How to Say Stuff in English

Even during my self-imposed blog hiatus I feel compelled to check in with you grammar lovers. Something to chew on: mydictionary.com's list of commonly mispronounced words and phrases. While technically right, some of the items on this list seem a little extreme. My own peeves include transposing syllables/letters (the infamous "nu-kyuh-ler" version of nuclear) and inserting syllables/letters where they don't belong ("miss-CHEE-vee-us"--wrong--instead of "MISS-chuh-vus"--there are only three syllables in the word mischievous, gang). Enjoy, and if you like, state your own peeve or opinion in the Comments section.

Pet Peeve: Pluralizing Proper Names

Before anyone comments on the title of this post, allow me to quote Webby:

pluralize (transitive verb) To make plural or express in the plural form.

Great. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, on to the Peeve. Here's an example of the sort of preprinted holiday cards I received this season:

Merry Christmas from the Smith's!

Do I object to preprinted cards? Hardly. Who has time to print "Merry Christmas" a hundred times? And I love that these sentiments often come printed on nice family photos with a Christmassy border. Do I mind that I've received some of them in January? Not a smidge--send them as Valentines for all I care. I just like getting mail.

The problem is with the blasted apostrophe. It's become so ubiquitous that my dear sister, who knows when to use apostrophes and when to leave them in the rubbish heap, called me in a panic and asked if she's been writing her cards wrong all these years.

She hasn't.

One member of the Smith family is a Smith:

Even after her marriage to Kevin Delaney, Nadine remained a Smith.

Two members of the Smith family are Smiths:

I'd love to have the Smiths over for dinner, but you know they'd eat us out of house and home.
The card read: "Merry Christmas from the Smiths!"
The Smiths are a lovely family, but they do misplace apostrophes.

Tricky Names

Last names that end in s or sh are treated just like other nouns that end that way. You add an -es at the end to form the plural. Here are some nouns:

mess -- messes
dress -- dresses
brush -- brushes
push -- pushes

The same applies to last names:

Jones -- the Joneses
Meyers -- the Meyerses
Ness -- the Nesses
Greenbush -- the Greenbushes

If your name ends in -se, add an -s only, just as you normally would:

Lachaise -- the Lachaises
Maise -- the Maises

When to Use an Apostrophe

An apostrophe denotes ownership, as in:

Fiona Smith's party extended into the morning hours.
Lyle Birchman's car is stuck in a snowdrift.

Put the apostrophe after the plural name if something is owned by more than one person in the family:

I love the Joneses' new house.
The Smiths' Christmas card was lovely this year.
The Meyerses' Rottweiler is friendly.

If you are one of those families that included an inappropriate apostrophe in their holiday cards, believe me, I'm still thrilled to have heard from you. Just don't confuse my sister any longer, okay?

The Doctor's Grammar

Jen B. says that the Doctor would appreciate the moodiness of English verbs. Earlier in this show, the Doctor corrects this young man's grammar, but here, it's the Doctor who is taken to task (about 20 seconds in on this video). Naturally, he changes the subject.

Pet Peeve: Affect/Effect

Don’t worry, folks: All is forgiven. I’m not going to name names or point fingers at the perpetrators of this week’s Peeve. Let’s start from scratch and learn the difference between affect and effect.

Most commonly, when you’re using a noun, it will be effect. When you want a verb, it’s usually affect. But to be fair, I have to admit that both can be used two ways. Let’s start with the most common usage for both.

Affect: The Verb
To affect something is to act on it and change it somehow:

The weather affected her mood.
(It changed her mood, or at least influenced it in some way. It was sunny and that made her happy; or maybe it was rainy and that made her angry.)

It can also mean to touch or move someone emotionally—as in, to rouse affection:

His letter affected me deeply.

Effect: The Noun
An effect is a change brought about by something else.

I hope Dad’s lecture had the right effect on you.
Within minutes Angie felt the effects of the poisoned dart.
The actor’s soliloquy had an immediate effect on the audience.

It can also mean an impact or impression, as in special effects or

The whole street blazed with Christmas lights; the effect was spectacular.
Wanda paused for dramatic effect before announcing the murderer.

Here are the less common ways of using both words:

Affect: The Noun
This is the least common use of the four meanings we’ll discuss. A person’s affect is the outwardly demonstrated manifestation of his or her emotional state. Psychiatrists use this term a lot; how is a patient acting? What is her demeanor? Does she seem calm, happy, distressed, angry? What can we see on her face that reflects her emotions? That’s her affect.

Effect: The Verb
In this sense, effect means to bring about, to cause to come into being, or to accomplish:

Throughout his long career, the senator effected real change.

Pet Peeve: Climatic vs. Climactic

I’ll make this short and sweet. There’s no such word as anticlimatic.

Okay, I guess there could be. But what would it mean? The word climatic refers to climate—as in, the weather of a particular region.

Seattle’s climatic conditions make it difficult to schedule a picnic.

Climactic—note the interior c—refers to climax, as in the highest point of dramatic tension or, well, any other sort. Never mind—we won’t go there.

The commercial interrupted the climactic scene of the movie.

And back to the word anticlimatic, which would mean—what? antiweather? I’m not sure I know of anyone who is anticlimatic, but the word anticlimactic (again, interior c) refers to something that should have been really exciting but turned out to be a big letdown.

After the high stakes of the blackjack tables, our midnight penny-ante game must have seemed anticlimactic.

Pet Peeve: Less Is More

True confession time, blog readers. This isn’t my pet peeve; it’s Hubby’s. And here’s the true confession part: It’s his peeve about me.

I’ve told you before that my grammar isn’t perfect—not in writing, and certainly not in speech. Here’s a gaffe I make so often it sets Hubby's teeth on edge:

I wish less people would mow their lawns on Sunday morning.

The gaffe isn’t, of course, with the assertion, because Sunday morning is for me a time of quiet reflection (and sometimes sleep). The problem is with the word less.

Less is an adverb relating how much. But it can only be used when referring to amounts, not numbers. In other words:

I would like less than half a glass of juice.
No, I’d like less than that, please.
Sheila’s car has less than half a tank of gas.
John has less hair than Nigel.

Because I’m speaking of volume, not number, I correctly use the word less. But in the case of the annoying lawn mowers, the word should be fewer:

I wish fewer people would mow their lawns on Sunday
morning.
I would like fewer than 3 eggs.
Fewer than fifty people attended the concert.
Nigel has fewer pimples than John.

For volume, use less. For numbers, use fewer.

Sorry, dear.

Much Ado About Commas

Think the fuss about commas is much ado about nothing? Think again: