verbs

Who are they and why are they avoiding passive voice?

Posted by

6

A cafe on the ground floor of our office building has a screen which cycles through photos and short videos, weather forecasts, book, tv, movie and podcast reviews, and, relevantly, trivia questions. Yesterday, one of these was “When [or maybe What year] did they open the London Underground?”. My guess (1861) was reassuringly close to the actual answer (1863). (I have browsed through Wikipedia’s articles on various rail networks, but have never memorised relevant dates.) But I couldn’t help thinking about why they chose to ask the question like that. 

There’s nothing wrong with the question as it is; active voice is the default within the English verb system. But it throws too much emphasis onto they, when we either don’t know or don’t care who they were. Who opened the London Underground? Some representatives of royalty, government, finance and industry, probably. Passive voice is useful in situations like this. 

You may have noticed that I wrote “But I couldn’t help thinking about why they chose to ask the question like that”. Same question: who are they? We don’t know individually, but we know there was a person (they!) or people who chose to ask the question like that. Besides, that clause doesn’t have a direct object to become the subject of the passive voice alternative. Compare “They chose that question to demonstrate active voice” > “That question was chosen to demonstrate passive voice” or “Why did they chose that question to demonstrate active voice?” > “Why was that question chosen to demonstrate passive voice?”. 

Reknown

Posted by

2

An article on a major open-source site included two references to either “a renown actor” or “a reknown actor” (or some other artistic occupation). I didn’t save the quotation or URL, and have forgotten the exact article, but that doesn’t stop me investigating and speculating. If I have encountered this before, I haven’t noticed it. I also haven’t used renowned in any of my posts here.

Both are wrong. Renown is a noun. A noun can modify another noun. We talk about a movie actor or a stage actor, but not about a fame actor (it’s got to be a famous actor). Reknown isn’t a word, but if is was, it would be an adjective; compare “a known actor”. (Pages for Mac and WordPress both red-underline it.)

Renown isn’t about being known, well-known or re-known. It comes from Old French renom (noun) and renomer (verb) to make famous, and Latin re- + nōmināre to name. Renowned people are re-named, not re-known.

Not surprisingly, there are examples around. Dictionary.com has five example sentences for renown, one of which uses it as an adjective: “Even amid Welsh rugby’s renown tribalism, this news will not have been celebrated by regional rivals” (the BBC, no fewer). Google Ngrams shows reknown expert, scientists, artist, experts, although at lower usage than renowned scholar, author, artists, city, warrior, men, general, hero, name, knight. Its results for “renown_ADJ *_NOUN” are garbled; the first result is renown hath, which is clearly noun + verb. A general Google search shows widespread results for “renown actor”, including major sites and enough results for “reknown actor” to say that it’s out there. 

So will either renown actor or reknown actor become standard, alongside or instead of renowned actor? I doubt it. The word just doesn’t have enough usage, alongside renowned,  famous and other synonyms. I can see why people would use either or both, though.

I’m also puzzled by how renown (noun) became renowned (adj) without renown (verb) in between (renowned is, at face value a past-participle verb). There’s also famed, but the verb to fame did exist (and famed is less common than famous). If the verb to renown existed, I can’t find any reference to it. Maybe the fact that there’s a Latin and French verb in the history is enough.

PS 1 March: a document I edited at work referred to an ‘unknow woman’, which I can immediately and confidently say is a mistake.

bridled, unbridled, bristled, unbristled excitement

Posted by

8

I fell into a linguistic rabbit warren about the words bridled, unbridled, bristled and unbristled, by themselves and in conjunction with the word excitement (as an example). This post could get messy.

As sebmb1 pointed out in a comment to my previous post (un)bridled comes from a time when most people rode horses. There’s also saddled, with a different meaning, most often saddled with, and saddled and bridled (or bridled and saddled). Other agricultural words with similar meanings are hamstrung, hobbled, hog-tied, leashed and trammelled, all of which involve restraining animals. Leashed and trammelled have un- equivalents, but the others don’t. Sebmb1 also noted give a free rein (to) (not reign) and there’s also rein in, which no-one renders as reign in (or possibly rain in). There easily are more horsey/agricultural phrases and proverbs than words.

The only thing interesting about unbridled excitement is that its usage has increased greatly since about 1990, for no reason I can think of. The 1990s weren’t noted for unbridled excitement.

Continue reading →

Loath and forfend

Posted by

5

During the week I encountered two moderately less-used words which piqued my linguistic interest, in the first instance partly because it was incorrectly used. 

In a legal document I was editing, a legal officer wrote, in summary: “I am loathed to make that decision/take that course of action”. 

