Tag: Linguistics

Q: I’d like to know whether the following sentence is correct: “I stayed there in front of the door, ruminating my sourness, until I heard them take their leave.” It feels to me as if it should be “ruminating on,” but my writing partner disagrees.

A: The verb “ruminate” can be transitive (“She’s ruminating her future”) as well as intransitive (“She’s ruminating” or “She’s ruminating on her future”).

The Oxford English Dictionary has published references for both usages going back to the 16th century. In fact, Shakespeare’s characters “ruminate” both transitively (with a direct object) and intransitively (without one).

In Titus Andronicus (1588), for example, Tamora, the Queen of the Goths, uses “ruminate” with the direct object “plots”: “Knock at his study, where, they say, he keeps, / To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge.”

In Henry VIII (1613), the Surveyor uses the word without a direct object: “The monk might be deceived; and that ’twas dangerous for him / To ruminate on this so far.”

The word “ruminate” is derived from the Latin ruminare (to chew the cud), and the English verb is still sometimes used that way: “The Holsteins are ruminating in the field.”

The cud, by the way, is the regurgitated grass chewed by those grazing Holsteins and other ruminants (sheep, goats, deer, etc.)

The word “ruminate” was first used in English in its literal — that is, bovine — sense in 1547, says the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

But it was used even earlier, as far back as 1533, to mean “turn over and over in the mind” or “meditate deeply upon,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

One last thing to chew on: The earliest published reference in the OED for the noun “rumination” is from Shakespeare. In As You Like It (1588-1600), Jaques tells Rosalind of “my travels, in which my often / rumination wraps me in a most humorous sadness.”

Are you puzzled by that reference to “humorous sadness”? In Shakespeare’s day, “humorous” (derived from the bodily humors or fluids) meant moody, fanciful, or peevish.

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Q: I’ve wondered about this ever since I was a schoolchild many years ago: When did we start pronouncing “Christ” with a long “i”?

A: In Old English and Middle English, the name was Crist (“the anointed one”); the “ch” spelling didn’t become standard until after 1500, according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology.

The word is an Anglicization of the Greek title Kristos (Latin Christus), meaning “anointed.” In the classical languages, the first vowel had a short “i” sound (as in “mist”).

The name was pronounced with a short “i” in Old English too – until Irish missionaries in England in the 600s and 700s encouraged the long “i” pronunciation (as in “heist”).

I haven’t been able to find out why the missionaries did this. However, the derivatives “Christian,” “Christmas,” and all the rest kept the short “i.”

German, by the way, retains the old short-“i” pronunciation. The name Kriss Kringle comes from the German Christkindl (German for “Christ child”). In German, “Christ” sounds like “Kriss” with a “t” at the end.

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Q: Being from the south, we eat grits on a fairly regular basis, and the discussion inevitably turns to telling the chef (I use that term loosely) how good the day’s preparation tastes. So here’s the question: “The grits is good” or “The grits are good”? (Of course, nobody fixes grits like Mom.)

A: The word “grits” is considered a plural noun, but it can be used with either a plural or a singular verb, according to both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.).

So it’s acceptable to say either “The grits are good” or “The grits is good.” I like “are” better myself.

You may be surprised to learn that “grits” is a very, very old word with roots in the early days of Old English, the language of the Anglo-Saxons.

The word was written as grytt when it was first recorded in English around the year 700, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The plural was grytta or gretta. It originally meant bran, chaff, or mill dust, but that sense is now obsolete.

By the 16th century, the term was being used for oats that had been husked but not ground or oats that had been ground coarsely – that is, coarse oatmeal.

In the United States, of course, “grits” usually refers to corn, not oats. The first citation in the OED for this usage is from 1886, but Merriam-Webster’s gives 1876 as the earliest date for “hominy grits.”

As for “hominy” (hulled, dried, and boiled corn), it’s believed to come from an Algonquin word for parched corn, according to John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins.

