Tag: Grammar

[An updated post about “ditto” appeared on March 14, 2014.]

Q: Do you know the origin of the word “ditto”? I use it all the time, but I have no idea where it comes from.

A: Believe it or not, “ditto” has ancient beginnings. It comes from the Latin dictus (having been said), which evolved into detto in standard Italian. In the Tuscan dialect, detto became ditto, which entered English in the early 17th century (the first published reference dates from 1625).

When it first appeared in English, “ditto” was used to avoid having to repeat a month or year in a date. Someone might have written, for example, “on 22 January and 25 ditto” to avoid having to say “on 22 January and 25 January.” Half a century later, in 1678, “ditto” was being used in a more general way to mean the same or aforementioned.

This information comes from the Oxford English Dictionary, John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins, The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

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[Note: An updated post on “sex” and “gender” ran on May 25, 2016.]

Q: Is “gender” a substitute for “sex”? (It’s a good thing I used quote marks!) I’ve always thought “gender” should be used for words that change endings in other languages. When we speak of someone’s sex, shouldn’t we use “sex” instead of gender?

A: I also prefer the word “sex” in referring to the two sexes, but “gender” has become an acceptable substitute. Both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary accept phrases like “the feminine gender” or “gender roles.”

Nevertheless, I’d hate to see “gender” replace “sex.” The word “sex” (from the Latin sexus) has long meant either of the two divisions – male or female – that characterize living things. By extension, it has come to mean the sex act.

“Gender,” on the other hand, has long been a grammatical term that describes the way some languages categorize words by sex (masculine, feminine, or neuter).

Perhaps it’s inevitable that as we speak more openly about sex we feel a need for a more neutral word to refer to the Great Divide. But to my ears “gender” sounds prudish as an alternative to “sex.”

I should note, however, that both “sex” and “gender” have been used over the years to refer to the sexual act as well as the sexual divide. The noun “gender,” for instance, was used for the male or female sex back in the 14th century, and the verb “gender” was used for the sex act as far back as the 15th century.

Now that’s an example of “gender” bending!

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Q: A curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York was quoted as saying that “risk has been incentivized.” Yuck! Any comments?

A: Someone in the arts has no business using that kind of bureaucratese. Leave it to the CEOs and politicians.

In fact, the “incentivize” entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language gives an example of the word at work by quoting a politician: “This bill will help incentivize everybody to solve that part of the problem.”

While we’re on the subject, “incentivize” is bad enough, but people are now using “incent” as a verb. (“We need to incent our sales team.”) Jeepers! What’s wrong with offering the sales team an incentive? Both “incent” and “incentivize” leave us incensed.

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Q: I was struck by the name of one of your books, You Send Me. I’ve heard that phrase a lot, especially in older R&B songs. Can you tell me a little about its origins?

A: The word “send” in the name of the book is a reference to sending e-mail. You Send Me (written with my husband, Stewart Kellerman) is about online writing. The title echoes the song “You Send Me,” originally recorded by Sam Cooke.

The song was a No.1 hit in 1957 and has been recorded by many other artists over the years, including Nat King Cole, the Drifters, the Everly Brothers, Jose Feliciano, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Percy Sledge, the Steve Miller Band, and Rod Stewart.

Charles “L.C.” Cooke (Sam Cooke’s brother) is listed as the writer of the song. Here’s how the lyrics begin:

Darling you send me
I know you send me
Darling you send me
Honest you do, honest you do
Honest you do, whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.

Hope this answers your question.

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Q: The word “whinging” jumps off the page whenever I see it in British fiction. We don’t use it in the U.S. Why is it used in Britain?

A: In modern English, “whinge” and “whine” generally mean the same thing, though “whinge” (it rhymes with “hinge”) isn’t often heard in the United States except in the mouths of Anglophiles.

They come from two Old English words: “whine” from hwinan (to make a whizzing or humming sound, like an arrow in flight), and “whinge” from hwinsian (to make a sound like a dog whimpering). We probably get “whinny,” or horse talk, from the same root.

Both words are very old; “whine” dates from 1275 and “whinge” from 1150. Originally, “whine” referred merely to the sound. But “whinge” implied a wailing or crying: the sound was one of distress. Eventually, to “whine” also came to mean complain or express discontent.

