Grammar and usage Q4 2013

The Proof Angel is the trading name of Sarah Perkins, freelance editor and proofreader.www.theproofangel.co.uk or http://ow.ly/sNlFs © Sarah Perkins 2014

Grammar & usage: December 2013

The history of the English language

This short animation is brilliant. I think I might start using "fopdoodle"as an insult. It might take a while top catch on, as I don't insult peoplevery often. Do feel free to help the campaign!

http://ow.ly/sO25H

An easy way to cut redundant language

If only all strategies were as easy to remember as this one. Stop usingthe prefix "pre" when it adds nothing to the sentence:

http://writejudi.wordpress.com/2013/11/15/2165/

A powerful tool for language analysis

Google have enhanced their language analysis tool. I've got a nastyfeeling this will provoke an awful lot of time wasting "research", but itdoes look fascinating stuff:

http://ow.ly/sO2hh

The evolving role of the Oxford English Dictionary

I think we all know there is more to the OED than just a book. It is stilla bit of an eye opener to find out how much more there really is:

http://ow.ly/sPR2i

Confused about due to and caused by?

It can be easy to confuse these, but their meaningis very different.

Due to = caused by

Owing to = because of

Check you have the right one by substitution the other half of theequation.

These pairs of sentences mean the same:

• The collapse of the house was due to the earthquake.

• The collapse of the house was caused by the earthquake.

• Owing to the collapsed bridge it was impossible to get there.

• Because of the collapsed bridge it was impossible to get there.

A or an?

The basic rule is easy. For nouns beginning with a vowel use an, for therest use a as the indefinite article. So it is an orange, but a bus. Anapple grows on a tree.

The complication is words pronounced as if they were a vowel sound.This issue raises its head in two basic types:

• Abbreviations like MP (empee) or SAS. So we say an MP or anSAS man.

• Words beginning with h. It used to be common to treat this has a vowel. These days it works on whether the h ispronounced. So it is a horse, a hotel, but an hour.

Unless you are posh & pronounce hotel the French way...

Confused about off and from?

My husband is, and it causes endless discussion in our house. To him, apresent comes off someone. As if it had been balanced on their head &he got it off there.

If something has been sent by someone, it is received from them.

Things come from places like the market. If it was on a stall, you couldtake it off that stall, but you have bought it from the market.

You borrow from people on the same logic.

Confused about complement and compliment?

May I complement you on your new car? The colour complements therest of the fleet the colours are so patriotic.

A compLEment makes it complete.

A compLIMEnt puts you in the LIME light.

www.theproofangel.co.uk or http://ow.ly/sNlFs © Sarah Perkins 2014

Lay and lie

This is such a controversial topic in our house that I dare not writeanything myself. Just in case. You never know.

So here are some thoughts from Daily writing tips:

http://ow.ly/sPS6T

Confused about forwards and forewords?

Well you won't be for much longer. This post will put you straight:

http://ow.ly/sO4tc

The history of text

Here is an interesting post about the origins of "text" and how theword has changed. I love the connection with woven fabrics:

http://ow.ly/sO4IB

The origins of cheesy and corny

An interesting bit of trivia for you:

http://ow.ly/sO4T2

Caught red handed

It is a reasonably common phrase, and we rarely give it a secondthought. But as this post from Glossologics shows, it is surprising:

• how easily we refer to something so gruesome, and

• how powerful a novel can be in spreading usage.

It is also fascinating to see how other languages have used a similaridea:

http://ow.ly/sO54F

All about the word hostage

Here is a fascinating article about a word that is in the news too often– hostage:

http://mashedradish.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/hostage/


The name of our flag

Here is a fascinating post about a very specific point. Does the nameof the UK flag change according to where it is flown?

http://ow.ly/sO9jC

This really illustrates how much nonsense can be talked about rules ifone is that way inclined. Surely the location of the flag will be clearfrom the context of the sentence if it is at all important. It makes mewonder how the idea came up in the first place.

Are there any other flags with more than one name?

An apostrophe complication

One of the uses of the apostrophe is to show possession, as in Mary'sdoll.

But there are a couple of places where that general scenario doesn'tapply:

• Yours, theirs, its, his, hers, & ours never need anapostrophe.

• When 2 people own the same thing the apostrophe goes inthe last name mentioned, as in Mary and Jane's swing.

Our most popular words

Dictionaries and other major reference works are updated regularly.This means that the people who compile dictionaries have to watch outto see how the language is evolving. They need to assess whatchanges are happening, and decide whether each change should beincluded in the next edition.

The Oxford English Corpus is a major part of the research carried outby Oxford Dictionaries. It is a collection of written or spoken languagein electronic form, giving evidence of how language is used in realsituations, so lexicographers can write accurate and meaningfuldictionary entries.

