"A open wound," and "a optional stock"

This drives me crazy.  Batty!  What the heck is going on with people dropping the "n" when combining two vowels?! "All this proved to be a excellent source of information."  Ouch on the ears! These phrases were spoken by an otherwise highly-educated person! It's heard pervasively throughout the English lexicon nowadays.  It's AWFUL.  It's not cool!

"I had a accident"

It's not just Millenials who commit these unconscionable gaffes in popular speech - it's also doctors and lawyers, and even some journalists on national media.  It's atrocious.  From spelling errors, no doubt compounded by the shorthand required in texting, or Hollywood that has seen fit to turn all pronouns indiscriminately to the subjective, "I" ("between you and I," or "she gave you and I a nice gift," etc., etc., ad nauseum), now there is the dropping of the liaison "n" when two vowels are conjoined, as in "I had an accident."  It's heard everywhere; it's even written everywhere. Right there on Google, third in line, is "How do you find a interest rate." The English language is a precious gift.  To adulterate it seems a terrible practice, a sad practice, and does not bode well for Millenials, many of whom are mourning the sad economy or the dearth of jobs.  I wonder if jobs - or the economy, for that matter - would suffer as much if they focused as much on developing their brains as they do on the latest thumb-damaging gadgets.

One's brain and ability to think and extrapolate are some of the greatest gifts any of us will ever have - along with our health.  To suppress it; to refuse to educate it; to insist on drifting through life staring down on tiny screens and encouraging carpal tunnel syndrome is regrettable.  Somehow that word just doesn't do justice to the passion I feel.

Another one just came across the wires: "He is a 84-year-old man." Hurts the ears!

Body Language

In a recent TV program, Secrets of Body Language, on the esteemed History Channel, the narrator spoke of the when describing Yasser Arafat's obsequious back-patting and attempts to defer to his colleague as a sign of "apparent geniality."

"We pay so much attention to the words people speak; but remember, 93% of human communication is delivered through body language."

I posted that quote (of an experiment conducted by Albert Mehrabian in the 1960s and widely misinterpreted), onto LinkedIn, and started a firestorm, with people coming out of the woodwork eschewing that quote as outdated, a "myth," long ago refuted by other so-called experts.  The problem is not the quote, so much as the ongoing misinterpretation of the masses, even experts. Wikipedia has a great write-up about Mehrabian and the experiment in question that is worth reading.

In short, the experiment attempted to examine the elements of communication, including verbal, as well as non-verbal elements.  Mehrabian concluded that there are three basic elements in all face-to-face communication:

• Words
• Tone of voice
• Nonverbal behavior, such as facial expressions.

Note, importantly, that the experiment is very narrow in focus; moreover, the experiment was for face-to-face communication.  Surely, not all communication is conducted face to face, which adds another dimension to examining communication in general.  Nonetheless, in every respect, these experiments in communication assume human communication - we all know, of course, that communication occurs between and among species, but that's another story.

Elusive v Illusive

Elusive and illusive sound very much alike in spoken speech.  As with most sound-alikes, they mean quite different things.  Both are adjectives.

Elusive (adj.) describes something that is fleeting, hard to pin down, vague, mysterious, as an elusive feeling one might have, obscure.  The root verb is elude, which means to escape, disappear or evade.  Ex. The interpretation of the dream was elusive. 

Illusive (adj.) relates to the word illusion, fantasy, something that is not real, magic, false and unreal. Although illusive is correct, a better use of this adjective would be illusory. No matter: It still means deceptive, as an illusion.  Ex. The so-called shortage and hence value of diamonds is an illusory phenomenon, created by those companies that wish to maintain their monopoly on the supply.

Conjugation of Verbs

No, this is not Back to School - rather, it is a rap on the knuckles to all those who have eschewed whatever was learned in school in favor of a more casual approach, to wit: "...the lecture was began with an announcement ..."

To be sure, English is a difficult language.  Embrace it.  Be proud of it.  It is, after all, the accepted international language of the United Nations.  But, truth be told, all languages are "difficult," if one wants to speak them correctly, and there is quite a bit of merit in doing so.  Conjugating verbs is one aspect of speaking correctly.

Take the verb to begin.  It is an irregular verb, in that it does not conform to the "usual" conjugations for such verbs as to dance or to walk.  The present tense of to begin is fairly straightforward: I begin, you begin, he/she/it begins, etc., but the past tenses are more onerous, especially when getting into subjunctives and conditionals (what?), or, worse, the past perfect (huh?) or pluperfect (!).  Are your eyes crossed yet?  Not to worry - contact lenses to the rescue.

In the sample phrase above, there are two problems, one of which is much more egregious than the other.  First, the phrase is stated in the passive voice (the lecture was began).  To reframe the phrase for more impact, one might write "...we began the lecture by announcing ..."  But a much more troublesome error above is the conjugation of began, which in this case should be the pluperfect, was begun (the sequence is begin, began, begun).

I don't believe it is essential to know the nomenclature for the various conjugation iterations; what is important is to know how to apply the tenses, in which context, and what the appropriate tense should be.  Please refer to http://www.verbix.com/webverbix/English/begin.html, a website that provides all the permutations of correct conjugations.  Input your desired verb, and voila!

The Podium and the Lectern

Our society has morphed into casualness: casual attire, casual manners, casual lingo.  This being a blog about syntax and its vicissitudes, let's explore the differences between podium and lectern, two terms that are consistently used interchangeably.  In fact, they are neither the same, nor even synonyms.

Podium (n.) is a small platform where someone or something stands on.  A soapbox or stage.  The origin of the word is Latin for an elevated area or balcony, and from the Greek podion, meaning little foot. Also used in zoology to describe the foot-like part of a vertebrate limb.

Note, also, that the medical specialty for problems with the feet is called Podiatry. I'm sure you will recognize the root, "pod." Several terms are connected to this root, including dorsalis pedis, tinea pedis, pedicure, and more. The French word for foot is pied.

Lectern (n.) is a structure upon which to place one's reading material or notes or musical libreto.  From Latin derivative, legere or lectura (to read), or modern French, lecture (reading).  Indeed, the work lecture has been adopted into modern English, and means to speak, orate, instruct, or deliver a reprimand.

Is It Children's Books or Childrens Books?

Children is plural.  If you are using the possessive form, you must use the apostrophe, as in children's.  Any spelling other than this indicts you as a fundamental illiterate.

There are several possessive forms which can be confusing; indeed, which have changed over time.  For example, I was taught that if a word ends in ss, there is no need to add another s after the apostrophe, as in, "The business' accounting records had to be revised."  Nowadays, my understanding is that an s is needed after the apostrophe to denote the possessive form.  I welcome comments about this.

Likewise, "The Thomases' Pontiac was damaged in the crash," the apostrophe is clearly denoting the possessive form for the Thomases.  To my understanding, it's superfluous to add yet another s to clarify its meaning.

English can be tricky.  But so can life.  Embrace both.