Architecture vs. Architectural

Hi, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Viviana from San Diego.

Hi, welcome, Viviana.

Hi.

Hello.

What are you calling us about?

Well, I’m a member of a student organization,

And the acronym for it is called CASA, C-A-S-A.

And to date, it has been written as Chicano Architecture Student Organization.

I’m sorry, Student Association.

I was going to say CASA.

Yeah, no, Student Association.

Okay.

But now there’s some members that are challenging it, and they’re saying that the architecture should be architectural because it’s describing the association.

So it’s either architecture or architectural, and that’s the debate that we’re having right now.

Okay, Chicano Architecture Student Association or Chicano Architectural Student Association?

Yes.

So it’s not about Chicano architecture.

It’s about Chicano students, right?

Yes.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a dilemma there.

You’ve got a noun versus the adjective.

Maybe the adjective would be more correct.

It sounds better to my ear for the noun, though.

What about you, Mark?

Yeah, it’s funny, isn’t it?

I mean, when I write it out, Chicano architecture, I look at that immediately and I think, wow, what does that look like?

You know, but then I, I mean, what do you call yourselves?

Do you call yourselves architectural students or architecture students?

Architecture students.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Boy, this is tricky.

I see your dilemma.

I do, too.

It’s a little misleading because you might think it might be about Chicano architecture if there is such a thing.

Have you considered any other phrases that might also spell CASA when they’re turned into an acronym?

Yeah, I’m assuming that you want the Spanish word for house there, right?

Yeah.

Okay.

And actually the organization was established in 1966.

Oh, wow.

And it’s been written this way.

Oh, it has already.

Yes, it has been written.

It has a long history.

So you wouldn’t change it to the Chicano Association of Student Architects?

No.

Okay.

Oh, really?

Oh, that’s a brilliant solution.

Don’t flatter me.

No, I mean, that’s really good, isn’t it, Viviana?

But the history kind of precludes that.

And I think history might be your winning little bit of information here.

It might be slightly more correct to use the adjective, but are people really confused?

Well, the only reason it came up was because we’re deciding to put a website together.

And, you know, we want to be grammatically correct.

Oh, well, I think you’re grammatically correct the way it is.

I did a double take when I wrote it down, but then after a second I got it.

Yeah, because the thing is, because here’s what’s happening here, Viviana, if we can get all geeky for a second, is that nouns can often behave in what’s called an attributive fashion.

That is, they kind of act like adjectives.

And so in this case, architecture is a little more than a noun.

It’s also describing student.

It’s doing the job of an adjective without actually having the AL ending there, the architectural.

It’s totally fine in that capacity.

English is filled with it.

The reason this throws most people is that you were not absolutely ever taught about attributive nouns in school.

They just simply don’t teach it.

But it’s incredibly common at the higher levels of linguistic study to talk about attributive nouns.

And in fact, there are people who make a habit of collecting phrases that are something like five or six nouns strung together in a row that only work because some of the nouns behave like adjectives rather than just flat out plain nouns.

Oh, really? Like what?

I don’t have one. I knew you were going to ask. Always.

Martha, always with the question that I don’t have the answer to.

But Chicano Architecture Student Organization is okay.

Chicano Architectural Student Organization is okay.

And whether you choose one or the other probably needs to be a matter of what sounds best to your ear

And what fits best with the history of the organization,

And not because somebody is bringing down what they consider to be the great rules of grammar

Because they’re going to be wrong.

I think that’s a really good solution.

Yeah, just what does your ear tell you?

All right. We’re on the winning side then. Architecture.

Yeah.

It sounds like an interesting organization. The website’s not up yet?

No, not yet.

All right. Well, we’ll look for it. And when you guys do get the website going,

Send us a link and we’ll make sure that everyone knows about it. All right?

Okay. Will do. Thank you very much.

Take care of yourself, Viviana.

Okay.

Thanks.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

If only all of our problems are solved so easily by a vote.

I was going to say.

Because you and I vote and even when we agree, we disagree.

That’s true.

That’s true. But boy, I thought you had a great solution there, but then the history of the organization sort of.

Yeah, yeah. The NAACP had the same problem, right?

That’s why they’re strictly about the acronym.

They had this history behind their name about colored people, and we don’t call black Americans colored people anymore, really.

So they still kept the name, but they kind of adjusted to the acronym in order to maintain the long history that they have as an organization.

That’s a great example.

If you’ve got a dilemma where a bunch of you are arguing about something that you believe comes down to a matter of syntax or semantics,

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