Q: Your Aug. 14 and Sept. 4 posts about “house” and “home” brought on lively discussions of the subject chez nous. This in turn brought to mind an idiom my father used when I was young to complain about my appetite: “You’ll eat us out of house and home!” Now that I have a son of my own, I’m tempted to resurrect the saying, but I would love to know why the idiom-makers used “house” as well as “home”?

A: Why both words instead of just one or the other? I’d call it an example of poetic emphasis, but the Oxford English Dictionary uses a more scholarly term: alliterative strengthening.

Whatever you call it, you have to admit that a simple complaint like “You’re eating me out of house” or “You’re eating me out of home” just doesn’t carry the cumulative weight of “You’re eating me out of house and home.”

The message is that the teenage son or the visiting relatives or the guests that stay forever are eating so much that they threaten to ruin the host and use up all his worldly resources.

The OED calls the phrase “house and home” an alliterative strengthening of “home.” But I guess one might also describe it as a strengthening of “house.”

Shakespeare uses the phrase in Henry IV, Part II (1597), when Mistress Quickly complains about Falstaff: “He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his.”

But the phrase (or ones very like it) had been in use long before it found its way into Shakespeare. Here are some earlier examples cited in the OED.

Circa 1200: “Wif and children, hus and ham.”

1297: “He caste out of house & hom of men a gret route.”

1387: “Men of ye lond were i-dryve out of hir hous and hir home.”

1527: “The prayers of them that … eat the poor out of house and harbour.”

1576: “Hunted out of house and home.”

I hope I haven’t bored you out of house and home.

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Q: If one says “Your thoughts are welcomed,” why does one respond to “Thank you” with “You’re welcome,” not “You’re welcomed”?

A: In the sentences “Your thoughts are welcomed” and “You’re welcome,” the word “welcome” is being used in two different ways, as a verb in the first one and as an adjective in the second.

As a verb, “welcome” means to greet cordially or accept with pleasure. You might ask your doctor, for instance, “Do you welcome new patients,” and she might reply, “Yes, I welcome them” or “Yes, new patients are welcomed.”

Similarly, when you say, “Your thoughts are welcomed,” you’re using “welcome” as a verb (a past participle in this case).

On the other hand, in sentences like “I felt welcome” or “He’s welcome to visit” or “The rain was welcome” or “She gave welcome advice,” the word is an adjective meaning received gladly or giving pleasure.

It’s this adjectival sense that we use when we say “You’re welcome” in reply to “Thank you.”

Dictionaries don’t usually define the adjective “welcome” in this idiomatic usage. The Oxford English Dictionary, for example, describes “You’re welcome” simply as “a polite formula used in response to an expression of thanks.”

In case you missed it, a recent item on The Grammarphobia Blog discussed the history of “You’re welcome.”

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Q: How do you punctuate a sentence that ends with a question asked about a question? Example: Was it Tina who cried, “What next?” Is a second question mark required for the sentence itself? Does it go outside the final quotation marks?

A: If a sentence ends with a question within a question, you don’t need two question marks.

As for where the question mark goes – right after the final quotation marks or just inside – that depends on which question the writer wishes to emphasize.

In your example, I’d punctuate it, as you do, like this: Was it Tina who cried, “What next?” This is a close call, and some might prefer to do it the other way: Was it Tina who cried, “What next”?

The book Words Into Type (3d ed.), by Skillin, Gay, and others, gives these two examples, which I’ve simplified somewhat.

(1) Has it ever occurred to you that she might retort, “Dangerous for whom”?

(2) How many of you have heard the question, “Which is the more important, heredity or environment?”

You can see that the writer has chosen to emphasize the overall question in #1, and the interior question in #2.

You can apply the same principle to sentences that mix exclamations and questions. Which do you go with, the exclamation point or the question mark? I’ll invent examples of both:

(1) Did I just hear “Abandon ship!” (The exclamation is emphasized.)

(2) Why in heaven’s name did you shout, “Wake up”? (The question is emphasized.)

This is a matter of judgment, and forces the writer to stop and think a bit. But don’t use both marks.

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Q: Re your house/home post, I searched Google on the same subject, and had almost 19 million responses for “single family home” vs. only 2.5 million or so for “single family house.” One reason may be the influence of realtors (I don’t use the capital R and trademark symbol they demand) who prefer anything but “house” – “home,” “property,” “product,” “unit,” etc. But there’s also something else going on. I searched for the two words as the number of bedrooms increased, and found a clear preference for “house” over “home” when the size (and, thus, price) rose. Fascinating! I guess when you’ve got money, you don’t need to avoid a down-to-earth word and use one with airs. My attempt at scientific analysis!

A: This is fascinating stuff.

I think your conclusion is right. People with money aren’t hesitant to refer to their dwellings as houses – there may even be some reverse snobbery here.

Think of those humongous castles and mansions in Newport, RI, that their owners insist on calling cottages!

Understatement or reverse hyperbole becomes a form of snobbery: “We have a little place in the country,” said Commodore Vanderbilt.

On the other hand, someone who’s less secure financially (and perhaps less secure in other ways) avoids the no-nonsense word “house” and prefers the more affected term beloved of people who sell houses – excuse me, realtors.

It’s like the English-speaking social-climber who calls his table napkin a serviette.

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Q: From the “Makes Me Wanna Holler” file . . . the rampant misuse of the word “acronym” for “abbreviation.” The latest example? The official report about the collapse of 7 World Trade Center on 9/11 has a list of “acronyms and abbreviations” in which most of the former belong with the latter. Should we launch a campaign, have bumper stickers printed?

A: I like the subject line of your email. In fact, I like it so much that I’m borrowing it for the title of this blog item about the misuse of the word “acronym.”

Now, on to the subject at hand. Bumper stickers wouldn’t hurt, but I’m not sure they would do much good either. More and more people are using the word “acronym” loosely to refer to abbreviations.

Is this legit? Not exactly. An acronym is a kind of abbreviation, but not all abbreviations are acronyms. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an acronym as a word formed from the initial letters of other words.

