Tag: Usage

Q: I’ve always been confused about the difference between “forewarn” and “warn.” Aren’t you warning someone either way? When do you use one over the other?

A: I think “forewarn” and “warn” mean about the same thing. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) defines “forewarn” as to warn in advance. It defines “warn” as to make aware in advance of actual or potential harm, danger, or evil. If you see a significant difference between the two meanings, you have better eyes than I.

You could justify “forewarn” if you really are warning someone of some danger way, way ahead of time. Otherwise, I think the term “forewarn” appears mostly as part of the old expression “forewarned is forearmed.” Also, writers may like “forewarn” because it has a sense of menace about it. It’s spooky.

Both “warn” and “forewarn” are very old words. The earliest reference to “warn” in the Oxford English Dictionary is from around 1000 while the earliest “forewarn” citation dates from 1330. I like this quotation from a 16th-century translation of the Aeneid: “The Harpye Celaeno Forwarns much mischiefe too coom.”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Have you ever discussed “RSVP”? It has come to be a noun meaning a reservation as well as a verb meaning to respond. As you know, it really stands for “Répondez, s’il vous plaît,” or “Please respond.” Nowadays I’m always seeing “Send your RSVP” or “Please RSVP.” This one is a lost cause, I know, but you aren’t afraid of lost causes.

A: The “Send your RSVP” and “Please RSVP” usages are so common now that I think they’re here to stay. In fact, the verb is now accepted in some dictionaries.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) lists only one definition for “RSVP”: please reply. But Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) also defines it as a verb meaning to respond to an invitation. Merriam-Webster’s dates the verb usage to 1953.

The Oxford English Dictionary also includes the verb usage. The dictionary has two published references, one in a 1969 novel and the other in a 1978 article in the Observer newspaper.

Here’s the earlier OED citation, from Next Time I’ll Pay My Own Fare, by Raymond Vernon Beste: “The Duchess de Santine Miorna requests the pleasure of Detective-Inspector John Gage’s company to dinner tonight … R.S.V.P. … Gage R.S.V.Ped in Spanish.”

So, the verb usage isn’t all that new. I’ll keep my eyes open for more about “RSVP.” If I learn anything else (or even if I don’t), I may mention this on the radio show.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

A: I’ve always thought that the phrase “out of pocket” referred to the absence of money, not the absence of people. But the expression seems to have evolved into meaning unavailable. Why? I find it annoying!

Q: There appear to be at least three distinct meanings for “out of pocket”:

(1) At a fiscal loss: In this case, “out of pocket” means out of one’s own pocket—in other words, you have to pay for something yourself. Examples: “I thought the tickets would be free, but I got stuck with paying, so I’m $150 out of pocket.” Or, “Mrs. Grosvenor refused to pay for the cabinetry, so the carpenter was out of pocket.” The Oxford English Dictionary has this usage dating from 1679.

(2) Behaving badly: According to the newest edition of Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang, “out of pocket” is a variation on the phrase “out of (the) pocket,” a 1940s African-American expression referring to bad behavior or a bad situation. Cassell’s says this meaning grew out of pool jargon (a shot that was “out of pocket” or “out of the pocket” caused a player to miss a turn).

(3) Unavailable: I first came across this meaning in the early 1980s when I was a staff editor at the New York Times. Reporters who had filed stories were supposed to supply phone numbers where they could be reached in case questions arose. If a reporter was unreachable (say, on a plane to Tibet), he or she was said to be “out of pocket.” The OED cites published references for this meaning dating back to 1946, though it didn’t become common until the 1970s.

I haven’t found an answer to your question about why the third meaning evolved. I also haven’t seen an explanation of why we say out of “pocket” rather than out of “hat” or “glove” or whatever when we’re unavailable, but here’s a possibility.

There’s an expression “to have someone in your pocket,” which means to have him under your control. Perhaps by extension, if he’s “out of pocket” he’s no longer under your control or scrutiny. Again, this is just speculation on my part.

[Update: Here’s a later post on “out of pocket.”]

Buy our books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: John Edwards used “highfalutin” in the recent debate for Democratic presidential candidates. I think of it as rural and maybe Southern. Have you got anything else?

A: The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang has oodles of citations for “highfalutin” (spelled variously). The first, from 1839, is a quotation in which the term means pompous or bombastic: “Them high-faluting chaps.” Random House says the origin of the term is unknown, but it’s probably influenced by “high-flown.”

