Category Archives: Words, phrases & expressions

Snowclones are the (not so) new cliches

Got snowclones? You might not have heard of a snowclone, but chances are you’ve used one recently, perhaps without even knowing it. “50 is the new 30” or “sitting is the new smoking” you might have suggested, feeling a little bit clever. “Discretion is my middle name”, you could have said reassuringly. “Thanks be to Godot” was how a friend signed off wittily in the 48 hours before Thanksgiving…

A snowclone, according to the person who first identified and named it, is “a type of cliché or formulaic expression (such as ‘Much ado about X,’ ‘X is the new Y,’ or ‘X leads the league in Y’) that ‘can be used in an entirely open array of different jokey variants by lazy journalists and writers’.” About a decade ago, linguists began collecting these formulaic or pattern-based clichés on Language Log, a popular linguistics blog. In January 2004, soon after linguist Geoffrey Pullum identified this particular type of phraseology and invited a discussion about it on the blog, economist Glen Whitman coined the term snowclone, it was endorsed by Pullum, and it’s been used ever since by linguists, language commentators, journalists and authors, all happy to have a name for this quirky practice. Yes, Virginia, there is a name for such clichés. In a piece on The Economist‘s Johnson blog, “G.L.” described his (or her) “Eureka” moment on discovering the concept of the snowclone: “It is a phenomenon so pervasive and mundane that it never occurs to you to give it a name, but once you discover that there is one, you wonder how you managed without it.”

But even with its spanking new name and identity, the snowclone has had a pretty bad rap. Just a few days after it was christened, the linguist Mark Liberman — using a snowclone to make his point — pronounced on the same blog that “snowclones are the dark matter of journalism”. Granted, they can be hard worn and hackneyed, but give them a break: they have been in use for a very long time — more than a hundred years, in fact.

“X is my middle name” is widely thought to be one of the oldest snowclones on record. As Glossographia pointed out, “the entry for middle name in the OED has been relatively recently updated, and includes numerous instances of this figurative use going back to 1905, where the New York Journal has “For retiring you’re—well, that’s your middle name” and other quotations going up to the present. I did a little further searching around and was able to find an earlier one going back to 1902, in the Manitoba Free Press, quoting a correspondent from Dawson, Yukon Territory …: ‘Fight is my middle name’.”

The 21st century has seen something of an explosion of snowclonology, as tropes and memes proliferate online, and our all-pervasive culture of sampling, imitating and riffing on retro or just pre-existing material becomes reflected in the snappy repartee, referential song lyrics and generally clever discourse of our time. When Radiohead sang “Down Is the New Up” in 2008, they were jumping on a bandwagon by using one of the more common modern examples of a snowclone cliché. The origins of “X is the new Y” are a little murky, although it’s understood that it started life as “X is the new black” (a twist on the original fashion motto “pink is the new black”), and then became more general as time went on. Language Log has explored this particular snowclone’s history, noting that its pink origin is commonly but mistakenly attributed to Gloria Vanderbilt in the ’60s. Barry Popik tracked down some early examples of “X is the new Y” published in newspapers of 1979: “colors are the new neutrals” (in the New York Times) and “pearl grey is the new neutral” (in the Chicago Tribune). Now broadened to way more than just a matter of color, X is the new Y is the new oldest cliché in the book.

The Snowclones Database presents a good read about particular phrases — especially the ones with their origins in much earlier times — that are unambiguously legitimately snowclones. However, as the snowclone has invaded our colloquial lingo so aggressively, its definition has started to loosen and sag; new, sometimes iffy snowclones are creeping into our vernacular every day, making it more difficult for linguists and word-nerds to ‘officiate’ and decide what actually constitutes a snowclone. To be (a snowclone) or not to be (a snowclone)? That is the snowclone question…

Jack Schmidt’s wiki page of snowclones is another good resource, especially as it identifies the origins of some classic clichés through the ages. But the page fell victim to this snowballing increase in snowclonology and snowclonological debate, and it ended up having to go on hold — publishing this rather sad disclaimer in 2008: “This page is intended to develop an encyclopedic article on the historical development of pattern based cliches. It has sometimes been in a reasonable state, but due to the faddish nature of its popularity, the article quickly spiraled out of control. As the fad fades, more reputable and scholarly sources are emerging to sort out the noise from the culture.”

