Grammarphobia

It's the common abbreviation, but I wasn't sure as to its origin myself; the closest to a straight answer I can find is from https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=639390: > mfg came from manufacturing; its existence meant that some people started using it for manufacturer as well; but having a g in the abbreviation without one in the word bothered people, so they added an r to make it mfgr. This leads me to wish there was a well-researched blog for abbreviation/initialism/acronym etymologies, the way https://grammarphobia.com/ is for English word etmologies. But I guess there aren't that many of these that are in need of explanation; usually they're pretty obvious.

English is full of words and phrases that mean something different from their literal meaning. Another classic example is "I could care less." Steven Pinker wrote about this in detail in The Language Instinct. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/01/i-could-care-less.html When someone says "I literally could care less", everyone listening knows what they mean. There is no confusion and no need to worry about whether they are literally correct. This is just part of the fun and wonder of the English language.

Did you mean "insightful" as in "has a lot of insight", or "inciteful" as in "likely to incite" or "provocative"? (I ask because "inciteful" isn't properly a word but it makes an interesting "mondegreen" in context.) edit: Excuse me! OED recognizes "inciteful" as a word. Sorry. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/12/inciteful.html

Many of the older Oxford and Cambridge colleges have two doors in one doorway: the external one for the 'interruptible/not' signal, and the internal one to keep the heat in when the outer is open. We have a term for it: 'sporting one's oak'. http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2008/02/sporting-the-oak.html This was a great system in medieval buildings where most doors opened directly to the outdoors, which in itself is a great privacy feature.

Not only are you nitpicking, you are also wrong. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/07/architectural-criticism.htm… We should add that the use of “architect” as a verb isn’t a recent phenomenon. The Oxford English Dictionary has written examples going back to the early 1800s. The earliest example in the OED is from a July 23, 1818, letter that the poet John Keats wrote to his brother Thomas after visiting Fingal’s Cave on the island of Staffa in the Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Here’s how a poem in the letter describes the cave and its distinctive basalt columns: “This was architected thus / By the great Oceanus.” Your view of language is incredibly prescriptive. If I want to, I can say architects architect buildings. There's nothing wrong with that. If there's a useful distinction between designing and architecting then there's 0 reason I shouldn't bring attention to it. For example. If 'to architect' is synonymous with 'design', would you say someone architects a logo?

The given origins for these phrases seem to be considered a modern myth: https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2019/07/a-pot-to-piss-in.html https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/piss-poor-pot-to-piss-in

It's somewhat common in the context of cooking. A recipe may refer to something as "scratch made" when its "made from scratch". In this case, its an extension of the phrase but using the word built instead of made. Ref: https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/02/scratch-made.html

Depends on how far you go back with the language. https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/harebrained-hairbrained.html

This article claims the idiom predates Merriam-Webster. https://grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/12/one-of-the-only.html

The word “copy” in the early 1700s when copyright was codified in law meant both a written text and a reproduction of a written text. The meaning you’re using, of text at an intermediate stage of a publishing process, is much later, 19th century. [0] So, the original meaning was a noun (the right to make “a copy” of a book) but meant the book itself, not the abstract text of the book. It would be interesting to research whether there were any rulings in that period about hand-copying a book, which was the only alternative to printing it. Nowadays of course copyright covers much more than text, and includes such “copies” as the public performance of a theatrical work or reproduction of a sculpture, so the modern copyright clearly doesn’t have the meaning you’re using. [0] https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/08/copy.html

Interestingly, the OED disagrees with this (quite reasonably sounding) origin theory of lieutenant: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2015/02/lieutenant.html

Just a periodic reminder that 'Beyond the Pale' is a pro-colonialist phrase that many believe was was part of Britain's Centuries-long campaign to eliminate Irish culture. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/12/beyond-the-pale.html

That's the exact opposite of what the link you included says. From https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/12/beyond-the-pale.html As for the relationship between the two expressions, the OED has this to say: “The theory that the origin of the phrase [‘beyond the pale’] relates to any of several specific regions, such as the area of Ireland formerly called the Pale … or the Pale of Settlement in Russia … is not supported by the early historical evidence and is likely to be a later rationalization.”

