Q: I am writing from Bangalore with an issue that may seem nit-picking, but I want to get it right. Which of these sentences is correct? (1) “We are the best,” roared Barcelona. (2) “We are the best”, roared Barcelona. The point is the placement of the comma.

A: The American system of punctuation always calls for placing a comma or period inside the closing quotation marks: “We are the best,” roared Barcelona. Or: Barcelona roared, “We are the best.”

But the British system often calls for placing the comma or period outside the quotation marks: “We are the best”, roared Barcelona. Or: Barcelona roared, “We are the best”. This is true, for example, if what’s being quoted is only part of the original; the fans might actually have cried, “We are the best in the hemisphere!”

As for colons and semicolons, Americans always place them outside the closing quotation marks: “We are the best”; the crowd was deafening.

The British sometimes place a colon or semicolon outside closing quotation marks and sometimes inside them. But the colon or semicolon goes inside only if it’s part of the original quotation.

Question marks and exclamation points are treated the same way in both the American and the British systems. The question mark or exclamation point is placed inside the closing quotation marks only if it’s part of the quotation.

Which system should you follow? The country in which you find yourself generally has an affinity for one system or the other, American English or British English.

I’d go with whatever system is more common where you live. I imagine that you (writing from India) should follow the British system.

If you’d like a bit of brushing up, I wrote a blog entry a couple of years ago about how to use quotation marks with other punctuation, at least in American usage. And I wrote one last year on how to punctuate a question within a question.

In case you’re interested in more about American versus British English, I wrote a blog item last year about a similar question, the differences in the way prepositions are handled from country to country. And I devote a whole chapter of my new book, Origins of the Specious, to myths about American and British English.

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Q: As an SAT writing instructor, I am intrigued by your Grammar Myths page, which debunks the rule that “none” is always singular. Since the College Board follows this rule, we have thousands of students learning to write sentences like “None of the chickens is hatched.” What do you think about that?

A: What do I think? I think it’s unfortunate that the College Board may be penalizing students who are in fact using the language correctly by writing, “None of the chickens are hatched.”

It is not true that “none” always means “not one.”

It is true that “none” is an etymological descendant of the Old English pronoun nan, which indeed is a combination of ne (“not”) plus an (“one”). But “any” is also descended from the Old English an, and historically “none” has always been closer in meaning to “not any.”

As you know, “any” can be either singular or plural; it can refer to “any of it” (as in “any of the mail”) or to “any of them” (as in “any of the letters”). Hence these sentences are both correct: “None of the mail was delivered” … “None of the letters were delivered.”

As my husband, Stewart Kellerman, and I write in our book Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language:

“It seems that ‘none’ has been both singular and plural since Anglo-Saxon days. Alfred the Great used it as a plural back in the ninth century, when he translated a work by the Roman philosopher Boethius. Although the OED lists numerous examples of both singular and plural ‘nones’ since Alfred’s day, it says plurals have been more common, especially in modern times.”

Let me also quote Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage: “Clearly, none has been both singular and plural since Old English and still is. The notion that it is singular only is a myth of unknown origin that appears to have arisen late in the 19th century.”

Here’s the advice I give in my grammar book Woe Is I: If “none” means “none of it,” treat it is as singular (“None of the merlot is open”); if “none” means “none of them,” treat it as plural (“None of the carafes are full”). And if you mean “not one,” then say or write “not one.”

I hope the College Board is not also perpetuating the myths that it’s incorrect to “split” an infinitive or to place a preposition at the end of a sentence or to begin a sentence with a conjunction. These, too, are well-known grammatical misconceptions that are alien to the syntax of a Germanic language like English.

If any visitors to the blog would like to read more about these and other myths of English, check out Origins of the Specious.

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Q: Your recent entry on “due process” made me think of “due diligence,” as in “He did due diligence,” which is an odd one to parse. If “diligence” means “conscientiousness,” then it’s not really something one does, is it? Just a thought for a rainy day when you don’t have a blog idea … although the supply seems inexhaustible.

A: Well, it’s a rainy day, but the supply is indeed inexhaustible. In fact, I apologize to all those who’ve sent in questions but haven’t gotten answers yet.

Now, let’s give diligence its due.

In the phrase “due process,” first recorded in 1447 (more fully, “due process of law”), the adjective “due” means proper or in accordance with established rules, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

As for “due diligence,” first recorded in 1598, “due” means appropriate, sufficient, or proper. This sense of the adjective has been in use since around 1400.

The word “diligence” here carries more of an active than a passive sense. It means care and attention, industry, endeavor, and effort to accomplish what is undertaken.

So “due diligence” means something like “the necessary care” or “the effort required.” And one can “exercise” or “perform” or “do” it.

Now, I’d better get back to exercising due diligence on the rest of the questions in my mailbox.

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Q: If dogging one’s footsteps means relentlessly and closely following someone, shouldn’t slowly preceding while swerving erratically be catting one’s footsteps?

A: H-m-m. We never thought of that. We must have been catnapping.

The noun “cat,” of course, is a very old word, dating from around the year 800, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines it thusly: “A well-known carnivorous quadruped (Felis domesticus) which has long been domesticated, being kept to destroy mice, and as a house pet.”

The verb first appeared in English in the mid-18th century with the nautical meaning of to raise anchor to the cat-heads, or beams, projecting from the bows of a ship.

In the mid-19th century, the verb took on the meaning of to flog with a cat-o’-nine-tails, according to the OED. Here’s an 1865 citation from the Spectator: “Thirty of them were lashed to a gun, and catted with fifty lashes each.” Yikes!

By the way, the expression “no room to swing a cat” has nothing to do with the cat-o’-nine-tails. If you’d like to read more, we wrote a blog item about this cat-swinging business a few years ago.

Interestingly, the noun “dog” first showed up in English a couple of centuries after the appearance of “cat,” according to the OED. Before then, a dog was referred to as a hund, the Old English word for “hound.”

The verb “dog,” however, has been used since the early 16th century in the sense of to follow closely and stubbornly – that is, doggedly. And that brings us to a linguistic term with a following.

