Arlene Miller's Blog, page 11

Nyms and More Nyms!

 

Best of The Grammar Diva…Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

A few weeks ago, we talked about contronyms.   Contronyms are words that mean two opposite things, for example, sanction, which can mean to allow or to boycott. We all know about antonyms (opposites), synonyms (same meaning), and homonyms (sound the same), but there are many other words that end in -nym. We will talk about a few of them today.

Metonym –A word, phrase, place, or expression used as a substitute for something. For example, when we say Washington, we often mean the United States government:

There is a lot going on in Washington these days.I quit that job because there was too much going on around the water cooler. (Water cooler implies some place where there is gossip.)That looks like a Beverly Hills house to me. (fancy house such as you would see in Beverly Hills).Is the Pentagon planning something? (refers generally to the Department of Defense).

Metonyms do resemble metaphors. Metaphors are more based on similarity; metonyms are based on association.

Toponym – A toponym is simply the name of a place: Boston, Foggy River. However, there are different types of toponyms. Here are some of them. 

Descriptive – The Rocky Mountains,  Grass ValleyAssociative – Mall Road (there is a mall on the street)Incident –  Battle RiverCommemorative – St. LouisManufactured – Ytic (city spelled backwards)Mistaken – West Indies (historic errors)Shifted – Athens, Texas ; New England; Rome, New York (names taken from elsewhere)

Eponym – An eponym is a person (real or fictional) for which something or someplace is named. Here are some examples.

Walt Disney – DisneylandAchilles – Achilles heelAdonis – a handsome maleJonas Salk – Salk vaccineCharles Boycott – boycottRobert Bunsen – Bunsen burnerChristian Doppler – the Doppler effectJ. William Fulbright  – Fulbright scholarshipDr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Jekyll and Hyde personality (or split personality

Those last ones are fun and there are “zillions” of them!

 

 

 

Some Real Turkeys for Thanksgiving

 

Best of the Grammar Diva

I thought for turkey week, I would write a blog with some real grammar turkeys! Hope you get a chuckle or two…

Image by Miriam Verheyden from PixabaySome of My Favorite Goofs

Ambiguous modifier: Visiting relatives can be boring.

Misplaced modifier: For sale: Beautiful oak desk— perfect for student with large drawers

Shouldn’t there be a comma somewhere?  I just love to bake children.

Misplaced modifier: While still in diapers, my mother remarried.

Ambiguous modifier: He heard about the wedding in the men’s room.

Misplaced modifier: Wanted: A room by two gentlemen 30 feet long and 20 feet wide.

 

 Some Real Newspaper Headlines

4-H Girls Win Prizes for Fat Calves

Big Ugly Woman Wins Beauty Pageant (Newspaper in town of Big Ugly, WV)

Body Search Reveals $4,000 in Crack (from the Jackson Citizen-Patriot, Michigan)

Chef Throws His Heart into Helping Feed Needy (from the Louisville Courier Journal)

Drunk Gets Nine Months in Violin Case 

Eye Drops off Shelf 

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors 

Include your Children When Baking Cookies

A Little More Humor…

Butcher’s sign: Try our sausages. None like them.
A tailor’s guarantee: If the smallest hole appears after six months’ wear, we will make another absolutely free.
Lost: A small pony belonging to a young lady with a silver mane and tail.
Barber’s sign: Hair cut while you wait.
Lost: Wallet belonging to a young man made of calf skin

How About These?

It takes many ingredients to make Burger King great, but the secret ingredient is our people. (Yuck)
Slow Children Crossing
Automatic washing machines. Please remove all your clothes when the light goes out.
“Elephants Please Stay In Your Car.”  (Warning at a safari park).

