That's What They Say

'A' vs. 'An' is rather simple, unless you're talking unicorns

Michigan Radio Newsroom and Austin Davis — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:55:00 +0000

Do you say “a historical event,” or “an historical event?”

On this week’s edition of “That’s What They Say,” Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan and host Rina Miller discuss this confusing speech convention. As Professor Curzan points out, the inclination to use either “a” or “an” depends on the pronunciation of the “h” at the beginning of “historical.”

“Most American English speakers pronounce ‘h,’” says Curzan. “We’re not ‘h-droppers.’ In Britain a lot of the urban varieties of British English drop the ‘h,’ even in words like house you get ouse. But at the beginning of words in American English we tend to pronounce the ‘h’… so we’ll say a history.”

The issue when pronouncing historical, however, is that the stress has moved to the second syllable. This makes for a lighter-sounding “h,” and can change the article of the word.

“For speakers with a lightly pronounced ‘h,’ they will say ‘an historical,’” says Curzan. “It may be seen as a more proper pronunciation.”

How many syllables are in the word 'interesting'?

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 12:57:00 +0000

It’s very interesting to consider some people add an extra syllable to certain words when speaking.

On this week’s edition of “That’s What They Say,” host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan discuss how this difference in pronunciation is fairly new - linguistically speaking.

The word "interesting" is pronounced today with either three or four syllables. Anne Curzan explains the four syllable pronunciation, which often annoys the three-syllable camp, is actually the more traditional pronunciation.

“If you look in the online Oxford English Dictionary…it only has a four syllable pronunciation. If you look in modern standard dictionaries from the last ten years, they will show multiple pronunciations, three and four syllables," says Curzan.

The process of losing a syllable is not rare in the English language.

There's no quelling semantic change

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 12:41:00 +0000

Don’t get too flattered if an admirer calls you unique. In today’s spoken language unique doesn’t mean one of a kind at all.

On this week’s edition of “That’s What They Say,” host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan discuss the semantic changes that strengthen or weaken the meaning of words.

Anne Curzan points out the strength of unique has weakened over time so that one object can be more unique than another.

“For most of its history in English unique has meant one of a kind, or having no peer...if you listen to actual usage, you’ll hear people say that something is more unique than something else, or really unique…at this point for a lot of speakers, unique means unusual," says Curzan.

The word unique is not unique in the weakening of its definition over time. Curzan explains that the word “quell” has also undergone significant semantic change.

Dust kittens, woofinpoofs or frog hair?

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 26 May 2013 12:29:00 +0000

On this week’s edition of “That’s What They Say,” host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan revisit regional variations in spoken English and offer up even more fun and often puzzling expressions.

“For people who are from parts of New York or New Jersey, they will stand on line rather than in line...and for the people who say that makes no sense, the answer is that prepositions don’t always make sense and this is just regional variation," says Curzan.

Another expression that may not make sense to most of us is: drinking a cabinet.

“If you’re from Rhode Island you can drink a cabinet…in Rhode Island, a cabinet is a milkshake," Curzan explains.

Okay, so what to you call those balls of dust hiding underneath the bed? Dust bunnies or woofinpoofs?

The Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE) has documented over 170 different variations for those balls of lint. And, some variations take on hilarious names.

Unspoken grammar rules, and the fight against green squiggly lines

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 19 May 2013 12:43:00 +0000

For most of us, the Microsoft Word spell checker is a godsend. It helps correct our failed attempt for spelling words like vinaigrette or renaissance.

However, Word's grammar checker is a whole different story. Mostly because of that cursed green squiggly line under a word that signals we've made a grammar error. One of the most frequent and frustrating corrections involves the correct use of that or which.

University of Michigan Professor of English Anne Curzan and host Rina Miller discuss these unspoken grammar rule snafus on this edition of "That's What They Say."

"The grammar checker is trying to enforce a rule about that and which, which English speakers have never followed, as far as we can tell," says Curzan.

