Author: Kirk

“We have to error on the side of caution.”

Common English Blunders, Mispronunciations, Nouns, Verbs

I heard U.S. Congressman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) say this yesterday on Fox News Channel.

Problem:
The Congressman used the wrong word for the verb in this popular expression.

Explanation:
The word “error” is a noun and not a verb.

What the Congressman should have used is the word “err”, which looks like “error” but is a verb that means to be mistaken or incorrect.

Perhaps the Congressman simply mispronounced “err” (the verb) as “error” (the noun).

Wondering whether this could be more than a pronunciation problem, I searched Google — with the quotation marks included in the search box — for “error on the side of caution” and “err on the side of caution” and got about 20,200 and 441,000 matches, respectively. That tells me that Web authors have written the expression correctly by a ratio of 21.8:1, which is very good.

Still, over 20,000 matches for “error on the side of caution” indicates a substantial number of confused writers!

Solution:
“We have to err on the side of caution.”

“Valentimes Day” or “Valentime’s Day”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Mispronunciations, Possessives

I often hear this, although I certainly can’t hear the possessive apostrophe.

Problem:
These are mispronunciations of a popular February holiday, and one is missing the required possessive apostrophe.

Explanation:
The person whose day is celebrated on February 14 is St. Valentine.

So the proper name of the holiday is “St. Valentine’s Day” or more simply “Valentine’s Day” — not “Valentimes Day” or “Valentime’s Day” or even “Valentines Day”.

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

  • “Valentimes Day” — 18,800 matches
  • “Valentime’s Day” — 7,570 matches
  • “Valentines Day” — 1,560,000 matches
  • “Valentine’s Day” — 10,800,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have written the phrase correctly by a ratio of 6.8:1, which is not good!

I believe that the use of “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” instead of “Valentine’s” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to pronounce the “m” sound in “Valentimes” or “Valentime’s” than to pronounce the “n” sound in “Valentines” or “Valentine’s”.

I believe that the omission of the possessive apostrophe in the otherwise-correct “Valentines Day” is also consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the apostrophe than to include it, and this holiday is only one of many examples in which writers omit required possessive apostrophes.

Solution:
“Valentine’s Day”

“Heighth”

Mispronunciations, Nouns

I heard a landscape designer say this yesterday on an HGTV television program.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation of a noun for one of the three basic dimensions.

Explanation:
The endings of the nouns for the other two basic dimensions seem to interfere with how some speakers pronounce “height”.

The nouns “length” and “width” end with the “th” sound that begins the word “thin”, so it seems that some speakers want to pronounce “height” with this “th” sound, too.

Wondering whether this speech problem also occurred in writing on the Web, I searched Google for “heighth” and “height” and got about 112,000 and 42,500,000 matches, respectively. That tells me that Web authors have written the word correctly by a ratio of 379.5:1, which is excellent. And, because the most popular “heighth” matches on Google talk about why this is a misspelling of “height”, the ratio of correct use to incorrect use probably is much higher.

Solution:
“Height”