Fun With Numbers / Writing Dates

This dated holiday offers a good opportunity to talk about writing dates. Notice in the title, the addition of “th” to the number. That’s because the day number precedes the month. If you want the number to follow, omit the “th” — as in July 4, 2012. While we pronounce this as July “fourth”, it isn’t written that way.

Now, if you belong to the military or are European, you’ll reverse the process. Make that 5 July 2012. Note: the military even repeat the words that way — five July twenty-twelve. HooAh!

Come On, You Guyses!

I couldn’t believe my ears. The young woman told her friends, “You guyses help saved my day.” Guyses? C’mon, guys, it’s bad enough to call both women and men guys, but to try to make the plural AND a possessive that way just blew my mind. Why on earth couldn’t she make her life easier and just use “guys'”? Plural possessives are formed — easily — by forming the plural and adding an apostrophe (’).

Honor Your President

In this election year, notice how many times you see the title President spelled with a small “p”. And notice who spells it that way. The Grammar Anarchist prefers to capitalize President when it refers to the top office in the U.S.

While many style manuals support the small “p”, the GA considers it unrespectful (“lacking in respect” as opposed to disrespectful, which would indicate debasement). After all, the term refers to the office, rather than the person who holds it — irrelevant of political preference.

Regular vs. Irregular Verbs

Verbs come in many sizes, shapes, and colors. Today we’re talking about the “regular” and “irregular” varieties. Regular verbs form the past tense by adding the standard “ed”. But those “irregular” guys are the troublemakers — especially for people learning English as a second language. A couple of examples: go, went, has gone (present, past, participle); do, did, has done; and swim, swam, has swum. And there’s no way except memorization to learn the darned things.

Almost every other language uses a simple past tense for all verbs. Be envious! In some Native American languages, the speaker uses a standard verb and points either ahead or over the shoulder to indicate future and past tense. Cool!

Not so with U.S. language. (Why make it easy?) Teachers cause most of the student wailing by assigning a list of “irregulars” to be memorized. And that list is long: more than 200, to be more factual. Look them up on the Web and see how many you know.

You can lead a horse to water. . .

Why make spelling more difficult than it already is? When someone leads a horse to water, it drinks before telling its friends, “Someone led me to water!”

“Probably that lead miner,” responds the friend.
“I heard the leader was a minor, not quite 12 years old.”
“And that makes a difference how?”
“Can a minor be cited for leading a horse to water when the horse was actually led by a lead miner?”

Get it? The verb “to lead” uses the past tense “led”. The noun “lead” refers the the heavy metal. The nouns “miner” and “minor” refer to someone who digs the metal and someone who digs “heavy metal”, respectively! Dig?

Oh yes, don’t overlook the adjective “minor” which sounds like a sour note sometimes.

What is this thing called love?

Where would you place a comma? Depends on your meaning, doesn’t it, love! The Grammar Anarchist loves to play with words. Play along with The Anarchist's Guide to Grammar. You can take it with you on your Kindle or recline under a shade tree and open a book. But rush out now to pick up your copy. Especially if you are a writer too.

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?

Gulp! A Wise Brit Wordsmith

 Knowing that English is a world-wide language, the #GrammarAnarchist focuses on U.S. language, which has its own idiosyncrasies. As a word person, I couldn’t resist taking a peek at what is going on here. You may enjoy it too. Check out http://www.worldwidewords.org/ You'll find this:

About World Wide Words

The English language is forever changing. New words appear; old ones fall out of use or change their meanings. World Wide Words tries to record at least some part of this shifting wordscape by featuring new words, word histories, the background to words in the news, and the curiosities of native English speech.

You can receive free weekly issues of the e-zine that includes “discussions by readers, serendipitous encounters with unfamiliar language, and tongue-in-cheek tut-tuttings at errors perpetrated by sloppy writers”.

Ha! Another “Expert” Crumbles

First the OED changed it’s mind. Now the esteemed AP Style Manual caves! What did I tell you? You have to create your own Style Manual.

NEWS FLASH: AP Style Manual now says it’s okay to use hopefully as an adverb! As in “Hopefully you’ll start your own Style Manual soon!

It raineth on the just
And on the unjust, we know,
And those who speak correctly
And those who don’t, and so
Perhaps it doesn’t matter
If grammar rules pertain,
But I have Yankee tickets
And I hope it doesn’t rain.

(Make that: Hopefully it won't rain”.) Thank you, Charles Osgood!

The Fairy Tale Syndrome

Haven’t you heard about the Fairy Tale Syndrome? It is diagnosed as confusion between using “was” or “were” when contemplating such things as:

1. “If he (was / were) here, I’d give him a kiss.”
2. “If he (was / were) two feet shorter, I’d give him a kiss.” 

The first is possible; he could be here if he felt like it; use “was”. The second is not possible; use “were”. It’s that simple!

NOW, if there is no chance in this world of him being here (#1), inform your reader by using “were” to indicate the impossibility of it all. That’s why I call it the Fairy Tale Syndrome -- not a chance, Cinderella!