Q: In Woe Is I – recommended by folks from the Mount Hermon Writers Conference – you give this example: “The cops’ attitude was surly.” Shouldn’t it be the “cop’s attitude” or the “cops’ attitudes”? Please, where am I going wrong? Love the book!

A: I’m glad you’re enjoying the book.

The word “cop,” as you know, is singular, and “cops” is plural.

The possessive form of “cop” (singular) is cop’s, and the possessive of “cops” (plural) is cops’.

I used the plural possessive cops’ with the singular “attitude” here because the cops in question shared a single attitude – a surly one!

I hope this clears things up!

All this “cop” talk reminds me of a writing tip from Mark Twain about using short words: “I never write ‘policeman,’ because I can get the same price for ‘cop.’”

In case you’re interested, I had a blog item a couple of years ago about the origin of the noun “cop.” (No, it doesn’t come from the copper buttons on a police officer’s uniform. Or from the acronym “constable on patrol.”)

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Q: In one of your postings, you said it was OK for young people to use less-than-perfect idiomatic English “among themselves.” It struck me that “amongst themselves” would be better, but after researching the subject, I’m not sure. What are your thoughts regarding the usage of “amongst”?

A: “Amongst” is common in British English, while “among” is preferred in American English. I’ve written a blog entry that touches on the subject. But in case you’d like a little more history, here’s the story.

“Amongst,” “amidst,” and “whilst” are rarely used in the United States, and for good reason. They mean exactly the same thing as “among,” “amid,” and “while,” which have been around longer.

Although the “st” versions may have an air of antiquity about them, the unadorned American preferences – “among,” “amid,” and “while” – are actually the older words.

“Among” dates from about 1000, and “amongst” from 1250, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. “Amid” is from circa 975, and “amidst” from about 1300. “While” goes back to about the year 1000 (spelled “hwile”), according to the OED, and “whilst” dates from the late 1300s.

My preference, which is universal in American English, is for the three older, simpler words.

“Among” and “amid” are prepositions, and “while” is a conjunction. It’s been suggested that perhaps the “st” endings were added in error, on a mistaken analogy with superlative adjectives, which end in “st” and “est” (like “biggest,” “most,” and so on).

For whatever reason, an “st” ending was tacked on a now-obscure preposition, “again,” which dates back to 993 and originally meant “in the opposite direction” or “back.” In this case, the old usage disappeared and the later formation, “against,” which showed up in the late 1300s, was the preposition that survived. The old “again” exists now only as an adverb.

Although “amongst” is common in Britain, it by no means has a monopoly there. In fact, several British writers, including Robert Browning, Angela Thirkell, and Evelyn Waugh, have written works entitled Love Among the Ruins.

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Q: Once again, someone I consider a fairly good writer has “diffused” an explosive situation. I’m pretty sure it should be “defused.” Is there any leeway on this? Also, I pronounce the two verbs differently. Can they be pronounced the same?

A: “Defuse” and “diffuse” are unrelated and have no overlapping meanings, though they are widely confused. To “defuse” is to inactivate or render harmless. “Diffuse” is both a verb (meaning to spread out) and an adjective (meaning widespread).

The word that writers ought to use when they mean neutralize a volatile situation is “defuse,” a verb that developed during World War II and means literally to remove the fuse from a bomb.

The first published reference for “defuse” in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1943: “A group of fliers defused a 1,000-pound bomb that had jammed in the racks when their plane was flying … over an Italian target.”

If ever a verb was a good candidate for figurative usage, this was one. Here’s a figurative example from 1958: “Thought has to be given now, without delay, to the means of reducing the risks involved in this inevitable act of disengagement – of defusing it, in effect.”

As you suspect, the word has no relation at all to “diffuse,” which entered the English language around 1400 as a now-obscure adjective meaning “confused, distracted, perplexed; indistinct, vague, obscure, doubtful, uncertain,” according to the OED.

The verb “diffuse,” meaning to pour out or spread widely, showed up in the late 1500s. It was derived from the Latin diffundere, to pour out or away.

In the early 1700s, according to the OED, the adjective came to mean “spread through or over a wide area; widespread, scattered, dispersed: the reverse of confined or concentrated.”

The pronunciations of “defuse” and “diffuse” do overlap somewhat, perhaps contributing to the confusion between the two words.

“Defuse” is pronounced dee-FYOOZ. But “diffuse” has two pronunciations. The verb is dih-FYOOZ and the adjective is dih-FYOOCE (the “i” in each sounds like the one in “pit”).

Let’s hope these two very different words don’t become fused!

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Q: I’m wondering if “feel” can be used to state an opinion, as in “He felt wearing his red shirt would be a lot of fun.” I’ve found websites that say it’s incorrect, but I think you’ve used it in your blog, which gives me hope that it’s fine. By the way, my grandfather, Jimmy Larson, knew you when you were at the Des Moines Register. If his name doesn’t ring a bell, he was the news editor. I’m sad to say he passed away in 2006. I’m now the holder of his copy of Woe Is I.

A: Great to hear from you! Of course I remember Jimmy. He was probably the most memorable person in the Register’s newsroom (and there were a lot of them)! This will sound like a terrible cliché, but they just don’t make newsmen like Jimmy any more.

But on to your question. There’s nothing wrong with using “feel” to express an opinion.

The Oxford English Dictionary has evidence dating back to about the year 1000 for the use of “feel” to refer to mental activity – that is, awareness of or thinking of something.

Here are some later, more specific usages cited by the OED, along with the dates they first appeared in print:

? To be conscious of a fact or to entertain a conviction (late 1200s).

? To be in a particular frame of mind (about 1340).

? To express a belief or judgment, or to think, feel or hold an opinion (1382).

I hope this helps. Thanks for letting me hear from you.

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Q: I worked for Barack. I voted for him. I believe in him. And it hurts me when he says “for Michelle and I.” The English language needs all the help it can get. Where are the Object of the Preposition Police when we need them?

