This Kind of Error Is Not the Same as These Sorts of Errors

Posted on March 5, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Kind of is singular, so the noun following it needs to be singular; kinds of is plural, so what follows needs to be plural. When either kind or kinds is preceded by a demonstrative pronoun, it should be this or that for kind of and these or those for kinds of (for example, these kinds of suits, this kind of suit). Don’t mix them by saying these kind of suits or these kinds of suit.

The same is true for type/types of and sort/sorts of. The singulars—type of and sort of–should be preceded by the singular demonstrative pronouns this and that and followed by a singular noun, as in this type of book and this sort of problem. The plurals—types of and sorts of—should be preceded by these and those and followed by a plural noun, as in these types of books and these sorts of problems.

In other words, everything should match.

Sherry

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Weather on Your Weekend

Posted on March 4, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Can I register a complaint about my own blog on my own blog? Is that legal? Why do I keep asking myself questions? I hate when people do that!

Anyway, I’m the meteorologist, and everyone else on this blog is talking about the weather, including my co-writer Sherry Coven (The Plurals are Rain and Snow) and someone to whom she linked (Wintry Mix). That should clearly fall into my job description; in fact, I’ve already done so here (50% Chance of Rain), and since I work at AccuWeather (my weather blog), I should be the one making fun of the Weather Channel.

With that long-winded (weather pun) lead, I shall begin. I would like to watch 10 minutes of Weather Channel programming (it would be more like 3 minutes if there weren’t so many commercials) without hearing one of their weather presenters saying something along the lines of It will be pleasant for your weekend or It’s going to be cold on your Friday or It will be wet to start your day. In fact, in Sherry’s aforementioned blog about rain and snow, the quote she used from the Weather Channel (Here’s a look at your snows on your Saturday. We’re looking at wind-driven snows.) included two your references.

I understand what they’re trying to do–they’re trying to personalize the weather for the home viewer. There’s a problem, though–it doesn’t work. Everyone shares the weekend (even if someone works on the weekend, it’s still the weekend); everyone shares Friday; most of us share work days. These are not individual items for individual people. They cannot be personalized.

Even if it did work, there’s such a thing as overkill–and the Weather Channel used up the last of its allotment of your weekend (or your Saturday, your Sunday, your morning commute, your afternoon knitting club, your trip to the gas station on the corner) references about 10 years ago.

–Paul

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

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Spelling and Pronunciation Errors

Posted on March 3, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Today, I’ll tackle a few spelling and pronunciation errors that I come across more often than I think I should. Sometimes, we just get into bad habits, automatically repeating another person’s pronunciation or spelling without realizing that we’ve seen or heard variations on that spelling or pronunciation and should probably check it for ourselves.

I’m always surprised when I come across the misspelling alot, which I’ve seen in many an e-mail sent to me by family members. For whatever reason, I always associate this error with first- and second-grade students. Maybe it’s that my first-grade and second-grade teachers always seemed to be correcting this one. Here’s what I remember about it: A lot is just like a little (only more).

Another spelling error that I see too often, especially on the Internet, is alright. Again, going back many years, I remember my teachers saying that all right is just like all wrong (only better).

In the pronunciation department, et cetera and asterisk are my targets. I heard the host of a popular television show say asterik, and I hear educated people say eck cetera much too often. (This brings up a good question on another subject: If a lot of educated people start using substandard grammar, does that mean that we should adopt it as standard grammar?)

If you have the urge to say eck cetera, remember its abbreviation: etc., not eck. The –t in the abbreviation is for the –t in et, not the –t in cetera. It’s et c, which becomes etc. If you feel compelled to talk about the asterik (even just typing it makes me cringe), remember that the second part of the word is risk.

Sherry

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

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Rain Activity and Snow Events

Posted on March 1, 2008 by languageandgrammar

While riding the waves of the Internet, I stumbled across a blog entry that matched well with my recent entry about rain and snow (The Plurals are Rain and Snow). In fact, the entry in John McIntyre’s You Don’t Say blog, which is hosted by the Baltimore Sun, talked about rain activity and snow events–two items that I’d considered adding to my recent post.

McIntyre’s blog entry is called Wintry Mix. I hope that you enjoy it.

Sherry

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If You Can’t Park It, Then…

Posted on March 1, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Driving an SUV, which according to co-blogger Sherry Coven stands for Stupid Ugly Vehicle, is almost as popular as the loans needed to pay for the monthly gas bills of driving these monsters, but the problem is that most people can’t drive them safely. This is never more obvious than in a parking lot.

I must have said If you can’t park it, then don’t drive it off the lot more often than I’ve said partly sunny in my 23-year career as a meteorologist. If the problem isn’t the SUV that takes up three parking spaces, then the problem is that the driver needs to back up and pull forward 17 times in order to get out of the space because he or she can’t gauge distance in front of or behind the SUV. If the problem isn’t that the SUV is taking up the entire aisle when looking for a space, then the problem is that the driver is pulling into the wrong lane when making wide turns coming into the parking lot because the vehicle is too large to make a sharp turn.

It’s clear that about 75% of the people who drive these gas-guzzling behemoths couldn’t pass a most basic parking test, and these are probably the same people who buy SUV’s because they feel safer in a larger vehicle in case they’re involved in an accident. Maybe if they purchased cars that they could drive safely, then they wouldn’t have to worry so much about being in accidents.

It may be off-topic for a language and grammar blog, but it’s good advice for prospective car shoppers: If you can’t park it, then don’t drive it off the lot.

