Let’s all be in agreement.

Agreement is one of the most difficult aspects of English to master. It’s human nature (just think of Judge Judy or any of the various and assorted “reality” shows): people don’t like to agree.

Well, let’s all be New Agey and become one with our inner conflicts, or some such nonsense. Today we’re talking about subject-verb agreement. It’s gonna be one big peace fest.

In a sentence, the subject and the verb must always, always agree in number (and tense, but that’s another post). The kittens, for example, are playing with the yarn. Sarah and John are putting their skis on.

It’s easy enough in present tense. I know that especially around where I live, past tense gets to be a little tricky. The kittens was playing with the yarn. Not correct. Not at all. “Was” is a singular verb, and “kittens” is a plural subject.

Sarah and John might be a little bit sneakier. When speaking, it would feel natural to say something along the lines of, “Sarah and John’s putting on their skis.” But this stretches out to, “Sarah and John is putting on their skis,” and we all know that doesn’t sound natural at all because Sarah and John are two separate people.

One must be cautious in discerning subject-verb agreement, however, because it can try to trip one up. The store called Steve and Barry’s are not anything. Steve and Barry’s is something because it is one entity. Just think back to your Power Rangers days. The Zords are plural. They fight the giant monsters separately. But when they join up to form the Magazord, they become one entity, even though it’s made up of five or six zords. The Magazord is singular, like Steve and Barry’s. Sarah and John, however, do not form a super robot that can destroy an entire cardboard city in mere moments. They remain separate from one another, and are therefore plural.

Another tricky one is a word like band. It is, believe it or not, correct to say, “The band are tuning their instruments,” because each individual band member is tuning his own separate instrument. Conversely, the band is playing a song, because one song is being played by one uniform group. It’s another shape shifter in the terrifying complexities of the English language.

That’s enough of that for now. Right now, we’re moving on to the main course.

In writing a formal paper, it is often difficult to convey a neutral gender when one is attempting to form an argument or to make a point. One is not allowed to use “you” and write in the second person, so one must be forced to make a choice. One may utilize the word “one” and use it every time one needs a pronoun, but it tends to become grating to one’s nerves.

I have nothing against using “one,” of course, because I like it; I use it often, but not exclusively. The other choice for the writer of the paper is simply to choose a gender and stick with it. In a politically correct world, a person may often blanch at using one gender in an argument or paper. He may think it will make him sound sexist, but when it comes down to it, he really has no other choice. He could keep using “one,” but that’s tedious. And he can’t keep using “he or she” because repetitive use of that phrase is against the rules (it’s also tedious). But instead of turning to one gender sentences, his first thought it to go where?

Their.

No, not there.

Because the English Language has no word for a person of unknown or neutral gender, people often turn to they and their in order to convey the fact that they don’t know the gender of a person because they and their are gender neutral. The problem is the fact that these words are plural, and they’re being used in a singular manner. That’s not done.

We all do it. If you’re sitting in a classroom and someone in the hallway starts screaming bloody murder, you turn to your cohort and you say, “Heavens to Betsy, who is that in the hallway? I say, they’re screaming bloody murder!” Or something like that. Because you don’t know what gender that screaming person is.

You can usually get away with it in speech, because speech goes by so fast people don’t even notice it (unless it’s a glaring mistake, like “The kittens was playing with the yarn”). In writing, however, your they’re is there for all to see forever and ever, amen. So you can’t use it.

Therefore, when in doubt, pick a gender so that your subject and verb agree, and stick with it. I promise you won’t sound sexist, unless you actually are being sexist, and then I can’t help you.

I feel a little bit slighted.

I just read in the paper that one of my professors from Franciscan has been doing research on the Ohio Valley Dialect. There was a whole big article about him and he explained the history of the dialect and the different influences on it. He said he’ll be having students do some research on the Ohio Valley Dialect in the Fall, which is pretty exciting because I’m in his Phonics and the History of Language class next semester. I’d love to have the opportunity to do some research on my native dialect.

Oh wait. I already did that research.

I also already wrote that paper my first semester and published that article in the Local Yokel, the newsletter I run, almost a year ago. The article in the paper today sounded just like my paper from two years ago, except shorter.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not accusing anyone of plagiarism; that would be hubris, not to mention rude. I just feel a little left out because when I did my paper, there was no literature on my dialect. I had to do my own research and study three different dialects and form my own conclusions about the intricacies of the Ohio Valley Dialect (there wasn’t even a name for it). And now because a professor decided to study it, it’s a big deal. No one cared when a nerdy college freshman was so excited about her research that the ten page limit wasn’t enough. Now that a guy who has a doctorate wants to talk about it, the newspaper’s publishing stories about him.

I wonder if he read my article. Probably not. He probably thought of studying the dialect all on his own because we all talk funny (he’s from Buffalo) and he wanted to know what that was about. I would. So my original research wasn’t original at all. He might think I stole his idea.

In any case, I’m excited for my Phonics and the History of Language class next semester. This professor’s one of my favorites at school, so it should be worth the 8 am time. Maybe I’ll get to help with the research (that I already did) and since I actually speak the dialect, I might get to share my thoughts or pronunciations.

