Readers of this column may recall treatises on single words and short phrases. Over the years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tackled individual words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and its myriad meanings; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153myriad,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153like,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ya know\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sorry.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More recently, there was a bilingual plunge into the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153t\u00c3\u00ba\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153usted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
This time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll respond to submissions from readers regarding various phrases that sometimes confuse us. Last week this column contained a reference to the misuse of the language by GOP gubernatorial aspirant Susana Martinez, who said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As governor, that will change.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Martinez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political promise implies that the governor is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153that\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that the winner in November will change. What she refers to is certain Richardson administration policies.<\/p>\n
Well, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not necessarily picking on Republicans and their misuse of the language. Why, some of my best friends are both language abusers and Republicans. Now, Democrat congressional incumbent Martin Heinrich is making claims in his TV spots that can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be borne out. He says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Growing up, my father ….\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
In an e-mail, my friend Jack Markham, a retired English teacher, pointed out Heinrich\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dangling modifier. Markham writes, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I made the bold assumption that Heinrich meant that when he, the congressman, was growing up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and not Martin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father.<\/p>\n
But the words get in the way. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153growing up\u00e2\u20ac\u009d phrase needs to be closer to the subject, in this case, Martin. Otherwise, we might assume the politician\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father was growing up, but the son wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n
There are, after all, many expressions we merely accept. Few question the logic of a construction like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153My mother left home at the age of 8.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Now that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s precocity!<\/p>\n
Or listen to a female sports interviewer saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153As a Heisman Trophy winner and holder of three Super Bowl rings, I expect you to sack the quarterback several times today.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Wrong. The reporter is not the 300-pound football player. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a question of where we hang our modifiers.<\/p>\n
Another example of a misplaced modifier would be, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Weighing 5,000 pounds and standing nine feet tall, the sculptor completed the statue of Pioneer Woman, on the Highlands campus.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d To which we say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Stay away from the German chocolate cake,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Michelangelo.<\/p>\n
Well, that and other uses of the English are what keep language cops awake. But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one instance in which I lost sleep. Barbara Dorris called with a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gotcha\u00e2\u20ac\u009d alert. Referring to last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column, she said I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d used the wrong pronoun case in referring my brother and me (and I?).<\/p>\n
I had written about a basketball goal my neighbors, the Pinos, had: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mariano and his older brother Ray \u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 welcomed visitors such as my brother and I.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d As I wrote that, I considered rephrasing it to make sure it was clear, but the more I examined it, the more I was convinced \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my brother and I\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was correct.<\/p>\n
Dorris said it should be \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my brother and me.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Must I dig out a dusty grammar tome to cite chapter and verse? My contention is that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sounds like the right choice following a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153such as\u00e2\u20ac\u009d construction. Well, after further review, I concede. Barbara is correct. If we swap \u00e2\u20ac\u0153visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153me,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it makes sense.<\/p>\n
And I received a phone call from a Joe Montoya, who asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the word that follows \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s …\u00e2\u20ac\u2122?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Taken by surprise, I answered, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153world?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153scorn?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153intuition?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nightgown?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What Montoya was fishing for was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153woman\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prerogative.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I pronounced the word and Montoya responded with, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153See? You said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpurrogative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and it should be \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcpre-rogative.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right, of course, about the spelling, but no dictionary recommends using the sound \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pre\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (rhymes with free) in this word\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prefix.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure Montoya emphasized the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pre-\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to contrast it with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153purr.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d People elide repeated or similar sounds, which is why we often hear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153liberry\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153probly,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153goverment and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tear\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153terror,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as in War on Tear.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Prerogative\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comes from the Latin, meaning \u00e2\u20ac\u0153asked first.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rogar\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a common Spanish word meaning to ask for or plead.<\/p>\n
The term \u00e2\u20ac\u0153haplology\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is defined as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the collapse of two identical or very similar adjacent syllables into one.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sometimes it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to make the tongue perform complex gymnastics and catch every syllable. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all a matter of economy of effort.<\/p>\n
And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I struggle with words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153necessitate,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I elide, or cut off one or two syllables and come up with \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nesitate. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written too much already about haplology, but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s probly my purrogative.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
In last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column I commented on the paucity in the use of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vosotros\u00e2\u20ac\u009d form in Spanish, implying we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d have to go way back or way far to hear it today.<\/p>\n
In Beginning Spanish at Immaculate Conception High School, we learned the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153vosotros\u00e2\u20ac\u009d form as a polite way of addressing more than one person, but most of us had never heard the word at home or anywhere else.<\/p>\n
On that subject, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a reply from John Goodwin: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you would like to hear vos and vosotros in use on a daily basis, you do not have to travel back in time, just go to Argentina.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Given the hassles of international travel \u00e2\u20ac\u201d invariably, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pestered, pierced, pinched, plucked, punched, poked, prodded, pummeled and patted in a way that makes me feel like a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153tearist\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (see above, in the prerogative paragraph) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I think it just might be easier to go back in time.<\/p>\n
But if Goodwin wishes to make the trip south, we can all await his report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Readers of this column may recall treatises on single words and short phrases. Over the years, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tackled individual words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and its myriad meanings; \u00e2\u20ac\u0153myriad,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153like,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ya know\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sorry.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d More recently, there was a bilingual plunge into the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153t\u00c3\u00ba\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153usted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This time, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll respond to submissions from readers regarding various […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=653"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":655,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653\/revisions\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}