Examples: “radar” (“radio detection and ranging”), “laser” (“light amplification by the stimulated emission of radiation”), “NATO” (“North Atlantic Treaty Organization”).

The key word in that definition is “word.” An acronym is an actual spoken word, while an abbreviation like “FBI,” “LA,” or “Fla.” is a shortened form of a word or phrase.

The American-Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed.) have definitions similar to the one in the OED.

But here’s breaking news (at least for me): The latest edition of Merriam-Webster’s (the 11th) has added this meaning: “an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters.”

Although M-W notes that this new sense of “acronym” is less important than the more established one, I wouldn’t be surprised if it grows in importance in future editions of the dictionary.

The term “acronym,” formed from Greek words for tip and name, is relatively new. The first published reference in the OED is from a 1943 issue of the journal American Notes and Queries: “Words made up of initial letters or syllables of other words … called by the name acronym.”

I’d hate to lose this original meaning of the word. It’s clear, precise, and says something that no other word does. English is a democracy, however, and the majority rules. I have only one vote, but I cast it for calling an acronym an acronym.

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Q: Is it just me, or is the phrase “in order to” always worthless, with a simple “to” sufficing?

A: Not so fast. Although the phrase “in order to” is often a wordy way of saying “to,” it sometimes helps clarify a sentence where “to” alone can be ambiguous.

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage gives this example from a 1958 letter by James Thurber: “I had to borrow $2,500 from Elliot Nugent, and damn near left The New Yorker for Paramount Pictures in order to live.”

The full phrase makes it clear that Thurber meant he nearly went to work for Paramount to make enough money to live, not simply to live, say, in Beverly Hills.

Bryan Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, says “in order to” is most often needed with an infinitive “when another infinitive is nearby in the sentence.”

Like you, many usage authorities have condemned ”in order to” as verbose, but the phrase has a long, respectable history.

In fact, the first published reference for it used before a verb is in the 1609 Douay-Rheims translation of the Old Testament, according to the Oxford English Dictionary:

“These are they that speak to Pharao, king of Egypt, in order to bring out the children of Israel from Egypt.”

A more recent reference, of course, can be found in the Preamble to the United States 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 defence, 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.”

The OED also has citations, dating back to 1526, for “in order to” used with nouns and noun phrases to mean “with regard to,” “to bring about,” or “for the purpose of.”

This usage is now obsolete, but here’s a 16th-century example of the phrase used to mean “for the purpose of”: “The ryches of the worlde hath no goodness: but in order to man.”

Back to your question: “in order to” is definitely legitimate to clarify an ambiguous sentence. But even when clarity is not an issue, you should let your ear decide whether to use a simple verb or the whole enchilada. If you have a tin ear, however, keep it short.

I’ve had several blog items in the past about redundant (and not so redundant) expressions. Here’s the latest entry, which includes links to the others.

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Q: Which is correct: “Give it to whomever needs it” or “Give it to whoever needs it”? In other words, is “whomever” the object of the preposition “to,” or is it the subject of the verb “needs”? Or does it matter?

A: To answer your last question first, yes it does matter, especially in formal writing when your English should be at its best. (I’ll get to speech and informal writing later.)

The most important point to remember in this “who” vs. ”whom” business is that “who” (or “whoever”) does something to “whom” (or “whomever”). In other words, “who” is a subject like “he,” and “whom” is an object like “him.”

Although a preposition (a positioning word like “to”) is often followed by “whom” or “whomever,” that’s not always the case.

Sometimes a preposition is followed by a clause that begins with “who” or “whoever.” (A clause is a group of words with its own subject and verb.)

Here’s an example from my grammar book Woe Is I: “After the crap game, Nathan was confused about who owed him money.”

As for your first two questions, “whoever” is the subject of a clause, so the correct sentence is “Give it to whoever needs it.”

Again, this is for when you want your English to be at its best. In conversation and informal writing, “who” (or “whoever”) is gaining acceptance at the beginning of a sentence or a clause.

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Q: Please help. Endless frustration – unable to find where “knick,” the English slang term for prison, originated. Thanks so much.

A: Oops, it’s “nick,” not “knick.” That’s why you’re having so much trouble.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the use of the noun “nick” in the sense of a prison, especially one at a police station, is of Australian origin. The first published reference is from The Sydney Slang Dictionary (1882), which defines “the nick” as a “gaol.”

But that’s just the beginning of the story. The verb “nick” has been used since the 16th century in the sense of to trick, cheat, or defraud. The first reference in the OED is from a 1576 work by the English dramatist George Whetstone: “I neuer nickt the poorest of his pay, / But if hee lackt, hee had before his day.”

And the verb has been used since the 17th century to mean to catch unawares or apprehend. The earliest citation for this usage is from The Prophetess, a play from around 1640 by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger: “We must be sometimes wittie, to nick a knave.”

Since the early 19th century, the verb “nick” has also meant to steal or pilfer. Here’s an example from an 1826 collection of English and Scottish poems: “Some there ha’e gotten their pouches picket, / Their siller an’ their watches nickit.”

Last but not least, “Old Nick” (later “Nick”) has been a name for the Devil since the mid-17th century. The OED says there’s no convincing explanation of how “Nick” came to be associated with deviltry.

One theory, according to the dictionary, is that the name “Nick” comes from Machiavelli’s first name, Niccolò. Another theory is that “Nick” is a shortened form of “iniquity.”

Whatever the origin of this usage, it’s not surprising that a word with such shady connections should come to mean a place where shady characters are held by the police.

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Q: I have questions about “cannot” and “can not.” Is there a difference? If so, then how is each to be used? If not, which is the preferred usage?

A: The short answer is that you’ll almost always be right with one word and wrong with two.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines “cannot” as “the ordinary modern way of writing can not.”

