As a verb, to complement is to complete or to supplement. The wine complemented the meal.
As a noun, complement is something that completes something else. The addition of the B6 vitamin to my morning routine now gives me a full complement of B vitamins.
As a verb, to compliment is to praise. Don’t compliment me unless you mean it.
As a noun, compliment means praise. The compliment you gave me was insincere.
Sherry
The number of times that I’ve seen these words confused is more than I can count—and that’s actually the point of the amount/number topic. Number refers to things that can be counted as individuals. Amount refers to a mass quantity, that is, things that cannot be counted as separate items. It’s similar to the fewer/less differentiation.
You can have a number of problems, a number of boyfriends, a number of business deals, a number of classes, a number of hobbies, a number of debts, and a number of 50-dollar bills. These are all things that can be counted individually: 3 boyfriends, 6 business deals, 4 classes, 8 debts, twelve 50-dollar bills, and a whole lot of problems.
You can have an amount of angst, an amount of debt, an amount of confusion, an amount of money, and an amount of compassion. These cannot be separated into individual items. For example, while you can have 3 debts to repay, each one a separate debt, debt (without the –s) cannot be separated; it is a mass concept.
Sherry
While the blast of bitterly cold Canadian air will be the major weather story across the country for the next several days, I thought that it was a good time to correct a common pronunciation (and possibly spelling) error.
The first “c” in the word arctic is not silent. The word is pronounced ahrk-tik, not ahrt-tik. I know that countless meteorologists and reporters will say it incorrectly, and this common mistake will undoubtedly lead to more widespread acceptance and perhaps even a secondary spelling (artic). Do your part and add the extra c; remember that c stands for cold!
As an aside, we at languageandgrammar.com do not believe that mistakes should be accepted just because they’re made often. If people add 2+2 and get 5, then we correct the mistake. We wouldn’t change it so that 2+2 equals both 4 and 5 just because the mistake is made frequently.
Capitalization of the term can be confusing as well. When it’s used as an adjective to describe cold, such as It was arctic cold last week, use a lower case a. When it’s being used to refer to the Arctic region, such as Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, which is in the Arctic, the a is capitalized. Also, when describing the type of air mass as one from the Arctic region, such as The Arctic air mass resulted in high temperature of below 0 in Chicago, it is also capitalized.
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
One of my favorite chapters in the book I wrote (Is having a favorite chapter in my own book against author etiquette?) is the one on sports cliches since we’ve been talking about sports (fans, media, and athletes) for much of the past century, but we’ve seldom said anything that wasn’t a cliche. It’s difficult to imagine a topic so often discussed but so rarely discussed in fresh terms.
A friend recently sent a link to a Pittsburgh Post Gazette columnist, Gene Collier, who devotes a column each year to cliches related to sports. In this year’s “Trite Trophy” column, Can’t manage without “Manage the Game,” Mr. Collier managed to stuff over 100 cliches into one column. I’m impressed.
I had also written about the deserving winner (manage the game) last October, and it’s interesting to see some of the previous award-winning cliches (this is the 25th year of the Trite Trophy) that are still popular today, including 1980s winners crunch time, gutcheck, playing ’em one at a time, They went to the well once too often, and He coughs it up. One of the least effective (and dumbest) phrases in the English language, It is what it is, was a two-time winner (2005, 2006). Based on how many times I still hear people stating the obvious in that way (what else could it be–other than what it is?), it could have won in 2007 and 2008 as well, but I guess that, itself, would be trite!
–Paul
There are certain lessons—and when I say lessons, of course, I mean grammar lessons—that we always remember having been taught, and this is one of them for me.
I still recall my elementary-school teacher explaining the difference between stationary, which means to be still, and stationery. She said that a good way to remember that stationary (with the a) means to be still is to think of the word stand (with the a). That’s good since when you’re just standing, you’re not moving (that is, you’re stationary), but I would go one step further: Stationery (with the a in the first part of the word and the e in the second part of the word) is paper (with the a in the first part of the word and the e in the second).
I wonder if anyone will remember that one 40 years from now!
