so you think you speak Amurrican

A quick test for people who think they know American English! Select the answer that is most American and/or most grammatically correct.

1. Which is correct?

a. Thanks Fred.
b. Thanks, Fred.


2. Let's just leave this _____ .

a. between you and I
b. between you and me


3. She's a real _____ .

a. trouper
b. trooper


4. If I _____ I wouldn't have farted in the tub.

a. could have known about her phobia,
b. had known about her phobia,


5. Give this prize to _____ ate the most hot dogs.

a. whoever
b. whomever


6. Which is correct?

a. She said, "Sit down."
b. She said, "Sit down".


7. If you want to succeed in this company, _____ and don't make waves.

a. tow the line
b. toe the line


8. That was a strange proposition to Fred and _____ .

a. I
b. me


9. I try to brush my teeth _____ .

a. everyday
b. every day


10. This restaurant has a great _____ .

a. ambience
b. ambiance
c. either A or B
d. neither


11. I saw her in the woods-- _____ .

a. butt naked
b. buck naked


12. When I finally found her ring and ran up, gasping, to give it to her, she sighed and said, "_____ ."

a. Never mind
b. Nevermind


13. I'll _____ be there.

a. definately
b. definitely


14. The sky boomed with thunder and sizzled with _____ .

a. lightning
b. lightening


15. Visiting the White House is quite a _____ !

a. priviledge
b. privilege


16. I'm not _____ to being set up on a blind date.

a. adverse
b. averse


17. _____ elementary, Watson.

a. It's
b. Its


18. I felt so _____ about how disastrous her birthday party was.

a. bad
b. badly


19. Despite the chaos around him, Phineas was _____ .

a. unfazed
b. unphased


20. Which is correct?

a. I wonder where my car went.
b. I wonder where my car went?


21. She stared in frank amazement at his _____ salmon.

a. enormous, twenty inch
b. enormous twenty-inch


22. As the Titanic tilted crazily, she held _____ the railing for dear life.

a. onto
b. on to


23. Watch out for the thundering _____ !

a. hoard
b. horde


24. All that has happened has been in accordance with the _____ .

a. prophesy
b. prophecy


25. Einstein, not merely a genius, was a kind _____ he once rescued a treed cat.

a. soul;
b. soul,



How'd you do?

Answers follow; highlight the space between the brackets to see them.

[1. B; 2. B; 3. A; 4. B; 5. A; 6. A; 7. B; 8. B; 9. B; 10. C; 11. B; 12. A; 13. B; 14. A; 15. B; 16. B; 17. A; 18. A; 19. A; 20. A; 21. B; 22. B; 23. B; 24. B; 25. A]

Scale of Achievement:

25: "I am a Jedi, like my father before me."
24: "Impressive. Most impressive."
20-23: "You are not a Jedi yet."
15-19: "You will pay the price for your lack of vision."
10-14: "Scruffy-looking nerfherder!"
5-9: "Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the dark side!"
1-4: "I have a bad feeling about this."
0: "Noooooooooooo!"

What language rant topics do the above questions cover? Highlight the [bracketed area below] to see.

[1. vocative comma: always use when addressing someone!
2. pronoun case: object of preposition
3. diction (trouper = member of troupe = stalwart team player, not a soldier)
4. verb tense in conditional sentences: if (pluperfect) ➞ main (conditional past)
5. pronoun case: "whoever" is correct as subject of clause
6. US vs. UK punctuation (too many Americans forget what country they live in)
7. idioms: people put their toes up against the painted line
8. pronoun case: don't be an idiot and use a subject pronoun when an object pronoun is called for
9. adverb of frequency = every day; "everyday" = adjective meaning "ordinary"
10. spelling trivia: some words have more than one acceptable spelling
11. idioms: village idiots mishear this as "butt nekkid"
12. compounds: or, more precisely, when not to use compounds
13. spelling: there is no "a" in "definitely"!!!!!
14. spelling/diction: "lightening" comes from the verb "to lighten (a load, the sky, etc.)"
15. spelling: no "d" in "privilege"
16. diction: adverse [conditions], averse [attitude]
17. spelling/diction: it's = it is; its = possessive adjective
18. diction: with a linking verb like "feel," you need a predicate adjective, not an adverb
19. spelling/diction: only someone who had never actually read the word "to faze" would get this wrong
20. mood: "I wonder" is always declarative-- NEVER interrogative!
21. punctuation: hyphenate phrasal adjectives before a noun; no comma for non-coordinate adjectives
22. diction: the phrasal verb's infinitive form is "to hold on" not "to hold onto," which makes the "to" separate
23. spelling/diction: you'd have to be a moron not to get this one
24. spelling/diction: as above. "Prophesy" (-"sigh") is a verb; prophecy (-"see") is a noun
25. punctuation: a semicolon separates two related or contrastive clauses]

"like" vs. "as (if)"

Like I said...

Have you ever said the above? It's common (and perfectly tolerable) in informally spoken and written English; I'd expect to see the above construction in blog posts and emails, and to hear it in conversation. But in terms of proper grammar, as would be required in a formal research paper, the above is incorrect. The correct construction should be:

As I said...

The same problem occurs here:

You look like you've seen a ghost.

That should actually be:

You look as if you've seen a ghost.

[NB: Purists may see the above and argue that "as though" is more appropriate, claiming that "as if" is counterfactual. A question for another blog post, perhaps?]

"But, WHY?" I hear you screech. The general rule is this:

Use as (if) before a clause (or verbal construction); otherwise, use like.