Though Americans use only one word, “whine,” the British use both: “whining” covers a variety of meanings, including sounds made by people, animals, or inanimate objects, and “whingeing” (also spelled “whinging”) is more specifically for peevish or fretful complaining. The British sometimes use the terms together for emphasis: “Stop your whingeing and whining!”

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Q: How do you bite your tongue when the fellow says “hung” instead of “hanged”?

A: Tell him he’s suspended!

Seriously, misusing “hung” isn’t a capital offense, but “hanged” is the preferred past tense for executions. For more about these two troublemakers, see the “Getting the hang of hung” entry on The Grammarphobia blog.

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Q: I’m an associate at a law firm and one of the partners is always asking me to dialogue. Is it OK to use “dialogue” as a verb?

A: No, it’s not OK, though I wouldn’t tell the partner about it. Let him dialogue all he wants, but you should talk, chat, gossip, speak, shoot the breeze, and so on.

The verb “dialogue,” meaning to have a conversation, is considered bureaucratese in modern English. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says 98 percent of its Usage Panel is opposed to using “dialogue” this way.

That said, I should note that the usage was once perfectly acceptable. We can find examples in Shakespeare (“Dost Dialogue with thy shadow?”), Richardson (“Thus foolishly dialogued I with my Heart”), Coleridge (“…the showman contrives to dialogue without any skill in ventriloquism”), and other writers.

It appears that “to dialogue” is making a comeback these days, but you shouldn’t encourage it. Not unless you want to sound like a stuffed shirt!

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Q: What does “make no bones about it” actually mean? And where does the expression come from?

A: I’ll answer the easy part first. “Make no bones about it” means be forthright or unhesitating about something: “The Queen made no bones about her objection to the Prince’s divorce.”

As for the origin of the expression, it’s lost in the mists of time. One theory is that the bones refer to the slang term for dice, but word sleuths have generally rejected that explanation.

The best guess is that “make no bones about it” comes from the 15th-century expression “find no bones,” meaning find no difficulties or problems with something. That older expression referred to soup that was easy to swallow because it had no bones in it, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

“Make no bones” began appearing in print in the 16th century, according to the OED, but “make no bones about it” didn’t show up until 1885: “I shall make no bones about it with this fellow.”

Bone appétit!

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Q: I note that the adjective “penultimate” is now being used to mean most or greatest instead of next-to-last. As a lawyer, I use this word a lot. For example, I might write that something “shall be added to the end of the penultimate sentence of paragraph 3.” I’d be sorry to lose this useful word. Is it a lost cause?

A: I am shocked, shocked! “Penultimate” is such a nifty word. Although “next-to-last” (or “next-to-the-last”) is a perfectly fine expression, I’d sure hate to lose “penultimate.” I don’t believe this is a lost cause, though.

All the dictionaries I’ve checked, both online and off, still list next-to-last and a related linguistic usage as the only acceptable meanings. Also, the word was used correctly in nearly all the “penultimate” references I checked on the Web.

It’s good news too that the next-to-last book in the Lemony Snicket series is called The Penultimate Peril. I’m heartened that children are being introduced to the correct meaning of this helpful word.

“Penultimate” has been with us since the 17th century. The earliest published reference in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1677. It comes from the Latin word paenultimus—paene (almost) plus ultimus (last).

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Q: The word “winningest” comes to my attention every basketball season and grates on my nerves. I doubt that it’s valid even though it seems to be more and more common. Is a phrase like “the winningest coach” now acceptable?

A: There’s something faintly juvenile sounding about the word “winningest.” What’s wrong with saying “the coach with the most wins” or “the most successful coach” or “the coach with the best record”?

But in fact it’s a legitimate word. it’s been around for hundreds of years, first in the sense of most attractive and later in the sporting sense.

You can find “winningest” in many standard dictionaries, including The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, though some describe the usage as informal.

If you prefer to avoid the word, that “informal” label gives you a good excuse. But don’t expect others to share your view.

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Q: I am a longtime English teacher. Recently, I have seen more and more sentences like this: “Shakespeare again references Macbeth’s having ‘borne all things well.’” Not only students but also young English teachers use “reference” like that. It is driving me crazy. Has this usage become acceptable?

A: I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary recognize “reference” as a verb meaning either to supply references to or to refer to. And therein lies the problem, I think.