The word (spelled “homini”) first showed up in 1629 in the writings of Capt. John Smith, who refers to “Milke Homini, which is bruized Indian corne pounded, and boiled thicke, and milke for the sauce.”

Finally, here’s a yummy quote from The Yearling, the 1938 novel by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings: “Jody heaped his plate. There were grits and gravy, hot cakes, and buttermilk.”

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Q: I’ve always assumed that “know the score” is a sports expression, but a friend of mine used it in reference to a violinist performing the Brahms Concerto in D. So did it originate in the sporting or musical worlds?

A: I think your friend may have unwittingly – or perhaps wittingly – made a nice pun! “Score” itself is an interesting word, so I’ll back up a bit before getting to your question.

The noun “score” originally meant a cut or a notch, and the verb meant to cut or notch something, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. These senses are still alive and well, of course.

Both noun and verb were first recorded around 1400. But we know the word was around much earlier than that.

The OED says a “score” meant a group of 20 as far back as 1100, apparently from the practice of counting large herds of sheep or cattle, and making a “score” or notch on a stick at every 20 animals.

In the 1200s, the verb “score” in the counting sense meant to record debts. The amount owed was “scored” (that is, cut or scratched) on a tally of some kind: notches in a stick or marks on a slate, for instance. In those days, a “score” at a public house was a bar tab.

Here’s a humorous citation from Chaucer’s The Shipman’s Tale (1386), in which a husband tries to get money from his wife. She replies: “For I wol paye yow wel and redily / Fro day to day, and if so be I faille, / I am youre wyf; score it upon my taille, / And I shal paye as soone as ever I may.”

Soon the word was being used to mean “count” in a more general way: to record a number of anything.

And in 1742 the verb “score” came to mean adding points to one’s game; the first published use was in Edmond Hoyle’s A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. From card games, “score” made a short jump to team sports in the mid-19th century.

Meanwhile, back once more to the Middle Ages. Another early meaning of “score” was to mark something with a line or lines.

This sense of the word later gave us the musical meanings: a “score” is music written on lined paper with the staves connected by vertical lines; to “score” a ballet or movie or whatever is to write music for it.

So where does “know the score” come into the picture?

Both Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang and Eric Partridge’s A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English claim the expression grew out of sports imagery. But the OED doesn’t say as much, and I’m not convinced.

The OED traces the use of “score” to mean “the essential point “ or “the state of affairs” to the late 1930s. The citation given for this sense is from the journal Better English (1938), in which the word “dope” is defined as “a guy who doesn’t know the score.”

Does the guy fail to “know the score” in the game sense, or in the more general sense of what it all adds up to? We don’t know.

The musical “score” is probably out of the running. But as with so many expressions, it’s difficult to tell the original source of this one.

Sorry I can’t be more definitive.

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Q: On a professional blog, I criticized someone for saying “one of the most.” Shouldn’t it be either “the most” or “one of the more”?

A: There’s nothing wrong with using “one of the” plus a superlative, as in “one of the most” or “one of the best” or “one of the worst.”

Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with using “one of the” plus a comparative, as in “one of the more” or “one of the better” or “one of the worse.”

Since the late 18th century, the convention has been to use the comparative (the intermediate degree of comparison) when two things are being compared, and the superlative (the extreme degree of comparison) for three or more.

However, the so-called “superlative of two” – as in “she’s the oldest” when there are only two people – has a long history and is common in everyday usage.

Aside from this sort of comparison, where one side of the equation consists of a single member, there are comparisons where groups are compared with groups.

For example, I might say, “That’s one of the best things I’ve ever tasted.” The meaning is that I’ve tasted many good things: some good, some better, and some best. And while this may not be THE best, it is AMONG the best.

Here’s a further example. I might say, “That’s one of the most frightening movies I’ve ever seen.” The meaning is that I’ve seen many frightening movies: some merely frightening, some more frightening, and some most frightening. And while this may not be THE most frightening, it is AMONG the most frightening.

