Patricia, at least you knew you were screwing it up, but you messed up the second person pronouns. It helps to know some German. Nom> du, Gen> dein, Acc>dich. In English Nom> thou, Gen> thine, Acc> thee.

Plural familiar, Nom> ye, Gen> your, Acc>you.

So I have heard Episcopal Priests mess up when they tried to say "the Lord bless thee and keep thee" -- why would you say that in the singular? The original is indeed "the Lord bless you and keep you."

FYI: "My bad" expression, while now experiencing wider social acceptance outside youth culture, seems to have evolved from 'youth street talk' via the West Coast in the mid 1980's... when i hear it i know it's nothing new.

Teens hate saying they're wrong, so if you must apologize this is a "tough" way of saying it. It was then a new expression to simply replace "sorry, my mistake".

I grew up in South & Northern California at the time and we all used it, found it a funny slang expression, esp when said with attitude- but not sarcastically. Note it's relatively "black" in it's roots too, but like many things ("24-7", my "ride", my "crib", et c) gets quickly absorbed into the local, and eventually national vernacular.

I may be a little late about the discussionb on chess, but for what it is worth:

Checkmate is said to come from sheik mat (or th eking is dead in Arabic).

In French "checkboard" is echiquier, chess is echecs (also means failures) and bank checks are "cheques", hence Exchequer and cheques (British English)

One can use "incredible" and "unbelievable" if wanting to be ambiguous or ironic about whether or not the thing described has been a positive or negative experience, if articulated with the appropriate tone. "Hmm.. incredible!"

You're just talking about well vs. good. What makes me cringe is the following: 'How are you today?' 'I'm good.' When I reply 'I'm well, thank you' I get that look.

Empathic is knowing without being told. Empathic is understanding after being told

What is correct?

On accident
or
by accident

what about "I feel poorly"?

Going back to the conversation on "they" as a "number-neutral, gender-neutral pronoun" ...

What do you recommend, or what is in current usage, to meet the distinctly modern need for a gender-neutral singular pronoun to reference the transgendered?

When someone is not a "he" or "she", are they a "they"?

Similarly, if it's not "his" or "hers", is it "theirs"?

Within the world of extreme sports, sketchy certainly implies danger/fear. Being 'sketched' is that gut feeling one gets as the upper limits of ones capacity for risk are reached.

"Does your guest know anything about the origin of the American accent? Is from Irish?"

I think it's from Hampshire, England.

On the assumption of "two-ness", as in pants, spectacles, plyers, etc., what happened to the word bra (as in brazier)? :)

Love this segment.
About language difficulty--I was involved in a study analyzing just that, in relation to second language acquisition. The most difficult is Korean, followed by Japanese. The easiest language to acquire is Spanish, followed by, guess what? English.

HOWEVER, although basic English is easy to acquire, it is extremely difficult to perfect.
I've taught ESL to transferees in international corporations for about 20 years. My students just cannot believe that they'll have any problems advancing in such an easy language, but invariably they hit the wall at the very advanced level. the problems:
-prepositions (wildly variable in English), -complicated tenses (future perfect continuous? Try explaining that one,)
-idioms (because the idioms of every language group, transliterated, seep into the language) -of course the huge perplexing vocabulary.
-And there's always the lawless spelling in English that does not at all help w/pronunciation)
and finally there's rhythm and intonation; even most native speakers don't know that they speak with rhythm and intonation.

In the bookstore where I work more and more people ask me for a book "on" say, Stephen King, when they mean a book by Stephen King. When I ask if they mean a book written by Stephen King or one about him they seem puzzled by my lack of understanding, that I should know that "on" means "written by". Is this a new usage?

I am constantly baffled by the annoying use of "her and I" or "him and I" in phrases such as "Leonard invited him and I". How hard is it to use these pronouns right?

I'm a fifth generation Brooklyn native, and have always said scissor not scissors, and tweezer not tweezers. To the best of my recollection, so did everyone else I knew when I was growing up. Regionalism?

I've been noticing a shift in accent to the first syllable from a later syllable: The people are pro-TEST-ing the action. They are engaged in a PRO-test. So far so good. But now I hear the newscaster say that the people are PRO-testing. I hear this in a lot of words, which I can't think of right now. What do you think? Recency, or a real shift?

It drives me crazy when I hear people turn nouns into verbs, such as the time at work when a colleague said to me "that's a great topic for a meeting. Do me a favor and calendar that." CALENDAR that? Is there not a culture of this linguistic meatgrinding in business language?

Sorry... Two doctors, that word dissappeared!

Is "primmer" a proper alternate pronunciation of "primer"? I hear this on NPR frequently.

