Stop! Grammar Time! “Decimate”

Posted on October 3, 2012 by wellsdc

A recent Doctor Who episode, “A Town Called Mercy,” featured a character who described a war that “decimated” more than half his planet. Something about that seemed mathematically problematic, so I thought I might investigate what “decimate” actually means. As it turns out, the Doctor Who character had it both right and wrong.

“Decimate” can mean “to reduce drastically especially in number” or “to cause great destruction or harm to.” That would be the Doctor Who meaning.

If you look at the word etymologically, though, you get the sense that the number 10 ought to be involved somehow. That’s where some older definitions come in: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of” or “to exact a tax of 10 percent from.”

So using the original meaning, the character was super-mega-wrong. But no one cares anymore, so go nuts.

The Tale of My Fictitious Great-Grandfather

Posted on September 25, 2012 by wellsdc

320px-Gerbil_close-up_face My great-grandfather worked every day of his life, starting at the age of seven, and never owned a pair of shoes. By the time he was fifty, he had amassed a fortune of $1,000, which for the 1890’s would be worth about $100 billion today.

Then he was eaten by a pack of gerbils while trying to save a little boy who fell down a well.

There are no monuments to my great-grandfather, no songs that honor him, and no federal holiday that bears his name. But I know this, everything that happened to my great-grandfather was Barack Obama’s fault (except the good stuff. We can give Ronald Reagan credit for that.)

[Editor’s note: This was a random stream-of-consciousness Facebook comment I left this morning inspired by this article.]

Photo credit: “Gerbil close-up face” by Dan Foy from Nottingham, England [CC-BY-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stop! Grammar Time! “A” versus “An”

Posted on September 19, 2012 by wellsdc

A discussion on Facebook not too long ago addressed how to use indefinite articles with abbreviations. Specifically, the question involved the abbreviation “FB” in place of “Facebook.” Should one write “a FB friend” or “an FB friend”?

It depends entirely on whether you would actually say the letters “FB” out loud or if you instantly translate that to “Facebook.” The use of “a” or “an” depends on whether the word that follows begins with a vowel sound or not. Even if you don’t move your lips when you read, you probably still hear the words as they are spoken in your head as you read (unless you are hearing impaired, in which case please accept my apologies.)

To provide an example:

“Don’t worry if the dominatrix breaks the skin. She’s an M.D., after all.”

versus

“Don’t worry if the dominatrix breaks the skin. She’s a medical doctor, after all.”

Things get a bit confusing where the letter “h” is concerned, but the same rule applies. I have long been confused by terms like “an historic event,” because they seem to violate the “vowel sound” rule.

The use of “an” before some “h” words, such as “historic” or “habitual,” is apparently more a British and Canadian thing, arising from accents that do not do much with the “h” sound. If you have an accent that would cause you to say “‘Enry ‘Iggins” instead of “Henry Higgins,” then you would certainly say “an ‘istoric event.” Otherwise, stick to “a historic event.” Do it for the sake of people like me, please.

Photo credit: “EgyptianA-01” by Unicode script proposal for Basic Egyptian Hieroglyphs, en.wiki: en:User:Nohat . Vectorization: Chabacano [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stop! Grammar Time! Affect vs. Effect

Posted on September 12, 2012 by wellsdc

“Your attempts to effect a change in my demeanor will have no effect! You cannot affect my affect.”

There may be no greater quandary in the recent history of both the English written and spoken word, than that of affect or effect. The thing is, this is actually quite a humdinger, so I am going to have to split this into two levels, depending on the level of hoity-toitiness you want to display when speaking.

Basic Level:

If the level of speech employed by any of the Real Housewives is all to which you aspire, this is the section for you.

Affect is a verb meaning “to influence,” e.g. “When you threw champagne in my face at the country club, it did not affect me at all.”

Effect is a noun meaning “a result,” e.g. “When you threw champagne in Tiffani’s face at the country club, it had a profound effect on her.”

Advanced Level:

Please do not read beyond this point unless you speak English higher than a Downton Abbey level.

Affect can be a noun, describing mood or expression, e.g. “Her affect changed when she went from smiling to crying.” If you want to get really advanced, you could say “She didn’t even react when you threw champagne in her face, so clearly you did not affect her flat affect.”

