You Keep Using That Word…Vol. 6
By Tiffany Yates Martin | June 4, 2024 |
When one is a word nerd, one can fight against one’s nature—suppressing the automatic correcting of friends’ misused words…working to suppress a shudder when a newspaper (a damned newspaper! bastion of a free and informed society!) is rife (not ripe) with dangling modifiers…trying hard not to see that billboard that for the love of all things holy misuses an apostrophe for a pluralization as the SIGN OF THE GRAMMATICAL APOCALYPSE that it obviously is.
But our nature will out. I’ve been resisting another pedantic post on the vagaries of our vernacular, but then no less a linguistic luminary than Benjamin Dreyer (who was very remotely once my boss in the 15 years I was a freelance copyeditor for Random House, back before it osmosed into Penguin—where I was also a copyeditor) writes a Washington Post op-ed about rampantly misused words and I’m off the wagon.
Join me on my bender, fellow grammar geeks—here are a few banes of a recovering copyeditor’s existence. Today we’re diving into conjugational tomfoolery of some of American English’s most provocative participles.
Vexing Verb Variations
Here’s how some common verbs conjugate: Sink/sank/sunk, drink/drank/drunk, spring/sprang/sprung.
Some of these can be a bit counterintuitive—for instance, I can’t tell you how often I read, “She sunk into a chair,” where the writer is incorrectly employing the pluperfect conjugation despite writing in past tense. GAH.
For those who aren’t quite as geeky about grammar, pluperfect is also known as the past perfect—or as I like think of it in my shortcuts-for-dummies mentality (and by dummies, I mean me, the woman who still sounds out “Wed-nes-day” syllable by syllable to make sure I spell it right), the past-past tense. Or if we want to dumb it down even further, you can think of it as the “had” tense, as in, “The author of the blog post had never seemed so pedantic to her readers as she did at that moment” or “The writers’ site had been interesting until it was hijacked by an out-of-control editor.”
The pluperfect is the one I always advise authors to use care with, especially in flashbacks, where it can get a little thick and ridiculous—witness this perfectly correct sentence: “The yogurt she had had had had three weeks to turn green in the sink.” Ah, English, you whimsical little minx.
Pro tip: If you’re writing flashback scenes within a past-tense story, which is often where the pluperfect tense comes creeping in, signal that time shift to readers with a well-placed “had” or two here and there, but then drop it or your writing will seem cluttered, your reader will become weary, and you will seem a pretentious douchebag.
Back to sink/sank/sunk: The boat is about to sink; the boat sank last week; the boat had already sunk when Jack and Rose found the apparently single-occupancy door floating in the Atlantic.
The same applies to spring/sprang/sprung—although virtually no one uses sprang correctly. Nonetheless, he sprang out of his waterbed, which had sprung a leak.
For some reason drink/drank/drunk causes great consternation, as if using the correct pluperfect is a value judgment on someone’s tippling habits: After they drank the first bottle of wine, they reached for the second, but realized they had already drunk it. (At which point yes, perhaps indeed they were drunk, but they might as well have been knocking back apple juice and they still would have drunk it already.)
BUT, friends…one of my greatest pet peeves: Properly the past tense and the pluperfect for sneak is sneaked—NOT snuck (that latter of which is, as I like to think of it, the imperfect tense—which offends my delicate tympanic membrane).
But language being an evolving living tool of society, regrettably Webster’s has come to include the bastardized vernacular of snuck as acceptable, and therefore it’s a very good thing that I have long left my copyediting days behind me, as my red pencil would have nonetheless sneaked past that rule to slash right through snuck.
Infuriating Irregularities
Now, if I may possibly blow your minds for a moment, let’s talk about the verb “to hang.” If we’re talking about clothes in your closet, it’s hang/hung/hung. But (oh, English, you saucy devil!) if we’re talking about looping a rope around someone’s neck until they are dead, it’s hang/hanged/hanged. I MEAN…!
And yet you might fling this ridiculous post away in frustration, after which it may be flung across the room—but no one ever “flang” it (or anything else) anywhere.
If you peruse a delightful tome, you read it (long “e” sound), much like the one you read last week (same word…but a short “e”…because I think English is f*%@king with us), and the one you had read before that (same as the former, because probably English is afraid we’ll just give up if things get too random).
And yet if you walk ahead of someone you lead…but if you did it in the past OR the plu-past (is that a thing?) you led or had led. Don’t be seduced into using “lead” as the past or pluperfect conjugation here—unless you’re talking about what you may be ready to fire into your brain to make this madness STOP.