A: I’m as disappointed as you are that our soon to be 44th president – along with the 43rd and the 42nd – says things like “for Michelle [or Laura, or Hillary] and I.”

They should all follow the example set by the 41st and the 40th, who never failed to say “Barbara and me” or “Nancy and me” when appropriate!

I think there’s some kind of pronoun virus going around – perhaps it affects even highly educated people once they set foot in our nation’s capital. I’ve written about this problem before on the blog. Here’s one posting and here’s another.

Once more, this is the law of the land: The pronoun “I” is a subject and the pronoun “me” is an object. The object (“me”) is the one that goes with a preposition, a positioning word like “for” or “with” or “to.”

No one ever messes this up when a pronoun appears alone with a preposition. You never hear sentences like “He did it for I” or “She went with I” or “They promised it to I.”

But common sense isn’t so common these days when a pronoun appears in tandem with someone’s name. So we end up with monstrosities like “He did it for Michelle and I” or “She went with Laura and I” or “They promised it to Hillary and I.”

For anyone who messes this up, the solution is simple. Just mentally block out the name (“Michelle” or “Laura” or “Hillary”) and you’ll get the correct pronoun (“me”).

So the next time our future president has cause to mention himself along with his wife, he should mentally eliminate his wife (sorry about that, Michelle). Then he’ll properly say “for Michelle and me” or “with Michelle and me” or “to Michelle and me.”

Update: Since this item was written, Stewart and I wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times on the subject, with more information about the complicated history of the “I”-vs.”me” phenomenon. Click here to read it.

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Q: Which of these expressions is correct, “fine by me” or “fine with me”?

A: They’re both correct. “Fine with me” is perhaps a bit more formal, but “fine by me” is good colloquial English.

Of the two expressions, “fine with me” would seem to be somewhat older, at least according to the published references in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first citation for the phrase in the OED is in a 1917 book that defines “thumbs up” as “everything is fine with me.”

The earliest citation in the OED for the “by” version is from a Feb. 3,1968, article in the Globe & Mail of Toronto: “It’s fine by me; I quit a couple of years ago.”

After a bit of noodling in old newspaper archives, however, I found earlier examples of both expressions.

A Dec. 22, 1901, article in the Idaho Daily Statesman about Christmas shopping quoted a Boise druggist as saying, “Business has been fine with me all of the past week and Monday and Tuesday will be much better.”

And, by and by, the other version showed up in a 1937 Walter Winchell column: “Those precocious Abbye children who wrote a book are going to tour China in a trailer … That’s fine by me.”

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Q: It seems to me that “repurpose” came onto the scene when “utilize” lost all distinction from “use.” It has been my understanding that you “use” a doorstop to keep a door open, but “utilize” a heavy book for the same purpose. I’m wondering if “repurpose” arose to fill the void left by the dilution of “utilize.” Any thoughts?

A: You may be right, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

The Oxford English Dictionary says “repurpose,” which it traces back to 1984, means “to convert or adapt (esp. something holding electronic data) for use in a different format; to use for a different purpose.”

Etymologically it’s formed from “re” and the verb “purpose,” which means to have a purpose or (and this is a rare and archaic meaning) “to be designed for some purpose; to be intended to do something.”

The last part of the definition of “repurpose” (“to use for a different purpose”) is somewhat similar to the now rather obscure one you mention for “utilize.” I wrote about “use” vs. “utilize” once before on the blog, and the difference between them isn’t as large as you think.:

While most of us now regard “use” and “utilize” as identical, “utilize” has another meaning that appears in English less frequently these days. This sense of “utilize” means to put something to use in a practical or profitable way. As you suggest, you might “utilize” a heavy book as a doorstop.

You ask whether “repurpose” arose to fill the gap left by that less frequently seen meaning of “utilize.” I’m doubtful. There seems to me to be a slight difference between this old sense of “utilize” and the newer “repurpose.”

I don’t think you’d “repurpose” the book you prop against the door. The book still is a book; it hasn’t been converted to anything else. It may be serving temporarily as a doorstop, but it hasn’t been changed materially. On the other hand, if you “repurpose” an old mill into condominiums, the original is lost.

Although the OED‘s definition of “repurpose” does include “to use for a different purpose,” it seems to me that most of us believe something that’s “repurposed” has changed in some manner.

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Q: Not exactly a grammar question, but I’m curious about the verb “backfire.” I’m guessing that one of its meanings – an action that unexpectedly turns out negative – didn’t exist before cars were invented. (I’m presuming “backfire” originated with the invention of the automobile tailpipe.)

A: The verb “backfire” has two literal meanings, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

(1) “To light a fire ahead of an advancing prairie-fire in order to deprive it of fuel.”

(2) “To ignite or explode prematurely,” a mishap that can occur with an internal-combustion engine or a firearm.

The first citation for the verb in the OED, from a Londoner’s 1886 memoir of a visit to Kansas, uses “backfire” in the fire-fighting sense:

“We all … set to work to ‘back fire’ from the stables, and were only just in time to save the whole place from destruction, by burning a sufficiently wide piece of grass off, and thus stopping the rush of fire.”

The earliest published reference in the OED for the second sense is from a 1902 story by Kipling: “That car … back-fired superbly.”

The first citation for this usage in reference to a weapon is in The Yearling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings’s 1938 novel: “Penny pulled the trigger. The explosion that followed had a sizzling sound, and Penny fell backward. The gun had back-fired.”

The figurative meaning you’re interested in did indeed come from the second sense of the word, the premature firing of an internal-combustion engine.

This sense first appeared in print in Pitching in a Pinch: Or, Baseball From the Inside, a 1912 memoir by the great Giants and Reds pitcher Christy Mathewson: “One of McGraw’s schemes back-fired on him.”

The schemer, of course, was John “Muggsy” McGraw, who managed the Orioles and Giants.

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Q: I’m perplexed by the use of the phrase “pony up” to describe laying out money for something. What does the concept it describes have to do with ponies?

A: Since the early 19th century, “pony” has been a slang word for money in general, according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang.

