Year: 2009

Q: I see this kind of sentence all the time in The New York Times, The New Yorker, etc.: “A solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the sun.” My English teacher in high school would get very angry at the use of “is when” in definitions. Is it acceptable now? Shouldn’t the “is” be followed by a noun?

A: Although it was once common to use “is when” in definitions (for example, “Poverty is when your stomach is empty”), the usage has been considered colloquial since the mid-19th century. It’s common in speech, but good writers generally avoid it.

Usage authorities argue that a noun or gerund, not an adverb like “when,” should follow “is” in a definition. So it would be better to write “Poverty is an empty stomach” or “Poverty is having an empty stomach.”

Nevertheless, people have been using “is when” (and “is where”) in definitions for many centuries. I did a search of quotations in the Oxford English Dictionary for “is when” definitions and came up with hundreds, going back to the 14th century. Here’s a sampling.

1340, in The Psalter of Richard Rolle of Hampole: “The inspirynge of his ire is when he says stilly in oure hert ….”

1547, in a medical book by Andrew Boorde: “Abhorsion is when a woman is delyvered of her chylde before her tyme.”

1719, in John Quincy’s Lexicon Physico-Medicum: Or, a New Physical Dictionary: “Alcalization is when any Liquor is impregnated with an alkaline Salt.”

1788, in Thomas Reid’s A Brief Account of Aristotle’s Logic: “Begging the question is when the thing to be proved is assumed in the premises.”

So who first said the usage was grammatically incorrect?

The earliest objection I could find was in an 1851 handbook, The Grammar of English Grammars. The author, Goold Brown, says neither “when” nor “where” is “fit to follow the verb is in a definition … because it expresses identity, not of being, but of time or place ….” Goold later cites dozens upon dozens of such misuses, most of them in books by other grammarians!

(I could have saved myself lots of research by looking in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, which notes that Goold Brown was the first to condemn this usage.)

At any rate, these “is when” definitions are best avoided, in my opinion, especially in writing. They may be handy, but the definitions are not grammatically parallel to the things being defined.

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Q: I’ve come across a grammar question at work that I hope you can help me with. In describing one of our programs in a publication, we have this sentence: “Over $1.3 million have already been awarded.” A style guide at my office suggests “have” here is correct, but I think it should be “has.” I can’t explain why, but this usage sounds better. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A: Amounts of money are considered grammatically singular. So it should indeed be “Over $1.3 million has already been awarded.” And: “Five dollars is a lot to pay for a cup of coffee.”

If you were talking about coins or bills as things rather than as amounts of money, then you would use the plural: “Three tens and two singles are in his wallet, and two quarters are in his pocket.”

On a (distantly) related subject, I had a blog item a couple of years ago about the annoying inclination of bureaucrats and other stuffed shirts to use “monies” when plain old “money” would do the job.

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Q: When you were on the Leonard Lopate Show recently, you mentioned some presidential neologisms. Could you post the whole list to The Grammarphobia Blog?

A: Here are some of the words and phrases that American presidents have popularized or introduced into English:

Washington: “indoors,” “non-discrimination,” “off-duty,” “paroled,” “reconnoiter,” “bakery,” “average” (the verb), “ravine,” “rehire,” and “hatchet-man” (a pioneer, not a thug).

Jefferson: “lengthily,” “belittle,” “public relations,” “electioneering,” “indecipherable,” “monotonously,” “ottoman” (the footstool, not the empire), “pedicure,” and the noun “bid.” He even invented the word for inventing a word: “neologize.”

John Adams: popularized “caucus” and introduced “lengthy,” “bobolink,” “quixotic,” “spec” (short for “speculation”), and the verb “net” in the financial sense.

James Madison: “squatter.”

Abraham Lincoln: “relocate,” “relocation,” and “point well taken.”

Theodore Roosevelt: popularized “muckraker” and introduced “lunatic fringe” and “bully pulpit.”

Warren G. Harding: revived two older words, “bloviate” and “normalcy.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt: “cheerleader.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower: “military-industrial complex.”

Will Barack Obama contribute to this list? I wouldn’t misunderestimate him.

PS: President Harding was an infamous bloviator himself. In a blog item a couple of years ago about the origin of “bloviate,” I quoted H. L. Mencken’s colorful description of Harding’s oratory:

“It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean-soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm (I was about to write abscess!) of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash. But I grow lyrical.”

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Q: The other night a friend brought up the expression “talking through your hat” and wondered if it comes from the way Joseph Smith, founder of the LDS Church, used to communicate with his famous “speaking stones” by burying his face in his hat. I said I’d ask Patricia! Whaddya think?

A: Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang says “to talk through one’s hat” is an American expression from the late 19th century and means to talk nonsense, to boast, or to exaggerate. But Cassell’s doesn’t comment on the origin of the expression.

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang and the Oxford English Dictionary cite this quotation from the New York World in 1888 as the earliest printed example: “Dis is only a bluff dey’re makin’ – see! Dey’re talkin’ tru deir hats.”

Stephen Crane used the expression in his novel The Third Violet (1896): ” ‘Oh, you talk through your hat,’ replied Florinda. ‘Billie don’t care whether I like him or whether I don’t.’ “

Did the phrase originate with Joseph Smith? Well, there are several versions of how the Church of Latter Day Saints got the Book of Mormon.

In the one you’re referring to, Smith used a “seer stone” to translate ancient writing engraved on plates. In this version, he reportedly put the stone in a hat and then buried his face in the hat to block out the light.

So, does this account have anything to do with talking through one’s hat? Well, the translation business is said to have taken place in the 1820s, thus the timing is right. But I haven’t found any evidence that this is the source of the expression.

Several correspondents writing to the journal Notes and Queries in 1923 said that in the mid-1800s the phrase was applied to ostentatious Englishmen who upon entering a church stood with their hats in front of their faces and prayed into them to avoid having to kneel.

In the words of one writer, “As the custom died out, this kind of ‘talking through one’s hat’ may have seemed to a younger generation to have savoured of Pecksniffery.” Another writer, however, objected that this practice was called “talking to your hat,” not through it.

Whatever. It may be that the American expression and the now defunct British one came about independently.

Another heady phrase, “in your hat,” has been used to express “derision or incredulity” since the 1920s, according to Random House.

An article in Vanity Fair in 1927 said, ” ‘In your hat’ is equivalent to ‘applesauce,’ ‘boloney,’ ‘hooey,’ or ‘banana oil.’ ” (A little aside here. I had a blog item a while back on the subject of “Phooey!”)

