Arlene Miller's Blog, page 11

“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!

I Finally Did It!

Image by Petra Šolajová from Pixabay

I finally “read” an audiobook. 

I maintain my opinion that “reading” an audiobook is “cheating” and is not reading. They are fine, but they are not reading. I mean, if you listen to a podcast, educational as it might be, you don’t say that you are reading.

I was resting my eyes after eye surgery, so I decided to try an audiobook. I fell asleep near the beginning of the first two I tried, so I figured this pastime was not for me. I know audiobooks are useful when you are driving a long distance; I would hope I wouldn’t fall asleep listening to an audiobook driving. But since I was resting, it was easy to fall asleep. Then I found one that kept me awake. Well, not quite. I did manage to fall asleep several times during the several days it took me to finish it, and I would have to go back and replay parts of it. I may still have missed a few parts even though I finished it.

And I sobbed during the last part of the book. I don’t recall ever sobbing when reading a print or ebook. So I thought maybe the format of hearing it played out was more effective in grabbing one’s emotions. That made sense to me. Then I looked on Goodreads, and many people who had read the book had cried. I wonder if I would have cried if I had simply read the book, instead of hearing it. Hmmm……

In any case, I gave the book five stars, and I am recommending it to you. I had recently heard of Colleen Hoover, but I had never read her. Then I heard she has been just about the top-selling author for the past couple of years. I have a couple of her ebooks on my Kindle right now, and I have started one. The audiobook was  Memories of Him, and I loved it. 

I have read a few other good books lately. Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano is a popular book right now. I got about halfway through, and the library grabbed it off my Kindle because it was due. Only two weeks and no renewals on library ebooks. So I am trying very hard to remember something about it because I do really want to finish it. I am once again on the waiting list at the library. 

The Seaside Library by Brenda Novak  was worth five stars to me, but I don’t remember a thing about it — except I thought it was an odd title for the book because it really wasn’t about a library — although I can’t remember what it was about. Ah! I just looked it up. It is more of a murder mystery.

The First Ladies by Marie Benedict is a novel based on a true story about the close decades-long friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and civil rights activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Another five-star read.

And then, I would recommend Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara, which I read for an online book club. It takes place in 1944 Chicago and deals with the internment of a Japanese family and the mysterious death of one of the daughters.

I would maybe “read” another audiobook if I can get it free. I get my books either from the library or from Kindle Unlimited. I love to buy books, but I cannot justify the purchase unless the book is by an author I know.

Happy Reading!

Words and Music, Part 2

Image by Alexandr Ivanov from Pixabay

So, where did I leave off? Well, I did the Maypole Dance as a freshman in college in Boston — and took all the available (all three) music classes at my college…

After college graduation, I couldn’t find a job that used my education, so I took a crappy job. Several months later, I moved to Florida with my boyfriend. A year later, we broke up, and I moved back to Boston.

In the mid 70s I found jazz dance. I don’t remember how I found this particular school, but you could find me taking three 90-minute classes in a row in downtown Boston in an unairconditioned third-floor studio — in the summer. I got pretty good, but a few years later, when the instructor (whom I had a crush on) finally formed his dance troupe and left me out because I need to “lose some weight,” I cried and quit. I was also taking a few voice lessons at the time, and poof, my dreams of Broadway were crushed!

But then in around 1980, I saw a small write up in the magazine of the Sunday newspaper about a tap studio that sounded intriguing, run by an old tap master. I had found my home! Here’s something I am really good at! So I tapped, and then taught, and did some performing there, and then continued when I moved to California in 1993. I continued tapping until the early 2000s, when there was just nowhere to go and nowhere else to learn. I remember teaching the day before my first baby was due.

When I left tapping (I still attended a master class once in a while, though), I decided I wanted to play the piano again. But not classical. This time I wanted to play jazz. And I knew I wanted a male teacher. I found the perfect teacher. I discovered a new part of myself that was passionate about music (and, unfortunately, about the piano teacher, but that never got off the ground). This new part of myself that I discovered, however, was not compatible with my husband, so I left. My kids were teens (almost anyway) by now. I never really got very good at jazz piano and quit after a couple of years. But I was still in my music epiphany.

I took a music and computers course at the local junior college, and then a music theory course … and then dared to take a jazz improvisation class, attempting to play the piano. I went to the local jazz club and bookstores that had jazz musicians. I did own a piano, and then bought a keyboard as well. But I never really learned to play.

At the same time, I decided I wanted a master’s degree in music. Just because. I had always wanted a master’s degree, but couldn’t afford any more education when I finished college. So I applied to the music program at UC Berkeley. I knew I wouldn’t get in because I didn’t have the music background. And I was right.

But I heard about a master’s degree in Humanities at Cal State, where I could concentrate in music history, so I did that. It was a remote program, so to this day, I have never been to that school. It took me six or seven years, taking one or two classes at a time, but I managed to finish. At the same time, when I was nearly finished with this degree, I returned to school for a teaching credential. I was now single and needed to earn a living. A couple of friends suggested I become an English teacher. I was never really committed to it, but I did it and taught for 11 years. It was never “me,” but it got me into my “grammar era”!