 And Some Easy-to-Understand Jargon! These guidelines are written in a matter-of-fact style that eschews jargon, the obscure and the insular. They are intended for use by the novice and the experienced alike. [From the United Kingdom Evaluation Society ‘Guidelines for good practice in evaluation’]This is a genuine ground floor opportunity to shape a front line field force operating in a matrix structure. [As stated on the ‘Take a Fresh Look at Wales’ website]The cause of the fire was due to a malicious ignition incident that was fortunately contained to the function and meeting room area of the hotel. [News statement about a fire at a hotel]Its clear lines and minimalist design provide it with an unmistakable look. It is daring, and different. So that your writing instrument not only carries your message, but lives it. [Promotional literature for … pens]Where the policy is divided into a number of distinct arrangements (‘Arrangements’) where benefits are capable of being taken from on Arrangement or group of Arrangements separately from other Arrangements, then this policy amendment will not apply to any Arrangements in respect of which the relevant policy proceeds have already been applied to provide benefits. The policy amendment will apply to all other Arrangements under the policy. [Policy amendment, Norwich Union]

And here is one that truly appeared in the newspaper; it was intended as a brief description of a Peter Ustinov documentary:

“Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector”. (This quote is obviously British, since the period is after the quotations! And look what can happen if you leave out the Oxford comma!)

 

“Lay” and “Lie” Revisited

Image by ErikaWittlieb from PixabayThe Best of the Grammar DivaOriginally posted June 15, 2013

Lay and lie are two of the most confusing verbs in the language. Hopefully, after reading this blog post, you will finally be confident about the difference.

Let’s start here:

I read the books.

I play Monopoly.

He buys a shirt.

Look at the bolded words in the above sentences. They all receive the action of the verb. What do I read? Books. What do I play? Monopoly. What does he buy? A shirt. These words are all nouns (things) and are called direct objects.

Now look at these sentences:

I read all the time.

I play in the park.

He buys with a credit card.

What do I read? What do I play? What does he buy? These sentences don’t give the answer. They may answer the question where? (in the park), when? (all the time), or how? (with a credit card), but there is no noun (or pronoun) that answers what ? (or whom). In other words, those sentences, although they use the exact same verbs, have no direct objects.

Verbs that have direct objects are called transitive  verbs. Verbs that have no direct object are called intransitive verbs. Obviously, from the examples, the same verbs can be either, depending upon how they are used in the sentence. Some verbs, however, are usually transitive, and others are usually intransitive.

What on earth does this have to do with lay and lie?

Here we go: Lay is a transitive verb. Lie is an intransitive verb. Simply put, you must lay something.

Here are some examples of lay used correctly:

I lay my blanket on the sand. (lay a blanket)Please  l ay your books  on the table. (lay books)I am  laying my pen  here, so I don’t forget it. (laying my pen)

Here are some examples of lie used correctly:

I  lie  on the sand to get a tan.The books  are lying  on the table.My pen  is lying  on the desk.

*Notice that lay and lie have nothing to do with whether you are talking about people or objects. Objects can lie as well as people!

But wait! We have talked about only the present tense. The past tense is where things get complicated.

First, let’s talk about the verb lay, which is pretty simple.

Today, I am  laying  my blanket on the sand. (Present tense –  lay or laying ).Yesterday, I  laid  my blanket on the sand. (Past tense –  laid or was laying )Every day this week, I  have laid  my blanket on the sand.  (Past participle form, used with  have  or  had  –  have laid or  have been laying )

Now, let’s talk about lie, which is a little weirder:

Today, I am  lying  on the sand. (NOT laying – present tense –  lie or lying )Yesterday, I lay on the sand. (Yup! The past tense of  lie  is  lay . They did it to confuse us!  Lay or was lying )Every day this week, I  have lain  on the sand. (Past participle form, used with  have  or  had . Yes, lain is a word!  Have lain or have been lying)

Here is the verb LAY, completely conjugated, all six tenses:

Present:  lay  or  laying Past: laid or was layingFuture:  will lay  or  will be laying  Present Perfect:  have laid  or  have been laying Past Perfect:  had laid  or  had been laying Future Perfect:  will have laid  or  will have been laying

And here is the verb LIE, completely conjugated, all six tenses:

Present:  lie  or  lying Past:  lay  or  was lying Future:  will lie  or  will be lying Present Perfect:  have lain  or  have been lying Past Perfect:  had lain  or  had been lying Future Perfect:  will have lain  or  will have been lying

There! I hope this post has cleared up some of your confusion about lie and lay. As always, I welcome any questions  or comments. Now, I think I need another cup of coffee! Happy weekend!