Why “pony”? The dictionary notes that the word has usually referred to “relatively small sums, as a pony is a small horse.” And to come up with the pony, or “pony up” (circa 1824), meant to pay one’s debts or dues.

Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English generally agrees. It describes “pony” as a term, circa 1810, for money, and goes along with the “small horse = small sum” explanation.

Partridge says “pony up” (“to pay a sum of money”) is a variant of an earlier expression, recorded in 1823, “post the pony.” (As far back as 1780 or so, to “post” meant to pay.)

The first published use of “pony up” cited in the Oxford English Dictionary is from an 1824 issue of the Atlantic Magazine: “Every man … vociferously swore that he had ponied up his ‘quarter.’ “

What happens if you don’t pony up? I suppose you “come a cropper,” another horsy expression. I had a blog item on it last November.

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Q: I was wondering about the usage of the suffix “ish” to mean a little bit like something, as in “He’s angryish” or “She’s friendlyish.” Most words with “ish” endings seem to mean fully something, like “British,” “snobbish,” or “Jewish,” not sort of something, like “busyish” or “prettyish.” Do you know the origin of this seemingly modernish usage?

A: You ask a very interesting question!

There are actually two “ish” suffixes in English. One comes from ancient Proto-Germanic and helps to form adjectives. The other comes to us from Latin by way of Old French and helps to form verbs.

First the verbs. Many end in “ish,” including “abolish,” “banish,” “finish,” “nourish,” “establish,” “tarnish,” and a lot of others. We adopted these verbs from Middle and Old French, where they ended in ir (abolir, banir, finir, and so on).

In French, the ir ending changes to iss to form extended verbs. (For example, “perish” is périr in French, and the ir changes to iss to form the extended verbs périssons, périssez, périssent, etc.) The French iss originated in Latin as isc, and in Middle English these adopted iss verbs were given endings of “isshe,” later to become “ish.”

Now for the adjectival “ish,” which is more to your point. We get this much older “ish” from a proto-Germanic suffix that’s been reconstructed as iskaz. Versions of it are common to many Germanic languages. In Old English, it’s recorded as isc.

In modern English, according to The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, “ish” is added to nouns and to other adjectives to form adjectives with these meanings:

1. somewhat (as in “oldish”);

2. like a … (as in “childish”);

3. like that of a … (as in “girlish”);

4. of or having to do with … (as in “English”);

5. tending to … (as in “bookish”) or inclined to be a … (as in “thievish”);

6. near, but usually somewhat past (as in “fortyish”).

These “ish” adjectives are much more common now than they were in Old English. Writers have taken advantage of their versatility!

In fact, the Oxford English Dictionary notes that “in recent colloquial and journalistic use, -ish has become the favourite ending for forming adjs. for the nonce (esp. of a slighting or depreciatory nature) on proper names of persons, places, or things, and even on phrases.”

The OED gives the examples of “Micawberish, Spectator-ish, all-over-ish, at-homeish, devil-may-care-ish, jolly-good-fellowish, out-of-townish,” and others.

The use of “ish” with times of day, to indicate rough (or roughish!) times of arrival is a relatively new thing, originating less than a century ago. The first published example in the OED is from 1916, in this exchange from a collection of World War I fiction: “What time shall I come?” “Elevenish,” Sam replied.

I’m a bit busyish now, so I’ll end this here.

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Q: Do you know if there’s a word for incorrect grammar used in a mistaken attempt to sound erudite? For example: “This esteemed group has earned the most profound gratitude of Mrs. Watson and myself.” Thanks very much for any assistance you can provide.

A: You’re looking for the word “hypercorrection.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines it as “A construction or pronunciation produced by mistaken analogy with standard usage out of a desire to be correct, as in the substitution of I for me in on behalf of my parents and I.”

Another example would be “The car is available to whomever wants to use it.” I had a blog item last year about still another example, involving “fewer” and “less.”

In fact, the title of my grammar book Woe Is I is a case in point. As I explain in the preface to the second edition, the book’s title hints that it’s even possible to be too correct:

“While ‘Woe Is I’ may appear technically correct (and that’s a matter of opinion), the expression ‘Woe is me’ has been good English for generations. Only a pompous twit – or an author trying to make a point – would use ‘I’ instead of ‘me’ here.”

As for using “myself” when “I” or “me” would be a better choice, I had a blog item about this two and a half years ago.

The adjective “hypercorrect” is relatively new, apparently less than a century old. The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin (1922), by the grammarian and linguist Otto Jespersen.

The nouns “hypercorrection” and “hypercorrectness” made their appearances 12 years later. A 1934 citation in the OED says that “only by unceasing vigilance” can such grammatical sins be avoided by those prone to being too correct.

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Q: I listen to you on WNYC podcasts from Bangkok, Thailand, and appreciate your knowledge and personality. Here’s my question: Is there a rule for using articles with medical conditions? For example, we use an article when we have a stomachache or a cold, but not when we have influenza or pneumonia.

A: When speaking of a specific disease, there’s no need to use an indefinite article (“a” or “an”). Examples: “She has measles and he has mumps. Henry has had both scarlet fever and pneumonia.”

Some people use the definite article (“the”) with certain diseases, which is acceptable, but not necessary: “First she had the measles and then he got the mumps, and now they both have the flu.”

When speaking of symptoms or conditions rather than diseases per se, it’s common to treat them as ordinary nouns and use indefinite articles: “She has a broken leg. We all have a stomachache and a headache. James has an infection.” This is also how we treat a cold: “She’s in bed with a cold.”

Much of the way we treat physical maladies is idiomatic, though. Jaundice is a symptom rather than a disease, yet we say “She has jaundice” (no article) or “She is jaundiced.”

I hope this helps. Thanks for your kind words, and for listening!

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Q: I recently saw the phrase “vociferous reader” (instead of “voracious“) in an obituary. Encountering it for the first time as a 55-year-old, I felt it must be a rare accidental usage, but I discovered from Google that it is far more common than I had imagined. I would like to mention it on my own blog but I do not know the proper name for this particular type of incorrect usage. Can you help?