Interestingly, the usage isn’t all that new, either. The word “reference” was used as a verb in the late 19th century, then apparently fell out of favor, only to be resurrected in the 1970s. The earliest published reference to “reference” as a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary is from 1891.

Never mind! I don’t like the usage either. My problem with it is the ambiguity.

If you “reference” a work, are you making a reference to it, or are you including in it references to other works? If a book is “referenced,” is it referred to or is it referring to others? When Shakespeare “references” Macbeth (the character, I assume), what exactly is he doing? Is he putting a reference into Macbeth’s mouth? Or making another character refer to Macbeth? Pretty fuzzy, no?

On the grounds of ambiguity alone, you can justify avoiding “reference” as a verb and choosing instead “refer to,” “make reference to,” “supply references for,” “include a reference,” or whatever.

Not everything recognized in a dictionary is “acceptable” by all educated people. You still have a choice!

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Q: I’ve noticed that many English words beginning with the letters “sn” have something to do with the NOSE, either physically or metaphorically. Is this merely a coincidence, or is there some hidden ancient root in there? I’m thinking of such words as sneeze, snore, snort, snout, snot, snotty, snarl, snoot, snooty, sneer, snuff, snuffy, snuffle, snide, sniff, snivel, snob, snobby, snobbery, snoop, snooze, snuff, and (almost) schnoz.

A: I hadn’t noticed this before, but now that you mention it ….

“Snore” and “snort” (as well as the 20th-century word “snorkel”) are from the same prehistoric Germanic root, “snor.”

The words “snot,” “snotty,” “snout,” “snoot,” “snooty” (in the sense of looking down one’s nose) and “schnoz” are all related to a similar prehistoric Germanic root associated with the nose, “snut.”

The words “snuff” (the powdered tobacco), “snuffle,” “sniff,” and “sniffle” are believed to come from the earlier “snivel,” which originally meant to run at the nose. They’re all thought to derive ultimately from yet another prehistoric Germanic root, “snuf,” imitative of the sound of air drawn in through the nose.

So all these words can be traced to old Germanic roots that sounded like “snor,” “snut,” and “snuf.” Gesundheit!

In Old English, the word for “sneeze” began with “fn,” and the eventual change to “sn” in the 15th century may have been influenced by the similar sounding “snort” and “snore.” Another influence was probably the similarity of the “f” and the “s” in medieval manuscripts.

“Snob” is unrelated, and “snooze” is of uncertain origin. But “snitch,” meaning an informer, may be related to a 17th-century word for a fillip on the nose. So there may be a connection there.

All this comes from The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins, and The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology.

Excuse me while I go blow my nose.

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Q: How did the words “you guys” come to be used so ubiquitously for both sexes in the USA? Teachers address their students as “you guys.” Waiters address their customers as “you guys.” Girls address other girls as “you guys.” Is this something we just accept in today’s culture?

A: You’re right that many people now treat “guys” as sex-neutral. In fact, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines the plural “guys” (which it calls “informal”) as “persons of either sex.”

But this usage has been around for quite a while, according to the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang. The dictionary’s first published reference for the singular “guy” used for a woman is from a 1927 letter by Eugene O’Neill: “She is a ‘real guy.’ You’d like her immensely.” The first reference for the plural, cited in the journal American Speech, dates from 1932: “One girl to others: ‘Come on, guys.’”

As it turns out, the word “guy” has had many different guises since its earliest appearance in print in 1806, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. At first, it referred to an effigy of Guy Fawkes, who tried to kill King James I and blow up the British Parliament in 1605. It later came to mean a grotesque-looking person, a smart aleck, a carnival patron, and a man, among other things.

I’m reminded of a discussion about “you guys” a few years ago on the Linguist List forum. One contributor offered this comment by a male student to the women in a class on gender differences in language: “I’m glad I’m not a woman—you guys have too many issues to deal with!”

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Q: My question is about the word “closure.” It is now being used where the simple word “closing” would be perfect. The other day I heard a news item about parishes in NYC that are scheduled for closure. Why not just plain closing?

A: The noun “closure” in the annoyingly overworked emotional sense comes from Gestalt psychology and dates from 1924, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. But as a noun for a bringing to a close, or a closing of something, it’s been around since Shakespeare’s day.