Tread lightly with such vagaries of vernacular, as our etymological ancestors trod before us, or you’ll have trodden over the rules of language (and decency). I bid you not to do so, as the spirit of Ben Dreyer bade me as a copyeditor, and as I have bidden countless other authors before you. (Or if I’m feeling more dictatorial, I forbid it, as my English teacher Mrs. Corley forbade me, and I have forbidden others.)
You may clothe yourself in glory, but you are clad in it only once you have already donned its mantle (not mantel, which is what goes over a fireplace).
Al Roker may forecast the weather, after which he has also forecast it…at which point it has been forecast. Sweet lord in heaven.
Okay, this series is getting silly again, as is so often its wont (not want). Perhaps next time we’ll have fun exploring the ever-confusing subjunctive tense! (Fun being, perhaps, another misused word here…)
Let me hear from you, authors—what are your most vexing verbs, your grammatical goblins, the obtuse orthography that inspires your own uncontrollable rants?
Tiffany Yates Martin has spent nearly thirty years as an editor in the publishing industry, working with major publishers and NYTimes, WaPo, WSJ, and USA Today bestselling, award-winning authors as well as indie and newer writers, and is the founder of FoxPrint Editorial and author of the Amazon bestseller Intuitive Editing: A Creative and Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing. She leads workshops and seminars for conferences and writers’ groups across the country and is a frequent contributor to writers’ sites and publications. Under the pen name Phoebe Fox, she’s the author of six novels.
I sneaked a look at this post and drank it in, then hung around for more of the most grammatical entertainment than I had had in, well, minutes, then asked myself for whom the toll bells and, what do I you know, tolls do not bell at all, that’s a misconception that I had had in my youth just a few minutes ago.
What next, I thought? A diatribe on punctuation? But, no, that, you see, would be, to me, too much fun for one, admittedly, already amusing morning of English foolery. A pox on it! I shall be patient and impatiently await the next corrective post by WU’s resident recovering copy-editor, whom I wish the best of luck in her recovery which I had believed was going better than it evidently is.
Oh, dear…I fear you are right, and my recovery is a bit of a chimera. For a long while I kept a file folder of my favorite infractions of grammar I encountered in my years of copyediting that I would share and reread and laugh like a berserker each and every time, embarrassingly easily amused by such pedantry. It somehow got lost in my back files, but if it ever surfaces again, Mr. Brinks, you’re getting a copy straight to your in-box, now that I know you share my furious childish glee in such “English foolery.”
Saving this for reference!
There’s a whole tedious series of these I’ve written for WU, Carol, if this sort of ridiculousness tickles your fancy. :)
The -en verb suffix (forbidden, proven, taken) is a relic of the Middle English rule for forming the past participle. Encountering such a verb, with its whiff of the past, always makes me smile.
I may have to give up ranting about the difference between pore and pour. They are so commonly misused that any day now the dictionaries will start accepting them as synonyms. Same with affect and effect.
Oh, that makes wonderful sense. I love etymology. When I was copyediting I would sometimes get distracted by reading the derivations when I thumbed through Webster’s to check a word in a manuscript (because we did it the old-fashioned way back the days of yore, with an actual book of pages).
“Pore” and “pour” are indeed widespread and vexing, along with “affect” and “effect”–both pairs have been featured in previous iterations of this silly series I write for WU. It’s always such a shocking delight to see how many of us here share my pedantic fixation on grammar, spelling, punctuation, and usage!
“The yogurt she had had had had three weeks to turn green in the sink.” A quad had! Well done. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
I guess I’m a word nerd too because I loved the Hades out of this!
You may have covered this before, but the biggest bugaboo in my daily life is lie/lay/lain. Every time my otherwise wonderful husband says, “I’m going to go lay down for a while,” I have to close my eyes and save my breath. There is no teaching him. 😂
I know. It’s “I” that “l-I-ies” down, and “lAy A thing” down separately. (And “lay me down to sleep” needs that “me” to externalize it. And “getting laid” would have to be a passive experience. And…)
You might remind him of the Dorothy Parker quote; “All I need is room enough to lay a hat and a few friends. ”
Hahaha!
Ha! Excellent…
Quad had! :D
“Lie/lay/lain” appeared in the very first installment of this series, in fact the very first entry! I agree–it’s likely the most misunderstood and misused of verbs.
Love this tongue-in-cheek of a post, this riposte of a post, and the comments to follow!
You had me immediately hearing my favorite annual song, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,” when the lyrics are “Stink! Stank! Stunk!”
Oh, how I wish I had included the Grinch’s oh-so-correct conjugation as well!
Led as the past tense of lead is one I question every time I write it. A favorite, delightful example of language confusion comes from a time when I told one of my young children to behave, and (as if I’d asked him to be good), he replied that he was “being have” (with a long “a”).
Loved the reply. My younger daughter said the same thing when I told her to behave: “I am being have.” (With a strong emphasis on the am.)
