Ellen Jovin
Appearances
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Thank you, Mike. I'm so happy to be here.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
One of the complications with English is that there is just a ton of variety. That's what you get with a global language, many different dialects spoken by people who don't actually always have contact with one another. And it's one of the things that I find exciting and adventurous about the English language.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Further and farther is an interesting one for me because I ran into a person in Maryland when I was sitting at my pop-up traveling grammar advice stand, and she was very angry about that. She didn't like that people said further when they meant For distance, for physical distance, she wanted them to use farther. And so that was an example for her of a nails on a chalkboard kind of thing.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
The reality for me, I definitely do not care about that one. And in fact, if you go look it up, you can see that further is used often and has been historically for both physical distances and for metaphorical distances. Like, for example, I went further down the block. I investigated the matter further. I could do both of those, even though the sense is slightly different.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
But some purists will insist on using farther for anything where you can kind of measure it with a ruler.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, there's a lot of discussion about that. I talk to an awful lot of people about lie down and lay down. And In a lot of people's sort of natural dialects they grow up speaking, they just use lay down in cases where I, for example, would use lie down. I need to lay down for a bit. There I would say lie down. They're both words that begin with L. They're short. They sound the same.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
You use to lay when you have an object. he should lay that down on the picnic table versus he should lie down. So the one with lay has an object, a thing right after it that is being acted upon. In casual speech, even very sophisticated people, actually not just casual speech, writing too, very, very sophisticated people often can't remember the difference.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And I've met plenty of advocates for just, oh, just get rid of it. Let's just have it be one word so we can stop worrying about it.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I actually have trouble with this because I was raised to say, I am well. You're supposed to say well because that tells about your health, your well-being, that kind of thing. Whereas if you say I'm good, it's like proclaiming that you're morally good. So that was a big deal when I was a kid. It just doesn't really match up with how people use these things. I think now I am well.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
can sound pedantic to a lot of people, especially in the younger half of the population. So I often reply with things like, I'm doing well, or I'm fine, thanks, how are you? So I kind of avoid the different choosing between those. I can't say, because of my childhood, I just can't say, I'm good. It just doesn't feel comfortable for me because I would feel as though it's an error.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I don't think that there is a daily minimum requirement for semicolons. I do use them. I'm kind of attached to the semicolon. And in fact, I sometimes look over my email before I send when I look over my email before I send it. I sometimes have to take out a semicolon or two because I can go a little bit crazy. I'll even use a semicolon in a tweet.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
But the most common place for them is between what could be two complete sentences. So in a place where you could put a period, but you want to bring them more closely together, they're related ideas, and you just want the pause between them to be less stark so that people connect them more in their brains. And there can be a certain kind of quiet suspense to the semicolon, I think. I like it.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Well, colons are funny because most often in normal daily life, the way people would use them is in front of a list and not in front of all lists. For example, I might say she ordered three items, books, Desks and what should my third one be? Ping pong tables. You know, the usual list. So on the left of that colon, you have three items and on the right of the colon, you have the three items.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There's almost like an equivalency happening there. You can also do that kind of thing when you have.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
dramatic this is a more I think literary use and people should be cautious about this but sometimes you'll see a sentence colon and then another sentence and often it's kind of a tada this is a big deal like I'm setting this up for you here we are we're arriving at this dramatic second piece but I don't recommend people play around with that too much unless they read and get us you know they read and they get a sense of
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
of how experienced authors are doing it. It's mostly a more banal list kind of thing.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Do we need to put you on an apostrophe diet?
