Topic: Language
I have found certain combinations of English words difficult to enunciate properly. One that I believe is severely hard for any English speaker is the past tense of EDIT. When this word is followed by the impersonal pronoun IT, the combination becomes a tongue twister for me at least. Here is an example. See if it makes you choke.
Oh, he’s the editor of the film.
Yeah, well what did he do?
He edited it.
When I say: He edited it aloud I feel like I’m stuttering. The repetition of the morpheme it in the first word and last causes this sensation. In addition to this, the past tense of edit is voiced, that is the stress falls on the ed syllable. Thus, we get the sound ed and it in succession and it makes me feel like I’m stuttering. I can say it alright, it's just a funny little feeling I get when I say it. Try saying it 5 times fast, and I think you see what I mean. You get a pattern that begins to sound like duh-dit-duh-dit-duh-dit. I know the word follows the English rule for simple past tense formation. But, accidentally in this case we've come upon an awkard enunciation scheme. I think the past tense of edit should be irregularized to something like editen (Ed-DIE-Ten). Then a phrase like he editen it, wouldn't be so uncomfortable to spit out, don't you agree? Now, how do I go about getting this done. Write to the Oxford English dictionary lexicographer's office? Even if I did, and they agreed, how would anybody go about the business of announcing (let alone enforcing) to 600 million + English speakers in this world, that one little word is now gonna...oh forget it.... which brings up another thing, there ought to be a way to do this kinda thing... Yes, there ought to a service like the phone recorded messages. It should come on TVs before programs, and on radios, and the NET and would say something like this (on the model of the phone recorded number change): English speakers everywhere: the word EDITED, past tense pronounciation has been changed, the new way to say it is EDITEN, please make a note of it. Good-bye. That might work!
Let's look at the word practice, it is used to mean something we repeatedly do to acquire a skill. But it is used in business literature to mean a skilled person offers their services. For instance a physician is said to have a practice, the same for lawyers, and other professionals. But, if we take the meaning of practice as we usually understand it, this means those self-same professionals are honing their skills in a business venture. Disconcerting thought don’t you think? A doctor that is practicing to be a doctor? On you, no less, he is!
How ‘bout a practicing soldier.
Imagine that!!!!!
Damn I really screwed that mining operation, blew up my own men. Ah well I’m just a practicing soldier you know.
Or what about a plumber with a practice. He comes to fix your toilet and it blows up, and he says:
well look I’m a practicing plumber you know.
You stand there with your mouth hung open. He says:
hmmmm it stinks in this bathroom, I must’ve hit a sewer line. Oh well, let me go somewhere else and practice my profession. Bye.
Oh boy, and get this a practicing priest. He’s giving a sermon: In the beginning there was Elroy…nooo no I mean uh, uh who is that guy—God yeah him and God’s cousin…Mr. Williams from down the street….NOOO… I gotta get this straight, lemme see where is my practice text..oh here it is…Religion made easy.
Uh .parishioners you know I’m a practicing priest don’t ya?
I say readers there is something profoundly wrong about using the word practice in such a context.
The word better
The word better is a noun that usually signifies a comparison of nouns. It is used to show one thing is in a class beyond the referenced class. It can also signify an increment degree of the original noun good. Here is a common example:
Gold is better than silver, when traded as a commodity.
But, this word is used frequently to mean something else. And it is misused, I should say. It is used to indicate caution or negatively to mean declination of an action. In this sense, it is severely misused. Here are some examples:
You better not do that, if the Governor finds out, you’ll be fired for sure.
I better think about this proposal before I decide.
You better listen to me! I’m not kidding you better listen to me. Remember what Cammie did!
In none of the above examples is the word better used as a comparative noun. It is used to express caution to a perceived action. Now, we could actually make this usage correct with some additional phrases. Let me demonstrate:
It would be better if you did not do that, if the Governor finds out, you’ll be fired for sure.
It would be better if I think about this proposal, before I decide.
I won’t reform the last sentence; I think you get the picture. If we put those sentences in subjunctive form, then the comparative nature of better emerges. You can clearly see, that if we speak of what would be then we are comparing two things. Take the second sentence—It would be better to think about a proposal as opposed to not thinking about it before deciding. This sentence points out the misuse that has been made of this word.
Better the comparative noun has been taken out of the subjunctive mood, where it is clearly a comparative noun, and used to mean declination or caution of an action. In this sense, it has been verbalized. That is to say, speakers saying the sentences I listed above are using better as verb expressing an action. If we substitute the verb shall in its conjugated form should, we can see that the sentences above would be correct.
You shouldn’t do that, if the Governor finds out, you’ll be fired for sure.
The verb to get
This verb is misused like better. And like that word, it has become so common to English colloquial speech it is not considered grammatically incorrect. It is used and variously employed, instead of the verbs become and to be. There are other misusages, but I excuse those on the basis of slang usage. For instance: You get it, man, see what I’m saying. That’s just a slang way of saying you understand. But when we hear people saying (as I did today in a supermarket) the following:
I’m getting my wisdom teeth pulled this weekend.
Now we have real misuse. Any listener should see how wrong this usage is immediately because the verb to get is a transitive verb. It must have an object. You can say: Will you go get me that report I left on the chair in the other room? In which the report is the object of the verb get. But in the example above the speaker is passively referring to herself (it was a woman saying this) as having her wisdom teeth pulled. But we use transitive verbs to express action by the subject, not action being done to the subject. So, she should have said something like this:
I'm having my wisdom teeth pulled this weekend.
Of course this happens all the time, doesn’t it? This sort of speech is so common we don’t think of it as being incorrect, but it is. A better example of this misuse can be seen in the following very common colloquial use.
Now look, don’t go and get yourself killed, try to be smart about this okay!
You’ve heard that kind of statement in movies, I'm sure. Again, the focus is on the phrase within this statement: get yourself killed. Action happening to the subject of a sentence can NEVER be expressed with the transitive verb get. We get things, we get going, we, even get home via the freeway. We vow to get even, but never should we get See what I’m saying here? It’s even worst than I first thought, because get is not meant to be a reflexive verb as some verbs can be, like …well like for instance..see.
I can’t see myself anymore; I’m confused about the person I see.
The pronoun myself is referring to the subject I with the intransitive verb see. This is called by the grandiloquent name of pronominal construction, which simply means it refers to its pronoun. This isn’t passive voice. But, I’m getting digressive now, so I'll stop.
One final note on English language usage. In the first sentence of the above paragraph I used the phrase, is referring to. I didn't write is referring back to. That would have been an example of redundancy. The worst case of this, which makes me want to actually strike those I hear using it is the following:
Find out what happened and report back to me would you?
If you report to someone you are returning information, you don't need to add back, but you hear all the time. I've heard radio and TV news readers using it.