 

For Instants….

Best of the Grammar Diva

When I taught seventh grade English, I used to give my students a Word of the Day. When we finished five or ten words, we would have a

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

vocabulary quiz. The students needed to know the spelling, the part of speech, the definition, how to use the word in a sentence, and any related words we talked about that were different parts of speech taken from that word. I went pretty much alphabetically, and I always assigned the following words for the same quiz:

Instant

Instance

Incident

Incidence

Yes, it was very confusing. First of all, the plural of some of the words sounds the same as the singular of another: instants sounds the same as instance. Incidents sounds the same as incidence. Since instant is usually an adjective, it isn’t often used as a plural, but it can be used as a noun:

These cups of coffee are all made from ground beans, but these others are all instants.

Second of all, instance, incident, and incidence have similar meanings. Instant is a little different and most people know that it means “a moment, or a short span of time.”

Instance, which sounds like the plural of instant, doesn’t have much to do with instant. It means “a case or occurrence of anything, or an example put forth as proof”:

He often lies to his parents, but in this instance he was telling the truth.

An incident is simply something that happens, often negative; an individual occurrence or event:

There was an incident outside the restaurant last night, and the police were called.

After several incidents at school, she was suspended.

Instance is close to incident in meaning: 

After the third instance of her being insubordinate at school, she was suspended. 

The plural of incident sounds the same as the singular incidence. Incidence means “the rate or range of occurrence of something, especially of something unwanted”:

Since the new stop sign was placed on my street, the incidence of accidents has decreased. 

The incidence of crimes has increased in that neighborhood since the unemployment rate has risen.

Your vocabulary test will be on Wednesday. (Just kidding!)

Grammar Diva News  (from 2018)

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The first time I entered this contest of writing 50,000 words (about 250 pages) in the thirty days of November was in 2011, when I wrote my novel, now called Birds of a Feather, a light and entertaining book about four college girls in Boston during the 1980s. A few years ago, I attempted to write one of the sequels I had planned for that novel during NaNoWriMo. I started, but then lost a couple of days’ work on my computer (Poof! You know how that happens!) and was unable to recreate what I lost. I never have (yet) written those sequels. I have been wanting to write a book about my dating adventures for several years or more. Friends have also encouraged me to write it, so I am using this NaNoWriMo to finally do it. Yes, I know, it is supposed to be a novel, but a memoir is close enough in my book. So, it is day number 2 and I am on my way to write at Starbucks. Don’t worry. I am changing all the names and other identifying details in my book to protect the innocent (and guilty). Here is the mockup cover I did and the preliminary title. I do plan to publish the book at some point, but I think it is going to need a lot of work after the November first draft!

And please don’t forget about my grammar books! And reviews are always greatly appreciated, especially of my punctuation book, To Comma or Not to Comma.

 

 

 

Boo! It’s Time for Candy!

 

Best of the Grammar Diva!

I don’t know about you, but when I think of Halloween, I don’t think about pumpkins and goblins —

Image by M. Harris from Pixabay

I think about candy.  And when I got too old to go out with a pillowcase and get my own candy, I stole from my kids’ candy bags (didn’t you????). I loved candy more than they did – I probably still do. I would just take a piece at a time, hoping they wouldn’t notice.

What is your favorite candy? Of course I love chocolate, mostly dark chocolate. Nothing is better than dark-chocolate-covered creams, especially orange and raspberry, and maybe lemon. I also love Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (even though mostly they are milk chocolate) and Junior Mints. Right now I don’t eat candy, but when I do, my favorites are basically sugar: candy corn, Good and Plenty, and jelly beans. Yeah, I know: you either love candy corn or you hate it, and it seems that most people hate it, but I could eat it by the bag.