A: “Vociferous reader” is a very good example of a malapropism! When I googled the phrase, I got 964 hits, some tongue-in-cheek.

Here’s a definition of “malapropism” from the Oxford English Dictionary: “The ludicrous misuse of words, esp. in mistaking a word for another resembling it; an instance of this.”

I’ve written two blog items about malapropisms. If you’d like to read more, check out the entry for Jan 2, 2007, and the one for Oct. 24, 2008.

As for the adjective “voracious,” it ultimately comes from the Latin vorare, meaning to devour. When it first appeared in print in 1635, the English word meant greedy about food. The earliest published reference in the OED is from a poem that condemns “voracious Gluttony abus’d.”

By the early 1700s, though, “voracious” was being used figuratively to describe insatiable desires or interests that had nothing to do with food. A 1712 citation from the English essayist Joseph Addison in the Spectator refers to “a Voracious Appetite” for news.

The first (and only) published reference in the OED to literary voraciousness is from an 1883 article in an evangelical magazine: “Mr. Rowland … was a voracious reader.”

The adjective “vociferous,” which entered English around the same time as “voracious,” is ultimately derived from the Latin vociferari, meaning to shout or yell. In modern English, it refers to a noisy or vehement outcry.

So, a library with a “Silence, please!” sign would welcome a voracious, but not a vociferous reader.

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Q: The etymological appendix at the end of my dictionary suggests that “think” and “thank” are related. It has taken me a long time to connect my thinking and my thanking, especially to think before I thank, and thank before I think. If you have anything to share, I’d be thankful. I’m already thinkful in anticipation!

A: “Think” and “thank” are indeed etymologically related, and have as a common ancestor the ancient Indo-European root tong, meaning to feel or think.

This prehistoric root was the source of a proto-Germanic word, reconstructed as thankaz, which gave us the Old English words thencan (to think, to conceive in the mind), thoht (thought), thanc (meaning thought, good will, gratitude), thancian (to thank), and thyncan (to seem or appear).

The last word, thyncan, gave us the now-obscure “methinks” (literally, “it seems to me”). So, methinks, thinking and thanking sprang from the same thoughtful source!

By the way, our modern verb “think” was once two separate Old English verbs: thyncan (to seem or appear) and thencan, whose original meaning, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, may have been “to cause (something) to seem or appear (to oneself).” In Middle English, the two verbs merged into one.

Thanks for your thinkful question.

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Q: I’m an actress who notices new things about accents. Lately, I hear people turning “ing” endings into “een.” So, “running,” “jumping,” and “playing” are pronounced RUN-een, JUMP-een, and PLAY-een. Two famous people who do this are Katie Couric and George Clooney. Have you noticed it?

A: Allan A. Metcalf’s book How We Talk: American Regional English Today has some interesting things to say about this “een” versus “ing” pronunciation. It seems to be a common phenomenon in California, where the pronunciation of second syllables is often different from that in the rest of the country.

For example, Metcalf writes, many Californians pronounce the word “garden” as GAR-den, with the vowel in the second syllable pronounced fully, as if it were the separate word “den.”

Normally, Metcalf says, the vowel in an unstressed syllable is reduced, so that “in most other varieties of English, the pronunciation is GAR-dun or even a vowel-less GARD-‘n.”

The same thing happens with “shouldn’t” and “didn’t,” which some Californians articulate as if the second syllable ended with the fully pronounced word “dent.”

“Another pronunciation even more widely heard among older teens and adults in California and throughout the West is ‘een’ for -ing, as in ‘I’m think-een of go-een camp-een,’ ” Metcalf writes.

This pronunciation, he says, “contrasts with the two usual pronunciations of -ing back East: the formal one that rhymes with sing and the informal one that rhymes with sin and is often spelled as ‘in, as in ‘I’m thinkin’ of goin’ campin’.’ ”

“Like the California pronunciation of garden,” Metcalf adds, “the ‘een’ for -ing gives more prominence to the vowel of an unstressed syllable at the end of a word.”

This doesn’t explain the pronunciation of Katie Couric (born in Arlington, Virginia) or George Clooney (Lexington, Kentucky), but then I have a friend from the Midwest who pronounces “mitten” as MITT-ten, fully pronouncing the “ten” instead of saying MITT-‘n.

Maybe these people are simply California dreamin’.

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Q: I’m stumped. I recently used one of my dad’s expressions: ” barring fire, flood, or civil unrest.” A non-native asked me to explain and I said, “unless something bad happens.” But I want to know more. I’ve found plenty of versions online, but I can’t find anything to indicate the phrase’s origin. Any clues?

A: I’ve spent way too much time on this already, and I still can’t give you a definitive answer. I have a couple of guesses, though, and a few facts to share.

As you’ve already learned, a bit of googling will come up with thousands of variations on the theme, from “barring fire, flood, or acts of God” to “barring flood, fire, or alien abduction.”

Other unfortunate events commonly mentioned include earthquake, nuclear strike, pestilence, and tornado. With stuff like that, why bother to get out of bed in the morning?

Curiously, I couldn’t find a single example of these expressions in a search of published references in the Oxford English Dictionary, though the OED has various references to “barring accidents.”

(A 1797 Coleridge poem is called “Fire, Famine, Slaughter.” And an 1864 Tennyson poem refers to “flood, fire, earthquake, thunder.” But there’s no mention of any “barring” there.)

The earliest example I can find of the kind of phrase you mention appeared in an article in the Columbus (Georgia) Daily Enquirer on Sept. 28, 1892, describing a house that “is as sound as a dollar and is good for a hundred years to come, barring fire and cyclones.”

A financial article in the Boston Journal on Nov. 1, 1895, referred to “dividends of $15 a share, barring fire, flood, and strikes.” And an article in the Oregonian in Portland on March 31, 1910, mentioned the scheduled completion of a new theater “barring fire, strikes or unavoidable delay.”

