Q: How do you feel about the many young people who say things like “Come over my house” or “I slept over his house” – rather than “over to” and “over at” respectively?

A: This clipped kind of expression (“I went over his house,” “She slept over my house”) is a new one on me. (Though I may have heard it a few years back on “The Sopranos.”)

It reminds me of the Rosemary Clooney song “Come On-a My House” (“Come on-a my house my house, I’m gonna give you candy…”).

As for my opinion, I think it’s charming – in its place.

Grammatically, of course, it’s not kosher, but I love regional language differences and idioms and all those things that make English quirky and unpredictable.

What’s more, this idiomatic usage is economical. It uses only one preposition (“over”) instead of two (“over to” … “over at”). So it makes a certain amount of sense.

In other words, I think it’s OK for young people to use it among themselves – in conversation, instant messages, texting, and so on.

But I wouldn’t recommend it in formal writing or even in casual conversation with grownups who care about proper grammar and usage – say English teachers.

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Q: Why do sportscasters pronounce “defense” with an emphasis on the “de,” whereas political commentators emphasize the “fense”? Which pronunciation is correct?

A: The usual pronunciation of “defense” is duh-FENSE, except in sports terminology, where it’s generally pronounced DEE-fense.

Similarly, the usual pronunciation of “offense” is uh-FENSE, except in sports terminology, where it’s generally pronounced OFF-ense.

The sportscasters are not incorrect. The variant pronunciations of these words in sports terminology are standard, according to both Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

I can only speculate as to why sportscasters and athletes pronounce these words as they do.

Perhaps emphasizing the first syllables (OFF and DEE) helps differentiate the two words in a context where both are often being discussed. In close proximity, the normal pronunciations (uh-FENSE, duh-FENSE) might make the difference harder to hear.

Sorry I can’t be more definitive. Maybe a phonologist out there can pitch in.

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Q: In writing dialogue for a story, I often run into trouble when a character screams or moans or whatevers. How do you spell a word that’s rarely spelled? Examples: “Ahhhhh,” Jason screamed; “Oooh,” Michelle moaned; “Awww,” Nancy swooned; “Hmmmm,” Henry wondered. There are dozens of similar words that I simply don’t know how to spell. Do you have any suggestions?

A: An author is allowed quite a bit of slack when writing dialogue in a story. So one writer may spell Jason’s scream as “ah,” another as “ahh,” and still another as “a-h-h.” The same may be said about Michelle’s moan and Nancy’s swoon and Henry’s wondering.

Try to be consistent, though. If you use “a-h-h” in one place, stick with that spelling elsewhere in the story.

If in doubt, you can always look it up. You’d be surprised at how many of these words are actually in the dictionary. For instance, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) has three of the words you mentioned, with these spellings: “ah,” “oh,” “aw.”

I sometimes use hyphens when I stretch out one of these words: “a-h-h,” “o-o-h,” “a-w-w,” and so on. But another writer may skip the hyphens. It’s a judgment call.

The important thing is to be sure your reader understands what you mean. You don’t want the reader to wonder, “H-m-m?”

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Q: I always write the date when you’ll be on WNYC on my calendar. If I can’t listen to you live, I’ll listen later on my iPod. Now for my question. I’ve been trying to remember the right word (“le mot juste”) to express that one has successfully persuaded another person that his/her opinion is incorrect. I think it is to dis-something of that opinion. Do I make myself clear?

A: Thanks for being such a fan. I think the word you’re looking for is “disabuse,” as in “I won’t disabuse you of the belief that I am a radio celebrity.” It means to free someone from a falsehood or a misapprehension.

You may be surprised to learn that we’ve been disabusing one other of mistaken beliefs for quite a while – nearly 400 years The word first appeared in print in 1611, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here’s an excerpt from The Compleat Angler (1653) in which Izaak Walton defends the simplicity of fishermen: “But if by simplicity you meant to express a general defect in those that profess and practice the excellent Art of Angling, I hope in time to disabuse you, and make the contrary appear so evidently.”

Interestingly, the word “disabuse” has been used occasionally as a noun, though not since 1700. Here’s the noun at work in a 1620 English translation of Don Quixote: “I am aggrieved that this Disabuse hath happened so late unto me.”

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Q: An absolutely new one on me: “piste.” It was used by Sir Paul McCartney during a BBC interview cited in The Guardian. Is it a word that’s stayed on that side of the pond, or does it have a track record in the Colonies, too?

A: The Nov. 16, 2008, article in The Guardian quotes Sir Paul on the subject of a 14-minute track called “Carnival of Light,” recorded by the Beatles in 1967 and never released.

McCartney, it turns out, still has a master tape of the improvisatory session, which he plans to share with the world. “I like it because it’s the Beatles free, going off piste,” he says.

I’m glad the interviewer correctly transcribed that sentence!

Sir Paul’s use of the word “piste” is right on track – in the states as well as the mother country.

A “piste,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is (1) a trail, especially one beaten by a horse or mule; (2) a marked-out area for the sport of fencing; and (3) a ski trail of compacted snow.

Both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) define it as a ski trial.

There are similar words in French, Italian, and Spanish, all ultimately derived from a post-classical Latin word, pistare, meaning to pound.

In modern English usage, “piste” appears most often in reference to skiing, to fencing, and to tracks (like those in riding rings or well-used trails). Here are some recent examples from the OED:

2002, from Tricolor Over the Sahara: The Desert Battles of the Free French, 1940-1942, by Edward L. Bimberg: “Camel mounted soldiers who also served as escorts for the civilian caravans that regularly transported goods along the desert pistes.”

2002, from By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samurai, Swashbucklers and Olympic Champions, by a fencing expert, Richard Cohen: “We had two judges watching us, one on either side of the piste.”

2001, from Ski magazine: “I spent a week skiing Switzerland, on St. Moritz’s extraordinary open pistes of Corviglia and Corvatsch.”

So McCartney meant that the improvisatory session by the Beatles was, to use a similar expression, off the beaten track.