There’s nothing wrong with it, grammatically or etymologically. But it’s extremely tired these days and I wish people would give it a rest.

I can see no reason for referring to the closing of a road as a “road closure.” It brings to mind conflicting images of grieving and asphalt.

And “closing” would be much, much better than “closure” (and less ambiguous) in a news report about the parishes. Someone might be intensely traumatized by a parish closing, and hence in need “closure” in the psychological sense.

Case closed!

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Q: What’s the correct way to make a possessive of a word that’s already possessive? Do you say “McDonald’s’s fries”? Or “St. John’s’s team”? It seems wrong to use one ’s right after another ’s, but I can’t think of a better way to do it.

A: No, we don’t use possessive forms like “McDonald’s’s” or “St. John’s’s.” Here’s the story.

Proper names are sometimes nouns that look possessive; they have ’s as a fixed part of the name. Corporate examples include McDonald’s and Standard & Poor’s in the US and Sainsbury’s in the UK. Academic and religious names sometimes include ’s as well (St. John’s University, St. Anne’s Church).

A name like this is treated as an ordinary noun: “McDonald’s uses a secret formula” … “Standard & Poor’s hasn’t issued a rating” … “Sainsbury’s is closed today” … “St. John’s has a new coach.”

But when such a name is used in the possessive case, it is not given an additional ’s as an ordinary noun would be. Instead, the existing ’s is allowed to do double duty: “McDonald’s recipe” … “Standard & Poor’s ratings” … “Sainsbury’s employees” … “St. John’s new coach.”

Garner’s Modern American Usage (4th ed.) calls this practice “quite defensible,” and you can see how it came into use. To make such a name possessive by adding a second ’s would result in a monstrosity: “McDonald’s’s recipe is a secret” … “St. John’s’s new coach is promising.”

If you don’t like using a single ’s for both functions, it’s easy enough to rephrase the sentence: “The recipe used by McDonald’s is a secret” … “The new coach at St. John’s is promising.”

A little possessiveness can go a long way.

Similarly, when such a noun is pluralized, it remains the way it is; no plural ending is added: “Our town has four McDonald’s and two Lowe’s.”

[Note: This post was updated on Dec. 3, 2022.]

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Q: Please help! What should I say when I answer the phone and someone asks for me? I object to “It is I” because this sounds stuffy, but I don’t feel comfortable with “It’s me” because I was always told it’s wrong. What should I do?

A: If you want to be strictly correct, say “This is she” or (responding to a question) “Yes, it is I.” Many people find these too formal, however. A somewhat less stuffy response might be “Speaking” or “Yes, speaking” or “You’re speaking to her” or something like that.

But this is a case where English in changing. As I say in my grammar book Woe Is I, language is a living thing, always evolving, and “It is I” is just about extinct. In all but the most formal writing, “It’s me” is now acceptable.

A venerable old rule of English grammar (now considered rather formal) calls for using the nominative case (“I,” “he,” “she,” etc.) after the verb “to be.” (Examples: “It is I” instead of “It is me” or “It’s me”; “This is she” instead of “This is her”; and “That is he,” instead of “That is him” or “That’s him.)

Most of us find the old usage awkward, though I must admit that I still use “This is she” when someone asks for me on the phone. Old habits die harder than old rules.

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Q: My husband and I hate the plural “monies.” Argh! We refuse to use it. I’m 44 and he’s 47. I guess we’re “old school” in that it was drilled into us that the plural of “money” is “money.” We can’t use “monies” – it’s too painful.

A: I too despise “monies.” Notice that only bureaucrats use it. Normal people never say things like, “Oh gee, I left my monies at home.” Or, “I’ve got to transfer some monies into checking.”

Why do bureaucrats use it? Because it seems to camouflage the fact that they’re talking about real MONEY; that is, actual dollars and cents. Calling it “monies” makes it sound like figures being moved from one column into another, with no reality attached.

As you’re probably aware, dictionaries accept “moneys” and “monies” as legitimate plurals meaning funds or sums of money. Even my 50-year-old Webster’s New International Dictionary includes “moneys” (and “monies” as an irregular plural).

But I’m with you on this one. You’re right on the money.

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Q: Do you know the origin of the word “shirty”? I heard it spoken by a British woman about someone who was being an annoying pest.

