Ch. 12: Words and Word Clauses

I think much of this chapter is review, so we’ll treat it as such. That’s nice because you have a cumulative Final Exam in two weeks (12/12)! I hope you’ve been paying attention and doing the reading. Then again, the final’s only 10% of your entire grade…

Types of Nouns

You probably know that nouns describe people, places, things, and ideas. I like Kolln & Gray’s definition based on form: “A noun is a word that can be made plural and/or possessive” (p. 197). Nouns are one of the parts of speech, and you use them without thinking about that. Let’s consider some types of nouns and rules, pet peeves, and good suggestions.

Countable/Non-countable Nouns

Pretty simple definition. If you can count individual items, you have a countable noun; if the noun is more conducive to a mass–a mass or abstract noun–it’s a non-countable noun. Non-countable nouns (pasta, homework, democracy, etc.) don’t sound right with an indefinite article in front of them (a or an) or in a plural form, such as pastas.*

*Of course, pasta comes from another language that does make the word plural (paste), but that refers to types of pasta: penne, spaghetti, linguine, macaroni, etc. In English, it is more standard to refer to multiple pasta forms as “types of pasta.” Then again, some people call marinara sauce gravy and the noodles spaghetti regardless of the exact type of pasta used…Even worse, Voldemort used to want bland sauce or–it pains me to mention this–butter and salt on her pasta.

The most important thing to remember about these nouns is when to use fewer/less, amount of/number of, and much/many. If you can count individual items, use fewer, number of, and many:

• Light beer has fewer calories than regular beer.
• If we reduce the number of cars on the road, we can cut down on pollution.
• How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man? (Bob Dylan “Blowin in the Wind”)

If the noun doesn’t have discrete items to count, use less, amount of, and much:

• Light beer has less taste than IPAs. {This is a fact, by the way.}
• The amount of fat in buffalo wings is enormous.
• How much (money) for that doggie in the window?
  • When taking specific currency, use “many”:
  • How many dollars did you make?

On currency, euro is singular and plural, but languages vary on this standard: see England’s and Italy’s usage. While we’re here, ever wonder about compound possessives? I’m sure you have. Notice the difference in the following:

• Alison and Aaron’s cat is an adorable black kitten.
  • We share one cat, so you only make the second word possessive (‘s).
• Alison’s and his cat is adorable.
  • If the compound possessive uses a pronoun (his in the case), the noun that comes first is possessive.
• Alison’s and Aaron’s cars are Hondas.
  • This shows we have two different cars that happen to be Hondas.
  • Too bad they aren’t Lexus vehicles…
• England’s and Italy’s usage is different.
• Here, the usage is different in the different countries. English speakers often say “euros” for plural, but Italians use “euro” for singular and plural.

Revision needed: The number of pollutions individuals creates is far fewer than the number families generate; therefore, have less children to protect the environment.

Make sure you review the Group Discussion on pp. 195-196. Pay particular attention to #5.

• We have less than ten dollars to last until payday.

Should you change it to “fewer than ten dollars” because ten, a number, is countable? In standard usage, we say less with money and distance, especially in these situations:

• I have less than $5,000 saved.
• This $19.99 price is less than $20!
• The Flying Saucer is less than five miles from my house.

At this point in your college careers, you shouldn’t be blindly repeating rules; instead, you should be able to explain why some word or phrasing or punctuation is more standard than another. Check out this link for a brief discussion on the less vs fewer issue.

For Group Discussion (pp. 195-196)

Make sure to do this exercise on your own, but consider that when countable nouns are distances, sums of money, units of time, and statistical enumerations, we often think of them as amounts rather than numbers.

Collective Nouns

These nouns, “nam[ing] a group of individual members,” require context to decide if they should be singular or plural (Kolln & Gray 198). When you refer to the entity as a whole, use the singular; when you refer to the individual members, use the plural.

• The faculty go their separate ways when the semester is over.
• The faculty is revolting against upper-administration.

Remember, some, all, and enough will often use the singular form of the verb. But notice the subject-verb agreement of the following:

• Some of the class is doing well.
• Some of my students are doing well in class.

Do Exercise #38 on p. 200 to reinforce this material.

Adjectives

We’ve covered adjectives in general, but we haven’t had any fun or funner discussions. Consider the following chart with comparatives and superlatives:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
big	bigger	biggest
tiny	tinier	tiniest
heavy	heavier	heaviest
random	randomer	randomest
sarcastic	more sarcastic	most sarcastic

What’s the rule?