I’m looking on the bright side, but I’m still a little miffed.

Hey, at least I know my research was accurate. Everything he’s found out is what I found out. But no one calls it a “shopping buggy.” It’s just a buggy.

blogging post-beach

I’ve just returned from Myrtle Beach, where I spent a week sitting under an umbrella and contemplating grammar. It’s what I do.

There’s a sign near the hot tub in our hotel. It says “Hot water and chlorine can effect the fabrics of some bathing suit materials. We cannot be held responsible for this.”

Wait, what? A professionally made, permanent sign on the wall at a beach front hotel has fallen victim to the homonyms? It just figures that I’d be staying at that hotel.

“Effect” is a noun. It’s the result of something, as in “cause and effect.”

“Affect” is a verb. Hot water and chlorine can affect some fabrics and cause them to fade. The fading would be the effect.

It really upsets me when I see signs with mistakes like this. If it was a one man job, it’d be understandable, but a person had to decide what went on the sign. The sign had to be ordered, the sign had to be made, the sign had to be purchased and hung on the wall, and the sign has been hanging there for years. The owner of the hotel stands right there, every day, in order to make sure everyone in the neighboring lazy river uses a tube. Why hasn’t anything been done about this sign? It’s wrong, oh so very wrong.

The Secret

I never learned much grammar in school. Most of what I know has been gleaned from reading so much. I kind of picked it up through osmosis. When I was a freshman in high school, I asked my teacher to explain the difference between “who” and “whom”. He obliged and immediately launched into some long and complex explanation of the rules and the grammar that sounded less like an answer and more like a calculus formula. At least he knew, because when I was a sophomore, someone else asked our teacher to explain the difference, and she told us not to worry about it because she wasn’t sure herself.

You see why I never learned much grammar in school.

By this time, I had figured out the secret of who and whom myself. It was a wonderful find, akin to Indiana Jones’s discovery of the Ark of the Covenant. And it was wonderfully simple.

And now, dear friends, I share it with you.

The easiest way to figure out whether you need to use who or whom is this: if you can replace the interrogative pronoun (who/whom) with “him” and have the sentence make sense, then you need whom. Note that they both end in M. If you can replace it with “he”, then you need who. Note that they both end in a vowel.

Like this:

To whom did you send it?

You sent it to him.

To who did you send it? (Who did you send it to?)

You sent it to he.

Who gave you the card?

He gave you the card.

Whom gave you the card?

Him gave you the card.

Easy, right? Who is the subject. Whom is the object (notice the prepositions–to whom, for whom, by whom).

Please remember to use whom carefully. If you’re not sure, just use who because it’s the societal norm. Whom is not the fancy version of who, and should not be used as such. If you use it correctly, it makes you sound like you know what you’re talking about. If you use it incorrectly, it just makes you sound like a pretentious idiot because there are those of us who know how to use it.

The Hot Debate

What’s everyone in the media debating these days? Whether Obama will select Clinton as his running mate? The Pitt-Jolie family’s new thirty-five bedroom house? Who would win in a battle between cavemen and astronauts? No. None of these.

Today’s hot topic is the preposition. Yes, I know it’s shocking. I know it’s not quite PC to be discussing it, but the fact remains that there is the question of the preposition and its role in society, and I have the answer.

I said before that although the rule states otherwise, it is generally OK to start a sentence with a conjunction (with the exception of formal writing). Today we’re looking at the end of the sentence. The rule is this: one should never ever end a sentence with a preposition.

What do I think of this rule? It should be law. In writing, one should never ever under any circumstances end a sentence with a preposition. An example of this transgression is as follows:

“Where is the dog at?”

“I need a box to put this in.”

Writing is one thing, and speaking, I know, is a horse of a different color. We all have our own dialects, and dialects, like taxes, are unavoidable. In my dialect area, it is common for a person to end his or her sentences with prepositions, and I have been known to do so when speaking informally. I do try to catch myself whenever possible, but it’s hard to unlearn a behavior. However, I feel that there is at least one preposition that should never end a sentence, no matter who you are. That preposition is “at”.

In my opinion, one can slide by with “I need a box to put this in,” but “Where’s the dog at?” is the proverbial sore thumb. Ending a sentence with “at” screams hillbilly, and believe me when I say I know hillbilly.

I know what the naysayers’ argument is. That the preposition rule was arbitrarily made up by some guy who decided one day that it should be so. That just because he said so doesn’t make the rule valid. Well that guy was a grammarian, and he knew what he was talking about. Besides, he’s not the only one to have said so, because most grammarians since then have agreed with him, and that makes it valid. So follow the rules, and no one gets hurt.

How does one avoid ending his sentence with one of those pesky little words? In the case of “at,” one can generally simply leave it off, because another word has probably covered it. For example, in “Where’s the dog at?” the word “where” is already performing the same function as “at,” so the sentence should read, “where’s the dog?” There’s no need to make complexities of things. In our other example, we simply must switch the word order. “I need a box to put this in,” becomes “I need a box in which to put this.” Ta da! A grammatically correct sentence in one easy step.