Let’s hope the snowclone can emerge unscathed from its overblown popularity and exploitation. It came, it saw, it snowcloned.

Meanwhile, here are some classic examples from Jack Schmidt’s page*, grouped chronologically according to when the originating phrase was first uttered in its virgin form.

Pre-16th century:

“I came, I saw, I Xed” — from Julius Caesar “Veni, vidicon, vici” (Latin for “I came, I saw, I conquered”)

16th century:

“To X or not to X” — from “To be or not to be” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

* “A(n) X! A(n) X! My kingdom for a(n) X!” — from “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” from Shakespeare’s Richard III

17th century:

“I X, therefore I Y” — from Descartes “I think, therefore I am”

19th century:

“Yes, X (often Virginia), there is a Y” — from “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Clause”, from an editorial by Francis Pharcellus Church in the New York Sun (1897)

1910s:

“The X to end all Xs” — from a popular saying that the first world war was “the war to end all wars”

1950s:

“Have X, will Y (often travel)” — from “Have Gun — Will Travel”, a late ’50s TV western

1990s:

“Got X?” — from the Got Milk? ads produced for the California Milk Processor Board

“You had me at X” — from “You had me at hello”, from the film Jerry Maguire

* all but one: I added “An X! An X! My kingdom for an X!”

Parental advisory: inexplicit content

Content warnings and advisories aren’t always as explicit as they should be, given the explicit material they’re designed to protect our kids against. Often couched in ambiguous terms, they can leave much to the imagination or to broad interpretation — with sometimes dubious or downright silly results.

The ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) says that its ratings “provide concise and objective information about the content in video games and apps so consumers, especially parents, can make informed choices.” For games in its “Everyone 10+” category, it warns that the content “may contain … mild language and/or minimal suggestive themes.” Isn’t “mild language” what a toddler speaks when she’s just getting beyond the babbling stage? And as for “minimal suggestive themes”, are we talking about American works of art from the ’60s and early ’70s, or sparse interior decors?

A common warning for parents is that “mild peril” is contained in children’s movies. Is there really such a thing as “mild peril”? Peril, according to most dictionaries, means “serious and immediate danger”. Can serious and immediate danger be mild?

The Classification Board in Australia (where, incidentally, the censorship of video games and internet sites is said to be the strictest in the western world) classifies all material shown in movies, TV and videos. Its “M” rated material is “recommended for people with a mature perspective but is not deemed too strong for younger viewers. Language is moderate in impact.” How do I know if I or my child — or my spouse or parent, for that matter — have a mature enough perspective to view said M movie? And if its language is only moderate in impact, should we be looking for another movie with a better screenplay?

Here’s another good one: “adult situations”. To quote Calvin and Hobbes (the cartoon characters created by Bill Watterson): Calvin: The TV listings say this movie has “adult situations.” What are adult situations? Hobbes: Probably things like going to work, paying bills and taxes, taking responsibilities… Calvin: Wow, they don’t kid around when they say “for mature audiences.”

According to the MPAA classification system, one of the criteria for the R rating is “pervasive language”. The new movie Nebraska is rated R “for some language”. Don’t most movie screenplays nowadays have “pervasive language” or “some language”? I thought they all did, at least since talkies were invented. Screenwriters beware: you might just write and rate yourself out of a job.

“Contains behaviour which could be imitated” is one of the BBC’s online content advisories. Well, first of all it’s mildly perilous grammatically: it should more properly read “contains behaviour that could be imitated” (better conjunction). But that’s for another discussion. Can’t a lot of behavior that you see online be imitated — whether or not you even want to try and be like Jack Donaghy in 30 Rock or Luke Skywalker in Star Wars? This advisory sounds more like an offering to stand-up comedians than a warning to parents of young and impressionable children.

Parental advisories for Batman Begins (and many other movies) warn of “revealing clothing” and “dysfunctional relationships”. Whoa. But do kids really need to follow the adventures of the caped crusader in order to catch a glimpse of either of those mildly perilous phenomena? I’d say they’re more like blanket content advisories for 21st-century life.

Here’s one of Wikipedia’s several stern disclaimers. It isn’t inexplicit or vague in any way, but it does seem just a little over the top, if not perhaps tongue-in-cheek:

“USE WIKIPEDIA AT YOUR OWN RISK: PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANY INFORMATION YOU MAY FIND IN WIKIPEDIA MAY BE INACCURATE, MISLEADING, DANGEROUS, ADDICTIVE, UNETHICAL OR ILLEGAL.”