There are only three situations in which it would be correct to separate the “can” and the “not”:

(1) when you want to emphasize “not”: “Maybe you can spend $500 for an opera ticket, but I most certainly can not.” (This would be better written as “… but I most certainly canNOT.”)

(2) when “not” is part of another expression (like “not only … but also”): “She can not only hit high C, but also break a glass while doing it.”

(3) when expressing an ability NOT to do something: “The true opera fanatic can not fall asleep even after six hours of Wagner.” (This is a rarely used construction. The idea would be better expressed as  “can stay awake.”)

Otherwise, the common convention in standard English is to use “can’t” in casual speech or writing, and “cannot” in formal writing.

Interestingly, this isn’t a particularly new usage. There are only five examples of “can not” in Shakespeare, according to RhymeZone’s Shakespeare search tool, but hundreds upon hundreds of “cannot” examples, like this one from King Claudius in Hamlet: “You cannot speak of reason to the Dane.”

In fact, “cannot” apparently showed up in English around 1400, according to the OED, while “can not” didn’t make its first appearance until 1451. And “cannot” appears far more often in the dictionary’s citations.

In Old English, the negative of the verb “can” was ne can, as in this excerpt, circa 1000, from the Gospel of Matthew: Ne can ic eow (“I cannot know you”).

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Q: During the Olympics, the father of a Canadian field hockey player said he’d accept any “credos” for being his son’s first coach. Obviously, he inadvertently melded “credit” and “kudos.” Is there a special term for this kind of conflation?

A: Yes, it’s called a portmanteau or portmanteau word (from the French-derived word for a large suitcase with two hinged compartments). Humpty Dumpty,
a k a Lewis Carroll, coined the term in Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871).

The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a conversation in which Alice asks Humpty to explain “slithy” and other words in Carroll’s nonsense poem Jabberwocky. Here’s Humpty’s reply:

Well, “slithy” means “lithe and slimy.” “Lithe” is the same as “active.” You see it’s like a portmanteau – there are two meanings packed up into one word.

A few common portmanteau words that have made it into dictionaries are “brunch” (from “breakfast” + “lunch”), “motel” (“motor” + “hotel”), and “smog” (“smoke” + “fog”).

As for “credos,” it’s already in dictionaries, unblended, as the plural of “credo,” or creed. It comes from the Latin credo (“I believe”), the first word of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.

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Q: What do you think about using “that” or “which” or “this” to refer to a general concept in a previous sentence or clause if there doesn’t seem to be any ambiguity? For example: “She learned to drive in England, which made it confusing when she came to the United States.”

A: I have no problem with this usage, and neither does Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage. To summarize: “The use of pronominal this (and that, which, and it as well) to refer broadly to a preceding idea, topic, sentence, or paragraph … is considered quite respectable” (p. 903).

In fact, this usage is not only quite respectable now, but it has been since Anglo-Saxon days, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED has published references going back to around the year 893 for the pronoun “this” used in reference “to a fact, act, or occurrence, or a statement or question, mentioned or implied in the preceding context.”

You’d probably find it hard to read the Old English citations in the dictionary’s entry for “this” used as a demonstrative pronoun (a pronoun that points out something).

But here’s one from Lindley Murray’s influential English Grammar (1825): “Bodies which have no taste, and no power affecting the skin, may, notwithstanding this, act upon organs which are more delicate.”

As for “that,” the OED has published references for the usage from around 855. Here’s one from Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act III, scene 1) that I’m sure you’re familiar with: “To be, or not to be: that is the question.”

Finally, we come to the use of “which” to refer to a previous circumstance or situation. Although this usage isn’t quite as firmly established as the other two, the OED has citations going back to 1390, with examples from Shakespeare, Dickens, and Henry James.

Here’s a citation in Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (1836): “The two Miss Crumptons proceeded to the Adelphi at the appointed time next day, dressed, of course, in their best style, and looking as amiable as they possibly could – which, by-the-bye, is not saying much for them.”

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

Q: I once had a boss who insisted that “while” should be used only to indicate things that happen concurrently. Her favorite example of proper usage was “I looked on while the dog peed on the floor.” I didn’t argue, but I wondered if “while” was really incorrect when used in place of “although.”

A: The word “while” has been used since the 12th century to mean “during the time that” – the way your former boss insisted on using it.

But “while” has also been used since the 16th century to mean “although” or “whereas.” The Oxford English Dictionary defines this sense as meaning “at the same time that (implying opposition or contrast).”

According to the OED, this usage first appeared in print in Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost (1588), where Biron says to Ferdinand: “As, painfully to pore upon a book / To seek the light of truth; while truth the while / Doth falsely blind the eyesight of his look.”

The first “while” in the example above means although or whereas, and the second means at the same time. Since “while” can have different meanings, you have to be careful that you’re not using it ambiguously. Here’s a caveat from my grammar book Woe Is I:

“If you use while in place of although, be sure there’s no chance it could be misunderstood to mean ‘during the time that.’ You could leave the impression that unlikely things were happening at the same time, as in: While Dopey sleeps late, he enjoys vigorous exercise. Only if Dopey is a sleepwalker!”

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Q: I was taught to use “so” rather than “as” at the beginning of a negative comparison like the one in this sentence: “She’s not so tall as her sister.” Is this rule to be abandoned? Please tell me that it has not gone the way of “None of them is here,” meaning “Not one of them is here.”

A: It’s perfectly acceptable to use either “as … as” or “so … as” in negative constructions, according to modern usage guides. Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, for example, says a writer “can choose the one that sounds better in any given instance.”

This isn’t a new thing, either. Writers have been using “as … as” as well as “so … as” in negative statements since the 18th century. Merriam-Webster’s says the usage can be found in the writings of Swift, Johnson, Boswell, and others.

In 1785, a grammarian named J. Mennye decreed that only “so … as” could be used in negative expressions. Although the idea caught on with language authorities, writers continued to use whichever construction sounded best to them. In fact, some writers used both of them.

In 1795, the historian Henry Adams used “so … as” in a negative comparison of 13th-century cathedrals and 15th-century chateaus. But he used “as … as” negatively a year later: “The Church never was as rotten as the stock-exchange now is.”

