Category: grammar

The use of “only”

June 21, 2025 • 11:20 am

Unless English grammar has changed in the last few years, then the placement of the word “only” in sentences is one of the biggest grammatical mistakes people make. The proper usage requires that the word restricted by “only” must be perfectly clear.  For example, here is an incorrect usage:

“I only ate one donut.”

That’s wrong because the word modified by “only” here is “ate”.  The sentence is wrong because it implies that the speaker could have done something else with that donut besides eating it, like throwing it at another person or stomping on it.  What the sentence is supposed to mean is that the speaker could have eaten more donuts, but did not (perhaps he was on a diet). If you want to say what you actually mean here, you must move the “only”, making this sentence:

“I ate only one donut.” 

Here “only” modifies “one”, giving the correct meaning.

That example should suffice, but I’ll give one more. If a student is accused of cheating by copying prose from a bot on a term paper, they may try to exculpate themselves by saying “I only copied one sentence.” But that’s wrong because it implies the student could have done something else with the sentence besides copying it. And that makes no sense. Again, the proper usage is “I copied only one sentence.”

When some of my friend misplace “only” this way, I correct them, saying that they must remember where to put the word. More important, if they do remember that forever, it will be a legacy from me: something that makes people think of Jerry when they use the word “only.”  Only Ceiling Cat knows that I have almost no legacies! (Note the proper use of “only” in the preceding sentence.)

Which brings us to two flagrant misuses of the term in popular culture. The first is in a song I’ve written about recently: one of the greatest rock songs and surely the best one from Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys: “God Only Knows.” Here are a few lyrics (you can hear the original release here); the bolding is mine.

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it

[Refrain: Carl Wilson]
God only knows what I’d be without you

You can see the problem here. As written, the lyrics imply that God could have done other things than know how the singer would be. (For example, he could be “guessing” or “intuiting” rather than “knowing.”  The correct phrasing would be this: “Only God knows what I’d be without you.”  But of course that’s awkward: try singing the song using those words instead. The phrasing is ungrammatical but musically more felicitious—by far.  I have no beef with that.

This one I do. It is in every ad for Liberty Mutual Insurance, including this clever ad:

But at the end there’s this, which is Liberty Mutual’s slogan:

 

No, no, no! That implies that you could do other things besides paying to get what you need. (You could, for example, steal what you need.)  What it’s trying to say is that the viewer should pay only for the aspects of insurance that he needs. You don’t need flood insurance, for example, if you live in Death Valley.

Of course the correct usage here is this:  “Pay only for what you need.”  It bothers me that they can’t use proper grammar!

Now of course this is Pecksniffery: hardly a worldshaking issue.  But what would life be if we didn’t have little things like this to grouse about?

And surely you have phrases like this that bother you. I welcome them, so please put them in the comments.

Words and phrases I despise

September 28, 2024 • 12:30 pm

For some reason I’ve forgotten to collect and post irritating terms, lists of  which used to be fairly common here.  I usually proffered at least three, but this week I have two.  The purpose here is to get readers to vent about their own annoying words or phrases.  And let’s not be Pecksniffs and say “but language evolves”!  This is a chance to vent and have fun, not defend the use of annoying terms.

My choices:

Deep dive. This phrase is increasingly used to denote a “hard look” at an issue or topic. I have two issues with this.

First, it’s used because it’s trendy. What’s wrong with “hard look” or “thorough examination”?

Second, very often the “deep dive” is not a thorough look, but a shallow belly flop. Here’s an example from a rag I used to read, the Huffington Post. Click to read:

The article is short, not a “deep dive” at all.  Using trendy language like this shows a lack of imagination, a way to demonstrate how cool you are by using the latest argot. You’ll never catch me saying this.

Passed (a synonym for “died”). This word is a double euphemism, for it is itself a synonym for “passed on” or “passed away”, which themselves are synonyms for “died.” What is wrong with “died”? Well, some people can’t bring themselves to say it, even if it’s true.

And there’s one bad side effect: to me, “passed” implies that your journey of life isn’t yet complete: that you’re “passing on” to some other phase of your existence. That is likely to be “heaven”. In other words, to me the phrase denotes belief in an afterlife, and atheists like me have no truck with it. Fortunately, the obituaries in newspaper and magazines don’t use it, and stick with the simple “died.” “Passed” is a word you hear from the mouths of your friends, not in the news.

Now, dear readers, what words or phrases curl the soles of your shoes?

NYT makes a grammatical error

February 5, 2023 • 2:00 pm

Here’s a tweet I found from the NYT:

Here is the full headline. What is wrong with the top three lines? This is what I’d call a really stupid mistake!