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Moving on from the (presumably) unintentionally inexplicit warnings, here are some spoof advisories that were designed for our entertainment. Warning: explicit content follows. (And I’m not being ironic; it really does.)

The musical show Avenue Q has warnings such as “PARENTAL ADVISORY: 60% adult situations and 40% foam rubber”, and “Not appropriate for children due to language and adult content such as full puppet nudity”.

Another show, Jersey Boys, offers this disclaimer: “This musical contains smoke, loud gunshots, strobe lights, and authentic, offensive Jersey vocabulary”.

Monty Python’s The Album of the Soundtrack of the Trailer of the Film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail contains this warning: “There is little or no offensive material [on this record] apart from four cunts, one clitoris, and a foreskin. And, as they only occur in this opening introduction, you’re past them now.”

One of the tag-lines for the 2008 movie An American Carol reads: “WARNING! This movie may be offensive to children, young people, old people, in-the-middle people, some people on the right, all people on the left, terrorists, pacifists, war-mongers, fish mongers, Christians, Jews, Muslims, atheists, agnostics (though you’d have to prove it to them), the ACLU, liberals, conservatives, neo-cons, ex-cons, future cons, Republicans, Democrats, Libertarian, people of color, people of no color, English speakers, English-as-a-second language speakers, non-speakers, men, women, more women, & Ivy League professors. Native Americans should be okay.”

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Nov 22)

Too much seeing, the selfie comes into its own, literary prizes, another dying art, and grammarians who should know better, and the new because: all making the news this week, because language…

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Multiple outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, reported the news that selfie is 2013’s word of the year. A sign of our times?

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On CSIS, we see Reginald Dale writing about the sloppy misuse and overuse of the verb “to see” in journalism.

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Everyone makes grammar mistakes. Even people who write about grammar mistakes make mistakes. Arrant Pedantry sums up those mistakes we all make.

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Because has a new role in life. Linguists are calling it the “prepositional-because.” Or the “because-noun.” The Atlantic reports, because linguistic evolution.

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NPR’s Morning Edition talked about the dying art of old-fashioned letter-writing (but it is still alive and kicking in some parts of the world).

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Whom or what are literary prizes for? asks the New York Times. “What purpose do these prizes serve? Are the values they promote aesthetic or commercial? And how on earth do the judges arrive at their decisions?”

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Wordy board games

Game-playing is and always has been a central part of the human experience and is as vital to – and reflective of – a society’s culture as music, dance, literature or the other arts. Chess, checkers (known as draughts in British English), and backgammon are board games that date back thousands of years — and they weren’t even the first of their kind. Senet, found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt c. 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively, is the oldest known board game (four sets were found in Tutankhamun’s tomb); other such forms of ancient entertainment were Mehen, from Predynastic Egypt; Go, originating in China; Patolli, originating in Mesoamerica played by the ancient Aztec; and Pachisi and Chaupar, ancient board games of India. What these games share is the goal of outwitting one’s opponent by strategically seizing points, property or territory using a process or combination of counting, logic, or luck.

Board games predated the development of writing and literacy, and although it’s no surprise that language eventually found its way into the world of parlor entertainment, it seems to have taken its time, only joining the fun in the 19th century when board and parlor games started to develop and broaden to amuse and entertain the whole family rather than just the older, nerdier teenagers and adults. Words in all their glory — whether strutting their spellings, their definitions, or their usage in expressions and phrases — now form the basis of a number of popular modern games that have been enjoyed by humans large and small over the past century.

Incidentally, it’s interesting to note that board games are given “publication” dates: I didn’t realize that games were “published”, like books — and it seems especially strange when the games in question have nothing to do with language.

Here are some of the more popular and enduring wordy board games, with their tag-lines and a very brief description of their rules and origins. Any others I’ve missed?

Scrabble:

“Crossword game”: The grand old man of word games: two to four players score points by placing tiles — each bearing a single letter — onto a board in such a way that the tiles form words, crossword-style. The words must be defined in a standard dictionary.

