Kirk Mahoney . com

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, “Honda has the highest residual value of any other car company.”

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.”

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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 “She was found safely.” 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 “She was found safely.”, even though the search for the girl had no hint of danger.

This is an example of hypercorrection.

To say “She was found safely.” 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 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 “You have done great.” acts as an adverb because it modifies the verb “done”.

Writing “You have done great.” is just as wrong as writing “You have done good.” 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 “has a temperature” and “have a temperature” (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 “has a temperature” means nothing except for the negative connotation beneath its euphemistic form.

Someone usually says or writes “He has a temperature.” 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 “He has a temperature.” or “You have a temperature.”?

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.

This is a popular statement in American English now.

For fun, I searched Google for “It is a quality product.” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 30,100 exact matches.

But this statement means nothing except for the positive implication that speakers and writers want to give it.

Someone usually says “It is a quality product.” to tell the listener that “it” is a high-quality product.

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

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing “It is a quality product.”?

This statement would be meaningless to such a person.

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

In contrast to the inherently meaningless statement “It is a quality product.”, here are some meaningful statements:

• “It is a high-quality product.”
• “It is a low-quality product.”
• “It is a good-quality product.”
• “It is a bad-quality product.”

So respond with a “Huh?” the next time that someone says to you a statement such as “It is a quality product.”, and see what happens.

This is a popular statement in American English now.

For fun, I searched Google for “You have an attitude.” (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about 46,200 matches.

But this statement means nothing except for the negative connotation beneath its euphemistic form.

Someone usually says “You have an attitude.” to tell the listener that he or she has a bad or negative attitude.

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

Can you imagine someone, such as a non-native-English speaker, first reading or hearing “You have an attitude.”?

The statement would be meaningless to such a person.

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

Otherwise, you are speaking in euphemisms.

I saw this on a hand-written “bandit” sign this morning.

Problem:
The misspelling is quite obvious, I hope!

Explanation:
A “bandit” sign is what the City of Houston calls any sign placed illegally in a public right-of-way, such as at a street corner.

The misspelling of the word “commercial” — as C-O-M-M-E-R-I-C-A-L — on a sign that read “Power Washing Commerical and Res.” was very obvious.

The sign was one of many hand-written signs that I had seen around Houston in the past week for the same power-washing company, which apparently offers its services to both residential and commercial customers.

What gave me pause, though, was that this was not a typographic error.

Granted, people can easily misspell words when hand-writing them, too.

But this particular error (Would you call it a “hand-o” instead of a “typo”?) caught my eye because it immediately looked wrong.

This makes me wonder whether the sign writer was simply guessing at the proper order of the letters, knowing that there were both an “i” and a “c” in the middle of the adjective “Commercial”.

Such will be the fate of anyone who is not taught phonetics, in my opinion.

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:

• “commercial” — 672,000,000 matches
• “commerical” — 5,450,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have used the correct spelling versus the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 123-to-1, which is excellent, although my enthusiasm is dampened by the nearly 5.5 million misspellings.

Solution:
“Power Washing: Commercial and Res.”

My wife heard this two days ago on NPR.

Problem:
The speaker used an adjective where an adverb was required.

Explanation:
National Public Radio on March 12 aired a report in which my wife heard someone say, “Women are still not paid equal to men.”

As is true for “naked” verbs, the passive-voice construction “are still not paid” may be modified by an adverb but may never be modified by an adjective.

The word “equal” is an adjective, not an adverb.

Many adjectives — including “equal” — can be converted into adverbs by adding the “ly” suffix.

I believe that the omission of the “ly” suffix from what should be the adverbial forms of adjectives is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to omit the “ly” suffix, which adds two more letters and an extra syllable, than to include it.

Solution:
“Women are still not paid equally to men.”

I heard someone say “inversely” yesterday to introduce a contrary opinion to what he first stated.

Problem:
The adverbs “inversely” and “conversely” are not synonyms, just as the adjectives “inverse” and “converse” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
When I heard someone yesterday state one opinion and then introduce an opposing opinion with the adverb “inversely”, I thought that it sounded odd.

I was expecting him to say “conversely” instead of “inversely”, so I decided to learn more about the adjectives “inverse” and “converse”.

This adjective “inverse” dates back to around 1610 from a Latin verb that means to turn inside out or upside down.

So an example of valid use of the adjective “inverse” is “The inverse form of the fraction 3/4 is the fraction 4/3.”

The adjective “converse” dates back to the second half of the 1300s from a Latin verb that means to turn around.

So an example of a valid use of the adjective “converse” is “The converse perspective to ‘The glass is half-full.’ is ‘The glass is half-empty.’”

It may help to look at the words “inverse” and “converse” when they are used as nouns in mathematics.

Given the statement “if p, then q”:

• “if not p, then not q” is the inverse;
• “if q, then p” is the converse.

Notice how the inverse “turns inside out” the original statement and how the converse “turns around” the original statement.

Solution:
Use the adjective “inverse” to label something that is upside down or inside out. Use the adjective “converse” to label something that is contrary or turned around.

Why do people say “so different” but do not say “so same”?

A popular definition of the word “different” as an adjective is dissimilar, differing, or not alike in quality or character.

A popular definition of the word “same” as an adjective is being identical though perhaps having different aspects or names.

I often hear sentences such as “Jane is so different than her twin Mary that you will never find them in the same shop.”

But I never hear sentences such as “Jane is so same as her twin Mary that you will always find them in the same shop on Saturday morning.”

This puzzles me, and I have yet to find a good explanation of why it is common to hear “so different” but it is rare — if not impossible — to hear “so same”.