<3<3
I see that one SO often! It’s an easy mistake–largely because of “read/read,” I think.
It’s funny and adorable how many kids mishear “behave.” My nephew shared this same cute mondegreen, except he would try to conjugate it as it if were a regular verb: “Buddy, you have to behave….” I am being haved!” (Boy after my own heart…)
Hello Tiffany, and thank you for your witty schoolmarm tutorial. Soon, political correctness will force the dwindling number of grammarians to seek refuge in the Witness Protection Program. Using the wrong preposition is my personal, guilty-as-charged writing problem, but what makes me clap a hand over my mouth with others has to do with the conditional tense: “If I was you, I’d stay home.” Completely understandable, but so wrong! Thanks again.
It seems to be increasingly common for people to say, “I was sat” or “I was stood” (instead of “was sitting” or “was standing”). I suspect one day these will become the normal/correct form.
What a fun read to go with my morning cuppa. Saving for reference.
Haha! Love this post, Tiffany!
Wonderful post.
I take great pains to avoid using either “lay” or “lie” in my work. To the point that it verges on word salad because I cannot keep them clear in my head.
And, I’m a lapsed medievalist who should damned well know better by now…
Delightful and enlightening as always, Tiffany. Not sure why, but it makes my jaw clench when someone says, “she did amazing.” Especially on the effing radio. When my daughter was five, she turned from the window one December morning and said, “Look, mommy, it snew.” That was cute.
What a fun and informative post. Thanks Tiffany. One of my editing peeves is “shrugging shoulders.” As if one would shrug a knee. Then there are heads that nod like bobbleheads on the dashboard. If one nods, it is a sure bet it is with his or her head, so the writer doesn’t need to point that out, does she?
Little things for sure, and inconsequential when it comes to proper grammar and word usage, but please tell me I’m not the only one who finds the misuse a bit grating. You may nod your head in support. :-)
Yes! Mine too–in fact, “nod” and “shrug” appeared in the very first installment of this petty little series. And I think you can see–as can I, to my shock and awe–how many others share our umbrage at such misuses. Word nerds, untie!
Susan, that’s so cute about your daughter: snew! In our family, some of the childhood words have stuck, ex. scissors are pronounced skissors :)
Tiffany, I always enjoy your posts. They make me feel clever instead of merely annoyed at other people. Hmmm, I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it’s in the same vein as that old saying: better to be pissed off than to be pissed on.
Oh, “skissors”! One of my many shortcuts-for-dummies reminders as a perfectionistic young word nerd, right there with Wed-nes-day, sub-tle, and Feb-ru-ary. :)
Thanks for the kind comment, Vijaya–and the laugh. It is indeed infinitely better to be pissed off!
This post filled my morning with a dash of delight. Thanks!
And your comment has filled my day with it too!
I’m waiting for a ride, but will save and always love this post. Damn, I only have you and Sister Agnes Clare who drummed ALL of this into my supple brain…and it stuck. Being an English teacher helped. Amazing, Tiffany. Thanks. Beth
Glad to be in such exalted company with my punctiliousness!
You guise sleigh me.
:D
“Alright” is an abomination. I will die on that hill.
Damn skippy. And rightly so.
Tiffany, for some reason, whenever I hear the word “pluperfect” I always think of a ripe blueberry. And when the pluperfect words are squished, their antic conjugations stain the pages. Despite being an editor for a good chunk of my work life, the conjugations of many of the renegades in your post stabbed me sideways more than once. (I was well past perfect as an editor, moving Escher-like to high imperfection.)
Very fun, albeit torturous, post. And Benjamin B. did mention a diatribe on punctuation. I diatribed so here on WU long years ago: https://staging-writerunboxed.kinsta.cloud/2013/05/02/take-a-punctuation-mark-out-to-lunch/
Tom, my brother, my comrade-in-arms, my fellow pedant–lover of language and all things picayune. I love that post, particularly how emotional and evocative your descriptions of the punctuation marks are. I share your passion for their distinctions, connotations, and nuances.
I’m also amused to note that “pluperfect” does instead sound like a fat, ripe berry. I wish I’d known this years ago, when so much of the yogurt I had had had had pluperfects sprinkled all atop it.
To all the grammar nerds: recommending Anguished English! My kids and I would read it out loud and laugh so hard.
On my list now!
–I’ve been resisting another pedantic post on the vagaries of our vernacular–
And yet, here I’ve been waiting with bated (not baited, I assure you) breath for the next one.
I wonder if you will some day address that (I think British?) peculiarity of using “sat” instead of “sitting” or “seated.” As in, “When I arrived, Sally was sat in the window seat.” Or (seen on a local restaurant sign in a small town in North Carolina), “Please wait to be sat.” Gah. It’s spreading.