The second was in a text message from a chorister friend. I am just recovering from an end-of-winter cold which has kept me from a number of choir rehearsals, with concerts coming soon. He texted, in part: “If you are unwell for this concert (Heaven forfend!), please come back for the next one”. 

So, loath and forfend.

The adjective loath and verb loathe are related (I can’t immediately think of any other similar pair of adjective and verb), but the verb is probably stronger in feeling: I am loath to eat Brussels sprouts v I loathe to eat Brussels sprouts/I loathe eating Brussels sprouts/I loathe Brussels sprouts. Loath could be replaced by hesitant, reluctant or unwilling, and loathe by hate or despise. I am loathed can only be the past participle of loath, meaning that other people loathe me, though Wiktionary lists loathed and loth as very rare alternatives for loath. 

I can’t remember the last time I used loath, and have used loathe once on this blog (I referred to StrunkandWhite as “loved-by-some, loathed by others”).

Loath is an adjective but doesn’t have comparative and superlative forms, though we can say “I am most loath to …” (Google’s AI overview is a jumble of nonsense: “The phrase ‘more loath’ is grammatically incorrect. The correct comparative form of the adjective ‘loath’ (meaning reluctant or unwilling) is ‘more loathsome’ or ‘more loath’ (in formal or archaic usage). ‘Loath’ is already an adjective and doesn’t form comparatives by adding ‘-er’. The phrase ‘more loath’ is sometimes used in older or poetic contexts, but ‘more loathsome’ is the more common and accepted form in modern English.”)

Forfend is a verb meaning defend, protect, prevent (essentially, to before-defend), but is only used in the subjunctive (which English doesn’t actually have) as H/heaven, God/gods, saints forfend (compare God save the queen/king and God saves the queen/king). Various dictionaries list the past form of forfended (?Heaven forfended me), but the only instance I can find is from Shakespeare’s King Lear, in which Regan asks Edmund “But have you never found my brother’s way to the forfended place?” (One study website ‘translates’ this as Regan asking “But have you never taken my brother-in-law [Albany]’s place in her [Goneril’s] bed?”)

I have never used forfend in this blog, can’t remember ever using it real life, and can’t remember the last time I heard or read it.

Succamb

Posted by

2

I have been suffering various throat and nose symptoms since mid-May. Last Saturday my symptoms degenerated into a full-blown cold and since then I have had to take sick leave from work and not attend choir rehearsals. I emailed one conductor and when he didn’t reply texted a chorister friend. I said “I have succamb to illness and will not be at rehearsal”. He replied “I’m sorry that you succomb”, then later “Lorraine [another chorister friend] is firmly of the belief that ‘succamb’ is not a word. I had to strenuously disagree and point out ‘It is now!’”. I replied “I actually agree with Lorraine. One person jokingly using a word doesn’t make it ‘a word’.” He replied “Um, er … You do you but, as far as I’m concerned, using a word doesn’t make it ‘a Word’ makes it a word in my book. Doubly so.” (There is, of course, a paradox in stating that something is not a word immediately after using it.)

The question “What is a word?” is one of the great conundra of linguistics.  There is no all-encompassing definition for any one language, let alone for all languages. There is certainly a sliding scale of wordhood, including those which are accepted by all (succumbed, conundrums), or some, or a few (conundra, wordhood), or only just by one (succomb, succamb). One requirement is that it is used in multiple contexts by multiple people. Succamb isn’t. Succumb > succomb > succamb is also an unusual pattern for an English irregular verb, which are usually patterns like fling > *flang > flung, or sneeze > !snoze > ?snozen (the same chorister friend). 

An interesting sentence

Posted by

2

A document contained this interesting sentence (slightly modified):

He had not, and was unlikely to, come home.

What’s interesting about that? Compare:

He had not, and was unlikely to, return home.

The full form of the first sentence is He had not come home, and was unlikely to come home. (use comma or not?) This can be shortened to He had not come home, and was unlikely to. (use comma or not?) and (for some people, rather more formally) rearranged to He had not, and was unlikely to, come home.

Try that with return: He had not returned home, and was unlikely to return home > He had not returned home and was unlikely to > ?%He had not, and was unlikely to, return home.  With the last one, drop the part between the commas, and you get *He had not return home. Maybe that should be *He had not, and was unlikely to, returned home. Maybe not

This is possible for come because the plain and past participle forms are both come (come-came-come: compare “He did not come home”) (come is an irregular verb). It is not possible (or at best awkward) for return because the plain form is return and the past participle is returned (return is regular verb). had not must be followed by the pp form and to by the plain form. 