A “cataphora” (pronounced kuh-TAFF-ur-uh) is a pronoun or other stand-in for a following word or phrase – for example, the use of “her” to refer to “Sally” in this sentence: “With her, Sally had a bichon and two poodles.”

Finally, a “cataphor” is an obsolete term for deep sleep. It comes from the Latin for coma and the Greek for an attack of lethargy. Speaking of which, we think it’s time for a catnap.

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Q: Here’s one that’s been bugging me. When referring to something written, is it fair game to use the verbs “say,” “tell,” “talk,” and “speak”? I’m thinking of a sentence like this: “She told me in an email she’d be late.” And, by extension, can a watch or a radio say something? For example, “My watch says we’re five minutes late.”

A: All of the verbs you mention – “say,” “tell,” “talk,” and “speak” – can be used to refer to written as well as oral communications. Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say (see what I mean?) about each of them.

(1) “Say”: One meaning is “to utter or pronounce (a specified word or words, or an articulate sound). Also, in wider sense, used of an author or a book, with quoted words as object.” The word is used “of a speaker, writer; also of a literary composition, a proverb, etc.”

So well-established is this sense of “say,” according to the OED, that “its use with reference to written expression does not ordinarily, like the similar use of speak, involve any consciousness of metaphor.”

As for whether a watch or a radio can say something, this is a legitimate usage too. The OED notes that “say” can be used “with an inanimate item as subject: to communicate or represent; esp. of a clock, calendar, etc., to show (a certain time or date); of a notice, to state (a certain message).”

(2) “Tell”: One of the definitions given is “to make known by speech or writing; to communicate (information, facts, ideas, news, etc.); to state, announce, report, intimate.” No problem there either.

(3) “Talk”: The primary meaning is of course to communicate by using speech. But the OED says it is also used “by extension: To convey information in some other way, as by writing, with the fingers, eyes, etc.”

(4) “Speak”: Principally, this means “to utter or pronounce words or articulate sounds; to use or exercise the faculty of speech; to express one’s thoughts by words.” But another meaning is “to state or declare in writing, etc.”

And here’s another use: “Of a writer, literary composition, etc.: To make a statement or declaration in words; to state or say.” And “speak of” means “to mention, or discourse upon, in speech or writing.”

Although it’s fine to say a book “speaks” or “talks” of something, I think it’s venturing a little too far into metaphor to use those verbs with a newspaper. A newspaper article or columnist may “speak” or “talk,” but I’m not ready to accept that a newspaper itself can.

How about other inanimate physical objects? Can they speak or talk? Only if they produce sounds, like radios, TVs, smartphones, computers and so on.

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Q: Here’s a quick one for you: In the book I’m writing, I have a character say, “I gave him the thumbs up.” Why do we use the plural “thumbs” in this expression when we use only one thumb to make the gesture?

A: Why the plural? Because when the expression originated, it referred to the many people (a coliseum full of them, in fact) who were voting with their thumbs. But back then, “thumbs up” was bad news.

Under its entry for “thumb,” the Oxford English Dictionary notes that “thumbs down” and “thumbs up” were originally “expressions referring to the use of the thumb by the spectators in the ancient amphitheatre, to indicate approbation or the opposite.”

In the time of the Romans, “thumbs down” signaled spare him, while “thumbs up” was a death warrant.

In modern usage, the significance of the signals has been reversed, according to the OED, so “thumbs down” now means “disapproval or rejection,” while “thumbs up” is “a sign of approval, acceptance, encouragement, etc.”

Rudyard Kipling, for example, used the modern sense in Puck of Pook Hill (1906), “We’re finished men – thumbs down against both of us.”

So did Arthur Guy Empey in a 1917 glossary of terms used in the trenches: “Thumbs up, Tommy’s expression which means ‘everything is fine with me.’ “

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[Note: An updated and expanded post about “thank you kindly” appeared on the blog on July 29, 2024.] 

Q: Can you please explain the silly expression “thank you kindly.” It seems sort of self-congratulatory!

A: In an early edition (1921) of his book The American Language, H. L. Mencken suggests that “thank you kindly” was brought to America by Irish immigrants who were “almost incapable of saying plain yes or no” and “must always add some extra and gratuitous asseveration.”

“The Irish extravagance of speech struck a responsive chord in the American heart,” Mencken adds. “The American borrowed, not only occasional words, but whole phrases, and some of them have become thoroughly naturalized.”

He notes that P. W. Joyce, author of English as We Speak It in Ireland (1910), “shows the Irish origin of scores of locutions that are now often mistaken for native Americanisms, for example, great shakes, dead (as an intensive), thank you kindly, to split one’s sides (i. e., laughing), and the tune the old cow died of, not to mention many familiar similes and proverbs.”

Interestingly, the expression “thank you kindly” doesn’t appear in my 1937 edition of Mencken’s book. Perhaps he changed his mind about its origins.

Unfortunately, I can’t find any other references that might explain the expression, which is undoubtedly odd, rather like greeting someone with “Hello expectantly” or saying farewell with “Goodbye reluctantly.”

Though I can’t shed much light, I can pass on a poem, called “Graciousness,” that appeared in The English Journal in 1967:

I’d like to spank
Those oafs behindly
Who don’t just “thank…”
But “thank you kindly.”

– A. S. Flaumenhaft, Far Rockaway, New York

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She’ll be on the Leonard Lopate Show around 1:20 PM Eastern time to discuss the English language and take questions from callers. If you miss a program, get the podcast on Pat’s WNYC page.

Q: I’m interested in whether there’s a name for composite terms like “hanky-panky,” “willy-nilly,” “hurly-burly,” “boogie-woogie,” “hoi polloi,” etc. Can you shed any light on this puzzling category of words?

A: These terms are sometimes called “rhyming compounds” or “rhyming reduplicatives.” We wrote a post in January that touched on them, and another in April. But “hoi polloi” isn’t one of them. It’s the English transliteration of a Greek phrase meaning “the many.” In English, it refers to the masses, often in a negative way.