Effect can be a verb, meaning “to bring about” or “to cause.” The most common usage seems to be in the context of “to effect a change.” “Throwing champagne in her face really effected a change in her behavior. She’s much nicer now.” More advanced: “Your champagne-throwing stunt effected a change in her affect.”

Now go forth and effect changes in the affects of those around you!

Sources: 1, 2

Photo credit: “Cross” by bjearwicke on stock.xchng.

Stop! Grammar Time! Begging the Question…

Posted on September 5, 2012 by wellsdc

What does it mean to “beg the question?” The phrase often appears where something like “raise the question” would be more appropriate, e.g. “Her jittery movements and obvious lack of focus begs the question of just how much cotton candy she has eaten today.” Really, it would be better to say this “raises” a question, because “begging the question” has a specific meaning among people who enjoy discussing logic (not that I hang out with people like that…)

To “beg the question” is to make an argument in which you have already assumed the truth of what you are trying to prove (see also circular reasoning). To use Wikipedia’s definition (which may bring up all new fallacies, but shut up), “begging the question” is:

a type of logical fallacy in which a proposition relies on an implicit premise within itself to establish the truth of that same proposition. In other words, it is a statement that refers to its own assertion to prove the assertion. Such arguments are essentially of the form “a is true because a is true” though rarely is such an argument stated as such. Often the premise ‘a’ is only one of many premises that go into proving that ‘a’ is true as a conclusion.

To give a few examples, via The Skeptic’s Dictionary: Continue reading →

Stop! Grammar Time! As-/En-/Insure

Posted on August 29, 2012 by wellsdc

4174609626_67c0bd0b9f This is my first post done by request. Clearly my power is growing…

The request specifically covered insure and ensure, but I am making an editorial decision to include assure as well, because it has been dragged into the eons-long feud between insure and ensure, and it deserves to have its pain acknowledged.

According to about.com, all three words mean “to make certain or secure,” but they approach the concept in different ways.

Assure is used in reference to people, and generally refers to the act of putting a person’s mind at ease about an issue. E.g. “I assured him that the barricades will keep the zombies out tonight.”

Ensure refers to actions taken to guarantee an outcome, e.g. “I welded extra plates of steel over the barricades to ensure that they will keep the zombies out tonight.”

Insure specifically refers to a financial and contractual arrangement to cover assets or expenses in the event of an injury, accident, or other loss, e.g. “I insured the house in the event the zombies get in and destroy it.”

Paul Brians (who is way better at this than I am) makes an interesting observation about “insurance” in America versus “insurance” in Europe:

European “life assurance” companies take the position that all policy-holders are mortal and someone will definitely collect, thus assuring heirs of some income. American companies tend to go with “insurance” for coverage of life as well as of fire, theft, etc.

Photo credit: ‘sua ensure nuoc’ by sammyshop2009, on Flickr.

Stop! Grammar Time! Disinterested vs. Uninterested

Posted on August 22, 2012 by wellsdc

uninterested Believe it or not, these two words are not supposed to be synonymous. They have begun to overlap in usage, and there is some discussion as to whether it is even worth fighting it anymore. “Disinterested” has a specific legal meaning, so for my part, it is important to distinguish the two.

Uninterested generally means “indifferent,” e.g. “We did not invite you to the oil wrestling match because you seemed uninterested.”

Disinterested means “impartial” or “without bias,” e.g. “Since you don’t know any of the contestants, would you serve as a disinterested referee at the oil wrestling match?”

More and more, though, people say “disinterested” when they mean “uninterested.”

Photo credit: ‘Uninterested cat,’ photo by: Arinn, capped and submitted by: Andy, via icanhazcheezburger.com.

That time when Austin out-snarked 4chan

Posted on August 16, 2012 by wellsdc

This picture of two guys dressed as pirates won’t make any sense unless you read the entire post.

Pepsi started a crowdsourcing campaign on Monday called “Dub the Dew,” where it asked consumers to submit suggestions for the name of a new flavor of Mountain Dew. (For my part, I’ve never been sure what regular Mountain Dew is supposed to taste like, other than a precursor to a stomachache. But I digress.) The company said that the new flavor would have “green apple attitude.” On the 21st-century internet, something that doofy could not be allowed to stand, so 4chan (or possibly Reddit) took up the cause. In less than a day, the campaign was over, as Pepsi said that “Dub the Dew definitely lost to The Internet.”