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Q: What do you think about the expression “funnily enough”? Hideously awkward, but it fills a slot nothing else can.

A: There’s nothing wrong with “funnily enough,” though it sounds awkward to my ear (I prefer “oddly enough”).

The adverb “funnily,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, has been in use since at least the early 19th century.

The first use in writing, as far as we know, was in a letter written in 1814 by Harriet Countess Granville, quoting someone else. Lady Granville’s letter reads: “Freddy is extremely galant about Susan, says she is such a nice girl, and talks so funnily and sweetly.”

Here’s a “funny” descendant that hasn’t fared as well: “funnyism,” meaning a joke. The first reference in the OED comes from another literary lady, Caroline Fox. In 1839 she referred to “stories and funnyisms of all descriptions.”

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Q: Am I nuts, or are there two-dot ellipses? Everyone’s so wrapped up in three or more dots these days that the two-dot punctuation seems to be sidelined. As I understand it, two dots are used when someone is expressing a thought (“I seem to remember..”) and someone else finishes it (“two-dot ellipses”). Yes, no?

A: There is no “two-dot ellipsis.” Two dots in sequence are used in the language of computer coding, but not in ordinary text. Ellipsis points are always used three at a time in text (…) to show where words have been omitted.

When the omission comes at the end of a sentence, the period is often used first, followed by three more points, for a total of four dots.

The only place we’ve seen two dots used to indicate an omission in published writing is the Oxford English Dictionary, where two dots are used instead of three to show that words have been deleted within a quotation. We asked Jesse Sheidlower, the OED‘s editor-at-large, about this and here’s his response:

“It’s solely a space-saving device. I forget the exact numbers, but somewhere there’s a statistic on how many miles shorter the OED is because of the use of two-dot instead of usual three-dot ellipses.”

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Q: I am proofing a brochure and came across a wording that keeps bothering me. The brochure refers to outreach programs that link XYZ “and the community,” but I keep wanting to make it “with the community.” Is “and,” as well as “with,” acceptable, or is one preferred?

A: Generally, I think you can use either one, the conjunction “and” or the preposition “with.” But in this case, “with” might better convey the meaning.

It’s the outreach programs that are actively seeking the link, so “with” might be more appropriate. You could also use the preposition “to” here.

It’s a judgment call.

Interestingly, when the subject of a sentence is followed by a noun or noun phrase introduced by “with,” the verb is singular: “The saddle, with the bridle, is in the barn.” But if “and” is used, the verb is plural: “The saddle and the bridle are in the barn.”

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Q: Which is correct: “She is smarter than him,” or “She is smarter than he,” or “She is smarter than he is”? The first does sound more idiomatic; the second, snootier; and the third, something in between. I do so rely on your help!

A: If you want to please the sticklers, go with “She is smarter than he is” or the admittedly stiff “She is smarter than he.”

Many traditionalists still believe that in formal English, “than” is a conjunction and not a preposition, and that the following pronoun should be in the nominative case – “he,” not “him.”

But English is a living language, and the traditional view of “than” has shifted. Usages like “than him” are no longer regarded as incorrect – merely less formal.

This often happens. Over time, a natural usage tends to win out over an unnatural one, and to many people, “than he” is stuffy and unnatural.

As we wrote once before on the blog: “Some usage gurus, including William Safire, accept ‘than’ as a preposition, and claim the object pronoun (‘me,’ ‘him,’ ‘us,’ and so on) afterward is just fine. Certainly common usage is on their side.”

So our advice for now is to use the natural-sounding “than he is” or “than him,” and save “than he” for the most formal occasions. “Than him” is certainly more usual in conversation and is considered standard by many respected authorities.

Lexicographers are already arriving at this conclusion, though usage experts may disagree.

Bryan A. Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, takes the safe route: “For formal contexts, the traditional usage is generally best; only in the most relaxed, colloquial contexts is the prepositional than acceptable. Often it seems ill-advised.”

Now for the lexicographers.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) says “than is quite commonly treated as a preposition when followed by an isolated noun phrase, and as such occurs with a pronoun in the objective case: John is taller than me.”

“Though this usage is still widely regarded as incorrect,” the dictionary continues, “it is predominant in speech and has reputable literary precedent, appearing in the writing of such respected authors as Shakespeare, Johnson, Swift, Scott, and Faulkner.”

But American Heritage warns that “the writer who risks a sentence like Mary is taller than him in formal writing must be prepared to defend the usage against objections of critics who are unlikely to be dissuaded from the conviction that the usage is incorrect.”

However, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) accepts the prepositional use of “than” without reservation. It defines “than” in this case as meaning “in comparison with” and gives the example “you are older than me.”

A usage note in  M-W concludes: “In short, you can use than either as a conjunction or as a preposition.”

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Q: On the morning after the Presidential election, Nina Totenberg reported on NPR that John McCain had given a graceful concession speech. Shouldn’t that have been “gracious”?

A: Either one could have been used, but they have somewhat different meanings. A speech can be “graceful” (that is, elegant, fluent, nuanced, tastefully delivered, and so on), and still not be “gracious,” a word that suggests kindness, courtesy, and tact.

Interestingly, the two words have had pretty much the same meanings at different times in their lives.

When the adjective “gracious” showed up in English in the early 1300s, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it meant pleasing, popular, kind, or courteous. But by the mid-1300s, it also meant graceful or elegant, though that sense is now considered obsolete.

The adjective “graceful,” on the other hand, meant full of divine grace when it first showed up in English in the early 1400s. Over the next two hundred years, it also came to mean virtuous, honorable, favorable, or friendly. All those meanings are now considered obsolete.

It wasn’t until the late 16th century, according to the OED, that “graceful” took on its modern meaning of elegant in form, movement, expression, and so on.

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Q: In your Nov. 4, piece, you discussed the etymology of “doggone it.” Do your comments also apply to “gol dang it,” “gosh darn it,” and “dag nab it?” One additional question: Does “gol” need an apostrophe? If so, what has been truncated?

A: Yes, those too are euphemistic variations on “God damn it.”