The comma problem

Rina Miller — Sun, 12 May 2013 12:00:00 +0000

The comma may be a very small punctuation mark, but people often have very strong feelings about how it should, and should not be used.

On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan discuss the Oxford comma, semicolons and breaking rules.

Listen to the full segment above.

Graduate, then commence onward

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 05 May 2013 12:51:50 +0000

Where are you graduating from? Or are you just graduating? On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and Professor Anne Curzan discuss the mishaps with the proper use of "graduation."

There's been a good amount of change around the verb graduate, explains Curzan.

"It used to be that the University was supposed to graduate you...in the nineteenth century we started to get that students could graduate from the university."

Before you graduate from a university, or just graduate, you've got to matriculate. But what does matriculation actually mean?

"Matriculation technically means, 'to enroll in or at,' and you'll often see it used that way, but there appears to be some confusion. People sometimes use matriculate to mean graduate," says Curzan.

Redundancies in everyday speech

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:54:00 +0000

If a gift is "inherently free," isn't it just free? On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and Professor Anne Curzan discuss those often annoying redundancies in the English language.

Other redundancies include the clunky "hot-water heater" in your basement, or perhaps that "plan going forward" that you've been anticipating. It's obvious that this trait in the English language just isn't logical, and Anne Curzan agrees.

"They aren't logical, and I'm not going to sit here and make an argument that they are logical," explains Curzan. "But what I am going to say is that languages aren't always logical, that I think we sometimes think they should be completely logical. But human languages are sometimes logical, and sometimes not."

So we know that our language is rife with illogical redundancies in both grammar and speech, but can these redundancies actually be helpful?

Are you a 'pop' or 'soda' person?

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:24:00 +0000

Maybe you're the type that likes both in conjunction, or perhaps not at all. On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and Professor Anne Curzan talk about variations of speech based on region, called distinctive regionalisms, and how the lines between these colloquial regions aren't as blurred as you may think.

Perhaps the most noticeable of these distinctive regionalisms, especially for Michiganders, regards the phrasing we use when referring to soft drinks. Here in the Midwest, a lot of people say "pop," explains Curzan. "A lot of the rest of the country says 'soda.' You're going to find that on the East Coast and on the West Coast."

But distinctive regionalisms don't stop at fizzy beverages. Based on where you're from, telling time may even be different.

According to Curzan, "New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware: we're the "quarter-of" speakers. The "quarter-till" speakers: West Virginia, western Virginia, North Carolina, parts of Georgia."

When dealing with big meat and veggie filled sandwiches, "much of the U.S. calls that a sub," explains Curzan. "But in New England, it's a 'grinder.' In much of New York and New Jersey, it's a 'hoagie,' or a 'hero' in Pennsylvania."

Amid all these different variations, a distinctive regionalism dictionary, if one exists, might be needed.

Enormous ambiguity when using 'enormous'

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:11:00 +0000

In talking about size, should one use "enormity," or "enormous"? For most of us, these two words used to describe the large scope of a situation seem synonymous. On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller discusses with Professor Anne Curzan how these supposed synonyms differ in their meanings.

So if "enormity" and "enormous" are not synonymous, can "enormity" still be used to describe a big problem? According to Curzan, "You can, if you use 'enormity' to describe a problem, and are making some sort of moral judgment about it. It's another thing if you're talking about a topic or a building, and you're talking about size without making a moral judgment."

It comes down to the enormity of the moral implications of a situation, versus the enormousness, or the size or scope of the situation itself. The two words, however, have the same linguistic roots, and both definitions have remained similar throughout history.

"Enormity" and "enormousness," says Curzan, go back to the same root in Latin, meaning "unusual."

"And when both words come into English in about the 16th century, they refer to something outside the ordinary," Curzan explains.

The modern distinction then comes from the current usage of the two words, right?

No French needed to pronounce 'fiancée'

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:53:00 +0000

We've all been there: You come across a word in a written text and realize, to your embarrassment, that you haven't a clue how to pronounce it. On this edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and Professor Anne Curzan discuss why the pronunciations of those tricky little words cause us the most strife.