CORRECT: You look like my sister. ("my sister" is a noun phrase, not a clause)

CORRECT: You look as if you're hungry. ("you're hungry" is a clause)

CORRECT: As I mentioned earlier... ("I mentioned" is a clause)

CORRECT: But in terms of proper grammar, as would be required in a formal research paper, the above is incorrect. (though not a clause, the phrase "would be required" is a verbal construction)

Simple? Clear? Try your hand at the following. Answers will be between the brackets following the quiz; highlight that space to see them.

LIKE/AS QUIZ

1. Do _____ I do, not _____ I say.

2. Why can't you be more _____ your brother?

3. You've failed, Your Highness, for I am a Jedi, _____ my father before me.

4. _____ I was saying before I was rudely interrupted...

5. _____ sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

6. This case isn't _____ that case at all!

7. _____ you wish.

8. Please make corrections _____ necessary. (Watch out! This one's tricky.)

9. I am, _____ you now clearly see, a vampire.

10. All the same, I am not _____ other vampires, for I am a vegetarian.


ANSWERS (highlight the space between the brackets to see)

[

1. as, as ("I do" and "I say" are both clauses)
2. like ("your brother" is not a clause)
3. like (from "Return of the Jedi"; "my father" is not a clause)
4. As ("I was saying" is a clause)
5. Like (from an old daytime soap opera)
6. like ("that case" is not a clause)
7. As ("you wish" is a clause)
8. as (the sentence can be written out more fully as "Please make corrections AS THEY ARE necessary," or "...AS YOU DEEM necessary.")
9. as
10. like ("other vampires" is not a clause)

]



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¡Ay, caramba!

From my Twitter feed, I was led to an article by Katy Meyers on the GradHacker blog about Stoicism in Grad School. Unfortunately, the article is horribly written, and I've highlighted, in red font, every instance of a mistake. Feel free to type a list of corrections in the comments. NB: one or two mistakes are minor in nature, but most are obvious, objective errors that should have been excised in a single wave of proofreading.

The piece has other problems as well (omitted colons, poor spelling and diction, etc.); feel free to fix those. I've reprinted the article below:

I used to be kind of a control freak, I think many grad students can attest to a similar personality trait. Sadly this tends to go along with the perfectionism that Julie talked about last week. Control is important, we need to be able to balance a number of lives as grad students, maintain multiple fellowships and jobs, work on our research as well as ace our classes, and make a good impression in the department as well as the broader discipline. Our success comes from the close control over every aspect of our professional and academic lives: mapping out every minute of our week into our Google calendars, tracking assignments through various iPhone apps, using Zotero to organize every bibliographic reference, and keeping up with the professionals through every social media site we can think of. This is good, it keeps us grounded.

So here’s the problem, you can’t control everything. This may come as a shock to some, I honestly thought in my first year of grad school that I could control every aspect of my life. I extended the necessity to control my academic world to my personal world. This personal control led to anxiety over family and friend relationships for not conforming exactly to the plans I had made up in my head, and massive fears about my department’s view of myself. I wasted precious energy and time worrying about things that I had no control over. I would lose sleep over things that were external to me. It got so bad that it led to physical damage when I starting unconsciously clenching my teeth at night, I now have a wonderful click sound in my jaw (TMJ for those who want the medical term).

That’s when my little brother suggested stoicism. Joel Mendez wrote “Contrary to common perception, being stoic doesn’t mean being emotionless. The real quality of Stoicism is far more masculine than not caring about anything – it’s about knowing when to care, when to be upset, and how to accept the inescapable with your head held higher than you thought possible.”

According to Mendez, if nature gives you a metaphorical slap in the face you can either get all worked up about wondering why this occurred to you or you can accept what occurred and realize there’s no use in crying over it, because you can’t control nature. There’s no point in freaking out because a freak snowstorm prevented you from getting to a presentation, its nature and you obviously couldn’t have done anything to prevent it from occurring. The second part of this is that you accept what things are occurring, you don’t let it affect your emotion, and you don’t retalitate or react. Using nature as an example is good because you can’t retaliate... I guess you could punch the snow, but it’s not going to change anything.

This is all well and good for interactions with nature, but how do we apply this to our lives in grad school? Stocism is about knowing and accepting your limitations. We can control our lives, our emotions, and our reactions to these metaphorical slaps in the face. We can’t control other people’s lives, emotions, or when they chose to slap us in the face. By giving up trying to control things in our life that we have no control over we end up gaining control over ourselves.

We have to accept that sometimes not everyone in your department will like us, we have to accept that some of our students are going to review us badly regardless of how well we teach, we have to accept that we can’t get funding for every thing we do, and we have to accept that our friends and family are not part of our sphere of control. This doesn’t mean giving in and going with the flow completely. Sometimes you do need to fight against funding agencies, and you can work harder to make some people in your department like you. But you need to know your limits, where you can affect change and where you cannot.

Stocism is about finding inner strength, and letting go of the necessity to control the views and actions of others. I leave you with this quote by Seneca the Younger: “Let Nature deal with matter, which is her own, as she pleases; let us be cheerful and brave in the face of everything, reflecting that it is nothing of our own that perishes.”

For a great summary of stocism check out Mendez’s article: The Modern Wimp’s Introduction to Stoicism.

What's most disturbing is that the article is written by someone who wants to talk about perfectionism as a stressor, but I see little evidence of perfectionism in her prose. The repeated misspelling of "stoicism" is a prime example of this sloppiness.


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