In case you’d like to read more, I wrote a blog item last year about comparatives and superlatives.

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Q: Why do we watch things “on” television, but we watch them “at” a movie house and “from” the balcony of a theater?

A: English has an incredible array of prepositions, and it often seems that we have far more than we need!

Generally, when we talk about the place where we do the viewing, we use “at,” as in “I watched the movie AT home … or AT the movie theater … or AT Jennifer’s.”

When we talk about the medium on which we view the movie, we generally use “on,” as in “I watched it ON my new flat-panel TV … or ON DVD … or ON film.”

When we talk about the position from which we watched something, we usually use “from,” as in “I watched FROM the 50-yard line … or FROM the third row … or FROM my armchair.”

I wrote a blog entry a while back about some of the oddities of prepositions.

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Q: I’ve had many discussions with people (including some New York Times writers) who misuse the term “graphic designer” by adding “s” to “graphic.” We don’t say “dresses designer,” do we?

A: When I worked at the Times, editors on the Culture Desk used the term “antiques dealer” rather than “antique dealer.” I suppose the thinking was that the person was a dealer in antiques, not an antique himself.

But I feel that if no misunderstanding is possible, a phrase like “graphic designer” is fine. To my ear, “graphics designer” sounds unnecessarily fussy. Let common sense and your ear be your guide. Go with what sounds idiomatically right.

In fact, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) lists “graphics” as a noun and “graphic” as an adjective. The dictionary also has separate entries for “graphic arts,” “graphic design,” “graphic novel,” etc.

And if those Times writers you mentioned insist on using “graphics designer,” you might mention (tactfully, of course) that the Times stylebook says the phrase should be “graphic designer.”

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Q: I was on Facebook the other day when this ad popped up: “Are you smarter then the President? Take our IQ test to see.” I see this “than/then” mistake more and more, and it drives me crazy (not a far drive – more like walking distance). I know languages evolve. Should I just relax and accept this vowel movement?

A: You’re right, of course, that English is always evolving, but not in this case. The words “than” and “then” are similar only in the way they sound.

I explain the difference between them this way in my grammar book Woe Is I: “If you’re comparing or contrasting things, use than, as in more than or less than. If one thing follows or results from another, use then (as in, Look, then leap).”

Here’s an example I give of the two words at work: The next morning, Paolo was sicker than a dog. He took some aspirin, then went back to bed. “If gin disagrees with you, then avoid it,” said Francesca.

As I say in Woe Is I, if a sentence like “He’s taller then his brother” doesn’t make your hair stand on end, you should go stand in the corner. Not you, of course! But you might be interested in a blog item I wrote last summer about “than I” versus “than me.”

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Q: Now that Sonia Sotomayor has been named a candidate to the Supreme Court, I have a question: Is she a “Latina” or a “Hispanic”? The talking heads on television have been using those two words interchangeably. She was born in the Bronx, but her roots are from Puerto Rico.

A: The short answer is that a case could be made for using either one. If we had to choose between them, however, we’d go with “Latina.” Here’s our reasoning.

The noun “Hispanic” (derived from Hispania, Latin for the Iberian Peninsula) is considered the more far-reaching term, referring to a male or female person who has roots in any country where Spanish is spoken.

(Although the Iberian Peninsula includes Portugal, the term “Hispanic” is generally not used to refer to people with roots in Portuguese-speaking countries.)

The noun “Latina” is thought to be a short form of Latinoamericana, Spanish for (among other things) a female Latin American. The noun “Latino” is believed to be a short form of Latinoamericano, Spanish for a male Latin American, one whose sex is unknown, or in the plural Latin Americans of both sexes.

Both “Hispanic” and “Latina” are widely used in English for a woman living in the United States who has roots in a country where Spanish is spoken.

The New York Times, for example, has used both “Latina” and “Hispanic” in referring to Judge Sotomayor.