What should you do when you come across one of these words? As Anne Curzan did when she encountered with the word "islet" during one of her lectures at the University of Michigan, just ask the audience.

"So I get up to the word, and I think, 'Well I could just mumble it or something,' but then I think, 'Well that's not appropriate.' So then I turn to the class and I say, 'How do you all pronounce that word?' And they say, 'We don't.'"

Why do we seldom use the word 'seldom?'

Mercedes Mejia — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 12:12:00 +0000

On this week's edition of "That's What They Say," we explore why the word seldom is fading from use. Host Rina Miller talks with Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan.

Language change is similar to fashion trends, says Curzan. And it seems the use of "almost never" is replacing the word seldom.

"When you think about it, 'almost never' is not a very efficient replacement for 'seldom,' but it's what came into fashion, and 'seldom' is out of fashion and 'infrequently' had its moment of fashion," Curzan says.

Analogy is another reason for language change. For example, Curzan says "oxen" will most likely change to "oxes" because other nouns take "s" and through analogy people will start to use "s" to make ox plural.

Listen to the full interview above.

Spelling bees just got a whole lot easier: simplified spelling

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 17 Mar 2013 12:12:00 +0000

On this week's edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller discusses our resistance to change the spelling of certain English-language words with Professor Anne Curzan of the University of Michigan.

Curzan says that this resistance comes hand-in-hand with complacence.

"In the end, people are quite attached to the spellings that they know. They've spent a lot of time learning those spellings, and we're used to the way they look," says Curzan.

So when it's suggested that "have" drop the e to "hav," and that "dogs" be spelled phonetically, "dogz," our comfort level drops out of equilibrium. But is there a happy medium between maintaining our comfy spelling rules and making spelling in English simpler? According to Curzan, such conventions have already been successfully implemented.

"Noah Webster, when he created his American Dictionary in the early 19th Century, he believed we should have an American language," explains Curzan, "and part of having an American language was having American spelling that would be different from British spelling."

You're gonna wanna see this...

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 12:16:00 +0000

This time on "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller and University of Michigan Professor Anne Curzan discuss the colloquial "gonna" and "wanna," and how these words are not just mispronunciations of their original verbs, but are developing their own distinct meanings.

"If you think about the verb 'go' as a main verb, it has directionality to it. So I could say 'I'm going to swim,' which would imply some kind of direction," explains Curzan. "But if I say 'I'm gonna swim,' that means at some point in the future, I'm gonna swim."

Curzan says that this evolution of the meaning of the verbs is due to the lack of definitive future-tense construction in the English language.

"Interestingly in English, some people would say that we don't have future-tense because we only have one tense marker, which is 'ed' for the past-tense. To talk about the future, we use these little auxiliary verbs like 'will,' which also used to be a main verb. Now 'go' is becoming an auxiliary verb. So this is now one of the ways we talk about the future," Curzan says.

One man's 'arse' is another man's 'ass': taboo words and profanities

Michigan Radio Newsroom — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 13:42:00 +0000

Let's face it: profanities and taboo words are sometimes appropriate (and maybe even fun) to use. But does the same level of use apply to politicians or others constantly in the media spotlight?

On this week's edition of "That's What They Say," host Rina Miller discusses the convention of taboo words and profanities in everyday language with Professor Anne Curzan, specifically in response to John Boehner's recent remarks about the Senate.

Quote from Boehner:

"We have moved the bill in the House twice. We should not have to move a third bill, before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something."

The word "ass" is usually not spoken in front of the public eye; it's taboo. Following Boehner's statement, however, this word is coming out of the woodwork, as Anne Curzan describes.

"...you could sense that people were interested in what Boehner said, but also in how he said it. They were interested in that word."

Is it more acceptable than other profanities used by past politicians?

"When Vice President Joe Biden, and Vice President Dick Cheney both dropped 'f-bombs' in fairly public places, everybody referred to it as the 'f-word.' Nobody wanted to say the word, because that's a taboo word that we don't say," explains Curzan.