Random Thoughts on the English Language #23: Not as many anys

If something can clearly take place "wherever" and "whenever" with "whichever" "whoever" ("whomever"?) you desire, why can it also take place "anywhere", but not "anywhen" with "anywhich" "anywho" ("anywhom"?)?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #22: Too Many Cheves Spoil the Soup

One leaf. Two leaves. One elf. Two elves. One chef. Two chefs? C'mon English. Make up your mind.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #21: Guess... What?

Whenever I type "Guess what", I want to add a question mark at the end. And yet, it's really not a question. It's a command. Not sure if it's because it ends in "what", or what. Did some Googling and found that it's similarity to "Know what?", which could be expanded to "Do you know what?" might be part of what confuses me.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #20: Pizza Pizzazz!

If "pizza" is pronounced "peet-za" and "mozzarella" as "mot-za-rella", shouldn't the word "pizzazz" be "peet-zazz"? or even "peet-zat-z"?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #19: Resigns vs. Re-signs

Saw this headline today, "New Mexico coach Long resigns after 4-8 season", and at first was thinking that he had re-signed -- signed a new contract. But after a second glance, I'm sure that it means that he resigned -- quit, and actually reading the article confirmed that. I just thought it was interesting that those two words are so close and have such opposite meanings.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #18: Does it "seam" unseamly?

Whats the male equivalent of "seamstress"? Is it "tailor"? Couldn't a woman be a tailor, though? I like to think that the right word here should be "seamster", just because I think thats a fun word. Seamster.

Random Thoughts on the English Languages #17: If the women don't find you handsome...

Is it just me, or should the word "handless" be the opposite of the word "handsome"?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #16: Laundry Day

I've got a big pile of laundry that I need to wash when I got home, and that may have resulted in the phrase "laundry list" going through my mind today. As in "I've got a laundry list of things to do in Salt Lake" or "a laundry list of ways to reduce workplace stress", etc.

Anyway, where did this term come from? Have you ever made a list associated with laundry? If you did, what would it consist of? "#1: Wash Laundry"? or perhaps with more detail? "#1: Wash Laundry. #2: Dry Laundry. #3 Fold Laundry.

Grocery lists I have seen. Laundry lists, not so much.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #15: Gender Equity

So a man can be a 'womanizer', but for some reason when I used the word 'manizer' no one knew what I meant.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #14: When Latin goes astray

A few years ago in a course on Medicine for Scientists and Engineers we spend a while looking at the parts of Medical vocabulary and seeing often by understanding the Latin roots of a word you could figure out what it meant. Occasionally its not that easy. For example the word "orthopedic" has the roots ortho- and -ped- in it. "Ortho" means straight, and "ped" can mean either foot or child (not sure how that works). So orthopedics should have something to do with straightening feet or straightening children, and originally it must have been coined in that context. Now it refers to "A branch of medicine that focuses on injuries and diseases of the musculoskeletal system (the body's muscles, skeleton, and related tissues), including the spine, joints, ligaments, tendons, and nerves." (link) Essentially, there is some straightening and/or fixing of bones and muscles going on.

So thats a term thats drifted a bit from its original meaning. However, the real drift comes in the way the word 'orthopedic' has been commandeered by companies in search of medical sounding trademarks. I'm thinking specifically of Sealy's 'Posturepedic' mattresses. Sadly, they've taken the wrong part of the word 'orthopedic' for their product. Their mattresses apparently promote posture for kids and/or feet. Maybe they should change the name to Sealy Postorthotic Mattresses.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #13: States of conjuction

I think at this point, pretty much everyone has heard the term "Californication", a (once) clever combination of California and fornication. I think I heard it first from Rick Majerus. Not to say he coined it, just thats where I heard it first. Its since been a Red Hot Chili Peppers song, and a TV show. But for some reason (okay, actually I was listening to "Walking in Memphis" and somehow the word "Memphysema" appeared in my mind), the other day I started thinking if there were other such combinations of locations and other words that might be cool to coin now before someone else beats me to them (ala Japanimation). So I pulled up a list of US States (gotta start somewhere, right?), and here's what I've come up with so far:

Delawareness (I'm not Del-aware enough to know what they are more aware of there)
Illinoying
Oklahomicide (Evokes thoughts of the bombing, no?)
Texecution (I'll be surprised if no one ever has used this one before)
Virgingivitis
West Virgingivitis (Are teeth required for gingivitis?)
Wisconsinants (I think they get more made fun of for their Wisconsivowels)

Ok, so my curiosity got the better of me and I found all of these except for the virgingivitis ones on Google. Next time I'll take a world map and see what else comes to mind.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #12

Here's a little something to tide you over until I can get back on the horse and finish telling you about my trip to Europe:

If you are learning sign language as a second language, for example to be able to better communicate with someone you know, would the class be called ASLSL (American Sign Language as Second Language)? I think that would be a cool name.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #11

So, inside of our bodies we have many organs, right? And if you had to say which one of them is most important to us living, you'd probably pick the heart or the brain, right? Any idea why neither one of those is called the 'liver'?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #10

So the opposite of 'dark' is 'light'. And the opposite of 'darkness' is...'light'? Why not 'lightness'?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #9

If you can be "nonplussed" can you be "nonminussed"? or "plussed"? or "minussed"? How about "nontimessed"?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #8

When something doesn't have an author attributed to it, we say that its 'anonymous', but as of yet, I've never heard of anything being called 'nonymous'.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #7

Oftentimes you hear of there being a "whole slew" of something. Yet you never hear of "half a slew" or "two slews".

Random Thoughts on the English Language #6

You always hear about people with low self-esteem. Is there another kind of esteem? Like peer-esteem? You're suffering from low peer-esteem.

Random Thoughts on the English Language #5

Many times someone trying to make a point will say something like "let me reiterate...". How come you never hear some say "let me iterate"? I mean besides a computer programmer. But seriously, can you re-iterate without first having iterated?

Random Thoughts on the English Language #4: Imply vs. Exply vs. 1-ply

So if something is "implied" that makes it "implicit", right? But if some is explicit, is that because it was "explied". And if some can have "implications", why have I never heard of "explications"? Has there every been a warning about "implicit lyrics" on a CD?

And speaking of plys, shouldn't there be a law requiring 1-ply bathroom tissue to explain clearly, "exply" even, that it is in fact not 2-ply? Things like fishhooks have warning that they are not to be ingested, but we can't get a useful warning about 1-ply toilet paper? C'mon America. I expect better of you.