This is my blog. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

It seemed like I was hearing it everywhere. It started with my boyfriend telling me recently about a coworker from the ski resort he worked at last winter. She had a fondness for a certain shovel and would proclaim, “This is my shovel. There are many like it, but this one is mine!”

Then, a couple days ago, a friend posted a photo of his breakfast on Facebook and wrote, “This is my breakfast. There are many like it, but this one is mine!”

It seemed like everyone was saying, “This is my _______. There are many like it, but this one is mine.” I became fixated, so I did some research and found out it comes from the rifleman’s creed that the United States Marines say. It starts, “This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.”

I can’t say that I know a lot of military or gun enthusiasts, so it seems more likely that they picked it up from the creed’s influence on pop culture. For instance, it was popularized in the classic war movie Full Metal Jacket.

But I imagine just as many people learned it from Family Guy when it took the creed’s formula and, just like the people I mentioned earlier, changed out the word rifle:

This happens a lot—when you learn a new word or phrase, and then you seemingly see and hear it everywhere. The phenomenon has a name: Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. The reason it got its name seems to be a result of that very phenomenon.

As Alan Bellows explains in this fascinating article about it:

It seems likely that some individual learned of the existence of the historic German urban guerrilla group which went by that name, and then heard the name again soon afterwards. This plucky wordsmith may then have named the phenomenon after the very subject which triggered it.

Something tells me you’ll be hearing more about Baader-Meinhof very soon. You’ll probably hear it everywhere.

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In defense of y’all

Posted on May 9, 2013 by

I mentioned on twitter yesterday (find me at @GrammarParty for tweets about grammar and cats and nerd stuff) that I’m going to start saying y’all more often. And I got some good-natured ribbing about it. “It’s my heritage,” I cried in defense via tweet.

I grew up in Appalachia, and though y’all is more often used in the southern parts of the United States, I did hear it as a child. Now living Minneapolis, which is more “civilized” and devoid of cows and other livestock, saying y’all makes me feel homey, almost like I can smell the manure on the cornfield by my old house every time I say it. (Apparently when one is homesick, even manure can bring good memories.) So I’m going to continue to say it. And that’s okay.

In case you were wondering, y’all is a legitimate word in the same way that ain’t is a word. People say it, so it’s a word. They’re both perfectly fine to use in conversation. I just wouldn’t encourage using it on a college admission essay, lest the mighty academics judge you to be unedjeecated.

But why I ask, dear readers, does y’all have a bad reputation? It’s simply a contraction of you all. While that may be redundant, is it any different, I ask, than the you guys I hear so frequently in the north? Or you lot, which people say in England? Y’all just gets bound up with all these bad stereotypes of the kind of people we envision saying it. Well, this y’all sayer does not wear jean overalls and does not have a piece of hay sticking out of her mouth. But if she did, that would be okay, too.

How to use y’all
Now that I’ve obviously convinced you that it’s okay to say y’all, let’s look at how to use it correctly.

Y’all is spelled like that. It’s not ya’ll. The apostrophe goes after the Y. Perhaps people get confused with the contraction for we will, which is we’ll, and thus misplace the apostrophe in y’all.

Also, there is some debate about whether y’all can be singular. The majority of authorities I checked seem inclined to say it is only plural. I agree. Since it’s a contraction of you all, the all lends itself to meaning more than one person.

Y’all revolution
If you’re feeling a bit feisty today, and are up for a debate, I encourage you to drop a y’all in conversation and gauge the listener’s response. If the listener thinks you’re silly for saying that, then ask why. If more than one person is in your group, perhaps say, “What’s so wrong with y’all, y’all?” You may find it will spark a lively conversation about words and stereotypes—and maybe, by the time y’all are finished, we’ll have world peace.