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), which defines the word as pompous or pretentious, lists three spellings: “highfalutin,” “hifalutin,” and the less common “highfaluting.” American Heritage says it has been suggested that the term may come from “flute”—so someone who thinks too highly of himself is “high-fluting.”

The dictionary says “highfalutin” is characteristic of American folk speech, but it’s not a true regionalism, Southern or otherwise, because it has occurred throughout the country.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: The word “revulsed” reared its ugly head in the CBS response to the Don Imus flap, as in this quote from Leslie Moonves: “I believe all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the statements that were made on the air.” I was certain that this usage was wrong. Off to the dictionary I went—and found it in Merriam-Webster’s. As Mr. Wagnalls said to his partner: “Funk, who woulda thunk.” What do you say?

A: For starters, the Oxford English Dictionary has never heard of “revulsed” in this sense. The only “revulsed” I can find in the OED is a 17th-century medical term meaning to pull back or tear away. Here’s a 1673 example by the English physician and anatomist William Harvey, from a book published after his death: “To take away the blood … that it might be revulsed from the lungs.”

As you point out, Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) includes the adjective “revulsed” and defines it as affected with revulsion. It says this usage dates from 1934. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) has a similar entry.

Traditionally, to feel revulsion is to be “revolted,” not “revulsed.” I don’t know about you, but I find this new word entirely unnecessary. “Revolted” is a perfectly good word and I think “revulsed” is … revolting.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I don’t have a question, but I thought you might like to see this novel usage of the word “bandwidth” in an article about Governor Spitzer’s plans to introduce a gay-marriage bill in New York: “That would leave Mr. Spitzer with little political bandwidth that would allow him to build support for another controversial bill.”

A: Thanks for “bandwidth” — my husband spotted the usage, too, and I’m saving it to mention on a future WNYC broadcast. He suspects, as do I, that this one will be just too irresistible to the language trendies and that it will be around for a while.

The first published citation for “bandwidth” in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from 1930, when the word referred to the interval separating the limits of a band of electromagnetic frequencies or wave lengths.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defined it pretty much the same way until the latest edition (the fourth), which added this additional definition: “The amount of data that can be passed along a communications channel in a given period of time.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if the next American Heritage edition takes the word one step further and uses it metaphorically as a synonym for “influence” or “clout” (political, financial, romantic, and so on).

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: What has happened to “penalize” with the long “e”? I hear it more and more with the short “e.” Is it because people don’t like pronunciations that sound like body parts? Of course we still use a long “e” for “penal” colony!

A: Either pronunciation of “penalize” (with or without a long “e”) is all right. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.) and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (11th ed.) both list the pronunciation with the long “e” first, which means it’s more common.

If the “pen” pronunciation is gaining on the “peen,” it may be, as you suggest, because of the “peen” resemblance to “penis” and “penile.” On the other hand, it may be because the word “penalty” has a short “e” and is more common than the associated word “penalize.”

At any rate, both pronunciations of “penalize” are alive and kicking. You shouldn’t get penalized for using either one.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Oh, how I would love to know where the expression “full of pizzazz” comes from! The phrase itself is full of pizzazz! Is it a Boston thing? Is it a 1940s and 1950s expression?

A: The noun “pizzazz” (also spelled “pizazz” and “pazazz”) originated in the 1910s and originally meant an expert or an exemplar, according to Cassell’s Dictionary of Slang. (This was news to me too!)

In the 1920s, the meaning evolved into style, glamour, or ostentation. By the 1930s, it was being used to mean energy or zest. I’d guess this is the meaning in the expression “full of pizzazz.”

The word’s etymology is unknown, though the Oxford English Dictionary says it’s frequently attributed to Diana Vreeland, the late fashion maven. (Cassell’s Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins is dubious about the Vreeland attribution.)

The OED’s first published reference is from Harper’s Bazaar in 1937, the year Vreeland arrived at the magazine as a columnist. Here’s the citation: “Pizazz, to quote the editor of the Harvard Lampoon, is an indefinable dynamic quality, the je ne sais quoi of function; as for instance, adding Scotch puts pizazz in a drink.”

Although its origin is unknown, “pizzazz” has echoes in “razzle” (a spree or a good time) and “razzmatazz” (showy, high-class, or an exclamation of pleasure). I think people back then had a lot more energy than we do today.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I am a faculty assistant at Columbia Law and one of my professors recently came across a book that says the United States was frequently referred to as plural before the Civil War and singular after the war. Can you shed any light on this? Was the Civil War a linguistic as well as a historical turning point?