As for the “gol” variations, no apostrophe is needed. In these slang compounds, “gol” seems to take the place of “God.”

The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang renders two of its dictionary entries as “goldang” and “goldarn,” written as such with no hyphens or apostrophes. But in the published citations it lists, spellings include “gol danged,” “gol-dang,” “Gaul darn,” “Gawl darn,” “Gaul-darn,” “gaul-durned,” “gol-durned,” “goldarn,” “goldarned,” and “goldurned.”

The dictionary also lists “gosh” as a euphemistic oath meaning “God,” and lists “goshawful” as a watered down version of “Godawful.” I might add that “gosh a’mighty” (or “goshamighty”) is a prim way of saying “God almighty.”

As for “dag nab,” it’s a variation of “dad-gum,” a member of another branch of the same family. The slang dictionary says that “dad,” when used as an interjection in combination forms, is “a euphemistic alteration of God … used in various mild oaths.” The first such usage, “by Dad,” was recorded in 1678.

Variations on this theme include (and I won’t attempt to give all the spellings) “dad-bing,” “dad-blame,” “dad-blast,” “dad-bloom,” “dad-burn,” “dad-gum,” daggone,” and “dagnab.”

As a child growing up in Iowa, I often heard irritated grownups say “gol-dang-it” or “what the ding-dong!”

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Q: I have a question about the subjunctive. In the sentence “I would like to live in a house that has/had five rooms,” which is the correct form of the verb “have”?

A: The subjunctive isn’t being used here. I think you’re confusing the conditional tense with the subjunctive mood.

The correct sentence is “I would like to live in a house that has five rooms.” The first verb (“like”) is in the simple conditional tense (“would like”). When this is the case, the other verb is in the simple present tense (“has”).

The sentence would also be correct if written this way: “I would have liked to live in a house that had five rooms.” Here the first verb is in the perfect conditional (“would have liked”), and when this is the case, the other verb is in the simple past tense (“had”).

Here’s how to use “like,” in the (1) present, (2) past, (3) future, and (4) conditional:

Simple: I like … I liked … I will like … I would like.

Progressive: I am liking … I was liking … I will be liking … I would be liking.

Perfect: I have liked … I had liked … I will have liked … I would have liked.

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 …”]

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

If you’d like to read more, I once wrote a brief item about the subjunctive for the blog.

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Q: I have a silly question: Why does my wife put on a “pair” of panties, but not  “pair” of bras? People say panties are plural because you’re putting two legs into them. Forgive me, but aren’t you putting two breasts into a bra? My wife accuses me of using this question as a ploy to get you to discuss ladies’ underwear. I hope you don’t feel that way!

A: Great question! And we have no hesitation in discussing ladies’ underwear in the cause of a greater good—proper English usage.

Before the invention of the modern bra, women wore what was called a “bodice,” which the Oxford English Dictionary describes as “an inner garment for the upper part of the body, quilted and strengthened with whalebone.”

And this word “bodice” was originally plural, because it started life in the 17th century as “bodies,” the plural of “body,” a word for the upper part of a woman’s dress.

As the OED says: “even with the spelling bodice the word was formerly (like pence, mice, dice, truce) treated as a plural.” It frequently appeared in the phrase “a pair of bodies” or “a pair of bodice.”

Here are some early usages: “the bones want setting in her old bodies” (1618); “having a pair of bodice on” (1679); “a pair of new blewish Bodice” (1706).

Why the plural “bodies” (and later “bodice”) for the undergarment? Not because of the dual nature of the breasts themselves, but because the garment came in two parts and was laced together.

That’s probably why the modern woman doesn’t put on “a pair of bras” in the morning. Now that the garment is in one piece, the pluralness isn’t there anymore.

But “pants,” “panties,” “jeans,” and “trousers” still retain their two-legged character. In the same way, things like “scissors,” “tweezers,” “pliers,” “glasses,” and “spectacles” will always have a two-ness about them.

In case you’d like to read more, we’ve written about this two-ish business before.

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Q: If I write “a large, beautiful house,” a comma goes between “large” and “beautiful.” But if I write “a large brick house,” there is no comma between “large” and “brick.” I don’t understand why one phrase has a comma and the other doesn’t. I would be extremely grateful if you could clarify this for me.

A: My rule of thumb is to use a comma between adjectives only (1) if I could use “and” instead, and (2) if the adjectives are reversible.

Let’s look at your first example: “a large, beautiful house.” You know the comma is appropriate because (1) you could use “and” instead of the comma: “a large and beautiful house,” and (2) you could reverse the adjectives: “a beautiful, large house.”

You can’t do that with your second example: “a large brick house.”

The grammatical rule is that you use a comma to separate adjectives if each one has the same relation to the noun. For example, “large” and “beautiful” qualify “house” in the same way, and you could just as easily reverse them or use “and” in between. So the comma is appropriate.

But in the other phrase, “brick” is a different kind of adjective from “large.” It’s part of a cohesive noun phrase: “brick house.” And “large” is an adjective that qualifies the entire noun phrase, so no comma is needed.

Bryan A. Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, puts it this way:

“When adjectives qualify the noun in different ways, or when one adjective qualifies a noun phrase containing another adjective, no comma is used. In these situations, it would sound wrong to use and – e.g.: ‘a distinguished [no comma] foreign journalist’; ‘a bright [no comma] red tie.'”

I hope this helps.

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Q: Would you explain the presence or absence of the articles “a,” “an,” and “the” to a non-native? None of my ESL teachers have been able to. Every time I think I’ve got it, I read something that leaves me confused. For instance, this line from one of my son’s books: “Piggies love to roll in mud, penguins love the snow.” Why is it “mud,” not “the mud,” and “the snow,” not just “snow”?

A: In a sentence like the one you quote – “Piggies love to roll in mud, penguins love the snow” – the writer can’t go wrong. It’s correct to use articles with both of the nouns (“in the mud … love the snow”), or with neither noun (“in mud” … “love snow”), or with one but not the other, as in the sentence itself.

