A Word A While

Brought vs Bought - Again

2007-06-09T20:35:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting conversation about the who Bought vs Brought confusion last night.
The two American girls I discussed it with were both very surprised to hear that the words are confused. It seems to be quite a divided issue. One guy I talked to said he used to use brought for bought, but now that he has been working on that has started to catch himself saying bought for brought!

So I thought I'd follow up with a couple of pieces of literature I've found on the topic.

This from Blooming English by (Kate Burridge, 2002) She seems to be convinced that the use of bought is becoming 'entrenched'. It seems she is an Australian, so much for the UK connection to bought...

An American (Michael A Covington) seems to say that people tend to use the words interchangeably blaming the fact that there is only one phoneme difference and any errors are unlikely to be noticed more than a simple slip of the tongue.
See: http://www.jstor.org/view/00031283/ap020092/02a00110/0

Personally I think Michael has probably got it right, we often accidentally mispronounce the words, and because our brain works the way it does, automatically translate the word to the correct one. People like me who grew up around mumblers naturally tend towards one pronunciation or the other.

BTW: Blooming English looks like quite an interesting book, if you are a keen on Linguistics. As a for taste, have a look at this blog post from "Semantically Challenged".

World Wide Words - Brought vs Bought

2007-05-19T21:30:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I was proud to have my name mentioned in Michael Quinion's World Wide Words newsletter (which by the way is a great thing to read if you are into linguistics).

I had written in response to an earlier article from the UK suggesting that people have are starting to use "bought" instead of "brought", from my experience in New Zealand the opposite seems to be true. We tend to use "brought" when we actually mean "bought"

Here is what got published:
12 May

Bought and brought The item about this shift in last week’s issue brought forth several comments. Michael Shannon wrote, “As I’ve mentioned before, here in Australia the reverse is true. All too often you’ll hear someone say they have ‘brought’ something at the shops instead of ‘bought’. I’ve been hearing this ever since I arrived in Australia back in 1989 so I can only assume that it was prevalent before then. It’s the most irritating mispronunciation I’ve ever heard.” James Brunskill confirmed its popularity in that part of the world: “In New Zealand, we almost exclusively use ‘brought’ — ‘I brought a new car today’.” Perhaps the author Sebastian Faulks, the writer of the item, has a lot of antipodean friends?

Well 5 minutes of fame was all I got, with this published in the latest newsletter:
19 May

Bought versus brought Firm rebuttals arrived from New Zealand in response to the comment from a reader last week that brought for bought was commonplace in that country. Richard Bentley wrote: “The misuse is not uncommon, but to suggest that it’s used ‘almost exclusively’ is quite incorrect in my experience.” Russell McMahon wrote to agree, “Although we have friends and acquaintances from a wide cross section of backgrounds, it’s not something that I or my wife hear very often here.” On the other hand, Christine Shuttleworth wrote on Monday to say she had just received a message from friends in New Zealand: “Just wanted to let you know, that we brought a house across the road from us on Sunday”. She felt this must have been a major operation.

Of course I was exaggerating saying 'here in New Zealand we almost exclusively use brought', actually in my email I had qualified it a little by saying "In my experience we seem to have done the opposite thing in New Zealand. We almost exclusively use 'brought'." Clutching at straws I know, but I must try to regain some respect...

My real point of course is that while the British may be taking to using 'bought' too often, it certainly seems to me that those of us down under tend to misuse 'brought' instead.
Since making that comment, I've been watching quite closely when people use the words 'brought' and 'bought' and I pleased to report there do exist some people who do use the words 'correctly'. However, I still feel that people who consistently use bought to refer to a purchase are few and far between. It might be my age group, or my particular circle of friends.

So I'm asking for your help. Have a listen next time you hear someone talking about the latest thing they bought. Do they say 'brought'?

Do I have friends who are particularly poor at using these words? or do Richard Bentley and Russell McMahon tend to 'hang out' with those who like to speak proper?

Remember knowing how we should use a word doesn't actually mean we really do use it that way.

Let the comments come!

AWAW: Aesthetic

2007-03-08T17:18:00.000-08:00

Two words I often get mixed up are Aesthetic and Ascetic The funny thing is that the words mean almost the opposite.
Asthetics has to do with what is beautiful, where as Ascetic has to do with denying yourself pleasure!