A: The Civil War historian James McPherson, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom, apparently saw the war as a turning point for singularity. I’ll quote from an article in John Hopkins Magazine (April 2001) about McPherson’s work:

“From his vast reading, he notes that before 1861, the public tended to treat ‘United States’ as a plural: ‘The United States are moving toward war.’ After the conflict, U.S. became singular: ‘The United States is looking forward to peace and reconciliation.’ McPherson traces changes in Abraham Lincoln’s vocabulary as well, with the word ‘nation’ gradually replacing ‘union’ in his speeches as the war progressed.”

Similar observations have been made by the historians Shelby Foote and Thomas E. Woods Jr. In an interview for Ken Burns’s documentary “The Civil War,” Foote remarked:

“Before the war, it was said ‘the United States are.’ Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always ‘the United States is,’ as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an ‘is.'”

But Benjamin Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press, looked into the issue and concluded that the transformation of “United States” from plural to singular wasn’t nearly as smooth and symbolic as Foote suggested.

In an extensive posting to the Language Log, Zimmer offers evidence that the issue of whether “United States” should be singular or plural was still being debated nearly four decades after the war.

He cites a May 4, 1901, article in the New York Times under the headline, “ARE OR IS: Whether a Plural or a Singular Verb Goes With the Words United States.” The article, written by John W. Foster, a former Secretary of State, notes public figures who used the singular before and after the war.

The Civil War probably sped up the change from plural to singular, but the transformation apparently wasn’t as dramatic as some historians have suggested. In fact, Zimmer points out that the plural form is still around in some idioms, like “these United States.”

“So even now,” he writes, “the pluribus sometimes outweighs the unum.”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: HELP! The New York Times says things like this: “Nassau and Suffolk counties” and “First, Second, and Third avenues.” My knee-jerk reaction is to capitalize the “c” in counties and the “a” in avenues. WHY, why, why does the Times make them lowercase? Is this correct?

A: The Times practice is a matter of house style rather than of grammar. But I think it makes sense.

If you’re talking about several streets or avenues in combination, only the principal part of the name should be capitalized. The generic part (“streets” or “avenues”) shouldn’t be. So it would be correct to refer to “First, Second, and Third avenues.”

For the same reason, the principal names of counties are capitalized, but the generic part (when several names are combined) would not be: “Nassau, Suffolk, and Putnam counties.” Similarly, “the Chrysler, Empire State, and Citicorp buildings.”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I keep telling my office mates about you and your website, so by association, I have become the go-to person in the office for grammar questions (how scary is that?). Here’s a question I’ve been asked that only a guru like you would know: Is it wrong to begin a sentence with a preposition? You say in Woe Is I that it’s OK to put one at the end, but what about the beginning?

A: It’s perfectly normal to begin a sentence with a preposition (a positioning word like “after,” “between,” “in,” “over,” “toward,” and “within”). In fact (or should I say “After all”?), it’s extremely common.

As you note, a preposition can go at the end of a sentence, too, contrary to what a lot of people believe. See my blog entry about putting one at the end.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

[Note: We had an updated post about “anyway” and “anyways” on Aug. 21, 2009.]

Q: Why do I hear people say “anyways” instead of “anyhow” or even “anyway”? It sounds awfully wrong to my ears! Or is it just me?

A: “Anyways”? No way, at least not in modern times. These days, the acceptable usages are “anyway” and “any way.” Here’s now they work.

It’s one word (“anyway”) if you want the adverb that means in any case or nevertheless: “He slipped but he won the race anyway.”

Otherwise, it’s two words (“any way”): “Is there any way to escape? There doesn’t seem to be any way out.”

Once upon a time, beginning in the 13th century or so, “anyways” and “anywise,” both adverbs meaning in any manner, were common usage. Now they’re considered archaic and nonstandard.

As for why so many people insist on “anyways,” that’s a mystery I can’t solve!

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: My sisters use the word “sketchy” in odd ways: “That was a very sketchy thing to do” or “Dad is very sketchy.” I had previously heard the word used only as a synonym for incomplete: “We have a sketchy description of the murder.” Are my sisters using the word correctly?

A: The adjective “sketchy” originally referred to something that was outlined only slightly and with no details filled in, a meaning the Oxford English Dictionary traces back to 1805.