Words and phrases I detest

August 16, 2022 • 11:00 am

I’m suffering from severe sleep deprivation again, and it’s aggravated because after a night or two, the anxiety that causes insomnia is worsened by the fear you won’t get to sleep when you do wake up (anxiety is a prime cause of insomnia). So it goes, and I have no explanation for why this came on again.  One thing insomnia teaches you—or at least taught me—is how great you feel after a good night’s rest. And when I get such a night lately, I work like a demon the next day to make up for lassitude.

Sadly, today is not one of those days.  You’ll simply have to do with a small post on some of the words and phrases I dislike (yes, some are proper usages), and I can’t even guarantee that I’ve not posted some of these before. But here we go. As always, I’ll take my examples from HuffPost if I can: the examplar of “with it” usage.

1.)  At first blush. 

This phrase is way outmoded. It’s supposed to mean “at first glance” or the like, but if you’re a language originalist, the meaning arose this way (from The Free Dictionary):

Without prior knowledge; at first glance. The earliest use of this expression dates from the sixteenth century, when blush meant not a reddening of the cheeks with embarrassment but “glimpse.” Thus, “Able at the first blushe to discearne truth from falsehood,” wrote Philip Stubbes (The Anatomie of Abuses, 2:7) in 1583.
However, even if you use it without referring to the earliest meaning, the phrase meaningless to someone today. If you ask someone who said it, “what do you mean by blush?”, they won’t be able to answer. In other words, it’s a fancy but shopworn phrase that doesn’t convey anything tangible to modern speakers. “At first glance” or “at first sight” actually means something to people.  An example from HuffPost (click to go to article):

2.) “Dropped”, meaning “came out”, as in “Rihanna’s new album just dropped.”

This is purely “with-it” jargon, meant to show that you speak use the argot of the cool kids.  But when I hear it I always envision a vinyl record falling on the ground and breaking. To me, using it means the speaker is unconsciously seeking approbation through conformity, like saying “fam” for “family.”

From HuffPost, a really cool headline because it mentions not only “drops”, but also Beyoncé (overrated, in my view) and, of course, Twitter. If it weren’t for Twitter, HuffPost would have nothing to write about.

3.) “Bright line” means a hard and fast line that divide things into (usually) two classes without confusion.

The OED’s first meaning, however, is in physics:

 1. Physics and Astronomy. A line of relative brightness in the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation coming from a given source, due to the presence of a particular element or molecule in the source; = emission linen. at emission n. Additions.

The second meaning is the one we, unfortunately, have to hear:

 2. Chiefly U.S. A clear distinction or boundary. Frequently in to draw a bright line and variants. Often used in legal contexts;

Now this is perfectly acceptable usage, but it grates on my ears, perhaps because I think that most people use it without knowing what it means. Further, the adjective “bright” doesn’t mean “hard and fast” or “uncrossable”, making the usage confusing, like “sea change”.

It’s even worse when it’s used below, for there is a mixed metaphor here. “Bright line” is a line of division between objects or ideas, while “line in the sand” means “a line that cannot be crossed.” You can make a sentence that uses this phrase properly, but HuffPost does not, for the headline below refers to Obama’s refusal to back off the Obamacare program. It has nothing to do with a “bright’ line. “Line in the sand” is sufficient.

Now I know that usage changes, and that these phrases aren’t improper usage. They’re here because they grate on me, and if someone uses them in conversation, the laws of physics may compel me to say something like “at first what?”  So don’t bother to comment me that usage changes and the like.

And, of course, you’re invited to add your own choice of the phrases that burn your onions.

Word and phrases I despise

April 7, 2022 • 1:45 pm

I believe all of these words or phrases are new, but since I don’t keep track I can’t be positive. At any rate, here are the latest four entries in my list of words and phrases I cannot stand. I offer these, of course, expecting readers to respond with their own linguistic bêtes noires.  I will use examples from the HuffPost when I find them, as that’s the epicenter of despiséd words and phrases.

1.) “Perfect storm“.  This comes from a “nor’easter” turned hurricane off New England in 1991; it killed 13 and caused millions of dollars in damage. The Perfect Storm resulted from a concatenation of unusual meteorological conditions, and now is used by chowderheads to mean “a bad situation caused by the co-occurrence of several contributing factors.” It’s perhaps better known as the title of a 2000 movie about the storm.

There are two problems here. The first is that the phrase is shopworn, a cliché that is no longer especially cute or especially evocative. Second, it’s often used just to mean “concatenation”, even of good things, as in this HuffPost article (click all screenshots to read):

When someone uses this phrase, I consider them grammatically lazy. Because it can mean either good or bad stuff, it’s lost its original meaning. And there are simpler and less cutesy phrases that can substitute, like “bad outcome of many causes”  As Orwell said, avoid shopworn phrases.

