The
Grammar
Logs
# 294

QUESTION
When using the article "a", when do you pronounce it as a long a sound and when do you just pronounce it like "uh"
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Rexburg, Idaho Thu, Feb 25, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Only when you are trying very hard to stress the singularity of something do you ever pronounce the "a" as a "long a." Oddly enough, when parents are teaching children how to talk, they might use that long "a" sound: This is A dog. See THEE dog. The indefinite article is not designed to carry that much oral weight.

QUESTION
The word O.K. is widely used in speech or verbal communication. But, is it possible to use it in writing? And, what is the proper way to use it and how should it be spelled (ok, O.K., OK, okay) ?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
College Station, Texas Thu, Feb 25, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Burchfield says that OK is probably the most universally recognized English word. This in spite of the fact that it is spelled about five different ways: OK, ok, O.K., o.k., okay. OK seems to be the most widely accepted, preferred spelling. You wouldn't want to use it in formal, academic prose; "all right" or "acceptable" or "satisfactory" or "appropriate" (there are probably dozens of synonyms) would be better.

QUESTION
Is "very unique" now acceptable? I was taught that this phrase and others such as "highly unique" are redundant. However, I'm hearing and seeing it more and more, even in the work of authors I respect. What's your opinion?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Park Forest, Illinois Sat, Feb 27, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The insistence that "unique" is a nongradable word seems to be losing its grip on English usage. If you take it to mean "one of a kind," then it doesn't make sense to say that something is "highly unique" or "very unique" or "quite unique." However, if you take it to mean "remarkable," the word does seem to admit of some gradation. In formal or academic prose, I would avoid modifying the word with any adverb. In any case, it seems enough for something to be "unique." Pushing its uniqueness with modifiers seems like the work of a bad used-car salesperson.

QUESTION
Is the correct spelling "prioritization" or "prioritisation"? My dictionary does not list this word and my spell checker says it's with an "s". I thought the "s" version was British and the "z" version was American English.

Thanks for your help

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Sunnyvale, California Mon, Mar 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The online Merriam-Webster's spells it "prioritization." You might not find it in dictionaries that take a stricter stand on such "-ize" words -- like "nationalize, Americanize, finalize, utilize" etc. Burchfield condemns prioritize as mere puffery used by bureaucrats, and he would probably feel worse about prioritization. (He adds that the word did not exist before 1968, which is kind of surprising, isn't it?) In the U.S., spell it with a "z," if you're going to use it at all. You're right about the British: they're more apt to spell such words with an "s," but I think that's what the War of Independence was all about.

QUESTION
I'd like to know the rules applied to the em dash and the en dash. When should I use which?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Burlington, Massachusetts Mon, Mar 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The Chicago Manual of Style limits the use of the en dash (which is somewhere between the
hyphen ( - ) and the full em dash ( — )
in size) to that space between years (when expressing a chronological range such as 1955–72) or between times (from 5:30–7:15, say). I note that the editors of the Chicago book are considering recommending in their next edition that the en dash should be obliterated from our little arsenal of typographical devices -- I guess because it's not used that often and it just confuses people.

QUESTION
Hello! I am hoping that you can tell me which of the following sentences is correct:
  • This case presents the question of whether or not...
  • This case presents the question whether or not...
Is "of" in this instance considered a superfluous preposition or a necessary preposition?

Thank you very much.

SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Houston, Texas Mon, Mar 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
Burchfield says that either usage is "standard" and thus acceptable. Personally, I'd leave out the "of."

QUESTION
I'm very interested in concord - Swedish students often make surprisingly many concord mistakes, especially when the verb does not come near to the subject in the sentence, as in :Today many well-educated immigrants, doctors etc. does not work... The sentence comes from a corpus called ICLE, containing argumentative essays written by university students in Sweden and in the United States. My question is if you have any advice to give students with these problems? How do you teach students to cope with the notion of concord when their mother-tongue doesn't contain any such thing as concord with verbs, as in Swedish where there is only one form of the verb no matter if the subject is in the singular or plural. Are there any particularly 'good' grammars that could be used? I would be grateful if you had the possibility to answer my question even though I may not be as specific in my wonderings as I wish. Than you in advance.
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Ingelstad, Sweden Mon, Mar 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
What you call "concord" we call "subject-verb agreement." I didn't know that Swedish had nicely avoided the problem by not having singular and plural verb forms. I am sure that most ESL textbooks have considerable sections given over to the problem. In my classes, I try to make a puzzle out of it by creating sentences in which the subject and verb are widely separated by modifying phrases and clauses and forcing students to become very conscious of subject-verb relationships. Besides the verb "to be," it's the singular third-person, present tense "-s ending," of course, that creates all the difficulties in English -- and sometimes that's even worse for some native speakers who have grown up ignoring the "-s ending."