Another meaning (imperfect or superficial or flimsy or lacking in substance) evolved later, and the OED has citations for this dating from 1878. One of the quotations is from a letter written by E.B. White in 1943: “I am hoping that my health (which has been rather sketchy lately) will improve.”

It sounds as though your sisters’ usage is something like White’s, with a more pronounced negative meaning. Perhaps they’re using the word in a way that I’ve noticed in the last few years: something like shallow or one-dimensional.

This progression seems reasonable to me: 200 years ago, “sketchy” described a simple line drawing with no detail or depth, and today it can also describe something that’s shallow or skin-deep. I’ve also heard it used lately to mean questionable, iffy, or off-color. Thus does language change!

By the way, the adjective “sketchy” originally referred to something that resembled a rough drawing or “sketch,” a noun that first appeared in print in the late 17th century, according to the OED. The noun came to mean a short play or performance in the late 18th century.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: We used to recite a rhyme in the first grade (during the 50s in southwest PA). It had to do with vowels and went “A, E, I, O, U, sometimes Y and W.” I thought of it the other day while listening to you in the car from the DC area via satellite radio. W? I am at a loss to come up with examples of W being used as a vowel.

A: You asked about “w” as a vowel, but let me comment about both “w” and “y.” In my book Woe Is I, I used a little sentence to illustrate how “w” and “y” can sometimes act as vowels: “Few boys own many cows.”

The letters “w” and “y” are officially consonants, but they have characteristics of both consonants and vowels. (In fact, some people refer to them as semi-vowels.) Even when they are clearly acting as consonants, these letters are diphthongs, combinations of at least two vowel sounds. Take the words “wet” and “yet.” The initial letters are clearly consonants, but the actual sounds of these words are “oo-EHT” and “ee-EHT”; the “w” and “y” sound something like “oo-EH” and “ee-EH.”

When “w” appears in conjunction with a vowel (“awe,” “ewe,” “owe,” “own,” “sew,” “raw,” “how”, and others), it often acts as a vowel; the same happens with “y” in words like “toy” and “style.”

Keep listening, and keep your mind on the road!

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Please, please, please explain to me why every dictionary shows the abbreviated version of pyjamas to be p.j.’s and Pj’s and other whackadoodle versions that ALL INCLUDE APOSTROPHES! What is going on here? There is no possession implied in the abbreviation. How can this be? It is driving me crazy and I will NOT accept it any way other than PJs or pjs or even p.j.s. I will sleep without them if this goes on!

A: Calm down, and don’t jump out of your pajamas. Here’s the lowdown on nightwear, plurals and otherwise, courtesy of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary:

“pajama”; “pajamas”: the standard American spelling.

“pyjama”; “pyjamas”: the standard British spelling.

“pj”; “pj’s”: the standard singular and plural abbreviations.

I can see that you’re bothered by the apostrophe in the plural abbreviation. But many, many style books and grammar guides (including mine) recommend adding an apostrophe with the plural of a small letter in an abbreviation to make it easier to read.

Without an apostrophe, the “s” in the plural abbreviation looks like part of the principal term. Imagine trying to pluralize the individual letters a, i, and u without using apostrophes: as, is, us. They’re much more readable as a’s, i’s, and u’s. No possession is implied.

Now keep those pj’s on, and go to sleep!

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I was just wondering if you knew why the letter “Z” is pronounced “zee” by Americans and “zed” by Canadians. My cousin is from Vancouver and it makes me giggle whenever I hear him say that.

A: Where the pronunciation of the last letter of the alphabet is concerned, we in the United States are the odd ones out. The standard pronunciation in Britain and in all the old British Commonwealth nations is “zed.”

H.L. Mencken, in his book The American Language, says that the standard pronunciation “zed” became “zee” in the United States sometime in the 18th century, but he doesn’t go into why this happened.

One might speculate that the “zee” pronunciation was influenced by the parallel pronunciations “bee,” “cee,” “dee,” and so on. And it was probably helped along by Noah Webster’s preference for “zee” in his influential American Dictionary of the English Language (1828).

The pronunciation “zed” for the letter “z” entered English in the 1400s, borrowed from the Middle French zède, which in turn was derived from zeta, the Latin and Greek name for the letter.