The first version of Scrabble was created in 1938 by the American architect Alfred Butts under the name “Criss-Crosswords”, as a variation on an earlier word game he invented called Lexiko. In 1948, James Brunot, a resident of Newtown, Connecticut, bought the manufacturing rights in exchange for giving Butts royalties on sales. Brunot made some slight changes to the board, simplified the rules, and changed the game’s name to “Scrabble”, which means “to scratch frantically”. Legend has it that Scrabble‘s big break came in 1952 when Jack Straus, president of Macy’s, played the game on vacation and placed a large order for his department store …

Probe:

“The game of words”: Reminiscent of the simple two-person game Hangman, up to 4 players try to guess a word chosen by another player by revealing specific letters. Probe was introduced in 1964 by Parker Brothers.

Boggle:

“The 3-minute word search game”: Using a plastic grid onto which lettered dice are shaken and settled (with a single letter facing up), players search against the clock for words that can be spelled from adjacent cubes, ie. those neighboring each other horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Invented by Alan Turoff in 1972 for Parker Brothers. Turoff’s wife was also a toy designer, and they exchanged their marriage vows to the tune of “Babes in Toyland”.

Scattergories:

2 to 6 players score points by thinking of names – unique among players in the particular round — of items in different categories with a given initial letter, all against the clock. Published in 1988 (the designer seems to be unknown).

Taboo:

“The game of unspeakable fun”: The object of the game is for a player to get her partner or team to guess the word on her card by defining it without using the word itself or any of the five additional words listed on the card. Taboo was designed by Brian Hersch and published in 1989 by Hasbro.

Apples to Apples:

“The game of hilarious comparisons”: From two decks of cards — adjectives and nouns — a player (referee) selects an adjective card; the other players choose and play from the noun cards in their hands the nouns that best match the chosen adjective. The referee then chooses the noun card that appeals most to them and awards the card to whoever played it. Designed by Matthew Kirby and Mark Alan Osterhaus, it was published in 1999 by Out of the Box publishing.

Banagrams:

“The anagram game that will drive you bananas!”: 2 – 8 players arrange their own tiles into a grid of connected words faster than their opponents. The winner is the first to complete a word grid after the pool of 144 tiles has been exhausted.

Abraham Nathanson, a Rhode Island artist, invented Bananagrams at the age of 76; the game debuted at the 2006 London Toy Fair. According to the New York Times, in its obituary for the inventor after his death just four years later, Nathanson “hit on the idea for Bananagrams while playing Scrabble with his grandson and chafing at the slow pace of the game. ‘We need an anagrams game so fast, it’ll drive you bananas.'”

Pictionary:

“The game of quick draw”: The word-guessing game is played in teams, with players trying to identify specific words from their teammates’ drawings. Pictionary was invented by Robert Angel with graphic design by Gary Everson and first published in 1985 by Angel Games Inc.

The Origin of Expressions:

“The origin of expressions: Phrases – Fakery – Finesse – Fun”: Players receive a common everyday phrase, such as “Baker’s Dozen,” and write an explanation for the phrase’s origin. Players try to convince the others that their own origin is the true one. Players vote for the most plausible origin. A recent game, published in 2007 by Discovery Bay Games, the designer is uncredited.

One pair, two pairs, three pair, four …

Is that a few pairs of socks, or three pair? I’ve never really understood the logic of that “singular plural” of pair, whose usage seems to me to be especially common here in America.

A Google search on the term “three pair of” produces 3,300,000 results (which seems strangely symmetrical, even though the expression sounds decidedly wrong). Now if we make those pairs properly plural — ie. “three pairs of” — and hit the Google button again, we have almost 12 times as many results (38,300,000). “Two pair of” on the British National Corpus turns up just 4 results, whereas adding an ‘s’ to pair takes us up to 157. On the Corpus of Contemporary American English, those figures are 36 and 484 respectively. So I think it’s safe to say that on both sides of the Atlantic, the logical plural with an ‘s’ wins out usage-wise.