Where did these phrases come from? I can only guess. Perhaps they were influenced by the Ten Plagues in the Old Testament, though the only biblical plagues that we commonly see in these expressions are pestilence and hail. I’ve never heard of any barring of frogs or locusts or boils.

Another possible inspiration might be the source for that old saying about the steadfastness of mail carriers: “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these courageous couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

(No, that’s not the US Postal Service motto, though it’s on the Postal Service’s James A. Farley Building in Manhattan.)

The saying is derived from a nearly 2,500-year-old comment by the Greek historian Herodotus about Persian postal couriers: “These neither snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness of night prevents from accomplishing each one the task proposed to him, with the very utmost speed.” (The quote is from G.C. Macaulay’s translation of The History of Herodotus.)

Before I drop the subject, I’d like to mention one of my favorite “barring” expressions. It comes from an Oct. 4, 1921, article in the New York Times that mentioned the reaction of the baseball commissioner of the time, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, to ticket speculation for the 1921 World Series between the Yankees and the Giants:

“The commissioner isn’t worrying, for one of his teams has got to win, barring only fire, famine, pestilence or some one of the like visitations which many people like to describe as coming from on high.”

Sorry I can’t be more definitive, but I hope this helps.

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Q: How did we end up with two adjectives, “ironic” and “ironical,” to describe irony? I assume the shorter version came first.

A: It may make sense that the shorter one came first, but let’s not jump to conclusions here. The suffix “-al” is a tricky little devil when it comes to word history. The longer “historical” (1561), for example, is older than “historic” (1669).

First, some background. The “-al” ending is derived from a similar Latin suffix, –alem, and lets us turn nouns into adjectives and adjectives into other adjectives.

In modern English and modern Romance languages, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “-al” can be added to a Latin-derived noun (like “nation,” “proportion,” “constitution”) to form an adjective (“national,” “proportional,” “constitutional”). Similarly, “-al” can be added to Greek-derived nouns to make adjectives (“baptismal,” “octagonal,” “choral”).

The suffix can also be added to other adjectives to make new adjectives, which is how we got “comical” (circa 1432) from “comic” (1387).

However, this isn’t the case with “ironical,” which came BEFORE “ironic.” The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology describes “ironic” (from 1630) as a shortened form of the earlier “ironical” (1576).

Here’s a little etymological family tree, starting with “irony,” the first of the family to make it into English.

We acquired “irony” from the Latin ironia, and ultimately from the earlier Greek eironeia, which the OED defines as meaning “dissimulation, ignorance purposely affected.”

In it’s original, classical sense, the word referred to a rhetorical method (sometimes called “Socratic irony”) in which a teacher or someone involved in a debate would feign ignorance in order to draw out a student or an opponent.

When the word was adopted into English in the early 1500s, the OED says, it meant “a figure of speech in which the intended meaning is the opposite of that expressed by the words used; usually taking the form of sarcasm or ridicule in which laudatory expressions are used to imply condemnation or contempt.”

It was first recorded in English, spelled “yronye,” in a devotional manual (or “ordinary”) called The Ordynarye of Crystyanyte or of Crysten Men (1502). The writer gave “irony” both a religious meaning and a grammatical one.

In the religious sense, the manual says, a man who speaks about his weaknesses just to get a reputation for humility before God commits a sin and “such synne is named yronye.” It compares the religious meaning with one in “grammare, by the whiche a man sayth one & gyueth [giveth] to understande the contrarye.”

“Ironical” and “ironically” came into English at the same time and were first recorded in the same place: Abraham Fleming’s A Panoplie of Epistles (1576), a book on rhetoric. Here are the passages in which the words appear (note that his spellings follow the Greek):

“It may be spoken eironically, for familiar friends use jeasting [jesting] nowe and then, in their letters.” And: “He was (belike) some Pomilio or litle dwarfe, and that made him to use this eironical method.”

Here are the OED‘s definitions: The adverb “ironically” means “in an ironical manner; by way of irony.” The adjective “ironical” means “of the nature of irony or covert sarcasm; meaning the opposite of what is expressed.”

“Ironic,” the latecomer, didn’t appear until 1630. The OED defines it as “pertaining to irony; uttering or given to irony; of the nature of or containing irony.”

It first appeared in print in Ben Jonson’s comic play The New Inne: Or, the Light Heart, in these lines: “Most Socratick Lady! / Or, if you will Ironick! gi’ you joy / O’ your Platonick Love ….” (These are Jonson’s italics.)

It may be that Jonson chose “ironick” simply to rhyme with “Socratick” and “Platonick.” If so, the very existence of “ironic” is ironic!

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Q: Why did Pat say on the air last month that Origins of the Specious, your latest book, was written by “me and my husband”? I was always taught that one put oneself last.

A: There’s no grammatical rule that when you mention yourself along with another person, you mention yourself last. This may be an issue of politeness, but it’s not one of grammar.

Interestingly, this politeness issue may have led to what’s perhaps the most common grammatical mistake of all – using “I” in place of “me.”

Too many people would have ended the sentence you mentioned by saying “my husband and I” instead of the correct “my husband and me” or “me and my husband.” Both of the latter choices are equally correct.

In case you’re interested, we ran a blog item last year on the subject (and object) of “I” versus “me.” And if you’d like to learn more about Origins of the Specious, which is due in May, check out this page on our website.

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Q: Help! I can’t sleep. Is it “say your piece” or “say your peace”? I would tend to use the latter, but I can’t find confirmation.

A: It’s “say [or speak] your piece,” not “peace.” When the expression first appeared in the early 19th century, the word “piece” referred to a passage for recitation or a short speech, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The first published reference in the OED is from A New-England Tale (1822), a work by Catherine M. Sedgwick: “The young woman was to speak a piece of her own framing.”

The expression now, of course, usually means to have one’s say or express one’s opinion. Here’s a recent example from the April 9, 2003, issue of the Washington Times: “He … gives each caller a chance to say his piece before moving on.”