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Well, what's confusing about it's with the apostrophe is that usually when we think apostrophe, well, in many cases, we think possessive. Like if I say Mary's It would be Mary apostrophe S chair, the chair of Mary. But these possessive forms of pronouns, that's what you have with it or hers or theirs or ours. With those, there are no apostrophes.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And the it's works similarly, like its tail was wagging. No apostrophe. So in that case, you if you have an apostrophe and then it's it's going to it's see there right that second I just used one. It's going to be a contraction. So either for it is. or it has. So here, I'll give you two examples. It's raining, I-T apostrophe S, raining, or it's been a long time since we last spoke.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
It has been a long time since we last spoke. Both apostrophes, its tail was wagging, no apostrophe at all.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
That's a funny example. In standard English, people typically will use an before a word beginning with a vowel, and they'll use a before a word beginning with the consonant. So the a versus an UFO example I included because often this is for the overthinkers, though.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
This is for the overthinkers among us because I've seen people look at something like UFO, which literally on the page in writing begins with what we think of as a vowel. But the issue is not how it's spelled. The issue is how you say it. And when you say UFO, if you think about it, how do you pronounce the letter? When you say the letter U, it has a Y sound at the beginning.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yeah, U. And that therefore requires a vowel in front. So a UFO.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Okay, I have a good one for you. People often ask me about sentences concluding in prepositions. And a preposition is one of these relationship words, like if you think of a desk, here are some prepositions. Over the desk, under the desk, near the desk, for the desk. So these are little relationship words.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And a lot of people, I'm including myself among those people, were taught when we were kids that we should not end with a preposition. So, you know, in the sentence, that's the woman I was telling you about. Some people will interrupt themselves mid-conversation or they'll rewrite their email so that it says something like, that is the woman about which I was telling you.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And it sounds very stilted. It's not a particularly natural structure for most of us. It doesn't really coincide with how we speak. But people will remember, oh, Miss Smith in eighth grade English taught me that, so I'm going to rearrange my sentence.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Um, and, and I have to, that's probably the one thing when I tell people that actually you can end with a preposition, if it feels appropriate and more natural to you. I mean, you don't need to seek it out every opportunity you get because some of them can be awkward in their own way, but often it's the best way to do things.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And you should get rid of that superstition from your childhood English classes and move along and get with the English program, which allows you to do that.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
You are really getting right to the tough ones here. So a couple is what is known as a collective noun. It has a singular form. This is what it means. It has a singular form but refers to multiple entities. And people struggle so much with what to do especially with verbs that go with the word couple. So yes, no one's going to say, what was your sentence? I saw a couple.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
No one's going to say, I saw a couple. It was nice, right? You can't do that. You can't refer, even though it's singular, you can't say it was nice. You have to say they. So there is a schism between the singular form of couple and then what you want to do with it later. Now, I would do what you did. I would switch to they.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Where this causes confusion mostly because most people just put they and not even think about it. But people argue about the verbs that go with couple. Would you say, let's see, the couple, that nice young couple is moving in next door. That nice young couple are moving in next door. A lot of Americans will say is automatically. And I probably would in that case too. But there's language variety.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
If you cross the Atlantic and you're in the UK, you're going to be more likely to hear nouns like that used with plural verbs. That nice young couple are moving in next door.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Absolutely. There's always going to be a tension between generations, you know, so we grow up, we have our own slang. We speak in a certain way. We're used to certain things. There are, I don't know, educational trends that affect how we're taught. And we grow up and then things evolve. You know, young people don't want the slang of the generation above them. They want their own.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
They have their own way of speaking. And there are always going to be little gaps demographically between different groups. I think it's actually really interesting and fun. And it's something that for me keeps English being an adventure.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
It does seem to have enduring power. I used that when I was a teenager and I still use it.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I can't personally verify that, but it is one of the... Well, here's the thing. A lot of times, I think it's important to recognize our own limitations and knowing what our usage actually is. This happens to me a lot. Someone will say to me, I never do XYZ. Like on Twitter, what's interesting about Twitter, someone will say, I never use XYZ in this way.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
But then, not that I do this a lot, but I have done it. You can use the Twitter feature... to find an example instantly in their own tweets that contradicts what they just said.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
So people think they know what they do, and some are very self-aware and are probably pretty well informed about what they do, but others just think they know what they're doing because they remember what they were told in school and they think they're following it, but they're not necessarily.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
And I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I think in analyzing our own language use, we need to... Remember that those words that are tumbling out of us every single day, all day long for some of us, we don't always know exactly what we just said.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Yes, I love examples like that. I think they're fun. So in he had had enough, you have for people who like the technical names, that is an example of past perfect. So you have a form of the verb to have first that's used across all perfect verb combinations. For example, I have eaten the cheese is present perfect. I had eaten the cheese is past perfect.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I will have eaten the cheese is future perfect. And when you do had had, what you have is the past perfect of the verb to have. So in that case, you have to use have for the first form because that's just how it works, a form of have, in this case had. And then you end up with another had because that's just how it goes. So I had had too much to eat when dessert arrived.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
It's not wrong to leave the comma out. It's not wrong to put it in. So this is an example of one of those gray areas. The comma before the and, which is known as the Oxford comma, the serial comma, or the series comma, depending on where and when you learned about it, is one of the biggest obsessions grammatically of Americans I have found. I get asked about it constantly.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I put it in these days, but when I worked as a freelance reporter and I was following associated press style, I usually left it out. So it really doesn't matter that much unless you have a situation where the list is complicated. For example, if there's an and In one of the items on the list, it's better to go comma heavy so people can tell where the boundaries are between items.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I get asked a lot about effect and effect. Is it AFFECT or do you write the word beginning with initial E? EFFECT. Usually, the one with the E is a noun and the one with an A is a verb. Your behavior affects me, that would be an A. Your behavior has an effect on me would be an E. Those are the most common differences.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
There are some specialized instances for each, but that covers the bulk of cases that people will encounter.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
Well, I love grammar and I'm always happy to speak about it. Thank you for having me on.
Something You Should Know
A Smart Guide to Friendships & English Tips From A Master Grammarian - SYSK Choice
I get asked a lot about effect and effect. The one with the E is a noun and the one with an A is a verb. So, your behavior affects me, that would be an A. Your behavior has an effect on me would be an E. All this today on Something You Should Know.