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Ten weird flower etymologies

Posted on May 6, 2013 by

 

With Mother’s Day right around the corner and spring finally pushing up the daisies, many of us are thinking about pockets full of posies this week. That’s why I headed over to the Online Etymology Dictionary and found ten flower names with rather interesting histories.

carnation: Carnation has an uncertain origin. The name could come from the word coronation because the flowers were used in chaplets (wreaths worn on the head) or because the petals look crown-like. As carnations are often pink, it is also thought the name comes from the Middle French word carnation, which means person’s color or complexion.

daisy: The Old English term for daisy is dœgesege, which is a combination of the words dœges and eage, meaning day’s eye. Daisy originally got its name because the petals open at dawn and close at dusk.
Fun fact: Daisy being used as a woman’s name is believed to have started as a nickname for Margaret.

dandelion: This word comes from the Middle French dent de lion, which literally means lion’s tooth. It got this name because of its tooth-like leaves.
Fun fact: Apparently, dandelions used to be used as diuretics. In Middle English, it was sometimes called piss-a-bed, and in French, pissenlit. (Lit is the French word for bed, and the Old French verb for to urinate is pissier.)

forget-me-not: Though its scientific name is Myosotis palustris, this nickname comes from the Old French ne m’oubliez mye (don’t forget me).
Fun fact: The nickname arose from the thought that people wearing the flower should not be forgotten by their lovers.

gardenia: One may think that gardenia comes from the word garden. In a way, it does. However, its name comes from the name of Dr. Alexander Garden, an American naturalist.

lavender: Lavender gets its name from its use to scent washed fabrics and bath water. The word is associated with the French lavande and Italian lavanda, which means a washing.

orchid: Orchid means testicles. It comes from the Proto-Indo-European root word for testicles, orghi-. It is so named because the shape of its roots apparently looks like the man parts.

pansy: This word comes from the Middle French pensée, which means thought, rememberance.

peony: The long etymological route this word took may have started with Paion, who the ancient Greeks believed to be the physician to the gods. The plant apparently has healing qualities, with its roots, flowers, and seeds all formerly being used in medicine.

tulip: This flower’s name comes from the Turkish word tülbent, which means turban, because people thought it looked like the headwear.

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Had to share this

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

It’s pretty easy to make me happy. Give me a kitty to pet, put on an old episode of Star Trek, take me to a baseball game, or let me rant about grammar. I found a letter to the editor today in the Star Tribune, our paper here in Minneapolis, that made me smile because it combines two of my favorite things: baseball and grammar. I felt I just had to share it with you. D.L. Struckman of Watertown, South Dakota, wrote it. I don’t know who that is, but s/he’s pretty awesome.

Here it goes:

I’m looking forward to the Minnesota Twins having an exciting year. However, there are several things I dislike hearing or seeing during the games. One is the “Circle Me Bert” signs. Where or what is your “Bert”? Is that similar to saying, “Circle me chin”? Perhaps those with the signs don’t know you are to punctuate a noun of direct address. “Circle me, Bert” would show that you did listen in English class.

Another irritation is announcers’ use of “hit” for “bat.” When you say that Willingham, for instance, will “hit” next, how do you know that? I’m sure that he will bat next, but he has only about a 30 percent chance of hitting.

Also, the ball usually passes over the center edges of the plate, not the corner. It would have to come at a really sharp angle to cross one of the corners. Think of how many syllables you could save during a game by saying “edge” instead of “corner.” 

For more baseball and language, here is a post I wrote a couple years ago about baseball slang. Enjoy: http://grammarpartyblog.com/2011/04/13/baseball-slang-is-in-my-wheelhouse/

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Years old: Hyphen or no hyphen?

Posted on April 26, 2013 by

 

Today we’re discussing when to hyphenate the phrases years old and year old.

Let’s take a look at two sentences:

His son is four years old.
He has a four year old boy.

In the first sentence, you would not use hyphens. In the second sentence, you would, making it four-year-old boy. This is because the phrase four year old is modifying the noun boy.

A good clue to determine whether you should hyphenate the year old phrase is to see if a noun comes after it. If there is a noun, hyphenate:

six-year-old toy
fifty-year-old whiskey
eight-year-old cat

If the sentence is simply stating that someone or something is so many years old, then don’t use a hyphen:

Her dad turned sixty years old today.
His baseball card is seventy years old.

Quiz
Determine whether the words in italics should be hyphenated. The answers are at the bottom.

1) Sasha is eight years old.
2) She has a three year old turtle.
3) Maddie is a five year old girl.
4) The painting is one hundred years old.
5) He ate the hamburger that was fourteen years old.
6) He ate a fourteen year old hamburger.

Answers:

1) not hyphenated 2) hyphenated; three-year-old turtle 3) hyphenated; five-year-old girl. 4) not hyphenated 5) not hyphenated 6) hyphenated; fourteen-year-old hamburger.

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