Blowback

Posted on May 13, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Blowback has become an increasingly popular (i.e, trendy) term, and it’s being used to mean….uh…actually, I don’t know what it’s being used to mean. That’s one of the problems with words that are made up or words that are being used to mean something other than what they really do mean (i.e, misused).

It seems to mean consequences, such as The blowback from John McCain’s negative campaigning is that Independents might not vote for him. Why a news reporter would choose to say blowback instead of consequences is beyond me since the word consequences would articulately and accurately give the intended meaning while the word blowback would accurately paint the picture of most members of the audience scratching their heads.

Even the most popular, ultra-modern online dictionary has not (as of this writing) started to define blowback to mean consequences, but it does define it in a number of other ways, the only one of which has any hint of consequences is “the effect caused by recirculation into the source country of disinformation previously planted abroad by that country’s intelligence service in an effort to mislead the government of another country.” I’d have to think about what what really means, but it doesn’t mean consequences.

–Paul

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

 

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Choose This!

Posted on May 12, 2008 by languageandgrammar

A couple of days ago, I was reading the comments related to an Internet article listing food that packs on the pounds (is there really anyone out there who still doesn’t know that cream-filled doughnuts and buttered mashed potatoes could be the reason that the number on the scale keeps getting higher?), and I came across the chose/choose spelling error.

Choose rhymes with lose, cruise, and booze (I know, I know, English is full of spelling inconsistencies), as in I lose my temper, A cruise to ANYWHERE would do me a world of good, and Is it too early in the day for a little booze? It does not rhyme with loose; loose has a soft –s sound; choose has the –z sound. I choose my battles wisely.

The past tense of choose is chose, which rhymes with close, sews, and snows. She chose her maid of honor by pulling a name out of a hat.

Sherry

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Most Stupid or Stupidest: Stupid Grammar Error

Posted on May 9, 2008 by languageandgrammar

The superlative form of stupid is most stupid, as in I made the most stupid mistake, not stupidest. Stupidest can be heard and seen everywhere, including many modern dictionaries, but it’s wrong. (Please don’t ask me to roll out my entire exposition on why finding a word in a modern dictionary doesn’t make it legitimate, standard English. Paul and I have already paddled across that ocean several times.)

Stupid is just like lucid (same –id ending). The comparative form is more lucid, and the superlative form is most lucid. Likewise, the comparative form of stupid is more stupid, and the superlative form is most stupid. In fact, in general, –id words use more and most instead of –er and –est. The water was more tepid, he was the most lucid, they could have been more candid, his reflexes have grown more torpid, the milk was the most rancid, his tongue had grown more acrid. No one would even think to say tepidest, lucidest, candidest, torpidest, rancidest, or acridest–I hope.

Sherry

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Diss Goes Mainstream

Posted on May 7, 2008 by languageandgrammar

It’s interesting to follow the progression of one generation’s trendy words as they spread into the more mainstream lexicon. The reason that the new generation started to create the new, trendy way of speaking was to separate themselves from the older generation, not so they would be imitated by the older crowd.

It seems as if the non-word diss, which is a trendy, slang way of talking about being treated in a disrespectful manner, such as He dissed me when he said I lied, may be on a path toward more widespread acceptance. On separate occasions in the past week, co-blogger Sherry Coven heard Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, and Newt Gingrich each use diss on MSNBC when discussing politics. If these three don’t represent the older, more conservative generation from whom the younger people are trying to separate themselves, it’s hard to imagine who would.

When the new generation’s way of speaking is used by the older generation, the new generation often moves on to something else. And who could blame them; the last thing they want is for their parents to sound the same as they do. Also, it’s a problem for the older generation when they start to use the more youthful words. There weren’t too many people watching MSNBC who were thinking, “Gee, Chris and Andrea are in tune with the youth of today.” Some were probably thinking, “Is Andrea Mitchell trying to sound young? Please,” or, more likely, “Chis Matthews sounds ridiculous when he says diss.” Still others were saying, “What does diss mean?”

From a communication standpoint, the latter is the more serious problem when the words cross from the informal communication of the young to the more formal communication of the rest of the population, such as network television. Diss is not a word; therefore, many people don’t know what was trying to be communicated.

–Paul

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Literally, the Best Language Book Ever in Stores Today

Posted on May 6, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Today is a day that I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time. My book, Literally, the Best Language Book Ever, is officially being released by Perigee Books. 

Working with Perigee to get it published was a great experience, and now, I’m fortunate enough to have been given several opportunities to talk about the book to the media. The point of writing a book, however, is to be able to write something for other people to read and enjoy, and that day is finally here. The books that have been pre-ordered in recent months will finally be shipped, and the book is now in book stores across the country, including Barnes and Noble, Borders, and many of the larger independent book stores.

–Paul

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Jobs I’d Hate to Have

Posted on May 3, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Expiration dates on food products are important, of course; otherwise, we’d have even more people going around saying “This doesn’t smell good–here, sniff” and “This doesn’t taste right–here, take a bite,” but it’s clear that we’ve taken this one step too far. I’m referring, of course, to the new development of stamping expiration dates on eggs–not on the carton that they come in but on each individual egg. I have some in my refrigerator right now.

I think I hate mornings more than the average person, but even I am not yet so lazy that I have to start reading my food instead of the box. Seriously, I look at the expiration date on the carton of eggs when I’m in the store, and then I recklessly go about making breakfast for the next week without double checking the expiration date. Call me a rebel. If I needed to, though, I wouldn’t mind doing the exhaustive research needed to look at the carton again. I don’t need to have someone in the egg processing plant making sure that the egg stamper has enough ink. That’s not a job I’d like to have. 

