I recently mentioned a book called Mind The Gaffe, which is all about errors in English. It got me to thinking about the word gaffe and other related expressions. I set out to do some digging in my trusty dictionary and came up with a few surprises. The word gaffe means a social blunder and … Read more
A recent forum question asks about the word data. The dictionary says the word data can be treated as a singular. But strictly speaking the word is a plural. How does such a thing happen in language? You wouldn’t say, “the cars is fast”. How does a plural gain acceptance as a singular? The answer … Read more
Reader Norma H. Flaskerud wonders about few and several. She thinks “a few” refers to “maybe 2-3 items” while “several” refers to “maybe 3-6.” Her husband says “a few” is 4-7 items. Few is the opposite of many. It derives from words having the meaning of “small” and “little.” It is related to Latin paucus … Read more
The other day someone asked me for the male equivalent of “mistress.” Naturally, I shot back “master,” but that was not the answer. My questioner wanted a word that was the male equivalent of: woman having sexual relations on a regular basis and being supported by man not her husband The word that comes closest … Read more
Political correctness is nothing new. People have desired to avoid calling a spade a spade since ancient times. People don’t die, they “pass away.” Politicians don’t commit crimes, they “make mistakes.” Married men don’t commit adultery, they “cheat.” People don’t fart, they “pass wind.” The word for this substitution of a less offensive word or … Read more
It’s easy to trip up when speaking or writing, but what do you call the results when you do? A few weeks ago, I wrote about eggcorns. These are errors in which people guess wrongly the meaning, origin and spelling of certain expressions. An example would be writing or saying ‘flaw in the ointment’ instead … Read more
A friend recently pointed me to a linguistic term that I hadn’t seen before: eggcorn (or egg corn). It seems that in certain dialects eggcorn is a homonym for acorn, as Mark Liberman reported on the Language Log in September 2003. It turns out that there are hundreds of these eggcorns in common use. But … Read more
My first introduction to the concept of eponyms was in high school. My English teacher talked about the ‘eponymous heroine’, meaning the protagonist after whom the book was named. Examples include Jane Eyre and Silas Marner. An eponym is a word that is formed from the name of a person. A famous example is the … Read more
To begin with, “Caesar” was a family name. Now, in various forms, it is a generic term for “ruler” or “emperor.” In Roman naming practice, a newborn child was given three names (tria nomina). The praenomen was a name like Lucius or Marcus. The second name was the name of the tribe, clan, or gens, … Read more
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ … Read more
The comments on my post about writing dates with or without terminals got me thinking about the way everyone who speaks English reacts strongly to at least one word or point of usage. The different ways that people write a date seem to excite curiosity without making anyone angry, but sometimes words or expressions evoke … Read more
One of the more interesting aspects of the changes that take place in English from generation to generation is the fact that as spellings change to conform to modern usage, some of the old forms stick around with different connotations or meanings. Two words for angel that came into English from Hebrew have plural forms … Read more