Many usage experts condemn adding the definite article “the” to “hoi polloi” (as in “The hoi polloi are up in arms”) because “hoi” means “the” in Greek. But the Oxford English Dictionary says the phrase is “normally preceded by the definite article” in English.

In fact, the first published reference in the OED for the English version of “hoi polloi” includes the extra article.

James Fenimore Cooper, in Gleanings in Europe by an American (1837), writes that “a few great men … form the front of every honorary institution … after which the oi polloi are enrolled as they can find interest.” (We’ve filled out the OED citation with excerpts from the book.)

As for rhyming compounds, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English describes them as “catchy and surprisingly durable self-imitating words such as nitty-gritty, hanky-panky, hurdy-gurdy, namby-pamby, and itty-bitty.”

If you’d like to read more about these toothsome twosomes, the book English Words, by Francis Katamba (Routledge, 1994), has an interesting analysis of the linguistic structures of various kinds of rhyming compounds. See page 54.

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Q: What is the origin of the phrase “double-jointed”? And how did its usage get to be so widespread when the word “flexible” suffices?

A: The phrase “double-jointed,” meaning “having joints that permit a much greater degree of movement of parts of the body than is normal,” dates back to the early 19th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first published reference in the OED (at least in the anatomical sense) dates from 1831, when the phrase appeared in John Roby’s Traditions of Lancashire, a study of English folklore.

In one of the tales cited, a character says of another: “The knave is shrewd and playful, but of an incredible strength, being, as ye may observe, double-jointed.”

The expression apparently found early favor in the medical community. A variation on the theme appeared in 1912 in the British medical journal The Lancet, in an article describing a boy with “double-jointedness.”

“The joints were very loose,” the article said, “and the child took particular pleasure in forming almost circles by locking the index and middle finger of each hand.”

Nowadays, however, physicians prefer the terms “hypermobility” or “hyperlaxity” to “double-jointedness.”

In fact, the adjective “double-jointed” and the noun “double-jointedness” are misnomers; people with the condition don’t have any more joints than people without it.

Why has “double-jointed” proved so popular with the public? Perhaps because it’s more evocative than “flexible” – or “hypermobile” or “hyperlax.” Misnomer or not, it’s still very much with us.

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Q: I’ve found an earlier citation for “Tom, Dick, and Harry” than the one you cite in your Feb. 18, 2007, posting about the expression. The 17th-century English theologian John Owen used the words in 1657. I discovered this on page 52 of God’s Statesman, a 1971 a biography of Owen written by Peter Toon.

A: You’re right. Owen told a governing body at Oxford University that “our critical situation and our common interests were discussed out of journals and newspapers by every Tom, Dick and Harry.”

That predates this example, the earliest citation for the combination “Tom, Dick, and Harry” in the Oxford English Dictionary: “They affirm, that once upon a time, … Tom, Dick, and Harry, ay, every individual Man, Woman, and Child, had a Right to the whole World.”

(From a 1724 speech given by John Checkley in a Boston court where he was being tried for a tract attacking Puritanism. His speech in his defense was published in 1730 as “Mr. J. Checkley’s Speech Upon Tryal.”)

The OED’s next oldest citation appeared soon afterward: “Farewell, Tom, Dick, and Harry, Farewell, Moll, Nell, and Sue.” The quotation appears to be from a song lyric in Vocal Miscellany (2nd ed., 1734).

But why those particular names? Simply because they were so common. Here’s how the OED defines the nickname “Tom” used in this way:

“(A generic name for) a man or boy, esp. one considered ordinary or unexceptional; a fellow, a chap. Frequently in collocation with other common male forenames.”

And in an entry for the fuller phrase, Oxford has this:  “Tom, Dick, and (also or) Harry: used to refer to any average men, taken at random; ordinary people generally; anyone at all.”

And for an example of a variation on the theme, with a slight change in the names, here’s one from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 (1696): “I am sworn brother to a leash of Drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dicke, and Francis.”

Thanks for the new information. We’ve added a note about the Owen quotation to our original blog post.

We suspect that we’ll be doing a lot more updating as years go by. Language sleuths are discovering earlier and earlier citations for words and phrases as Google and others digitize millions of published works.

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Q: Lately I’ve noticed the use by broadcast journalists of “worrying” as an adjective: “It’s a very worrying situation in Afghanistan.” My understanding is that the proper word to use here would be “worrisome.” Am I right?

A: I’m sorry to have to tell you that “worrying” is a much older adjective than “worrisome,” and has every claim to legitimacy.

The adjective “worrying” entered English, as far as we know, in the early 1600s. It was first recorded, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in Philemon Holland’s translation of Camden’s Britain (1610): “A greater rabble of worrying freebutters.”

The OED says that back then the word meant “given to harrying or raiding.” This warlike usage grew out of the earliest meaning of the verb “worry,” first recorded in the 700s: “to kill (a person or animal) by compressing the throat; to strangle.”

After undergoing many changes along the way, the verb “worry” was first used to refer to mental distress in 1822. And the modern meaning of “worrying” as an adjective (“harassing; distressing to the mind or spirits”) was first recorded soon afterward, in 1826.

Dickens must have liked the word, because he used it in 1837 in The Pickwick Papers (“There are few things more worrying than sitting up for somebody, especially if that somebody be at a party”) and in 1853 in Bleak House (“Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound”).

“Worrisome” is a relative latecomer. The OED defines it as meaning “apt to cause worry or distress; given to worrying.”

The first published usage was in The Wigwam and the Cabin (1845), a story collection by the American author William Gilmore Simms: “I … followed the old man into the house, with my feelings getting more and more strange and worrisome at every moment.”

In short, you can stop worrying about “worrying.”

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Q: Why did Vita hyphenate “Sackville-West,” but Hillary doesn’t hyphenate “Rodham Clinton”?

A: Some double names are hyphenated and some aren’t. In the case of longstanding double names, family tradition determines whether a hyphen is used.