Sherry
This is as close to fast-food week as we’re ever going to get here at languageandgrammar.com. Not only did I recently talk about the Chick-Fil-A Bowl, but now I’m talking about a topic that’s been featured in a recent McDonald’s commercial: Is it stomach pangs or stomach pains when you’re hungry?
This falls into the close-but-no-cigarette category (humorously close to being correct) if you ask me. The correct term, of course, is stomach pangs, not stomach pains, but the mistaken usage is understandable. A pang is either an emotional longing or a sharp, physical pain.
Someone with an empty stomach can, apparently, feel physical pain, though, so if you’re one of those people, then perhaps you can substitute the word pains for pangs. For the rest of us, though, stick with stomach pangs when you’re merely expressing that you’re hungry.
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
I’m sure that many college football fans were shocked when LSU upset 13th ranked Georgia Tech in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl last week. Not being a college football fan, I was shocked, too—not at the outcome of the game but at a bowl game being named after a fried chicken sandwich. How did that happen?
When I hear Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, and perhaps even the Cotton Bowl, I think of hard-fought games played by excellent teams in historic venues. It’s what college football is all about. I don’t think about greasy food.
When I think of Chik-Fil-A, I think of a mall food court filled with the special scent of grease, Chinese food, and perhaps Victoria’s Secret perfume (if the store is unfortunate enough to be near the food court). The only example of athleticism is displayed by the security guard when he races to that little cart when called to help an elderly person search for his misplaced vehicle. I don’t think of great football.
I know that sponsorships have become increasingly important in football, not only in the bowl games but in the names of stadiums, but shouldn’t we have some standards? I mean, seriously, the Chik-Fil-A bowl? It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Can the Literally, the Best Language Book Ever: Annoying Words and Phrases You Should Never Use Again Bowl be far behind?
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: While not all of us care about using proper grammar at all times, we all have at least one language pet peeve. As you’ll notice from the Pet Peeves page on our site, language pet peeves can certainly be grammar related, but they might also be a word or phrase that’s redundant, annoyingly trendy, or just doesn’t make any sense.
I recently saw a blog about Texas Rangers’ pitcher Kevin Millwood, who has to pitch a certain number of innings in order to be guaranteed the final year of his contract. If he reaches the requirement, then he will make $12,000,000 in 2010. An article about Millwood’s contract status said that Millwood had “12 million reasons to pitch 180 innings in 2009.”
The blogger on mlbtraderumors.com wonders why every dollar is a reason (Odds and Ends: Abreu, Wiggington, and Millwood). That sounds like a pet peeve to me, and by the way, I couldn’t agree more. I would hope that Millwood, a professional athlete with years of experience, would want to pitch well for reasons that go beyond money, such as the benefit of the team, pride, and because it’s the right thing to do.
Of course, since the original article (Millwood Steaming Toward Next Season) states that he’s lost 12 pounds and is determined to rebound, perhaps that wasn’t the case. Wait, 12 pounds with 12 million dollars on the line—–that’s a million dollars per pound of fat!
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
It is with great shame that I must report that I have to write about one of my own language failings. When it was bitterly cold the other morning, I reported that I’ve never been that cold before.
While I thought it was an honest statement, with the slightest bit of research (I am a meteorologist, by the way), I quickly was able to prove that this was not the case. The temperature was 7 degrees with a wind chill of -14. It was, indeed, horrendously cold. I have, however, been exposed to much colder conditions at various times in my life, most notably when I was paperboy some 30 years ago and when we had a -17-degree day about 13 years ago.
Those details don’t matter, of course; the point is that saying I’ve never been that cold before tells the listener nothing of importance–unless the listener knows me well enough to make a judgment based on my past experiences. If he knew that I was from Miami, then he would understand the statement; if he knew that I was an Arctic explorer, then he’d be impressed with the statement. Otherwise, the person to whom I’m speaking would have no way to put my experiences into his perspective in order to understand how cold it was.
It would be much more effective to communicate in a way that the other person understands, which means taking the personalization out of it. For example, I could talk about how the biting wind made it feel as if there were ice cubes where my eyes used to be or that it was so cold that I wanted to eat ice cream so that I could feel the warmth going down my throat—all much better and much more descriptive than I’ve never been that cold before.
–Paul
Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever
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