But why “in your hat” rather than, say, “in your shoe”? Random House compares “in your hat” to a more vulgar expression, “go shit in your hat,” which it traces to the poet William Blake’s satirical work An Island in the Moon (circa 1784): “I’ll sing you a song said the Cynic. The Trumpeter shit in his hat said the Epicurean & clapt it on his head said the Pythagorean.”

Here are two more modern examples: From Jerome Weidman’s novel I Can Get It for You Wholesale (1937), “All I have to say is: In your hat and over your ears; you look good in brown.” And from Calder Willingham’s novel End as a Man (1947), “Go shit in your hat.”

With that, I’ll put on my impeccably clean hat and go for a walk.

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Q: I’m writing about valedictions at the end of letters. Ask Oxford says “Yours faithfully” should be used if the addressee’s name is not known, and “Yours sincerely” if it is. What’s the logic behind this? What, in short, is the difference between the two valedictions?

A: I certainly can’t tell you the logic behind this usage. Maybe I’m dim, but I don’t detect any meaningful difference between the valedictions “Yours faithfully” and “Yours sincerely.”

Oxford University Press, on its Ask Oxford website, does indeed advise writers of business letters to use “Yours faithfully” when writing to an anonymous, unnamed recipient (a “Dear Sir or Madam”), but to use “Yours sincerely” when writing to someone who’s named.

The site appears to be quoting The Oxford Guide to Effective Writing and Speaking (2nd ed.), by John Seely. But Seely is not alone. The same advice is given for business-letter writing in Wikipedia and in The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage (3d. ed.), edited by R. W. Burchfield.

So, according to these usage gurus, we’re supposed to be “faithful” to those addressees who are faceless and genderless, but “sincere” to those whose names we’ve been able to obtain. H-m-m. Do I hear the sound of hairs being split?

As it turns out, not all usage guides make this distinction. Here’s Kenneth G. Wilson in The Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

“The complimentary close of a letter often uses sincerely in certain formulaic ways: sincerely yours, very sincerely yours, yours sincerely, and sincerely. Americans frequently use truly in place of sincerely in all but the single word closing formula. Some Britons, and a few Americans too, may also use faithfully in some of these formulas. The tone or style of these is mostly a matter of convention, but the single-word versions are probably the most informal, and the three-word models the most overtly formal.”

Could this “sincerely”-vs.-“faithfully” business be, as Wilson’s words perhaps suggest, a British thing?

For another viewpoint, here’s an interesting and amusing exchange of letters on the subject, though the parties are more concerned with whether a complimentary closing must include “yours.”

Irritably yours!

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Q: Do you have a theory about the phrase “lying in state?” Why “in state?” Does it refer to the state or the nation?

A: The word “state” didn’t originally mean a geographical or governmental entity. When it entered English in the early 13th century, “state” meant a condition or manner of standing in the world. Think “status.” In fact, “state” comes from the Latin status, meaning standing, position, or condition.

Among the many definitions of “state” in the Oxford English Dictionary are these: “Status; high rank; pomp,” and “Costly and imposing display, such as befits persons of rank and wealth; splendour, magnificence.”

So men of stature in olden times were said to conduct their lives and their affairs “in state” – that is, with pomp and solemnity.

Similarly, a “man of state” was a high-ranking dignitary, and to “travel in state” was to travel in high style with all the trappings of office.

These are the meanings embedded in the verb phrase “to lie in state,” which the OED says is used when a celebrated person’s body is “ceremoniously exposed to view before interment.”

Beginning in the late 13th century, “state” was also used to mean the condition “of the Church, a country, realm, etc. in regard to its welfare and polity,” according to the OED.

It’s this sense of the word that gives us the modern political meaning; “state” was first used in 1538 to mean a governmentally organized body politic: “The kyng, prynce, and rular of the state.”

And that’s, more or less, the status quo.

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Q: I wonder if you would comment on that great Americanism “OK.” Didn’t it come from a president? I remember the nickname “Old Kinderhook,” but not the rest of the story. And what is a kinderhook?

A: Etymologists say “OK,” meaning “all right,” originated as a corrupted abbreviation of “all correct,” a phrase common in the Southeastern US and often humorously written as “orl [or oll] korrect.”

Interestingly, the earliest published references for the abbreviation in the Oxford English Dictionary are from publications in New England, not the Southeast:

1839, in the Boston Morning Post: “He … would have the ‘contribution box’, et ceteras, o.k . – all correct – and cause the corks to fly, like sparks, upward.”

1839, in the Salem Gazette: “The house was O.K. at the last concert, and did credit to the musical taste of the young ladies and gents.”

1839, in the Boston Evening Transcript: “Our Bank Directors have not thought it worth their while to call a meeting, even for consultation, on the subject. It is O.K. (all correct) in this quarter.”

1840, in the (Boston) Atlas: “These initials, according to Jack Downing, were first used by Gen. Jackson. ‘Those papers, Amos [Kendall], are all correct. I have marked them O.K.’ (oll korrect). The Gen. was never good at spelling.”

Contrary to popular opinion, “OK” did not originate as an abbreviation of “Old Kinderhook,” which was Martin Van Buren’s nickname during his 1840 presidential reelection campaign.

The nickname came from the town of Van Buren’s birth, Kinderhook, NY. The town’s name is derived from the Dutch for “children’s corner” (“kind” is child and “hoek” is corner in Dutch).

Van Buren and the Democratic Party did indeed use “OK” in the election campaign “because it conveniently suited his nickname,” according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Etymology. In fact, Van Buren’s supporters in New York called themselves the O.K. Club.

The OED suggests that the two versions of “OK” overlapped during the 1840 presidential campaign, and that the widespread use of the political slogan helped popularize the earlier “OK.”

As for the punctuation/spelling of “OK,” that has varied over the years. I had a blog entry on the subject last year.

I hope this explanation is OK with you.

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Q: I’ve been hearing the term “draconian” used a lot to describe brutal budget cuts. It’s the latest buzz word designed to get people upset and call them to action. I’d love to know your take on the use of this term.

A: Both “draconian” and its earlier form, “draconic,” are derived from the Athenian legislator Draco, who in the 7th century BC established a set of brutal laws so extreme that even minor offenses (idleness and petty theft, for instance) were punishable by death.

Draco’s legal code was reformed by Solon in the 6th century BC, but his cruelty has survived in the adjective “draconian,” which The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines as exceedingly harsh or very severe.

The first citation for “draconic” in the Oxford English Dictionary is by Peter A. Motteux in a 1708 translation of works by Rabelais: “Any Law so rigorous and Draconic.”