The Times stylebook’s entries on “Latino” and “Hispanic” say the two words, as both nouns and adjectives, can refer to someone with roots in a Spanish-speaking land or culture. Here’s an excerpt from the 1999 stylebook:

“The use of Latino, long preferred in the West and Southwest, is spreading in the United States; for now, though, Hispanic remains in wider use. When writing about specific people or groups, use the term they prefer.”

That concluding piece of advice makes sense to us.

Since Judge Sotomayor has repeatedly referred to herself as a “Latina,” and seems to prefer that word, we’d refer to her that way too.

The term “Latina” would also be more precise in her case, since she’s a woman with Latin American roots who lives in the United States.

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Q: This has been driving me nuts. No one can answer me: Are the words “exhibit” and “exhibition” interchangeable sometimes? For instance, “I’m going to an art exhibit/exhibition.”

A: When I worked at the New York Times, editors on the Culture Desk used “exhibition” for the show and “exhibit” for something being shown. So a reporter would write, “The exhibition’s most popular exhibit was the dinosaur skeleton.”

But the Times stylebook didn’t (and still doesn’t) deal with this “exhibit/exhibition” business, and dictionaries say a show itself can indeed be termed an “exhibit.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), for example, gives “exhibit” as one of the meanings of “exhibition,” and “exhibition” as one of the meanings of “exhibit.”

In fact, the use of “exhibit” to mean an “exhibition” isn’t a particularly recent phenomenon, at least not in the United States and Canada.

The Oxford English Dictionary, which describes the usage as North American, has published references dating back to the 1890s. Here’s one from an 1894 guide to a farm exhibition in California: “The following are the groups into which the exhibit in the Agricultural building is divided.”

The OED also has a few published references, dating from the late 18th century, for “exhibition” used in the sense of “exhibit.” A citation from around 1790, for example, refers to some “excellent prints” as “exhibitions.”

Interestingly, the word “exhibitionism” has occasionally been used to mean a mania for exhibitions, but the OED says this sense of the word is rare.

The more usual sense is, in the dictionary’s words: “Indecent exposure of the sexual organs, esp. as a manifestation of sexual perversion. Also fig. and gen., a tendency towards display; indulgence in extravagant behaviour.”

The first OED citation is from an 1893 translation of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, which refers to the “hereditary and degenerate impulsive exhibitionism” of a man who exposes himself to “young, voluptuous women.”

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Q: Isn’t a “categorical” denial a limited denial restricted to a specific category? Why do people “categorically” deny something when they should be denying it “uncategorically”?

A: A “categorical” denial is an unconditional one, not merely a denial applying to a single category.

The Oxford English Dictionary says “categorical” entered English in 1598 as a term in logic. A “categorical” proposition was – and still is – one “asserting absolutely” and “not involving a condition or hypothesis,” according to the OED.

The adjectives “categorical” and the now obscure “categoric” are from the Latin categoricus, derived in turn from the Greek kategorikos, meaning accusatory or affirmative.

In the 17th century, “categorical” acquired the meaning of “direct, explicit, express, unconditional,” as in a “categorical” statement or denial.

And this is the principal sense today of the adjective “categorical” (as well as the adverb “categorically”).

The word “category” entered English in 1588, also as a term in logic; its original meaning was a predication or an assertion, a sense borrowed from Aristotle.

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology says the word is derived the Greek kategoria, whose roots originally meant to assert or speak in an assembly.

The usual meaning now (“a class, or division, in any general scheme of classification”) came into use in 1660, the OED says.

And that’s as categorical an answer as I can give you.

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Q: During a college lecture on German declensions, my professor said “nonce” in the phrase “for the nonce” is the only remaining word in English that retains a piece of an early English declensional ending. Is this the case?

A: The phrase “for the nonce” (meaning “for the occasion” or “temporarily”) has been seen in various forms and spellings over the years.

The version you ask about is the result of a mistake in medieval times as Old English was evolving into Middle English and declensions were falling into disuse.