Software is used to analyse the material to spot:

• new words,

• old words used in a new sense,

• trends in usage, spelling, etc.


This enormous collection gives an accurate picture of the Englishlanguage in the 21st century. It contains over 2 billion words, and it hasbeen estimated that if laid out end to end starting from the northern tipof Scotland they would stretch past the south tip of New Zealand.

So what does the research show? The top 100 words are:


These words alone account for 50% of all the words used in the wholeCorpus, while the top 10 account for a massive 25% of the total.

There are a couple of interesting points to note here:

• The majority of the words are short.

• Most of them are function words, that glue the longer wordstogether.

What are the most popular verbs?

Oxford Dictionaries have published an analysis of the Oxford EnglishCorpus: a collection of written or spoken language in electronic form,giving evidence of how language is used in real situations.

It is no surprise that the verbs we use most frequently express basicconcepts. As with the 100 most common words, they are all short,keeping 2 syllable words out of the top 25 completely. If the list werelonger, it would have included 2 syllable verbs next, as become is 26thand include is 27th.


The origins of the top 25 are fascinating:

• 20 are Old English words,

• get, seem, and want came over with the Vikings,

• try and use came from Old French.

So the old ones are still the best. Here are the top 25 verbs:

What are the most popular nouns?


The nouns are an interesting group, because you can see why theseare more common than their rivals. Many of them have more than onemeaning. For example the Concise OED lists 18 meanings for way and16 for part. They often also form part of common phrases. Some of thepopularity of time, for example, comes from its use in adverbialphrases like on time, in time, last time, next time, this time, etc.

The majority of the top 25 nouns (15) are from Old English. Most ofthe rest came into medieval English from Old French, and before thatfrom Latin.

What are the most popular adjectives?


As with the other word groups, most of the top adjectives have onesyllable, and come from Old English (17/25). Only different, large, andimportant are from Latin.

Once again, words used in more than one way are higher up the list.Great is probably higher in the ranking than big because of its informalsense 'very good'.

The list reflects a general optimistic tone, with happy, successful wordsat the top of the list, and bad scraping in at 23. One reason for thiscould be because we have such a large choice of synonyms availablefor expressing bad things.

Did we expect little to be so much higher at 7 than small at 15?


How language shows what matters to us

This week I've been looking at the most popular words based onresearch by Oxford Dictionaries. The Global Language Monitor has alsopublished a survey recently. This is their 14th annual survey, aimed atfulfilling their slogan "We Tell the World What the Web is Thinking ". Toachieve that aim, they eliminate the smaller more common words tofind what people are saying rather than how they are saying it.

The results for 2013 are rather depressing, with both the list offavourite words and the list of phrases being dominated by gloom. Let'shope for better things in 2014!

http://ow.ly/sO90h

New words ending in ee

Now I freely admit this is a rant. But I would quite like to know it is thatover the last ten years we have acquired so many ugly words ending inee? None of them seem to cover new situations. We have managed forcenturies without them. So why have we suddenly got an outbreak ofeeitis?

Ten years ago people were invited to an event by being sent aninvitation. At that event they were guests. Now they are sent an inviteto something where they are all fellow invitees. Invitation has died andhas been placed by a new noun, invite. The verb to invite (I'm going toinvite) has been replaced by to send, which needs the new noun addingto it for clarification (I'm going to send an invite).

Actually, that is an exaggeration. The verb hasn't died. It is still used to


invite speakers to take the microphone, or more often the PowerPointpointer.

Which leads me to the other common example. Conferences used to beattended by delegates or participants. Now they are attendees. In whatway is that progress?

An article caught my eye recently which had me completely bemused.It started talking about business processes. So far so good. Then itstarted to tell me how to deal with my selectees. That turns out to bepeople on my short list.

Of course, once you have made a decision about the most appropriateselectee for the job you will want to find out who should be Pursued asan endorsee. Known to the sane as asking for a reference.

Not exactly progress towards clarity, is it?

Office jargon a book review

I feel it is my duty to let you all know about this book. It is wellmotivated, as it is written by someone who has had enough ofsenseless jargon. It sounds as though it is well researched, and wellwritten. Some of you may find it interesting and amusing.

I'm not sure I can bring myself to read a whole book about officejargon, management speak, and other abuses of our beautifullanguage. I'm a fan of plain English:

http://ow.ly/sOanW

Is Twitter bad for the language?

Or is it just a natural part of the development process?

It is a debate that will run for a long time.

Here are some thoughts from The Economist.

http://wp.me/p3u22jzK

Grammar and usage Q4 2013

Education

Transcript of Grammar and usage Q4 2013