Now, turn to pp. 210-211 in Barrett’s Perfect English Grammar and think more about funner things…wait! Why is “funner” not a word? Doesn’t it follow the comparative rule above?

Adverbs

These verb modifiers are your friends. Identify the usage rules for the following adjectives and adverbs.

• The slow driver drove slowly in the slowest Honda ever made.
• My fast Acura gets me home fast; in fact, I’m home faster than my not-so-fast neighbor.
• The graceful dancer twirled gracefully across the stage; she performed more gracefully than her fellow performers.

Speaking of “not-so-fast neighbor,” if you’re interested in learning more about when to hyphenate, here’s a great resource, particularly Rules 10-12. Barrett has a cleaner discussion of compound nouns on pp. 113-116 and a discussion of compound adjectives and written numbers needing hyphens (or not) on pp. 192-193.

Also, remember that language conventions change over time, and we tend to close compounds after a while. Also, as we learned (I think we did this) with “high-temperature oxidation” and “high-water mark,” conventions might be different based on different style guides. For instance, what about these words below?

• video games
• videogames
• video gamer vs videogamer
• video-game player

Wired magazine has a standard: “when in doubt, close it up” (very bottom of webpage). Just be consistent, and consult your specific style guide:

• MLA Style for hyphens …this is the Modern Language Association
  • not to be confused with the Medical Library Association style
• APA Style for hyphens
• Chicago Manual of Style for hyphens
  • Take a look at 7.80: Terms like “web” and “internet”

One more thing…

• webpage
• web page
• Web page

I know, I know…”just give us the $&*%#*@ answer!” It depends on your style guide or organization’s preference, but I’ve noticed a move to “webpage” as the standard.

Qualifiers

I mainly want us to focus on the rhetorical aspects of these words. If you read George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, you may recall Newspeak, the campaign to reduce the number (or amount…) of words in the English language. Instead of excellent or close synonyms, they wanted doubleplusgood. Kolln & Gray tell us qualifiers “modif[y] an adjective or adverb…amplif[ying] or diminish[ing] the meaning of the word it precedes” (p. 205). I don’t want to tell you to eliminate qualifiers, but try to limit them by picking more precise verbs.

• The manager very softly spoke to his lawyer.
• The manager muttered to his lawyer.

Your turn. Change the underlined words to more precise verbs:

• They very quickly ran across the field.
• The cat very quietly walked across the couch. {Maybe keep one qualifier…but what do cats do quietly? Not sing, of course.}
  • My cat stalks across the couch.
  • Isn’t she adorable?!?

Do the few sentences from Exercise #40 on pp. 205-206. I have suggestions for #2 and #4 below:

• #2: The foreman gives his orders in a very abrupt manner.
  • The foreman gives his orders in a blunt manner.
  • The foreman gives his orders in a brusque manner.
  • The foreman gives orders abruptly.
    {Does this lose any meaning?}
• #4: The basketball players seemed really tired as they took the court for the second half.
  • The basketball players seemed exhausted as they took the court for the second half.

Phrasal Verbs

Ever heard not to end a sentence with a preposition? I’m sure it’s something you’ve heard about. Although you may still want to avoid that if you’re writing to someone with an old-school approach to grammar (meaning–outdated), don’t lose too much sleep over it. The following are easy fixes:

• Where will you be at?
• At where will you be?
• Where will you be?

Sometimes using the 2nd approach sounds pretentious and out of place. Know your audience. Also, know what is and is not a preposition. Words can be in multiple parts of speech. Phrasal verbs consist of multiple (usually just two) words, a verb and what looks like a preposition. Verb particles don’t have to follow the verb, but prepositional phrasal verbs do. Consider the following:

• I looked up your phone number. (particle)
• I looked up the street. (preposition)
• I looked up to you. ( particle )
• I looked up at you. (preposition)

*Highlight the ( ) with your mouse to see the secret.

Notice how you can move the particle up in a different version of the 1st sentence:

• I looked your phone number up.

If someone attempts to correct you, make them explain the rule. When they can’t, tell them this:

• Your inability to use English correctly is something up with I’ll not put.

Tell them to “think about it,” and walk away. It’s your mic drop moment.