(In Old English, as in modern German, a word may change its form – that is, be declined – to show its function in a sentence.)

In Old English, the language spoken in Anglo-Saxon days, the phrase was seen as to tham annum, meaning for that one thing.

By early Middle English, when the article “the” was still being declined, the expression was for then anes, meaning “for the one.” (The word then was the form “the” took with a singular neuter indirect object.)

Sometime in the 12th century, according to the Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, English speakers (apparently because of their declining grasp of declensions) mistakenly thought the expression for then anes was for the nanes.

The earliest published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary for the erroneous version dates from around 1200: All forr the naness.

The first OED citation for the full “nonce” version of the phrase is from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1 (1598): “I have cases of Buckram for the nonce, to immaske our noted outward garments.”

Does “nonce” preserve a snippet of an early declensional ending? Perhaps, but I see the word not as a relic of Old English declensions, but as a reminder of English’s evolution by trial and error.

The word “nickname,” for example, is the result of a similar error. It’s derived from an extremely old word, “ekename” (an “eke” is an addition or a piece added on). The first published reference to “ekename,” according to the OED, appeared in 1303.

Over the years, the pronunciation of “an ekename” was misunderstood as “a nekename,” which in turn led to the modern word “nickname,” first recorded in the 17th century. I touched on this subject last year in a blog posting about nicknames.

The same thing, but in reverse, happened with “an apron” (originally “a napron”). And our word “orange” went through a similar transformation before entering English. It started in Old French as une narange (borrowed from the Arabic naranj), but it became une arange, une orenge, and eventually une orange. It entered English from Old French in 1380 – as “an orenge.”

Is “nonce” unique in preserving part of a declensional ending from Old English? Not by a long shot. The words “who” and “whom,” “he” and “him,” “she” and “her,” and others reflect similar Old English endings.

I might mention here that “nonce word” (a word coined or used for a particular occasion) is a term that James Murray, the founding editor of the OED, coined and used in 1884 for the first edition of the dictionary.

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Q: I love Origins of the Specious and intend to shill it whenever I can, which brings me to the reason I’m writing: Is the word “shill” derived from the British shilling?

A: I’m glad you like the book, but I may have to disappoint you about the origin of “shill” in the sense of to pose as a satisfied customer to encourage buyers.

The word first showed up in the United States in the early 20th century, as a verb in 1914 and as a noun in 1916, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

The OED defines the verb as to “act as a shill” and the noun as a “decoy or accomplice, esp. one posing as an enthusiastic or successful customer to encourage other buyers, gamblers, etc.”

The dictionary describes “shill” as “slang (chiefly N. Amer.)” and says it may be an abbreviation of “shillaber” (1913), which the dictionary simply defines as a shill. As for the etymology of “shillaber,” the OED says, “Origin unknown.”

The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology also makes a possible “shillaber” connection and adds that the usage was probably of “circus or carnival” origin.

The “shilling,” a former British monetary unit, is derived from an Old Frisian or Old Saxon coin called the skilling, according to the Chambers reference.

The dictionary’s etymologists speculate that the word may ultimately be derived from one of three ancient roots: skell (to resound), skel (to divide, as of gold or silver), and skeld (shield).

None of my language references connect “shill” and “shilling,” but I suppose it’s possible a coin that rings true and a shill that sings false may ultimately descend from an ancient root that resounds. I wouldn’t put money on it, though.

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She’ll be speaking at 2 p.m. Sunday, June 28, at Minor Memorial Library, 23 South St., in Roxbury about myths and misconceptions of the English language. Admission will be free. There will be refreshments, and Pat will sign copies of her latest book, Origins of the Specious, with her co-author, Stewart Kellerman.

Q: As a sophomore in high school (50 years ago), I asked my English teacher if “the reason why” is a redundancy. He punted on the answer. I was, and still am, unsatisfied. To my mind, the word “reason” MEANS why … no?

