Definite Possibility

Posted on April 26, 2008 by languageandgrammar

An oxymoron is the pairing of two or more words to create a meaning that is contradictory or seems to be contradictory. A couple of examples of oxymorons that seem contradictory include objective opinion, speed bump, and jumbo shrimp. (For what is billed as the “largest list of oxymorons collected online,” please visit oxymoronlist.com.) These, however, are logical pairings of words, and since they’re logical, they are reasonable ways to communicate. In fact, I wouldn’t mind a few jumbo shrimp in a scampi sauce now.

Some oxymorons don’t just seem to be contradictory; they are contradictory, which renders them ineffective as communication tools–that would be illogical communication, to coin my own oxymoron. To me, the always-popular definite possibility falls into that category since there is no logical reason to pair the certainty associated with the word definite and the uncertainty associated with the word possibility. How can something be certain and uncertain at the same time? We would never pair the equally contradictory possibly definite in any instance.

I understand that the intention is to express a smaller amount of uncertainty, such as a house shopper might say This house is a definite possibility about a house that nearly meets all of the family’s needs and is worth further consideration. A better way to express it, though, would be to say This house is a distinct possibility since it expresses the intended thought without the obvious contradiction.

–Paul

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To, Too, Two Grammar

Posted on April 25, 2008 by languageandgrammar

O, that this too too grammar error would melt… I’m sure that Shakespeare wouldn’t mind my re-writing one of his most famous and quoted lines—as long as it’s done in the name of good grammar. Most people don’t have problems remembering that two refers to the number 2, just as twins (notice the tw) refers to two (notice the tw) of something. The problem usually comes in trying to determine whether to use to or too.

To is a preposition, as in We’re going to the opera and They drove to the lawyer’s office. Too generally means also, as in You can’t have your cake and eat it, too, or it can refer to something done in excess of what is normal or desirable, as in The soprano was too loud.

 

Sherry

 

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There, Their, They’re

Posted on April 24, 2008 by languageandgrammar

There, there now; they’re really not as confusing as their reputations might have you believe.

 

They’re is the contraction for they are.

  • They’re related to a prominent New England family.
  • They’re not sure which candidate they’re going to hire.

 

Their is a possessive pronoun.

  • Their patience is waning.
  • Their main concern is their lack of funds.

 

There is used for everything else, such as:

  • There are two qualified candidates.
  • Your next appointment is waiting in there.
  • Let’s discuss it and go from there.

Sherry

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I Want to Be a Statistic–Sometimes

Posted on April 23, 2008 by languageandgrammar

A statistic is a numerical value or fact or an inanimate numerical representation of a piece of information. Examples include 53% of the the vote, $3.59 cents per gallon, a .309 batting average, and 63% of all bananas that my co-worker brings to the office do not meet the limited ripeness standard necessary for him to enjoy eating them.

Being inanimate, of course, means that the numbers, themselves, are neither good nor bad, but we often interpret them to be something that is either positive or negative. The commonly used (euphamism for used with annoying regularity) expression I don’t want to be a statistic typically refers to something tragic, often a death statistic. Not only is that morbid, but it doesn’t make much sense to me.

I’m going to be the bigger language expert and look past the lack of logic of being a statistic (it’s not possible for a person to be a numerical representation of fact) and discuss only the lack of logic of focusing on negative statistics. I can think of a couple of statistics that I would be happy to have represent me–100% forecast accuracy (I’m a meteorologist, remember) and 1,000,000 books sold (and a writer).

There are times that I’d love to be a statistic.

Note: A couple of comments recently mysteriously disppeared from the site. Ok, so it was no mystery. We accidentally deleted them while deleting spam. We vow to be more careful.

–Paul

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Whether or Not

Posted on April 21, 2008 by languageandgrammar

When I was in high school, I wrote a short, humorous poem about my potential future career; it was titled Weather or Not. Unless you’re reading that poem, which is highly unlikely since it’s never left the back of my closet, you should never say whether or not when using the other whether.