Both mud and snow are referred to here in a general sense, and when this is the case, the choice of whether to use an article is up to the writer or speaker.

Sometimes the choice is simply a matter of how the sentence sounds. The sentence you mentioned seems like part of a poem, so the writer may have written it that way to preserve the meter of the line.

As for your broader question, about the presence or absence of articles, that’s a complicated subject. Both “Snow was falling heavily” and “The snow was falling heavily” are correct.

But a writer might want the article if the fact that it was snowing had been mentioned earlier. Using “the” somehow suggests that the reader is already familiar with the fact that it was (or might have been) snowing.

“The article is used more sparingly in English than in many other languages,” the grammarian Otto Jespersen writes, adding, “There is a strong tendency to do without it.”

Many words have meanings that are sometimes general and sometimes specific. As a rule, the more general your meaning, the more likely the article can be omitted.

Here are some examples, with the same word used both in a general sense (no article) and in a specific sense (with article):

“Money is not an object” … but … “He left the money in his wallet.”

“Gold is a valuable commodity” … but … “The gold needs polishing.”

“Anger is destructive” … but … “The anger in the room melted away.”

“He went into business in 1900” … but … “The business prospered.”

By the same token, we generally use articles for buildings, but not for the broader institutions housed in them. So we say, “I get to school by walking” but “I go to the school on the corner.”

There are also differences in article usage with the words “town,” “sea,” “bed,” “home,” names of seasons and others. We omit the article if we refer to them in a general way. For example:

“He lives in town” … but … “The town is 20 miles away.”

“He went to sea” … but … “The sea is turbulent today.”

“I go to bed at 10” … but … “At 7, I make the bed.”

“We headed for home” … but … “The home next door is for sale.”

“Winter was approaching” … but … “The winter promised to be a long and cold one.” The article is often optional with seasons: “In [the] winter she goes skiing.”

We don’t need articles with people’s names, except when they’re in the plural (“We invited the Smiths”).

Sometimes we use an article with the day of the week, and sometimes we don’t. “They arrived on Saturday” implies that there’s only one Saturday the speaker could mean. But “They arrived on a Saturday” refers to some Saturday in the past, one out of many such Saturdays.

We say “all day,” “all night,” “all evening” … but … “during the day,” “during the night,” “in the evening.”

Jespersen says that common phrases with two or more nouns often omit the articles: “husband and wife,” “right or left,” “house and home,” “end to end,” “north to south,” “body and soul,” “father and son,” etc.

So, for example, you’d say, “The road runs from the north” (one noun), but “The road runs north and south” (two nouns).

I hope this helps.

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Q: Why is the word “unhoned” not a word? For example, “unhoned skills”: that which is not yet refined or sharpened. I lost a game of Scrabble over this eight years ago and I am still bitter.

A: Of course “unhoned” is a word. It’s just not a word that’s considered kosher in Scrabble.

The negative prefix “un” can be added to adjectives (“unhappy”), participles acting as adjectives (“unhoned,” “unspoken”), some nouns (“unrest”), and some verbs (“unfasten”) to form new words that are essentially the opposite of the originals.

Much the same is true of other negative prefixes, like “in” (as in “ineligible”), “non” (“noncompliance”), “im” (“immutable”), and others. The resulting words are genuine words.

However, the fact that something is a word in the mind of the average reasonable person doesn’t necessarily make it a word in the competitive Scrabble community. These people have their own, very finely honed ideas about what makes a word.

I posed your question to John D. Williams Jr., executive director of the National Scrabble Association. As far as the use of prefixed (or suffixed) words is concerned, he said:

“There is no hard and fast rule. Get a copy of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (4th ed.) and check out the ‘un’ section. As you’ll see, it varies from word to word. ‘Unhoned’ is definitely a stretch. Also check out the lengthy ‘re’ section. Sadly, ‘rehone’ is not there.”

The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (known to fans as OSPD4) is published by Merriam-Webster, Inc.

My condolences.

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Q: I grew up in the states and live in Puerto Rico now. My little girl is learning preposition usage at school, but there seems to be some confusion with “on” and “in.” I believe the proper usage is “I live on James Street,” but the teacher insists “I live in James Street” is correct. He won’t give in and has given the class a test with the wrong answers as right. I would appreciate your comments.

A: This may be a wild guess, but I’ll bet that your daughter’s teacher is British, or at least that he was brought up speaking British English (perhaps in one of the British Virgin Islands).

The correct answer – “in James Street” versus “on James Street” – depends on where you live (or come from). A Briton would say, “I live in James Street” and “My house is in James Street.” But an American would say “I live on James Street” and “My house is on James Street.”

You’ve hit on an area where British and American English part company. The two branches of the language use prepositions differently.

For example, both British and American speakers say “on” or “over” or “during the weekend,” but the British also use (and tend to prefer) “at the weekend.”

British speakers say “near to the river” when talking about physical distances, while Americans simply say “near the river.” On the other hand, Brits use the verb “agree” with no preposition, as in “they agreed a deal”; an American would say “they agreed to [or “on”] a deal.”

British speakers have a different way of saying something encircles something else. They would speak of “a fence about the house,” for example, while Americans would say “around the house.”

In London restaurants, servers wait “at tables”; in New York, servers wait “on tables.”

Neither branch of the language – British English or American English – is right or wrong in how it deals with prepositions. Each has its own set of idioms, and you follow the crowd.

American English is the language of the United States Virgin Islands and British English is the language of the British Virgin Islands. Where does Puerto Rico stand? Here’s a quote from a book called The Other Tongue: English Across Cultures, by Braj B. Kachru:

“Already by the time of the American War of Independence a form of English was current in America that was identifiably, almost proudly, American and not British. This was the beginning of the process by which types of English have proliferated. The British-American differentiation is of particular consequence, since every subsequent form of English has affinities with one of the main branches, BE or AE, rather than the other. In practice this means that English in Canada, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and American Samoa is recognizably related to American English.”