“Zed” and “zee” aren’t the only versions on record, though. In Samuel Johnson’s time, the letter was often called “izzard” or “uzzard,” and in fact “izzard” survived in odd pocket of the U.S. well into the 20th century. But it was mainly used as part of the expression “from A to izzard,” and was seldom used by itself.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: My boyfriend and I have a quick question. I referred to a strong animal scent as being poignant. One of the definitions of “poignant” in the dictionary is pungently pervasive. But he thinks that describing a scent as poignant is not correct. What do you think?

A: One of the definitions of “poignant,” according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is sharp, pungent, piquant to the taste or smell. But the OED says this meaning is now rare.

I believe that most people these days think of “poignant” as keenly moving or affecting. You might be understood in a roomful of lexicographers if you use “poignant” to mean pungent, but the rest of the world would respond with “Huh?”

I’d rather be understood than technically correct. It would be better, I think, to use “pungent” to describe a strong smell.

The word “poignant,” which goes back to the 14th century, comes to us from the Latin pungere, meaning to pierce or prick. The two earliest OED references are in The Canterbury Tales.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: This has been bugging me since my first fortuitous encounter with the joys of www.grammarphobia.com: Why “grammarphobia,” rather than “grammarphilia”? Can it be that you harbor a secret hatred of punctuation and syntax — or was it, simply, because “grammarphilia” was taken?

A: The name of the website comes from the subtitle of Pat’s first book, Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English.

Pat wanted to show that her book and our website would be friendly and accessible to people who FEAR grammar (hence the “phobia”), as well as to language types who gulp down bowls of gerunds and subjunctives for breakfast in the morning.

The idea was to explain grammar (and other language issues) in terms that wouldn’t intimidate the ordinary reader, while not turning off those who already feel comfortable with the terminology and complexities of our language (grammarphiles).

Buy ours books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Why do so many people mispronounce “jewelry”? I find this particularly ubiquitous and irritating. More often than not, the word comes out “JOO-lu-ree” rather than “JOO-ul-ree.” Recently, I even heard the abomination spoken on PBS by (shock, horror!) an English actor with perfect diction.

A: The word is usually spelled differently in the U.S. and the U.K., which may have something to do with the differences in pronunciation. In American English, the word is spelled “jewelry”; in British English, it’s most often spelled “jewellery.”

Despite the different spellings, however, the word should be pronounced the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

H.W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, second edition, says the correct pronunciation is “JOO-ul-ree,” no matter how it’s spelled. The Oxford English Dictionary lists both “JOO-ul-ree” and “JOO-ul-uh-ree,” but says the first one is usual. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language lists only “JOO-ul-ree” as the proper way to say it.

The word, which comes to us from Old French, dates back to the 14th century and was originally spelled “iuelrye” and later “jowalre” in English, according to the OED. “Jewellery” first appeared in the late 18th century, and “jewelry” in the early 19th century.

The British spell the word “jewellery” in commercial usage, the OED says, but sometimes spell it “jewelry” in poetry, as in this example from “Alice du Clos” by Coleridge: “Smit by the sun the mist in glee / Dissolves to lightsome jewelry.”

As for that English actor who mispronounced the word on PBS, he was either mistaken or affected.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Any ideas about the expression “going to hell in a handbasket”? I didn’t find a very satisfactory derivation on Google. One early 18th-century citation on Michael Quinion’s World Wide Words mentions a “head in a Handbasket.” Could the basket in question refer to a container used to catch the results of a beheading? (Or am I just being over-influenced by recently watching Mary Queen of Scots meet her end on DVD?)

A: I don’t see anything in my usual language references to link the expression with a beheading. You can find almost anything on the Internet, of course, but the only reference I’ve seen on a serious language site is this brief, uncertain mention on The Phrase Finder’s Discussion Forum: “It seems to me that someone suggested that the basket used to catch the head during a beheading gave rise to ‘hell in a handbasket.’”

Michael Quinion is extremely reliable on these matters and I wouldn’t hesitate to accept his entry on “hell in a handbasket,” even though it’s necessarily inconclusive. Here’s how he sums up the situation: “It’s a fairly common American expression, known for much of the twentieth century. But it’s one about which almost no information exists, at least in the two dozen or so reference books I’ve consulted.” In other words, some of these things will never be tracked down.