In 1872, John Yeats used the term in a discussion of human sacrifice by the Carthaginians: “Their religion reflected its character upon their criminal code, which was Draconic in severity – crucifixion, for example, being a common punishment.”

The old “draconic” was eventually overtaken by “draconian” in the late 19th century. The newbie first appeared in print, as far as we know, in 1876, in a description of a London church service where it appeared to mean merely strict or unvarying:

“The Swedenborgian rubrics (if there be such things) are not so Draconian as those of the Establishment, but leave some little discretion to the minister to suit the wants of his congregation.”

The following year the word appeared in a book about Russia, where the phrase “Draconian legislation” was used to refer to brutal Czarist law.

I can’t tell you exactly when “draconian” was first used in reference to budgets. The OED doesn’t have any citations for this usage, but it has been around since at least the early 1930s and probably earlier.

A Sept. 12, 1931, article in the New York Times, for example, referred to “Draconian measures” adopted to balance the British budget. And a Nov. 15, 1925, article in the Times about a financial crisis in France mentioned “Draconian tax decrees.”

Coincidentally, both “draconic” and its successor “draconian” have had another meaning as well: dragon like! The word “dragon” comes from the Latin draco, derived from the Greek drakon, meaning serpent. John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins explains:

“Originally the word signified simply ‘snake,’ but over the centuries this ‘snake’ increased in size, and many terrifying mythical attributes (such as wings and the breathing of fire) came to be added to it, several of them latterly from Chinese sources. The Greek form is usually connected with words for ‘look at, glance, flash, gleam,’ such as Greek drakein and Sanskrit darc, as if its underlying meaning were ‘creature that looks at you (with a deadly glance).’ “

The OED‘s first published reference to the dragon-like “draconic” is from Henry More’s Apocalypsis Apocalypseos: Or, the Revelation of St. John Unveiled (1680): ” ‘The great Dragon was cast out.’ … This … signified the destruction of the Empire as Draconick and Idolatrous.”

And in 1880, an article in the Daily Telegraph used “draconian” in the dragon-like sense: “In the course of one of these draconian performances … the mummer’s tail came off.”

Since then, according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.), “draconic” and “draconian” have gone their separate ways. “Draconian” now means cruel, while “draconic” means dragon like.

Before I drop the subject of dragons and brutes, however, I should mention that the name “Draco” also lives on in Draco Malfoy, the bigoted bully in the Harry Potter books.

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Q: You were asked on the air about Rick Warren’s use of the term “hinge point” in his invocation at the inauguration of President Obama. I believe you thought he said “linchpin,” but he did indeed use the term “hinge point.”

A: You’re right. I thought I was hearing “linchpin.” But Rick Warren was using “hinge point,” a relatively unfamiliar phrase (at least to me) in the inaugural invocation.

His words: “Now today, we rejoice not only in America’s peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time, we celebrate a hinge point of history with the inauguration of our first African-American president of the United States.”

While Obama is the 44th president, this was the 43rd transfer of power, not the 44th. But that’s beside the point. The point we’re discussing is “hinge point.”

The phrase has several applications in the technical language of engineering, construction, anatomy, even orthopedic reconstructive surgery. Generally, it’s the point where a mechanism pivots.

The evangelical minister was of course using the term metaphorically as a turning point or point at which a significant change takes place.

The term doesn’t appear in the Oxford English Dictionary, but another listener sent me this snippet from an entry about the philospher Johann Friedrich Herbart in the 11th edition of The Encyclopedia Britannica (1911):

“What is it? The answer to this question is the second hinge-point of Herbart’s theoretical philosophy.”

She also provided several references from theological texts to “hinge points” of some historical period, or of Christianity itself, as in these partial quotes:

“… the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the hinge point of the Christian faith,” and “… the hinge point of the entire story is set on the record of how David rose to become Israel’s king, replacing the ineffective Saul.”

I suspect that Warren, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA, picked up the phrase from religious texts like those.

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Q: Can you use the verb “inaugurate” for an object as well as a person? I sometime use it that way, as in “We’re inaugurating this frying pan by making latkes.”

A: Yes, you can inaugurate an object, a phase of some program or other, or even a frying pan! This of course would be a metaphorical use of the word, since “inaugurate” usually means to introduce something solemnly.

Here’s one of the definitions in the Oxford English Dictionary: “To initiate the public use of, introduce into public use by a formal opening ceremony (a statue, fountain, building, etc.).”

So why not go one step further and initiate a frying pan for private use? In fact, one definition of the verb in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) is simply “to bring about the beginning.”

The word “inaugurate,” which first showed up in print in the early 1600s, comes from the Latin inaugurare, meaning to consecrate or install after taking omens from the flight of birds, according to the OED.

In fact, Samuel Johnson, in his famous 1755 dictionary, defined the word as “to begin with good omens,” though in modern English “inaugurate” has lost its sense of “augury.”

As for “latkes,” the Yiddish word for potato pancakes, the earliest citation in the OED is from a 1927 article in the American Mercury magazine about Jewish cooking. Here’s an expanded version of the citation:

“Similarly, Chanukah, to the Jewish bocher, meant not only slim, yellow candles in a glistening menorah, but luscious potato latkes – pancakes made of grated, raw potatoes, mixed with flour and shortening and fried in schmaltz (rendered chicken or beef fat).”

A “bocher,” by the way, is a young man in Yiddish.

Enjoy!

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Q: My son works for a small startup – let’s call it Hi Tech – where he’s the only native English speaker. He’s editing a document, but he’s not sure when to use the possessive of the company’s name. Example: “Hi Tech (or Hi Tech’s) engineers will be happy to answer any inquiries.” Is there a rule?

A: What your son wants to do is to use the company name to modify another noun.

If the noun is plural (like “engineers”), the company name (let’s make it “GM” here) can be used either as a straight adjective (“GM engineers have invented a new solar battery”) or as a possessive adjective (“GM’s engineers have invented a new solar battery”).

With the straight adjective and a plural noun, the article “the” or some other modifier (“some,” “these,” “several,” “our,” etc.) is optional, depending on context.

If the noun being modified is singular (like “engineer”), the company name can also be used as a straight adjective (“A GM engineer has … “) or a possessive adjective (“GM’s engineer has … “).

But with a straight adjective and a singular noun, an article or some other modifier is required (“the GM engineer” …. “a GM engineer” … “another GM engineer” … “this GM engineer,” etc.).

That’s why he wouldn’t write “Hi Tech approach is unique and efficient.” He’d write either “The Hi Tech approach …” or “Hi Tech’s approach …..”