Whether or not you have bought any candy for trick-or-treaters yet, I thought you might be amused and intrigued by some dandy, candy trivia:

Favorite Halloween Candy – Depends on the state you live in. Candy corn is the favorite in Alabama, so perhaps I should move there! But Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, Milky Way, and M&Ms are popular everywhere.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – This candy was named after its originator, Harry Burnett Reese.

Candy Corn  – The Goelitz brand of candy corn has been around since 1898. It was originally called “chicken feed,” which I am sure some people would prefer to call it now. In 2001 the company changed its name to Jelly Belly. By the way, the Jelly Belly factory is in California. They have a wonderful tour with lots of samples, and they sell bags of irregular (rejected) jelly beans for cheap — they are called Belly Flops. By the way, an opened bag of candy corn can last for three to six months. In my house it can stay for only minutes before it is gone, but I know many people would say it doesn’t matter how fresh or stale it is, it tastes the same. 

Candy Cigarettes –  I don’t think these have been around for a long time, but they were around when I was a kid.  However, North Dakota banned these candies from 1953 to 1969 because they thought the candy would encourage kids to smoke cigarettes. 

Tootsie Rolls – Every day 64 million Tootsie Rolls are made.

Tootsie Roll Pops – It takes a licking machine 364-411 licks to get to the chocolate center of a Tootsie Roll Pop. But it takes a human only 144-252 licks. I am assuming the machines are for quality assurance!

Snickers – This candy bar was named after Franklin Mars’ deceased racehorse. The horse was raised at the family farm in Tennessee; the farm was called The Milky Way.

Cotton Candy – This candy was created by a dentist (!), William Morrison, along with confectioner John C. Wharton. It was originally called Fairy Floss until the name was changed to cotton candy in the 1920s. 

M&Ms – The two Ms stand for Forrest Mars and Bruce Murrie, who developed and financed them.

Image by Richard Manship from Pixabay

Junior Mints – This candy was named after the Broadway play Junior Miss, which ran from 1941 to 1943. 

Three Musketeers – This candy bar was so named because originally it featured pieces of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry candy. However, during World War II, vanilla and strawberry were hard to find, so they went with just chocolate.

Peeps – (Yuck) – Before automation, it would take 27 hours to make a Peep. It now takes 6 minutes, and 5.5 million of them are made in their Pennsylvania factory every day. (Does all candy come from Pennsylvania? Hershey does.)

White Chocolate – Doesn’t even taste like chocolate to me. And why? Because it isn’t really chocolate and contains no cocoa solids at all.

Care for Some Wine? – Wine experts recommending pairing the following candies and wines: Whoppers with Cabernet, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups with Sherry, and  Hershey Kisses with Zinfandel.

How Much Candy Is Too Much? –  According to the American Chemical Society, eating 262 fun-size Halloween candy bars would poison a 180-pound person.

Happy Halloween! Eat some candy for me! 

“Which,” “That,” and “Who” Untangled

The Best of the Grammar Diva….

Which, that and who. These are pronouns that are often confused.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We aren’t talking about sentences like these:

Which of these toys are yours?That book is mineWho is that girl?

We’re talking about sentences like these:

I am taking the flight that leaves at midnight.My boss, who is a great athlete, plays tennis every day.That green dress, which was on sale, matches my eyes.

In the second list of sentences, that, which, and who function as a special type of pronoun (relative pronoun). These pronouns begin clauses (groups of words with a subject and a verb) that generally describe a noun.

(I am taking the flight) that leaves at midnight – describes flight.(My boss) who is a great athlete – describes boss.(That green dress) which was on sale – describes dress.

Some of the “rules” pertaining to that, which, and who are pretty black and white; others are  grayer.

