Satima's Blogspot: word use

Showing posts with label word use. Show all posts

Sunday, 17 July 2011

Yoda lives - in English

Sunday, July 17, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

This post is really about substantive verbs, sometimes called "linking verbs". The verb “to be” is sometimes called The Substantive Verb, and some people just call it a substantive, not a verb at all. Be is not the only verb in this category, though. There are several others, notably become, feel, go, remain, stay, stand.

A substantive verb does not have an object. You can turn the sentence back-to-front, Yoda-like, and it will still have the same meaning, although it will probably read like something from a nineteenth century poem or novel if you do.

Look at these examples:
The air sits heavy in monsoon season: if we invert it we get “Heavy sits the air in monsoon season”

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown: inverted: The head that wears a crown lies uneasy.

John became a doctor - A doctor John became

The grass remains dry - Dry remains the grass

She felt unhappy - Unhappy she felt

The woman went crazy - Crazy went the woman

The athlete will become a coach – A coach the athlete will become.

He remained a lawyer – A lawyer he remained

Mary stays at home – At home stays Mary

Bill stood still – Still stood Bill

These sound rather poetic, don’t they – or maybe rather like Yoda on a bad day – but we do sometimes use this form of expression, even in speech: for instance “He always wanted to be a farmer, and a farmer he became”.

Labels: grammar, word use |

7 comments

Sunday, 5 June 2011

Common misuses - confusing words

Sunday, June 05, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Some words have two negative forms, which can be confusing. Two such words are "satisfied" and "interested". Both have two negative forms: one starting with dis- and one starting with un-. These negatives, in both cases, have very different meanings.

Dissatisfied/unsatisfied

If a person is dissatisfied, he or she is feeling upset or disappointed in some way. For instance “Cheryl was really dissatisfied with the service at her hotel.”

But someone who is unsatisfied hasn’t had enough of something: “I was still unsatisfied after the meal.” (You might say this after going to a posh restaurant where they served you miniscule piece of salmon and an artistic trail of sauce, garnished with some unidentifiable herb.)

Disinterested/uninterested

These examples show the difference:
“We need a disinterested party to adjudicate the competition” (i.e. someone who has no vested interest in the outcome. A parent of one of the competitors would not be disinterested!)

He or she might, however, be uninterested. E.g. “Our daughter likes to compete in gymnastics competitions but her father is totally uninterested.” (In the vernacular, he couldn’t give a stuff about gymnastic competitions even if his daughter is competing!

In neither case are the two negative forms interchangeable, because each has its own clearly defined meaning.

Labels: word use |

4 comments

Sunday, 22 May 2011

Common misuses: pronouns – subject and object

Sunday, May 22, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

Pronouns. Little words. But they can give writers – or, more likely, editors! – nasty headaches.

Look at "I" and "me". They fill me with despair. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve shuddered at things like “The boss gave Damien and I a rise last week” or “Chantal invited Jenny and I to her birthday bash”. This has become increasingly common in both England and Australia and no doubt in other English-speaking countries as well, and I suspect that within a few years even the Oxford Dictionary will give in and list it as normal usage.

You would never say “The boss gave I a rise” or “Chantal invited I”, would you? When in doubt, try taking out the first name. If it still sounds OK (as in Queen Elizabeth’s classic “My husband and I are very happy to be here", then you can safely say “Damien and I”.

That’s because “I” is the nominative case. It is used when the speaker is the one performing the action, such as the Queen (as above) being pleased. So “I invited Damien and Chantal to the barbeque” is correct. But if I’m one of the people being invited, “me” is the correct pronoun – Damien invited Chantal and me to the barbeque”.

Another misused family of pronouns includes who/whom and whoever/whomever. Here again, the first-named is the nominative case, as in “Who stole my pen?” The second of each pair is the objective case, and the problem is that usage is in the process of changing. For example, If I said “Did you know Jack’s been charged with assault?”, you might reply, “Who did he assault?” and no one would blink an eye. In fact, if you were to use the correct form “Whom did he assault?” you might even sound a bit old-fashioned and pedantic.

But there are times when many of us still use “whom”. For instance “Did you know Jared was assaulted last night?” might well draw the reply, “Assaulted by whom?” We’re tending, more and more, to use “whom” when it’s preceded by a preposition, but “who” when it’s not, and many people don’t use “whom” at all, preposition or no preposition. Or they use it in the wrong places, thinking it makes them sound more refined. In other words, many people haven’t got a clue about who and whom, and I suspect that within a few decades, “whom” will disappear altogether.