A: “Shirty” is an adjective meaning irritable or ill-tempered or angry. It’s chiefly British, and the Oxford English Dictionary dates it from 1846.

Here’s the word in action, via the P.G. Wodehouse novel Right Ho, Jeeves (1934): “But don’t tell me that when he saw how shirty she was about it, the chump didn’t back down?”

“Shirty” is derived from a now defunct expression, “to get one’s shirt out” (meaning to get annoyed), according to John Ayto’s Dictionary of Word Origins. That idiom is, of course, the opposite of a still surviving expression, “to keep one’s shirt on” (meaning to keep calm and NOT get annoyed).

So what does all this shirt business have to do with being annoyed? A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Eric Partridge suggests that it comes from the custom of taking off one’s shirt before fighting. I wouldn’t argue with that.

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Q: I’ve often wondered what aviation has to do with the expression “to fly by the seat of one’s pants.” Can you enlighten me?

A: The expression originated as an aeronautical term in Canada around 1930 or perhaps earlier, according to A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Eric Partridge. It originally meant to fly by instinct rather than instruments, but acting “by the seat of one’s pants” is now used more generally to mean doing something by intuition or improvisation.

Partridge traces the expression to the early pilots who flew transport planes over the unmapped Canadian North. One of the things they used to judge turn-and-bank positions, stresses, vibrations, and such was the feeling of centrifugal force against their bottoms.

The press helped popularize the expression in the United States by using it to describe the flying technique of Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan, who flew from New York to Ireland in 1938 when he was supposed to be flying to California. He attributed the flight to a navigational error, but many people believed it was deliberate. The government had previously refused to let him make a transatlantic trip, saying his plane wasn’t up to the ocean crossing.

And we complain about air travel today!

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Q: I take my beagle puppy, Lucy, to obedience class, but it makes me uncomfortable whenever the instructor refers to her as a bitch. I can’t help thinking about the word’s other meaning. Did it always have a negative connotation?

A. The word “bitch” is quite old and was around for centuries before it took on its negative meanings. It comes from an Old English word, “bicce,” which dates back to the year 1000 or so and means a female dog.

The Old English word, in turn, may have come from Old Icelandic or Old Danish. Hugh Rawson, in his book Wicked Words, suggests that it may also be related to “bestia,” the Latin word for beast.

“Bitch” didn’t become a derogatory term for a woman until the early 15th century. The first published negative reference in the Oxford English Dictionary dates from about 1400 and apparently refers to a lewd woman.

Interestingly, the word was used for men as well as women from about 1500 to the early 20th century, according to the OED, but the meaning was more humorous than disparaging when applied to men. It meant something akin to the word “dog” in the contemporary expression “you old dog.”

The noun “bitch,” which has taken on additional meanings over the years, is now used for a female dog, a nasty woman, a complaint, a difficult task, or a tough problem, among other things.

By the way, the next time you’re in obedience class, remember that “bitch” has been used for a nice puppy a lot longer than it’s been used to mean a nasty woman.

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[Note: This post was updated on Aug. 30, 2019.]

Q: I was taught that “farther” refers to a greater distance and “further” to a greater degree, but I see the two words used interchangeably all the time. Has the distinction been lost?

A: The words “farther” and “further” come from the same roots (both are comparative forms of “far”), and for most of their history they’ve been used interchangeably. Distinctions like the one you mention have been made in modern English, though they’re not as clear-cut as you might think.

Until recently, the conventional practice has been to use “farther” for purely physical distance, and “further” for metaphorical distance or for a greater degree or extent. But now “further” has taken over some of the territory once reserved for “farther.”

Here’s today’s usage in a nutshell: Either “farther” or “further” can be used for distance, whether the distance is physical or merely figurative, though only “further” is used when no idea of distance is involved. This is what Pat says in the fourth and most recent edition of her book Woe Is I:

FARTHER/ FURTHER. Use either one for distance, whether actual or metaphorical. “I’m walking no farther [or further] than this bench,” said Lumpy. “Nothing is farther [or further] from my mind.” But use only further if there’s no notion of distance. He refused to discuss it any further. “I have nothing further to say,” he added. The upshot is that if you’re in doubt, choose further.