Appreciate the effort to keep HN in a good place, but I'm not sure the rules above apply here. While related, tropes and memes are technically distinct concepts. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/01/meme-trope-notion.html

Very tangentially related -- I keep hearing "disorientated" in the audio edition of The Economist (which is British). It drives me bonkers. I'm cool with neologisms if they add value -- but a 400-year old[1] neologism that's merely a longer way to say something we already have a word for is still too young for me to consider valid. [1] https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/01/disoriented-disorientated.h…

Well, by the 19th-century mainly in (British?) English, according to those sources. By then had been abandoned in other European languages. Britannica [0] says: - invented by Romans c. 1st century BCE as a shorthand for 'et', can be seen from Pompeii - was [also] prevalent in German manuscripts throughout the 19th century. - gradually abandoned by most [non-English] languages by the end of the 19th century, with the notable exception of Gaelic, where it's also still used [as an evolution of the rival Tironian symbol]. and [1] has a really interesting illustration by Houston (1957) citing Tschichold (1953), showing the evolution of the ampersand over the years, from Pompeii through 8th-C Merovingian Latin to modern-day. [0]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/ampersand [1]: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2020/12/ampersand-2.html

Alternatively said, "fain" is a mostly archaic way of saying "gladly". Whereas "feign" is more common and means "to give a false impression". More details: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/10/fain-feign.html

“All” is acting as a singular noun here, so the grammar is correct: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/01/all-for-one.html

It varies by person. A quick search of body weight percentage is about 4-5% per arm and 16-17% per leg. For a 150 lb while intact man that would be about 70ish to 80ish pounds. Baskets may be carried by multiple people or dragged though. Apparently according to one source the basket case origin was a result of rumor telephone and loss of context. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/08/basket-case.html

This is surprising to me because as a British person living in the US, who is familiar with British and American English, I've never once heard anyone use "and" to mean a decimal point. Literally never. The first time I'm hearing about it is from your comment. I even found this article about how "and" doesn't actually mean decimal point: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/02/decimal-point.html

Merriam-Webster is taking the distinctly minority view on this, when it comes to dictionaries. When it comes to actual usage, something being "no longer widely seen as incorrect" is not quite the ringing validation for any common mistake of the masses that you seem to think it is. A much better writeup with a listing of many dictionaries and grammar guides that take the correct approach is here: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2017/06/flaunt-flout.html

Begging the question isn't usually used like this these days, even if it did originate thus. The English language is used the way English speakers use it; yes, even that is quite circular, because there is no formal academy setting down rules that everyone agrees on. Institutions only teach stylistic choices. We use beg the question in exactly the way you say we shouldn't far more often than not to the point that its history is merely a bit of trivia, at least to most American English speakers; Oxford has yet to catch up, but I can't imagine the English situation is that much different than the American one. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2021/11/beg-the-question.html

From the OED: "As in pence, the plural s retains its original breath sound, probably because these words were not felt as ordinary plurals, but as collective words". Here is another interesting article about the etymology and singular/plural usage: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/10/dice.html

Most latin-ish words in english came from Anglo-Norman; but some came earlier, from Old French. But it seems that phases of aitch-dropping have occurred repeatedly. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2016/02/h-dropping.html That's an interesting article, and apparently the hhistory of dropped aitches is much more complicated than I suggested. But I don't entirely agree with it. It says it's correct to use the indefinite article before a noun starting with an aspirated aitch; I don't know anybody that talks like that, and it sounds awfully pompous.

They read like 'half scare quotes', not "scare quotes", to me -- 'mildly cautious quotes'. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2014/06/scare-quotes.html >Are scare quotes scary? >[...] But the warning quotes you’re referring to, sometimes called “scare quotes,” should always be double quotes, not singletons, in American writing. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/12/the-scare-qu… >The Scare Quote: 2016 in a Punctuation Mark >Doubled quotes developed as indications of a rational world. Now they’re developing as indications of the opposite.

> I’ve owned several Lexi in my time. I went into a rabbit hole trying to find out the plural of Lexus. According to Toyota it's Lexus[1]. Lexi is another option, but apparently the brand name is not derived from the Latin term, so some lean towards Lexuses[2]. [1]: https://jalopnik.com/breaking-minds-and-spirits-everywhere-lexus-says-… [2]: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2012/03/lexus.html

I don't remember hearing it used in that way before; I think you would have to go back a couple of centuries for that usage. You can be confident that you won't need that definition in your own usage unless you decide to write an 18th century character or something. To add to the etymology links (I was also intrigued): https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2013/08/terror-terrific.html

Bobs’s https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/12/possessive.html

Are these racially derived, or just the idea of opposing forces or other connotations of white and black? Games such as Go, Chaturanga, Chess, Reversi commonly use black vs white pieces and are depicted as such in early illustrations. I think that there are other reasons for black vs white than race. I did find the article "The light and dark of language" that touches on this. ( https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/12/the-light-and-dark-of-langu… )

How to pronounce Quay: https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2018/04/cay-key-quay.html Edit: I called it Kway myself and googled it after getting puzzled looks from my UK peers. The referenced article says "key" is the older pronunciation but either is acceptable.