Most usage guides prescribe “pairs” for its plural form, including Garner’s Modern American Usage, Fowler’s Modern English Usage, and Patricia O’Conner’s Woe Is I. Fowler states simply that “the plural form pairs is desirable after a numeral (e.g. seven pairs of jeans). The type seven pair of jeans is non-standard, at least in Br.E [British English].” Is he implying that the plural pair is an Americanism? Well, Garner shares Fowler’s preference, but does acknowledge the widespread non-standard option : “The preferred plural of pair is pairs. In nonstandard usage, pair often appears as a plural.” I wonder if it is considered more correct in the New World …

According to Merriam-Webster, “the usual plural is pairs, when there is no preceding number or indicator of number (as several).” It gives “conflicting pairs of truths” as an example. But unlike the more traditional sticklers above, M-W concedes, strangely, that “when a number or indicator of number precedes pair, either pair or pairs may be used,” going on to cite examples such as “six pair of pants” and “three pairs of oars.” American Heritage recognizes that while “pairs” is the more common plural form, “pair” is not incorrect. It qualifies that “pair” or “pairs” can be used after a number other than one, “but the plural is now more common: She bought six pairs (or pair) of stockings.”

The word pair dates back to the mid-13th century, from the Old French paire meaning “pair, couple,” and directly from Medieval Latin paria meaning “equals”. It originally referred to things, and began to describe people from the late 14th century. Meaning “a woman’s breasts” is attested from 1922, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. Who knew.

Perhaps more curious is why certain household objects and items of clothing are referred to as a pair when they’re singular items, such as a pair of scissors, two pairs of spectacles, several pairs of jeans, and 100 pairs of underwear. That blades, lenses, and trouser-legs come in twos probably explains the first few, but the mind boggles a bit about the last. According to World Wide Words, “the answer to all this conventional plurality is very simple. Before the days of modern tailoring, such garments, whether underwear or outerwear, were indeed made in two parts, one for each leg. The pieces were put on each leg separately and then wrapped and tied or belted at the waist (just like cowboys’ chaps). The plural usage persisted out of habit even after the garments had become physically one piece. However, a shirt was a single piece of cloth, so it was always singular. It’s worth noting that the posher type of tailor, such as in London’s Savile Row, still often refers to a trouser and the singular pant and tight are not unknown in clothing store terminology in America — so the plural is not universal.”

The heart of an affair

“An affair wants to spill, to share its glory with the world. No act is so private it does not seek applause.” — John Updike

It’s a scandalous affair that’s taking place at the Old Bailey right now: the high-profile phone-hacking trial of disgraced News of the World editors Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson. And in a recent twist to the red-topped drama (red-topped not just because of the tabloid media giving it round-the-clock coverage but also with its flame-haired leading lady), there’s now another sort of affair that has come to light at the heart of this real-life soap opera: an extra-marital one that was apparently conducted between the defendants during the crucial period under investigation. But is “extra-marital affair” actually a tautology? Isn’t an affair — by definition — a romance between two people at least one of whom is married to another? What makes an affair an affair?

A quick anecdotal survey among my friends suggests that different people have very different notions of what constitutes an affair. Some say it has to be extra-marital. But what if it’s an open marriage, or if the spouses are separated or otherwise feeling nonplussed about their partner’s roaming behavior? Does the cheating philanderer deserve to have his nth lousy blatant fling named so eloquently? Others say it has to be illicit or secret — but not necessarily because of marital guilt. Lovers hiding their assignations because of an inordinately large or indecent age-gap might be accused of conducting an affair, even if both are single. Must a dalliance be fleeting or doomed to be called an affair? The man long estranged from his wife with a permanent live-in lover and children is surely not to be accused of having one. Are affairs sexual by definition and only emotional when they’re qualified as a “love affair”? It does seem that the word’s defining criteria are questionable and more than a few: does a relationship need to be intense and passionate, short-lived or temporary, sexual rather than emotional, or simply adulterous, in order to qualify for this poetic label?

The OED goes for the marriage clause, as well as the element of transience, defining an affair as “a (usually temporary) sexual relationship outside marriage; a love affair”. Cambridge Dictionaries prefer to focus on its illicit nature, describing it as “a sexual relationship, usually a secret one”. Longman likes to have both in place, ie. “a secret sexual relationship between two people, when at least one of them is married to someone else”. Merriam-Webster (online) requires only concealment: “a secret sexual relationship between two people”, whereas Wiktionary focuses on the defying of vows: “an adulterous relationship (from affaire de cœur)”, as does American Heritage: “a sexual relationship between two people who are not married to each other”. All seem to agree that an affair is of the body, and not necessarily of the heart, mind or soul.