Continue reading →

“You’re joking me”

Posted by

2

Before I was seriously interested in music or language, I was fanatical about sports, especially Australian football, cricket and soccer. I don’t regularly follow any sports now, but generally keep myself informed of what’s going on, if only to talk to people who are fanatical. But I sometimes watch snooker highlights or even full games. Of course the more I watch the more Youtube and other platforms show me videos or articles. The world championships are due to start tomorrow, and four rounds of qualifications finished yesterday. A see-sawing match had a commentator exclaim twice:

You’re joking me!

(once for a shot of particular skill, and once for a shot of particular misfortune). 

For me, joking is never followed by a noun or pronoun; linguistically, it is intransitive. I can say “You’re kidding” or “You’re kidding me” but only “You’re joking” and not “You’re joking me” (or anyone else). But transitive joking is out there and I can’t call it a mistake. Dictionary.com includes “to subject to jokes; make fun of; tease” and Google Ngrams shows results, albeit at a tiny fraction of the usage of “you’re kidding me”.

The noun kid, meaning young goat, came first, followed several centuries later by the meaning young child. The verb kid dates from the early 19th century. I suspect that it was originally intransitive before also becoming transitive. 

There’s no particular reason why joke and kid as verbs have different rules for me and most other people. They both started as nouns and are still primarily nouns. But just because two words have similar meanings, doesn’t mean that they have the same grammatical patterns (the grammatical term is valency).

PS 5 May – in another video, the same commentator said “You’re joking me … You’re kidding me”.

Undoed

Posted by

7

I was typing on a major online platform and accidentally pressed some combination of keys which deleted the text I’d just typed (not control-z) and brought up the message ‘Update undoed’. The internet shows a scattering of occurrences, mainly in user forums, but nothing specifically referring to this platform.

Needless to say, it’s just plain wrong. Children go though a stage of over-regularising verbs but I have never encountered this as an example.

shrive-shrove-shriven

Posted by

2

Today is observed by various people in various ways as Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) or Pancake Day: “It is observed in many Christian countries through participating in confession and absolution, the ritual burning of the previous year’s Holy Week palms, finalizing one’s Lenten sacrifice, as well as eating pancakes and other sweets.”

shrive~shrove~shriven is a word we don’t use much these days, even in churches where confession, penance and absolution are formally practiced. I thought that shrove might be more common because of the collocation Shrove Tuesday, but Google Ngrams shows shrive and shrove are more common. Indeed the regular past simple/past participle shrived is more common than shrove. 

English used to have many more irregular verbs, but many, especially the less common ones, became regular or the two forms exist together. Forming a small group with shrive are drive~drove~driven, ride~rode~ridden, stride~strode~stridden and strive~strove~striven (the last has the regular option strived). 

Careful use of verb forms may have unexpected results. Philosopher/novelist Rebecca Goldstein used the form stridden in one of her books. Psychologist/linguist Steven Pinker mentioned her and it when discussing very rare verb forms in one of his. An email exchange ensued … and now they’re married. Your results may vary.  

But wait (a day or two), there’s more. There’s usually more …

heavy snow

Posted by

2

Today a year ago I walked a long way around various parts of central Seoul. Today Seoul was “pounded” by heavy snow (both the Korea Times and Korea Herald use that word). Does snow (even heavy snow) “pound”? If not, what does it do? I once encountered “dumping with snow” but we can’t really say “Heavy snow dumped Seoul” or “Seoul was dumped by heavy snow”. Readers in places which get heavy snow are especially invited to comment. For some reason we don’t have much use for snow-related collocations in Sydney.

Google Ngrams shows the usage of “snow pounded” has risen since 1980 and especially since 2000 (but is still a long way less common than any other combination of “snow *_VERB”.

PS Sun 31: I asked my Facebook friends and three replied.

[Minnesota] Here in the upper midwest USA, folks say “we got pounded with rain/snow”. Just means a lot of precip in a short time, often unexpected or exceeding the forecasted amount, or caught by surprise. Also often hear “we got dumped on”, but I’ve only heard that for snow, not rain.

[California] I’ve certainly come across the phrase, “pounded by snow” or “pounded by heavy rain”. It never seemed odd to me since it always referred to an event where the snow or rain in question was coming down hard and fast. We used to have a rooftop weather station that measured, among other things, rainfall amounts, and when the rain was really falling quickly it would say, “It’s raining cats and dogs”, of course, no actual animals were falling onto the house but that was the kind of situation under which the weather service would often use the term, “getting pounded”.

[Ontario] Where I live, you’re house will actually be pounded by the snow. The wind will drive it into the windows hard enough for them to thrum. And leave it splatted on the side of the house. Luckily that’s a once in a season storm…or lately, once in 4 seasons.