We ’re link up this workweek by a extra Edgar Albert Guest blogger . Patricia T. O’Conner , a former editor atThe New York Times Book Review , is the author of the national best - sellerWoe Is I : The Grammarphobe ’s Guide to Better English in Plain English , as well as other books about spoken language . She is a regular monthly guest on public wireless post WNYC in New York . study more at her website , grammarphobia.com . Today she ’s do questions from our readers . Q : " All justly " ¦ so there ’s no in force intellect to not stop a time in a preposition " ¦ but that does n’t imply that I have to like earreach , " ˜Where you at . ‘“—Posted by Fruppi on 5/5
A : The problem with " Where you at?“ is n’t that it ends in a preposition . The trouble is that it should n’t have a preposition at all . ( What it ought to have is a verb ! )
Constructions like " Where is my carat?“ and " Where are my keysat?“ are considered substandard usage because " where" piddle the increase of " at" redundant . " Where" fundamentally means " at ( or in ) what place,“ so add another " at" is overkill . It ’s more or less equivalent to saying , " In which pocket are they in?“
Q : " Can we look forward to a treatment of the singular form they this week?“—Posted by s michael c on 5/5
A : I did n’t discourse this on the web log but I ’m glad you brought it up . The singulartheyorthemortheirhas been consider wrong for a couple of centuries , and it ’s still a no - no . ( Example : " If anybody uses a mobile phone telephone set , tellthemnot to . “ ) But it ’s become so usual that only a few of us diehards acknowledge anymore ! That does n’t make it right , though . They , themortheirare not licit curious pronoun , fit in to most all usage and manner guides . And I do n’t like using " he or she" and " him or her,“ either .
Here ’s some historical view . Once upon a time , English Speaker routinely usedtheyto refer to indefinite pronouns that take singular verbs , likeanyone , anybody , nobody , andsomeone . TheOxford English Dictionaryhas publish book of facts for this usage go back to the 16th century . But in the late 18th and former nineteenth 100 , grammarian began condemn the use oftheyas a singular pronoun on the grounds that it was disconnected . Numerically speaking , they were right , but this left us with a great big hole in English where a gender - neutral , bit - neutral pronoun ought to be .
That ’s the way things stand now , despite all the story , pull up stakes the careful author with the problem of find an acceptable choice to the singularthey .
Here ’s one answer : In a long piece of writing , you might habituate " him" in some place and " her" in others when referring to a generic soul . Another solution is to write around the trouble — don’t use the pronoun at all . Example : " Someone forgot to pay the bills" ( rather of " theirbills" ) . Or : " If anyone calls , say I ’m out" ( alternatively of " tellthemI’m out" ) .
If you do usethey , them , ortheir , then make the field of study ( or referent noun ) plural instead of singular . A sentence like " Every parent dotes ontheirchild" could instead be " All parent dote ontheirchildren . “ Instead of " A soul should mindtheirown business,“ make it " citizenry should mindtheirown business . “ Be creative . Disregarding the plural nature oftheyisn’t the solvent .
Q : " Would you please handle the abuse / overexploitation of the wordmyself ? It seems the role of the give-and-take has become more democratic latterly . One illustration I see a lot is " ˜Myselfand my friends” ¦ . ' This voice so untimely to me , or am I incorrect ? Another one isirregardless . Is that a substantial word?“—Posted by JaneM on 5/6
A : People usemyselfwhen they ca n’t resolve between " I" and " me . “ This is n’t just a cop - out ; it ’s unfit English . The wordmyselfis reserved for two uses : ( 1 ) To emphasize : " allow me do itmyself . “ ( 2 ) To consult to a study already cite : " I can seemyselfin the mirror . “ If you could just as well use " I" or " me,“ then you should n’t resort tomyself .
