Ask the English Teacher

How Many Syllables?

A reader sent me a long, interesting question:

I belong to a writing group and, every time somebody tries their hand at haiku, I find myself questioning the number of syllables in a plural or past tense word or in a word where the "ed" has been added as a descriptive.

I always ask the group and my questions are ignored. Perhaps because they don't want to embarrass me by pointing out my lack of knowledge or perhaps because none of us know the correct answer.

I have checked my several dictionaries and the online offerings of the same information and find myself getting very frustrated! :-)

Is "tailed" as in "red tailed hawk" 1 or 2 syllables?

What about "served,"
"winged,"
"glazed,"
"antiqued," and
"washed" ?

I would say they are all 1 syllable (except "antiqued" - which I question whether it is 2 or 3 syllables because the "d" sounds like a distinctly separate sound) but, whether 1 or 2 or 3, is there some hard-and-fast rule on which I can rely when I am the one writing haiku?

And plurals: "misquotes,"
"leaves,"
"neighbors," or

Possessives: "grandpa's" ?

Again, I'd say that the addition of the "s" does not add to the syllable count but, right or wrong, are there any cases you can think of where it does? And, is there any hard-and-fast rule that I can rely on when I write?

I Before E

Jillian in Texas writes:
I was just curious to know why neither and either and many other words, for that matter, do not fit the "i" before "e" rule. In fact, I'd like to know where the rule even came from and if it is still traditionally followed in the United States.

In general, i goes before e: achieve, belief, chief, friend, mischief, quiet, review, yield, siege.

The "e before i" rule usually applies when it's a "long e" sound after a c: receive, conceive, and so on.

The rule doesn't apply when the sound is not a long e: foreign, reign, freight, height, veil, weigh, leisure, forfeit. "Neither" and "either" can be pronounced "ee-ther, nee-ther" or "eye-ther, nye-ther." So I guess that's why we spell them "ei" and not "ie."

Mens' or Men's?

Jody asks:
I am in an argument with a sign maker at the high school I'm building. I say it should be Men's Locker Room. He said it's Mens' because Men is plural. Same with Women's Locker Room versus Womens'. Who is correct?

You are, and here's why:

In very old English, we formed plurals not with "s" but with "en": one brother, two brethren; one man, two men; one woman, two women; one child, two children; one chick, two chicken (no kidding!).

Some of those words have stayed in the language. They're plurals, but when we form a possessive of them, we treat them as singular:
Men's wear
Women's locker room
Children's education

It would be especially embarrassing in a school to have the apostrophe in the wrong place, so stick to your guns on this one!

In line or On line?

Raymond asks:
Since moving to New York, I've noticed that people here say 'standing on line' rather than 'standing in line'. Are the two interchangeable or am I right in finding the former a bit odd sounding? I call upon your expertise to settle this most troubling matter.

I used to live in New York, but that was many years ago when most New Yorkers spoke Dutch!

More seriously, you've touched on an important point. Speakers of every language tend to break into dialect groups. The dialect may reflect the speakers' age, class, ethnicity, or education. In some parts of New York State, for example, your house has a "stoop"—from the Dutch word "stoep," meaning "porch." The word goes back to the Dutch colonial days of the 17th century. In other parts of the US, you may sit out on the verandah.

While I don't recall New Yorkers standing "on line" in the 1950s and early 60s, I'm sure you've heard correctly. This is a small dialectal variation, one of countless variations in American English.

I still recall reading the Memphis, Tennessee newspaper with horror one Christmas: The icy streets had caused "car smashes" that sounded terrible. Eventually I learned that "car smash" was a local dialect term for what I knew in California as a "fender bender."

A Tricky Subject-Verb Question

Brenda asks:
How do you write this sentence correctly?

Either the interviewer or the committee members usually begins by asking simple questions about your background.

When we have an "either" or "neither" introducing the subject of a sentence, we're saying that one noun or the other is the subject, but not both. If one noun is singular and the other is plural, the verb agrees with the noun that's closer to the verb:
Either the interviewer [singular] or the committee members [plural] usually begin...
Either the committee members or the interviewer usually begins...

Shutttered

Catherine writes:
First off, thank you for your informative section on "went missing." My mother was complaining to me about the usage of this phrase and it is great to know that she is not alone and that it is relatively new to the English American language.

Secondly, our conversation then went on to include the usage of the word "shuttered." The media seems to use this word when referring to the closure of plants or businesses. "The shuttered restaurant was a result of declining patronage." OR.. "The rubber factory was shuttered yesterday." My mother is 64 years old and has never heard of this use of the word. Shutters are ornaments on your home to accent your windows... not a verb! Please advise as to what you may know about the word and its current use.

Once upon a time, shutters weren't ornamental—they literally shut the windows. They kept the rain and snow from blowing into the house, because glass was scarce. So when you closed up your house, you pulled the shutters over the windows as well as locking the door.

In many countries with storefront businesses, shopkeepers pull down metal shutters at the end of the business day. These prevent thieves from breaking the stores' windows and doors.

So "shuttered" meaning "closed" is an expression with a long history...and we can stll use it even when a closed business has no shutters at all.

Who or Whom Again

Kay asked:
Have you guessed the identity of the person to who I am speaking ? (Pronoun Case) What is the correct way to write this sentence?

It should be "Have you guessed the identity of the person to whom I am speaking?"

"To" is a preposition, and pronouns following a preposition are in the objective case:
I am speaking to him.
I am speaking to them.
To whom am I speaking?

Here are some more examples:
From whom did you get this letter?
I got it from her.
From whom was this letter sent?
This letter was sent from him.

Telling the Time

Maria Elisa asks:
I have some doubts about telling the time:
I learnt at school that when I set the clock to a "minutes to" or "minutes past " the hour, I'm to say the word minutes after the number:
i.e., it's two minutes past three
But as things change and languages as well, I heard people omitting "minutes".
Can I accept the sentence without "minutes" or do I have to consider it a mistake?

We native English speakers are very lazy! We don't want to say "can not" if we can say "can't." And we're very happy to say "It's two past three" instead of "It's two minutes past three."

For the same reason, we also say, "It's a quarter past three" instead of "It's a quarter of an hour past three."

No, it's not a mistake. It's just informal English, so widely used that we don't even think about it any more.

Is or Are?

I'm finally back from a holiday without computers, and I have a batch of questions to try to answer. Here's the first one, from Le Hai Thanh:
I have a question about the verb following "the variety of..."

"What they share in common is the extraordinary variety of plant and animal life-forms that IS/ARE the necessary part of the on-going process of their formation".

Which verb should I use in this case? IS or ARE?

This is a tricky one!

We have several "collective nouns" that can be either singular or plural, and the article we use in front of them can determine whether they're singular or plural:
A number of students are going on to college.
The number of students in college is larger this year.

In the sentence you ask about, we have to decide if the subject of the clause is "variety" or "life-forms." Is the variety the necessary part of the on-going process? Or are the life-forms the necessary part of the on-going process?

I would go with "life-forms" and "are." The life-forms are part of the on-going process; their variety is interesting, but not really crucial for the process.