The English reflexive pronouns are: Singular: myself, yourself, himself/herself/itself Plural: ourselves, yourselves, themselves They are called “reflexive” because they reflect or restate another noun or pronoun that has already been stated. (In the case of an imperative sentence, the pronoun You is understood: “[You] Watch yourself on the ice!”) Reflexive pronouns are used as direct … Read more
The word OK has found its way into just about every language on earth. Although it’s usually written in all capitals and pronounced as separate letters, OK is a word and not an acronym, although it began as one. The most likely origin of OK is as an acronym for “Oll Korrect,” a deliberate misspelling … Read more
Until a reader asked me about it, I hadn’t encountered the eggcorn “to get one’s goad.” eggcorn: the reshaping of a common word or expression in a way that makes sense to the speaker. The expression is “to get one’s goat” (not goad). The earliest documentation in the OED is dated 1910. In modern usage, … Read more
When Dick Cheney said, “We’re in deep doo-doo,” he was expressing himself with hypocorisma. Hypocorisma is a type of euphemism derived from a Greek word meaning “pet name.” The English word hypocorism may be defined as “the diminutive or otherwise altered version of a given name.” Sometimes the original name is clear in the hypocorism: … Read more
The English word bear has so many definitions and uses that it could provide fodder for several posts. This article is about the use of the past participle borne followed by a preposition. Here is the odd usage in my local newspaper that prompted this post: there’s blame to be borne on everyone. I looked … Read more
The use of prepositions is tricky, even for native speakers. Certain prepositions are used with certain words, while others are not. Here are four examples of nonstandard usage. 1. Accused Incorrect: They were arrested and accused for murder. Correct : They were arrested and accused of murder. The preposition of follows the verb accused. One … Read more
Many American speakers, myself included, have the impulse to laugh at statements like the following: Mendendez and Ensign try to pressurize the White House Should parents pressurize their children to get high marks in exams? We laugh because we think that pressurize should apply only to things like airplane cabins and pressure cookers. Some people … Read more
Generally speaking, a particle is a word that doesn’t belong to the usual classes of words like noun, verb, pronoun, etc. Authorities disagree as to which words to call “particles,” but most agree that the to of an infinitive and the words that look like adverbs or prepositions in a phrasal verb are particles. Compare: … Read more
The verb vet, “investigate someone’s suitability for a job,” took the American media by storm during the presidential campaign of 2008. Vet was Number Two on Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year list that year. (Bailout was Number One.) Although the word has been in American dictionaries for close to 100 years, few US speakers seem … Read more
The words depreciate and deprecate are from different Latin originals, but the difference in meaning between them is being eroded in popular usage. Depreciate is from Latin depretiare, a combination de (from) and pretium (price). “To depreciate” is to become less in value. Example: “It’s often said that a car depreciates as it is driven … Read more
Not a month goes by that someone doesn’t write to complain about the ubiquity of the word absolutely. The following objections to this word are typical: Please answer a question without starting with the word “absolutely.” It’s driving me mad, please please stop. What’s wrong with responding, “without a doubt,” “you bet,” “of course,” “for … Read more
The unfortunate occasion of being dismissed from employment can be expressed in numerous ways. Some of the more familiar expressions are: to be made redundant to receive a pink slip to be dismissed to be discharged to be laid off to be let go to lose one’s job to be fired to be got rid … Read more