Black and white:

Which and that are used for things and animals.Who is used for people and animals with names.Which is used for nonessential, or nonrestrictive, clauses; that is used for essential, or restrictive, clauses.Commas are used around nonessential clauses (which).

Gray:

Sometimes you can leave out that. When?Sometimes you can use that with people. When?

Rule #1 Black and White: Use which for nonessential (nonrestrictive) clauses and that with essential  (restrictive) clauses.

A nonessential (nonrestrictive)  clause is added information that does not affect the meaning of the sentence. These clauses begin with which (or who) and are enclosed in commas. An essential, or restrictive, clause is necessary to the meaning of the sentence and begins with that without any commas.

My twin sister, who is good at math, helps me with homework all the time. You don’t really need the words inside the comma. We already know we are talking about your twin sister, of whom there is only one.My sister who is good at math helps me with homework all the time. Here, the lack of commas implies that you might have more than one sister, and we are talking about the sister who is good in math. The clause is essential, or restrictive, here. You are defining which sister you are talking about.The Hobbit, which I have read three times, is also a movie. Here, the fact that you have read it three times is extra information and not necessary to the meaning of the sentence.The book that is on the front desk is mine. Here, you need the clause that is on the front desk to identify the book you are talking about. It restricts the book to the one on the front desk.

Rule #2 Black and White: Use that and which for things, and who for people and animals with names.

The girl who always sits in the back of the room is my best friend.The cat that is sitting on the ledge belongs to my neighbor.Moe, who is my bulldog, is four years old.That dog, which is a chihuahua, has been at the shelter for months. (Actually this is kind of gray. No one will mind if you call this dog a who.)

Shades of Gray

Sometimes you can leave that out of your essential (restrictive) clause:

1.Usually after a form of the verb say: He said (that) he was going to Europe. 

But you can’t do that if there is a time difference between now and when it was said:

The teacher said on Wednesday we will have a test. You need that.

Does this mean 

The teacher said that on Wednesday we will have a test.The teacher said on Wednesday that we will have a test.

When you put that in, whichever one you mean becomes clear. Without that, it is ambiguous.

2. That is usually good to use after certain verbs including (but not limited to) declare, estimate, contend, point out, propose, state:

I declare that there is a problem.I estimate that the chair is four feet wide.She contends that she was here early.I would like to point out that you have chores to do.She proposed that a new rule be adopted.He stated that he did nothing wrong.

3. It is usually wise to use that before clauses that start with words like after, before, until, and while:

She said that after they are finished, they will meet us. I know that before dinner she had been out shopping.She said that until she was in third grade she couldn’t read.He thought that while the game was on, he could take a nap.

Remember that it is always correct to leave that in. So when in doubt, use it.

Another Shade of Gray

Usually we use who for people. If you are talking about a type of people or an organization, you generally use that (or which). However, if you are really referring to the people inside the organization, you can use who.

The tribes that are native to this area are listed here.The  School Board that was just elected will meet tonight.The School Board, who has helped us out with our fundraisers many times, is here tonight.

A Final Thought

That doesn’t have a possessive, so weird as it might sound, use whose with people and things:

The desk, whose drawers are missing, is being donated to the school.The dog, whose litter mates have all been adopted, needs a good home. 

Pet Pronunciation Peeves

Mispronounced WordsThe Best of The Grammar Diva

When I asked readers for their top grammar peeves, some of these peeves had to do with pronunciation, so this blog post will be about those. We all know about Febuary and liberry . . . so check these out:

Wait! Is your top pronunciation peeve, people who pronounce pronunciation as pronounciation (and spell it that way too)????

My top pronunciation peeve is this one that 99 percent of my students say: mischeevious, with the accent on the second syllable (instead of the first)  and the last syllable pronounced as -eeus rather than just -us. And many adults say it that way too! Drives me nuts. But enough about me. Here are some of your pronunciation peeves:

1. acrost — instead of across. I have heard this one more than once!

