Ask the English Teacher

More on Hyphens

Faith writes:
Thank you for all of your examples regarding when to use the suspended hyphen. I am still stuck on one more and am hoping you can answer my question.

I frequently use the following sentence in my reports-

The Working Memory Index consists of two subtests on which Trish achieved scores within the high average to average range.

Is it proper to punctuate as follows:

high average-to-average range or is it

high average- to average-range or could it be

high-average-to-average range or

high-average- to average-range

None of the above!

We use hyphens in compound adjectives when we want two or three (or more) words to serve as a single adjective. In the example you give, the noun is "range" and it's modified by two adjectives. One has two words: high average. The other has one word: average.

So I would write the sentence like this:
The Working Memory Index consists of two subtests on which Trish achieved scores within the high-average to average range.

Thanks for a very interesting question, Faith!

More Questions from Sara

Sara has sent me another batch of questions from a book she's reading. So my answers are right after the expressions she wonders about.

1) It's not always a good idea to get downwind of my brother.
CK:
When you are downwind, you can smell what the wind brings to you. So her brother doesn't smell very good.

2)"I'm not speaking to you, remember?"
"For a girl who's not speaking you don't half gab gab gab ."
CK:
"Don't half" is a British expression meaning "completely" or "excessively." So he's saying she's talking a lot, even though she claims to be not speaking to her brother—that is, ignoring him. We sometimes say that a person who talks a lot is "gabby"—from the word "gabble," meaning to speak rapidly.

3) I felt a little tingle up and down my spine.
CK:
A "tingle" is a kind of thrill or shiver that we feel when we sense danger or excitement.

4) What does "shadow-sparred" mean?
CK:
"Sparring" is a kind of practice boxing. "Shadow-sparring" would be boxing by yourself, pretending that you are fighting someone. The North Americans prefer to say "shadow boxing" when they talk about pretending to fight without an opponent.

5) He phoned mom at work. I could tell she was giving him an earful on the the other end of the phone, probably quizzing him about my friend and his family. Granddad pressed the phone close to his ear and mumbled 'Yes, Liz, No, Liz' several times. Then he mouthed, 'Three bags full, Liz' so that I got the giggles.
CK:
"Giving him an earful" means speaking critically. "Quizzing" means asking a lot of questions. "Three bags full" comes from a nursery rhyme that ends "Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full" (of wool). When adults use it, they mean an insincere agreement, like telling your boss what he wants to hear.

6)'Blooming heck! It must be their house! They've certainly gone up in the world! '
CK:
To go up in the world is to become wealthy and to enjoy higher status.

7) She was like her mother but in full bloom.
CK:
She was very attractive. Her mother was old and wilted, like an old flower.

8) I was sticking my chin in the air.
CK:
I was trying to look determined.

9) 'Get in the car,' Said Granddad. 'Blooming heck, Gem, you don't do things by halves ! You've really done it now! You've really really done it.'
CK:
This is another British expression like "You don't half"—in this case, it means "You've made a complete mess, not just half a mess!"

10) I felt ready to tug her entire leg off by the end of this journey.
CK:
Sounds as if she was an annoying companion!

11) Thanks a bunch, Miss Tact and Diplomacy!
CK:
In a beauty contest, some contestants receive awards like "Miss Friendly" and "Miss Happiness." Here, the speaker is saying sarcastically that the girl is not tactful or diplomatic. "Thanks a bunch" is like "Thanks a lot" or "Thanks very much."

12) "Her mother was looking boot-faced."
CK:
This is another British expression that we don't know in North America. I would guess it means she looks angry or expressionless.

Tranquil or Tranquility?

Christine writes:
I am homeschooling my daughter. She wrote a sentence using the word "tranquility" as follows: "She felt tranquility." I didn't think this was correct and said the correct usage would be, "She felt tranquil."

As a paid-up member of the Parents' Union, I side with you! Seriously, the more frequent usage would be the adjective "tranquil" instead of the noun "tranquility." Consider: She felt happiness/happy. She felt anger/angry.

You could use the noun, but it sounds more abstract. It would do in a sermon or a speech to the nation, where a more elevated "register" might be suitable. (Register is the choice of words that help define a social relationship between speaker/writer and listener/reader...in most homes, for example, daughters don't address their mothers by either the mother's first name or family name...and daughters know they're in trouble when Mom says: Angela Joan Smith, come here this minute!")

But for everyday use, go with the adjective. And I hope this restores tranquility in your home!

Talking of or Talking about?

Monica writes:
I'm an English teacher in a junior high school in Taiwan. I'd would like to ask you a question. Can we say "talk of something" in English? Is it more appropriate to say "talk about something"?

In general conversation, we do "talk about" things. In some old-fashioned styles, we find "talk of." T.S. Eliot, in his famous poem "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," writes:

In the room the women come and go,
talking of Michaelangelo

But "talking of" would sound odd to most modern English speakers. We do, however, use both "speak of" and "speak about":

Speak of the devil! Here's Bill now. (An old English saying is "Speak of the devil and you hear his wings"--that is, you bring him into your presence. So when we're talking ABOUT someone, and the person then appears, we often say "Speak of the devil!")