I hope this low-tech answer helps.

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Q: My mother, born and raised in Worcester, MA, often uses the expression “nutso cracko,” which drives me nutso cracko. Can you tell me how this phrase came to be? I hope my query doesn’t drive you over the edge.

A: My guess is that your mom is being inventive with compound modifiers.

The adjective “nutso” (crazy or nuts) has been around since the late 1970s, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang.

Another source, Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, lists “cracko” (eccentric or insane) as being in use since the 1980s.

Seems to me that “nutso cracko” is a pretty nifty combination, but your mother isn’t the only person to use it.

I got three hits on Google for “nutso cracko” as well as two for “nutso-cracko,” one for “nutso, cracko,” another for “nutso/cracko,” and one more for this extended mouthful: “nutso, cracko-whacko, weirdo, strange, hippie, pothead.”

Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Now, there’s a saying that’s been around a bit longer. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for this pipe-smoking expression is from Americans Abroad (1824), a two-act comedy by R. B. Peake. The next cite, a dozen years later, is from The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens’s first novel.

But how did pipe-smoking get into an expression about dealing with something whether you like it or not? The saying is apparently derived from a belief that pipe-smoking and meditation go together, according to Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Catch Phrases, edited by Paul Beale.

Today, given what we know about carcinogens, someone who smoked while meditating would be considered ill-advised – and, perhaps, nutso cracko.

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Q: These days we hear a lot of people say the financial markets could “spin out of control.” Why do things “spin” out of control, as opposed to “run” or “jump” out of control? What is the origin of this phrase?

A: The verb of choice to use with “out of control” certainly does seem to be “spin.” I had more than 800,000 hits on Google for versions of the phrase “spin out of control.”

Clearly, there are alternatives. A search for “out of control” in the Oxford English Dictionary comes up with these citations: “balloon out of control” (1988); “get out of control” (1942); “swerved out of control” (1963); “surge out of control” (1979); “spiraling out of control” (2000), and “slide out of control” (2000).

Also, “skidded out of control” (2000); “ran out of control” (1971); “raged out of control” (2002); “acting out of control” (1994); “went out of control” (1959); “drop out of control into a whirling dive” (1961, said of an aircraft); “tumbling out of control” (1975); and of course “spin out of control” (2004).

The dates given aren’t necessarily for the first uses of those expressions. The earliest published reference in the New York Times archive for a version of “spin out of control” is from a Jan. 7, 1981, Associated Press article about rioting in Miami: ”The windshield was smashed and the car spun out of control, hitting Shanreka and a pedestrian, Albert Nelson, 75.”

The earliest reference I see in the OED that includes “spin” and “control” in the same sentence is this one, from a July 1914 issue of Aeroplane magazine: “If a ‘scout’ started to spin round its own nose it would never come into control again.”

Interestingly, it would seem from the OED that “spin out of control” could be considered redundant. The entry for “spin out” (1954) describes the verb phrase as North American slang meaning “of a vehicle: to skid round out of control.”

The noun “spin” in the political sense (manipulation of public perception of an event or situation) apparently came along in the 1970s.

The OED‘s first published citation is from the Guardian newspaper in January 1978: “The CIA can be an excellent source [of information], though, like every other, its offerings must be weighed for factuality and spin.”

And here’s a citation from the Washington Post in March 1979: “American spokesman Jody Powell gave a press briefing and put a negative spin on the talks.”

The OED dates “spin doctor” from 1984 and “spinmeister” from 1986, though it has no entry for “spin control.”

But John and Adele Algeo, writing in the fall 1988 issue of the journal American Speech, reported finding “spin control” in this quote from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Nov. 7, 1987): “In political parlance, it is called ‘spin control’ – a campaign’s attempt to influence reporters’ interpretations of an event.”

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Q: I recently screened “WALL-E” and got to thinking about By n Large, the company that made the eponymous robot. What the heck is the origin of the phrase “by and large” and what does it mean?

A: The adverbial phrase “by and large,” meaning generally or for the most part, was originally a seafaring expression.

When a ship was sailing “by” the wind, it was moving toward or into the wind. When a ship was sailing “large,” the wind was coming from abaft the beam (that is, from somewhere in the rear half of the ship).

The expression “by and large,” meaning to the wind as well as off it, was first used in print in 1669, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The earliest recorded use of it was by a 17th-century writer on seamanship, Samuel Sturmy, who said, “Thus you see the ship handled in fair weather and foul, by and learge.”

Obviously the term was in use by sailors before that. A ship that sailed well “by and large” was one that handled nicely in a variety of circumstances.

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Q: My daughter, an attending physician, is on the hospital floor to advise or assist residents. In OB, her specialty, she also covers for private physicians who are unable to get to the hospital in time to deliver babies. The universal expression there for someone who covers for other obstetricians is “doc in a box.” Any idea where this medical usage comes from?

A: The website HowStuffWorks, a subsidiary of the company that owns the Discovery Channel, has a list of medical slang terms, including “doc in a box,” which it defines as “a small health-care center, usually with high staff turnover.”

A contributor to Urban Dictionary (which is not an authority by any means, but has its finger on the pulse of the blogosphere) defines a “doc in the box” as “any doctor at a walk-in clinic.” Another contributor to this online slang site gives “McDoc” as a synonym.

The expression “doc in a box” was used in the sense of a clinic by participants in an online discussion on the Atlantic magazine’s website in 2007 about walk-in clinics. But this usage has been around for a while, since at least the 1980s, and probably earlier.

The first published reference for “doc in a box” in The New York Times archive is from a May 10, 1987, article about the efforts of hospitals to market their services to the public. One of the efforts was the creation of neighborhood clinics. The writer uses the expression to refer to the clinics, not the doctors working in them:

“Many hospitals now have neighborhood centers – known as ‘Doc in a Box’ – for cash customers who want quick, cheap medical advice on cuts, colds and other problems not serious enough to warrant an emergency room visit.”

The expression “doc in the box” (with “the” instead of “a”) first appeared in the Times in a Dec. 5, 1982, article in which a doctor dismisses clinics at shopping centers: ”They want to put up a ‘Doc in the Box’ sign every place there’s a McDonald’s.”

In 1991, Robert A. Burton, a San Francisco neurologist, published a novel called Doc-in-a-Box, about a failed plastic surgeon who’s had his license suspended and who practices illegally in a seedy street clinic in Venice, CA.

Although we’ve found a few examples of “doc in a box” used to refer to an attending physician and “doc in the box” to describe teaching sessions at a medical school, the two phrases are usually seen in references to walk-in medical clinics, especially dismissive references.

