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Ahoy, mateys, and welcome aboard another newsletter from A Way with Words!
We are delighted to welcome our new listeners from KTOO in Juneau, Alaska, and WCAI, in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The smell of leather-bound books and printer's ink is luring them from both coasts.
On this past weekend's show we talked about nicknames, “dilemma” spelled “dilemna,” and what to call someone who leaves a career late in life but isn't retiring. Give it a listen:
https://waywordradio.org/nicknames/
You can also listen to another special online-only minicast: Pretty much everyone knows what emoticons and smileys are, but how many people know how to punctuate a sentence that contains these pictographs that are already made of punctuation?
We discuss the possibilities here:
https://waywordradio.org/emoticons-minicast/
Thanks to everyone who called and sent in email this week. A particularly great number of you had something to say and we're still sorting through them.
One batch in particular, though, is easy to answer because it gives us a chance to rebut some common misconceptions about speaking correctly.
Here's what you had to say and our responses:
“You used a split infinitive!”
This one should go down in history with spider eggs in bubble gum and childhood stars dying from eating Pop Rocks and soda: it's a myth.
All the grammar experts we know–and we know hundreds–agree that splitting infinitives is fine, though not doing it can sometimes add clarity. Blanket proscriptions against it have always been ill-advised. Choosing whether or not to do it is a matter of personal or institutional style, not grammar.
“You ended a sentence with a preposition!”
Same for ending a sentence with a preposition: as long as the sentence is otherwise correct and grammatical, it is fine. There has never been a legitimate rule forbidding it. Though there should be a Facebook group for people who are now trying to recover their equilibrium after discovering their fifth grade teachers were wrong in spreading this false rule.
“You said 'five years younger than me'!”
“Younger than me” is correct, if you consider that “than me” is operating in the objective case. “Than” is a preposition here, not a conjunction. “Than I” is best used if you are going to add a verb afterward: “Five years younger than I am.” You could argue that “than I” is more appropriate in formal situations, which we might agree with–but an unscripted radio show is by no means formal!
Elsewhere, high among our recommendations these days is the new audiobook from Charles Hodgson of Podictionary.com. “Global Wording: The Fascinating Story of the Evolution of English” is a pleasant summary of how the language turned out the way it has, read with Charles's homey Canadian vowels and his soothing library voice (that's the language-radio equivalent of “bedroom eyes”).
Find out more about “Global Wording” here:
Don't forget that throughout the week we drop pointers to interesting language-related stuff in our discussion forums:
https://waywordradio.org/discussion/
Never avast ye wordlubbers,
Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett
Co-hosts of A Way with Words
https://waywordradio.org
Call or write with your language questions 24 hours a day:
(877) WAY-WORD
(877) 929-9673
words@waywordradio.org
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“Than I,” etc. - really “what follows than?” in general. I spent a few minutes today puzzling over whether a phrase in the New York Times Business Day front page for Wednesday, July 9 worked.
It certainly at least violated the rule of “don't stop or puzzle the reader!”
Re the new iPhone, the article (leftmost column) said, at the end of paragraph 6:
“[the phone] brings you Web pages in less than half the time as the old iPhone.”
I spent about 3 minutes trying to re-cast the phrase, get it down to bare structure, determine what was implied and missing, decided I knew what it meant, and moved on. Probably best re-phrased as
“more than twice as fast as the old iPhone” though that does beg the question of “fast” - should it be “quickly?” (not very hip-sounding)
If you voiced a presently silent “did” at the end of their phrase, you could leave out the “as.” Maybe that's the answer - leave out the “as” and put in “did,” though that sounds a bit Victorian or at least Edwardian.
“Less than half the time of the old iPhone” doesn't fit either.
I remember that you've talked about choosing the preposition/adverb/whatever (issue being basically “what small relational word fits here?”) on the program, with a caller whose first language was, I believe, Spanish. It certainly is a big question for me when trying to sound colloquial in Spanish or French - but not so much clearer in spoken and written English, my native though occasionally conundrumnical tongue.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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