That being the case, your daughter’s teacher should think again. And if you’d like to read more about American versus British English, check out the April 29, 2008, and Oct. 27, 2008, items on The Grammarphobia Blog.

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Q: When my son was at the University of Rochester, he noticed that the natives in upstate New York pronounced the word “Rochester” as RAH-ches-ta. That reminded me of the flat-sounding “a” in the words of an old friend who lives near Chicago. Any idea why or how the upstate New York speech pattern developed?

A: It’s not surprising that you should notice a similarity between the speech patterns of Rochester and Chicago. Residents in both areas speak what linguists and phonologists call the Northern Cities dialect.

Characteristically, these speakers swap their vowels in what is called the Northern Cities Vowel Shift. For example, most of us pronounce the vowel in the first syllable of “Rochester” and the second syllable of “Chicago” as we would the “o” in “cot.” But characteristically, local residents pronounce it more like the “a” in “cat.”

They aren’t the only ones. James M. Hillenbrand, writing in 2003 in the Journal of the International Phonetic Association, cites the linguist William Labov in describing the geographical area involved:

“According to Labov, the Northern Cities dialect cuts an irregular swath through a chain of cities in the inland northeast extending, roughly, from upstate New York (e.g. Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo), through northern Ohio (e.g. Cleveland, Toledo), southern Michigan (e.g. Detroit, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids), northwest Indiana (e.g. Gary, Hammond), northeast Illinois (e.g. Chicago, Rockford) and south-central Wisconsin (e.g. Milwaukee, Madison).”

Hillenbrand adds that speakers “from neighboring regions such as northwest Vermont, northwest Pennsylvania, and north-central/northeast Indiana appear to show some features of the dialect.”

Labov, an expert on the vowel shift, has contended that the “shifts that characterize the Northern Cities dialect are observed in their most advanced forms in the largest urban areas of the region, such as Detroit, Buffalo, and Rochester,” according to the journal article.

How did this vowel-swapping come about? Labov says the trend may have begun in the late 1800s when large populations moved from east to west to work on the Erie Canal.

The vowels that are being swapped for one another involve those in the words “caught,” “cot,” “cat,” “bit”, “bet,” and “but.” Here’s what happens.

The vowel in “caught” becomes like the one in “cot” … “cot” becomes more like “cat” … “cat” becomes more like “kit” or “kee-at” … “bit” becomes more like “bet” or “but” … “bet” becomes more like “bat” or “but” … and finally the vowel in “but” becomes like the one in “caught.”

The theory is that as each vowel changes, another fills its place in a connected chain of shifts. The linguist Matthew J. Gordon explained it this way on the PBS series “Do You Talk American?”:

“When these changes are plotted according to the positioning of the tongue, the connections among them are clear and the shift resembles a clockwise rotation of the vowels in the mouth.”

So there you have it. That’s why people in Rochester and Chicago sound so much alike.

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Q: You should stop encouraging genderless appellations. Carol Channing is a “comedienne,” not a “comedian.” And Meryl Streep is an “actress,” not an “actor.” Do you want to call the “Duchess of Devonshire” the “Duke of Devonshire”? What about “executrix”? Or “dominatrix,” for that matter? Too much is lost!

A: I don’t think there’s much chance we’ll lose the term “dominatrix”! And, personally, I think that one would be a real loss.

But as I’ve said before on the blog, I do feel that a woman who acts has a right to call herself an “actor” if she wants. In fact, the word “actor” was initially used for both sexes, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here’s a unisex “actor” from a Dec. 27, 1666, entry in Pepys’s Diary: “Doll Common doing Abigail most excellently, & Knipp the widow very well, & will be an excellent actor, I think.”

The same is true for “comedian.” It was unisex for hundreds of years until “comedienne” made its debut (initially with a French accent) in the mid-19th century.

Here’s a unisex “comedian” from Daniel Defoe’s last novel, Roxana (1724): “Why, says I to her, … your Lady was some French Comedian, that is to say, a Stage Amazon.”

I, for one, prefer to think of myself as an author, not an authoress, though I concede that female writers have been referred to as “authoresses” (originally “aucteuresses”) since the 15th century.

Why tack on an unnecessary “ess” ending? “All the world’s a stage,” as Shakespeare tells us, “And all the men and women merely players.”

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Q: I’m curious about why “awesome” means amazing, but “awful” means horrible. One would think that if something was awful, it would be full of awe, right? I’m going on the assumption that “awesome” and “awful” have different roots, but it would be nice to have a little more insight.

A: Actually, both “awesome” and “awful” have the same root: the noun “awe,” a very, very old word that dates back to Anglo-Saxon days.

When “awe” appeared in the Old English Chronicles around the year 855, it meant fear, terror, or dread, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

As “awe” came to be used in reference to God, the OED says, its meaning evolved: “Dread mingled with veneration, reverential or respectful fear; the attitude of mind subdued to profound reverence in the presence of supreme authority, moral greatness or sublimity, or mysterious sacredness.”

Interestingly, the adjective “awful” is a lot older than “awesome.” When “awful” was first used by Alfred the Great around the year 885, it meant terrible, dreadful, appalling. If you remember, that was back when “awe” itself meant fear, terror, or dread.

When “awesome” made its initial appearance in the late 16th century, it meant profoundly reverential. By then, of course, “awe” had evolved too.

But I don’t want to mislead you. Language is a messy business. For hundreds of years, both “awful” and “awesome” were used in positive as well as negative senses.

It wasn’t until the 20th century that “awesome” lost much of its awe and settled down to its usual modern meanings of remarkable, overwhelming, marvelous, and great.

By then, as you know, “awful” meant awful. But even now “awful” is sometimes used in a more positive way – as an intensifier. Example: “I made an awful lot of money in the market before stocks headed south.”

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Q: I write young adult fiction. I’m fiddling with something that takes place in he 1930s and I’m looking for a good way to find slang from the time. I need to know whether words like “copper,” “flatfoot,” “swell,” “beat it,” and “scram” were used in that period. Any ideas?