We could make such an involved post about British versus American English usage! And the keen risks of douchiness of using the former if the latter is your native variety. I know those folks’ use of the language preceded ours, but what is one to make of a culture that insists on pronouncing an extra syllable and vowel where none exist in “aluminum”? Or as you say, incorrectly conjugating “to sit” in the vernacular?
Not that the U.S. wins any prizes for linguistic purism or sense. I have yet to locate “all het up” in a dictionary, though I grew up in the South knowing–and using–it as a common way of referring to an upset or frazzled state of mind.
I do remind myself, as you say, that language will–and should–evolve with society…but just like a cranky old person grousing about “these kids today,” I don’t have to like the slow devolution of our verbal values. Then again, I suppose that kind of inflexibility might mean we all ftill fpeak like Chaucer, verily.
Well, there’s dialect and vernacular, which have their peculiar and honored place…and then there’s folks adopting those oddities thinking them to be correct.
Yes…it’s the latter that always gives me the grammatical heebie-jeebies. :)
“what is one to make of a culture that insists on pronouncing an extra syllable and vowel where none exist in “aluminum”? ”
Check the two different spellings. The English spell it as Aluminium. (9 characters, 5 syllables) where Americans spell it as Aluminum (8 characters, 4 syllables)
I’ve only started noticing the English “She was sat” (instead of sitting) in the last few years. It’s a relatively new thing, I think. Drives me bonkers.
Another thing I’ve noticed is in US books, where they say “she startled” meaning she got a fright, whereas I would write “She started” or “She was startled.”
Thanks for the schooling on “aluminium”! It will always sound odd to my ears, but then again, I suppose the language was theirs first….
Interesting fact (maybe only to me): When I was copyediting, the house style guides for most of the Big Six pubs (back then) that I freelanced with specified that indeed “startled” should be used as you spell out here, so I was rigorous about correcting it. But since then I’ve noticed usage has changed and “she startled” has become accepted.
Sigh. You see? Living language, yes, but WHAT ABOUT us dinosaurs who struggle to deal with it?! ;)
C’mon, Tiffany!
Osmosed?!! Had–to the fourth power?! A veritable fit of grammatic passion. I’ve become almost inured to the home/hone confusion, but from birth have been near grammar-blind to many similar transgressions. I confess to failure, I have never risen above my background.
I don’t remember what I was doing during those lessons on grammar, but I have been frequently and vehemently reminded that I was not paying attention. Mrs. Corley would have vociferously disapproved of me, she would have worn her red pencil to a stub, and in response to this wonderful post, surely, she would have declared, “Grammar is NOT a topic for amusement!
Ha–it WAS a fit, Bob! A little semantic seizure.
And you have made my day with the Mrs. Corley callback–and no doubt hers! I shall share this with my beloved AP English teacher so that she knows her influence continues to be felt in the world. (Though she always had a sense of humor about it…) :)
As a student of linguistics in my university days (long ago, I am sorry to say), I don’t get excited about improper spelling and grammar. I do try to use words “correctly” (is there such a thing?) myself, but I often remind those who get upset about words that languages are living things and ultimately usage trumps grammar. Not only that, common usage eventually becomes proper grammar. Why don’t we speak and write like Shakespeare or Chaucer did? Why does writing and speech from 100 years ago sound funny to us? Isn’t the objective of using words to communicate meaning? If the meaning is clear, why is the word that was used wrong?
I guess the English language didn’t die the day I graduated from high school after all. Did it die the year you graduated from university? Why do contractions exist? Why do Americans spell things different than Canadians do? What’s with those people in Texas saying “y’all” as if it were a proper English word? Why are there distinctly French and Spanish and German words in the English language? How dare the dictionaries add new words every year! Why do they list what used to be perfectly good words as ‘archaic’? You get the picture. That’s why you won’t find me ranting about grammatical goblins.
Anti-grammar rant over. I do understand why “incorrect” grammar and spelling bothers you, and if I hadn’t studied linguistics, I might feel the same way. Have a great day!
All excellent points, R.E.! And I hope I may have redeemed my prose purism a bit with my comment below to Beth about these very points you preceded me on.
I will always notice (and gently shudder at) misuses and bastardizations of the language, but I do accept that language, like life, must evolve–and (like life) we can choose to change or die. (But I request your forbearance if I accompany my changing with a fair amount of kicking and screaming along the way….)
What a delightful read! Well done, I laughed out loud multiple times!!
It’s good to know there are others who find as much childish glee in this kind of pedantry as I do!
What an amusing and educational post. Loved it! Thank you for a great read.
Thanks, Sue! Glad to know there are other grammar nerds who find all this as silly and fun as I do. :)