Vagaries of the English Language

[yowser]

Row

One that has always puzzled me is the word 'row' as in 'row your boat' vs. 'a huge row occurred at the pub last night.'

I was an American at an academic discussion at Cambridge, and a high-profile don talked about some major 'row' over an obscure intellectual theory. But he pronounced it to rhyme with 'ow!' the expression of hurt. I looked around but no one else batted an eye, so I assumed this was received and correct pronunciation.

I see it in print often but rarely hear it used in speech.

And then there is 'banal sex.'

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another homograph that is a heteronym is record

Example: The runner set a new record but the officials failed to record it.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I think that second "lead" should be "led."

Yes, 'lead' and 'led' are examples of heterographs that are homophones (which could be the subject of another thread ...)

 

[bowlerhat]

a machine which is part of your IT network and a machine for grooving and edge moulding wood are both routers but from different roots he he

 

[Handley_Page]

If you plead guilty in a court case, you have pleaded guilty rather than pled guilty.

English sucks. English combined with Legalese/Latin sucks harder.

"He dove into the water".
No, he bloody didn't. He DIVED into the water.

Two 'dialect' words still in general use in their respective area (as I know to).

Ken: Scottish; generally taken to mean "understand"
(as in "Ye ken" or "I ken that fine").

Canny. This can drive some folks wild with fury. (It's from the Northumberland area)
To be honest, it's a bit of a one-size-fits-all word, when looked at in a certain light.

"Ae, lad, but it's a canny step"
= Yes, young man, but it's a fair distance, you'll understand"

"Aye, Mister, he's a canny lad"
= Yes, Sir, he's quite bright, really.

 

[RetroFan]

Some people insist that a large green planet that orbits between Saturn and Neptune is pronounced 'You-Ran-Us'. Others pronounce it 'You-Raynus'. But whatever way you pronounce Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun always prompts sniggers, laughs, innuendo and jokes. I bet teachers especially wish that those who named the planet in the 1780s had chosen the name of ANY other Greek or Roman goddess for it - Apollo, Artemis, Hestia, Demeter - anything but Uranus.

I've put Uranus jokes into some of my stories, which probably means that I have an immature sense of humor.

 

[bowlerhat]

also

If you plead guilty in a court case, you have pleaded guilty rather than pled guilty.

English sucks. English combined with Legalese/Latin sucks harder.

And you get hanged not hung

A lot of these things appear to be divergencies between English and American. For example, until recently I had only heard the word normalcy used in the geometric sense of a line being at 90 degrees to a plane. For everything being as usual, normality was used.
I don't say that normalcy is wrong, just that to me it's use makes a sentence scan wrongly.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another homograph that is a heteronym is number

Example: His hand grew number as he added more and more digits to the end of the irrational number he was calculating.

 

[Spencerfiction]

And you get hanged not hung

Among the words that divide the Pond is the word Jail and Gaol, that sound the same and mean the same, but I was always taught to use gaol in preference to the "Americanism".

As kids we always accepted Jails in B&W western B movies, but thought it odd that the "Monopoly" game used the words "go to Jail do no collect £200” among London street and station names as an oddity, unaware that it was first an American game.

British newspapers, particularly The Guardian, only accepted the preference of the word jail over gaol as recently in the 1980s, long after I left school.

 

[Ginlover]

Just slipping this in here. Seamen have semen.

Do these things happen in other languages? Same spelling different pronunciation and meaning, different spelling same pronunciation and meaning, different spelling same pronunciation but different meanings.

 

[Emirus]

One that always gets me is the two American States Kansas and Arkansas.

They nearly border each other, with only a small area of the Ozarks region of Missouri separating them. Yet Kansas is pronounced pretty much as it is spelled (Kan-Sas) while Arkansas is pronounced completely differently (Ark-Kan-Saw).

I was taking part in a quiz and the answer to the question was Arkansas. The questionmaster refused to accept it from the opposing team because they hadn’t pronounced it R-Kansas. Even when I protested, on their behalf, that they should be given the point because they were correct he was still reluctant.

 

[SimonDoom]

I beg to differ, aint no such word as treaded. To quote Sabine Baring-Gould "Brothers, we are treading where the saints have trod."

To be serious about it, whilst I have seen "treaded" written both on here and other sites, I have never heard it said by any English speaker be they British Transatlantic or Antipodean. I have always heard it as trod or has trodden. Sounds like another relic of saxon or norse.

Well, I botched that one.

Yes, the past tense of "lead" is spelled "led" not "lead." Brain fart on that one.

I looked it up and there are various options for the past tense of "tread": trod, tread, or trodden. The use of "tread" in the past tense would make it an example of the sort of word the OP is talking about.

But "treaded" is not an option. Ugh. Wrong again.

Another example that is one of the most confusing for people: "lay."