Another Internet source I trust is Evan Morris’s Word Detective site, which gives this explanation: “Clues to the origin of ‘going to hell in a handbasket,’ meaning ‘deteriorating rapidly or utterly,’ are, unfortunately, scarce as hens’ teeth.” He notes that Christine Ammer, in Have A Nice Day – No Problem, a dictionary of clichés, dates the expression from the early 20th century and suggests that the alliteration of ‘hell’ and ‘handbasket’ probably contributed to its popularity.

I might add that there are scores of variations on this theme: the poor victim may go to hell not only in a handbasket but also “on a poker,” “in a bucket,” “in a hack,” “in a handcart,” “on a handcar,” “in a basket,” “in a hanging basket” [probably a deliberately humorous mistake], “on a shutter,” “in a wheelbarrow,” “on a toboggan,” and even “schooner-rigged.”

Despite the 18th-century citation you mentioned about “head in a Handbasket,” which comes close to the usual expression, there are no published references to “hell in a handbasket” more than a century old.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Which is correct: “all ready” or “already”? I see the words (or word) both ways.

A: They’re not the same. “All ready” means prepared; “already” means previously.

Here’s an example from my grammar book Woe Is I of the two terms in action: “Carrie and Samantha are all ready to boogie; in fact, they’ve already started.”

I hope this helps.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: At the company where I work, the project managers use the phrase “speak to” like this: “Would you be able to speak to this question?” Is that usage correct? Or is it just another “office-ism”?

A: People use the expression “speak to,” meaning to address an issue, in two different ways.

The first usage, as in the example “increased crime speaks to the need for vigilance,” goes back to the 17th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In this sense, “speak to” means to influence or to constitute evidence of something.

The second usage, as in “let me speak to that,” also goes back at least as far as the 17th century. The OED cites several published examples of “speak to” in the sense of to deal with or discuss or comment on. The first citation is from 1610: “I desire them therefore to speake to these foure points.”

So both usages are well-established. But these days they’re also much overused, especially in muddy or imprecise writing. I find the second one the most annoying. When I hear people say, “Let me speak to that,” I expect them to speak around a point without really addressing it. In other words, here comes a half-baked comment.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I’m always delighted when you’re on WNYC. You’re such fun! And I learn so much, too. Which brings me to my question. I’m completely confused about when “too” should be preceded by a comma. For example, was it correct in my sentence above? What is the rule?

A: I usually tell people that a comma with “too” is optional: use one if you want to express a pause or emphasize something. In the sentence you asked about, I think the comma is right.

Although the presence or absence of a comma often doesn’t matter, it sometimes does make a difference. For example, both of these sentences may be punctuated correctly, depending on the emphasis:

a. “Steve likes ice cream, too.”
b. “Steve likes ice cream too.”

If Grandma has just given Steve’s pushy little brother Sam a scoop of ice cream, and their mother wants to suggest that shy little Steve should get the same, she might say, “Steve likes chocolate ice cream, too.” (With a little lilt at the end, emphasizing the “too.”)

But if Mom is just describing a catalog of the stuff Steve likes, and she has already mentioned, say, vanilla ice cream, she might say, “Steve likes chocolate ice cream too.” (No particular inflection there.) It’s often a judgment call.

Sorry this isn’t more definitive, and I hope it hasn’t muddied the waters!

Note: I just realized that I answered a similar question last year. If anyone wants to compare the two replies, here’s a link to the old item.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I’m not sure whether this question is properly directed to you or to William Safire, but here goes: Is the phrase “root cause” proper English, or is it redundant? Wouldn’t the same meaning be conveyed if “root” were omitted? Or are there different degrees of “cause”?

A: In my opinion (and I can’t speak for Safire), the expression “root cause” isn’t redundant. I think one can argue that there are different levels of causality.

I may have an overly complicated view of all this since I was a philosophy major in college. But I think of causes in at least four different ways—material, formal, efficient, and final causes.

The material cause of something is what it’s made of. A house is “caused” by the wood and other materials it’s built from.

The formal cause is the set of characteristics that make it what it is. A house is “caused” by the fact of its having walls, a roof, rooms, or whatever qualities make it a shelter.

The efficient cause is what brings it into being. A house is “caused” by the builder.

The final cause is the greater purpose or good that it serves. The final “cause” of a house is our need for shelter.

This is an Aristotelian view of “cause.” For many of the same reasons, I think almost anything can be said to have multiple causes. Probably the “root” cause of something is its ultimate purpose. But there are no doubt lesser “causes” along the way that contribute to its coming into existence.