A: I don’t consider “the reason why” a redundancy in a sentence like this: “The reason why the brakes failed is unknown.”

It’s true that “why” could be eliminated, but that doesn’t make it incorrect. This is an idiomatic usage that’s been around since the Renaissance, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.).

And no, the word “reason” (a noun) doesn’t mean “why” (a conjunction) here. In this expression, “why” means “for which” or “on account of which,” according to American Heritage.

As Bryan A. Garner points out in Garner’s Modern American Usage, the phrase “the reason why” is no more redundant than “the time when” or “the place where.”

However, the expression “the reason is because” is an outright redundancy, since the word “because” means “for the reason that.” I once wrote a blog entry about this klutzy usage.

Redundant or not, both expressions (“the reason why” and “the reason is because”) are extremely common and likely to remain in the language – with or without the approval of our English teachers.

I can’t end this item without a snippet from Tennyson’s 1854 poem “The Charge of the Light Brigade”:

Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

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[Note: This post was updated on Jan. 3, 2022.]

Q: I’ve read that the word “dasn’t” is common in a small community in Nova Scotia founded by German immigrants in the 1800s. And my grandmother, who was born to German-immigrant farmers in Wisconsin in the 1860s, also used it. All of this makes me wonder if “dasn’t” originated among German immigrants.

A: The word “dasn’t” is an irregular negative contraction of forms of the verb “dare.” It’s an American regionalism formerly found in parts of the Northeast, South, and Midwest.

We haven’t seen any evidence that would show a connection with German immigration, though some linguists have noted that it was often heard among the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Examples of the term date back to the late 18th century in the Dictionary of American Regional English. The earliest is an entry in Benjamin Dearborn’s The Columbian Grammar (Boston, 1795): “Dazzent for Dare not.”

DARE’s examples also include this early 19th-century sighting: “Dasent, dare not.” From a play, The Yankey in England (circa 1814), by David Humphreys. The term occurs in a glossary of Americanisms appended to the play.

There are many examples of “dasn’t” in American literature of the 1800s, where it’s generally used colloquially in dialogue or reported conversation. Though DARE cites examples from well into the 20th century, it’s rarely heard today. As the dictionary notes, “Modern colloquial usage tends to avoid all irregular forms and constructions.”

The dictionary’s spellings of negative “dare” contractions include “daren’t,” “durn’t,” “dursent,” “durstn’t,” “ders(e)n’t,” “daredn’t,” “dar(e)sn’t,” “darshin,” “das(s)n’t,” “das(s)ent,” and “dazzent.”

We found this example of the modern spelling in Ralph Lockwood’s novel The Insurgents (1835): “he’s sixteen, and as full of mischief as ever, tho’ he dasn’t let it out.”

There are many examples of “dasn’t” in the works of Mark Twain, whose novels brim with colloquialisms. This one is from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876): “You’re a fighting liar, and dasn’t take it up.”

And these are from the second chapter of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884): “There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn’t scratch it…. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into my eyes. But I dasn’t scratch.”

So how did an “s” creep into contractions of “dare”? We can only suggest that “dasn’t” evolved because it was easier to pronounce than “daren’t” or “daresn’t.”

We wrote a blog item last fall about a related word, “dast,” which some authorities speculate may have come about as a back-formation of “dasn’t.” (A back formation is a word formed by dropping a real or imagined part from another word.)

Another related term, “durst,” an old past tense and past participle of “dare,” goes back (spelled various ways) to Old English.

The Old English verb durren is a cognate (an etymological cousin) of the Old High German gitturan (to dare), which bears a slight resemblance to the modern German verb dürfen (to be allowed or permitted, to dare, to be likely).

Karl Hagen, on his website polysyllabic.com, remarks on the use of “dasn’t” among the Pennsylvania Dutch. But he adds that DARE’s early citations aren’t limited to German speakers or to the Northeast.

Hagen mentions early examples from Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, as well as New England.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now, let’s give diligence its due.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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