2. CONtribute with the accent on the first syllable rather than the second. I must say I had never noticed this one until I heard it on the radio just today.

3. idear — instead of idea. But isn’t that just an accent problem? (Hello, Bostonians!)

4. perspective — instead of prospective in a newspaper, so obviously this one is just a confusion between two words. OK, not really pronunciation.

5. phertographer — instead of photographer. Hey, look at that pherto!

6. heighth — instead of height. Width ends in -th, but height doesn’t!

7. ta — instead of to. Send it ta me, will ya?

8. realator — instead of realtor. Two syllables, not three.

9. reprize — instead of reprise (repreeze).  It is reprisal (reprizal) but not reprize.

10. tempature — instead of temperature . . . especially if said by a meteorologist.

11. dropped gs at the end of words. Well, that is a pretty common one! I don’t know if I’m comin’ or goin’.

12. often pronounced with the t. I like the t silent! That is one of mine!

Then, there is jew-lery instead of jewel-ry (new branch of Judaism?) (I am Jewish; I can make a joke!)

 

 

Ten Things You Don’t Want to Say

THE BEST OF THE GRAMMAR DIVA . . .

Many times we talk about grammar  in terms of writing. This blog post is about speaking. We don’t need to worry about punctuation when we speak, but we do have to worry about grammar—and pronunciation (which we don’t have to worry about when we write). 

Here are ten of the most common speaking gaffes:

Using a pronoun directly after the noun it refers to: My brother he is visiting from Boston. Please take out he. My brother is visiting from Boston.I don’t is correct. But he don’t, she don’t, and it don’t are not!  It’s doesn’t. Please don’t get your past participles wrong. The English language is tricky, with so many irregular verbs, but please try to learn them. It isn’t have/has went. Ever!!! It is has/have gone. Likewise, it is have written (not wrote), have eaten (not ate), have spoken (not spoke), have fallen (not fell), have rung (not rang), have swum (not swam)….and there are others. Mischievous is spelled that way because that is the way it is pronounced. It is not spelled mischeevious, and it is not pronounced that way either. The accent is on the first syllable, and there is no i in the final syllable.Width ends in a -th.  Height ends in a -t. It is not heighth. Oh, please don’t say ain’t. Yes, it is in the dictionary, but so is irregardless.This is probably a dialect issue, but please don’t drop your -ing endings to be -in endings. I am going, not goin’. Many of the grocery stores have now gotten less and fewer correct, so you should too. Less is used for singular nouns and things that cannot be counted. Fewer is used for plurals and things that can be counted: Less money. Fewer pennies. Less salt. Fewer teaspoons of salt. Less stuff. Fewer than 12 items. The same is true of number and amount.  Number is used with plurals. Amount is used for singulars and things that can’t be counted. Number of pennies. Amount of money. Number of doughnuts. Amount of pastry.Avoid using double negatives. Most of us avoid things like I don’t have no money, but remember that barely, scarcely and hardly are also negatives. I don’t barely have enough money is a double negative.  I can’t hardly stand it is a double negative. You haven’t scarcely eaten a thing is a double negative.Realtor and jewelry are often mispronounced. They are usually pronounced with three syllables, but they each have only two. It is not jew-la-ry. It is jewel-ry. It is not re-la-tor. It is real-tor.

And while we are on the subject, please put that first R in February!

 

30 Fun Facts About English

Image by Imageforyou from Pixabay

Did you know??????

1.  The longest word in the English language is probably the 45-letter- long lung disease pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. However, hippomonstrosesquipedaliaphobia, one of the terms for “fear of long words,” is also interesting!

2. Who said there is no word that rhymes with orange? Fear not, poets, sporange is a sac that spores come in.

3. An ambigram is a word that looks the same from various orientations. For example, the word swims looks the same if you look at it upside down.

4. A new word is created every 98 minutes.

5. The shortest actual sentence in English is the command Go, where the subject (you) is implied.

6. The longest common word whose letters are in alphabetical order is almost. (I don’t know what constitutes a common word.)