At the time Pepsi stopped the campaign, the leading candidates for the flavor name (remember the “green apple” theme) were “Hitler did nothing wrong,” “Gushing Granny,” and (my favorite) “Fapple.”

Internet trolls – 1, tired old corporation – 0

Before the denizens of that particular dark corner of the interwebz get too self-congratulatory, I posit that the citizens of Austin did one better last year. The city wanted to re-brand its Department of Solid Waste Services, so it asked for input from the community. The “Keep Austin Weird” community. See where this is going?

Officials with Austin’s Solid Waste Services expected to receive offbeat ideas when they asked residents to suggest a new name for the city department.

They didn’t expect the top online vote-getter to be Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts , followed by, among others, Ministry of Filth , Hufflepuff , Lemon Party and Keep Austin Wasted.

The Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts ultimately received more than 29,000 votes, but it was hardly the only, uh, interesting one.

Within hours, submittals were flooding the servers – witty entries like Fostering Energy Conservation and Ecological Sanitation, or FECES, and Austin Sustainability Services, or ASS, are a representative sampling of the dozens of anally fixated entries from users apparently under the illusion that SWS handles human solid waste, not trash. Another inspired submission was Get Our Austin Thoroughly Sanitized Everyone, or GOATSE – so named for the infamous Internet shock photo that, once seen, can’t be unseen. That entry has since been pulled, but as of this writing, Lemon Party – so named for another NSFW meme – is sitting pretty in fifth place.

But then there’s first place, and from this sea of puerile ass-hattery, “Fred Durst Society of the Humanities and Arts” stands out. You could call it a backhanded compliment – but bear in mind, it’s named for the frontman of a band that emerged from a giant toilet bowl on its first major tour. Kyle Hentges, the 24-year-old Austinite who initially suggested the society, e-mailed the Hustle, attaching a video clip he calls “part of his inspiration”: a mash-up of crunk diva Ke$ha’s autotune abortion “TiK ToK” cut with several of Durst’s Limp Bizkit singles, the aural equivalent of a Four Loko blackout bender.

I proposed an acronym that spelled out “POOPIE,” but I can’t remember what it stood for.

Once voting closed, Fred Durst had 29,796 votes, more than 27,000 more than the second-place finisher. At that point, the final decision was up to the city. That was in February 2011. As of right now, in August 2012, the city department is called Austin Resource Recovery, or ARR. Presumably this is due to our city’s love of pirates, of which I knew nothing until just now.

Photo credit: ‘PiratesPopCulture’ by Superdantastic (Themed) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stop! Grammar Time! Capital vs. Capitol

Posted on August 15, 2012 by wellsdc

This one is easy.

The building on the left is the Texas Capitol. The city surrounding it is the Texas capital.

A capitol is a building housing a seat of government. That’s all.

Any other meaning you might intend uses the word capital, which has many definitions:

The most important city or town of a country or region, usually its seat of government and administrative center

A place associated more than any other with a specified activity or product

– Milan is the fashion capital of the world

Wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available or contributed for a particular purpose such as starting a company or investing

– the senior partner would provide the initial capital

– rates of return on invested capital were high

The excess of a company’s assets over its liabilities

People who possess wealth and use it to control a society’s economic activity, considered collectively

– a conflict of interest between capital and labor

A valuable resource of a particular kind

– there is insufficient investment in human capital

A letter of the size and form used to begin sentences and names

– he wrote the name in capitals

Photo credit: ‘Capitol in Austin Texas at Night’ by Eric Hunt (Own work) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-2.5], via Wikimedia Commons.

Stop! Grammar Time! Principle/Principal

Posted on August 8, 2012 by wellsdc

129196259974300732 Here’s a goof I see all the time. It doesn’t help that the two words are pronounced the same and only differ by two letters, but they have very different meanings. The two meanings can even have serious legal significance, so ignore them at your peril.

Principal as a noun has two meanings: an administrator, e.g. principal of a school; or a sum of money, e.g. principal of a loan.

Principal as an adjective means “primary” or “most important,” e.g. “The principal reason we are firing you is your refusal to wear pants.”

Principle is a noun, meaning “rule” or “maxim,” e.g. “I will not wear pants, because to do so would violate my principles.”

A guide some of us learned as kids is to think of the principal as your pal. That only covers one possible definition, but it’s a start.

Photo credit: ‘PRINCIPLE PRINCIPAL’ by Amuk, via Cheezburger.

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