Interestingly, “piece” was sometimes spelled “peace” in the 16th and 17th centuries. A 1523 act issued by Henry VIII, for example, referred to “every peace of Worstede.”

But our two words, “peace” and “piece,” have different ancestries. “Peace” comes from pax, the Latin word for peace, while the ultimate origin of “piece” is uncertain, according to the OED.

John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins suggests, though, that “piece” is probably descended from the Old Celtic root pett, which may also have given us the word “peat.”

I hope you can have a good night’s sleep now.

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Q: My boss asked me to research the use of the verb “pass” for dying. My aged unabridged dictionary states that both “pass” and “pass away” are archaic terms for to die, but my boss notes that “pass” seems to be enjoying a resurgence. Do you have any light to shed on this issue?

A: The verb “pass” passed into English in the early 13th century by way of England’s Norman rulers. The Anglo-Norman verb passer meant, among other things, to pass by, to exceed or surpass, to go beyond, and to depart life, and those were among the earliest meanings of the verb “pass” in English.

The English verb has been used in reference to dying since around the year 1230, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Many of the early published references cited in the OED use it in the verbal phrases “pass to God” or “pass to heaven.” The verbal phrase “pass away,” which is more common today, dates from the 14th century.

The word “pass” has been used alone since around 1340 as a verb meaning to die. The OED cites published references in Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson, and many other writers. Here’s an example from King Lear (1608): “Vex not his ghost, / O let him passe.” The OED says, however, that this use of “pass” alone for “die” is now primarily North American.

I too have noticed a resurgence of this usage in recent years (for example, “Uncle Julius passed a year ago”), and it’s not surprising. We’re very inventive about speaking of death without actually mentioning it. Instead of dying, we croak, buy it, bite the dust, or shuffle off this mortal coil. I wonder why!

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Q: My wife asked me something that made me wonder: “Does my mom and dad have internet?” Should that be “do” or “does”?

A: The sentence should read “Do my mom and dad have Internet?” The subject of the sentence (“mom and dad”) is plural and needs a plural verb (“do have”), not a singular (“does have”). And FYI, dictionaries generally capitalize “Internet.”

Interestingly, questions that begin with the auxiliary verb “do” can usually be answered with a “yes,” a “no,” or occasionally a “maybe.” But questions that begin with “why,” “what,” “where,” and company usually have more complicated answers.

Your wife’s sentence raises another question: what is the meaning of the word “Internet” here?

The two US dictionaries I use the most – Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) – define “Internet” in only one way: a system of networks connecting computers around the world.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Internet” more broadly – as both a global computer network and the information available on it.

Like many other people, your wife is using the word even more broadly – as an Internet connection. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next editions of Merriam-Webster’s and American Heritage include this sense.

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Q: My granddaughter is in the sixth grade and her principal says the plural of “bus” (the motor vehicle ) can be spelled “buses” or “busses.” She’s confused, isn’t she? In my day “buss” meant to kiss someone. Thanks for your input.

A: Your granddaughter’s principal is right.

The plural for the large motor vehicle that carries passengers, usually along a fixed route, can be either “buses” or “busses,” according to both Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

Merriam-Webster’s indicates, however, that the plural “buses” is more common. And many style and usage guides prefer the plural with one “s” in the middle.

As for that singular noun with a double “s,” the two dictionaries agree that a “buss” is just a kiss – in your granddaughter’s day as well as in yours.

In your great-great-grandfather’s day, though, the singular for a passenger vehicle was sometimes spelled “buss” (with a double “s”). In fact, the first two published references for the word in the Oxford English Dictionary (from 1832 and 1837) spell it that way.

The word for the vehicle, as you probably know, is a shortened form of “omnibus,” which first appeared in English in 1829. We borrowed the word from French, where it was first used in 1825 for the vehicles that carried passengers between Nantes and a nearby beach.

Why “omnibus”? John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins says it comes from the phrase voiture omnibus, literarily carriage for all (voiture is “carriage” in French while omnibus means “for all” in Latin).

But a curious account in the OED suggests that the ultimate source for “omnibus” may be a French tradesman whose last name was Omnès. The tradesman apparently coined the motto Omnès omnibus for his nameplate and attached it to his vehicle. Voilà!

The word for the kiss, which was originally spelled “busse” when it showed up in English in the 1500s, may ultimately come from basium, the Latin word for a kiss. (In Spanish, a kiss is a beso; in French, it’s a baiser; and in Italian, a bacio.)

All this word history may be interesting, but in modern English the vehicle is a “bus” and the kiss is a “buss,” while the plural of both can be spelled “busses” (though “buses” is more common for the vehicles).

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Q: How do you feel about the ubiquitous “It’s déjà vu all over again”? Grrrr! Yogi Berra has a lot to answer for. Even Brian Lehrer has been known to utter that one on WNYC!

A: I agree with you that we could do with a lot less of this déjà vu-ing all over again!

Yogi was originally quoted in the July 15, 1985, issue of Forbes magazine. He later said in The Yogi Book (1998) that he had made the “comment after Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris hit back-to-back home runs for the umpteenth time.”

Interestingly, according to The Yale Book of Quotations, Clifford Terry used the same expression in a film review in the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 22, 1966 – without mentioning Berra. So maybe you’re blaming the wrong guy for this one.

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Q: A radio reporter recently referred to 50,000 people who’d been “wounded” in the China earthquake last May. Shouldn’t that be “injured”? I’ve always used this rule of thumb: “wounds” are inflicted, as in battle; “injuries” are the result of accidents or natural calamities. Do I have it right?

A: I generally agree with you, and I follow a similar rule of thumb. But the distinction between the verbs “injure” and “wound” (as well as the past participles “injured” and “wounded”) is fuzzier in modern English than we believe.

Of the two verbs, “wound” is by far the older, dating back to Anglo-Saxon days, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. When it first showed up in Old English around the year 760, it meant to “inflict a wound on (a person, the body, etc.) by means of a weapon; to injure intentionally in such a way as to cut or tear the flesh.”

