Nikki in Northampton, Massachusetts, disagrees with her teenage daughter about the word beef, as in to have a beef, meaning “to have a problem with someone or something.” Nikki uses the word a before the word beef, but her daughter omits that article and simply says to have beef. Traditionally, beef meaning “a complaint” or “a dispute” functioned as a count noun; you can have a beef or have multiple beefs with someone. In the 1970s, however, people started using beef as a mass noun, meaning it requires no article and can’t be counted, as in Has he got any beef with you? So Nikki and her daughter are both right, and the growing popularity of have beef is a great example of language evolving. This is part of a complete episode.
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...
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