It wasn’t until well into the first half of the 20th century that usage guides began to accept “as … as” in negative expressions, according to Merriam-Webster’s.

Today, that’s the view of the leading usage guides, including Garner’s Modern American Usage, The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, and Merriam-Webster’s.

Interestingly, both “as” and “so” are derived from the same Old English word, alswa, which was used in comparisons eight or more centuries ago pretty much the way we use “as” these days: alswa brihht alswa gold (as bright as gold).

As for “none,” many people have been mistakenly taught that it always means “not one.” Not so! I discuss this misconception on the Grammar Myths page of Grammarphobia.com.

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Q: I believe language is always changing, and the rules of English are changing too. But is it OK now to use the verb “suspect” in place of “expect”?

A: Yes and no. It all depends on how the word is used.

The verb “suspect” can mean (1) to distrust, (2) to imagine to be true, or (3) to believe guilty without proof.

The verb “expect” can (among other things) mean (1) to anticipate, (2) to consider probable or true, (3) to suppose, or (4) to be pregnant.

If the words are being used in sense 2, then “suspect” and “expect” are pretty much interchangeable: “I suspect [or expect] that the etching is not a genuine Rembrandt.”

It strikes me that “suspect,” when used in sense 2, suggests something negative. But neither The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) nor Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) seems to agree with me.

The Oxford English Dictionary, though, makes note of this negative association. It says the verb “suspect” has been used to mean “expect” since the early 16th century, usually in the sense of anticipating something dreadful.

In a 1509 allegorical poem cited by the OED, for example, a knight prepares to do battle against a fierce giant: “Makynge me redy, for I did suspecte / That the great gyaunte unto me wolde hast.”

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Q: English is my second language and I really love it, but I can’t understand some things. For example, I don’t see the point of this song lyric: “You’re everything but mine.” Does it mean “You’re all mine” or “You’re everything but not mine”? I checked my grammar notes and I couldn’t find an explanation of this usage of the conjunction “but.” I need help..

A: I can see why you’re confused. “But” is a tricky little word that can be either a conjunction or a preposition. As a conjunction, it expresses opposition or contradiction. As a preposition, it means, among other things, except.

In that lyric from the Backstreet Boys’ song “Everything But Mine,” it can be a conjunction or a preposition, depending on how you look at the sentence.

If it’s a conjunction, the Backstreet Boys are saying, “You’re everything, but you’re not mine.” (The words “you’re not” are understood though not actually present.)

If it’s a preposition, the group is saying, “You’re everything except mine.” (In other words, “You’re everything with the exception of being mine.)

By the way, the word “but” has been both a conjunction and a preposition for a thousand years or more. Which came first? The preposition.

I hope this helps!

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[Note: An updated post about “jury-rigged,” “jerry-rigged,” and “jerry-built” appeared on the blog on Dec. 13, 2019.]

Q: Help me, Rhonda! I am so tired of coming across the term “jerry-rigged.” Writers great and small, learned and not so learned, constantly get this wrong. The term is either “jury-rigged,” referring to a makeshift emergency repair, or “jerry-built,” meaning thrown together with whatever’s handy. These terms are not the same.

A: I don’t think Rhonda will be of much help on this one.

The term “jerry-rigged” has already made it into both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) – without any warning labels.

American Heritage says  the verb “jerry-rig” is an alteration of “jury-rig” influenced by “jerry-build.” Merriam-Webster’s says the participial adjective “jerry-rigged” is probably a blend of “jury-rigged” and “jerry-built.” Thus language changes.

In fact, this “new” jury-rigged (or jerry-built) phrase isn’t all that new. It’s been with us since 1896, according to our searches of old newspaper databases, and means built in a crude or improvised manner.

Of the three expressions, “jury-rigged” is by far the oldest, with roots going back to the early 17th century, when a “jury-mast” was a temporary mast put up to replace one that was broken or carried away, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The earliest published reference in the OED for “jury-rigged” is in a 1788 travel book: “The ships to be jury rigged: that is, to have smaller masts, yards, and rigging, than would be required for actual service.” (Merriam-Webster’s has an earlier example from 1782 on its website.)

The writer used the expression as a passive verb.  To “jury-rig” now means to improvise or do something in a makeshift way.

The language sleuth Hugh Rawson, in his book Devious Derivations, lists eight of the more imaginative theories about the origin of “jerry-built,” including suggestions that “jerry” refers to the biblical walls of Jericho, the prophet Jeremiah, or German soldiers.

I’m not ready to use “jerry-rigged” myself, but with 56,000 hits on Google, it’s holding its own with “jerry-built” (79,000) and “jury-rigged” (123,000).

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Q: Would the adjective be “feverous” of “feverish” in these lines from a poem I’m writing: “tree branches wave arms / cooling the feverous spell”? The meaning is hot, as in the weather.

A: I’d stick with “feverous” if I were you. It’s perfectly legitimate for a poet to use an unusual, off-beat, or archaic adjective in a passage like that one.

Although “feverous” isn’t common in current usage, it was once used routinely and interchangeably with “feverish.” Both “feverous” and “feverish” first appeared in print (in fact, in the same book) in 1398, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED defines “feverous” as “ill of fever; affected by fever” or “apt to cause a fever.” Shakespeare used it in Measure for Measure (1603), where Isabella says to Claudio: “I quake, lest thou a feavorous life shouldst entertaine.”

The latest citations in the OED are all from the 19th century. Here’s Tennyson, in a line from a sickbed scene in his poem “Enoch Arden” (1864): “After a night of feverous wakefulness.”

“Feverish” was used the same way as “feavorous” for the first few hundred years, but in the 1630s “feaverish” gained a figurative meaning: “excited, fitful, restless, now hot now cold.”

It may be that this added dimension is responsible for its eventual domination over “feverous,” which is now rarely used. (“Feverous” doesn’t appear at all in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. It’s listed in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed., simply as meaning “feverish.”)