We can’t find anything definitive about the origin of the phrase, but it seems apt for a walk-in clinic. The expression conjures up an image of an instant, anonymous doctor, one who’s ready when you are and available without notice to see you in a nearby cubicle.

No doubt the amusing echo of “Jack-in-the-box” helps keep the usage alive.

Speaking of which, a “Jack-in-the-box” was originally (back in the 16th century) a term of contempt for a Communion wafer in its container or a reference to a thief whose MO was to substitute an empty box for one full of money.

It wasn’t until the early 18th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, that the expression was used for the toy with a figure that springs out of a box.

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Q: You said on the radio that the word “opera” was once plural, but are you sure about that? Doesn’t it come from una opera in Italian, meaning the same thing as une oeuvre in French? Just wondering.

A: In English, “opera” has always been used in the singular. But it has its origin in a Latin plural.

The Latin word opus (meaning a work) was “used from the late 15th and early 16th cent., especially in Italy, to denote a musical composition,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

“It came to be used systematically from the early 17th cent., particularly in Venice, for numbered sets of pieces by a composer in the chronological order of publication,” the OED adds. “At first restricted to instrumental music, this practice was later (from c1800) used also for vocal works.”

The word opera, a Latin plural of opus, has been used in Italian since 1639 as a singular meaning a “composition in which poetry, dance, and music are combined,” according to the OED.

“Opera” entered English later in the 17th century as a borrowing from Italian and was also used in the singular. (In French, by the way, an opera is an opéra, while an oeuvre is an artistic or literary work.)

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Q: How long have football players and commentators been saying things like “This game is war to the end” or “The linemen are fighting it out in the trenches”? I find it inappropriate to talk of a game as a war when soldiers are in combat today.

A: This reminds me of the statement attributed to the Duke of Wellington in the mid-19th century: “The battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.”

As for your question, the link between football and the military goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, according to an article earlier this month in the Washington Post.

At the time, the writer Les Carpenter says, coaches like Yale’s Walter Camp and Harvard’s Percy Haughton used military textbooks as guides to motivate their teams on the field.

Not long after World War I, Carpenter adds, Gen. Douglas MacArthur wrote these lines while he was the superintendent of the US Military Academy at West Point: “Upon the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that upon other fields, on other days will bear the fruits of victory.” (Sounds like Wellington, doesn’t it?)

And Vince Lombardi, an assistant coach at West Point before his championship years with the Green Bay Packers in the ‘60s, didn’t mince words: “You’ve got to win the war with the man in front of you. You’ve got to get your man.”

Interestingly, according to the article, the NFL is now moving away from the use of “warrior athlete” imagery. It seems that league officials do indeed consider such language inappropriate at a time of real war. “It’s a matter of common sense,” the NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, is quoted as saying.

If you’d like to read more, here’s a link to the Washington Post article.

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Q: Do you agree with the punctuation (or, rather, lack of it) in the following sentences? 1) I brought my friend Jenny to the party. 2) I brought my friend Jenny Ann Smith to the party. I seem to recall being taught in high school that commas are not used if the clarifying phrase is one or two words. Anything longer would require commas.

A: Both sentences are correct. You would surround the name with commas in those sentences only if Jenny were your only friend. Since you seem to be speaking of her restrictively (that is, as one of your friends, not as your only friend), no commas are needed.

On the other hand, if Jenny were your mother (and most people have only one of those), then you would use commas:

1. I brought my mother, Jenny, to the party.

2. I brought my mother, Jenny Ann Smith, to the party.

Your high-school teacher may have described these as examples of appositives. An appositive identifies the same thing or person by a different name. And the number of words used in the appositive is irrelevant.

You use commas with an appositive that’s nonrestrictive (as in, “My mother, Jenny Smith”). It’s called nonrestrictive because she’s the only mother you have and has no need to be distinguished from others.

But you don’t use commas with an appositive that’s restrictive (as in “My friend Jenny”). It’s called restrictive, as I’ve mentioned above, because she’s one of many friends.

I hope this helps. Sorry for the technical talk, but you asked for it!

And you can always say (as The Killers, a post-punk revival band, sings), “Jenny was a friend of mine.”

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Q: In one of your postings, you mention “noodling in old newspaper archives.” It got me wondering about how “noodle” came to be used, both as a noun and a verb, to represent the mind and its activities.

A: There’s a lot of noodling in English, and much of it has to do with the head or the mind.

The verb “noodle,” meaning to fool around or waste time, has been in use since 1854, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The OED says the word comes from the noun “noodle,” meaning “a stupid or silly person; a fool, an idiot,” a word that was first used in print in 1720.

That noun’s origin is uncertain, but the OED says it may be a variant of an earlier one, “noddle,” which meant the head (or the back of the head) and was frequently used “in contexts suggesting emptiness or stupidity.”

“Noddle” was first recorded in the 1400s and may be related to the verb “nod” (circa 1390), meaning to briefly incline the head. The origin of “nod” is also unknown, but it could be related to a Middle High German verb, notten, meaning to move to and fro, or shake.

There was even a noun “noodleism” in the 19th century, meaning a silly action or idea. The OED‘s first citation is from a British newspaper in 1829: “Lord Eldon … rose to disavow participation in such extreme noodleisms.”

But a “noodle” that’s more relevant to your question is the verb that means to sing or play music in an inventive, improvisatory way.

This usage was first recorded in 1937. It was often used to describe jazz performances, but it was also used figuratively in other contexts.

Ever since the 1940s, to “noodle” (or “noodle around”) has meant to reflect on or ponder something, or to experiment, perhaps unproductively or without any particular direction.

And in case you’re wondering, the edible “noodle” comes from the German nudel, which is probably a variant of knödel (a dumpling; literally a “small knot”).

The earliest example of this usage in the OED is from a 1779 entry in the journal of Lady Mary Coke: “A noodle soup – this I begged to be explained and was told it was made only of veal with lumps of bread boiled in it.”

As a pasta lover, I take exception to that comment about “lumps of bread.”

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Read Pat and Stewart’s op-ed piece in today’s New York Times:

The I’s Have It

By PATRICIA T. O’CONNER
and STEWART KELLERMAN

WHEN President Obama speaks before Congress and the nation tonight, he will be facing some of his toughest critics.

Grammar junkies.

Since his election, the president has been roundly criticized by bloggers for using “I” instead of “me” in phrases like “a very personal decision for Michelle and I” or “the main disagreement with John and I” or “graciously invited Michelle and I.”