7. An isogram is a word in which each letter appears the same number of times: time (once), toot (twice), etc.

8. The longest single-word palindrome is tattarrattat, invented by Joyce in Ulysses. It is the sound of knocking on a door.

9. E is the most common letter.  Other common letters are T,A,O,I,N,S,R.H,L,D, and C. Eighty percent of our words contain one or more of those letters.

10 The oldest and shortest word is I.

11. Shakespeare added 1700 words to the English language.

12. Fiction readers have larger vocabularies than nonfiction readers.

13. The ampersand used to be the 27th letter of the alphabet.

14. The word whatever ranks as the most annoying. 

15. The United States has no official federal language, although some states have adopted English as theirs.

16. Capitonyms are words that have a different meaning when capitalized, for example turkey and Turkey.

17. More words begin with S than any other letter.

18. The word good has 380 synonyms.

19. Good is also the most common adjective in the English language.

20.  Want to win at Scrabble?  The word caziques earned the most points ever in tournament Scrabble. It refers to tribal chiefs of clans located in Mexico and the West Indies.

21. The most common words in English are the (no surprise), the various forms of the verb to be, a, of, to, in, I, and you.

22. If you write out all the numbers in order, you would not use the b until you got to one billion.

23. The antihistamine Hydroxyzine is the only word in the English language that has x. y, and z in order. 

24. The word queue doesn’t need the last four letters! It used to have a different meaning: the tail of a beast in medieval pictures and designs.

25. The shortest non-elliptical (no words are left out) sentence is “I am.” (What about “I go” or “I do”????)

26. The most common noun is time.

27. Most average speakers of English know 20 – 35 thousand words.

28. The word set has 430 definitions and takes up 24 pages in the Oxford English Dictionary. Run and go also have many, many meanings.

29. One of the three longest words that doesn’t repeat a letter is uncopyrightable. The others are misconjugatedly and dermatoglyphics.

30. The closest living language to English is Frisian, spoken in three small areas of Germany and the Netherlands.

***********

Thank you to the following websites:

Weird Facts About English

Bizarre English Facts

Interesting Facts About English

The Grammar Diva Blog is taking a break for October, November, and December. But fear not. We are running “Best Of” posts, same time every week. You might be too new to have read some of them, or you probably have forgotten them anyway!  Have a good holiday season, and we will see you in January!

Is It Worth It?

Another Great Post by Jags Arthurson

Jags Arthurson is the pen name of a Brighton, UK writer. Jags has been a research chemist and company director.  He has lived and worked in over 40 countries. His novel, the crime thriller Pagan Justice, is available on Amazon with all proceeds going to charity.

——————

Image by 3D Animation Production Company from Pixabay

We usually measure the “value” or “worth” of something in money, so first let’s look at that. 

It’s quite a surprising story.

Since time immemorial people have asked how humans are different from the other animals, with little convincing success in answering the question.  But there is one way that Homo Sapiens is indisputably unique — imagination.  Mankind is the only animal that can conceive of things that haven’t existed, even things that cannot possibly exist.

Look at what humans have created that are purely imaginary: countries, magic, gods and their associated religions, nations, governments, laws, and companies to name but a few.  And people become so convinced by these imaginary constructs that they start to believe they actually exist.

Take, for instance, countries.  There may be some small argument that an island, bounded completely by ocean, is the ‘property’ of one group of people and that those people constitute a nation.  Less so when two territories are delineated by an easily crossed natural barrier such as a river.  None whatsoever when the border is marked by nothing more than a line on a map (both of which — lines and maps— are also artificial creations). Yet people will love “their” bit of ground, no matter how mean or impoverished and will fight – even die – for it.

But possibly the greatest construct of all is money and the idea of  “the economy” that surrounds it.