As forirregardless , it ’s emphatically out of boundary . It blends " regardless" with " irrespective,“ and the result is a redundance that has both a negatively charged prefix and a negative suffix ! As one reader ( lala ) so cleverly comment , it ’s a one - word double negative ! Is it real ? Well , sight of people useirregardlessand you ’ll line up it in dictionary , so it ’s real all right . But not everything in a lexicon is in force English . Read the ok print : BothMerriam - Webster ’s Collegiate Dictionary(11th male erecticle dysfunction . ) and TheAmerican Heritage Dictionary of the English Language(4th ed . ) call it " nonstandard . “
Q : " If President Bush ( 41 ) and President Bush ( 43 ) were walking down the street together , what would be the right statement ? " ˜Here come the Presidents Bush " ¦ the Bush Presidents " ¦ the President Bushes ' ? Or , " ˜Here come President Bush and President Bush ' ? These question must be answered before the next President is inaugurated . “—Posted by Witty Nickname on 5/6A : Your first suggestion is right : " the Presidents Bush . “ likewise , Chief Executive John Adams and John Quincy Adams are often referred to jointly as " the Presidents Adams" or " both Presidents Adams . “ When in doubt , think of Dostoyevsky ( The Brothers Karamazov ) .
Q : " What ’s the best muscle contraction for " ˜am not ' ? For deterrent example , how should one good terminate this sentence : " ˜Since compression are required , I ’m forced to use one now , am I not?'“—Posted by John on 5/7A. This is a very interesting head ! The answer ( are n’t I ) takes us back to the history of the most fascinating contraction of them all : ain’t .
Today , ain’tis view the poster tiddler of piteous English , but it was n’t always so . It was probably first used around 1600 , just when most of our English contractions — all perfectly legitimate , I might contribute — were being form : don’t , can’t , isn’t , and many more . For centuries , ain’twas just one of the crowd . It was first seen in print in the former 1600s , spelledan’t , a’n’t , and eventuallyain’t . ( Some scholars believe the fresh spelling may have reflected the way the word was judge by certain verbalizer . )
Ain’twas originally a compression of " am not" and " are not . “ But by the other 1700s , it was also being used as a compression for " is not . “ And by the 1800s it was used for " have not" and " has not" too , put back an early muscle contraction , ha’n’t . Naturally , asain’ttook on more and more meanings it roll further and further from its roots , and here ’s where the grammarians and schoolmarms take notice . Contractions likecan’tanddon’thad clearly trackable parentage , butain’thad so many possible parents that it seemed illegitimate . So nineteenth - one C critics turn up their noses and declaredain’ta crime against good English .
That created a problem , of grade — what to apply in place ofain’t Ias a contraction for " am I not . “ The obsolete " amn’t I" was a tongue - twister ( it survives today only in Scots and Irish English ) . As we all know by now , we end up witharen’t I , which clearly makes no sense . How can we rationalize it if we do n’t say " I aren’t" ? And how did it hail about , anyway ?
As it happens , aren’t Ididn’t exist until the former twentieth century , when British novelists and dramatists started using it to multiply the way upper - course of study speakers pronouncedain’t I. ( In the back talk of an old Etonian , ain’trhymed with " taunt" rather than " taint . “ ) confused it may be , butaren’t Icaught on in both Britain and the United States . It may have come out of left field , but today it ’s standard English whileain’t Idefinitely is n’t .
Too bad . I rather likeain’t , though I ’m too fearful to habituate it . If it had n’t outgrow its old meanings of " am not" and " are not,“ it might be satisfactory today . And we ’d have a sensible contraction for " am I not . “
Q : " The English / Irish refer to a team as a plural matter ( " ˜England are play great football this time of year ' ) . I earn the English invented English but this drive me crackers ! To me it is a non - issue . A team was , is , and always will be ONE squad , no matter if there are 2 people or 2,000 citizenry . A couple is always two but it is still just one couple . And certainly not to argue with you but I do n’t like your example " ˜A couple of tenants own geckos . ' I opine the only reason it fathom acceptable is because the word tenants is plural form . But you always have to disregard prepositional phrases . Anyway , just my two cent . “—Posted by Rob on 5/8
A : The British have a much broader posture toward collective nouns than we do . To us , " team" is funny , but to them it ’s a collective that they treat as a plural . In fact , things like association football team ( " Manchester are leading" ) , companies ( " Mobil plan to invest" ) , and political science bodies ( " the Cabinet have met" ) are all treated as plural in Britain .