I dislike hearing of "amount" and "number" being misused.

Example: "The amount of people at the beach was greater than expected." Shouldn't it be: The number of people at the beach was greater than expected?"

Also I belive than one may speak of the amount of sand at the beach but of the number of grains of sand is large indeed.

For "transparent" and "bad" for "good" I think that you guys are missing the French connection. "Transparent" is very good French for piercing ambiguity; they also say "C'est terrible" meaning "It's great," while "C'est horrible" for "It'sreally bad."

My wife, as well as my mother-in-law, were from Canada. Both used "anyways."

Just a correction to your guest's pronunciation of Old English:

OE WIFE is pronounced like weave-uh.

The F between two nouns become an intervocalic voiced syllable.

And, Huse-bonde is similar. The s is voiced, and it is pronounced 'hoozebonduh'. The final e on both these words is like a shwa.

Thanks!

CAn Patricia comment on the proper way to address two ? For instance if they are married is it "Dear Drs. Lopate?"

Can you recommend an alternate word to "literally" since the word seems to have lost its impact...

I always wind up saying "I literally ran out of there-- by which I mean I actually did get up from my table and rotated my legs in a manner that propelled me forward to the exit and left."

(I actually read an intro to a book wherein a model said about her hairdresser "My hair is literally putty in his hands." Gross, no?)

Regarding the pluralization of words related to "twos," my 15-year old son has told me that the use of the word "pair" in the singular, except when playing cards, pegs you as old.

I've had the impression (perhaps i'm not alone) that the hybridization of words into "new" words was somehow a modern cool thing to do. i.e. "ginormous" - giant + enormous (or is it gigantic?)

Are there examples from the past that have been accepted into our official language?

Does your guest know anything about the origin of the American accent? Is from Irish?

yeah right

pants follow up:
what about 'a crossroads' which is double in conception but still used in the singular, but also pluralized. always sounded weird to me.

Does a singular or plural verb follow the word "none"? Does it depend on what the "none" is referring to?

I would think that a singular verb follows since "none" is a 'contraction' for 'not one."

My teenage daughter and her friends have been using the word "sketchy" to mean illegitimate, scary, and, I guess, just plain bad, as in a "sketchy" neighborhood.
I have always thought that the word sketchy means vague or incomplete.
When did this other usage become common?
Thankyou.

Is is "recency phennomenon" that it seems to me nowadays it's so common to start a statement, particulary and explanatory one, with "So" I feel like I heard someone on another show discuss this the pervasiveness of "so" as a starter, but I can't remember what was said about it.

CORRECTION: Trouser legs were originally made separately.....like Ye Olde ladies' stockings, attached one at a time to the upper garment.

From Wikipedia, on trousers:
"Trousers trace their ancestry to the individual hose worn by men in the 15th century (which is why trousers are plural and not singular)."

is it AN historic event, AN historical event, or A historic event?

In Pittsburgh, the 2nd person plural of "you" is "yins," short I think for "you'nes--you ones--and probably a coal belt import from West Virginia. Yins guys. Molto Pittsburgh.

Regarding "pair of trousers," etc., have you heard "a pair of underwear"? Very annoying (along with a lot else!)

ye and you were the 2nd person plural

thee and thou were the 2nd person singular

Ye was the objective case, you the subjective

Thou was the objective, thee the subjective.

Not so much pronounciation but a phrase "gone missing."
It may refer to a person or a thing, instead of just missing or lost.

Pat: "If I'd have known that you'd be here, I'd have brought your gift." This is how some Romance languages require one to formulate the sentence. Although you've said that English should not be latinised, the use in English of Latin-derived grammar is a very great boost to Americans' being able to master Romance languages. As such, it should be promoted enthusiastically, not proscribed.

I am wondering the EXACT same thing as the above 2 comments explain...I too have lived all over the country and it wasn't until I moved to NYC that people say "on line" when referring to waiting in a line (uh..yep, I use "in line")

I've also had some debates about this topic with native New Yorkers vs non-native New Yorkers. The native New Yorkers all agree it is "on line" while the non-native New Yorkers say "in line".

So, is it a NY thing?

I've noticed that the President uses does not use the word "an" before words starting with a vowel, such as "an excellent opportunity". Rather, he might say "a excellent opportunity". I was taught that the former was correct, but...I didn't go to Columbia and Harvard!

Any explanation?

I am not from New York, but I have heard a number of people in the NY area make statements like this: "I have had red hair since I'm twelve." Is this acceptable, or should it be "I have had red hair since I was twelve."

Lately, there have been several drownings in the Rockaways. I have heard it described as "drowndings" on tv. Is that correct? Does seem so.

Thank you.