For example, the British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams has an unhyphenated double last name. “Vaughan” is not a middle name; his family name is “Vaughan Williams.”

The same is true of Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose father was the composer William Lloyd Webber. Their family name is “Lloyd Webber.”

The English author Vita Sackville-West also inherited her double last name (but a hyphenated one) from her family.

The British royal family name is officially hyphenated too. While “Windsor” is the formal royal name and the one used in public, the Queen has decided that her direct descendants will carry a hyphenated double last name: “Mountbatten-Windsor.”

The decision to use (or not use) a hyphen is often not inherited but a matter of personal choice. One or both members of a couple getting married may choose to use the two last names.

They can decide to hyphenate them, like Farrah Fawcett-Majors or Chris Evert-Lloyd (who have since dropped their ex-husbands’ names), or not use a hyphen, like Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Sometimes a couple who keep their separate names may decide to give their children a double (either hyphenated or non-hyphenated) name.

As you can see, the only rule for hyphenating these new double names is that there’s no rule.

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Q: Since the ‘80s, I’ve heard folks use the noun “quality” as an adjective meaning of good quality. I first noticed this when a baseball commentator spoke of a “quality pitch.” Soon hospitals were offering “quality health care.” Is that excellent or horrible quality? The quality of my mercy is strained.

A: Many usage experts agree with you and frown on “quality” as an adjective meaning “excellent” or “of high quality.” My feeling is that these mavens are going to have to get used to it.

In fact, the usage isn’t as new as you think. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) says this sense of “quality” dates from 1936, half a century before you noticed it.

And hundreds of years before that, the word was used in compounds to describe something “of high social standing, of good breeding, noble,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED gives examples like “quality lady,” “quality acquaintance,” and “quality blood,” dating from 1701.

Here, “quality” was apparently being used as an attributive noun (one that modifies other nouns) and meant something like “high class” or “noble.”

In the 20th century, “quality” has often been used to mean culturally superior, as in “a quality audience,” or “a quality magazine.”

And it’s routinely used in such phrases as “quality control,” “quality assurance,” “quality management,” and “quality time.”

Today, both Merriam-Webster’s and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) list adjectival definitions of “quality” as simply meaning high quality.

So the usage is considered standard English. In fact, American Heritage‘s illustrative example is “the importance of quality health care.”

Thus does language change (though sometimes it’s a strain!). And let your mercy “droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven.”

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Q: I’m confused by this quote from Stieg Larsson’s thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2008): “Blomkvist had often wondered whether it were possible to be more possessed by desire for any other woman.” The use of the plural “were” strikes me as awkward. Wouldn’t it be more natural to use the singular “was”?

A: In this sentence, Larsson (or, rather, his translator) was using the subjunctive mood (“whether it were possible”) instead of the indicative mood (“whether it was possible”). In the subjunctive, “was” becomes “were,” and the switch has nothing to do with plurals vs. singulars.

Now for the real question: Was it appropriate for the translator (Larsson wrote in Swedish) to use the subjunctive in the sentence you quoted?

English speakers use the subjunctive mood (instead of the normal indicative mood) on three occasions:

(1) When expressing a wish: “I wish I were taller.” [Not: “I wish I was taller.”]

(2) When expressing an “if” statement about a condition that’s contrary to fact: “If I were king …” [Not: “If I was king …”] Larsson is extending this to a “whether” statement, since “whether” sometimes has the meaning of “if.”

(3) When something is asked, demanded, ordered, suggested, and so on: “I suggest he get a job.” [Not: “I suggest he gets a job.”]

I wrote a brief explanation of the subjunctive for the blog a few years ago.

So, was Larsson’s translator justified in using the subjunctive? I don’t think so.

It’s conceivably possible that Blomkvist might one day be more possessed by desire for another woman. So, there’s no need to use the subjunctive here and Larsson should have written “whether it was possible.”

The subjunctive is only appropriate when a statement is clearly contrary to fact. For example: “Blomkvist had often wondered if [whether] he were dead.”

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Q: You suggested on the blog last month that a kitchen isn’t called a “cooking room,” along the lines of “dining room,” “bedroom,” etc., because “kitchen” is much older than the other terms. I have another theory. Could this be because early European houses were made of flammable material like moss and straw? Perhaps the danger of fire was so great that kitchens weren’t rooms but spaces away from houses.

A: This is an interesting theory, but it’s not true. Kitchens in early European homes were generally within living quarters and under the same roofs.

As far back as the year 1000, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “kitchen” meant (and I quote) “That room or part of a house in which food is cooked; [or] a place fitted with the apparatus for cooking.”

In some small homes, the kitchen was the hearth or fireplace area, and the cooking was done there. The hearth or fireplace was fitted with hooks, hobs, and spits upon which food was cooked.

In smaller peasant homes, people depended on the single hearth or fireplace not only for cooking but for warmth.

If your theory were true, people couldn’t have had fireplaces or hearths in their homes at all – whether for cooking or for warmth.

A History of Private Life: Vol. II, Revelations of the Medieval World (1988), edited by Philip Ariès and Georges Duby, notes that kitchens in houses built in outlying areas of Florence in the 1200s and 1300s often had no fireplace, but rather a poorly ventilated central hearth.

“Kitchens were located on the top floor and equipped only with a central hearth,” the book says.

Fireplaces with external chimneys gradually became more popular in Florence in the 1300s and 1400s and replaced the central hearths, according to the book.

Of eight interiors discussed, “six kitchens, six bedrooms, and two living rooms contained equipment associated with a fireplace: andirons, tongs, grates, or shovels.” Note that the book is describing “interiors” of houses, not spaces away from the houses.

Elsewhere in Renaissance Europe as well, fireplaces began replacing smoky central hearths during the Middle Ages. The book goes into some detail about medieval architecture in the French town of Montaillou, where usually the “central room of the house” was the room dedicated to cooking and eating.