2.) “Deep dive.” Doesn’t this sound erudite and official? Well, guess what, there’s nothing it says that the phrase “close look” or “closer look” doesn’t say as well. Those who use it”deep dive” are grammatical sheep, employing the phrase because everybody else is. Let’s take a “deep dive into empathy,” meaning “discussing empathy in detail”:

Don’t brand yourself a linguistic ovid by emitting this odious phrase.

3.) “Sammie” “or “sammy” for “sandwich”. This is one of those attempts to be cute that fails badly. In fact, used in the singular, you save no syllables by saying “sammie” for “sandwich.” Further, when I hear the word, I think of Jews, often nicknamed “Sammy” if their real name is Samuel. (I had an uncle Sammy.)

Here’s a comestible that’s been doubly debased by that name:

There are many people who don’t like their own names shortened this way. Matthew Cobb goes by “Matthew”, not “Matt” or “Matty”; Richard Dawkins is “Richard,” not “Dick.” We respect their choices. Please respect the tasty sandwich by not calling it a “sammie”! This is one of those words that I may even correct if I hear someone say it. For example, if someone says to me, “Would you like a sammie?”, I may reply politely, feigning ignorance, “Do you mean a sandwich?”

4.) “Firestorm”, meaning “big kerfuffle” or “brouhaha”.  And we’re very close to #1 again, because many of the benighted use “firestorm” in the same way they’d use “perfect storm”.

In fact, a firestorm is what happens when fire and wind meet in a particularly dangerous conflagration. If it’s just a ruckus or kerfuffle or controversy, call it that. Don’t be like this HuffPost slacker, reaching for the nearest metaphor to describe Hillary’s emails:

Again, I’m with Orwell, who opposed stale metaphors, and this one has all the appeal of a week-old slice of Wonder Bread left out on the counter. Best to make up your own metaphors, if possible, and if not, well then avoid trying to be au courant.

Your turn. And get off my lawn!

McWhorter on “cultural language appropriation”

May 29, 2021 • 11:00 am

John McWhorter has two qualifications that make him able to judge whether it’s okay for white people to use black argot: he’s black and he’s a linguist. In his latest column on his Substack site (click on screenshot), Mcwhorter argues that it’s not only fine, but a form of flattery for members of one race to use the language of another, so long as it’s not used disparagingly. Click on the screenshot to read:

The “Elvis” simile comes from the claim, which may be justified, that Elvis used a black style of singing in his early music, but never gave credit to his influences. (McWhorter believes, as I do, that the black originators actually produced better music.) But he also argues that the comparison doesn’t hold water.

First, some of the language that white people are said to “steal” from blacks:

A little while ago, a Saturday Night Live skit depicted a multiracial group of teens communicating in what was depicted as “Gen Z slang,” with the doctor they were talking with having to “translate” his thoughts into it to communicate with them.

A lot of people didn’t like it, because the slang in question was mostly of Black English origin. The complaint is that the skit was denying the black roots of these terms, and instead ascribing them to Americans in general – i.e. (shudder) white persons. As in, yes – the problem was cultural appropriation.

. . . The SNL skit included, among others, yo, bestie, vibes, feels for feelings, salty for irritated, bro / bruh and no cap for “I’m not kidding” (as in, these are actual whole gold teeth, not golden caps on teeth).

McWhorter considers two arguments, and numerous sub-arguments, that terms like that should not be restricted to blacks.

1) Is there a historical precedent where people interact richly but keep their speech varieties completely separate?

He knows of no such cases.

2) Is there a case that even if this is the way it has been, that it would be a moral advancement if we tried to put a stop to it now?

McWhorter considers several arguments for the “moral cessation”, including the parallel with “music theft”, and says that the counterarguments are stronger, including the enrichment of art and language of every group by this kind of appropriation:

But overall, who among us wishes white people had never taken up ragtime, jazz, rhythm and blues, or rock and roll? I assume there are some who could really wish there had never been Benny Goodman, Buddy Holly, the Rolling Stones, or Eminem and I mean that. But this would be a radical proposition held ever by only a sliver.

Black jazz, is, to my mind, still the best by far, but it was taken and changed into different forms by others, and some of those white artists, like Bix Beiderbecke, Benny Goodman and Stan Getz, brought something new to the genre. As far as I know, they did no harm to blacks or black culture. Goodman, in fact, was the first major white bandleader to integrate his groups, taking on people like Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton. “White” jazz is the most common form of cultural appropriation—a form of borrowing that does nobody any harm, but enriches everyone but the Pecksniffs.

