Hyperventilation, hypersensitivity, hyperactivity, hypertension…everybody’s hyper these days. But there’s one “hyper” that is particularly dangerous in Finkville.

Today’s hyper: hypercorrection. It happens when a person, in an effort to say something correctly, overcompensates and ends up adding more to the word or phrase than what should be there.

While there are several ways to linguistically hypercorrect, today we shall focus on Americans using non-English words. Ready?

1. It’s smor-gas-bord. Smor. Kind of like the graham cracker and marshmallow and Hershey bar thing you used to make over the camp fire. Smor – gas – bord. Not shmorgasbord. Comes from the Swedish smörgås (sandwich) and bord (table). [In Swedish, it is the combination rs that is pronounced ‘sh.’]
2. Taj Mahal. How did you just say it in your mind as you read it? Probably the way 99.9% of all Americans pronounce it: like the name Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Remember her, fellow Old Ones?) Actually, native Hindi speakers (so I was told by one — a college student back in the early 80s) say it like so: Tahdj. Rhymes with Dodge.
3. Same deal with the Chinese city of Beijing. In Mandarin, it’s pronounced Bay-Jing, as in “Jingle.” Here is the audio proof. And while we’re on the subject…
4. Parmesan. Ok, this one’s tricky. “Parmesan” (pronounced just like it’s written — sounds like Amazon) is an Americanized version of the original name for an Italian cheese, made in the Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Bologna and Mantua provinces, called Parmigiano. Now don’t go Frenchifyin’ it — it’s pronounced par-mi-JAH-no. Choose one or the other, but please don’t zhu-zhu them together and say, with a French flair, parmezhan. I keel you.
5. How about Xavier? There’s a university in Ohio by that name, so I hear it a lot. (Uh, notice “a lot” is TWO words…) It’s pronounced Zay-vier. Like xylophone and Xerox. Or you could say eks-ylophone and Eks-erox, if you wanted to. But then I would hit you.

But seriously, folks. I really do share the Schmenglish posts to remind my own bad self to be careful as much as anyone else. Heck, I struggle with a word or two, now and then. My worst (and repeated) offense: imaginative. It’s never looked right to me. I have been caught out by the spell checker several times after writing a paper in which I absentmindedly used imaginitive. It’s a dumb error, too. Just think “imagination” and change the last 2 letters. But noooOoO. So, see? I am not a perfect “everyday” speller. Almost…but not.

I just believe that how we write and speak as a nation says a whole lot about how we think and what we hold dear. A country’s language is a huge part of its legacy; ya just don’t mess with that.

Fink out (of words for today)

Why? Why do Americans insist on adding syllables to English words, or twisting around existing syllables? Why do people add letters where there should be no added letters? Whatever happened to checking to see if you’re saying something correctly? Have we become so grammatically careless as a nation that it is now acceptable to simply make up the language as we go along? (Rhetorical, please. I’m afraid I already know the answer.)

Ugh. Anyway.

Here, for your listening and dancing pleasure:

Nasties for Which Folks Should Get Mandatory (Grammar) Jail Time

1. It’s realtor (two syllables). Not real-a-tor.
2. Mischievous has THREE syllables: MIS’-chie-vous. Miss Cheevius was your 4th grade teacher, and she did not have a sense of humor or a proclivity for pulling silly pranks.
3. Someone who builds brick structures for a living (or, as in Adam R’s case, someone belonging to a secret society of satanic axe murderers posing as upstanding pillars of the community) is a mason. Masons practice masonry. May. Son. Ree. Mason-ary is not a word. Embrace that truth.
4. Your voice box — the organ in your neck that houses your vocal cords — is called your larynx. Lare-inks. Lare-inks. NOT lare-i-nicks. Two syllables, friends. Only two. And watch out for the “ynx” and “nyx” confusion.
5. Et cetera is a Latin phrase meaning “and other things.” Notice it is two words. Excetera is, well…wrong.
6. Ku Klux Klan. This clan of idiots reportedly derived their name from the Greek kyklos, meaning “circle.” Notice there is no “L” in the first word, so please resist the uniquely American temptation to add stuff to make it sound cooler. So when you speak of them with repugnance (which you should always do when you speak of them at all), get a clue; don’t say “Klu.”
7. This is a case of subtracting a syllable, which is equally as offensive as adding one. The word referring to a group or series of elements which are ranked is called a hierarchy. Not high-arky, but higher-arky. Let’s get the height of our arkies straight, shall we?
8. Interpret. Not in-ter’-pet. There’s an extra “R” in there, sweety.
9. If you say acrost one more time, I am going to slap you across your face with a trout.
10. Sandwich, people. It’s sandwich, named after the Earl of Sandwich, John Montagu, who was said to be “an inveterate gambler who ate slices of cold meat between bread at the gaming table during marathon sessions rather than get up for a proper meal” (Online Etymology Dictionary). It’s not samwich or the even more ridiculous sandridge.

So there’s the list for today. Trust me, I got a million of ’em, so the above does not indicate the final Schmenglish post. I just wonder where we went wrong, you know? You never hear of a Mexican or Puerto Rican person butchering Spanish, or a Parisian speaking French all wrong. Maybe it’s because English is such an international language that there are undoubtedly more chances for people to abuse it. But why is it abused so badly in our own country?

