesis').
-
- C. Usage is divided in the situation where the final [s] or [z]
- sound falls in an unstressed syllable (octopus'/octopus's,
- phoenix's/phoenix', and so on).
-
- The question of which suffix is correct arises less often than
- one might imagine. Instead of saying "the crisis' start" or "the
- crisis's start", most native speakers of English would say "the
- start of the crisis", thus avoiding the problem.
-
- 3. Plurals not ending in s: Use 's for the possessive plural
- (men's, people's, sheep's).
-
- HISTORY
-
- For those who want to know where the apostrophe came from, here
- is how it probably happened. Some of this is well documented, some
- is guesswork on my part.
-
- Back in the days when English had many more inflections than it
- now has, the most common suffix for the genitive singular was -es.
- (There were several noun declensions, so that not all nouns fitted
- this pattern; but this could be considered to be the "most regular"
- case.) For example: mann (=man), mannes (=of the man). Over time
- there developed a tendency to stop pronouncing the unstressed "e",
- so that "mannes" became "mann's". The apostrophe stands for the
- omitted letter.
-
- (Modern German still has -es as the genitive suffix for many
- nouns. The Germans did not stop pronouncing their unstressed "e"s,
- so the case suffix is still written as -es.)
-
- Pronouns were also inflected, but not in the same way. (They
- were all fairly irregular, as they still are today.) The genitive
- form of "hit" (=it) was "his" (=its). As "his" evolved into "its",
- there was no "e" to drop, therefore no logical reason to insert an
- apostrophe.
-
- The "its" and "it's" forms did coexist in the 17th and early 18th
- century, but today the "its" form is considered to be the only
- correct spelling.
-
- Plural nouns are harder to explain. The most common genitive
- plural inflection was -a, which is quite unrelated to our modern
- -s'. My best guess is that most of the old plural suffixes were
- replaced by -s under the influence of French; and that subsequently
- the rules for forming singular possessives were extended to the
- plurals. If this is what happened, then a hypothetical -s's plural
- possessive suffix would immediately collapse to -s', in the same way
- as for many singular nouns ending in "s". There was in any case a
- long period where spelling was a lot less standardized than it is
- today, so one should not think in terms of any sort of "standard
- rule" existing during the transitional period.
-
- NOTE FOR NON-ENGLISH SPEAKERS
-
- The apostrophe in these cases normally has no effect on
- pronunciation. Thus dogs, dog's, and dogs' all sound the same. The
- exception is where the apostrophe separates two "s"s, and then it is
- pronounced as an unstressed schwa. Thus class's, classes, and
- classes' are all pronounced as /klas@z/.
-
- For nouns where there is some difference of opinion over whether
- the possessive suffix should be -'s or a bare apostrophe (that is,
- those nouns where a final unstressed syllable ends with an [s] or
- [z] sound) some native speakers use a lengthened final consonant
- intermediate between /z/ and /z@z/. This is, however, a fine and
- almost inaudible distinction.
-
- OTHER COMMENTS
-
- One occasionally hears that "John's dog" is an abbreviation for
- "John his dog". It is more likely that the derivation went in the
- opposite direction, i.e.:
- Johnes hund => John's hound => Johnny's dog => John 'is dog
- with the "John his dog" form coming into use only briefly before
- disappearing from modern English.
-
- Using an apostrophe in a plural which is not a possessive form is
- almost never recommended by prescriptivists. The only situation
- where is is recommended is where visual confusion would otherwise
- result, as for example in the sentence "Mind your p's and q's". In
- forms like "the 1980s" or "two CPUs", apostrophes are not
- recommended.
-
- It is correct to use an apostrophe to indicate missing letters,
- in contractions like "aren't", "isn't", "it's" (= it is or it has).
- Be careful in these cases to put the apostrophe in the correct
- place. The apostrophe replaces the missing letter(s); it does not
- replace the space between words.
-
- --
- misrael@csi.uottawa.ca Mark Israel
-