McWhorter also points out that whites have been taking language from African Americans forever, even in the antebellum South, and, of course, this form of linguistic borrowing is good for everyone: it enriches our communication.

Take another oppressed group (well, at least they were once considered oppressed): the Jews. I know of no Jewish person who is insulted, including me, when we hear a non-Jewish person use Yiddish argot like “chutzpah”, “oy vey”, “schlemiel”, and “kvetch.” Indeed, I’m pleased and flattered to hear it! It means that those words were useful, and are considered not insulting but a tribute to the colorful language that is Yiddish. I can’t really see any difference between that kind of “cultural appropriation” and words like “bestie and “vibes” (in truth, I thought these were Millennial words!).

McWhorter thinks we should give up trying to police the racial borders of language for two reasons. First, it never works. Second, and most important, appropriating words and phrases from another culture is a form of flattery, and we all know this. Trying to keep the borders distinct is a futile exercise in tribalism. To quote the expert here:

In light of the above, I suggest we return to intuition here. Yes, even on race, sometimes intuition makes sense, and not just the intuition that white people are racist.

Namely, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Whites talk increasingly more like black people in America as a sign that whites and blacks are more comfortable together socially than they once were.

Yes, racism still exists. But getting past it will happen in increments. What is the progress in insisting that the increments, when they reveal themselves, don’t matter?

And whatever your other discomforts are with “Gen Z” using some black slang, your question must be whether it should be socially proscribed in light of what I have noted above as issues that cannot be waved away. Is the discomfort something you could honestly back with a confident pox on linguistic sharing amidst the broader context of what we are actually seeing?

Words and phrases I detest

April 30, 2021 • 1:00 pm

Yes, it’s that time again, and what better time than Petulant Friday to bring up the words and phrases that we most dislike? I’ve managed to collect a few, and, as usual, at lest half come from HuffPost, that bastion of Wokeness and “look at us; we’re young and cool” language.

Here are a few words and phrases I dislike, with the source. The object, of course, is to stimulate readers to bring forth their own pet peeves.

Today I have four:

1.) “Bright line” or “bright line in the sand”.  Now I can understand “line in the sand”, as a line over which you’re not supposed to step lest you suffer dire consequences. But “bright” line? What is a “bright” line? According to Wikipedia, “bright line” is a term of law:

In United States constitutional law, a bright-line rule (or bright-line test) is a clearly defined rule or standard, composed of objective factors, which leaves little or no room for varying interpretation. The purpose of a bright-line rule is to produce predictable and consistent results in its application. The term “bright-line” in this sense generally occurs in a legal context.

Bright-line rules are usually standards established by courts in legal precedent or by legislatures in statutory provisions. The US Supreme Court often contrasts bright-line rules with their opposite: balancing tests (or “fine line testing”), where a result depends on weighing several factors—which could lead to inconsistent application of law or reduce objectivity.

But a “line in the sand” means pretty much the same thing in common language: a line that is not to be crossed without consequences.  Ergo, “bright line in the sand” is completely redundant, as well as a mixed metaphor. But that hasn’t stopped HuffPost—and many others—from using it (click on screenshots if you must read them):

2.) “Vacay” for “vacation”.  This irks me the same way that “fam”, short for “family”, and “sesh”, short for “session”, irk me. (I believe even Andrew Sullivan used “sesh” in last week’s column!) It’s close in sound to “vacate”, and could even be mistaken for it in conversation. “Vacation” is good enough for me, for I dislike these “aren’t I cool?” truncated neologisms. Why not say “conflay” for “conflation”? Here’s one from HuffPost:

 

3.) “Impactful” for “consequential” “influential” or “important”.  This is one of those words that sounds so juvenile that it instantly grates on me. Here’s an example from the New York Times, for crying out loud:

The quote:

It was awkward. Even Beyoncé’s recognition for “Black Parade” — a good song, sure, but hardly among her best or most impactful work — felt strangely conciliatory, a mea culpa for not giving “Lemonade” its proper due several years ago.

You can be more specific here, using words like “influential” or “important” (in a critical sense), but in this context it’s unclear who or what is being “impacted.”

4.) “On social” for “on social media”.  I haven’t seen this on HuffPost, which, after all, IS social media rather than journalism, but I hear it on the television news all the time when the anchors say, at the end of the show, “Follow us on social.” Is it too much to ask them to add the word “media” so we know what they’re talking about? Most people use it correctly, but there are those “too cool for my shirt” miscreants who haven’t learned that “social” is not a noun but an adjective. Like this site:

Your turn! Tell us all what words or phrases get your knickers in a twist.