Author: Kirk

“The tool it’s self seems …”

Misspellings, Possessives, Pronouns

My wife saw this on Amazon.com.

Problem:
The reflexive pronoun is triply misspelled.

Explanation:
My wife was researching a carpentry tool on Amazon.com.

She was reading comments from those who had bought the tool when she came across “The tool it’s self seems …”.

The obvious solution is to replace I-T-APOSTROPHE-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F with the reflexive pronoun “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

What fascinates me is how the commenter managed to make three spelling mistakes in the process of misspelling this pronoun.

  1. Mistake #1 was to assume that reflexive pronouns are always formed by combining a possessive pronoun with the word “self”.
  2. Mistake #2 was to assume that a space should appear between such a possessive pronoun and the word “self”.
  3. Mistake #3 was to misspell the possessive pronoun “its” as I-T-APOSTROPHE-S.

Let us discuss these three mistakes in reverse order.

If we undo mistake #3, then we get “its self” — spelled I-T-S-SPACE-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #2, then we get “itsself” — spelled I-T-S-S-E-L-F.

If we undo mistake #1, then we get “itself” — spelled I-T-S-E-L-F.

Solution:
“The tool itself seems …”

“Phonics” vs. “Phonetics”

Nouns, Versus

I wondered the other day about these two words.

Problem:
One of these nouns formerly was a synonym for the other noun but now is not.

Explanation:
The noun “phonics”, which dates back to around the year 1680, refers to a way to teach spelling and reading based on the phonetic interpretation of ordinary spelling.

Put briefly, the primary meaning of the noun “phonetics”, which dates back to around the year 1840, is the study of speech sounds.

An obsolete meaning of the noun “phonics” is the noun “phonetics”.

Given that “phonics” is an older noun than “phonetics”, it seems that it was temporarily fashionable to use “phonics” as a synonym for “phonetics”, a much newer noun.

Note that one does not “teach phonics” unless one is teaching others how to use phonics for teaching spelling and reading.

For example, children in elementary school would not be “taught phonics”.

Instead, their teacher would “use phonics” to teach those children to read and spell, and that teacher would have been “taught phonics” by his or her college professor.

Solution:
Think “a way to teach” when thinking of the noun “phonics”; think “sounds” when thinking of the noun “phonetics”.

“If your husband was trapped in a car, would …”

Common English Blunders, Verbs

I saw this during a television commercial.

Problem:
The “If” clause should have been written in the past subjunctive mood.

Explanation:
The TV commercial was on the Discovery Health channel.

“Could You Survive?” is the title of the show that was being advertised.

The premise of the show is to ask viewers whether they would be prepared to survive in the event of a disaster or other emergency.

The complete sentence that I saw was along the lines of “If your husband was trapped in a car, would you be able to rescue him?”

The problem with this sentence is that “was” is the wrong form of the verb “be” to use in the if-clause.

The if-clause is a subordinate clause — also called a “protasis” — in this conditional sentence.

A conditional sentence discusses one of the following:

  • a factual implication, as in “If you cool water to 0 degrees Celsius, it freezes.”;
  • a hypothetical situation, as in “If you were king, would you make me a knight?”

If the hypothetical situation is described with a contrary-to-fact present conditional, then the past subjunctive must be used.

In other words, as noted at Wikipedia, the past subjunctive is used after the conjunction if to express hypotheses.

It is a common English blunder to use simply the past tense, and that is the blunder made by the TV ad writer.

Solution:
“If your husband were trapped in a car, would …”