Temp-er, Temp-er, Temp-er!

Okay, I realize I’ve offered spelling advice that says, “Look to the root word when seeking better spelling.” But I have also suggested that you can ignore some advice that was absorbed as “rule”. And temp is one of them. This scruffy little root word has a variety of meanings. My dictionary (American Heritage, 4th Edition) lists more than two dozen words beginning with “t-e-m-p…” and a variety of meanings running from temper to temporary.

The etymology of this root is fascinating, but I won’t bore you with it. Know that t-e-m-p has been mished and mashed and put through a wringer over the centuries in order to produce quite a variety of uses in U.S.-English.

Most of the temp words refer to a root meaning of “time” or “mix” or “mingle”. Go figure! Here are a few of the differences:

A plain old temp can be that outsider who comes into your office “temporarily” to work on the books in your department.

A temper is “the tantrum” you throw when you weren’t asked to help.

That was when you were asked to temper your temper, “to moderate” it.

Temperament or temperamentally is “the way you handle” that temper.

Temperance goes further and asks you to knock it off completely, to “restrain” yourself.

When the office temperature rises, sometimes tempers also “get hot”.

Not wanting a tempest of “violent behavior of tornado proportions” to upset the office, your HR psychologist would likely suggest you temper your temper and avoid a tempest in a teapot with a well-tempered clavichord, with “tempered” music!

Remaining on an artsy level, tempera is a “mingling” of colors.

The temple in the Temple of Doom, on the other hand, draws meaning from sacred ground that was “divided” or “separated” (ironically meaning un-mixed) from ordinary ground. And from that, surprisingly, comes the meaning for the temple on either side of your eyes, originating from a Greek word meaning “vital spot”, as indicated by the Greek Vale of Tempe located between two important Greek mountains. (Classical Latin refers to that forehead area as the “temporal bone” or “temporal muscle”, protecting the precious vital eyes.)

No, I won’t miss some other t-e-m-p’s: as in Shirley Temple, Tempe AZ, or tempeh, an Indonesian dish made from fermented soybeans. Wonder where these t-e-m-p’s came from…

Ain’t language fun!

Well! Well! Well!

So now you know the difference between “well” and “well”! Ain’t grammar fun!

Thanks to Dan Piraro, my artist doppelganger, and BIZARRO!

Save the Earth—It's the Only Planet That Feeds Us

An author friend inquired about whether or not to capitalize the word “earth” when using it to refer to the planet, rather than to soil. While the planet is made up of soil, it gave me pause to consider the ramifications. As an editor and a citizen of Planet Earth and a concerned inhabitant of Mother Earth, I decided to capitalize the word as often as possible, using the lower case “e” only when referring to sod, soil, dust, or mud.

When I consulted my thesaurus, I found references under “earth” with a small “e”, only to soil. Under “Earth” with a capital “E”, were choices among: humankind, planet, and globe. Curious about the reference to “humankind”, I looked it up and found: human race, humanity, people, civilization. Now there’s a great metaphor! Earth means People, Humans, Us! We came from Earth (soil), or so it is said. We stay alive through Earth (soil) that grows food for us. We return to Earth (soil) when we finish living (“Earth to Earth, dust to dust”).

So tell me, understanding how interwoven we are with Earth, how dependent we are to the continued gifts from Earth, and as we watch civilization destroy the very ground we walk on — day by day… tell me why we cannot come to grips with the notion that it may all turn to dust and blow away soon, blowing us away with it at the same time?

We have discovered that people cannot be forced to be careful with Earth’s resources (water, air, soil), just as writers cannot be forced to capitalize that precious word: Earth.

However, I can ask writers to consider the importance of the deeper meaning of “Earth” every time they write it. Perhaps that will keep us around a few millennia… centuries… decades longer.

To Hiss or Not To Hiss…

If you want to appreciate your language, read the comics pages; I wouldn’t miss them! Most of the time I admire the way the writers use language — they love to play with words, which I particularly enjoy, especially the puns. As an editor, I am obsessed with editing printed text — and in doing so with the comic section recently, I came across the “hissing” problem. What caught my eye was the phrase “an historic event”.