 –Paul

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

Sherry’s Grammar List

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The Plurals Are Rain and Snow

Posted on February 29, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Here’s a look at your snows on your Saturday. We’re looking at wind-driven snows. I hear these kinds of things almost daily from both local and national weather personalities.

The plural of rain is rain, and the plural of snow is snow. Rain is water vapor that has condensed and is falling from the atmosphere; the many, many, many droplets of this water vapor come together to form this single, non-countable noun. There is no such thing as one rain or two rains; there is just rain.

Maybe the weather personalities are trying to describe rain that is falling in a variety of areas; however, whether it’s one area or more than one area, it’s still just rain, not rains. Rain is falling in New York. Rain is falling in New York, Minneapolis, and Seattle.

Maybe the weather personalities are trying to describe rain or snow that will be arriving in one particular area over an extended period of time, as in The rains are coming to Los Angeles. Instead, this should be, for example, The rainy season is beginning, bringing rain over the next few weeks or Several rain-bearing storm systems will move through Los Angeles in the next two weeks or There will be several storms over the next week, bringing rain.

The same is true for snow. Whether it’s snow in one area or snow all over the country, it’s still called snow, not snows. Snow will fall in New York. Snow will fall in New York, Aspen, and the Sierra.

Sherry

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

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The Reason is Already the Why

Posted on February 28, 2008 by languageandgrammar

I’ve already written about the redundancy of the reason is because, but I’ve noticed that many people are also curious about whether the reason why is correct grammar. Both the reason is because and the reason why have something very basic in common: they’re entries for the category of the redundancy category.

The reason is already the why, and the why already means the reason. When you ask why, you’re asking for the reason, and when you ask for the reason, you’re asking for the why. You can slice it any way you want, but it still comes out looking like a redundancy. Saying the reason I wanted to do this was to… is sufficient. There’s no need to say the reason why I wanted to do this was to….

Don’t even get me started on the whole the reason why is because thing. That’s a triple redundancy that would need a category of the redundancy category of the redundancy.

Sherry

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

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It Was Like A Nightmare or Something

Posted on February 27, 2008 by languageandgrammar

When I talk about the need to communicate well, I’m not just talking about the need to use proper grammar rules at all times. It’s more about the need to express thoughts in a way that gives the listener an accurate picture of your thoughts. In other words, I’m talking about the need to be articulate.

None of us is as articulate as we’d like to be at all times, but phrases similar to It was like a nightmare or something or It was unbelievable or I had never seen anything like that before come spilling out of our collective mouth with frightening regularity.

The Onion, in a fake radio report (Search Continues for Articulate Witness of Tragedy), mocks the inarticulate nature of our communication. We at Languageandgrammar.com enjoyed the report, and we hope you do as well.

–Paul

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

Sherry’s Grammar List

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Misremembered

Posted on February 25, 2008 by languageandgrammar

Everyone had a good laugh at Roger Clemens when he recently said  (at the congressional hearing about steroid use) that Andy Pettitte had misremembered since we all know that misremembered is obviously not a word. While I agree with those who believe that it is not a word, it’s an interesting case about the grey area of language and communication.

Nearly every word that has been used with any regularity appears in some dictionary somewhere because dictionaries are a typically a reflection of current usage, not of proper grammar. In other words, commonly used non-words usually appear in dictionaries and are then accepted into language as words by much of the population because they’re in the dictionary. The problem is that not everyone agrees that common usage is reason enough to declare a former non-word to be a legitimate word, and debate about the legitimacy might go on for generations.

That’s how the word drug has started to be accepted as the past tense of the word drag by some of us. (The correct past tense is dragged–look for a post from Sherry on this word soon.)

It’s the same with the word misremembered. It does appear in the occasional dictionary, but does that make it an acceptable word? Misremembered appears in these dictionaries not because of common usage, however; it appears there because of the belief that the prefix mis– can be added to nearly any root word to make a new word. Personally, I don’t believe that to be the case with misremembered; the result is an awkward, ineffective non-word that should be avoided. 

That is my opinion, and if anyone wants to make the argument that it’s an acceptable word because it shows up in the odd dictionary, then he should misremember things to his heart’s content.

Just don’t misremember this: Good communication skills are more important than whether you can make an argument for using an awkward word. It’s about how to effectively express yourself, which ain’t gonna be happening with bad word picking.

–Paul

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

Sherry’s Grammar List

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I’m Sorry If I Offended Anyone

Posted on February 23, 2008 by languageandgrammar

I have one piece of advice to all would-be apologists out there: If you’re not sorry, then don’t apologize!

I am tired of hearing the standard non-apology of I’m sorry if I offended anyone. Apologies are not conditional upon whether the listener was offended. The only condition should be that the person who made the mistake wants to express his or her regret in a sincere way.

This, I believe, is the first entry that is also included in the book, but I felt the need to talk about it when I heard Bill O’Reilly’s supposed apology for an offensive comment related to Michelle Obama (MediaMatters.org report on Bill O’Reilly). It was a classic non-apology–I’m sorry if my statement offended anyone.

In other words, Bill O’Reilly was not sorry for what he said–the offensive comment. He was sorry if anyone was offended, so I’m left to assume that Bill, himself, didn’t find the comment to be offensive; otherwise, Bill would have said something similar to I used poor judgment, and I’m sorry for the offensive comment.

Then why is he pretending to apologize–and using language to try to fool people into believing it?

–Paul

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

Sherry’s Grammar List

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