Someone Who is Always to Blame

Hi there, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Elena from Richmond, Kentucky.

What’s going on, Elena?

So my friend and I have this debate that’s been going on for six months.

What?

She said, I know, six months, can you believe that?

I know, and neither of us, neither of us will give in to that the other one is right.

So I thought the only one that can settle this is you all.

Oh boy.

And she’s here with me in the room.

So because I knew that she would she would never believe when I tell her that she’s going to be wrong about this.

No pressure there.

OK, no.

All right, let’s hear it.

Lay it out for us.

So my friend says that when she when there is no one else to blame, she gets blamed for things.

So she says that she is the fault default.

And I said, no, you’ve got it backwards.

If you are the one that always gets blamed for things, then you are the default fault.

And so we just will not let this go.

Because I’m thinking, okay, like a computer, you go back to your default settings.

It’s the original kind of go to everything.

And she says I’m wrong.

She thinks that she is the fault default.

Six months we’ve been going at this.

Oh, my gosh.

So you’re blaming her for being wrong then.

Well, that’s it.

I’m always blaming her.

It’s all about her being wrong, and you’re still blaming her.

That’s right.

We have a bet going on.

Whoever wins, the loser has to pay for the next Airbnb for us to get away from the real world with this pandemic.

So I need her to pay for the trip.

Oh, man.

You sound like good friends, equally stubborn, equally persistent.

Well, now, wait.

She’s there with you six feet away?

Yes, she is.

Oh, let’s talk to her.

What is her name?

Erin.

Erin.

Okay.

Erin.

Yep, so I’m going to put her on.

Okay.

Hello, this is the default speaking.

Hi, Erin.

All right.

Let’s hear your side of this.

Did she represent your side well?

It’ll do.

It’ll do.

All right, let’s hear your thinking.

Yeah, so you get blamed for everything.

If anybody’s going to be blamed, it’s got to be Erin, you know?

It’s like when you have a kid and you make commitments and then you don’t want to go later.

And then you decide, the kid, you know, oh, the baby didn’t sleep today.

Or, oh, the baby won’t wake up from the nap or whatever.

That baby becomes the fault default, right?

It kind of gets you out of things and problems.

But now it’s like I’m the fault default as I’ve grown up because I’m the one like people like, oh, who do we blame?

Let’s blame Aaron.

Oh, gosh.

If you replace the word fault, so we’re all agreed that the word default is okay here, right?

Right.

Because default means the thing that you fall back on automatically before you consider other options, right?

Right.

Like it’s the baseline setting before you change things.

Sure.

Okay.

If you replace the word fault, though, with excuse or blame, does your version still work?

Excuse or blame.

So blame default.

Well, without trying, I have to say absolutely.

Or excuse default.

Yeah.

Now, try Elena’s.

Does default blame?

Like, if I say Erin is the default blame or Erin is the default excuse, does that work?

Both.

This is the problem that we’re having.

If I could get all four of us on the line here, we could all talk about the problem is that we’ve got two nouns behaving differently in two separate phrases.

So in fault default, default is a noun, and fault is a noun behaving adjectivally.

So it’s basically attributive noun.

And in default fault, fault is a noun, and default is behaving attributively, adjectivally.

So it’s behaving like an adjective.

And so this is where you’re kind of getting confusion here.

Martha, I don’t know about you.

For me, I think fault default is the better choice.

You know what, honestly?

Can you say that louder in one more time?

Yeah, because fault sounds like something that’s wrong with somebody.

And so if you’re saying default fault, it’s not the same as saying the person at fault is always the default.

I have it in my head.

I just can’t explain it very well, but I agree with Grant.

Fault default is where I would go.

What?

So who’s was that?

This is Erin.

Erin, you were correct.

I’m the fault default.

Yeah, okay.

Oh my gosh.

I get a free trip.

All right, y’all, text in the mail.

Oh, this is the best pandemic day ever.

2020 got way better.

That’s sad.

That’s really sad.

I hope your friendship withstands this drama.

We have to live in the moment, Martha.

That’s true.

We do.

And, you know, I guess your only hope is that we do have opinionated listeners.

And I could hear somebody, you know, maybe calling in or writing us.

Chastising us for being wrong.

Yeah.

So there may be a thin sliver of hope.

There’ll be six months of argument in our email inbox.

I guarantee it.

So thanks a lot.

Nice.

Welcome to our world.

Oh, my gosh.

All right.

You two take care.

And I hope everyone stops blaming Erin because she was right for once.

Yeah.

Tell us how that trip goes.

Yeah, finally.

Oh, we’ll let you know.

And we’ll let you know our new dilemma.

You all are great.

Thanks a bunch.

And just decide who’s navigating to the Airbnb before you go.

Bye-bye.

That’s right.

Take care now.

Oh, word.

Take care, y’all.

Take care.

Oh, Grant.

You know, part of this is that I have this native speaker’s instinct that fault default is right.

Yeah, kind of your native speaker’s intuition on language kind of gets in the way, right?

But the reason I went to replacing fault with blame or excuse is because if you do that, it becomes a little clearer.

So blame default sounds a lot better than default blame because she’s not a blame.

She’s a default, right?

Right.

So if you treat that last word in both of these phrases as a noun, when we’re talking about Erin, she isn’t a fault.

We would never call her a fault.

We would call her a default.

And so it kind of works out better as blame default.

She is the thing that the blame defaults to.

Yes, every time there’s somebody to blame, the default is Aaron, right?

So blame default works better, therefore fault default works better.

Yeah, blame functioning as an adjective.

Yeah, but before we mess this up further, let’s just give the phone number and go to another call.

Please agree with us.

877-929-9673.