Many standard dictionaries agree. This, for example, is from a usage note about “farther” and “further” in Merriam-Webster Online:

“As adverbs they continue to be used interchangeably whenever spatial, temporal, or metaphorical distance is involved. But where there is no notion of distance, further is used: ‘our techniques can be further refined.’ ”

And this is from a usage note in Lexico (formerly Oxford Dictionaries Online):

“Where the sense is ‘at, to, or by a greater distance,’ there is no difference in meaning, and both [further and farther] are equally correct. Further is a much commoner word, though, and is in addition used in various abstract and metaphorical contexts, for example referring to time, in which farther is unusual, e.g. without further delay; have you anything further to say?; we intend to stay a further two weeks.”

With that, we hope there are no further questions.

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Q: I’m a teaching assistant and the expression “mind your p’s and q’s” came up in my fourth-grade class. The students wondered about the phrase’s origin and what the p’s and q’s represent. Can you be of some assistance?

A: There are a number of theories about the origin of the expression, but there’s no solid evidence to back up any of them. The two most likely, in my opinion, are these:

(1) It refers to the actual letters “p” and “q,” and it was a reminder to children who were learning the alphabet to keep those letters straight.

(2) It refers to the pints and quarts on a tavern patron’s tab, and it was a reminder to bartenders to be accurate when keeping track. (Yes, beer and ale and such were indeed consumed by the pints and quarts in 18th-century England!)

The first published reference to the expression dates from 1779, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. It was in the farce Who’s the Dupe? by the English playwright Hannah Cowley.

I was so pleased to get this question! My new children’s grammar book, Woe Is I Jr., which is coming out in May, includes an example that uses the expression “mind your p’s and q’s.” (It’s in a section on the plurals of individual letters like “p” and “q”). My husband wondered whether students in the fourth to the sixth grade would be familiar with that phrase. Now I know that at least some of them are!

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Q: I’m a copy editor and I have a question about the word “forego.” I’ve always thought that it derives from “foregone,” as in “foregone conclusion,” and that it needs to keep that middle “e.” But I frequently see it spelled “forgo,” which looks either sloppy or erroneous (or both). Your opinion?

A: There are two separate verbs here: “forego,” which means to go before, and “forgo,” which means to go without. They have their own histories and meanings going back to the days of Old English. But people have used the two words interchangeably in recent years, blurring the distinction, which is too bad.

Some newer dictionaries have thrown in the towel. Cowards! The most recent editions of both The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary now list the spellings as mere variants of one another.

As for the respective adjectives: You used the expression “foregone conclusion” correctly, since the implication is that the conclusion was obvious ahead of time (it came before). If something is “forgone,” it’s given up. (“His doctor advised him to forgo alcohol, but it was unlikely that much booze would be forgone.”)

Hope this isn’t muddying the waters further.

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Q: I am an ethnobotanist studying the connection of plants and people (and language sometimes). One thing I have always wondered is why the color orange is the same as the name of the fruit in so many European languages. I wondered if the name for the fruit came from the name for the color or vice versa. Do you have any insight into this botanical/language puzzle?

A: The short answer is that the color was named for the fruit.

So we’ll trace the fruit first. It originated in China, according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, and moved westward, first to India, then the Middle East, then into Europe, and eventually the Americas. Not surprisingly, the word for the fruit followed, changing a bit en route.

Now for the color. Each step of the way, the word for the color seems to have followed the word for the fruit. Our word for the fruit, “orange,” may have originated in Dravidian as a word meaning something like “fragrance” (Dravidian is a family of languages, including Tamil, from the Indian subcontinent).

It’s then thought to have entered Sanskrit as narangah, then moved into Persian as narang, and Arabic as naranj. Arabs introduced the orange into Spain (it’s naranja in Spanish), and from Spain it spread to the rest of Europe. I’ll skip the French and Italian versions of “orange,” and go directly to English.

“Orange” (the noun for the fruit) entered English in the 1300s, but “orange” (the color, both noun and adjective) wasn’t recorded until the 1500s. (Why did it take the English-speaking world 200 years to see this connection? One of the great mysteries of linguistics. No doubt the fruit was a rarity and not often close at hand.)

So what did we call the color before we had the word “orange”? It seems that the color was known in Old English as geoluhread, which meant (and even sounded like) “yellow-red.”