A look at the word’s etymology and early usage might help shed a little light on the heart of its meaning. As the Online Etymology Dictionary explains: “c.1300, “what one has to do,” from Anglo-French afere, Old French afaire (12c., Modern French affaire) “business, event; rank, estate,” from the infinitive phrase à faire “to do,” from Latin ad “to”+ facere “to do, make”. A Northern word originally, brought into general use and given a French spelling by Caxton (15c.). General sense of “vague proceedings” (in romance, war, etc.) first attested 1702. Meaning “an affair of the heart; a passionate episode” is from French affaire de coeur (itself attested in English from 1809); to have an affair with someone in this sense is by 1726, earlier have an affair of love: ‘Tis manifeſtly contrary to the Law of Nature, that one Woman ſhould cohabit or have an Affair of Love with more than one Man at the ſame time. [“Pufendorf’s Law of Nature and Nations,” transl. J. Spavan, London, 1716].”

So, in the early 18th century, having relations with more than one person at the same time seemed to constitute having affairs, and they were passionate affairs of the heart — at least when described, perhaps modestly, in print…

Reporting earlier this week on the tawdry Brooks-Coulson entanglement, the New York Times quoted Joan Bakewell, the former BBC presenter who famously had an affair with Harold Pinter in the swinging 60s, as she wondered how such illicit relationships can still be managed in our era of constant connectivity. She asked “how affairs work when you’re constantly pestered with cell calls and emails with “spouses and partners asking: ‘Where are you?” You know, it’s impossible. I don’t know how they manage it.'”

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TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Nov 8)

Words and language in the news during the week ending Nov 8. Scrabble, dudes and dementia are on the docket. Plus an epic and epically misunderstood poem.

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The Independent reported that one of the most famous sentences in the history of the English language has actually been misinterpreted for a couple of centuries. “The accepted definition of the opening line of the epic poem … has been subtly wide of the mark.”

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The etymology of dude: Slate finally puts this enduring mystery to rest, citing a report in the Chronicle of Higher Education that claims that “a massive, decade-long “dude” research project has finally yielded convincing results.”

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Want to know what words came up on the board of the final game of the British National Scrabble Championships? Swarf, enew and fy were some of the more obscure ones, and not all the weird words even have an entry in the OED. The BBC reported.

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If you’re nervous about getting dementia, learn a new language. As SmartBrief reported, a study in the journal Neurology found that the onset of many symptoms of dementia can be delayed by knowing more than one language. And this backs up the findings of an earlier Canadian study. Gehen und eine Sprache lernen!

Between and among

Talking about Netflix in a recent interview with the Toronto Star, Kevin Spacey made this comment: “For kids growing up, there’s no difference among watching Avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV or watching Game of Thrones on their smartphone. It’s all content. It’s all story.” It doesn’t sound right, does it? Is among the culprit? If we look at exactly why it sounds wrong, it starts getting complicated…

Most of us remember from grammar lessons the notion that between is appropriate for two items, and among is for three or more. That’s presumably what made Spacey (or the paper’s copy-editor) choose the latter word. If it’s really that simple, then Spacey’s comment shouldn’t grate on the ears, should it? But it does, and that’s because it isn’t that simple.

Strunk & White tried to explain it this way: “When more than two things or persons are involved, among is usually called for: ‘The money was divided among the four players.’ When, however, more than two are involved but each is considered individually, between is preferred: ‘an agreement between the six heirs.'” That doesn’t seem like a great explanation to me: I’m sure each of the four players was considered individually when the money was divided, and I’ll bet at least one of those six heirs wasn’t considered individually when the agreement was made! There’s something here that I’m still not getting.

Eric Partridge, in his book usage and abusage, presents it this way: “One divides money, goods, property between two persons, but among three or more. The distinction, however, is not so simple. When speaking either of group action, or of precise spatial relationship, one must use between however many participants are involved; as in ‘The children raised $25 between them’, or ‘Switzerland lies between France, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein and Italy.'” Ah: so because the division of money among Strunk & White’s players wasn’t a group action as such, but the heirs’ agreement was, this begins to make sense. But I’m still not sure I understand completely.