The intransitive verb (no object) conjugates as lie, lay, lain, while the transitive verb (object) translates as lay, laid, laid. So the past tense of the intransitive verb is the same as the present tense of transitive verb. People misuse this all the time.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But "treaded" is not an option. Ugh. Wrong again.

Don't beat up on yourself, Simon. I had to correct an unspotted tense shift in my most recent story just last week .

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another example that is one of the most confusing for people: "lay."

The intransitive verb (no object) conjugates as lie, lay, lain, while the transitive verb (object) translates as lay, laid, laid. So the past tense of the intransitive verb is the same as the present tense of transitive verb. People misuse this all the time.

I have to admit that this one gets me more times than it should.

 

[jehoram]

"He dove into the water".
No, he bloody didn't. He DIVED into the water.

In central New York, "dove" is still alive and well.

(Hey there's another one: "The dove dove into the water.")

But speaking of archaisms, two words that are common in the US are "fall" and "guess."

I hear that the Brits use "autumn" but "fall" goes back a thousand years, and when the English brought it to the New World, it got a new lease on life.

Same with "guess" in the meaning of "suppose." The Brits had long thought it was an Americanism, but you can find it in Chaucer, for Chrissake!

"Twenty yeer of age he was, I guess"

 

[jaF0]

The intransitive verb (no object) conjugates as lie, lay, lain, while the transitive verb (object) translates as lay, laid, laid. So the past tense of the intransitive verb is the same as the present tense of transitive verb.

My brain hurts.

 

[SimonDoom]

My brain hurts.

You're not the only one.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

More Homographs that are Heteronyms:

graduate

The graduate offered to help the senior who wanted to graduate in June.

polish

I was so hungry, I knew I would polish off the Polish sausage.

house

I would house the cows in the barn and then go into the house.

use

To get good use out of the air mattress, I had to use an air pump to blow it up.

does

"What does it mean?" I though as I wondered why several does filed across the field behind the lone buck.

excuse

I struggled to come up with an excuse to excuse myself from work on Christmas Eve.

close

When I went to close the door, I came close to tripping on the rug.

 

[jehoram]

For no good reason, this thread reminds me of a story about how three Japanese businessmen were trying to teach each other English.

"My wife cannot have a child," one said. "She is impregnable."

"No, my friend!" another replied. "You should say 'My wife is unbearable.'"

"Pardon me, but you are mistaken," the third man said. "The proper phrase is 'My wife is inconceivable.'"

 

[Bramblethorn]

The intransitive verb (no object) conjugates as lie, lay, lain, while the transitive verb (object) translates as lay, laid, laid. So the past tense of the intransitive verb is the same as the present tense of transitive verb. People misuse this all the time.

I blame Bob Dylan.

 

[SimonDoom]

I blame Bob Dylan.

I get even more peeved at novelist Joan Didion, author of the novel Play It As It Lays. The title makes me cringe.

 

[Rustyoznail]

I just saw a new word on Hemmings Auto news - "Re-vined." It's not restocking the jar of red vines, it's giving a new Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) to a stolen car.

 

[Thefireflies]

It's silly, but I always need to double-check tear when using it in context of crying or ripping, because they never appear quite correct when I write and then read them.

Also, rack and wrack – do I rack my brains or wrack them?
Every time I use the term I need to look it up, and one would think the answer is straight forward, but even if you look the answer up, the answer isn’t as straight forward as expected.
From Grammarist.com
Wrack – roughly synonymous with wreck.
Rack – several definitions, but one is in the context of torture, from the use of a medieval torture device, the rack.
To Rack one’s brain – “…to torture it or stretch it by thinking very hard.”
To Wrack one’s brain – “…to wreck it.”
Nerve-racking – again “…to torture.”
Nerve-wracking – “…wrecking the nerves…”
Wrack and ruin – “…wreckage or ruin…”

So each time I use this term, I re-read the meaning to find the correct word, and instantly have to wrack my brain, I mean rack my brain, actually, I’m still not entirely sure…but I think it’s wrack…or maybe rack…yes, I think it's definitely rack.

Advice I found on Merriam-Webster.com is to “…ignore the etymologies of rack and wrack…and regard them simply as spelling variants of one word.”

 

[Candy_Kane54]

I blame Bob Dylan.

On Kenny Roger's Variety show (back in the '70s), Kenny Rogers performed this song. What I loved about it was the setting: It was a big brass bed with a sign on the footboard that read "Lady" and on the bed was a big hen and Kenny was holding an egg basket in his hand. So Kenny Rogers took advantage of the improper use of 'Lay' and made a great fun time out of it ...

 

[ChloeTzang]

...The intransitive verb (no object) conjugates as lie, lay, lain, while the transitive verb (object) translates as lay, laid, laid. So the past tense of the intransitive verb is the same as the present tense of transitive verb. People misuse this all the time.

I have no idea what any of that means, and the brain cells that deal with it just exploded.