The rule here, according to conventional wisdom, is that we use “I” as a subject and “me” as an object, whether the pronoun appears by itself or in a twosome. Thus every “I” in those quotes ought to be a “me.”

So should the president go stand in a corner of the Oval Office (if he can find one) and contemplate the error of his ways? Not so fast.

For centuries, it was perfectly acceptable to use either “I” or “me” as the object of a verb or preposition, especially after “and.” Literature is full of examples. Here’s Shakespeare, in “The Merchant of Venice”: “All debts are cleared between you and I.” And here’s Lord Byron, complaining to his half-sister about the English town of Southwell, “which, between you and I, I wish was swallowed up by an earthquake, provided my eloquent mother was not in it.”

It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that language mavens began kvetching about “I” and “me.” The first kvetch cited in Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage came from a commencement address in 1846. In 1869, Richard Meade Bache included it in his book “Vulgarisms and Other Errors of Speech.”

Why did these 19th-century wordies insist “I” is “I” and “me” is “me”? They were probably influenced by Latin, with its rigid treatment of subject and object pronouns. For whatever reason, their approach stuck — at least in the rule books.

Then, why do so many scofflaws keep using “I” instead of “me”? Perhaps it’s because they were scolded as children for saying things like “Me want candy” instead of “I want candy,” so they began to think “I” was somehow more socially acceptable. Or maybe it’s because they were admonished against “it’s me.” Anybody who’s had “it is I” drummed into his head is likely to avoid “me” on principle, even when it’s right. The term for this linguistic phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”

A related crime that Mr. Obama stands accused of is using “myself” to dodge the “I”-versus-“me” issue, as when he spoke last November of “a substantive conversation between myself and the president.” The standard practice here is to use “myself” for emphasis or to refer to the speaker (“I’ll do it myself”), not merely as a substitute for “me.” But some language authorities accept a looser usage, and point out that “myself” has been regularly used in place of “me” since Anglo-Saxon days.

Our 44th president isn’t the first occupant of the White House to suffer from pronounitis. Nos. 43 and 42 were similarly afflicted. The symptoms: “for Laura and I,” “invited Hillary and I,” and so on. (For the record, Nos. 41 and 40 had no problem with the objective case, regularly using “Barbara and me” or “Nancy and me” when appropriate.)

But an educated speaker is expected to keep his pronouns in line. Here, then, is a tip, Mr. President. Nobody chooses the wrong pronoun when it’s standing on its own. If you’re tempted to say “for Michelle and I” in tonight’s speech, just mentally omit Michelle (sorry, Mrs. Obama), and you’ll get it right. And no one will get on your case.

Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman are the authors of the forthcoming “Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language.”

Q: There’s a very, very, very disturbing trend to use the verb “coalesce” in connection with “coalition.” People should be using “coalign,” ness pah? DO something – before political discourse goes down the plumbing!

A: I agree that “coalesce” brings up images of people stuck together with library paste. Nevertheless, “coalesce” and “coalition” are partners.

The noun “coalition,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, comes from the Latin coalescere (to grow together). The original English noun, first recorded in 1514, was “coalescence” (the growing together of separate parts).

But the old “coalescence” was eventually replaced by a new form, “coalition,” which was first used in 1612. “Coalition” in the sense of a political alliance was first used in 1715.

The OED has no entry for “coalign,” and neither do The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

“Align,” meaning to place in line, comes to us by way of the French verb aligner, and is probably influenced by the French phrase a ligne (in line), according to the OED. It was originally spelled “aline” when it entered English in 1693. The ultimate source is the Latin noun linea (a line) and verb lineare (to line.)

In summary, there’s nothing wrong with using “coalesce” to describe joining in a coalition, or getting (as the Beatles put it) all together now!

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Q: What’s the relation between “second,” the adjective, and “second,” the unit of time? And how about the verb “to second”? And what’s the relation between the adjective “minute” and the unit of time? And while you’re at it, how about all those other units of time: “hour,” “day,” “year,” “week,” “month”?

A: Whew! That’s a tall order. But I have a break in editing proofs for a new book, Origins of the Specious, which is coming out in May. So, here goes.

Let’s take these words one at a time. (I’ll put in parentheses the year of each one’s first appearance in English, according to either the Oxford English Dictionary or the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.)

(1) “Second.” The adjective (1297) came before the noun meaning a snippet of time. It’s the ordinal version of the cardinal number “two,” and comes from the Latin secundus, which means “following” or “next” (the root is sequi, “to follow”).

To understand the nouns “second” and “minute,” it’s helpful to know the system of sexagesimal fractions (that is, fractions based on 60). Babylonian astronomers and mathematicians invented the system for measuring angles, and it was later adopted by Greek- and Latin-speaking scholars. In angular measurement, a circle has 360 degrees; each degree has 60 minutes, and each minute has 60 seconds.

Originally, the noun “second” was short for the Latin secunda minuta, meaning “second [or next] small part,” since it is the second operation in sexagesimal division (first come minutes, then seconds). So you can see the relationship between the adjective and the noun.

The noun was originally (1360) an angular measurement, and it was used in geometry, astronomy, geography, and so on. It designated 1/3600th of a degree and 1/60th of an angular minute. The noun for the unit of time came later (1588), meaning 1/3600th of an hour and 1/60th of a temporal minute.

Meanwhile, the verb “second,” meaning to support or back up or assist another person (1586), is from the same Latin source. The sense of supporting a proposition or a speaker in a debate or meeting was first used by Francis Bacon in one of his essays (1597): “It is a good precept generally in seconding another: yet to adde somewhat of ones owne.”

(2) “Minute.” Here the noun came first, and the ultimate source is the classical Latin minutus, meaning small. In medieval Latin, minuta (short for the phrase pars minuta prima, or “first small part”) meant the 60th part of a degree or an hour. In English, the noun for a 60th part of a degree (1392) is about as old as the noun for a 60th part of an hour (1393).

So etymologically, the “minute” is the first small part of a sexagesimal division, and the “second” is the next small part.

If this all looks pretty tidy so far, here’s a fly in the ointment. As the OED points out, “in Old English contexts, minutum usually meant one-tenth of an hour. … When Honorius Augustodunensis divided the hour into sixtieths in De Imagine mundi (early 12th cent.), he called the sixtieths ostenta. These sixtieths were sometimes called minuta by the end of the 12th cent. (e.g., in the chronicle of Robertus de Monte), although the word continued to be used of tenths of an hour at least into the 13th cent.”