This is a very windy way of answering your question. To paraphrase Pascal, I’ve made it too long because I didn’t have the time to make it shorter.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: In the following sentence, which is correct, “we” or “us”? “This was a ritual that [we/us] kids looked forward to with anticipation.” I favor “we,” but a friend suggested “us” might be correct.

A: In this case, “we kids” is right. However, you could say something like this: “It was a ritual that was greatly anticipated by us kids.”

In the first example, “we kids” is the subject of a clause; in the second, “us kids” is the object of a preposition.

Hope this helps.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

A: One contemporary phrase that bothers me is “cohort in crime.” I maintain that “cohort” is a Latin noun describing a Roman military unit of 300 to 600 men, rather than a single individual who is an associate of a criminal. What do you think?

Q: “Cohort” has undergone quite a change over the years.

In the military parlance of Caesar’s time, a “century” (centuria in Latin) was a unit of 100 Roman soldiers, commanded by a “centurion.” Six centuries, or 600 soldiers (the exact numbers vary at different times in antiquity), constituted a “cohort” (cohors in Latin), and 100 cohorts, or 6,000 men, were a “legion” (from the Latin verb legere, to gather).

So “century,” “cohort,” and “legion” corresponded roughly to our modern “company,” “battalion,” and “regiment” (our regiments are not so large).

But in English, “cohort” has pretty much lost its military meaning and gone civilian. It’s used loosely to mean either a group or an individual.

The first definition for “cohort” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is a group or band of people, and the second definition is a companion or an associate.

In a “Usage Note” following the entry, however, American Heritage says “the use of cohort to refer to an individual rather than to a group has become very common and is now in fact the dominant usage.”

It should be noted that Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has as its first definition “one of ten divisions of an ancient Roman legion.” But M-W lists definitions in historical order, not in the order of common usage. Not one in a thousand people would use “cohort” in this way.

M-W‘s later definitions correspond to those in use today. A “cohort” can mean either (1) a group, or (2) a companion or associate. The examples given include “a cohort of premedical students” and “a few of their … cohorts decided to form a company.”

To make a long story short, it’s not surprising that “cohort in crime” and “companion in crime” should be used interchangeably in modern times.

Help support the Grammarphobia Blog with your donation. And check out our books about the English language and more.

Q: I try not to use the term “bonehead” because I suspect that it might have racist overtones. I remember the old cartoon depictions of Africans with bones in their hair. Is my rationale justified?

A: The short answer is no.

The words “bonehead” and “boneheaded” are slang or informal terms that originated in the U.S. in the early 1900s. They refer to someone who’s a blockhead, or who’s thick-headed or stupid.

The first published reference, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in Smart Set magazine in 1903: “You talk like a bone-headed fool!”

There are no ethnic or racial overtones—the implication is that the person’s head has more bone than brain.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: My late father, who was educated at an English public school, was irritated by the use of “brand new” instead of the proper “bran new.” He said something fragile (i.e., a china service) used to be packed in bran, the husk residue from milling grains, but excelsior, a byproduct of manufacturing wood products, replaced bran in the early 20th century.

A: The proper expression, according to every reference I’ve checked, is “brand-new,” not “bran-new.” The “d“ in “brand” is often unpronounced, however, so the phrase sounds like “bran’-new.”

Interestingly, “brand-new” didn’t originally refer to a brand name, or to something so new that it still carried the label or or to a newly introduced product.

The Oxford English Dictionary says the phrase dates back to 1570 (at that time it was spelled “brande-newe”), and the “brand” referred to was a branding iron hot from the fire.

The OED defines the original expression “as if fresh and glowing from the furnace,” and goes on to liken it to Shakespeare’s phrase “fire-new.” The term is now used, of course, to mean quite new or perfectly new.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Do you know of any CDs with pronunciations of English words, especially more obscure ones?

A: I’ve heard good things about the Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, which comes with a CD, though I haven’t actually heard it myself. You can find it on Amazon.com.

Here’s a comment from someone who e-mailed me about it: “Love it! I’m ordering one for each of my kids. I especially love that it has both British and American English. This should resolve many a dispute between me and my British friends.”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I hear the term “gin up” used more and more these days, especially by politicians. Do you know its origin? Does it have anything to do with a gin pole?

A: The term “gin up” dates back to the 1880s, and originally meant to drink hard liquor. The first reference I could find comes from a book called Saddle and Moccasin: “They were ginning her up, that’s a fact.”