So if you’d like to give your poem an archaic flavor and restrict the meaning to “hot,” then “feverous” would be appropriate. “Feverous” merely means hot, though “feverish” has that added meaning of restless and fitful. (The author of the poem is Merilee Kaufman.)

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Q: My daughter is now a Shakespeare professor. She credits me for her love of language, which gives me nakhes. You know that Yiddishism, I assume?

A: Yes, but I’ve usually seen it spelled naches. I love Leo Rosten’s advice on how to pronounce it: like a Scot would pronounce “Loch Ness” (more or less).

It means, as you know, proud pleasure, particularly that special joy a parent gets from the achievements of a child.

The linguist James A. Matisoff describes naches (he spelled is nakhes like you) as “one of the richest of all life’s treasures.” He says it’s “a peculiarly Jewish concept that is as hard to render in English as Chinese xiào (which usually gets translated as ‘filial piety’).”

Matisoff, in his book Blessings, Curses, Hopes, and Fears: Psycho-Ostensive Expressions in Yiddish, discusses the kind of childhood accomplishments that can give a parent pleasure:

“As far as nakhes-providing potential goes, anything may be an ‘accomplishment’ (growing one’s permanent teeth, becoming bar-mitsve, marrying a Jewish spouse, playing the violin for company, etc.).”

A Shakespeare professor, that’s an accomplishment. Mazel tov!

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Q: I’m usually a pretty good writer at school, but for some reason I always use “worse” when I should use “worst” and vice versa. I’m not sure why I do that, but do you know any rules or tricks that would make it easier for me to remember?

A: The words “bad” … “worse” … “worst” are parallel to their opposites: “good” … “better”… “best.” It might help to think of them this way.

Another way is to remember that “worse” (like “better”) is what’s known as a “comparative,” a term used to compare things. It’s the comparative form of “bad.” So, one thing can be “worse” than another (or a group of other things).

But “worst” (like “best”) is what’s known as a “superlative” term. It’s the superlative form of “bad.” It measures one thing against all others and finds it the “worst” of the lot.

I hope this helps!

Before I leave this subject, I’d like to discuss an idiomatic expression seen in many guises, including “if worse comes to worse,” “if worse comes to worst,” and “if worst comes to worst.”

The expression began life in the 16th century as “if the worst come to the worst,” and it meant roughly “if the worst thing were to happen in the worst way.”

The earliest published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1597, but here’s a later, more interesting one from a 1667 Dryden comedy: “Why, if the worst come to the worst, he leaves you an honest woman.”

The Mavens’ Word of the Day, a Random House website, has examples of the “worst/worst” version from the works of Fielding, Charlotte Brontë, Mark Twain, and H.G. Wells.

The earliest citation in the OED for the “worse/worst” expression is from Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe: “If worse came to the worst, I could but die.”

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage speculates that the “worse/worst” variant is the result of a “desire to make the phrase more logical.” But since when do idiomatic phrases have to be logical?

Nowadays, the two most common versions are “if worse comes to worse” and “if worst comes to worst.” A distant third, we find after a bit of googling, is “if worse comes to worst.”

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Q: As a musician, I’m truly bugged when I hear sophisticated music hosts on NPR pronounce “prelude” as PREL-yude. The correct pronunciation should be PRAY-lood. The “yude” version is the fingernails on the blackboard for me!

A: I’m very sorry to hear that NPR music hosts are using the pretentious (to my ear) pronunciation of “prelude” as PREL-yude. I’m not surprised, though, since dictionaries accept that pronunciation. EEK!

In fact, the first pronunciations in both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) are “yude” versions.

Well, I don’t care what the dictionaries say. Anybody who says PREL-yude went to an elocution school for twits.

The English word “prelude,” which was borrowed directly from the French prélude in the 16th century, refers to a musical or other introduction. It ultimately comes from the Latin praeludere (to play before): this combines the prefix prae (before) and ludere (to play).

According to my old unabridged Webster’s New International Dictionary (2nd ed.) from 1954, the second syllable was originally pronounced “lood” (yes, including the letter l). The pronunciation PREL-yude is a case of sloppy syllabification, if you ask me.

In case you’re interested, the Oxford English Dictionary‘s first published reference for the word “prelude” is in a 1548 English translation of Erasmus’s writings on the Gospel of Mark: “They shall only be preludes of the ende [that] is to come.”

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Q: I believe “He’s shorter than I” is grammatically correct, but it sounds awkward to my ear. Is “shorter than me” a crime punishable by heaven knows what?

A: No, there’s nothing wrong with it. But there’s more to this subject than meets the eye. Here’s the story.

A pedant may tell you that “than” is only used properly as a conjunction, a word that can link one clause with another.

Here’s an example of “than” as a conjunction: “You ate more than I did.” (There, “I did” is a clause, a group of words that includes both a subject and its verb.)

The pedant would also say that even if the verb (“did”) were left out, what follows “than” is a clause in which the verb is understood, so the pronoun must be in the subject case: “You ate more than I.”  But the pedant would be behind the times.

Modern grammarians (and lexicographers, the people who write dictionaries) recognize that “than” is not only a conjunction but a preposition. And prepositions are normally followed by object pronouns (like “me” or “her”) rather than a subject pronoun (like “I” or “she”).

So in a simple comparison, where there’s no verb (and thus no clause) after “than,” you have a choice: “I” or “me.” You’re free to use whichever sounds more natural to your ear.

In her book Woe Is I (4th ed.), Pat uses the examples “Trixie is fatter than I” and “Trixie is fatter than me.” In modern English, both both are correct and they mean exactly the same thing. A sentence with “me” is treating “than” as a preposition; a sentence with “I” is treating “than” as a conjunction.

Some people consider “than I” a little stuffy and old-fashioned, and they’re right. But it’s not more correct.

The truth is that great writers have used “than” as both a preposition and a conjunction since the 16th century, according to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.

