Kirk Mahoney . com

I saw this the other day.

Problem:
No hyphen should appear in this phrase.

Explanation:
When an adverb, such as “poorly”, that ends in L-Y together with another word, such as the past participle “written”, occur before and modify a noun, no hyphen should appear between the -ly adverb and the other word that together form a compound word.

This is in contrast to adverbs that do not end in L-Y.

For example, a “well-written piece” — with a hyphen between “well” and “written” — is correct.

I tried to compare “poorly-written piece” — with the hyphen — to “poorly written piece” — without the hyphen — in Google, but I did not determine how to force Google to retain the hyphen in the requested search for the hyphenated phrase, even though I put the quotation marks around the hyphenated phrase.

If you know how to force Google to retain punctuation — such as a hyphen — in a search phrase, then please contact me. Thanks!

Solution:
“poorly written piece”

I thought again about these two forms after hearing someone claim that only one of these was correct.

Problem:
The verb “feel” can take an adjective or an adverb.

Explanation:
The verb “feel” is a loaded verb in that it relates to a state of health or emotion as well as to the sense of touch.

The verb “feel” can be used as a linking verb, which is called a “copula” in linguistics.

A linking verb ties the subject of a sentence with the predicate of the sentence.

As described elsewhere, the verbs “be”, “become”, and “seem” are called true linking verbs because they can be nothing else.

Examples include:

• “I am rich!”
• “You became wealthy.”
• “They seem nice.”

In contrast, each of the following verbs can act as an action verb or as a linking verb:

• “appear”;
• “feel”;
• “grow”
• “look”;
• “prove”;
• “remain”;
• “smell”;
• “sound”;
• “taste”;
• “turn”.

Here are examples of these verbs used as action verbs, each of which can be modified by one or more adverbs:

• “She effortlessly appeared from the bushes.”
• “He barely feels that tack in the carpet.”
• “Mary often grows hibiscus plants.”
• “Look now at that cow crossing the road!”
• “Can you quickly prove this theorem?”
• “I can remain here.”
• “Everyone should always smell the flowers.”
• “Paul Revere urgently sounded the alarm.”
• “Can they barely taste the ginger in that dessert?”
• “Please slowly turn the car to the right at the next light.”

Here are examples of the same verbs used as linking verbs, each of which is followed by an adjective:

• “She appears ill.”
• “He feels odd.”
• “Mary grows angry when she sees her hibiscus flowers destroyed.”
• “Darling, you look marvelous!”
• “Purchase of Manhattan proved inexpensive.”
• “The dishes remain dirty.”
• “You smell delightful.”
• “His argument sounds correct.”
• “This dessert tastes delicious.”
• “His face turns red when you embarrass him.”

Solution:
Use “I feel bad.” to describe the current state of your emotions or health. Use “I feel badly.” to describe your ability to feel with your sensory neurons.

I saw this in a course for customer-service representatives.

Problem:
The list of adverbs contains redundancies.

Explanation:
The expression was part of legal counsel in a company’s course for its customer-service representatives:

“Permission [from the customer] can be obtained verbally, in writing, or electronically.”

Unfortunately, it has become a common English blunder to use the adverb “verbally” when people mean “orally” instead.

The adjective “verbal” refers to both oral communication and written communication.

But many people shy away from “oral” or “orally” when referring to spoken communication and instead use “verbal” or “verbally”, respectively. This is a mistake.

The second problem in the expression is that “in writing” refers to both paper-based communication and electronic communication.

So “in writing” overlaps “electronically” in the problematic expression.

The solution comes from recognizing that “verbally” should be replaced with the clearer adverb “orally” and that “in writing” should be replaced with the clearer “on paper”.

Solution:
“… obtained orally, on paper, or electronically.”
OR
“… obtained by telephone, by mail, or by email.”

I saw this in a course for sales agents.

Problem:
The word “back” is redundant in this expression.

Explanation:
The expression was part of advice in a company’s course for its sales agents:

“Once you have determined which of the 4 Ps applies, mirror back (or paraphrase) to the customer what you think the objection is to be sure you are on the right track.”

The word “mirror” means reflect when used as a verb, and the “re” in “reflect” means back.

So one could argue that a “mirror back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

Solution:
“… mirror to the customer …”

I saw this in a television advertisement two days ago.

Problem:
“Someday” is an adjective, but an adverb is required here.

Explanation:
The verbiage displayed in the FedEx TV ad was along the lines of “Chance that someday you will forget to hit mute”, with no space between “some” and “day”.

“Someday” — without the space — tells you what.

For example, a “someday occurrence” is something that occurs at an indefinite future time.

In other words, “someday” is an adjective; it modifies a noun (such as “occurrence”).

In contrast, “some day” tells you when.

An example of the correct use of “some day” is “It will happen some day.”

The goal of the television advertising copywriter was to tell the viewer when he or she would forget.

Solution:
“Chance that some day you will forget …”

I saw this in a corporate presentation.

Problem:
The single word “anyway” is incorrect in this sentence.

Explanation:
The sentence appeared in a presentation about a company’s customer-care systems.

The single word “anyway” is an adverb that means regardless or in any case.

An example of the proper use of the adverb “anyway” is “Although he hates the car, she is keeping it anyway.”