Both urban and rural houses in medieval Europe were constructed of a variety of materials. Again I’ll quote the book: “Stone predominated in some, wood, dried clay, or brick in others. Some had roofs of slate or flat stone, others tile; thatch and other natural coverings were still to be found.” Entire medieval villages were made of stone if it was readily available (witness the ancient village of Aveyron).

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Q: Why is a jailer one who jails, while a prisoner is one who’s imprisoned?

A: “Prisoner” once meant the opposite of what it means today. Back in the early 1300s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant “one who keeps a prison.”

But beginning in the late 1300s, it was also used to mean the guy on the wrong side of the bars. This is the meaning that has survived to our own time.

The suffix “er,” when added to a noun (like “jail” or “prison”), forms a new noun that can mean “one who is in charge of” or merely “one connected with” the original noun.

This is how we got derivative nouns like “jailer,” “prisoner,” “officer,” “mariner,” “carpenter,” “villager,” and many, many others.

The “er” can also be added to a verb to create a word for a person who performs the action represented by the verb (as in “write”/”writer” and “run”/”runner”). The new word is known as an “agent noun.”

Although “prison” and “jail” are often used interchangeably, in the US the term “prison” generally refers to a place for confining people convicted of serious crimes while “jail” refers to a place for confining people awaiting trial or convicted of minor crimes.

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Q: I have a question about the things that logs rest on in a fireplace. I’ve always called them “andirons,” but I’ve often heard them referred to as “firedogs.” And Mark Twain calls them “dog-irons” in Huck Finn. What is the history of these words?

A: Firedogs and andirons are the same thing – metal supports used in pairs in a fireplace to hold burning logs.

“Andiron” (adopted from the Old French andier) has been in the English language since 1300, and was originally spelled aundyrne in English.

The presence of “iron” in later versions of the word was the result of a misunderstanding. In the early days, people confused the ending of aundyrne with two Middle English spellings of “iron” – yre and yren.

As the Oxford English Dictionary says, the ending of the word was identified in people’s minds with the old words yre, yren, and eventually “iron.” Where the Old French came from we don’t know.

The word “dog,” meanwhile, has been used since the mid-1400s for a variety of mechanical devices or tools for grabbing or holding: clamps, levers, nails, screws, pincers, grappling irons, and so on.

The OED has citations from 1458 for “doggs of Iryn,” and from 1552 for “Dogge of yron,” to describe such implements.

It was perhaps inevitable that an andiron would eventually be referred to as a “dog,” and this first came about (as far as we know) in the late 16th century.

As one of its definitions of “dog,” the OED has this: “One of a pair of iron or brass utensils placed one on each side of a fireplace to support burning wood; = andiron; (more fully called fire-dogs).”

The first quotation in the OED refers to “One paire of dogges in the Chymly” (1596). These were variously called “firedogs,” “dog irons,” “iron dogs” or just “dogs.”

Similarly, a “dog-grate” (also called a “dog-stove”) was “a detached fire-grate standing in a fireplace upon supports called dogs,” according to the OED.

By the way, the name of the liberal blog FireDogLake doesn’t refer to firedogs, according to an article in Washingtonian magazine about the site’s founder, Jane Hamsher. The name comes from Hamsher’s favorite pastime: sitting by the fire with her dog and watching Lakers games.

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Q: I’m curious about the phrase “human race.” As far as I can see, we don’t refer to any other species as a race. Why is that? And are the terms “human race” and “human species” interchangeable?

A: Today we don’t refer to other species as races, but at one time we commonly did. Now the use of “race” to mean species survives chiefly in the phrase “human race.” So yes, I’d say the phrases “human race” and “human species” are interchangeable.

The noun “race” came into English in the mid-1500s from French, which got it from the Italian word razza (meaning species or kind).

The source of razza has never been determined, but it could possibly be derived from the Latin words ratio (i.e., ratio) or generatio (generation), or from the Old French haraz (which referred to horses and mares kept for breeding, and which may in turn be connected to the Arabic faras, or horse).

Whatever its origins, this sense of “race” is unrelated to the identical English word for a rushing forward (as in a footrace), which comes from early Scandinavian sources.

Over the centuries, “race” has been interpreted extremely narrowly (the descendants of a single house; a single line of descent; one’s children or family); very broadly (the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom; a single species); and everything in between (nations, tribes, ethnic groups).

In the phrase “human race,” the word essentially means “species.” Soon after “race” entered the language, one of its meanings (sometimes poetic and sometimes literal) was mankind, and it often was preceded by the adjective “human.”

Sir Philip Sidney wrote of “the humane race” (circa 1590) and Shakespeare of “the whole race of mankinde” (c. 1616). Sometimes people spoke of the sexes as different races – as in the “race of woman kind” (Spenser, 1590), and “the unscrupulous race of men” (Henry James, 1897).

The word was formerly used in the same way to refer to species of plants and animals, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Macbeth, for example, Shakespeare called Duncan’s horses “Beauteous, and swift, the Minions of their Race” (c. 1616).

John Dryden wrote of “the wolfish race … with belly Gaunt, and famish’d face” (1687); Joseph Addison, writing in The Spectator, mentioned “the several Races of Plants” (1712); Oliver Goldsmith called serpents “this formidable race” (1774); and Shelley said, “I wished the race of cows were perished” (c. 1822).

Under its definition of “race” as “any of the major groupings of mankind, having in common distinct physical features or having a similar ethnic background,” the OED adds this note:

“In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-cent. anthropologists and physiologists has led to the word often being avoided with reference to specific ethnic groups. Although it is still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by terms such as people(s), community, etc.”

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Q: I couldn’t get through to you on WNYC – I was on hold at the end! I had a question about the propriety of describing a retired female college teacher as a “professor emerita.” In Latin, professor is a masculine noun. If one uses a Latin phrase, shouldn’t the grammatical gender agree: i.e., professor emeritus?

A: I’m sorry you were on hold and couldn’t get through to me on the Leonard Lopate Show. As for your question, there are two points of view here.