You can find prepositional uses of “than” in the works of Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, and others. Here’s an example from “To Stella, Visiting Me in Sickness,” a 1720 poem by Swift: “And, though the Heaven’s severe Decree / She suffers hourly more than me.”

In fact, until the mid-18th century, nobody seemed to mind that these writers were using “than” as a preposition.

Then along came Robert Lowth, the Latin scholar who helped popularize the myth that it’s wrong to end a sentence with a preposition. In a 1762 grammar book, Lowth decreed that “than” should be treated as a conjunction, not a preposition, before a personal pronoun.

Despite Lowth and his followers, millions of educated people use “than” as a preposition and you can too. There’s nothing wrong with it, even in formal contexts.

But one caveat. Sometimes a simple comparison using “than” can create ambiguity. Take these examples, also from Pat’s book: “Trixie loves spaghetti more than I” and “Trixie loves spaghetti more than me.”

The first, “Trixie loves spaghetti more than I,” clearly means she loves it “more than I do.” But “Trixie loves spaghetti more than me” could mean either (1) she loves spaghetti more than I do, or (2) she loves it more than she loves me.

If ending a sentence with “than [I or me]” could cause any confusion, just  restore the missing verb: “Trixie loves spaghetti more than I do.”

[Note: This post was updated on Feb. 15, 2022.]

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Q: I’m often confused about whether to use “also” or “too” in a sentence, and exactly where to put it. Should I write “Include Jim in the email too,” or “Also include Jim in the email,” or “Include Jim too in the email,” or whatever?

A: I can see why you’re confused. These two little words can be confusing in the best of circumstances.

Traditionally, the terms “also” and “too” – meaning “in addition” or “besides” – are adverbs (words that modify or describe verbs).

Some usage or style guides are critical of placing them at the beginning of a sentence, but Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage finds nothing wrong with the practice.

My ear objects to beginning a sentence with “too.” But if it sounds OK to you, go ahead and do it. As Merriam-Webster’s puts it, “the best guide in matters such as this is your own sense of idiom.”

My only concern with using “also” and “too” is the potential for ambiguity. What exactly does the following sentence mean? I also emailed Jim.

Does it mean that I sent an email to Jim in addition to other people? Or does it mean that I, in addition to other people, sent an email to Jim?

In speech, we usually emphasize the words “also” and “too” to clarify our meaning. But in writing we have to be more precise when using these words.

So, think of what you want to say and then make sure you’re saying it, either by putting “also” or “too” in the most logical place, or by adding a few extra words. I’m sorry that I can’t give you a more definitive answer.

As for your examples, all three are clear enough, but the third one sounds clunky to me. This is a matter of taste, though, so let your own ear be the judge.

On a related issue, some language experts object to using “also” as a conjunction (or linking word) in place of “and.” The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) describes the usage as a regionalism and gives this example: “It’s a pretty cat, also friendly.”

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Q: My dictionary says the English word “surname” comes from the French sur (“over”) and nom (“name”). I speak French, but I can’t for the life of me understand why a “surname” (or “over-name”) should be a family name. In French, a family name is a nom de famille, a given name is a pénom, and a nickname is a surnom. Would you kindly explain the logic behind “surname”?

A: We got the word “surname” from French – actually the Anglo-French spoken by the Norman rulers of England – probably before 1300, according to The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.

The English word originally referred to a title or epithet or nickname added on to someone’s name. The first published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary, dating from around 1330, refers to a knight whose “surname was: hardi of hert.”

Within a few decades, however, the word was being used to refer to a family name, perhaps because of a misunderstanding about the etymology of the term.

The word was sometimes spelled “sirename” or “sirname” or “sir-name,” suggesting that the “sur” of “surname” was thought by some to be related to “sire.”

As for your question, there may not be much logic behind why a surname is a family name in English, but the same can be said for a lot of idiomatic English words and expressions.

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Q: A recent guest on WNYC kept referring to “a home or an apartment.” Since when is an apartment not a home? I thought “home” meant the place you live. And yet many people use the word as if it were synonymous with a house. As an apartment dweller, I find this unsettling; it seems to suggest that I am homeless.

A: The noun “home” has many different meanings, from the headquarters of a company to a residence for the elderly to the place where a cursor hangs out in the upper-left-hand corner of a computer screen.

But the primary meaning in modern dictionaries is the place where one lives, whether a house, an apartment, an Airstream, a Quonset hut, or an igloo.

The noun “home” has been with us since Anglo-Saxon days. In its earliest published reference, from around the year 900, the word meant a village or town – that is, a group of dwellings. But it soon came to mean a dwelling place, especially one’s principal residence, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Over the last century or so, according to citations in the OED, the word “home” has been used increasingly in place of “house.” Although this usage is most common in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the dictionary says, it is spreading elsewhere in the English-speaking world.

Interestingly, the first published reference I see in the OED for “home” used to mean “house” comes not from a North American or an Australasian, but from the 19th century English poet Felicia Hemans.

The stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand!
Amidst their tall ancestral trees,
O’er all the pleasant land.

The poem, which was first published in 1827 in Blackwood’s magazine, was parodied by Noël Coward in his 1938 musical Operette:

The Stately Homes of England,
How beautiful they stand,
To prove the upper classes
Have still the upper hand.

Is this usage legit? Well, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) lists “house” as one of the meanings of “home.” But The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) doesn’t include this sense in its entry for “home.”

Bryan Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, recommends against using “home” to refer to a house. “In the best usage,” Garner writes, “the structure is always called a house.” I’ll second that.

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Q: I often hear people use “as” to mean “because,” as in the sentence, “We have to clean out our basement as we will need more room for your things.” This usage sounds horribly stuffy, though I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong per se. Are there any rules or recommendations for using “as” vs. “because” vs. “since”?

A: Both Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) say the conjunction “as” can mean “since” or “because” or “for that reason.”

But American Heritage warns that this sense of the word can be confused with the use of the conjunction “as” to mean “at the same time that”: “She was finishing the painting as I walked into the room.”

