Author: Kirk

“Disconcerning”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Verbs

My wife heard this yesterday.

Problem:
“Disconcerning” is a nonsense word.

Explanation:
Nearly everyone who says “disconcerning” actually is trying to say an adjective whose meaning is causing an emotional disturbance.

“Disconcerting” (notice the ‘t’ before the ‘ing’) — not “disconcerning” — is the adjectival form of the verb “disconcert”.

I believe that the use of “disconcerning” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “disconcerning” than to say “disconcerting” (which requires the speaker to emphasize the ‘t’).

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following words and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • disconcerning — 22,600 matches
  • disconcerting — 2,260,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly vs. incorrectly by a ratio of 100:1, which is very encouraging.

Solution:
“Disconcerting”

“… a cause larger than yourselves.”

Common English Blunders, Pronouns

I heard this in a high-school commencement speech by President Bush over the weekend.

Problem:
The President used the wrong pronoun here.

Explanation:
This was part of a sentence that went along the lines of “I want you to spend your lives devoted to a cause larger than yourselves.”

The pronoun “yourselves” is a plural, second-person pronoun.

It should be used in one of two ways:

  • reflexively: “You can do it yourselves.”
  • for emphasis: “a group petition that you yourselves submitted”

Its use in the President’s speech followed neither of these patterns.

Instead, “a cause larger than yourselves” follows the pattern of “an X larger than Y” — for which “Y” is neither reflexive nor inserted for emphasis.

Solution:
“… a cause larger than you.”

“There are a lot of cats here.”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Number, Plurals

I often hear sentences (mis)constructed in this way.

Problem:
There is a singular/plural mismatch.

Explanation:
The phrase “a lot of cats” is singular, even though “cats” is plural, because “a lot” is singular.

The “are” form of the verb “be” is plural.

So there is a mismatch in number between “are” (plural) and “a lot of cats” (singular).

Solutions:
“There is a lot of cats here.”
or
“There are lots of cats here.”