Pronouns

I only want to pause on two aspects of pronoun usage: 1) hypercorrections and 2) they as the gender-neutral pronouns.

Hypercorrections

• Buy a beer for Rick and I. (for me)
• If you have any questions, address them to myself or one of the staff members. (to whom?)
  • This one is particularly pretentious, and you hear it often in formal situations: politicians speaking to the press, business leaders addressing a conference, and managers who don’t really know correct usage.
  • The sentence should read, “If you have any questions, address them to me or one of the staff members.”
• I glued myself to myself.

Below I don’t have a hypercorrection but an ellipsis. Which is correct and why?

• You are taller than I.
• You are taller than me.

Gender in Language

The English language is sexist, and I can easily prove that with one word, but that’s for another context. Kolln & Gray (p. 209) don’t recommend using they as a gender-neutral singular pronoun. However, Barrett claims there’s a 600-year tradition of using they or them as a gender-neutral singular pronoun (pp. 154-156). I advocate using “they” as a singular pronoun. However, be aware of the revision possibilities if you know your audience–possibly the group paying you–has an issue. Like most problems with sexism and racism, they lessen over time as people…expire.

I do recommend following Kolln & Gray’s advice for making subjects plural to avoid labeling gender. I highly advise not using his or her as in:

• A reporter must leave out his or her personal opinions.

This phrasing has been an interesting 30-year or so experiment. However, while it’s better than using the masculine pronoun to stand for all genders, it still maintains a gender binary of masculine OR feminine, and we’re well beyond such a reductive concept. FULL DISCLOSURE: in work I’ve published and class materials, I’ve used his or her. And, when I’m not careful cutting and pasting, I let his or her back in. I’m fully committed to using they, them, their as both third-person singular and plural and will not apologize in the least. In fact, here’s what I wrote on this subject in the video game book:

It is past time for English to have non-gendered singular pronouns. I use they, their, them, and themselves for both plural and singular pronouns instead of maintaining the he/she binary.

Toscano, Aaron. Video Video Games and American Culture: How Ideology Influences Virtual Worlds. Lexington Books, 2020, note 14, p. 15.

Of course, there was slip…I wrote one chapter nearly ten years before the book was finished (it was an article that got rejected because the editors of the journal were unappreciative of the work) and still had that his or her style choice. Even after my thorough, no doubt impeccable, proofreading, this happened:

• Once a player understands the grammar of the game, he or she is rewarded by pursuing the best strategy. (p. 87)

Ouch! I also wish I could say that that was the only error I found. It is much easier to proofread someone else’s work then [sic] your own.

Ch. 17: More Usage and Style

This was a quick chapter, so I’m not going to repeat what it tells us. I do have to address funner and funnest. These much-maligned words should be standard usage. I was floored that no one in the English Department understood why they were nonstandard even though they follow the superlative rules above.

Please heed Barrett’s advice to stop double spacing after your sentences (p. 215). Unless you’re using a typewriter–and I’m nearly certain none of you have ever even seen one outside of a museum or movie–you don’t need those double spaces. If you do find you have to edit a document where the author put two spaces after each period, there’s an easy solution. Using Find and Replace, put two spaces in the Find text box and a single space in the Replace text box. Issue solved.

For my dissertation, which I wrote on a computer, I used two spaces after periods because my committee was still set on that standard, and you write to your audience. When I revised my dissertation into a book, removing those spaces was easy. By the way, reversing this–adding a second space after a period–isn’t an easy fix. Because you have, presumably, a single space between each word, so the universal Find and Replace won’t work. You’d need to Find period + space and Replace with period + two spaces. Of course, you might have periods that don’t just end sentences, so your editing strategy might be a bit more tedious.

Did anyone catch the mistake in Barrett’s Ch. 17? Well, look over p. 211. There will be a final exam bonus question on it. Remember, the page has four corners…

Also, he approves of funner and funnest! Even WordPress puts red squiggles under them, but don’t give in to techno-standardization!

Next Class

Well, there is no “next class,” but you do have your Portfolios due next week, December 7th. The ENGL 5183 students have their bonus Rhetorical Analysis Assignment and Presentation due on Canvas–but those are only for ENGL 5183 students.

Your Final Exam will be December 12th, but I hope to have it available on Friday, Dec. 9th. You’ll just have to finish that two and a half hour behemoth by 11:00 pm on Monday, December 12th.