What is the hissing problem? you may ask. This involves the decision to use the hissing sound when a word begins with the letter H, which results in deciding whether to use the article “a” or “an” to precede it. Some words starting with H make a sound; some don’t. Let me show you what I mean.

Repeat after me:

1) honestly, hour, heiress, hors d’oeuvre
2) history, hammer, humble, hymn, hundred
3) herb*

With the first row, you did not hiss; these are words with a silent H and use the article “an”.

In the second row, you hissed all over the place; each word begins with a pronounced H and is preceded with the article “a”.

When you reached the third row, you may have hesitated. “Herb” is one of those words that can be pronounced either way, depending on how erudite you wish to sound (or whose name you’re struggling with). Oh yes, many mispronounce the H-words, pretending to sound more learned. Others simply imply the sound by using “an” instead of “a”. Who would not say “an historic occasion”, sliding across the H? The reason is that it’s easier to pronounce. However, the written phrase appears correctly as “a historic occasion”. This conundrum dates back to the British days when the Cockney accent omitted all of the Hs that started words.

There is another letter that offers a similar problem: how to pronounce the U at the beginning of a word.

Listen as you pronounce these words:

1) united, utensil, unanimous, universal, usual
2) untie, umpire, ulterior, ugly, umbrella, utter

In the first row, you pronounced the words as if they begin with Y (the yoo or the eew-sound).

The words in the second row begin with an UH sound and utilize the article “an”.

Take care, not only with the way you pronounce words in spoken language, but the way you write words that have multiple pronunciations. And read the comics pages every day! Not only will it help with word usage, but you’ll stay young with laughter.

*Thanks to artist Dan Piraro, who draws the clever (and grammatical) Pizarro comic strip, for permission to use this comic that fell out of his talented pen the day after I originally posted this piece.

Keep Your Thoughts to Yourself

Someone says this phrase every three seconds, somewhere in the world: “I was thinking to myself…” When I hear it, my innards quake, my teeth take on an edge, my toes curl, and my head goes dizzy.

Who else do you think to? I must ask. When you think, it’s completely your secret. Thinking occurs inside your head. When have you heard someone say, “I was thinking to Harry…” or “I was thinking to Mary…” or “I was thinking to you…”?

You have to ask why it seems necessary to add “to myself” to your thinking. Is this narcissism? a mental defect? a cry for help? Wha…???

Incredibly Yours

When did we start using incredible to mean “very very”?

As in:

“We spent an incredible day at the beach.”

“You are incredibly beautiful.”

 “She earns an incredible salary.”

Incredible means “unbelievable, unable to be believed”! What makes a trip to the beach unbelievable, especially if it’s a sunny day?

Personally speaking, I can believe how beautiful you are, but why would anyone say they could not believe it?

And large salaries are not only within the area of belief, but very satisfying to earn.

Come on, listen to yourself and the words you use. And believe them. I find it entirely incredible that U.S.-ers cannot grasp understanding of the language they grew up with.

Inhuman or Inhumane?

The news is filled with the use of these terms, and sometimes they are mis-used. Honestly, would you rather be “inhuman” or “inhumane”?

Inhuman is more dastardly than inhumane. One who is “inhuman” is cruel beyond the scope of being a human being. Whacking a mole over the head several times to kill it would be considered inhuman behavior.

If you are “inhumane”, you are being accused of being unsympathetic, lacking the ability to be compassionate or kind (much like many human beings). Telling a mole’s offspring that you just whacked their parent would be inhumane.

See the difference? Now stop whacking that poor mole!

So so-so!

Speakers use place savers — words or sounds that give the brain time to catch up to the tongue. The primary place savers include sounds, such as “uh, er, um”. Of late, they’re being replaced by words, which range from “so” and “in fact” to “the fact is,  it's my belief”,  and “for some reason or other”. You have to wonder if brains have slowed down or tongues have speeded up.