When the verb “injure” first showed up in English in the late 16th century, it meant merely to “do injustice or wrong to (a person),” according to the OED. No physical injury here. The verb is what’s known as a back-formation, in this case formed from the older noun “injury.” It’s ultimately derived from the Latin injurius, or unjust.

In modern English, both “injure” and “wound” can mean, among other things, to cause physical harm to someone, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

Neither dictionary insists that a wound has to be deliberately inflicted while an injury must be the result of an accident or natural causes. But that’s the way I generally use the two words, and that’s the way I see them used most of the time.

While we’re on the subject of “wound” vs. “injury,” you may be interested in a related blog item last year about the word “casualty.”

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Q: I saw the phrase “hell bent for leather” used in a recent New York Times article. The explanations/definitions I could find for this expression seemed less than satisfying. Care to give it a go?

A: The Oxford English Dictionary describes “hell-bent for leather” as a North American colloquial phrase meaning “at breakneck speed; rapidly; recklessly; (also occasionally) fast; reckless; zealous, determined.”

The dictionary also cites two related expressions with similar meanings: “hell-bent for election” and “hell-bent for breakfast.”

The first published reference in the OED for any of these phrases comes from “Twelve O’Clock,” an 1899 short story by Stephen Crane: “One puncher racin’ his cow-pony hell-bent-fer-election down Main Street.”

The first citation for the leathery version is from a 1926 article in the Lincoln (Nebraska) Star: “Bold, reckless dare devils driving hell bent for leather.”

As you can see, the first citation had to do with riding a horse fast or recklessly. A somewhat earlier British expression, “hell-for-leather,” had a similar meaning.

Here’s an example from Kipling’s The Story of the Gadsby (1891): “Here, Gaddy, take the note to Bingle and ride hell-for-leather.”

Although the OED doesn’t explain the use of the word “leather” here, I imagine it originally referred to the leather saddles on horses ridden at breakneck speed.

In the New York Times article you mentioned, a doctor used the phrase “hell bent for leather” to describe the early detection of breast tumors that would have gone away on their own.

The term “hell-bent,” which dates from the early 1700s, means determined “to achieve something at all costs; passionately or recklessly intent,” according to the OED.

The earliest quotations in the dictionary were references to American Indians “Hell bent on Thoughts of Massacree” (1731) and ” ‘hell-bent’ on carnage” (1835).

Here’s a more recent (and more politically correct) example from a May 2002 article in Scotland on Sunday: “Listen to Kissin tearing hell-bent through the impossibly fast leaps of Schumann’s Paganini portrait.”

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Q: I blame a lack of reading for all the spelling mistakes I see in the written media. Two recent examples: “free reign” and “course bread crumbs.” And then there is the reverse problem – words misspoken because they are read but never heard. I mispronounced “consortium” until I was corrected, and a dear friend pronounced the “g” in “gnome” until she was clued in. In light of this, how can we help each other with our language lapses – without sounding like boors?

A: Unless you’re the parent or perhaps the spouse of the offender, there’s no polite way to correct somebody’s English. Just keep using good English yourself and hope that it will rub off! I wrote a blog item about this earlier in the year.

As a veteran of newspapers (the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Des Moines Register, etc.), I suspect that there may be more to this misspelling business than a lack of reading.

Friends who are still slogging away in newsrooms tell me that such goofs are often the result of staff cutbacks. All the downsizing that we see in the industry forces reporters and editors to churn out more and check less.

As for pronunciation, you may be surprised at what’s considered proper these days.

“Consortium,” for example, can be pronounced as con-SOR-tee-um or con-SOR-shee-um or con-SOR-shum, according to Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

“Gnome” has always been pronounced NOME in English as far as I can tell. But the word for the dwarflike creature comes from a Latin word (gnomus) in which the “g” is pronounced, and the “gnome” that means a pithy statement comes from a Greek word (gnome) with a pronounced “g.”

Interestingly, we pronounce the “g” in some other English words derived from the Greek root: “agnostic,” “diagnosis,” etc.

Isn’t English wonderful?

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Q: I hear the expression “going forward” used more and more these days. Why do so many people place it at the end of an explanation that is already complete? Two examples: “Here’s what we plan to do going forward” and “This is what I see happening going forward.”

A: I too continue to notice the annoying expression “going forward.” What would be the alternative? “Going backward”?

It allows the speaker or writer to get across a very banal idea (“sometime in the future”) without committing himself to such an empty phrase. Instead, he can substitute one that’s even emptier but sounds trendy and authoritative.

Most likely, speakers of bureaucratese prefer “going forward” until they reach “the end of the day.”

A few of years back an organization campaigning for plain English issued its list of the most clichéd clichés. At the top was “at the end of the day.”

Other clunkers (not necessarily in this order) were “24/7,” “let’s touch base,” “bottom line,” “with all due respect,” “between a rock and a hard place,” “at this moment in time,” “to be honest,” “I hear what you are saying” and (stop! stop!) “going forward.”

I’d like to add “thinking outside the box,” “win-win situation,” and “I can’t speak to that.”

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Q: I was surprised to learn that a deist believes one God created the universe but otherwise ignores it, whereas a theist believes one God created the universe and actively intervenes in it. Do you know how this distinction came about?

A: I’ve always considered a deist to be someone who believes in God but not in any particular religion. The Oxford English Dictionary generally agrees with me, but two of the other dictionaries I often consult go along with your definition.

The OED says a deist is someone “who acknowledges the existence of a God upon the testimony of reason, but rejects revealed religion.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says deism is a “belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.”

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th edition) says deism is “a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe.”

As for a theist, the three dictionaries generally define it as someone who believes in God and who may or may not follow a particular religion.

The terms “deist” and “theist” meant pretty much the same thing (the opposite of “atheist”) when they first showed up in English (“deist” in the 16th century and “theist” in the 17th century), according to the OED.

The dictionary says the two words were “interchangeable” at the end of the 17th century. But by the late 18th century, according to published references, the term “deist” had come to mean someone who believed in God, but not in the Scriptures.