I guess the guys at 37signals who deliberately produce software with fewer features might have found away to combine the two. Sometimes by choosing to prune things out of your life, a product or even a tree (I guess that is where the idiom comes from) you can end up with something more beautiful that it might otherwise have been...

aes·thet·ics (ĕs-thĕt'ĭks)
n.
1. The branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and expression of beauty, as in the fine arts.
2. (used with a sing. verb) The study of the psychological responses to beauty and artistic experiences.
3. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) A conception of what is artistically valid or beautiful: minimalist aesthetics.
4. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) An artistically beautiful or pleasing appearance: “They're looking for quality construction, not aesthetics” (Ron Schram).

To Linkbait or to Link Bait?

2007-01-17T19:31:00.000-08:00

Over at Searchengineland Danny Sullivan debates whether is correct to use the word "Linkbait" or the phrase "Link Bait".

For those of you who don't follow search engine optimization circles and who have no idea what linkbait is I'll explain. Linkbaiting is a term originally coined by Nick Wilson in his article The Art of Linkbaiting it refers to the practice some webmasters/bloggers are attempting in which they publish a piece of content in the hope that other people will link to it. This isn't really anything new as most webmasters and bloggers hope that the articles they write will be linked to by others. The difference is that in this case you specifically write the article or blog post with that purpose in mind.

I didn't really write this post to define linkbait, but more to comment on the fact that a) people seem to believe that there is or 'should be' one correct way of spelling or referring to this concept and b) that they are interested enough to write about it. Or is the post itself just another piece of linkbait? If so it worked for me...

I am always interested in language change, and I find it fascinating when people start arguing over the correct usage of a word. To my mind the correct usage of a word is just the way it is actually used. For example the word "sucks" once had a pretty crude meaning, but now days it is just used to say something is useless or no good.

Sucks is the most concise, emphatic way we have to say something is no good.
- http://slate.com/id/2146866

Surprising this is more or less what Danny suggests in the linkbait his article. He says that more people use the term linkbait than link bait so we should all use that. Perhaps. I think it is probably a bit too new a term for that type of analysis to work. There are other forces at play, For example linkbait shows up as a misspelled word in most spellcheckers, it will be interesting to see if that has an effect on usage.

My thoughts on the issue? Lets check back in a years time and see if the term is still being used at all and if there is a strong lean towards one or the other.

AWAW: Venerable

2007-01-13T23:45:00.000-08:00

Every now and then you hear someone describes a "venerable" it sounds like a good thing, but what does it really mean?

venerable

adj.

Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position.

Worthy of reverence, especially by religious or historical association: venerable relics.

Venerable (Abbr. Ven. or V.)
1. Roman Catholic Church. Used as a form of address for a person who has reached the first stage of canonization.
2. Used as a form of address for an archdeacon in the Anglican Church or the Episcopal Church.

Wordnet says it like this:

Meaning #1: impressive by reason of age

Meaning #2: profoundly honored

Looks like quite a useful word, and one that is in reasonably comon use. So give it a try next time you meets someone that commands your respect :)

The Million Dollar Comma

2006-11-05T20:24:00.000-08:00

See this story in "the register" about how the interpretation of some gramatical rules could end up costing Rogers Communications 1 million dollars.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/26/the_case_of_the_million_dollar_comma/

The thing I found a amusing was this quote from the commission researching the case:

The Commission sided with Aliant, describing the clause as "clear an unambiguous". Had the intention been to limit the right to terminate at the end of the current and any renewal term, clear wording would have been included specifying by what date the notice was required, it said.

You think that a commission looking into the the meaning of a comma in a contract would take the time to correctly state "clear and unambiguous"? Note: I guess this could be the register's error.

You might also enjoy this link about the Oxford English Dictionary:
Cyber-Neologoliferation: Cyber-Neologoliferation:
http://nytimes.com/2006/11/05/magazine/05cyber.html

Logologists

2006-05-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

According to WordWays logology is an old word resurrected by the late Dmitri Borgmann to describe recreational linguistics . That would make people like me (and quite likely others who read this blog) a logologist.