During a recent lecture, a speaker with what must be the slowest brain in the world nearly put me into a coma. In the first place, she spoke so slowly, my brain was in danger of falling asleep. When I noticed she was using the space saver “so”,  I started counting the times she used it. Within a period of five minutes, she used “so” more than 25 times (that computes to five times a minute). It may have been more, but my brain was very sluggish by that time.

Don’t turn off your audience — whether they are listening or reading your words — by over-using space savers. Everyone has favorites. Here are some to watch for: and, but, then, now, I think, I feel, I believe (we know you think, feel or believe what you’re saying; you don’t have to tell us), and the ever-popular so.

The Old Foodie Speaks

 Slightly edited, the following arrived with today’s note from The Old Foodie (a favorite contact). Can you find some usage variations?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines brioche as ‘a kind of cake made of flour, butter, and eggs; sponge-cake’, Most folk on either side of the Channel, and on all sides of the big waters, would say that the OED got it badly wrong, and that brioche is bread, not cake. Perhaps the OED is merely out of date. For the word-smiths amongst you: such authorities as I have been able to rustle up at short notice say that the word ‘brioche’ comes from the Middle French dialect brier ‘to knead’, which in turn is of Germanic origin, and is ‘akin to Old High German brehhan ‘to break’.

Okay, I’ll tell you. Notice the single quotation marks where U.S. language uses doubles. And the word “amongst” echos British usage. You’re absolutely right. This writer is from Australia, where “English” takes on elements different from both U.S. and Great B. The part I thoroughly get is “…the OED got it badly wrong”.

There’s No Business Like Grammar Business (tra-la!)

My friend Gina Wilhelm, star theater performer, puppeteer, and actor, reflects my view of grammar with the following:

I realize this is a fool’s errand, given how many people can’t keep “to”, “too”, and “two” straight, let alone “your” and “you’re”, to say nothing of “who’s” and “whose”… but “premier” and “premiere” are NOT the same thing. And when dealing with the performing arts, lemme just say that about 95% of the time, the proper one has an “e” at the end. 

Consider: an actor’s premier performance during the show’s premiere! Oh yes, one other thing, a “premier danseur” is the term often used to refer to the principle male dancer in a ballet. But now we’re back to the French, without whom we probably wouldn’t even have “ballet”… or grammar consternation!

Till the end of time...

Or is it: ’til the end of time? Another conundrum, oh my! (I always considered “till” as pertaining to what one did with soil.)

The word we’re searching for is until. As in “Until you tell me differently, I’ll till the soil with my trusty spade.”

Which is correct? Oh, Anarchist of the Grammar, please till… oops!… tell me!

Both — or rather, all — are correct, if you mean acceptable. Editors agree with all three: until, till, and ’til, as long as only one is used consistently. C-O-N-S-I-S-T-E-N-C-Y is the GA’s byword.

Till (’till, until) next time: be consistent.

Do you “temble” or “tremble”?

If you don’t do crossword puzzles, you may confuse the words tremble (as in earthquake) with temblor, as in… wait for it… earthquake. Both words suggest “shaking”.

A single trip to a good dictionary adds a couple of adjectives, tremulous, as in “trembling, shaking” and temerius, adding the definition “reckless”.

Just for fun, go one step further with tremble and find the trembles, a noun referring to “an infectious tick disease of sheep which causes them to leap about and tremble (shake) violently”.

See what you can discover during a quiet afternoon sitting in the shade with your dictionary?

Think You Know Grammar?

A synonym is a word to use when you can’t spell the word you really want. There are other “nyms” (meaning “names”). You probably know antonym, acronym, and homonym. but how about tautonym, eponym, and contronym? Get out your dictionary!

Hom/ning In on All-told/tolled/toled/totaled

When you get near, do you “home in” or “hone in”? Home as in “heading for home” or hone, as in “fine-tuning” or “advancing toward a target”?

And when you add it all up, is your bottom line all told (as in “finished”), all tolled (as in “all rung up”), or all toled or all totaled, (as in “summed up”)?

Sorry, can’t help you! This is another of your decisions. How did you learn it? How do you use it?
(Exit Stage Left, muttering: “Crazy language!”)