The dictionary recommends, therefore, that “as” should be preceded by a comma when used in place of “because” in the middle of a sentence: “She won’t be coming, as we didn’t invite her.”

When beginning a sentence with “as,” according to American Heritage, “one should take care that it is clear whether as is used to mean ‘because’ or ‘at the same time that.’”

The dictionary gives this example of a confusing sentence: “As they were leaving, I walked to the door.“ It’s unclear whether “I walked to the door” because, or at the same time that, “they were leaving.”

But back to your question. Dictionaries may say it’s OK to use “as” in place of “because” or “since,” but that doesn’t mean a careful writer should do it.

Bryan A. Garner, in Garner’s Modern American Usage, says this usage “should generally be avoided” because “it may be misunderstood.” I’m with Garner on this, and I don’t think sticking a comma in front of “as” will do much good, no matter what the AH lexicographers think.

On the issue of “because” vs. “since,” some sticklers insist that “since” should be used only to indicate a time period, as in “I’ve been sick since you saw me last.” I disagree.

As I say in my grammar book Woe Is I, “since” can also mean “because” or “for the reason that,” as in this sentence: “Since you asked, I’ll tell you.” People have been using “since” in this way for 500 years.

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Q: Hi, guys. Is it true that the term “guy” is derived from Guy Fawkes?

A: Yes, it’s true, according to John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins, but there were a few twists and turns along the way.

To begin at the beginning, the word “guy” first appeared in English in the mid-1300s, meaning a guide or a conductor, but that usage is now considered obsolete.

In the early 1600s, the term came to mean a rope used to guide or secure something on a ship. It still has that nautical meaning today. And we often refer to guide wires as “guy” wires.

So who’s responsible for the “guy” that refers to a man or a fellow? The culprit, as Ayto points out, is indeed Guy Fawkes, one of the leaders of the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament in England.

The term “guy” later came to mean an effigy of Guy Fawkes paraded through the streets and burned on the anniversary of the plot. The first published reference for this usage in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1806.

By the 1830s, the word “guy” was being used for a person of grotesque appearance, especially someone dressed in a bizarre way. And a decade later, bingo, it meant a man or a fellow – that is, a regular guy. (These days, even gals are often referred to as “guys.”)

Although the OED says the use of guy to mean man or fellow is of American origin, the first citation in the dictionary is from Swell’s Night Guide (1847), a book about nightlife in London: “I can’t tonight, for I am going to be seduced by a rich old Guy.”

The OED doesn’t go as far as Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins in linking this usage to Guy Fawkes, but it says the “earliest examples may be influenced” by the grotesque sense of the word “guy.”

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Q: When I got the New York Times Book Review recently, I was surprised to see this headline on the cover: “Who Do You Love?” Shouldn’t it be “whom,” since it’s the object of a verb? I know there’s no longer much distinction made in informal usage, but I never thought this would apply to the Book Review.

A: You’re right – “whom” would be technically correct. But it would look stuffy in that headline and raise more eyebrows than “who.”

I used to write headlines myself at the Book Review, and I’d guess the headline writer in this case was aiming at a colloquial feel. In colloquial English, “who” is often used to begin sentences and clauses that should technically start with “whom.”

Besides, the expression “Who do you love?” is a pretty well established idiom by now. (What famous rock band hasn’t recorded Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You Love?”)

I talk about this more liberal use of “who” in a section of my grammar book Woe Is I called “A Cure for the Whom-Sick” (page 9 of the third edition) and in the section on grammar myths (page 215).

In a blog entry last fall, I discussed taking liberties with “I/me” and “who/whom.” And here’s a link to the online version of the grammar myths section in Woe Is I.

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[Note: An updated post about “the whole nine yards” appeared on Dec. 14, 2016.]

Q: You made a comment on the Leonard Lopate Show that the phrase “the whole nine yards” came from the space program. I am aware of two other possible origins, one involving machine guns and the other cement mixers. I would be interested in hearing more about your space-program reference.

A: Both of the supposed origins you mention for “the whole nine yards” have been disproved, along with many, many others (involving nuns’ habits, Scottish kilts, ships’ sails, shrouds, garbage trucks, a maharaja’s sash, a hangman’s noose, and more).

I discussed this once before on the blog. But that item was written in the fall of 2006, and now it’s time for an update.

Language researchers have long scoured archives in an effort to find a clue to the origin of this expression, and one of them may have finally found it. Last year, a philologist named Sam Clements discovered what is so far the earliest printed reference to “the whole nine yards.”

In a posting to the Linguist List, the American Dialect Society’s mailing list, Clements reported finding the expression in an April 18, 1964, article about lingo in the space program. The article, in the San Antonio Express and News, said: “Give ’em the whole nine yards” means an item-by-item report on any project.

Of course, questions remain. Why “nine yards” instead of, say, “ten pounds” or whatever? All we know (as of this writing, anyway!) is that the expression appears to be an Americanism from the 1960s and a product of the space program.

I’ll keep readers of the blog posted on any late-breaking developments!

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Q: I know what a “mash up” is – a digital recording that combines elements from different musical works – but I can’t find the term in my dictionary. What’s going on here?

A: Not all terms make it into all dictionaries, especially not all at once.

I can’t find the expression “mash up” (or “mash-up” or “mashup”) in the two references I consult most: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

But I do see an interesting draft entry for “mash-up” in the Oxford English Dictionary, with a published reference for the term going back a century and a half, well before anyone ever dreamed of making digital mash ups.

In the earliest citation, as well as a couple of recent ones, the expression meant a “mixture or fusion of disparate elements,” according to the OED. A character in an 1859 play, for instance, is said to speak “a mash up of Indian, French, and Mexican.”

The OED says the term was rarely used before the late 20th century, when it took on its musical meaning. Here’s how the dictionary defines the term now:

“A fusion of disparate musical elements. Now usually: a piece of popular music created by merging the elements of two or more existing songs using computer technology and production techniques, esp. one featuring the vocals of one song over the instrumental backing of another.”