I’m all for informal writing. A cursory perusal of this very site will reveal a metric ton of slang. (See?) It’s in the everyday usage department that we seem to not care about falling off the grammar wagon. This is war, friends. Somebody hep me, because lest we forget:

Fink out.

As many of you know, I think a lot about grammar. Not in a militant way (well, ok maybe a little); rather, I’m just a little picky when it comes to mistakes that are easy to make when speaking and writing English.

Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to be a grammatical Johnny Appleseed, trekking about the countryside, planting saplings of nutritious…ah, nevermind.

Here are more niggling (I like that word) issues:

Begging the question. Sometimes, people say that something “begs the question” when they really mean it “raises the question.” Begging the question is an example of circular reasoning:

1) Murder is wrong. Abortion is murder. Therefore, abortion is wrong.

2) God exists. The bible says so, so that proves it.

[I’m not stating an opinion on #1, and I do happen to believe that #2 is true. Just sayin’.]

I’ve read many journalists (who should know better) whose work misuses the phrase “begs the question.” Consider this byline in a news story: Obama’s success in the primaries begs the question: Who will be his running mate? I think the writer wanted to say that the running mate issue is a question begging to be answered — but it’s not “begging the question.” Sadly, I believe the phrase has been misused and overused to the point of becoming an accepted part of the lexicon. Silly writers anyway.

Mute versus moot. A person who cannot speak is mute. A point or argument that no longer matters is moot.

The drink produced by forcing very hot water through finely ground coffee is called espresso.

If you want to sterilize your female dog or cat, you hire a veterinarian to spay her. After the surgery, you can say your dog has been spayed. “Spaded” means you’ve shoveled up the garden.

Five feet, two inches describes my height. Rhymes with sight, light, might, right. Heighth ain’t a word.

This –> * <– is an asterisk. Isk. Isk. Isk. Not asterix or asterick.

It’s nuclear. Think of putting the words “new” and “clear” together. I think George Bush either says it wrong on purpose because he thinks it’s funny to make his handlers and speech-writers perspire, or he’s too dumb to know the difference. I hope it’s “A.”

I think that’s enough for today. I feel like spending the rest of my Sunday in a lackadaisical fashion. (Not laxadaisical.)

Grammar Fink

Hey – I gotta hurry today. Must pick up the donuts (again), so I will type until I’m out of time.

I am amazed at how many high school students crave coffee. It’s not just for the old folks anymore. My parents never allowed me to drink coffee – not fair! (Well ok…I don’t think I ever asked if I could have some, either.)

Anyway…

Gotta get this off my fingers. Everyone has a pet peeve, right? My students know at least one of mine, but I won’t mention it danglingprepositionsmakemethinkviolenthoughts here.

We need to break some bad habits as A-murricans. We need to correct our parents, who brought us up using bad English, because that’s how they were brought up, and so on and so on. So, fellow bourgeoisie, take a (grammatical) stand on the following:

• It’s Reese’s – not “reece-y.” The guy who invented the peanut butter cup was named H.B. Reese. Rhymes with peace or niece or fleece.
• It’s I would have baked a cake. I could have had it all. No of in sight.
• The term is “versus.” <– It’s pronounced like it looks, and comes from the Latin vertare, which means “to turn against.”
• Your driver license is a single item, so please don’t refer to it as plural. If you have more than one driver license, you have a pair of licenses. “Licen plates” makes no sense at all, either.
• The word definitely contains the word finite. “Definately” is definitely incorrect.
• The correct phrase is “all of a sudden.”
• “I could care less” makes me want to hurt puppies. The phrase is supposed to convey a person’s lack of caring about a thing. For instance, I’ve heard people say, “Go ahead! I could care less!” Well then…that would mean that you care at least a little. If you *could* care less, you might – but you still care a bit. The correct phrase is “I couldn’t care less.” I wish I cared less about English abuse.
• The phrase “a lot” is two words.
• The phrase “all right” is two words.
• There’s always the apostrophe abuse issue. If I am selling fruit on the street corner, my sign should read, Bananas, Apples and Mangos for Sale. No apostrophe. None. Not a single one.
• Here are 5 more that make me crazy.
• It’s too hot to go outside.

And now, friends, it is 6 a.m. Time to get ready to go to the bakery. Have a lovely Saturday.

RF, on the grammatical prowl

My crack-of-dawn ramblings led me to a cool quiz this morning. How well do you know the language you speak? To find out, take Encarta’s Evil Word-Twin Quiz. Of course, Yours Truly scored 100%, but that’s not because I’m fabulous. It’s because I’m geeky about that stuff. Trust me, I ain’t no Poindexter. I know when to use complement over compliment, but, for instance, don’t ask me to solve for X.

Why is the English language so ridiculously difficult? I mean, take the sentence: They’re there, over there with their belongings. ???????? What, the English founding fathers couldn’t find enough words to describe stuff? Think of how many homophones there are in silly English…

• heir, air
• deer, dear
• marshal, martial

The list goes on and on and on and on. Anyway, I’ll quit to avoid another rant.

Ok, one more thing. This bugs me. People need to stop apostrophe abuse. It’s completely out of hand. More on that later….

Rat (please use apostrophes to indicate possession/contraction and NOT number) Fink