Money was a great, maybe even an essential, invention but it is purely imaginary.  In times gone by, trade was precipitated by barter.  I have pigs and you have grain so we can swap some of one for some of the other.  All good.  But the problem is when, instead of grain, you have, say, eggs.  “Five hundred eggs may be equivalent to one pig,  but do I want five hundred eggs all in one go?  Or could you even supply them?”  I might suggest you pay me in installments, but then we have the problem of keeping count.

This was the situation facing the farmers of ancient Sumer about nine thousand years ago.  When they delivered their grain to the king’s stores, the officials needed a mechanism to keep track — so they invented writing: cuneiform symbols on clay tablets. 

It is highly possible that money was created almost by accident.  When each farmer deposited his grain, not only was the quantity noted in the storeman’s log but the farmer would have needed a receipt — another clay tablet.  It is likely that these tablets – being redeemable at the royal granary – would have been seen as having value in their own right.  We can never know, but it is a compelling image to see the ancient farmer offering a clay tablet (“worth” so many bags of grain) in exchange for a new wheel for his wagon or a roof for his home.  But it was just a worthless clay tablet.

In 600 BC the very first actual money was created by King Alyattes in Lydia, now part of Turkey.  They were small metal discs and they, too, had no intrinsic value.  And neither has modern money.  A little known fact is that less than eight percent of all the money in the world is in any physical form, and all the rest is represented as bits and bytes in computer records.  So, far from being physical items – coin and notes – that represent an imaginary concept, more than ninety percent of modern money is actually, really, genuinely imaginary!

And this presents a problem.

M. Barrie (in his book Peter Pan) suggested that every time a child stops believing in them, a fairy dies. And this is true of any imaginary item. No matter how passionate the faith of the originators of a religion, when the believers stop believing, the gods stop existing.  Mars, Zeus, Odin, and Ra – gods for whom people gave their lives in times past – are now viewed as no more than interesting intellectual artefacts.

Likewise money, too, ceases to exist when people stop believing in it.  In Germany after World War II, during a period called “die grosse Knappheit” (the Great Shortage), people stopped believing in the Reichsmark so it became worthless and would buy nothing.  A new currency grew up spontaneously: cigarettes.

If money is truly worth nothing then what about the things it buys?  How much is something worth?  The traditional answer would be, ‘whatever somebody is prepared to pay for it.’  So how does anybody arrive at ‘a value’?

Try this.

How many items too few does it take to create ‘a shortage’?  The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is “one”  Take an ancient market.  If 50 buyers want pigs and there are only 49 available somebody must go without.  If rich enough, the unfortunate buyer may approach a seller, who has already agreed to sell his pig to another buyer for sixpence, and offer a penny more.  This disappoints the other buyer who now offers a higher price to the next seller — on around the loop until the established price is now seven pence.  If the buyers are desperate enough,  and wealthy enough, the next round will raise the price to eight pence.  Onwards and upwards.

The reverse is also true.  If there are too many pigs, a desperate seller may reduce the price to five pence, four pence, and so on down.  This is the so-called “Law of Supply and Demand.” It seems to work, but what about when the market is huge?  What about when there are millions of pigs and buyers and sellers and pennies?  How will anybody even know there is a shortage or a glut?  Well this is where imagination takes a hand.

Take the example of houses.  Regardless of whether or not there are enough houses or enough buyers, the price depends purely on imagination of a special kind: belief.  If enough people believe that house prices are about to rise then they will.  Sellers will hold off selling: “Why sell my house now?  In a month or so I will get more for it.”  Buyers, on the other hand, will jump into the market: “Why wait?  Buy before the price increases.”  So the market suddenly has a lot fewer sellers and a lot more buyers and we’re back to the pigs in the market with spiralling prices.  Equally the reverse is true.  House prices will fall?  “Sell now while I can get the best price.”  “Hold off buying until it is cheaper.”

And that’s it.  If buyers imagine something is worth a lot, it is.  And if they imagine it’s worth less (or even worthless) then that, too, is true.

So, as you see, ‘they’ don’t decide what something is worth;  you (and your imagination) do!