The first published reference in the OED for this usage comes from a June, 1994, article in the Times of London: “So what is Jungle, this frantic, weirdly fragmented mash-up of eerie samples, dub bass lines, jittering snare drums, ragga chat and soul vocals and why should we care?”

The term, spelled “mashup,” has another meaning in computer technology – a Web page or application that combines data from two or more sources. Example: a real-estate site with data from MapQuest and a multiple listing service.

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Q: It seems to me that the unnecessary use of “sort of” has become ubiquitous. I’m not talking about saying something is “a sort of iPod,” which is another way of saying it’s like an iPod. I mean a sentence such as this: “It’s time to, sort of, fill up our car.” Why on earth would “sort of” be used like that?

A: I agree with you that the “sort of” in your second example is unnecessary. It’s similar to “you know,” “I mean,” “um,” and other superfluous words, phrases, and grunts that litter our speech. They’re sometimes called “fillers,” sometimes “verbal tics,” and they can become terrible habits once they get hold of you.

I’m one of the people who struggle not to say “you know” in every other sentence. I do my best to avoid it when I’m on WNYC, but once in a while I let loose a “you know” and get angry email in response! If you’d like to read more about these other verbal tics, check out my Sept. 7, 2006, blog item.

As for the superfluous “sort of,” A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, by Eric Partridge, describes it this way: in some people’s speech merely a verbal tic or hiccup, a “noise to keep the lines open,” with no more meaning than “er … um … er.”

The phrase “sort of” has been used since the 1500s to mean “kind of” or “type of” or “variety of” – the most common ways we use it today. Here’s an example from Milton’s Samson Agonistes (1671):

Have they not Sword-players, and ev’ry sort
Of Gymnic Artists, Wrestlers, Riders, Runners,
Juglers and Dancers, Antics, Mummers, Mimics,
But they must pick me out with shackles tir’d,
And over-labour’d at thir publick Mill,
To make them sport with blind activity?

The expression has been used since the late 18th century to mean imperfectly or somewhat or to express “hesitance, diffidence, or the like, on the speaker’s part,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Here’s a diffident example from Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903): “I’ll sort of borrow the money from my dad until I get on my own feet.”

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Q: Sometimes I see graffiti that adds to, or comments on, an actual sign. For example, someone once scribbled the following over the name “Yo-Yo Ma” on a sign at Lincoln Center: “How Sylvester Stallone summons his mother.”

A: I never saw the sign you mention, but I did read about it some years ago in the “Metropolitan Diary” column in the New York Times.

Speaking of Yo-Yo Ma, I was just listening to his recording of the Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello. Which reminds me of a joke I’ve seen online.

In one version, Steven Spielberg is making a movie about famous composers. He asks Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger which composers they want to portray. Stallone chooses Mozart and Schwarzenegger says, “I’ll be Bach.”

Seriously, your comment raises an interesting question about English usage: Is “graffiti” singular (as you used it) or plural?

The word comes from Italian, of course, where the singular is “graffito” and the plural is “graffiti.” And that’s the way it was when the word entered English in the mid-19th century, though it was primarily used in the plural.

The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary is from an 1852 book on archeology that describes Viking inscriptions in Scotland as forms “of what, it must be remembered, are mere graffiti.”

The first published reference in the OED for “graffiti” used as a singular noun comes from a May 28, 1967, article in the Chicago Tribune: “Graffiti was written in San Francisco, Berkeley … and Montreal.”

So what’s the scoop on “graffiti” today?

The main entry for the word in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) is entitled “graffito,” but a usage note says “graffiti is far more common than the singular form graffito and is mainly used as a singular noun in much the same way data is.”

Although the singular “graffito” is etymologically correct, American Heritage says, it “might strike some readers as pedantic outside an archaeological context.”

The dictionary goes on to say that there’s “no substitute for the singular use of graffiti when the word is used as a mass noun to refer to inscriptions in general.” It gives this example: “Graffiti is a major problem for the Transit Authority.”

Over the years, many foreign plurals have been Anglicized as singulars in English: “agenda,” “erotica,” “insignia,” “opera,” “stamina,” “trivia,” etc.

It’s time to admit that “graffiti” has joined other Italian plurals that now take singular verbs in English: “zucchini,” “fettuccine,” “spaghetti,” and so on.

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Q: During your last appearance on the Leonard Lopate Show, a caller corrected Leonard’s pronunciation of “imprimatur” (im-PRI-muh-tur). Not knowing what the word meant, I looked it up and found (in my Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary), that Leonard’s version was one of three acceptable pronunciations. Since this was near the end of the show, I was unable to call.

A: You’re right about Merriam-Webster’s. My 11th edition lists these three pronunciations: im-pri-MAH-tur, im-PRI-muh-tur, and im-PRI-muh-tyur.

But The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) lists only two acceptable pronunciations, im-pri-MAH-tur and im-pri-MAY-tur.

The Oxford English Dictionary has only one: im-pri-MAY-tuh. And the other British reference I consult the most, Longman’s Dictionary of Contemporary English, has two – im-pri-MAH-tuh and im-pri-MAY-tuh (it says Americans may pronounce the “r” at the end).

The score: 3-to-1 against im-PRI-muh-tur. But I’d go easy on Leonard, since M-W gives his version its imprimatur.

The word “imprimatur,” which means “let it be printed” in Latin, entered English in the 17th century, according to the OED. It comes from the verb imprimere (to press or imprint).

At first, an “imprimatur” was an official license to print a book. But by the end of the 17th century, it was being used figuratively for any sign of approval.

Here’s an example from a 1672 pamphlet by the poet-satirist Andrew Marvell: “As things of Buffoonery do commonly, they carry with them their own Imprimatur.”

The use of the word in a publishing sense is still around, but it’s primarily seen in the Roman Catholic Church, where an “imprimatur” is a declaration that a book is doctrinally or morally acceptable to be read by the Catholic faithful.

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