(1) This is the argument in favor of “professor emerita” for females:

“Professor,” while once a masculine noun in Latin, is now a bona fide English word, and is therefore neuter. It’s legitimate, therefore, to add case endings that indicate the sex and number of the professor(s) we’re talking about (“emeritus,” “emerita,” “emeriti,” “emeritae”).

(2) This is the argument against it, one that I tend to agree with:

You’re correct – the word professor is masculine in Latin, and case endings in Latin have to do with grammatical gender, not biological gender (sex, that is).

In Latin, therefore, professor takes the masculine adjective emeritus, whether a man or a woman is meant. The English phrase “professor emerita” confuses sex with grammatical gender.

Besides, if we’ve adopted “professor” as a neutral English noun, why not adopt “emeritus” as the corresponding neutral English adjective (plural “emeriti”)?

It makes sense, according to this argument, to use “professor emeritus” in English for both male and female professors, but it’s probably not going to happen, at least not in my lifetime.

Academic conventions don’t change overnight. Witness “alumnus,” “alumna,” “alumni,” and “alumnae” – two too many forms, if you ask me. (I once wrote a blog item about all those “alums.”)

Well, what do you expect from people who march around in caps and gowns to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance”?

For the rest of us, Latin and other foreign words take on a life of their own once they enter English. If you’re up for more, I’ve written several blog items about the Anglicization of foreign plurals: “appendices,” “graffiti,” and “media.”

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Q: Is it incorrect or impolite to say “What?” when not hearing something clearly? I’ve heard several people respond, “Don’t say ‘what’ to me,” which I found puzzling the first few times (of course, I responded with, “What?”). Have you heard of this?

A: In my youth, I was occasionally criticized by my elders for saying, “What?” But I never learned what was supposed to be so bad about it.

Maybe I was expected to say, “Could you please repeat that?” or “Excuse me?” or “What’s that again?” or something of the sort. I can’t remember.

At any rate, I see nothing about this supposed social faux pas in Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior.

I have to admit, though, that “What?” sounds abrupt, and implies that the speaker hasn’t been clear. I certainly wouldn’t use it in conversation with President Obama or Queen Elizabeth or Chief Justice Roberts.

Nevertheless, the usage has a long history. The Oxford English Dictionary says the interrogative “What?” used elliptically to stand for “What did you say?” or “What is it?” dates from the 1300s.

Here’s a citation from Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers (1837): ” ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Cold punch,’ murmured Mr. Pickwick, as he sunk to sleep again. ‘What?’ demanded Captain Boldwig. No reply.”

[Update: A British reader of the blog says, “Over here in class-riven England, the lower middle classes think ‘What?’ is rude and instruct their children to say ‘Pardon?’ instead. The upper classes, however, consider ‘Pardon?’ a lower middle faux pas and tell their children to say ‘What?’ “]

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Q: You promised on WNYC that you’d get back to us about why we use the word “fire” to mean dismiss or sack someone. I haven’t seen anything on the blog yet. And, for that matter, why a “sack”?

A. Oops! My in-box has been overflowing and I didn’t have a chance to get to this until now.

The verb “fire” has several meanings in English: to ignite or set fire to; to kindle or inflame (as in passion); to discharge a firearm or start an engine; to become angry or inflamed; to bake pottery; to fuel a furnace; to set off a charge; to proceed energetically (“fire away”); to release a camera shutter.

But as we all know there’s another definition, described by the Oxford English Dictionary as “U.S. slang” meaning “to turn (any one) out of a place; to eject or expel forcibly; to dismiss or discharge peremptorily.”

The usage was first recorded in 1882, according to another reference, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. In its earliest appearances, the verb phrase was “fire out.”

The OED says some have suggested that this sense is derived from an obscure meaning of “fire” – to drive someone away by fire – but the dictionary adds that this theory “seems unlikely.”

Could the usage be a pun on “discharge” (as if from a gun)? At least one WNYC listener has suggested this explanation, and the theory is mentioned in both Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English and Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang.

In addition, Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable suggests as much when it describes the slang expressions “fire” and “fire out” as meaning “to discharge from employment suddenly and unexpectedly.”

None of these sources give any evidence, though, and I think we have to say at this point that we don’t know for certain how “fire” came to mean “dismiss.”

As for the use of “sack” in the sense of “reject” or “dismiss,” Partridge says it was first recorded in English in 1840, but Brewer’s says “to get the sack” (or “to be sacked”) was current in France in the 17th century (on luy a donné son sac).

Supposedly, according to Brewer’s, workmen carried their tools with them from job to job in a sack or bag, and when a laborer was dismissed he took up his sack and left. Hence, he was “sacked” or “given the sack.”

But I’m skeptical about this explanation, since none of my other language references suggest it. And it wouldn’t account for other kinds of dismissals for which we use “sack” – to jilt a lover, for instance, or to expel a student from school.

Here’s another possibility. Maybe “sack” grew out of a similar usage of “bag” (this is just a supposition on my part).

In 16th-century England, to “give the bag” was to leave someone (an employer, for example) suddenly or without notice. But in more modern times, the OED says, the phrase has meant “to dismiss (a servant, etc.),” and “to get the bag” has meant “to be dismissed.”

Published citations for the expression in the sense of leaving one’s employer date back to 1592 (“To giue your masters the bagge”). In the late 1700s, according to Random House, the same phrases also meant to jilt a lover or be jilted.

As a variation on the theme, the rejected one was “given the bag to hold,” a usage that goes back to 1760, according to Random House.

Here’s George Washington: “He will leave you the bag to hold” (1791). And Thomas Jefferson: “She will leave Spain the bag to hold” (1793).

And here’s a humorous citation from Sir Walter Scott’s 1822 novel Peveril of the Peak: “What! when I thought I had the prettiest girl in the Castle dancing after my whistle, to find that she gave me the bag to hold, and was snuggling in a corner with a rich old Puritan!”

This usage, as you’ve probably guessed, gave rise to the familiar expression “left holding the bag.”

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Q: A recent New York Times article referred to “the sanctity” of a prosecutor’s obligation to disclose helpful information to the defense. This misuse of “sanctity” is pervasive and a product of our culture’s cavalier relationship with the divine. Interestingly, I never see “sacred” similarly misused. Thank you for your interest.