In 1788, for instance, the Anglican theologian John Wesley defined a “deist” as “one who believes there is a God distinct from matter; but does not believe the Bible.”

In the late 19th century, according the OED, a “negative aspect of deism, as opposed to Christianity, became the accepted one, and deist and theist were differentiated.”

Here’s an 1880 citation from the Saturday Review: “In speaking of a deist they fix their attention on the negative, in speaking of a theist on the positive aspect of his belief.”

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Q: I’ve heard that the coin called the penny is really British and in America we have a cent. But it just feels natural to say “My son is out collecting pennies for Unicef.” The word “cent” seems off somehow. Do you agree?

A: A penny is a coin in both the UK and the US, though it has a different value in each place.

In the US, it’s worth a hundredth of a dollar or one cent. (In Canada, too, it’s worth a hundredth of a Canadian dollar.)

In Britain, a penny has been worth a hundredth of a pound since 1971. Before that, it was worth a twelfth of a shilling or a two-hundred-and-fortieth of a pound.

The original English penny was silver, but the coin has generally been made of copper or bronze since 1797.

The term “penny” is quite old, dating back to Anglo-Saxon days, when it was spelled all different ways, including paening, pending, and peninc. It has usually been spelled “penny” on both sides of the Atlantic since the 17th century.

In Britain, the plural of “penny” is “pence” or “pennies” (I won’t go into details here). In the US, the plural is “pennies.”

Now, back to your question. It’s not only correct to say your son “is out collecting pennies for Unicef,” but that’s also the usual way to say it in the US.

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Q: What is the correct written form of the phrase “all right”? I see it quite often as one word, “alright,” but I believe that is incorrect. Is it?

A: Traditionally, “alright” is not all right. I give this example of the correct usage in my grammar book Woe Is I: “All right, I’ll let you whitewash the fence!” said Tom.

Unfortunately, we now see the one-word spelling (“alright”) almost every day. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) still calls “alright” nonstandard, though Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) says “it has its defenders and its users.”

To be fair, a one-word version of “all right” in various spellings has been seen in print since as far back as the 12th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The word (initially spelled “alrihtes” and “alriht”) made its first appearances as an adverb meaning just or exactly.

Although the OED has only two citations for the one-worder from the 12th and 13th centuries, the dictionary says “alright” has been “a frequent spelling of all right” since the late 19th century.

And it’s been a frequent target of scorn from usage experts. H.W. Fowler, for instance, had this to say back in 1926: “The words should always be written separate; there are no such forms as all-right, allright, or alright.”

Is that still true? Or is the one-worder now acceptable? Well, “all right” is more popular (90 million hits on Google), but “alright” isn’t exactly a wallflower (58 million).

We the jury (the people who use the language) will ultimately decide. I vote guilty. For now, “alright” is all wrong.

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Q: I was taught that it’s presumptuous and arrogant to call our country America because this name covers two continents, North and South America. Our country is the United States of America. But since 9-11, I find that United States has virtually disappeared from radio and TV. EVERYONE now calls the country America. It makes me cringe whenever I hear this. I wish we’d get over it!

A: I usually refer to the country as the United States (or the US) because that’s more precise than calling it America. But I think it’s OK to refer to the country as America when precision doesn’t matter, especially if no one will take offense (say, a sensitive Argentine or Brazilian).

Both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) say “America” can refer to either the United States of America or the Americas (North, Central, and South). And an American, according to the two dictionaries, can be either a citizen of the US or an inhabitant of the Americas.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the noun “American,” which dates from the mid-1500s, originally referred to an inhabitant of the Americas, but it’s “Now chiefly: a native or citizen of the United States.”

“America,” as you may know, comes from the Latinized first name of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who navigated the coast of South America in 1501. The term first appeared in writing in 1507 on a map by the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, according to the OED.

No, I don’t think it’s presumptuous or arrogant to refer to the United States as America or a US citizen as an American.

In fact, some Latin Americans who feel slighted by these usages often slight Canadians by referring to a US citizen as a norteamaricano instead of the clunkier, though more precise, Spanish term estadounidense.

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

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’m doing French-English restaurant translations, and I have a question about the word “entrée.” It means a first course in French, and it’s used this way in British English. But in American English, it means a main course. How did this all come about?

A: In French, as you mention, an “entrée” is a starter dish or first course. But that’s not what the word meant in English when we adopted it in the mid-18th century.

The English borrowing originally meant a “made dish” (or prepared dish) “served between the fish and the joint,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

A big family dinner in 19th-century London, for example, might have consisted of soup, fish, entrée, joint (that is, roast), and sweet.

The OED still defines “entrée” in the original English sense of the word (a dish “served between the fish and the joint”), but the dictionary doesn’t include any published references for this usage since 1901.

Another British reference, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, defines “entrée” as “the main dish of a meal, or a dish served before the main course – used in restaurants or on formal occasions: an entrée of roast duck.”

That sounds much like the way the word is defined in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.): “the main dish of a meal” as well as a “dish served in formal dining immediately before the main course or between two principal courses.”

This suggests to me that the word “entrée” (it’s often seen without the accent) can mean pretty much the same thing on both sides of the Atlantic – at least sometimes. A bit of googling, however, finds that Brits are a lot more inclined than Americans to use “main course” when they mean main course.

I can’t account for the original divergence in the French and English meanings. The French considered an “entrée” to be an introduction to the meal as a whole. I’m only speculating, but it may be that the English considered an “entrée” to be the opening act for the MAIN dish (the roast), not the entire meal.

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology suggests that the later use of “entrée” to mean a main course “developed from the sense of a dish served between the main courses.”

Comparing the Chambers and OED entries, it looks as though the modern sense of “entrée” as the main course may be a relatively recent development – perhaps late 19th or early 20th century.

PS: My big Web II dictionary from the 1950s says the “made dish” served before the roast might consist of something like “creamed sweetbreads, a fruit fritter, or a timbale.” Sounds labor-intensive!

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