If we replace the adverb “anyway” in the presentation that I saw with the adverb’s definition, then we get “… did not have regardless to contact current members.”, which is nonsensical and clearly proves that the adverb “anyway” does not belong in the sentence.

The writer of the sentence actually was stating that there was not a method or way to contact current members.

This gives us the solution.

Solution:
“… did not have any way to contact current members.”

I thought of the adjective “soft” and its adverbial form “softly” and was not sure whether the adverbial form of the adjective “hard” was “hardly”.

Problem:
The most popular meanings of the adverb “hardly” are not the opposite of the adverb “softly”.

Explanation:
If you ask most Americans what the adverbial form of the adjective “soft” is, they very likely will respond that it is the adverb “softly”.

However, if you ask most Americans what the adverbial form of the adjective “hard” is, they probably will not respond that it is the adverb “hardly”.

From most to least popular, here are four definitions of the adverb “hardly”:

1. barely — as in “He hardly graduated from high school.”;
2. scarcely — as in “The news is hardly surprising.”;
3. with small likelihood — as in “She will hardly attend the wedding.”;
4. forcefully — as in “He threw the baseball hardly.”

So the fourth definition of the adverb “hardly” does go with the adjective “hard” in the same way that the most common definition of adverb “softly” goes with the adjective “soft” .

It is worth noting that — at least in American English — the first three definitions typically go with putting the adverb “hardly” adjacent to the verb, whereas the fourth definition typically goes with putting the adverb “hardly” adjacent to the object upon which the action is performed forcefully.

This gives us the solution.

Solution:
Use “He hit the ball hardly.” as a substitute for “He hit the ball forcefully.” Use “He hardly hit the ball.” as a substitute for “He barely hit the ball.”

I realized recently that I did not know well how to express different types of numbers in Italian.

I started thinking about examples in English and realized that there are several types of numbers and number-related words.

It became a game to list examples of these different types in English.

The game became more interesting when I determined that there was very little coverage about this topic on the Web.

For example, Wikipedia has an article about the names of numbers in English, but this article does not cover every type of number and number-related word that I could identify.

Because my list kept growing, I decided to wait a bit before trying to create the same list for Italian.

Here is my list for English:

• One, two, three, … :
  • Name: These are called “cardinal numbers”, or “cardinals” for short.
  • Use: Cardinal numbers are for counting things. Two sets of objects (e.g., automobiles and flowers) have the same “cardinality” if the two sets have the same number of objects.
  • Form: These words can act as nouns or adjectives.
• First, second, third, … :
  • Name: These are called “ordinal numbers”, or “ordinals” for short.
  • Use: Ordinal numbers are for ordering things (that is, placing things in a certain order).
  • Form: These words can act as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. The word “second” can also act as a verb.
• Once, twice, thrice, … :
  • Name: I do not know the name for this type of number-related word.
  • Use: These words are for referring to the number of times, occasions, or instances or for referring to an n-fold quantity or degree.
  • Form: These words act only as adverbs.
• Single, double, triple, … :
  • Name: I do not know the name for this type of number-related word.
  • Use: These words are for referring to the number of parts, kinds, or degrees or for referring to a group, set, or series.
  • Form: These words can act as nouns, adjectives, or verbs.
• Twin, triplet, quadruplet, … :
  • Name: As with “one”, “two”, “three”, etc., these words also are defined as “cardinal numbers”.
  • Use: These words can be used to refer to items as a collection. These words can also be used to refer to any item in such a collection.
  • Form: These words act as nouns. The word “twin” can also act as an adjective or a verb.
• Singular, plural, trial … :
  • Name: These are called “grammatical number” in linguistics.
  • Use: Among their many uses, these words are for expressing count distinctions in grammar.
  • Form: These words can act as adjectives or nouns.

I am sure that I missed some number-related words, but that is part of the fun of this exercise!

I heard this recently during a radio broadcast.

Problem:
The word “then” is not a preposition.

Explanation:
The radio broadcaster said a sentence such as “The telephone calls to the radio station during this hour were no more frequent then usual.”

The problem with this sentence is that the word “then” — spelled T-H-E-N — is not a preposition.

Instead, this word is any of the following:

• adverb, as in “Prices were higher then.”, where “then” means “at that time” in this sentence;
• adjective, as in “The then president of the club was a nice guy.”, where “then” means “existing” in this sentence;
• noun, as in “We have not seen a show at the Alley Theatre since then.”, where “then” means “that time” in this sentence.

What the phrase “no more frequent then usual” requires is a preposition, given that the speaker is comparing “more frequent” with “usual”.

The required preposition is “than” — spelled T-H-A-N, not T-H-E-N.

I believe that the common English blunder of using “then” where the preposition “than” is required is due in part to mispronunciation of the preposition “than”, but simple ignorance about these two words certainly could play a part, too.

Solution:
“… no more frequent than usual.”

I heard this a few days ago in a conference call.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “relate it back” is redundant.

Explanation:
A man promised on the conference call to send some information to a woman who also was on the conference call.

In turn, the woman on the call began a sentence with “I’ll relate it back to …” so as to indicate that she would take the information — the “it” in the sentence — and connect it to something else.

The “re” in “relate” means back.

Therefore, one could argue that “relating back” would never establish the connection.

I believe that the growing tendency, at least in American English, to add words such as “back” after many verbs reflects a growing ignorance about the meanings of the roots of English words.

Solution:
“I’ll relate it to …”