Speaking of poetry, I just read T. S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock." (The conversation has touched on a subject and now the speaker wants to return to that subject.)

But we might also say:
I was speaking about T.S. Eliot's poetry when a student raised a question.

Friends and Mates

Majid asks:
What's the difference between Friend and Mate?

Excellent question. The answer depends on which dialect of English you're speaking.

In most English dialects around the world, a "mate" is a permanent sexual partner, even if the partners aren't married. But it can also mean a companion or assistant, as in a ship's crew: First Mate, carpenter's mate, etc.

Maybe because the first English people to settle Australia had to spend months aboard ships, Australians have a different meaning for "mate." He's a male friend of a male. Australian women seem resigned to their men's "matehood" as a males-only relationship.

Meanwhile, the rest of us English-speaking males get along with friends, pals, and buddies.

Statistics? Data? Singular? Plural?

David asks:
I am writing an article and I wrote: "According to the barometer of television programming, statistics is cool. CBS...."  I believe that statistics as a math study is singular but as data is plural.  Is that right?

You've pressed one of my hot buttons. Words that end in unusual plurals (especially from Latin and Greek) can make all kinds of trouble in English.

Statistics as a science or field of knowledge is singular, as you suggest: Statistics is the collection, tabulation, and systematic classification of quantitative data. (I'll get back to "data" in a moment.)

But it can also mean any kinds of numbers: The mortality statistics are changing. Statistics are sometimes misleading.

As for "data," it should be plural; it's the plural form of "datum," something given, a fact. Today's rainfall is a datum. Add it to the rainfall for every day since Sunday, and you've got data.

However (in English we always have a "however")...

English speakers don't always recognize these "foreign" plurals. So many people say "The data is overwhelmingly in support of my view" that the word has become a singular. We English teachers can frown and complain, but it won't do a bit of good.

We are still fighting for a couple of other plurals, however. If you see something strange, it's a phenomenon. See two strange things, and you're looking at phenomena. If you have just one standard for judging something, you have a criterion. If you have two standards, you have criteria.

And as long as we're talking about data, I'll throw in something I call the "Data to Wisdom Chain":

Data organized is
Information made meaningful is
Knowledge applied to other knowledge is
Intelligence granted experience is
Wisdom

So there you are: ask about statistics and data, and you end up with wisdom.

Women's or Womens?

Marge writes:
Hi,
Which is correct?
1. The Blah Blah Chorus is a women's acappella chorus.....
2.The Blah Blah Chorus is a womens acappella chorus....

I have to go back over a thousand years to explain this one.

In Old English, long before the Norman Conquest in 1066, many nouns formed plurals without adding S or ES. Instead they added "en." Because some of these are very common words, we still follow the old usage:

Man->Men
Woman->Women (singular "wifman," meaning "with man")
Child->Children
Brother->Brethren
Chick->Chicken (no kidding! "I own six chicken" was once the way you'd say it.)

Later we began to form more familiar plurals by adding S. And we showed possession of a singular noun by adding 'S, while a plural would be S'—for example, Crawford Kilian'S blog, and the KilianS' house (which belongs to my wife as well as me).

Why don't we say "human" and "humen"? Because "human" comes from the Latin "humanus" (made from humus or earth).

So what to do with these Old English plurals? We treat them as if they were singulars:

Men's clothing (clothing belonging to men)
Children's toys (toys belonging to children)
Women's chorus (chorus belonging to women)

By the way, I should add one more point. Marge writes "acapella chorus," but it should be "a capella chorus." "A capella" means "in the style of the chapel" (capella)—where people would sing religious songs without musical accompaniment. Sometimes, to explain English, we have to explain Italian and other languages!

Where to Put the Adverbs?

Lee writes:
I have a problem with adverbs. I am often not quite sure if I have placed them correctly .
i) The boy ran quickly to the bus-stop.
ii) The boy ran to the bus-stop quickly.
iii) The boy quickly ran to the bus-stop.
I think the first two sentences are correct but I wonder if the third is?

Good question!

In general, we should put adverbs as close as possible to the verbs (or adjectives) that they modify. So in the examples given, both i) and iii) are good because "quickly" is close to the verb.

But here is a remarkable thing about English sentences: The reader pays most attention to the beginning and end of a sentence. So if we want to emphasize how fast the boy ran, we can put "quickly" at the end of the sentence, or at the beginning:

Quickly, the boy ran to the bus stop.

In some cases, however, a modifier can change the meaning of a sentence if it's not in exactly the right place. The word "only" is a good example. It always modifies the closest word. Think about the following sentences:

Only she said she loved me. (No one else did.)
She only said she loved me. (But she lied!)
She said only she loved me. (So I shouldn't believe all those other girls.)
She said she only loved me. (Huh?)
She said she loved only me. (Even though she flirted with other boys.)

So think about where to put the adverb, and when in doubt, put it as close as you can to the word it's modifying.

So Many Questions!

A reader wrote to me with a whole lot of questions from a book she was reading. Instead of putting the questions in italics, I'll just put CK: in front of my answers.

Here we go!