A: It’s been my experience that the words “sanctity,” “sacred,” and “sacrosanct” are commonly used loosely or figuratively, often in a satirical way (as in “Copy editors maintain the sanctity of proper punctuation,” or “Mom believed that cleanliness was a sacred trust”).

But sometimes, as you’ve noticed, the use of such terms becomes routine, with no humor intended. This practice, too, has a long history – particularly with the word “sacred.”

“Sanctity,” which was first recorded in English circa 1394, has its origins in the Latin sanctitas, from sanctus (“holy”), according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first meaning of “sanctity” was holiness or saintliness, the OED says, and that’s still pretty much the literal meaning of the word. Yet it and its variations are often used figuratively in a humorous sense. Just think of “sanctimonious.”

“Sacred” has a more interesting history. It began around the year 1225 with the verb “sacre,” meaning to “consecrate (the elements, or the body and blood of Christ) in the Mass,” the OED says.

Later, to “sacre” was to celebrate the Eucharist; to sacrifice; to worship; to consecrate a king, bishop, or the like into office; to unite in the sacrament of marriage; to hallow, bless, sanctify, and so on.

The verb “sacre” was used in this way until well into the 17th century.

Similarly, someone or something that underwent this process was said to have been “sacred,” because “sacred” was the past participle of the verb “sacre.”

Here’s an example from 1606: “Rodolph the second, eldest son of Maximilian, was sacred Emperour in the yeare 1577.”

As the participle “sacred” grew weaker over the years, the OED explains, it was gradually replaced by the adjective “sacred,” which first appeared in 1380 and is the equivalent of the Latin sacer.

The original meaning of the adjective was “consecrated” in the religious sense (that is, dedicated to a sacred purpose).

It often appeared in the phrase “sacred to,” meaning, the OED says, “consecrated to; esteemed especially dear or acceptable to a deity.” Examples: “sacred unto Jupiter” (circa 1430), and “sacred to Venus” (1874).

But the adjective “sacred” has long been used in a figurative sense meaning “regarded with or entitled to respect or reverence similar to that which attaches to holy things,” according to the OED.

This usage has been recorded in print steadily since 1560, when John Daus translated the Latin in tam augusto conventu as “in so sacred a senate.”

Later, Shakespeare, in Henry VI, Part 1 (1588-1590) wrote: “He … Doth but usurpe the Sacred name of Knight, Prophaning this most Honourable Order.”

Over the years, figurative uses of “sacred” even took on a sarcastic tone, as in these lines from Shelley’s Oedipus Tyrannus (1820): “And these most sacred nether promontories / Lie satisfied with layers of fat.” And: “That her most sacred Majesty / Should be Invited to attend the feast of Famine.”

Here’s another sarcastic example from an essay by Matthew Arnold (1865): “To obtain from Mr. Bentham’s executors a sacred bone of his great, dissected Master.”

Today, we often hear “sacred” used in a nonreligious way. One definition of the word, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), is “worthy of respect, venerable.”

Here are some related words that began life as religions terms and are now freely used in nonreligious contexts: “sanctuary” (originally a consecrated place); “sanctum” (ditto); “to sanction” (to make holy); “sacrifice” (an offering, usually a slaughtered animal, to a deity); and even “sacrum” (the last bone of the spine, originally “holy bone”).

You may regard figurative or nonreligious uses of terms like these “cavalier,” but the process seems to be natural and well established.

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Q: Can you explain why uptalk is so popular in the media and common speech? Does raising the pitch of one’s voice at the end of a phrase convey any meaning not in the words themselves? It seems to me like a silly affectation.

A: Uptalk (rising inflections at the end of sentences that are statements as opposed to questions) does indeed carry a meaning not conveyed by the words alone, according to linguists who have studied these speech intonations or contours.

Uptalk (technically, “rising terminals” or “recurrent intonational rises”) is used for a reason: to gain a listener’s approval or attention, to invite a reaction, to emphasize an opinion, or to retain a turn in the conversation.

Two British authorities, Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty, reported in 2005 in the Journal of Phonetics that uptalk had begun showing up in English dialects where it wasn’t prevalent before. It had already been observed, they said, in other dialects in Britain as well as the US, Australia, and New Zealand.

“In most locations, it is characteristic mainly of young speakers,” they wrote. “In the USA, Australia, and New Zealand it is also most common in lower class and/or female speech, but by contrast it seems to be associated with the upwardly mobile in England.”

Another author, Marcel Danesi, compared the rising intonation in adolescent speech to the familiar “tag question” often added to a declarative sentence (as in, “Nice, huh?” or “We’re going now, okay?”).

“In North American adolescent talk,” Danesi wrote in 1997, “utterances such as ‘We called her up? (intonation contour like a question) … but she wasn’t there? (same contour) … so we hung up? (same contour)’ show a pattern of rising contours (as if each sentence were interrogative).”

This feature, he said, “is, in effect, a tag question without the tag.” A tag, he explained, “is a word, phrase, or clause added to a sentence to give emphasis, to seek approval, to ascertain some reaction, etc.”

By the way, the terms “up-speak” and “up-talk” (now simply “uptalk”) began appearing in 1993, according to the journal American Speech.

Even back then, USA Today reported that the phenomenon had spread throughout the country. Some have suggested it began in California with “Valley Girl” speech, but we don’t know for sure.

The linguist Cynthia McLemore, who researched uptalk among a group of University of Texas sorority sisters in 1991, has said it may represent a “dialect shift,” a change in the way we talk.

Why has the trend caught on and become so ubiquitous? It would take a sociolinguist to try to answer that. Perhaps it’s simply contagious. (Or maybe I should say, “Perhaps it’s simply contagious?”)

[Update, Aug. 15, 2014: For more theories about the origins of the rising inflection, as well as some earlier sightings, see this article from the BBC’s website, published on Aug. 10, 2014.]

