Posted on October 31st, 2007 by grammarblogger
No matter what talents (not many) he displayed on the floor on "Dancing With the Stars," and no matter how well he runs a professional basketball operation, Mark Cuban can butcher the English language with the best of us.
Here’s a NotPhrase he used on TV tonight and one I sometimes use myself: "A whole ‘nother thing."
I’m not sure how one would correct that. "A whole other thing altogether" would seem to be the most logical and correct usage. Or use "a different matter altogether"–there you go!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the folks at the Oxford dictionary haven’t already added ‘nother, but they probably spelled it nother.
Tags: Mark Cuban
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Posted on October 29th, 2007 by grammarblogger
I keep chalking up abuses of the English language for my hoped-for ultimate word on correct English usage in my book Fast Food English.
In my English composition class this past week, I sat through (maybe I should say thru, huh?) endless presentations where, without exception, the presenters used there for the possessive their.
In general, native English users in the United States have a hard time with the possessive, often using it’s for its–and the list goes on. (Clue: possessive pronouns never–should be easy to remember–use apostrophes.)
I owe this one to Copyblogger, who runs a blog on copyediting; in his latest e-mailing, he pointed out that people nowadays (or should I say, like my students, now days) get all confused over the apostrophe and use it to form plurals. He used the example of the erroneous boy’s for boys.
However, I’ve got an example closer to home. Each morning when I drive down my street, I see a see in front of someone’s home that says, "The Smith’s" (name changed to protect the guilty).
Now, even if you put a noun behind this construction to make it a true possessive, such as The Smith’s House, it would still be incorrect because Smith is not plural. Smiths is, just as Joneses is for Jones. Simple pluralization rules apply, which I’ll broach one day in my Building Blocks series.
For now, I’ll just point out the abuse.
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Posted on October 22nd, 2007 by grammarblogger
It’s either a large leather suitcase with two compartments, or a combination of two words to form one new word. What is it?
Of course, if you read the title, you’ll surmise that it’s portmanteau.
What you’re reading here is a portmanteau–a combination of Web and log, or blog.
Other notable examples are smog (smoke and fog), motel (motor and hotel) and brunch (breakfast and lunch).
Collectively, these are all portmanteaux.
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Posted on October 19th, 2007 by grammarblogger
In tribute to actress Deborah Kerr, who passed away yesterday at 86, I offer here a clip of her kiss on the beach with Burt Lancaster, arguably the most famous scene in film history, certainly in terms of the sheer number of still photographs showing the kiss (okay, so this has nothing to do with English, but Ms. Kerr was British):
Tags: Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster
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Posted on October 17th, 2007 by grammarblogger
The dictionary definiation of bloviate is "to speak pompously," and if that doesn’t sum up people with causes in America, nothing does. So my guess is that, if you hate Bill O’Reilly, you’re probably a far-left ideologue and/or a bloviator (the two usually go hand in hand).
Sorry.
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Posted on October 13th, 2007 by grammarblogger
Main verbs often need helper verbs to complete their meaning, and these helpers are called auxiliary verbs.
For instance, you’re thinking of going out to dinner, so you say to your roommate: "I may go out to dinner tonight and try that new restaurant."
If go is the main verb, what is the auxiliary? Of course, it’s may.
Auxiliary verbs are often arranged into two groups, those that have to be joined to a main verb and those that can either stand alone or help a main verb.
Auxiliary verbs that can also be main verbs: be, being, been; am, is, are, was, were; have, has, had; do, does, did.
Auxiliary verbs that must appear with main verbs: can, could; may, might; shall, should; will, would; must, ought (to).
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