In the early 20th century the term also came to mean to drink before going to a party—I suppose for the purpose of getting a head start on the other drinkers.

In the 1970s “gin up” took on a third meaning: to stir up or excite or get something going. That’s the way it’s generally used now. One pol, for example, might accuse another of ginning up a phony crisis.

As for your second question, I don’t see evidence that “gin up” has anything to do with a gin pole, a lifting device for oilfields, construction sites, ships, etc.

The two boozy meanings probably come from drinking gin, an alcoholic beverage flavored with juniper. The word “gin” is short for geneva or Hollands Geneva, the original Dutch name of the booze. (The Dutch word for juniper is jeneverbes.)

As for the more recent usage (to stir up, etc.), some language authorities speculate that it may be related to “generate” or “engineer” or “ginger up” (as in adding spice to something or getting someone’s spirit up).

Most of this comes from Eric Partridge’s Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and a posting by Douglas G. Wilson on the American Dialect Society’s Linguist List.

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I believe the correct pronunciation of the word “banal” is “BAY-nul,” but people say “bu-NAHL” because of embarrassment at the rhyme with “anal.” What are your thoughts?

A: I don’t think there’s a single correct way to pronounce “banal.” The two dictionaries I consult the most, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, each list at least three acceptable pronunciations.

The first one in both dictionaries is bu-NAL (rhyming with “canal’). Others are BAY-nul (rhyming with “anal”) and bu-NAHL (the last syllable rhymes with “doll”). Merriam-Webster’s also lists bay-NAL (the last syllable is accented and rhymes with “pal”).

American Heritage’s Usage Panel is all over the place on this, with 46 percent preferring bu-NAL, 38 percent favoring BAY-nul, and 14 percent going for bu-NAHL. For what it’s worth, I’m in the bu-NAL camp. But I agree with American Heritage that the “pronunciation of banal is not settled among educated speakers of American English.”

If in doubt, of course, you can always use “trite.”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: Here’s an unusual word for your consideration: “ucalegon,” a neighbor whose house is on fire. Can you tell me anything about its use and origin?

A: Wow—what a word! I couldn’t find it in any of my modern dictionaries, but it’s in my old Webster’s New International Dictionary (2d ed., 1954). I’ll copy the entry, which explains its derivation:

“Ucalegon … In Trojan legend, one of the ancient counselors who sat with Priam on the wall. Aeneas speaks of the flames reaching Ucalegon’s house, next to that of Anchises, before he fled from the city. Hence, a next-door neighbor, or a neighbor whose house is on fire.”

The word comes from Virgil’s Aeneid. It’s part of the phrase proximus ardet Ucalegon, meaning Ucalegon burns next. (The house of Ucalegon, an elder of Troy, burned down when the city was sacked, according to Virgil’s account.)

The Latin phrase seems to have been used quite often in the 19th century to refer to a dangerous situation. It was apparently so common at one time that Thomas de Quincey, in his 1849 essay “The English Mail-Coach,” calls the expression trite. It appears in early 20th-century versions of Roget’s Thesaurus (meaning a pitfall or source of danger), but not in modern ones.

Homer’s Iliad, in describing the battle for Troy, mentions Ucalegon only briefly and doesn’t include the fire story. By the way, Ucalegon’s name in the Iliad (usually spelled “Oukalegon” in English) combines the Greek words for “not” and “care.”

The Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t have an entry for “ucalegon,” though the word does appear in an early 20th-century citation for the OED’s entry on “neighbor”: “But proximus ardet Ucalegon, which is to say, ‘Don’t care’s house is afire, and his neighbour is quaking.’”

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.

Q: I’m a fan of “American Idol,” but the judges use a word on the show that drives me crazy. When they want to tell someone that he’s singing off pitch, they tell him that he’s a little pitchy. This can’t be right, can it?

A: I don’t watch “American Idol,” and look what I missed! I’ve never heard or seen “pitchy” used in this way. In The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, “pitchy” is defined as covered with pitch (something like tar) or as the color of pitch.

Usually singing or playing that’s off key is described as either sharp (too high) or flat (too low). I suppose “pitchy” might come in handy if you can’t tell which.

I just Googled “pitchy” and came up with 332,000 hits—most of them, it seems, about singing, not roofing. Well, “pitchy” still sounds lame to me, but maybe it has legs!

Buy Pat’s books at a local store or Amazon.com.