Meanwhile, the adjective “minute” (pronounced my-NOOT), meaning lesser or small (1472), has the same source as the noun, the Latin minutus.

(3) “Hour.” This word (1250), meaning 60 temporal minutes, ultimately comes from hora, which means season, time of day, or hour in both Latin and Greek. Its ultimate ancestor may be ancient Indo-European (see “year,” below). The “h” has always been silent in English as well as the Romance languages that inherited the word.

(4) “Day.” No, this isn’t related to the Latin dies, which also means “day.” It’s Germanic. The original daeg in Old English was first recorded in Beowulf (725). Its ultimate source is probably the Proto-Germanic dagaz and the earlier Indo-European base agh or ogh.

(5) “Week.” This word, first recorded (878) in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and meaning a cycle of seven days, is also Germanic. It probably has its origins in the Indo-European root wig-, meaning bend or turn. Similar words in other old Germanic languages conveyed the meanings of change, order, movement, turning, and succession. The word went through a variety of spellings before arriving at “week” in the mid-1500s.

(6) “Month.” This developed from the Old English monath (750), which has been traced to the Proto-Germanic maenoth and the Indo-European menot, for moon. In English, monath became “moneth” then “monthe” then “month” (though there were many, many variations along the way, including “moonth”). The period was originally named because it represented the time needed for the moon to complete a cycle of its phases.

(7) “Year.” This word developed from the Old English gear (first recorded in the early 10th century). It has echoes in the Proto-Germanic jaeran, but it has cousins that are non-Germanic as well: the Greek horos (year), the Greek and Latin hora (season, time of day, hour), and the Latin horno (this year). All may come from the ancient Indo-European root yer, which is thought to have meant “that which makes [a complete cycle],” according to The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. The Old English word originally represented “the time occupied by the sun in its apparent passage through the signs of the zodiac,” according to the OED.

That’s it for now. I’ve run out of time.

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Q: I’ve heard that English is about to hit a million words. Where does this number come from?

A: Nowhere. Or, rather, from no legitimate source. It’s a myth that the linguist and lexicographer Benjamin Zimmer debunks in a posting to the Language Log.

So, exactly how many words does English have? It’s impossible to say, since nobody knows exactly how to count them.

Do we count “run” as one word or two (a verb as well as a noun)? Is a “run” for dogs one word and a five-mile “run” for people another? Is “runs” another word (or two or three or whatever)? What about “runny”?

And should we count every obscure scientific and medical and mathematical and technical term? For instance, do we include “4,4′,5′-trimethyl-8-azapsoralen” (which I see described on a biomedical website as a “photoreactive and non-skin-phototoxic bifunctional bioisoster of psoralen”)?

For that matter, do we count all the spelled-out words for the zillion or so numbers we have?

The lexicographers on the Ask Oxford website estimate that we probably have a quarter to three-quarters of a million English words, not counting different forms of the same word, the most obscure techie terms, and so on.

That’s more than enough for me, a lot more than French, German, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, and so on.

[Update: No, the English language did NOT reach a million words “on June 10, 2009 at 10:22 am GMT,” as the Global Language Monitor website alleges. It’s all nonsense!]

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Q: I started learning English when I was 14, and that was 30 years ago. I have always used “different from” rather than “different than” because I thought that was the correct usage. But I hear “different than” spoken by many people and see it used in newspapers and magazines. Which is correct? Does it matter?

A: It’s true that generally “different from” is correct. But when what IMMEDIATELY follows is a clause (complete with a subject and its verb), you want “different than.” Examples:

“Paris is DIFFERENT FROM London.”

“Paris is DIFFERENT THAN it used to be.”

However… “Paris is DIFFERENT FROM WHAT it used to be.” (The clause doesn’t immediately follow; there’s an intervening “what.”)

A good rule is to choose “from” instead of “than” if you can. Reason: ordinarily, “than” should follow a comparative adjective (like “larger” or “richer”), but “different” isn’t a true comparative. It contrasts; it doesn’t compare.

The British often use “different to” instead of “different from,” but the Oxford English Dictionary says the “usual construction is now with from.”

[Note: We later published a more complete post on this subject, which was updated on May 27, 2020. And on Dec. 20, 2021, we ran a post on “different” versus “disparate.”]

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Q: This one has puzzled me for some time. In various publications, some acronyms are printed in all caps (NATO), while others are upper and lowercase (Nasdaq). I presume this is a stylistic choice rather than adherence to a hard-and-fast rule. Personally, I prefer CAPS as a clear signal that the word is an acronym.

A: Thanks for your question. I liked the subject line, and used it as the title of this item.

An acronym, as you know, is a kind of abbreviation. It’s made of the first letter (or letters) of the words in a phrase. Examples: “WAC,” for Women’s Army Corps, or “radar,” for radio detection and ranging.

An acronym, according to most definitions, is spoken as a word, unlike an initialism, such as “FBI” or “PTA.” I wrote about acronyms once before on the blog.

Capitalization is complicated when an acronym is a proper name. There are no hard-and-fast rules, and different publications have widely different styles.

The New York Times’s practice is to print acronyms of proper names entirely in capitals if they have four letters or fewer: NATO, NASA, PIN, SALT. With longer acronyms, only the first letter is capitalized: Unesco, Nascar, Unicef, Nasdaq, and so on.

The spell-checker in my email software, however, wants to cap all the letters of all the acronyms above (except for a couple that it doesn’t recognize).

When an acronym is a common noun, like “radar,” “laser,” or “scuba,” it’s generally treated like any other common noun, with all lowercase letters unless it’s at the beginning of a sentence or part of a title.

But there are exceptions even here. AWOL, for instance, is usually capped, though it’s sometimes seen with all lowercase letters.

Now, it’s time for me to go AWOL and take my two Labs for a walk.

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If you missed Pat on the Leonard Lopate Show today, you can listen to her by clicking here.

Q: Your Dec. 31, 2008, blog entry says, “There’s no grammatical rule that when you mention yourself along with another person, you mention yourself last.” I must say that your statement bothers me on an almost instinctual level. Wouldn’t this mean that it would be correct to say “I and Joan went to the store”? That sounds so awkward! It makes me think that mentioning oneself last is a stylistic issue, not one of grammar or etiquette.

A: There’s nothing grammatically wrong with saying “I and Joan went to the store” (just as there’s nothing wrong with putting the subject pronoun first in “He and Joan went to the store”).

In fact, you can find published references for this practice in the Oxford English Dictionary going back to the Middle Ages. For example, a poem from around 1300 has these lines about a husband and wife passing a bunch of old barns: “I and mi wijf on ald tas / Of barns er we passed pe pass.”