Here’s Fowler on the subject (with my bolding): “The OED gives a warning against the superstition that between can be used only of the relationship between two things, and that if there are more, among is the right preposition. ‘In all senses between has been, from its earliest appearance, extended to more than two . . . It is still the only word available to express the relation of a thing to many surrounding things severally and individually; among expresses a relation to them collectively and vaguely: we should not say the space lying among the three points or a treaty among three Powers.‘ But the superstition dies hard. Seventy years after those words were written the following sentence cannot escape suspicion of being under its influence: The peaceful, independent, and self-governing status of Cyprus is conditional on the continuance of cordial relations among Britain, Greece, and Turkey.”

Grammar Girl distills the idea quite well, saying, “You can use the word “between” when you are talking about distinct, individual items even if there are more than two of them. For example, you could say, ‘She chose between Harvard, Brown, and Yale’ because the colleges are individual items. … On the other hand, you use “among” when you are talking about things that aren’t distinct items or individuals; for example, if you were talking about colleges collectively you could say, ‘She chose among the Ivy League schools.'” And to add to Grammar Girl’s last example, if you said that “she chose between the Ivy League schools”, that would surely suggest that there are only two such institutions.

Going back to Kevin Spacey’s comment, and taking into account everything said above, it does seem to follow that he could have chosen between when comparing the three distinct and individual watching experiences: there’s no group action or spatial relationship at play here, and there’s nothing vague or collective about the items he’s comparing. Let’s try substituting Spacey’s among with between and see how it sounds: “For kids growing up, there’s no difference between watching Avatar on an iPad or watching YouTube on a TV or watching Game of Thrones on their smartphone. It’s all content.” Hmmm: that still sounds wrong. Why?

There is another important factor to consider. It’s the word that goes “between” the two or more items under discussion: this should, in fact, only ever be and, at least when between is in play. Fowler has strong words to say about the very common mistake — when employing a between clause — of using connective words other than and, such as or, against, or to. “In the commonest use of between, i.e. where two terms are separately specified, the one and only right connexion between those terms is and. But writers indulge in all sorts of freaks; the more exceptional and absurd of these, in which against, whereas, and to are experimented with, are illustrated in: He distinguishes between certain functions for which full and rigorous training is necessary, whereas others can very well be discharged by me who have had only the limited training. / Societies with membership between one thousand to five thousand. These are freaks or accidents…”

So, what if we keep between in Spacey’s comment and change all his ‘or‘s to ‘and‘s? “For kids growing up, there’s no difference between watching Avatar on an iPad and watching YouTube on a TV and watching Game of Thrones on their smartphone. It’s all content.”

That seems good, doesn’t it? Well, he does seem to suggest that all kids growing up are sharing just one smartphone: but that’s another discussion for another post …

TGIF: That Gerund Is Funky (Oct 25)

That Gerund Is Funky: Words and language in the news during the week ending Oct 25.

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NPR took us on a linguistic journey through the word glitch … What is a glitch, anyway? Meaning everything from a catastrophe to a mere flaw, the word that began in the groovy 60s to describe uneventful snafus in space might now spell peril for Obama’s affordable healthcare act.

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“School Makes Parents Sign Contracts Promising Students Won’t Twerk or Grind at Homecoming Dance.” Yes, that’s a real headline in Time magazine. “It’s hard enough to explain twerking to parents. Now Maryland high schoolers have to explain twerking contracts.” The straight-faced magazine added this caption to the article’s accompanying photograph: “People who twerk or grind will get judgy looks.” Judgy?

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The Guardian‘s David Marsh called for the appointment of a Language Czar, to outlaw ugly business and political lingo, as reported in Prospect magazine. March also argued, in the New Statesman and the New Republic, that “the golden age of grammar is a myth. … Just think about the gay times we had in the old days, when spam was something that went into fritters and you kept your mouse in a cage. The belief that all change is for the worse is invariably accompanied by the conviction that standards of literacy are falling. Such fears date from at least the 18th century.”

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Huffington Post identified 9 words or phrases in everyday use that have racist or prejudiced origins (or murky historical pasts). Who knew that “uppity” once had more repugnant connotations?

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An appalled Daniel E. Jones wrote a letter to the editor of Baton Rouge’s The Advocate, complaining that the paper’s bad grammar (on the first two pages of its Metro section) seems to reflect a lack of education. Joan E. McDonald of Lethbridge up in Canada directed a similar complaint at her local paper, the Lethbridge Herald. But here’s a juicy one: the Washington Post must have hung its head in shame when it received this letter from one of its readers, complaining about an especially egregious ungrammatical utterance — by a penguin no less — in one of the paper’s recent editions. “’It’s me and my wife’s 20th anniversary.’ Listen, kids may be reading this stuff,” warned Jack Fretwell from Reston.

