Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Etymology or Entomology
Fairly the same thing. The study of words (etymology) is very much like the study of bugs (entomology). Let's take the word Fredonia. There are several United States cities and a municipality of Columbia with the name "Fredonia." Most surveyors of popular culture will recognize Fredonia as the country Groucho Marx tries to ludicrously defend in Duck Soup. When Texas tried to secede from Mexico in 1826, they wanted to call their new country Fredonia. But the true origin of the word dates back to a smear that the British intended to bring upon the newly formed independent colonies, the United States of America. They thought to give us the back of the hand with the appellation and we received it with pride. Fredonia, land of the free. Today, one can read Dr. Diane Ravitch use it as an example in her article Multiculturalism: E Pluribus Plures. Words have a way of crawling up inside of things and staying there.
Apostrophes, hyphens and dashes
Apostrophes
Take the word boy. Add an 's'. You have the plural 'boys', meaning more than one boy. Put an apostrophe between the y and the s, and you form the possessive. 'The boy's ball' meaning the ball that belongs to the boy (singular). Sounds the same as 'boys' but an entirely different meaning. Put an apostrophe at the end of boys: "boys'" and you have one ball that belongs to many boys.
Hyphens
Ever get that red line on a word that you know is right like "toolbox" or "holdout" or "neoevangelical"? Try a hyphen: tool-box, hold-out, neo-evangelical and watch the red line magically disappear.
Dashes
The great writer C. S. Lewis found the need for a form of stop somewhere between a period and a comma. He took to using a dash. Word processing programs know when you're trying to use one, just hit two hyphens in a row. For example, "Joe--the fine postman of our street--always came up to our door with a smile." Most programs will automatically turn this double hyphen into a long dash. Also, if you hit "space, hyphen, space" you'll usually get a version of the long dash.
Take the word boy. Add an 's'. You have the plural 'boys', meaning more than one boy. Put an apostrophe between the y and the s, and you form the possessive. 'The boy's ball' meaning the ball that belongs to the boy (singular). Sounds the same as 'boys' but an entirely different meaning. Put an apostrophe at the end of boys: "boys'" and you have one ball that belongs to many boys.
Hyphens
Ever get that red line on a word that you know is right like "toolbox" or "holdout" or "neoevangelical"? Try a hyphen: tool-box, hold-out, neo-evangelical and watch the red line magically disappear.
Dashes
The great writer C. S. Lewis found the need for a form of stop somewhere between a period and a comma. He took to using a dash. Word processing programs know when you're trying to use one, just hit two hyphens in a row. For example, "Joe--the fine postman of our street--always came up to our door with a smile." Most programs will automatically turn this double hyphen into a long dash. Also, if you hit "space, hyphen, space" you'll usually get a version of the long dash.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Punctuation
Diacritical marks are the obvious remnants , the jots and the tittles, that prove the symbolic nature of language.
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