I don't subscribe to WordWays, so I can't give much of a reveiw of it, but David Weignburger has just blogged about it on his site Joho the Blog. It sounds like it contains some quite interesting stuff. The WordWays site also contains a bunch of articles from older issues that look like an interesting read.

Technorati Tags: linguistics, wordways, logology

AWAW: Evangelist

2006-05-26T02:48:00.000-07:00

The word Evangelist used to conjer up images of gospel preachers, trying to convert people to christianity. But now there seems to be new definition appearing in the english language. I first noticed this when google hired Vint Cerf as "Chief Internet Evangelist" now we have Guy Kawasaki's "The Art of Evangelism" and Jeremy Zawdony from Yahoo advertising for a "Developer Network Evangelist". Clearly something is changing...

The American Heritage Dictionary picks up some of this 'newer' meaning in definition 2 of the related word evangelism - "Militant zeal for a cause".

e·van·gel·ism (ĭ-văn'jə-lĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.
1. Zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, as through missionary work.
2. Militant zeal for a cause.

Source: http://www.answers.com/evangelism

Other dictionaries only seem to list the older "gospel preacher" meaning. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=evangelist

So we might think this whole new meaning for evangelist is an exciting new "Web 2.0" thing? Well it turns that that definition has been around for a while. The OED lists this 1978 quotation as an early example of the definition they call "A zealous advocate of a cause or promulgator of a doctrine."

"1978 P. HOWARD Weasel Words xxi. 90 It makes sense to say that the French Revolution found its evangelist in Rousseau; that Mary Whitehouse is the evangelist of cleaning up television. "

That being said, this meaning is a a lot newer than when it was first use to refer to a gospel writer (Mathew, Mark, Luke or John).

"1297 R. GLOUC. (1724) 67 And sende Sent Mark be euangelist in to Egypt. "

Quotations taken from the Oxford English Dictionary

What's your favorite word?

2005-07-20T21:18:00.000-07:00

I came across this site today:
MyFavoriteWord.com
At this site you can share your favorite word, and why you like it so much...

Etymology as argument

2005-06-19T20:10:00.000-07:00

In my first year at university I did a course called "Critical Reasoning". I learned al about common fallacies presented in arguments. It would seem that a new fallacy has appeared on the scene, Language Log has the scoop:
Etymology as argument

Articles to read

2005-06-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

Here are some articles linked from AWAD:

Devoid of Content - New York Times

The Word Crunchers

Learning a language by talking rubbish!

The pithiest language gets first dictionary

BBC and the Oxford English Dictionary organize a wordhunt

AWAW Issue 1 (preview)

2004-08-11T03:05:00.000-07:00

The First Issue of AWAW has been writen (It hasn't been sent quite yet).
I still have to setup things like, The email address and the signup proceedure...

Here's a Sneek Preview :
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Every week AWAW will feature a word that I think is both usefull and rare. The Idea being that we write back (to awaw@jambe.co.nz) with the ways you have used the word this week. You could also share other findings like, similar words or sentences from shakespeare :)

This is the first issue, and trial run. If you think you would like to receive this every week then head over to www.jambe.co.nz/awaw/ and sign up. After that Go tell all your friends...

If you really enjoy this type of thing, you could consider one of these other word a day offerings:
http://www.wordsmith.org/awad/
http://www.oed.com/cgi/display/wotd

This Weeks Word:
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Immutable (i'myootubul)
Not subject or susceptible to change.
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Usage:
Immutability is often used when describing God. It is a nice way to say that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever." (Hebrews 13:8)

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Examples:

Immutable, immortal, infinite, Eternal King. --Milton

"Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath" Heb 6:17
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You Write:
No one has written to us yet, as this is the first Issue :)
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Write to AWAW (James Brunskill) : awaw@jambe.co.nz
See Also AWAW Blog http://awaw.blogspot.com

AWAW Begins

2004-08-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

For a while I have been thinking about starting "A Word A Week" email. Although there are many good "A Word A Day" emails, Recieving an email every day if often too much for a busy Schedule. I also want to focus my attention of useful words, but ones that aren't used very often.

Stay Tuned For the First Issue in you Inbox.