Kirk Mahoney . com

I hear and see a lot of pluralization of company names.

Here are some examples.

Many people pluralize J.D. Power and Associates as “J.D. Powers” — as in (quote) “They won the J.D. Powers award three times.” (unquote).

Many people pluralize Barnes & Noble as “Barnes & Nobles” — as in (quote) “Did you see that book at Barnes & Nobles?” (unquote).

Many people pluralize Kroger as “Krogers” — as in (quote) “I am going to Krogers. Do you need anything?” (unquote).

And what sounds sometimes like a possessive-apostrophe-”s” is often written simply with an “s”, so I know that not everyone is trying to make the name into a possessive.

I saw this in the subject line of a spam email message a week ago.

But this statement means nothing except for the positive implication that the spammer wants to give it.

Someone usually says (quote) “It is a prestige product.” (unquote) to tell the listener that “it” is a high-prestige product.

But the noun “prestige” by itself has no positive or negative value.

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing (quote) “A prestige watch is part of your image.” (unquote)?

This statement would be meaningless to such a person.

The noun “prestige” must be hyphenated with an adjective to form a compound adjective that can indicate the value of the noun — in this case, “watch” — that the compound adjective modifies.

In contrast to the inherently meaningless statement (quote) “A prestige watch is part of your image.” (unquote), here are some meaningful statements:

• “A high-prestige watch should be part of your image.”
• “A low-prestige watch should not be part of your image.”
• “A prestigious watch should be part of your image.”

I believe that the use of the noun “prestige” in place of the adjective “prestigious” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to speak or write the two-syllable, eight-letter noun than it is to speak or write the three-syllable, eleven-letter adjective.

So respond with a “Huh?” the next time that someone says to you (quote) “It is a prestige product.” (unquote), and see what happens.

This is a bastardization of a phrase.

Problem:
The second “in” is incorrect in this phrase.

Explanation:
The conjunction “and” is often mispronounced by Americans as if it were the preposition “in”.

The correct phrase is “in this day and age” — with the conjunction “and” between the word “day” and the word “age” — because one can write (quote) “in this day” (unquote) or (quote) “in this age” (unquote).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “in this day and age” — with the conjunction “and” — 3,030,000 matches
• “in this day in age” — with the preposition “in” — 113,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct “in this day and age” versus the incorrect “in this day in age” by a ratio of 26.8-to-1, which is very good.

Solution:
“in this day and age”

I heard this in a TV commercial ten days ago.

Problem:
The word “other” does not belong in the statement.

Explanation:
The complete statement in the television commercial was (quote) “Honda has the highest residual value of any other car company.” (unquote).

The commercial was produced by Honda to promote Honda automobiles.

But the statement talks about Honda as if it were one of the “other” car companies.

In other words, the statement implies that there is a car company that could have higher residual value than Honda and all the “other” car companies and that Honda has the highest residual value among those “other” car companies.

If Honda’s desire was to say that its automobiles have the highest residual value among all car companies, then the solution comes from removing the adjective “other” from the statement.

Solution:
“Honda has the highest … of any car company.”

I heard this four days ago on a CNN evening-news broadcast.

Problem:
There is no problem with this statement in and of itself. But the reporter was referring to the state of the person found, so there is a problem.

Explanation:
The CNN reporter said (quote) “She was found safely.” (unquote) as part of a longer report about a robber and father who took his daughter to his robbery of a convenience store.

Security-camera videos implied that the daughter apparently was unaware that her father was robbing the store, but police were very concerned for her safety, the reporter said.

So the police searched for the girl and eventually found her in a safe condition.

But the reporter said (quote) “She was found safely.” (unquote), even though the search for the girl had no hint of danger.

This is an example of hypercorrection.

To say (quote) “She was found safely.” (unquote) is to say that the finding of the girl was done in a safe manner — because “safely” is an adverb that modifies the verb “found”.

The solution comes from understanding the role of a predicate adjective.

Solution:
“She was found safe.”

I heard this in a police-car windshield-camera video.

Problem:
The word “constitute” is inappropriate in this statement.

Explanation:
The video has been played on several Houston television news broadcasts.

The video, captured by the windshield camera in the police car of Dallas Police Officer Robert Powell, shows some of what happened when Officer Powell stopped NFL football player Ryan Moats for running a red light.

Mr. Moats explained to Officer Powell that he and his family were rushing to the hospital where his mother-in-law lay dying — and eventually died before Moats was released by Powell.

Powell responded with (quote) “That does not constitute running a red light.” (unquote).

It seems that Officer Powell was over his head not only with exercising common sense but also with the definitions of basic verbs.

Solution:
“That does not justify running a red light.”

I read this in a company’s employee-education course about a week ago.

Problem:
The word “great” is not an adverb.

Explanation:
The word “great” in (quote) “You have done great.” (unquote) acts as an adverb because it modifies the verb “done”.

Writing (quote) “You have done great.” (unquote) is just as wrong as writing (quote) “You have done good.” (unquote) because neither the adjective “good” nor the adjective “great” should be used to modify a verb.

The solution comes from replacing the adjective “great” with an adverb that carries a similar sentiment.

Solution:
“You have done well.”

This is a popular statement in American English now.

For fun, I searched Google separately for (quote) “has a temperature” (unquote) and (quote) “have a temperature” (unquote) (each with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 589,000 matches and about 427,000 matches, respectively.

But to say that someone (quote) “has a temperature” (unquote) means nothing except for the negative connotation beneath its euphemistic form.

Someone usually says or writes (quote) “He has a temperature.” (unquote) to tell the listener or reader, respectively, that the subject of the sentence has a higher-than-normal temperature.

But the noun “temperature” by itself has no positive or negative value.

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing (quote) “He has a temperature.”(unquote) or (quote) “You have a temperature.” (unquote)?

The statement would be meaningless to such a person.

The noun “temperature” must be modified by an adjective to give it value.

Otherwise, you are speaking in euphemisms.

I saw this in a technical document that I was editing

Problem:
This is a misspelling that comes from a mispronunciation.

Explanation:
I came across this misspelling the other day while helping a company to edit a technical document about an audio signal.

The original author of the document used the misspelling “studder” to refer to an audio stream that was frequently interrupted.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, Americans have a penchant for pronouncing the letter “t” as if it were the letter “d”.

So it is not surprising that the word “stutter” — which has two “t”s in the middle — gets pronounced by many Americans as “studder” — as if it had two “d”s in the middle.

I am sure that this mispronunciation is what led to the misspelling in the document that I was editing.

This mispronunciation is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to say “studder” than it is to say “stutter”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “stutter” — 1,830,000 matches
• “studder” — 78,100 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 23.4-to-1, which is good but not great.

Solution:
“stutter”

I often hear this pronunciation.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation and a misspelling.

Explanation:
Americans have a penchant for pronouncing the letter “t” as if it were the letter “d”.

So it is not surprising that the word “kindergarten” — which ends with T-E-N and literally means “children’s garden” in German — gets pronounced by many Americans as “kindergarden” — which ends with D-E-N.

This mispronunciation is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to say “den” than it is to say “ten”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

• “kindergarten” — 37,300,000 matches
• “kindergarden” — 1,180,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 31.6-to-1, which is very good but not great, especially given more than a million matches for the misspelling.

Solution:
“kindergarten”