Take a look at the following chart from this site to get an idea of some other prepositions.

about	behind	from	on	toward
above	below	in	on top of	under
across	beneath	in front of	onto	underneath
after	beside	inside	out of	until
against	between	instead of	outside	up
along	by	into	over	upon
among	down	like	past	with
around	during	near	since	within
at	except	of	through	without
before	for	off	to

The Queen’s English

I ran across an interesting Wikipedia page just now. There was a queen called Matilda of Flanders, who married William the Conqueror. Every king or queen of England since the mid-eleventh century has been a direct descendant of Matilda.

This is supremely awesome. Why, you ask? Well I’ll tell you. First, because my nickname is Matilda, and that in itself is cool. Second, because her husband was William the Conqueror! Perhaps you’ve heard of the Battle of Hastings in 1066? It’s only the most important date for any English major to remember, because that’s basically when the English Language came into existence. William, a francophone, came in and, fittingly, conquered. He became king of England, and French became the language of the court. It mixed with the native Germanic tongue and voila! English as we know it. Or at least a precursor of the language we all hold dear to our hearts. Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell.

Here are some links for you to further your knowledge.

Matilda of Flanders

William the Conqueror

Battle of Hastings

Also, you’ll notice that the Battle of Hastings took place on October 14, 1066. That happens to be my birthday, except 921 years earlier. My love of English was fate.

But what about the conjunctions?

I enjoy a nice complex sentence. It makes your text flow just a little bit more smoothly, and it keeps your thoughts from sounding choppy. And nothing aids in the formation of complex sentences like a cute little conjunction.

You might notice that I often start sentences with conjunctions (but, so, and, etc.), and if you paid attention in English class, you’ll know that the rule says that one should never start a sentence with a conjunction. While this is true in a formal setting, such as within an academic paper, the rule has generally shifted into a more relaxed school of thought.

Stylistically, certainly, one is allowed to start a sentence with any word one pleases; fragment thoughts and made up words are even permitted, because in a creative writing format, what the author says is law. But this should be avoided when it comes down to that term paper for your stodgy old college professor. Although, if you think you can get away with it, by all means, go for it: it can really drive home whatever point you’re trying to make when you utilize the beginning conjunction in a rhetorical question.

I like to think conjunctions add a little flavor to your paragraph. They’re like the parsley flakes of the grammar world.

Some letters are like ninjas and spies.

We all know that the English language is chock full of silent letters. They just appear to be hanging out in a word, with no real purpose, kind of like that one friend you all had in high school that just stuck around uninvited. You don’t remember having a friend like that? Odds are it’s because you were that person.

But I digress. My point is these little hangers-on were once vital and useful. Take the word “knight” for example. The K, G, and H are all essentially useless, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t serve a purpose once upon a time. Long ago, every letter in just about every word in English was pronounced. It would have made life much easier for those small children who were learning to read at the time. However, things change, and language evolves. As humans, we tend to rush things, always wanting to get to the end faster and faster. Eventually, words like knight dropped the pronunciation of some of their sounds, but retained the spellings.

Another sneaky little word with a stealthy silent letter is “often”. You might be wondering which letter’s silent, yes? If you are, then you’re probably one of those people who pronounce the T. Don’t worry, a lot of people do it, especially if they’re reading aloud. But that doesn’t make it right. The reasoning behind pronouncing the T is that it makes it sound more proper or formal. However, just as it’s no longer proper to pronounce all those silent letters in “knight,” it’s also not recommended that you pronounce the T in “often.” It’s just there for moral support.

There’s no A in infinity.

There are a lot of words that people, especially today’s facebook crowd, use in an increasingly frequent manner. One such word is definitely. It’s a lovely word, full of certainty, as if the lines of the universe have been drawn around whatever situation it’s being utilized to describe.

While I’ve not had occasion to despise the word itself, I definitely can’t stand it when someone can’t spell it. Take note.

There’s no A in “definitely”. It is not spelled “definately,” or in any other combination of letters other than that one combination that was intended for it. This is not one of those optional spelling words like grey and gray. It is definite.

Let’s have a definition. From www.dictionary.com:

def·i·nite·ly

1.	in a definite manner; unambiguously.

2.	unequivocally; positively.

def·i·nite

Having distinct limits

Notice the “having distinct limits” part of the definition of the root word definite. Take a look see at definite’s root word. Finite. Limited. There’s no A in finite. There’s no A in infinity. And there’s definitely no A in definite. Remember that.

Buy them, live them, love them.

I own several books that deal with the English language. Ok, when I say several, I mean I have an entire shelf (or two) devoted to them. That being said, I have two absolute favorites.

The first is Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots, and Leaves. This is by far the most humorous guide book to the English Language that I’ve ever encountered. Ms. Truss is not only witty and helpful, but she’s also the inspiration for this blog. I’m certainly not the first person to endeavor to inform the masses about our beautiful language, and neither is Truss, but she’s one of the best at it.

The second is The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. This is a book that should be owned and loved by anyone who ever took an English class. It’s incredibly useful, and while one may not agree with absolutely every entry (the rules in English are often open to interpretation), it’s still one of the best tools an English speaker could have at his disposal.

Go out and buy them. Read them on the beach. You’ll thank me later.