My master’s thesis for the Humanities degree was “Women in Music.” It really wasn’t very good, but reliable sources tell me that it is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Library. I have never been there, but I  hope to get there. My love of music, especially old rock and roll, demands that I visit!

So, since 2010, when I published my first grammar book, I have been in my grammar phase. Just recently, though, I have veered back to music. Look back to Part I of this post, paragraph 7.  I have been once again inspired by the same musicians all these decades later…now it is oldies, which I have always loved: the music that came from that Motorola transistor radio!

There is a rock and roll club where I live. It is really the only club I am interested in joining. So I am teaching myself rock piano.  And now we fortunately have You Tube and online lessons of all kinds. I am making some headway.

Playing music with others is entirely different from playing by oneself. I learned that when I attempted to play with the Community Band back in California. I had never played with other people, but I figured I could. I figured with my background in piano, I could play in the percussion section: bells, tympani, cymbals, vibraphone. I did it. Not well, but I tried!

Oh, I don’t want to give the impression that I never had any jobs writing, since this is Words and Music. I never even came close to writing for Billboard Magazine, but I worked for a couple of newspapers during that year in Florida in the 70s. Then I spent six years as a technical writer, editor, and then supervisor at a computer company while I was still in Boston. I also did a lot of freelance copyediting, including a five-year stint at a telecommunications company in California. This was all before becoming a teacher. 

Rock on!

Words and Music, Part 1

My life has basically been words and music — and throw in some motherhood and coffee, and that is about it. 

You pretty much know the words part: English major; childhood poet;  technical writer; technical editor; editing supervisor; freelance editor; English teacher; and then author, publisher, and blogger.

But it was really music that got the whole thing started.

I guess I was sort of a musical kid. My mother (thank you) started me dancing at the age of six. I continued dancing through at least junior high school. Not a great ballet dancer, but I was good at tap from the get go. For the six years covering junior and senior high school, I played classical piano. Once again, I was no prodigy, but I wasn’t bad (considering how much I practiced – or didn’t). 

When I was five, I think I wanted to be a teacher, but that didn’t last long. 

I don’t remember when I first got into listening to music…oh wait! Yes, I do. My parents had a bunch of albums, among them South Pacific and The King and I. My best friend, Linda, and I would listen to them all the time. I don’t remember when I got into popular music. But I distinctly remember that I got a Motorola transistor radio for my ninth birthday, and it was stuck to my ear from then on. So I must have been listening to popular music before that. That transistor radio is pictured in this post, but mine was beige. 

When I was about 12, the Beatles had arrived. I liked them, but not like some girls did. There was another group I liked (their name isn’t important here), actually LOVED! And that got my real obsession started. I started writing song lyrics, mostly love ballads. I generally had a melody in my mind, but wrote only a few of them out. I could write music, since I played piano (and three guitar chords). They were all in the key of C, with C, F, and G chords — and sometimes even A and E minor. I still have all of those lyrics and sheet music. 

I once sent one of my songs to one of those (scam) places they advertised that would put music to your lyrics and create a demo and try to sell it. I remember that they claimed  Tab Hunter’s “Young Love” came from them. Well, they pretty much ruined my song, and made it a country tune, which wasn’t my intention. Needless to say, that was the end of that. 

So my high school yearbook says that my ambition is to be a songwriter.

During those high school years, I also thought about being an actress, and sent away for information to the University of Southern California, which has a famous acting program. No, my parents did not like this idea. And did I really think I could act? I took some “drama lessons” when I was in elementary school, and I got the lead in the 4th grade play as Betty the Bookworm, but I wasn’t involved in any of the plays put on by my high school. Nor was I in the band. 

Since songwriting seemed a far stretch, I thought that since I always liked to write (and was co-editor of the high school yearbook), I could write for Billboard Magazine.  Since the time I was 12 or so and madly in love with a certain singing group, I would walk a couple of miles each way to Cal’s, a newstand that sold Billboard Magazine. The magazine came out on Tuesdays, but Cal’s usually didn’t get it on Tuesday. So, I would go there again on Wednesday and sometimes on Thursday — until I found it and could scour it for news of my boys. This went on for a while….

If I was going to be a songwriter — or write for Billboard Magazine — I needed to be in New York. I lived in the Boston area. So when it was time to think about college, I thought about New York. I applied to New York University, Barnard College (the sister Ivy League to Columbia U), Connecticut College (probably because they took someone from my high school the year before, so I figured they would take someone this year, maybe), and Simmons College in Boston, where my cousin had just graduated. 

My parents took me to Barnard for an interview. They were afraid of my going to “dangerous” New York!  They also took me to Connecticut College, which was way too snobby for my taste. I remember all the girls (it was a girls’ school at that time) had long dark straight hair and eyeliner. Clones.