QUESTION
The word moot, when used as an adjective, means debatable and at the same time, it means not worthy for debate. What is the explanation for these contradictory meanings?
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
New York, New York Mon, Mar 1, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
That's a good question and my resources don't have an answer; they simply list both (apparently contradictory) definitions. I think most people, when they say, "That's a moot point," mean that the issue has no practical signifance, that it's not worth talking about (or it's not worth talking about anymore because the time when the issue would be significant has passed). When lawyers and their ilk use the word, however, [E-Mail Icon] they might well be talking about a hypothetical, debatable issue (as in "moot court"). I will leave an e-mail icon here and perhaps some user can explain this contradiction.

An alert reader from Kazakstan (I'm not making this up) wrote to tell us that The Word Detective had delved into the meaning of this word, "moot." I shall violate copyright law here and copy what Evan Morris wrote:
Let's begin at the beginning. "Moot" comes from the Old English word "mot," meaning "meeting," also found in "witenagemot" ("meeting of wise men"), the name of the Anglo-Saxon parliament. Since meetings of any kind are no fun without a good argument, "moot" as an adjective came to mean "open to debate" or "undecided" by the 16th century. This is the original sense of the word, and was applied to actions at law as well -- a case in court was known as a "moot."

What happened then was that law students began to practice their skills by re-arguing real cases in practice courts -- what are today still called "moot courts" in law schools. Since the cases the students argued were, for the most part, already decided in the real world, such sessions and the results therein were "moot" -- for the sake of argument only, having no real significance. This "no real significance" sense of moot has gradually overtaken the original sense, and today "moot" is generally used as a synonym for "settled" or "irrelevant."

You can consult The Word Detective at http://www.greenapple.com/~words1/index.html.


QUESTION
My son wrote the following sentence on a homework assignment: "The wagons were arranged in a circle, then the cattle were chained to the wagons." A teacher corrected that sentence as follows: "The wagons were arranged in a circle. Then, the cattle was chained to the wagons." I have two questions about this "correction." (1) The teacher's use of "was" with "cattle" sounds wrong to me. It seems the teacher is assuming that "cattle" is a collective noun which can take either a singular or plural meaning and predicate. Please clarify. Is the "cattle" a collective noun? (2) The teacher divided my son's sentence into two separate sentences. Was this necessary? I think his sentence is fine as it stands. Thank you for your service!
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Oak Park, California Tue, Mar 2, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
The online Merriam-Webster's defines "cattle" as a "noun plural," which means we should use a plural verb with it: "The cattle were chained." I don't think it's a collective noun. I don't think we'd say something like "The cattle was spooked by thunder."

Technically the word "then" cannot act as a coordinating conjunction between two independent clauses. We could write

"The wagons were arranged in a circle, and then the cattle were chained to the wagons."
but without the and, the sentence would technically be a comma splice, a kind of run-on. Your son is not the first writer to use "then" in that way, however, and many good writers insist that "then" can sometimes function like "and." It would be a bad habit to get into.

QUESTION
Please solve an argument here at work: When using the word "experience" is the preposition "in" required?
e.g. This program grants participants hands-on experience (in?) operating the system.
Thank you
SOURCE OF QUESTION & DATE OF RESPONSE
Tel Aviv, Israel Tue, Mar 2, 1999
GRAMMAR'S RESPONSE
We certainly hear it both ways:
  • I have four years experience driving big trucks.
  • I have four years experience in driving big trucks.
I think both constructions are acceptable. [E-Mail Icon] I don't see anything to the contrary in the dictionary. I will leave an e-mail icon here in case someone has a more authoritative answer.

Previous Grammar Log

Next Grammar Log

Index of Grammar Logs

Guide to Grammar and Writing