Why did we switch to “orange” for the color? I can only speculate that when the fruit (and the noun for it), came along, it was a perfect match for a color that previously had been only imperfectly described. Small cries of “Eureka” must have followed the orange around the globe.

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[Note: An updated post on “getting one’s ducks in a row” appeared on Jan. 8, 2021.]

Q: What’s the origin of the phrase “to have one’s ducks in a row”? I’d like to believe that it pokes fun at self-important people who make too much of their preparations. I’ve noticed that ducks get themselves in a row quite naturally without any real effort on our part.

A: I hate to disappoint you, but the expression actually comes from duckpins, a version of bowling, rather than from waterfowl, according to Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable.

“To have one’s ducks in a row” means to have things organized—that, is lined up like the pins, or ducks, in the sport of duckpins, which originated over a hundred years ago.

Duckpin bowling, which has smaller balls and shorter, squatter pins than those used in the more popular ten-pin bowling, is found mostly on the East Coast of the United States.

The name “duckpins” comes from the way the pins scatter when hit by the ball, like ducks when a shot is fired, according to an article in the New York Times.

For more quackery, see the “duck soup” item in The Grammarphobia Blog.

Note: In bingo, the number 22, which looks like two ducks swimming side by side, is often referred to as “a couple of ducks” or “ducks on a pond” or “ducks on the water.” This comes from A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by Eric Partridge. It isn’t what you asked about, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway.

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Q: We’re having a heated debate in the Teachers’ Lounge regarding the word “scissors.” I offered someone a “scissor” and got lambasted! I was told it’s always “scissors.” Was I incorrect?

A: We’re sorry that you were lambasted, but “scissors” is an invariable noun that exists only in the plural. There’s no noun “scissor,” though there’s a verb “scissor” that means to trim with scissors. An invariable noun has only one form (that is, in the sense of singular vs. plural). There are three kinds:

1) Nouns that exist in the singular sense only (these are often the names of academic subjects, diseases, or games that may sound plural): mumps, measles, billiards, physics, mathematics, music, homework, rain, snow, and others. These nouns generally take singular verbs.

2) Nouns that exist in the plural sense only (these are often the names of things that have two parts): scissors, trousers, jeans, vermin, spectacles (as in eyeglasses), livestock, folk, thanks, outskirts, congratulations, alms, amends, and so on. These nouns take plural verbs.

3) Nouns that exist in only one form but may be either singular or plural: fish, sheep, aircraft, species, series, headquarters, etc. They can take either singular or plural verbs, depending on your meaning.

We hope this helps!

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Q: My son, a 10th-grader, is always mixing up “it’s” and “its.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to explain the difference to him. Do you have an easy trick to help him understand?

A: The “It” Squad gives lots of people fits, and not just 10th-graders. Luckily, you don’t have to be Strunk or White to figure out whether “it’s” or “its” is correct.

“It’s” is a contraction—two words (“it is” or “it has”) mushed into one, with an apostrophe standing in for what’s missing. But “its” (no apostrophe, please) is a possessive, a word showing ownership, like “his” or “hers” or “ours.”

Here’s an easy way to keep “it’s” and “its” straight:

If you can substitute “it is” or “it has” and still make sense, “it’s” is right. Otherwise, choose “its.” (“It’s feeding time when my parakeet begins screeching in its cage.”)

For more, see “An Itsy-Bitsy Problem” in my grammar book Woe Is I.

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Q: Could you please enlighten my son and me as to the origins of the expression “It made my hair stand on end”?

A: The expression in its various guises has been around for centuries. You can find references in both Shakespeare and the Bible. The Ghost in Hamlet, for example, speaks of a tale that would make “each particular hair to stand an end, like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”

Indeed, the phrase can be traced all the way back to the Latin verb “horrere” (meaning to bristle or stand on end), which has given us such scary words as “horror,” “horrible,” “horrendous,” and “horrific.” The related Latin word “horrificus” (think of the dark-magic “Horcruxes” in the Harry Potter books) literally means making the hair stand on end.

Pretty hair-raising stuff, isn’t it? Well, there’s a physiological reason for equating the bristling of our hair with feelings of terror. We shiver and get goose bumps (or gooseflesh) when we’re cold or terrified because the skin contracts, making the hairs stand erect. Two technical terms for this condition are “horripilation” (another word from “horrere”) and “cutis anserina” (the Latin for goose skin).

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