Whether, in this instance, is being used to introduce multiple alternatives, such as I don’t know whether I should stay, go to the store, or go to the bank. There are three alternatives (staying, going to the store, and going to the bank), and whether introduces them.

It has become widely accepted to use whether or not as a shortcut, such as saying I don’t know whether or not I should go instead of I don’t know whether I should go or stay. In the former example, whether is not being used correctly since the alternative has not been introduced, but since it’s implied, you’re certainly not going to hear many people complain about its use in this way, especially in informal situations; in the latter example, whether is used as intended, introducing two well-defined alternatives.

What is clearly incorrect is using whether or not with well-defined alternatives, such as I don’t know whether or not I should go or stay since this example introduces more possibilities than intended. In the example, it introduces four alternatives: going, not going, staying, and not staying, as opposed to the intended two. This example mirrors some of the other entries that Sherry and I have discussed in the blog. Enough people use whether or not with well-defined alternatives for it to have gained acceptance; however, acceptance of something that is not logical is not the best way to communicate.

–Paul

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Jeff Corwin, Move Over

Posted on April 20, 2008 by languageandgrammar

We at languageandgrammar.com took a brief respite from saving our readers from language pitfalls–just long enough to save nine ducklings in what could only be called a “daring rescue.” Ok, so it wasn’t that daring, but it was a rescue nonetheless.

On a drive back to the languageandgrammar.com headquarters, we were forced to stop on an entrance ramp to a relatively busy suburban road to wait for a mother duck and her 10 fluffy, waddling ducklings to finish crossing the street. We patiently waited for “mom” to hop onto the curb and move into the grass and for all of the ducklings to be safely by the curb before continuing, and as we were driving away and talking about how cute the baby ducks were (and how fortunate they were to have made it across the road), Sherry noticed that while mom and the first duckling had made it onto the curb, the second duckling was having trouble making it over–and none of the others seemed to be trying.

We didn’t want the ducklings to be separated from their mother–or, more important, be the victims of a hit-and-run driver–but there was no place to pull over or turn around. We needed to go back to make sure that they were ok, though, and it took us nearly 10 minutes to drive back to the same spot, only to find that the nine ducklings were still huddled in the street along the curb while the mother and the first duckling were across the field–away from view because of a slight hill.

We jumped into action as quickly as we would have if we had seen a dangling participle, parking illegally along the side of the entrance ramp and jogging to the ducklings that were slowly moving, en masse, on a path parallel to the curb–farther away from the mother, who was visibly looking for the ducklings but not able to see them.

We lifted the ducklings over the curb one at a time, with their little wings flapping and their barely audible chirps of protest, and placed them in the grass, thinking that the mother duck would see them and return to her frightened brood, but it was not to be. The duck and the ducklings were only 50 to 75 feet apart, but with the hill between them, they might as well have been a million miles apart.

While Sherry had some luck shooing the ducklings in the general direction of the mother, it was a slow process, and the mother continued on her path forward, moving at the same speed while looking around for the ducklings from time to time. I tried to shoo the mother back toward the ducklings, but I was afraid that she would become frightened and fly away.

The best idea seemed to be to move the ducklings closer to the mother, so I took off my coat, and we gently placed them inside, where they seemed to be very cozy and happy, and carried them to the top of the little hill. As we placed the coat on the ground and the ducklings started to hop out one by one, one of them chirped loudly enough for the mother to hear. She quacked back, and within a couple of minutes, the family was reunited. The mother seemed to take a head count (perhaps she should have thought of that a little earlier!), and the happy family waddled away.

Jeff Corwin, move over.

–Paul

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Fed Up with Up

Posted on April 18, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Up, Up, and Away could be the title of a sequel to Literally, the Best Language Book Ever. Rather than a book with 350-plus words, phrases, and expressions that you should never use again, it would be a book with 350-plus up words that you should never use again. I’m not saying that the new book would be as good, but it would be useful nonetheless.