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Q: I recently came across the use of “front-burner” as a verb. A trade paper said the stimulus package “has goaded the government to front-burner ubiquitous availability” of broadband. This is new to me. Is it legitimate, or just another example of promiscuous verb-from-noun horribilation?

A: Fortunately, I have never run across the clunky use of “front-burner” as a verb phrase. And I hope I never do.

As for any question of “legitimacy,” that depends on whether the expression catches on and enters the language (shudder).

I doubt that it will; it seems too ungainly.

But the people who use the English language decide what’s legit and what’s not. You and I have only one vote apiece.

In my opinion, you summed it up pretty well: another example of promiscuous verb formation.

By the way, I like “horribilation.” I can’t find it in any of my language references, but I do see an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for “horribility,” which once meant something horrible.

I do, however, find an entry for “horripilation,” a bristling of the hair on the head or body from fear, cold, or sickness, perhaps from seeing a horribilation! (I wrote a blog item a couple of years ago on this hair-raising phenomenon.)

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Q: Pity us poor old geezers who tend to be purists. The word “dissect,” which I pronounce dih-SECT, keeps getting pronounced as DIE-sect, even by NPR announcers. I suppose it’s the influence of “bisect,” which is properly pronounced BYE-sect. How can we change the world?

A: Language is a living thing, and “dissect” has been changing right along with it. My 50-year-old, unabridged Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed.) offers only one pronunciation: dih-SECT.

But contemporary dictionaries are all over the place.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) lists dih-SECT, die-SECT, and DIE-sect, in that order.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) goes with die-SECT, dih-SECT, and DIE-sect, but it says the last two are less common.

With all those choices, it would be pretty hard to mispronounce “dissect” today.

The word comes from the Latin dissectus, the past participle of the verb dissecare (to cut). Both Latin words begin with a “dih” rather than a “die” sound, so I imagine a Roman would have preferred your pronunciation.

The word first showed up in English in 1607, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, in a description of chickens “being dissected or cut in pieces when they are warm.”

By 1611 the word was being used in its human anatomical sense, which brings to mind “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp.” In Rembrandt’s 1632 painting, Dr. Tulp is seen lecturing before the dissection of the corpse of a criminal hanged for armed robbery.

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Q: I’ve heard that “odiferous” is not a real word, but a mispronunciation or incorrect contraction of “odoriferous.” Yet I’ve never heard anyone use “odoriferous.” I’m of the mind that common usage rules the day here, but I’d feel better if “odiferous” had the Grammarphobia stamp of approval.

A: “Odiferous” is indeed a contracted form of “odoriferous.” Whether it’s legitimate or not depends on which reference book you consult.

Garner’s Modern American Usage describes “odiferous” as an “erroneous shortening,” and the word doesn’t appear at all in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), just “odoriferous.”

However, “odiferous” shows up in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) as an adjective formed by contraction from the original.

“Odiferous” also appears in the Oxford English Dictionary, described as a shortened form of “odoriferous.”

The shortened form dates back to about 1500 and there are citations throughout the following centuries. The original word, “odoriferous,” isn’t much older than that, since it first appeared in print circa 1487.

My guess is that the five-syllable “odoriferous” has always been a mouthful, so it sometimes lost a syllable.

Although “odoriferous” now means having an odor, especially a strong or unpleasant one, it didn’t originally suggest being stinky. At first, according to the OED, it described something with “a pleasant scent; sweet-smelling; fragrant.”

A case could be made for using “odiferous,” but I wouldn’t use it. If you’d like to dodge the “correctness” angle when you smell something with a strong or questionable odor, you could always fall back on “odorous” or “malodorous.”

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Q: I would like to know the rules for when to use “less” as distinguished from “fewer.” And is there a mnemonic for this?

A: The traditional rule has been that we use “fewer” for things we can count (“fewer cookies”), and “less” for quantities we can’t count (“less milk”).

But “less” is also used in cases like these (we’re supplying links to blog posts we’ve written on the subject):

(1) With “one” (as in “one less case on the docket”).

(2) With fractions (“less than one-quarter of the students”).

(3) With percentages (“less than 10 percent of the puppies”).

(4) With mass measurements involving money (“less than $10”), time (“less than two weeks”), distances (“less than five miles” … “less than ten yards”), weights (“less than 150 pounds”), and measurements of degree (“less than 50 miles an hour” … “less than 30 degrees” … “less than 18 decibels”).

In addition, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says “less” is sometimes used in the phrases “no less than X” (as in, “no less than 20 people were arrested”) or “X words or less” (as in “25 words or less”).

We don’t recommend “no less than 20 people,” but we think “25 words or less” is an acceptable idiom.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) goes even further than American Heritage, and states: “Less has been used to modify plural nouns since the days of King Alfred and the usage, though roundly decried, appears to be increasing.”

Well, “less” may have history on its side, but not modern English usage – at least not yet.

If Merriam-Webster’s is right, though, we’ll all be seeing less of “fewer,” and using it fewer and fewer times. And that’s the best mnemonic device we can think of right now.

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Q: I was reviewing my German grammar the other day and read that you can use the present tense to describe something in the future, but you generally need an adverb – for example, “I’m going to Europe soon.” This made me wonder if it’s proper in English to say merely “I’m going to Europe.”

A: We can indeed indicate a future trip by saying “I’m going to Europe.” No adverb is necessary.

In fact, we have quite a few ways of speaking about the future without actually using a future tense.

One common way of indicating the future in English is by using a form of the verb “be” plus “going to” plus an infinitive. Examples: “She is going to call Mom,” “We’re going to see a movie,” “Thanks for asking, but I’m not going to go.”

There are other ways, too. The italic verbs or verb phrases in the following sentences indicate an action to take place in the future. (The examples are from The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.)

(1) Give her my regards.

(2 It is essential that she tell the truth.

(3) The match starts tomorrow.

(4) If she goes, I’ll go too.

(5) I may see her tomorrow.

(6) I want to see her tomorrow.

(7) I am seeing her tomorrow.

I hope this helps.

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