David Crystal's Blog, page 14

On plural adjectives

A correspondent writes to ask why we say a drinks cabinet and not a drink cabinet, given that people use the singular form of nouns when they function as adjectives - a price list, a shoe box, and so on - even if the entities involved are more than one. He adds: 'As a teacher, I have always taught the rule that there are no plural adjectives in English - the big men, the young ladies, etc. - and therefore when a noun acts as an adjective it should not take an s.'

It's true that attributive nou...

On useful tautology

A correspondent from the Guardian has asked what is to be made of David Cameron's reported comment that 'Our success will be the measure of our success' - also reported as 'This will succeed through its success'. Reporters have picked on this, and other remarks such as 'All the questions were rather subjecty subjects', as evidence of a new linguistic style, dubbed 'Cameronisms'. In fact, there's nothing new about them at all.

Let's take the 'success' example first. Tautology is usually thought...

On the M Quarto of Macbeth

Following the amazing discovery of the H Quarto of Hamlet (see the post for 21 August 2007), I now use the occasion of Shakespeare's birthday to reveal another startling find: fragments of the M Quarto of Macbeth, which were reported at the annual meeting of IATEFL in Harrogate earlier this month. Two fragments of what seems to have been called Macbeth's Murderous Mayhem have so far been discovered - the opening witches scene, and the speech which begins 'Is this a dagger that I see before me...

On being orient(at)ed

A correspondent writes to ask if it should be disoriented or disorientated.

The answer partly depends on where you live. If you're American, you're in no doubt that it must be the shorter form; and according to Pam Peters (in her Cambridge Guide to English Usage) the same preference is found in Canada and Australia. Some US style guides go so far as to say that orientate is simply incorrect. That's going too far, as British English uses both, with a noticeable preference for the longer form. H...

On speaking music

A correspondent writes to ask if singing is ever used in speech. She isn't thinking of intonation, sometimes described in a metaphorical way as the musical property of speech - 'metaphorical', of course, because our voices don't need to be tuned to concert pitch before we begin a conversation. She has in mind something rather less obvious - musical quotations or catch-phrases, where a musical extract is given a generalized linguistic interpretation.

Yes, there are instances. I've heard people...

And now for something completely different

A correspondent writes: 'I was wondering what your thoughts are regarding beginning sentences with the coordinating conjunction and. I see it being used more and more regularly in the media and in texts. As an English Language teacher I am wondering if I should just accept it? I was always taught never to start a sentence with this word. Am I being too 'prescriptive'?'

Well, yes, in a word. But 'used more and more regularly?' Not a bit. It's always been used in that way, from the very beginnin...

On having done something yesterday

An Australian correspondent writes to say that he's encountered sentences like I have been to the cinema yesterday which, he says, would be 'completely out in British English'. It seems like a natural development, he adds, but asks: 'isn't this against the "rules" of simplicity, which languages are so keen to comply with? Isn't it more "economical" to use simple structures than complex ones and aren't languages prone to such economy?'

I don't think economy has anything to do with it. Simplic...

On the dangers of Facebook

A correspondent writes to ask if linguistics has anything to offer in relation to the recent Facebook paedophile scandal and all the current discussion about panic buttons.

Of course it does. Indeed, the point has already come up on this blog, when I was talking about internet applications a few years ago (March 2007). In 2003 I developed an application called Chatsafe, using a technology I call a sense engine, which carried out a linguistic analysis of a conversation in order to identify dang...

On a forthcoming exhibition

A correspondent, having noticed February bloglessness, asks if I am still alive. Yes, but a combination of travelling and deadline has kept me out of the blogosphere for a while. The reason for the deadline is interesting, though, and readers of this blog might like an early alert to a forthcoming exciting event.

The British Library is presenting its first English language exhibition later this year. It will run from mid-November to early April. In fact, I don't know of any similar exhibition ...

On linguistic dreams

A correspondent writes to tell me of a linguistic dream he just had. As follows:

'I had a dream the other night with Significant Linguistic Content. It started out as the standard nightmare (mercifully infrequent these days) that I was teaching in a secondary school, as was the case long ago. But things improved and softened: the kiddies (11-year-olds, I'd say) were nice, and their music teacher, a fiftysomething German lady, came in and asked me would I mind if they practised the song that ...