Archive for February, 2009
February 12th, 2009
For the kinds of bidding involving money or other quantities, the past tense and past participle of “bid” are also “bid”:
“We bid $500 for the package, but we were outbid at the last moment.”
If you feel like using “bidded,” don’t.
For saying goodbye or doing someone’s bidding, the past tense of “bid” is “bade” (which rhymes with “mad,” not “made”), and the past participle is “bidden” (not the same as “Biden,” the new veep).
“Last night we bade farewell to the outgoing president.”
“The judge expects you to do as you were bidden.”
If those last two seem strange, think of the word “forbidden.” That adjective is also the past participle of the verb “forbid.” And “forbade” (sometimes without the “e”) is the past tense.
That should make them less forbidding.
And with that, I bid you adieu.
February 11th, 2009
As “Addams Family” fans know, there’s only one Lurch, but there were three lurches. Two of them are outdated.
One former “lurch” was a variation of “lurk,” with which it was synonymous. That “lurch” also carried the meanings “to prevent (a person) from getting his fair share of something” and “to get by cheating, robbing, tricking, etc.”
The current verb “lurch,” origin unknown, is “to roll, pitch or sway suddenly forward or to one side” or “to stagger.” It also can be a noun for such movement.
The third “lurch,” also considered archaic, came from the French “lourche,” a 16th-century game like backgammon. The English noun “lurch” was specific to “a situation in certain card games, in which the winner has more than double the score of the loser.”
This is the “lurch” that survives only in the phrase “leave someone in the lurch,” that is, “in a difficult situation” or “in trouble and needing help.”
Unfortunately, when someone is left in the lurch these days, it usually isn’t just a game.
February 7th, 2009
The original sense of “compromise,” back in late Middle English, was “mutual consent to arbitration.” This is consistent with its Latin ancestor “compromittere,” which was derived from a combination of the prefix “com-,” meaning “together,” and the verb “promittere,” “to promise.”
The idea of cooperation to reach an agreement, of meeting someone halfway, is retained in the first three definitions in Webster’s for the noun. However, after this promising start, something happened along the way. ”Compromise” picked up additional meanings: “exposure, as of one’s reputation, to danger, suspicion or disrepute” and “a weakening, as of one’s principles.”
For the verb, only the first definition is the cooperative “to settle or adjust.” The other three are about exposure to danger, suspicion and the like and weakening or yielding.
This may be why so many people now seem to view compromise as surrender.
A word that once conveyed the idea of win-win now emphasizes what can be lost.
February 6th, 2009
“To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
This excerpt from the introduction to “Star Trek” episodes is often cited by usage experts trying to convince people that there is no rule in English against splitting infinitives. (By the way, there isn’t.)
My focus today, though, is on the “Trek” line before that one:
“To seek out new life and new civilizations.”
This is the only reason I can come up with for why so many people want to tack on “out” when using “seek.” The “out” is superfluous. Any sort of seeking can be done without “out.”
The next time you feel compelled to use “seek out,” take out the “out” and see if the meaning is altered. Of course, don’t monkey with it in “Star Trek” references, or you might get phased.
Otherwise, dare to go where too few writers boldly go.
February 4th, 2009
In grammar, a conjunction is a connecting word. The most common, called “coordinating conjunctions,” are “and,” “but” and “or.”
Our old friend “as” also can serve as a conjunction, a type known as “subordinating.” Most grammarians frown on using “like” instead of “as” for this function. A frequently used example of this issue is the old cigarette slogan “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.”
No, no, scream the usage experts, “like” should have been “as.” “As” can be used to link two clauses, but “like” cannot.
In his new book “Alphabet Juice,” Roy Blount Jr. writes that such “as” issues “have been thrashed out over the years. If anyone gets apoplectic anymore” over the Winston slogan, “it’s to do with cancer, not grammar.”
Anyone but grammarians, that is. Even the most permissive are reluctant to give ground on this one, although they also acknowledge that change is in the wind. For instance, Webster’s already includes “like” as a conjunction, labeling it “informal.”
Bryan A. Garner puts it this way in “Garner’s Modern American Usage”:
“It is acceptable casual English; it isn’t yet in the category of unimpeachable English.”
There’s that impeaching thing again.
February 3rd, 2009
I heard about a phone call we received late last week during which it was suggested we should refer to President Barack Obama as “biracial” rather than “African-American.” My first reaction to this sort of thing is to wonder what prompted it, but it’s not my job to try to determine motivation.
My simple suggestion for what to call Obama: How about “the president”?
As for the other terms: Webster’s defines “African-American” as “an American having ancestors from sub-Saharan Africa.” The president is an American citizen (I know, some people are still trying to prove otherwise), and his father was from Kenya — that’s in Africa and south of the Sahara. So “African-American” sounds accurate to me.
As for “biracial,” Webster’s defines it as “consisting of or involving two races, especially blacks and whites.” That certainly can apply to Obama, too, although it’s less accurate: There are combinations of two races that would not apply to him at all.