What about the "on line" versus "in line"? Whenever I leave New York City, I hear "in line," but when I'm in New York, I tend to hear "on line." I'm wondering why that is, because people often poke fun at me.

I would love some sort of explanation for New Yorkers use of the words "on line" when they are not speaking of the internet. I'm not from NYC originally but have lived all over the country and have never heard anyone refer to standing "on line" (as opposed to standing "in line"). I know it's not correct, so why do people say it here and nowhere else?

Following up on the discussion of the word check and its connection to chess... the americans call the game checkers and the English call it draughts. What's the distinction? Thanks.

Here's one: I explain the Canadian "out" and about" as "route" (rowte) and "route" (route)

Do you know why they pronounce "out" the way they do? Scots?

Couldn't "presently" also mean "after a while," as in, "presently, he came into the room..."?

Thanks.

"anyways" sounds like San Fernando Valley speech.

Patricia,

I was under the impression that 'Shah' was related to 'Ceaser' and 'Tzar'
J

Pet peeve -- misusage of "literally." Once on a newscast I heard a commentary say that television was "literally turning the nation into zombies," which was a terrifying concept.

It is my understanding that the first person, past perfect form of "to go" is "had gone." If this is correct, why do sooo many people say, "...had went."

Shelley

1. Why does English not have a formal second person plural, despite growing out of languages (French, Old English) which do? We have "ya'll" but that is slang.

Is the correct word "empathic" or "empathetic"? Or are they two separate words with different meanings or usages?

Janet
Manhattan

I'm curious about the use of the word "pair" when talking about one thing, like a "pair of pants." I understand "pair of socks," because there's two socks, but there's only ONE pants. Why do we say "pair"?

Why do we use "z" in some words and the Brits use "s"? e.g. civilisation, modernise

Do you know if there is a difference in usage between the dollar sign with one vertical line through it and the dollar sign with two lines.

I once heard that, back in the day, one was used for amounts less than $100 and the other for more than $100.

Any idea?

is an historical fact, or a historical....

A GREAT language tool I use = "Microsoft Bookshelf" CD-ROM. Cheap on Ebay. 1990s versions are fine, too, if you don't need current events feature. Wikipedia profiles it.
From Microsoft Bookshelf:
Sample:
specious

specious (spê´shes) adjective
1. Having the ring of truth or plausibility but actually fallacious: a specious argument.
2. Deceptively attractive.

[Middle English, attractive, from Latin speciosus, from speciês, appearance, from specere, to look at.]
- spe´ciously adverb
- spe´cios´ity (-shê-òs´î-tê) or spe´ciousness (-shes-nîs) noun

Usage Note: A specious argument is not simply a false one but one that has the ring of truth. Those aware of the specialized use of the word may therefore sense a certain contradiction in hearing an argument described as obviously specious or specious on the face of things; if the fallaciousness is apparent, the argument was probably not plausible-sounding to begin with.

SNIP
species (spê´shêz, -sêz) noun
plural species

SNIP
[Middle English, logical classification, from Latin speciês, a seeing, kind, form.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation. All rights reserved.
~ Adulthood

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love.
Don Barthelme (1931-89), U.S. author. The narrator (Joseph), in "Me And Miss Mandible" (first published in Come Back, Dr. Caligari, 1964; repr. in Sixty Stories, 1982).

The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations is licensed from Columbia University Press. Copyright © 1993, 1995 by Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

Which is correct? Or are all correct: wiener versus weener, versus weiner. Urban dictionary uses any.

Shouldn't "Can I help the following customer?" be "Can I help the next customer?" Are store managers instructing their employees to say "following" instead? Do they think it sounds smarter? More polite?

Stop me if you've heard this one. My pet peeve is people's consistent misuse of "myself". I noticed it a few years ago and it's gotten worse and worse. I think people just think it sounds formal and wise, but it makes them sound stupid. A.) Can you review the proper use of the word, and B.) Do you have any knowledge of the origin of its misuse? I have no documented reason to believe it was George Bush, but that's my theory. Similarly, I am starting to hear more and more people picking up Obama's favorite sentence starter: "LOOK". It's fine for him, but if anyone says it to me, I find it so incredibly rude. It implies that you're not looking, or rather, you don't understand an issue. Thanks!

Lately announcers on radio and television always pronounce finance as FY-nance. A WNYC newscaster (Amy Eddings)said Bernie Madoff was a FY-nancier. Why don't they know when to use fih-NANCE and FY-nance?

Please remind Lenny the word is di-VY-sive.

Thanks :)

In your latest book, Origins of the Specious, you make a play on words between "specious" and "species". That got me wondering: are these words related at all?