What’s more, I don’t like the precedent that’s being set. One of my co-workers buys Pop Tarts that have trivia questions stamped on them (I get about 50% of the answers correct, by the way), but what’s next? Are we going to start printing the fat and calories on individual potato chips? Are we going to have the words “tarter control” and “enamel strengthening” written on the white strip of the tri-colored toothpaste, itself?

Hey, if this book-writing thing doesn’t work out for me, maybe I could get a job writing expiration dates on Tic Tacs.

–Paul

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

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LanguageAndGrammar Takes to the Airwaves

Posted on May 2, 2008 by languageandgrammar

May 2

I wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be talking about Literally, the Best Language Book Ever on various radio outlets in the coming weeks, and my first appearance will be on CJAD radio in Montreal in just a couple of hours. I’ll be speaking with Peter Anthony Holder on Holder Tonight from 1:30 a.m. until 2:00 a.m Eastern time, and you can listen live on their Web site (linked above). All insomniacs welcome!

–Paul

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Sneak or Snuck: Sneak’s Snuck Sneaked In

Posted on May 2, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Speaking of sneaking, maybe that’s how the word snuck got into the dictionary; I can’t think of any other reason for it to be there.

Although snuck is used fairly widely, the correct past tense and past participle of sneak is sneaked. (She sneaked in.) Snuck was considered to be non-standard English when people started to mistakenly use it, which, we’re told, was in the late 19th century; instead of correcting it through education, it spread and has now become so entrenched in our language that many well-respected writers and speakers use it and think that it’s correct.

As some of you may know, the use of sub-standard or non-standard language by well-respected writers, speakers, or anyone else doesn’t change my opinion about a word being incorrect; in this case, it just means that even some famous writers haven’t been taught the correct past forms of sneak. Indeed, in some writing and speaking circles, people still do see snuck as an egregious grammar error, so if you want to be sure that you’re using standard, correct English, then your best bet is to use the correct, standard English sneaked.

 

This is also a case of taking an already established regular verb with establish, standard forms and re-classifying it now as both regular and irregular (which I’ve talked about before). It doesn’t make any sense to me to have a verb suddenly be both regular and irregular just to acquiesce to a lower standard of speaking rather than taking the time to educate people properly.

 

Perhaps someday, we’ll have a single national usage panel that will agree on everything, but for now, I’m sticking to what I know to be standard and correct. Everyone else must decide for himself.

 

Sherry

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War on Everything

Posted on April 29, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Many of us have heard of the law of attraction, which is the belief that whatever a person experiences is a direct reflection of what he believes. For instance, if he believes that he has to fight for every penny, then he will, indeed, have to work extremely hard to become financially secure. Conversely, if he believes that life is meant to be easy, then a successful endeavor will be attained with little effort.

This is a language blog, not a philosophy blog, but perhaps the two (philosophy and language) should be paired more often. In language terms, the law of attraction is reflected in many of the statements that we make, such as It always rains on my birthday or The Eagles always lose when I watch the game (a reference to the magical results-altering ability that many of us think we have is included in the book, by the way!). Statements such as You’d better be careful what you wish for, You get what you fear, and You get what you focus on do the same thing.

It makes us wonder why, if we truly believe all of these self-fulfilling statements, we would want to frame nearly every problem we have as a “war.” We can’t say that it’s because we don’t think about the semantics of words because we most clearly do; otherwise, all problems wouldn’t be mis-labeled as issues (I know–here he goes again). We know that we’re labeling the war on drugs as a battle. We know that we’re labeling the war on crime as a battle. We know that we’re labeling the war on poverty as a battle. We also know that we’re labeling the potential problems related to global warming as a battle when we refer to it as the war against global warming, which we recently saw in a publication.

Why can’t we focus on a solution rather than focusing on an us-versus-them war-like mentality? Everything is a war. A war means that we’re defending ourselves from attack or that we’re going on attack against an enemy. Is global warming attacking us–or are we attacking the enemy of warming, which we are taking credit for causing? So, does that mean we’re at war with ourselves? And what about the wars on poverty, crime, and drugs, too? Who is this enemy attacking us? Aren’t we the enemy, causing our own problems? Isn’t the problem not a foreign intruder but, rather, the economic, political, and social policies that we, ourselves, enact?

We can focus on solutions without focusing on violence, and we might be happier if we stop labeling everything as a war and following the lead of those in the media and government when they do so.

–Paul and Sherry

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever;

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Every One and Any One

Posted on April 28, 2008 by languageandgrammar

This grammar error only makes itself obvious in the written word, but it does seem to be fairly common.

Use anyone if you can substitute it with anybody.

  • Did anyone else hear the news anchor use the slang (read inappropriate) word “diss” this morning? (You could say Did anybody else hear…?)
  • Did anyone care? (Did anybody care?)

 

As far as using any one, it means any single one. Try this: If you can substitute any two, then use any one.

  • Did any one of the anchors find it odd to hear a reporter use diss? (You could easily say Did any two of the anchors find it odd?)

The same is true for everyone; it can be substituted with everybody.

  • Everyone is here. (Everybody is here.)

Every one means every single one.

  • Every one of the guests is here. (Every single one of the guests is here.)

 

Sherry’s Grammar List

Paul’s book–Literally, the Best Language Book Ever; Sherry’s Grammar List

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