I am not bragging, but I got into all those schools with scholarships. To this day, I wish I had gone to Barnard. Maybe I would have ended up working for Billboard Magazine — or becoming a songwriter. Then I realize I wouldn’t have my beautiful children and granddaughter and published books, and that we usually are where we are meant to be. 

Why didn’t I go to Barnard? — besides listening to my parents, which I shouldn’t have? Well, I really wanted to study journalism, not just English. Barnard was strictly liberal arts, and I would have had to be an English major. Not that I couldn’t have written for Billboard Magazine with an English degree from Barnard! Simmons offered a major in publications, which was print media — writing and graphic arts. So I did that. I was actually a double major with English as my other major. And I took every music class I could — all four of them that Simmons offered: Baroque era music; Classical era music; Romantic era music; and music and literature (which was basically opera — and I will never forget how much I loved Tristan and Isolde).

Aside from being in the dance club freshman year (and dancing around the Maypole at 6 a.m. on May 1), I was not involved in any music during college. Aside from going to discos in the 70s, there was no more music. I got a job as a technical writer. I got married. I had two kids.

Was that the end of music for me? Stay tuned for Part 2 next week.

Nine Reasons Why English Is So Hard to Learn

Image by annemcdon from Pixabay

English is a quirky little language, even for those whose native language is English. Why?

1. Homographs

Words that are spelled the same, often pronounced the same, but with entirely different meanings.

Lead in your pencil and lead the parade.Bow on the gift and bow after the performance.Close the door and close not far.Tears you cry and tears in the paper.2. Homophones

Words that sound the same, but are spelled differently with different meanings.

Worn and WarnTo, Two, TooBear and BareHere and HearLed and LeadSee and SeaAnd a bunch more.3. Contronyms

Words that have two contradictory meanings.

Finished as completed; Finished as done for.Bolt as in securing something; Bolt as fleeing.Give out as in providing for; Give out as to run out.Oversight as in looking after; Oversight as failing to notice.Sanction as in approving; Sanction as in boycotting.4. Idioms

How can one figure out idioms since they cannot be taken literally?

Pulling one’s legIt’s a piece of cake.To kill two birds with one stone.To bite the bullet.To wrap one’s head around something.HUH?5. Rules with Mostly Exceptions

Like “I before E except  after C or when sounds like A as in neighbor and weigh” — except for weird, protein, caffeine, codeine, seize, height, seismic. And on the other side, ancient, society, hacienda.

6. Silent LettersWhy doesn’t pterodactyl start with T?Why doesn’t knife start with N?What is the T doing in listen?Why doesn’t autumn end with an M?7. Irregular Words

We have nouns that are plural, but are not pluralized by adding an S after the last letter: children, women, men, candies, cacti, alumnae.

And irregular verbs are misused all the time – those whose past tense doesn’t simply add –ed:

run, ran, have runset, set, and setthink, thought, have thoughtdrink, drank, have drunk8. “Chameleon” Words

Some words change meaning depending on which syllable you stress:

Content as in happy; Content as in what something containsProject as in something to do; Project as to throw.Object as in thing; Object as in to oppose.9. Pronunciation Chaos

Through, thought, ouch, enough, trough, thorough — they all have ou. All pronounced differently.

Though, enough, height — all have gh. All pronounced differently.

 

English: A Synthetic or Analytical Language?

Huh? What is a synthetic language? Polyester??

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Analytical language? What is that? 

I suspect some of my readers are acquainted with the differences between analytical and synthetic languages. I, however, must admit I had never heard these words used to describe language (or to differentiate among languages) until one of my readers suggested that I write a blog post about the topic. Well, that led me to look into it. 

If you have ever studied Latin, you might easily understand  the difference between synthetic and analytic languages. English, although at one time more synthetic, is now a pretty analytical language. Latin, which no one uses anymore, is quite synthetic.  I will explain.  

A synthetic language changes the actual word to use it differently in a sentence. For example, in Latin there are five cases for nouns. If you use a noun as the subject of a sentence (nominative case), it is a different form than if you use it as a direct object (accusative case). Puella is nominative case for girl; puellam is accusative (if I remember correctly).  In English, we use the word girl to mean a girl however we use it (except we do have possessive, where it is slightly changed).  However, we put it in a different part of the sentence depending on how we use it. So English word position in a sentence.  In some languages, the verb form always changes with tense. In English, we use auxiliary words often (not always) to change tense: I run; I will run; I have run. The verb stays the same. In some language, the actually verb form changes.

No language is completely one or the other, but languages tend to be more analytical or more synthetic. The Czech language is still largely synthetic with seven noun cases and many different verb forms. Spanish is now somewhere in between, having different verb forms but the same noun forms. English has gone from  synthetic into the analytic.

Languages that have influenced English:

5% Greek

7,5% Latin

40%  Anglo-Saxon

15%  Norse

30% French

2.5% other languages

The Oxford English dictionary has about 300,000 entries, not including scientific and technical words.  An educated English speaker, however, only uses about 30,000 words, one tenth of the available words.

Thanks for this website for some of the language information.