Cooks are constantly chopping up vegetables instead of chopping vegetables, baking up cookies instead of baking them (sometimes, to be fair, they bake off their cookies, which is equally inarticulate), roasting up their chickens instead of roasting them, frying up their fritters instead of frying their fritters, boiling up their pasta instead of boiling it, and browning up their onions instead of browning them. It’s not just chefs; otherwise, we could blame it on too much heat in the kitchen.

Out of the kitchen, people use up their paper towels rather than use them. The grass is beginning to green up rather than turn green. In a couple of months, the baking sun will mean that the grass is beginning to brown up rather than turn brown. They change up (sometimes, they change out instead) the curtains for the summer, and they talk about how it’s beginning to cloud up instead of beginning to get cloudy.

And don’t even get me started on the new trend of saying things like “man up” or “lawyer up.” I don’t want the sequel to be a two-volume set.

–Paul

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Sit, Set: Setting the Record Straight

Posted on April 17, 2008 by languageandgrammar

You’re not really supposed to sit something on a table, and you’re not supposed to set awhile when you need to rest.  It’s not the actions to which I object; it’s the verbs used to do them.

To set means to put or to place something somewhere, as in the following:

  • Every morning, she sets her briefcase next to her desk.
  • Yesterday, he set the pearl necklace on the bed, where she’d see it.
  • They are going to set his book in the bookstore window.

You need an object, whether it’s a key, a briefcase, or a cow, after the word set, and notice that in all three examples, you could replace the word set with the words put or place, as in Every morning, she places her briefcase next to her desk. That’s not the case for sit.

 

To sit means to be seated, as in the following:

  • Yesterday, they sat in the park for a while.
  • Don’t sit so close to the television.
  • We’re going to sit at the table while we dine.

Sherry

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It’s Not Impactful–it’s Inane

Posted on April 16, 2008 by languageandgrammar

In an Internet article on careers: Companies need people who can make their sites easy to navigate and visually impactful…. Impactful is a new non-word (meaning, of course, that it is not a word) that people, especially in the media, like to say because they think that it makes what they’re saying sound more important. I guess words such as effective, compelling, impressive, and forceful just don’t do it for anyone these days. I found impactful in a popular on-line dictionary, which, for many people, gives its use credibility; however, finding a usage in a modern on-line dictionary–or any dictionary for that matter (see co-blogger Paul Yeager’s What Does the Word Dictionary Mean)–does not make a word legitimate. Let me be succinct: Impactful is not a word–and someone should alert the media.

Sherry

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Obama Republican

Posted on April 15, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Here at Languageandgrammar.com, we not only tell you what the current most annoying words, phrases, and expressions are, but we go a step further by occasionally anticipating and predicting what some of the next most annoying words, phrases, and expressions will be.

When I was writing my book (Literally, the Best Language Book Ever), one such phrase was It is what it is. It had rapidly started to spread from occasional, informal usage to widespread usage in all situations. I was so annoyed that I actually wrote about it in my weather blog in addition to including it in the book.

The term Obama Republican is not the same as It is what it is in the sense that it’s a newly invented term as opposed to an existing series of words; however, it is the same in the sense that it’s going to spread like butter in the busiest bagel shop in the Bronx (Manhattan might have busier bagel shops, but I wanted to keep the alliteration going). It’s going to be used as the Democratic compliment of the overused, worn out Reagan Democrat, especially if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and wins the general election in November.

What is annoying about both Obama Republican and Reagan Democrat is the implication that it’s so shocking that so many registered voters of one party would switch allegiances and vote for a candidate of the hated, evil other party. How dare they vote for the person they believe will be the best president rather than the person who represents the party! Don’t they understand that voting for the other party’s candidate is so unexpected, so bold, so daring?

Voters have been voting for candidates in the opposite party since the two-party system was developed in this country; it’s an important part in keeping the political parties in line with what the voters want. It’s the equivalent of saying, “You’re not doing what I think you should be doing. Make some changes if you want to maintain power.” It’s only become an event worthy of creating specialized terms for during the past 25 or 30 years because of the increasingly polarized nature of our political system, along with our increasing need to simplify and label everything.

That’s not only an important point about politics, but it’s an important point about language.

–Paul

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

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