Well, here’s a bit of new stuff. A chum from over the other side of the pond has got me writing on this, but I’ll come to him later.

Jokes in English often rely on the surreal. But many of of them are based around the humble pun. I say humble, but in fact the cleverest joke I’ve ever heard works because of 3 different puns in the punchline. And no, I can’t possibly tell it here.

A pun-based joke in English very rarely* works in other languages. Puns in jokes and cartoons (and, unfortunately for our translation agency, British advertisements) are made up of homophones, homographs, homonyms and heteronyms. So then, to the attention-seeking nature of the title:

• homonym (same-name) same pronunciation, different meaning: fly (insect) fly (zipper)
• homophone (same-sound) identical pronunciation, maybe different spelling: your, you’re
• homograph (same-writing) same word, different meaning, maybe same pronunciation bow (-tie), bow (down)
• heteronym (other-name) same spelling, different pronunciation and meaning: tear (water) tear (rip)

Obviously there are a few possible overlaps here, so I’ve found a little Venn diagram from a mine of mostly factually correct information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Good, isn’t it? And now, a lovely little example of homphones coming into their own, courtesy of Stuey, the other side of the Pond.

“I hate those Italians with their slanty eyes. Sorry I don’t mean Italians, do I? I mean italics…”

Now for the main reason for the post: He clearly gets very irked by people using words inappropriately. When I was at (Victorian) school, hopefully was a dodgy word. “The parachutist landed hopefully.” ie he was full of hope as he landed. A “Hopefully, we’ll get the contract” got me a board-rubber to the back of the head as it was an ‘abuse’ of the word. Apparently. You could see why we’d (and do) all make the mistake. I’m not even sure it is considered such now. But his gripe is this:

“One of my pet hates has always been the misuse of ‘literally’.  In recent weeks, my attention has been drawn to Jamie Redknapp’s particularly noteworthy misuse of it:

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/features/4886830._Redknapp_s_misuse_of_word_is_literally_doing_my_head_in_/”

Now, OK, I’m not sure that as an ex-Premiership footballer he should be too harshly criticised for his linguistics skills, (or was he a product of the English Academy system, ho ho?) but it does get everywhere and I find myself exposed to it day and night. Quite literally.

Stuey’s final question: “I wonder if there are other examples where a word’s meaning has evolved to almost signify its antonym?”

And I think you can probably work out the meaning of that word…

* Ok, I have one… see the comments

We’ve got a problem in Blighty. We’re scared witless of plurals and the letter ‘s’. We’re so preoccupied with where an apostrophe goes when we do need them, that we add ‘em willy-nilly to any old word. And the problem affects all sections of society, not just the great unwashed. It seems to be present mostly when we add an s to a word that ends in a vowel. Tomato’s, pea’s, toe’s. Or if a word already ends in an s in the singular: bus’s, pass’s. But as you can see below, the thorny little devil can pop up in loads of situations, and in exactly the same context can disappear just as quickly. Saddo that I am, I take photographs of the offending scoundrels:

So let’s get this straight: Apostrophes (or should that be apostrophe’s? NO!) should, in the first instance, only be around to show when a letter (or letters) is missing, and is inserted where the letter(s) would have been if we could have been bothered to write them: don’t, would’ve. But what happens if there are 2 groups of letters missing? Manchester Utd. Surely not U’t'd? The Derby County fan in me says both are wrong and that makes me happy in some small way. And what about abbreviations in the plural? CDs? CD’s?

In the second instance, when it comes to the possessive s, it’s a whole new ballgame. I have a friend who works in the wordy world of marketing. Getting the apostrophe in the right place is, for her, as nerve-racking as having 5 out of the 6 lotto numbers correct and waiting for the 6th. The phone-call usually goes: “Please, Rob, I have another one of those grammar problems: The company’s staff. Before or after the s in company? No, I don’t want to know why, just give me the damn answer. Look, I’m about to go into the meeting. Please.”

Then there’s Vera Lynn: The Forces Sweetheart. What should we do? There’s a strong argument to say that here Forces is acting like adjective so it needs nothing anyway. Look at a singular form: The Airforce Sweetheart works fine, easily as well as The Airforce’s Sweetheart.

Anyway, I tell my friend the old trick of ‘turn it round and stick an of in there’. Whatever word is left – stick an apostrophe after it: The boy’s left thumb > The left thumb of the boy compared with The boys’ toilets > The toilets of the boys . (Sorry to my other half – she hates me using toilets. Not using them per se, she prefers that particular activity, she just hates the word.) So what about the The toy of James? James’s toy or James’ toy?

Then ask any Newcastle fan where his team plays:

But ask Wills and Kate about a possible royal residence:

Ooh, it’s just not fair, is it?

And finally: Bill’s friend should therefore lead to A friend of Bill.  How many times do we say and write A friend of Bill’s? And no, it doesn’t depend on whether you know a Bill. You know what I mean. Even your super predantic blogger does it too…

Language training for beginners usually involves  a bit of conceptual understanding, kaftans and some form of hallucinogenic drugs to help soften the process. OK, maybe not the latter two, but you’ll get my drift I’m sure.

I’m talking about countable and uncountable nouns. Can you count chairs? Yes. Ergo, they are countable nouns. Can you count rice? Yes? Well, no. You count the grains, but not the rice itself so, you guessed it, it’s not countable. Simple enough, huh? This goes on to affect our choice of other words, such a much or many, is or are, and lots of other things when applying it to other languages.

Some words are countable (or aren’t) depending on the meaning. Beer as a substance isn’t countable, unless we’re referring to bottles, glasses or pints thereof. “4 beers, 2 red wines and a fizzy water please”- all perfectly OK.

Spaghetti as an English word is not countable: “I don’t want much spaghetti” But in Italian it is – though I’m not sure too many self-respecting Romans would ever have need of uno spaghetto.  Information isn’t countable (in English at any rate), but data (technically speaking ( ‘scuse the pun)) is. Bored yet? Abstract nouns (happiness, freedom, torture) are more often than not uncountable unless we occasionally qualify them: an agonising torture. Even then they only exist in the singular.

Anyway, the reason for the post. When the looters and rioters had their fun earlier this month, there was talk of using ‘water cannon’ to dispel them. I could live with that, imagining it to be an abstract concept rather than the machine itself. However, The Guardian (and all its worthy fellow rags) were happy to use the likes of  The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has six white-painted water cannon.

You’ve counted them for heaven’s sake! There were more than 1 of them! What’s wrong with a little ‘s’! It wouldn’t hurt, would it? Or does it make you seem a bit more grown up to make water canons uncountable? Unless, overnight, water canons have mysteriously adopted the same properties as fish, sheep and wildebeest… And even wildebeest can be wildebeests if you like.

Ah, language in the throes of evolution. A glorious thing. Unless you’re a stick-in-the-mud like me.

As one of many I suspect, self-appointed guardians and protectors of the English language (yes, yes I know that language evolves, that Shakespeare invented loads of words, broke rules et al – let me have my moment),  I  gently remind my children that littering their sentences with ‘like’ and  ‘sort of’ doesn’t make for the most elegant of listening.

My big gripe however, is should of,  would of and could of gone. I totally understand the analogous logic – cup of tea is pronounced cup’ve tea, so why not let could’ve gone work backwards in the same way? (Sorry to all you linguistics purists – I don’t think wordpress blogs allow me to write the mute e or schwa phonetically.)

Do you have any expressions that your own little darlings use in your own language – English or otherwise – that get your goat? And why?