A: The best source for US slang is the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, by Jonathan E. Lighter. Unfortunately, only the first two volumes ( A-G and H-O) have been published so far. I discussed several other references last summer in a blog item that you might find helpful.

Since then, I’ve stumbled across a website that purports to do what you’re looking for: the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. You put in a word and out pops the date when it was first used.

Unfortunately, the results are spotty. The dictionary did OK on “copper” (1846), “swell” (1926), and “scram” (1928), but it slipped up on “flatfoot” (1912) and “beat it” (1691), according to Random House and other reliable references.

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Q: I heard you on WNYC the other day via the Web. (I’m in the Midwest – fairly close to your Iowa roots – not in New York City.) Anyway, here’s my question: Can you comment on “nother,” as in “That’s a whole nother ball game.” There is no such word, right?

A: My theory is that the phrase “whole nother” is a conflation of “whole other” and “another.” It has also been suggested that “nother” reflects a misunderstanding of the word “another” as two words: “a … nother.”

But this may be not such a “misunderstanding” after all. “Another” was originally two words, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “an other (often a nother).”

Recorded usages go back to the early 1200s. Here’s a quotation from Chaucer’s poem Anelyda and Arcyte (about 1374): “And sawe a nothere ladye proude and nuwe.”

Until long into the 17th century, “nother” was a common pronoun and adjective meaning “a second or other; a different one,” the OED says. Here’s a quotation from 1608: “To establish true religion in one kingdome, to confirme it in a nother.”

This use of “nother,” according to the OED, is largely obsolete today and survives only as a colloquialism in the United States, where it’s commonly used with “whole.”

The dictionary lists these citations: “I have to grade a whole nother set of themes” (1963); “I’m in a whole nother space” (1977); and “But ‘tekkies’? It seems too much like ‘Trekkies,’ which invokes a whole ‘nother set of connotations” (1993).

Thanks for an interesting (or “a ninteresting”?) question!

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Q: A friend asked me if I knew the source of the term “church key” to describe the opener used for beer and soda cans. I told him I didn’t know, but I was sure you would. Thanks for your help.

A: In this world of pop-top cans and twist-off bottle caps, some readers of the blog may not have had the pleasure of puncturing a beer can or uncapping a bottle of brew with a church key.

For anyone unfamiliar with the gadget, a typical church key has a triangular thingie for piercing cans and a slotted or hooked part for prying off bottle caps. (Pull tabs for cans weren’t invented until the early 1960s.)

Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang says the term “church key” originated in the US in the 1950s. The dictionary suggests that the implement was called a “church key” because the can-opening part resembled an old-fashioned key.

But Cassell’s seems to have gotten the beer cart ahead of the draft horses.

The expression apparently originated earlier in the 20th century, perhaps as far back as the late 1930s when beer was first sold in cans, according to the word sleuth Michael Quinion.

Quinion, who used to run a museum of cider-making and now runs an online museum of words, says the name actually comes from the shape of the old-fashioned bottle openers that preceded church keys.

The round or oval ends of these bottle openers “reminded people of the often ornate handles to big, old-fashioned door keys,” Quinion writes on his website World Wide Words.

Why church keys? In the experience of most people, he says, “such big keys opened church doors.”

“It’s also more than probable that an irreverent joke was attached as well, in that drinking beer was an unchurchly thing to do,” Quinion adds.

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Q: I am a professional storyteller, a lover of the English language with a particular penchant for preserving regional accents. Do you feel there is a rising prejudice driving away regional accents? I lament the waning of America’s accents. They enrich our culture. Accents are authentic and colorful. Please speak out for our varied voices!

A: I’m on your side! I too relish and appreciate America’s many accents. And I speak out in favor of them whenever I can.

But I’m not so sure there’s a “rising” prejudice against them. The old prejudice may in fact be waning. Increasingly, local and even national television outlets are not only tolerating but welcoming regional accents on the part of their news anchors and reporters.

An article in the New York Times a couple of years ago reported: “Broadcasters seem to have realized that opening up the tent to accents could attract new audiences at a time when networks are bleeding viewers.”

Let’s hope the trend keeps up!

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Q: Can you address the use of the word “perfect”? It makes me cringe when people say “MORE perfect.” Is this correct? As I understand it, something is either perfect or it’s not.

A: “Perfect” is one of several adjectives that some usage writers call “absolute” – that is, adjectives that shouldn’t be used in the comparative (“more perfect”), the superlative (“most perfect”), or with other qualifiers (“really perfect”).

Other adjectives that are sometimes described as absolute include “unique,” “correct,” “complete,” “pregnant,” and “dead.”

In a broad sense, I agree with these usage writers. For instance, I wrote a blog entry a couple of years ago about the incessant use of qualifiers with the word “unique.”

At the same time, I think it’s legitimate to use qualifiers in some cases. Perhaps you mean that X has more of the qualities that make up perfection (or uniqueness or completeness) than Y. In other words, X comes closer to the absolute than Y.

You aren’t saying that X is perfect (or unique or complete) in itself, just that it comes closer than Y. So you say that X is “more unique” or whatever.

I think this is what the Founders had in mind when they used the phrase “a more perfect Union” in the Preamble to the Constitution:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I wrote a blog item about this earlier in the year. The conclusion? A qualified endorsement. The Founders were justified in using “more perfect.” But that doesn’t mean we should overdo this usage. Absolutely not!

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Q: I recently used “bring to bear” in an email and ended up staring at the phrase for a considerable time, wondering if it should be “bear” or “bare.” After googling it, I find that “bear” is the correct spelling, but now I’m wondering if the noun and the verb “bear” are related?

A: No, the verb “bear” is entirely unrelated to the noun for the big furry animal.

The two words come from prehistoric Indo-European roots that are spelled alike (bher), but the roots are unrelated etymologically and mean different things.

In ancient times, the verb “bear” had two meanings: to carry a burden or to give birth, according to John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins. The verb gained new senses as it was passed down to Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and the Germanic and Indo-Iranian languages.