Whoever and whomever are of the same ilk. Basically, "whoever" is nominative; and "whomever" is objective.

But in practice it gets complicated.

The reason is that these words often turn up as subjects of subordinate clauses, so they have to be in the nominative case even if the clause itself is the object of the sentence. The rule is that agreement is always within the subordinate clause itself, even when that clause appears as the object of the main clause.

For example “Give the prize to whoever/whomever arrives first”. Now, on first glance, it’s tempting to use “whomever” because it appears to be the indirect object of the first clause.

BUT it is also the subject of its very own clause “whoever arrives first”. So “whoever” is the correct form here.

I cheerfully pinched some examples from http://www.englishforums.com/English/WhoeverVsWhomever/cxcp/post.htm which is part of a worthwhile site for all matters pertaining to English grammar.
Give it to whoever pays the highest price.
Give it to whomever you like best.
Introduce whoever you think is the tallest to whoever you think is the shortest.
Introduce whomever you invited first to whomever you invited last.
Introduce whoever arrived first to whoever arrived last.

While we’re examining who and whom and their kin, what about “whomsoever”? It’s rather a quaint, old-fashioned sort of word, dating right back to Chaucer’s day and possibly earlier, but it refuses to die altogether. It is pretty much interchangeable with who and whom in expressions such as “To whom/whomever/whomsoever it may concern”. The nominative form “whosoever” is very rare. More often, we use “whoever” in the nominative.

So, another part of our language that is changing – but it’s still advisable to use who/whoever and whom/whomever correctly in writing, even in places where you might not do so in speech – unless, of course, you’re writing colloquial dialogue!

Labels: grammar, pronouns, word use |

8 comments

Sunday, 10 April 2011

Common misuses: common expressions

Sunday, April 10, 2011 |

Posted by Satima Flavell

When editing or critiquing, and even in everyday conversation, I am often jolted by the misuse of common expressions, so I thought I might don my pedant’s hat today and talk about some of them in this post.

As Such
One of these misused expressions is “as such”. This phrase is seldom used correctly these days, and its incorrect use often renders the sentence laughable. Some people misuse the phrase completely because they have mistaken its meaning, thinking it means “therefore”, which is just plain silly.

In order to make sense, “as such”, a pronominal phrase, must refer back to a noun in the previous sentence or clause. It cannot be used to refer to a verb.

Consider this: “I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for some years now. As such, I’ve learnt a lot about cleaning equipment.” The speaker obviously intends “as such” to refer to “worked” which is the verb in the previous sentence, but grammatically, “as such” can only refer to a noun. You could say, however, “I’ve been a hotel room attendant for some years now. As such...etc”.

Partake of/partake in/take part
Another word whose misuse is becoming widespread is “partake”. It really means “to take a share” and has traditionally been used to refer to the sharing of food, as in “We partook of a delicious seafood banquet last night”. However, it has long been used in a figurative sense, as in “partaking in each other’s joys”, which carries the implication of sharing. The difference between the two usages lies in the accompanying pronoun, in or of. If we partake of, we each take a share of something – I eat my share of the food, you eat yours. If we partake in, we share mutually – your joys are also mine, my joys are also yours. Can you see the subtle difference between the two?

But the main problem is that some people are now using “partake” where they should use “take part”, as in “We partook in a football match yesterday”, which to my mind ruins a nice, rather subtle little expression. However, language is constantly changing and I don’t think I can do anything to stop this particular change!

Two more misuses can only be seen in writing, as both ways of using them sound the same in speech. I’m talking about “all together” vs “altogether” and “on to” vs “onto”. Let’s look at the second phrase first.

Onto/on to
The word “onto” is quite new. It used to be considered altogether incorrect when I was a child. However, it is now considered quite OK to say “I put the plate onto the shelf”, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Where the word gets misused is in sentences such as “He went onto say how pleased he was with the new house” or even “The plane flew onto London”! In cases such as these, where something is definitely not being superimposed on something else, we should leave the two words separate.

Altogether/all together
I hope I haven’t got you altogether confused because I’ll now go on to “all together”. When we do something as a group we do it all together, as in “We left the party all together”.

The word “altogether” is another matter altogether.

If you were to write the sample sentence as “We left the party altogether” it would mean that you left the party absolutely, utterly and completely, never to return. You might apply that to a political party, but not the social gathering sort of party, which you might have left early because you were tired, not because you were in high dudgeon over something, although I suppose that’s also possible!

I plan to do a few more of these posts, so if you have any words or phrases that you're not sure how to use, let me know and I'll try to incorporate them.

Labels: grammar, word use |

7 comments

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