They expend punctuation mark marks and articles ( a , an , the ) and all sorting of other thing differently , too . But do NOT acquire that British English is purer or more right than American English . Many characteristics that we key out with modern - twenty-four hour period British English — the unlike usages , spellings , vocabulary word , some points of grammar , even the British accent with its broada ’s and droppedr’s — develop after the Revolutionary War . Remember that the Colonists brought with them 17th- and eighteenth - century British English , much of which has been preserved on our side of the Atlantic ( and much of which has been altered on theirs ) . So what ’s deal right in London is not needs correct in Philadelphia . A chapter in my next book will be give to this consequence , which I discussed lately on my blog . Here ’s a link .
As for the corporate nouncouple , I do n’t agree that an attached prepositional phrase should be ignore when you ’re decide whether the word is singular or plural . sure as shooting it ’s singular here : " Thecouplenext - door vacations in Hawaii . “ But just as certainly it ’s plural here : " Acoupleof my protagonist vacation in Hawaii . “ Andcoupleis plural form here even without a prepositional phrase , because it ’s get into : " Where do your champion vacation?“ " ¦ " Acouple[of them ] holiday in Hawaii , and acouplemore prefer ski refuge . “
Q : " I feel like I remember having show in my previous collegeChicago Manual of Stylethat there are a prime few proper names for which the genitive is’and not ’s . I recollect one was Jesus ( as in " ˜He followed Jesus ' educational activity , ' not " ˜He followed Jesus ’s commandment ' ) . I think it was the same for Moses and Sophocles " ¦ am I make this up?“—Posted by lala on 5/8
A : You call back correctly ! The usual practice session in make names possessive is to bestow an apostrophe plus s. But there ’s an exclusion . When a Biblical or classical name ends ins , the customs is to add together just the apostrophe : Jesus’disciples , Hercules’strength , Xerxes’writings , Archimedes’principle .
We also drop thesand use only the apostrophe in sure idiomatic expression with the word " sake" ( this avoids a pileup of sibilants ) . Examples : " forgoodness’sake,“ " forconscience’sake,“ " forrighteousness’sake,“ " forconvenience’sake . “
Q : " OK , so this has always really bugged me : is it the 1970s or the 1970 ’s ? For instance , " ˜I was born in the 1970s . ' Or , " ˜I was born in the 1970 ’s . ' I was always under the imprint the apostrophe was erroneous , but I guess I might be wrong!“—Posted by Beth on 5/8A : It ’s true that you never add an apostrophe to make an ordinary noun plural . But the plurals of numbers are another matter , a style issue that publishers have differed on over the long time . In the first two variation of my bookWoe Is I , my testimonial was to supply an apostrophe plus s to make a numeral plural:3 ’s , for example , and1970 ’s . This was the dash then recommend by the New York Times . Since then , both I and the Times have transfer our opinions .
I now notify using only thes , with no apostrophe:3sand1970s . The third variant of my bookWoe Is I(due out next year ) and the nipper ’s variation , Woe Is I Jr.(published in 2007 ) , reflect this alteration . I still advocate using the apostrophe to pluralize a undivided letter for the rice beer of legibility . Without it , a sentence like this is gibberish : " My name is full of as , is , and us . “ rendering : " My name is full of a ’s , i ’s , and u’s . “
Yesterday : Five Lessons in Punctuation . Wednesday : Five Lessons in Grammar . Tuesday : expose Etymological Myths . Monday : Debunking Grammar Myths .