Today it has 20 or more meanings in English, including to carry (“A burro can bear 200 pounds”); to endure (“He couldn’t bear the grief”); to support (“The beam will bear two tons”); to proceed (“Please bear to the left”); to give birth (“She hopes to bear a child”); to produce (“Those trees will bear fruit”), and so on.

The expression “bring to bear,” which originally meant to bring about, has been around since the 18th century, when Samuel Richardson used it in his novel Clarissa (1748): “Your cousin … had with difficulty brought this meeting to bear.”

The expression now means to exert, apply, or put to use, as in “Let’s bring pressure to bear on the mayor.”

Interestingly, “bear” has two past participles, depending on the meaning you want. We use “borne” for most meanings, but “born” for passive constructions referring to birth. So we say, “The weight was borne upon his back,” and “She has borne three children,” but “The children were born in Cincinnati.”

And by the way, the noun for the furry creature comes from a primitive root bher meaning “brown” or “bright.” This root gave us the words “brown,” “bear” (the animal), “bruin” (the poetic name for a bear), “beaver” (another brown animal), “brunet,” and “burnish.”

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

Q: I’ve been out of the country for a while (in beautiful Cape Town), so I’m catching up on the blog. The “on premises” entry made me think of the US military use of “in country.” Where did this come from? Is it a Britishism? A militarism?

A: You asked about “in country,” an expression for being in Vietnam during US military operations in the 1960s and ’70s. But a civilian sense was in use in Scotland as far back as the 16th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

In its earlier Scottish incarnation, the expression meant “the inland country, the interior; the mainland as opposed to the outlying isles; the country within reach of the capital and centre of civilization, as distinguished from outlying districts,” the OED says.

The dictionary has citations for “the In-cuntre” (1565), “the Inne cuntrey” (1596), and this one from Archbishop Spottiswood’s The History of the Church of Scotland (1639): “In the Isles and High-lands were likewise great Troubles: nor was In-country more quiet.”

This construction sounds a little odd to us now, but in earlier days people used many such “in” compounds to describe something near the center: “in-parish,” “in-shore,” the now familiar “inland,” and “in-field” (which was originally a reference to farmland around or near a homestead, not to a baseball infield).

The OED says “in country” (spelled various ways) was first used to mean “in the country” or “in a contextually specified country” in the 20th century.

The earliest such citation is from a collection of stories and writings by Dylan Thomas, A Prospect of the Sea (1953): “Between the incountry fields and the incoming sea.”

The military sense of the phrase first appeared in the New York Times in May 1966: “In South Vietnam, in what is called in Saigon the ‘in-country’ war, development efforts have been concentrated upon types of weapons best utilized in jungles and rice paddies.”

The next OED citation is from the Daily Telegraph in 1969: “This will reduce America’s ‘in-country’ military strength to 484,000 troops.”

The quotation marks soon fell off, as in this line from the Daily Telegraph in 1973: “American in-country troop strength [in Vietnam] stands at 7,170 men.”

Thus the expression “in country” became associated with military service in Vietnam (it was also the title of a popular novel about the war and its aftermath by Bobbie Ann Mason). By extension, it has become a common phrase in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

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

Q: If the chief executive of a country is addressed as “Mr. (or “Madam”) President,” and the chief executive of a city is addressed as “Mr. Mayor,” why is the chief executive of a state addressed as “Governor” and not “Mr. Governor”?

A: This is a good question, and I’ve spent several days trying to find an answer – all to no avail. If you ever find out why, I hope you’ll let me in on the secret. I can tell you how, though, even if I can’t tell you why.

When we’re speaking to senators, governors, generals, judges, and justices and chief justices of the United States Supreme Court, we use their titles without “Mr.” or “Madam,” whether we use their names or not.

That’s why we address Dianne Feinstein, for example, as “Senator” or “Senator Feinstein” and not “Madam Senator,” and why Colin Powell is “General” or “General Powell” and not “Mr. General.” For the same reason, Arnold Schwarzenegger is properly addressed as “Governor” or “Governor Schwarzenegger” and not “Mr. Governor.”

In speaking to some other high-ranking government officials, on the other hand, we always use “Mr.” or “Madam” when we address them by their titles alone – that is, without their names. This is true for the titles President; Vice President; Attorney General; Secretary (for other Cabinet members); Under Secretary; Speaker (of the House); Ambassador, and Mayor.

A mayor, by the way, can be addressed in person in several ways: “Mayor Bloomberg,” “Mr. Mayor,” or “Your Honor.” A lower-court judge can be “Judge,” “Judge Crater,” or “Your Honor.”

There’s some disagreement about how to use the title of a chief justice or associate justice of the Supreme Court in conversation. It seems that many reference guides are out of date.

Here I’m following the recommendations of a book called Protocol: The Complete Handbook of Diplomatic, Official and Social Usage (25th ed.), by Mary Jane McCaffree, Pauline B. Innis, and Richard M. Sand.

The authors say that the etiquette changed when Sandra Day O’Connor was named to the Court. Today a chief justice should be addressed in conversation as “Chief Justice” or “Chief Justice Roberts,” and an associate justice as “Justice” or “Justice Ginsburg.”

Many reference guides can tell you which salutations to use when you write to government officials. For example, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) has a section at the back called “Forms of Address.” It’s a handy way to find out how (or whether) to preface a title when you’re sending a letter.

Unfortunately, not many reference guides tell you how to be correct when you speak to these people. The book I mentioned, Protocol, does both.

By the way, the first “Mr. President,” George Washington, narrowly missed being addressed as “Your Highness.”

In 1789, just before Washington took office, the Senate proposed that his official title should be “His Highness the President of the United States of America and the Protector of Their Liberties.”

John Adams, the vice president-elect, favored “His Majesty, the President.” Washington himself originally leaned toward “His High Mightiness,” but later thought better of it.

In the end, to Washington’s relief, the more democratic-minded House of Representatives prevailed, and Congress settled on the simple “Mr. President.”