But idiom is often against this usage. (Call it stylistic if you want.) The “I and Joan went” wording seems awkward on the tongue. Common practice is to put “I” closer to the verb.

There are times, however, when “I” seems natural in first position: “I and a few of my friends decided to throw an Inaugural Day party” … “I and my brothers think Dad should have a home helper.”

Interestingly, I find that people who use the incorrect objective case in a construction like the one you mentioned have no hesitation in putting themselves first: “Me and Joan went to the store.”

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She’ll be on the Leonard Lopate Show around 1:20 P.M. Eastern time to discuss the English language and to take questions from callers.

Q: I have a pet peeve that belongs in You Send Me, your book about online writing. I find it irksome when someone misspells a word in an email, but puts “(sp?)” after it to indicate the word may be misspelled. Couldn’t the writer take a moment to check the proper spelling – for his own benefit as well as mine?

A: I agree one hundred percent. It’s an annoying practice to use a coy “(sp?)” instead of bothering to look something up!

One of the entries in Urban Dictionary, an online reference whose definitions are written by readers, cuts through the bull by defining the “(sp?)” abbreviation as meaning “the spelling of the word is probably wrong.” No kidding!

The key to good writing, both online and off, is to think of your reader. Anything that makes it harder for the reader makes it harder to get your message across.

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Q: I’m sure this is covered somewhere, but I can’t find anything definitive. My boss always uses the word “ideal” for “idea,” as in “I have an ideal that will improve the program.” Is this correct usage? Could it be a regional thing? My boss was raised in the South.

A: No, it’s not correct. Your boss means he has an “idea” that will improve the program.

In modern usage, an “idea” is a mental image of a plan or scheme or notion – some conception that arises in your mind, often as a means of solving a problem.

But an “ideal” is a standard of perfection or an ultimate goal. Your ideals (humanitarianism, integrity, etc.) are part of your character, or whatever it is that makes you who you are.

You might say, for instance, that bringing irrigation to a parched wasteland is a good idea. But ending hunger is the ideal.

We’re not aware that mistaking “ideal” for “idea” is a regional thing, but it’s possible that pronouncing “idea” as ideal may be a regionalism.

We’ve seen a few comments online about people who pronounce “idea” that way in the South and the West, but this pronunciation doesn’t seem very common. And I haven’t noticed anything authoritative written on the subject.

You’re probably aware, though, that “idea” is often pronounced idear in certain parts of England and the Eastern US. We wrote a blog item about this last fall.

By the way, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) lists four possible pronunciations for “idea,” but none of them sound at all like “ideal.”

Sorry we can’t be more helpful. We realize that this isn’t the ideal answer.

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Q: A capitalization question has come up in connection with a novel I’m working on, but I can’t find the answer in The Chicago Manual of Style or anywhere else. Which is correct? “I don’t know, Sir.” Or: “I don’t know, sir.”

A: The word “sir” is lowercase when used in polite address (“May I help you, sir?”).

It’s capitalized in the salutation of a letter (“Dear Sir”) and when part of the given name of a knight or baronet (“Sir Henry had been bludgeoned with the dinner gong”).

This information comes from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

The word “sir” is a shortened form of “sire,” which we borrowed from Old French in the early 1200s.

Interestingly, “sire” was used for a knight before it came to denote a king or other ruler, according to published references in the Oxford English Dictionary.

And “sir,” of course, hasn’t always been used respectfully. Here’s a contemptuous 14th century example from Chaucer: “Sir olde lecchour, let thi japes be.”

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Q: Here’s a question that might be fun for the blog: “Smelly” is something characterized by a smell. “Witty” is something characterized by wit. So what’s up with “funny”? Why does it mean amusing or comical rather than something that’s fun?

A: The adjectives “smelly” and “witty” are formed from the nouns “smell” and “wit” plus the suffix “y.” Similarly, the adjective “funny” is formed from the noun “fun” plus the suffix “y.”

A great many of our English adjectives are formed after this noun-plus-suffix pattern.

The Oxford English Dictionary explains that “the general sense of this suffix is ‘having the qualities of’ or ‘full of’ that which is denoted by the n. [noun] to which it is added.”

These are the principal definitions of “fun” in the OED: “A cheat or trick; a hoax, a practical joke” (circa 1700); “diversion, amusement, sport; also, boisterous jocularity or gaiety, drollery … a source or cause of amusement or pleasure” (1727); and “exciting goings-on” (1879).

For “funny,” the definitions are “affording fun, mirth-producing, comical, facetious” (1756); “curious, queer, odd, strange” (1806); and, in the expression “funny business,” it means “deceitful or underhand” (1888). We still use “funny” in all of these ways.

In summary, something that’s full of or characterized by “fun” in any of its senses can reasonably be described as “funny.” Of course, words tend to take on a life of their own, and not everything that’s “fun” can be described as “funny” in the ha-ha sense

As Woody Allen’s character said after a sex scene in Annie Hall, “That was the most fun I ever had without laughing.”

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Q: My friend says he likes bebop “better than” the blues, but I say I like bebop “more than” the blues. What’s the difference? Is one adverb more intense than the other? Are both usages correct?

A: I don’t think there’s much if any difference in the degree of intensity between “more” and “better” when they’re used as adverbs to modify the verb “like” (e.g., “I like Monk more” vs. “I like Monk better”).

The adverb “more” has been used to modify verbs since Old English, and means “in a greater degree” or “to a greater extent.” The adverbial use was first recorded around the year 1000.

The adverb “better” has been used to modify verbs since the 1200s and means “in a more excellent way” or “in a superior manner.”

The Oxford English Dictionary has this quotation from a book by Pierre Erondelle, The French Garden (1605): “God grant me alwaies the key of the fieldes, I would like it better, then to be in bondage in the fayrest wainscotted or tapistred Chamber.”

In short, I think “more/most” and “better/best” are about equally expressive when you want to convey a preference with “like” and similar verbs.

Of course there’s a slight difference. “More” conveys quantity, and “better” conveys quality. But with the verb “like,” I think the difference is nil for all practical purposes. The choice is up to you.

If you want to read more, I wrote a blog item about “more” and “most” not long ago.

An interesting aside: An earlier form of “better,” the now archaic word “bet,” was used to modify verbs and was first recorded in the year 888. For example, the poem Piers Plowman (1377) has this passage: “do-wel, do-bet, and do-best.”

Today, of course, we’d write that as “do well, do better, and do best.” The old “bet” was displaced by “better” and finally disappeared in the 1600s.

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