Myriad Of

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, Grant. Hi, Martha.

Hi, who’s this?

This is Brian Barnhors from San Diego.

Hi, Brian. Welcome to the program.

Hi, Brian.

Thank you. Love your show.

Oh, thanks. What can we do for you?

Well, my wife was sending out an email, and she had me take a look at it.

That was her first mistake, right?

That’s right.

And I looked over her shoulder, and I said, well, you know, honey, it’s really not a myriad of. It’s just myriad, because myriad means thousands of, and so it’d be redundant to say a myriad of. And she said, well, you might be right. I think I am. But nobody knows that. And so if I say myriad, then everybody’s going to read this and think I made a mistake. And so my question to you was, am I fighting a losing battle here?

Wow. Well, you know, this is an especially tough one because I don’t know that there is one that’s really preferred over the other.

As far as I know, as far back as you can go, even into ancient Greek, the source of the word, used either way.

Right. It’s a noun or an adjective. And that’s what we’re talking about here, right?

You’re talking about a myriad of is a noun.

Or if you’re talking about a myriad, you know, myriad automobiles, you mean many automobiles.

That’s an adjective, right?

Right.

And so we’re getting a little bit of confusion because of the parts of speech.

And some people prefer the noun and some people prefer the adjective.

And it sounds, your wife’s kind of right on one hand. It does sound a little odd if you leave the of off. It doesn’t, myriad is not quite common enough.

I don’t know.

What do you do, Martha?

I absolutely do both.

You do both.

Okay.

I absolutely do both.

I think I do too, but I don’t know under what circumstances.

The thing is, Brian, all of the style guides and dictionaries talk about this issue, and none of them have anything conclusive to say that is worth repeating here.

Yeah, so she’s raised a really good question.

Well, should I go along with what I think everybody is doing, which may be not really the correct one, but there really isn’t a correct one in this.

You know, you guys are like that old Certs commercial. Do you remember that?

Certs is a candy mint.

Certs is a breath mint.

And then somebody says, stop, you’re both right.

Right.

Exactly. It’s two, two, two words in one.

Yeah.

There’s a quote that I like to give on this, which actually has in it a quote. And you might not know this, but David Foster Wallace, the writer, did some usage notes for Oxford University Press when I was working there.

And they’re in the writer’s thesaurus, and some of them have appeared in the New Oxford American Dictionary.

And he has the note for myriad. And in it, David Foster Wallace, he wrote, the truth is that any reader who’s bugged by a myriad of is both persnickety, sorry, Brian, and wrong.

Oh.

Yeah.

Which is worse, persnickety or pedantic?

I don’t know.

I think persnickety is nicer.

But he also points out that Coleridge, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, used it, and he did this. He used both the noun and the adjective, myriad, myriads of lives teemed forth.

Yeah.

Isn’t that wonderful?

I know less now than I did when I called.

That’s our goal.

If we can’t answer you straight, we’re just going to confuse you.

But my point is that even Coleridge, centuries ago, was tuned in to the fact that there was something interesting going on there with this conflict between the noun and the adjective and myriad.

And you and your wife have re-encountered that conflict.

Not our first.

No, but you’re still married, so that’s something.

My advice, you know, an email is kind of informal.

Well, if it’s a formal document, my advice would be to rewrite to avoid the word.

If you’re in doubt, just save it for another day.

Yeah, how about a whole bunch of?

Or lots?

But, you know, if you’re writing something to the condo board or something, you know, maybe you want some…

There are myriad leaks in the roof.

Yeah.

Just to make sure that you’re understood and your letter doesn’t come back with red marks on it.

I’m a lawyer.

I’m supposed to speak in words that people don’t understand.

So you’re to blame.

Okay.

Half my mail is written by people like you.

We love the language.

Yeah.

So there is no clear answer here.

Rewrite to avoid it if you can.

Your wife is okay with her choice.

You are okay with your choice.

Carry on, love one another, and live long and prosper.

That’s all.

Sounds great.

Thanks for calling, Brian.

Thank you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Yeah, even the ancient Greek version of this was both an adjective and a noun.

And that’s where we get it from ancient Greek.

It comes directly into English and French, and a lot of the European languages have some form of it, right?

Right, right.

Well, the marriage counselors are on the air.

If you’ve got a family dispute about language, give us a call, 877-929-9673, or put the terrible details, all of them please, in email to words@waywordradio.org.