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Q: I teach English at a college that sponsors a writers’ workshop. Last year, someone designed a logo for us and forgot the apostrophe. Some of us decided to drop the apostrophe, but the organizer overruled us and the designer refused to change the logo. So now we are without our cool logo and there has been so much strife that some big supporters have withdrawn their backing for the event. All this over one little apostrophe. What do you think?

A: The question is whether the word “writers” here is being used as a possessive (you need an apostrophe) or as an adjective (you don’t need an apostrophe). I vote for the latter.

The word “workshop” in this case doesn’t seem to me to indicate something belonging to or possessed by writers. Rather, the word “writers” describes what kind of workshop this is. And that’s the hallmark of an adjective.

Singular nouns have long been used as adjectives, positioned directly in front of the words they modify. And in recent generations, plural nouns have been used the same way (for example, “singles bar” or “honors program”). So my inclination would be to drop the apostrophe and use “writers workshop.”

However, I should note that reasonable people can disagree. The folks at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, for example, like the apostrophe. Those at the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop do not.

The Chicago Manual of Style (17th ed.) says, “In some cases, the distinction between attributive [that is, descriptive] and possessive is subtle.” But it adds that the apostrophe in the name of a group should be dropped “only in proper names (often corporate names) that do not officially include one.”

The manual gives these examples with apostrophes: “consumers’ group … taxpayers’ associations … boys’ clubs.” It gives these examples without apostrophes: “Publishers Weekly … Diners Club … Department of Veterans Affairs.” (See section 7.27.)

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage also points out that many names of organizations don’t use the apostrophe. It gives the examples “Citizens Union; Doctors Hospital; Teachers College; etc.”

I might add the name of an organization I belong to myself: the Authors Guild.

[NOTE: This post was updated on March 24, 2018, to reflect new wording in a later edition of the Chicago Manual.]

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Q: This is the first time that I’m writing you, which makes my question an appropriate one: How do you feel about the use of “debut” as a verb?

A: Back when I was an editor on the culture desk at the New York Times, I used to hate seeing “debut” used as a verb. I (and other editors at the paper) preferred it as a noun: “So-and-so made his debut last night” rather than “So and so debuted last night.”

But my dislike of a usage doesn’t make it wrong. In fact, we got the word in the 18th century from the French verb débuter, which meant “to make the first stroke in billiards, etc.,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

When the word entered English, however, it was initially used as a noun meaning “entry into society; first appearance in public of an actor, actress, or other performer.”

The OED‘s first citation for “debut” as a noun is from 1751, when Lord Chesterfield used it in a letter: “I find that your début at Paris has been a good one.”

Another lordly person, the poet Byron, used it in a rhyme in 1806: “To-night you throng to witness the début / Of embryo actors, to the Drama new.”

It didn’t take long for the word to be used as a verb in English. The first published reference, according to the OED, appeared in 1830 in Fraser’s Magazine: “He debuted at Naples, about five years ago, and has since performed … in the principal theatres of Italy.”

Both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) accept “debut” as a verb for a first appearance, but the Times apparently still has misgivings.

The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage has this entry: “debut. Use it as a noun (made a debut) or a modifier (debut recital), never as a verb (debuted).”

By the way, you can skip the accent when using “debut” in English. Although Merriam-Webster’s and American Heritage list the accented version as an acceptable variant, both say the unaccented one is more frequently used.

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Q: I am a great admirer of your sessions on WNYC, but I was bothered by a seeming lack of historical knowledge on your part when you were asked last month about the word “orange” (for the fruit, the color, and the House of Orange).

A: It’s often difficult to come up with instant answers on the air, with the seconds ticking away, even for subjects I’ve researched previously. As you know the questions are unrehearsed, and the program is broadcast live.

Of course that’s no excuse for conveying misinformation – better to admit that one doesn’t know or doesn’t remember.

The word “orange” is very, very old, and is thought to go back to a family of Indian languages called Dravidian. I discussed its origins last year in a blog item about which “orange” came first – the color or the fruit.

As for how the ancient Dravidians got the word, the Oxford English Dictionary says, “The native home of the orange may have been south-east Asia, and the name may have originated there.”

As for the “Orange” with a capital O, that’s a different story. “Orange” is the name of a French town that was the capital of a medieval Provençal principality also called “Orange.”

In the 1500s, the principality came into possession of the Dutch royal family. Dutch princes continued to use the title “Orange” even after the principality was returned to the French in the 1700s. For example, William III of England had been a Prince of Orange and was often called William of Orange.

The OED says the origin of the dynastic name “Orange” is “somewhat obscure” but its similarity with the name of the color is mere chance: “The accidental coincidence of the appellation with the name of the colour … made the wearing of orange ribbons, scarfs, cockades, orange-lilies, etc., a symbol of attachment to William III” and to Protestantism.

The Orange Free State, one of the original provinces of South Africa, was named for the Orange River, which in turn was named after the Dutch royal house.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes, and keep listening!

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Q: I’ve heard that the word “young’un” (used to define young children by black people in the South) actually comes from a Dutch word for young boys. Is this true? Did we get the term from Dutch slave traders?

A: The term “young’un” (also written as “young ‘un” or “youngun”) is a colloquial way of saying “young one,” and it’s been used to refer to a young person since the early 19th century. It has no particular connection with African-Americans and doesn’t come from Dutch.

Similar expressions began appearing in English in the 14th century, sometimes referring to offspring (both human and animal), and sometimes to any young person.

Here are some of the forms cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, with their early spellings: “yong oon” (1382); “yongones” (1535); “yong one” (1542); “yong ones” (1605); “Young-Ones” (1653); “young Ones” (1693); and “young’un” (1810).

The word “young” is believed to have its origins in a prehistoric Indo-European root, juwnkos, which was passed down into Sanskrit, Latin, the ancient Germanic and Celtic languages, and others. It entered Old English as geong, and was first recorded in Beowulf around the year 725.

Much the same can be said of “one.” It has its origins in a prehistoric Indo-European root, oi-no, that was passed down to Greek, Latin, the ancient Germanic and Celtic languages, and others. It entered Old English as an sometime before 725.

Oi-no? Oy, yes!

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