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It’s OK to retweet, but not to copy and paste on Twitter. CNBC Africa has been accused of Twitter plagiarism by its competitor, Business Day Television (BDTV), after it admittedly lifted messages posted by BDTV during South African finance minister Pravin Gordhan’s midterm budget speech. “As far as I know, publishing someone’s content as your own is plagiarism. Or does the Twittersphere have a different set of rules?,” BDTV boss Vernon Matzopolous wrote, according to TechCentral.

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When is it OK to use incorrect punctuation? When you’re listing something on eBay, explained Angus Kidman on LifeHacker. “When you’re listing items for sale on eBay and the product name includes punctuation, you should not include it in the headline. The reason? Most people find stuff to buy by searching rather than browsing, and most people are too bloody stupid to use correct punctuation. They will type the punctuation-free version. If you want to top those search results, you have to use the incorrect rendering.” Perhaps this is wise advice for anyone posting a searchable internet listing?

The softest porn is the new funny talk

“Revenge porn” has recently been outlawed in California: the state’s governor signed a bill making it illegal (basically for bitter exes and disgruntled former lovers) to post explicit pictures of people online without their permission. In this case, there isn’t much question about what the word porn means in the context of its disqualification, with revenge — like its porn cousins child, gay, hard or soft — identifying the specific form of smutty erotica in question. But is porn losing its hard edge (if you’ll pardon the expression)?

Porn (short for pornography) means the description or exhibition of explicit sexual material designed for the purpose of sexual arousal rather than for aesthetic appreciation. And it’s the depiction of the material — rather than the act itself being filmed, photographed, recorded or written about — that the word describes. Pornography comes from the Greek word pornographos, combining porne meaning “prostitute”and graphein meaning “write”.

These days, porn is coming out of the shadows, at least linguistically. It’s no longer just the dirty word consigned to the proverbial top-shelf or password-protected imagery that it has historically described; the four-letter word has found a nice new home, nestling in the bosom of humor and parody. It has been hijacked by ironic hipsters in social (largely online) intercourse — as well as by clever marketeers — to mean more or less anything on whose image people are likely to gaze with acquisitive yearning. To capture or to encourage a craving for or fanaticism about an object of desire, the word porn with its suggestion of sexual arousal — although used with irony and exaggeration — ups the ante and bestows sex appeal on the most unlikely of products or commodities. In fact, the less sexual and the more inanimate the nature of the object, the more potent and witty the message. With everything from “food porn” (there’s even “burger porn”) to “fashion porn”, “car porn” to “record collection porn”, there’s some kind of innocent porn around every corner waiting to seduce us.

The “Bass Porn” page on Facebook is for lovers of that rhythmic instrument slung across a man’s nether regions, and if shoes get your pulse racing, you can oggle* them on one of Tumblr’s many Shoe Porn pages. New York magazine titillates the young and the restless with Real Estate Porn, and if hardware makes you hard (sorry), you can check it out or in and out in a Pinterest Hardware Porn corner. (It’s funny that hardware porn is OK for naming plenty of virtual destinations where you can go for enjoyment and gratification, but not so for software porn …). Want grammar porn? Check! (And come back to Glossophilia for more.) And here’s the silliest one of all: what has the capacity to make women’s tongues hang out, to drool with desire, to pant with anticipation without even a hint of sexual arousal? You’ve got it: wedding porn! (And no, that doesn’t refer to what happens on the wedding night.) You can find that all over the internet — and beyond …

This one really takes the biscuit. Arnold King, talking about economists with pseudo-knowledge in a blog on the Library of Economics and Liberty, complains that “the economics profession for the past thirty years [has] focused on producing stochastic calculus porn to satisfy young men’s urge for mathematical masturbation.” Hmmm … I’m not sure I want to think about that one too carefully, but let me just ask one question that King’s statement raises: what the four-letter-word is stochastic? Is that scholastic with a stick shift?

* One of my friends has pointed out that it’s spelled “ogle”, not “oggle”. Even though it’s pronounced “oggle”. You learn something new every day.