Our Changing Language

August 31, 2010

Interview with Patricia O’Conner, author of the book Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English

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Mike Carruthers:
Its always bothered me when people pronounce the word "nuclear" as "nuculear" - however…

Patricia O'Conner:
The newest Merriam Webster's dictionary now includes that as a standard pronunciation - it's not the leading one, it's not number one but it's in there.
 

Grammar expert Patricia O'Conner, author of the book Woe Is I, says language is always changing. For example, the word "data" has always been plural but now…

Data has crossed the Rubicon into being an acceptable singular. In fact many dictionaries now recognize it as a singular. "The data is in" instead of "The data are in." And I think media is on the way - it's not there yet but so many people now say, "The media says this" or "The media is slanted."

In fact a lot of words have done this very same thing.

You know that "agenda" was once a plural; it meant items on a list. Soon it became the word for the list itself. The same is true of "opera"; it used to be a plural for works.

Patricia says words and meanings change all the time.

Take the verb; "to chill" - you know it started out as hip-hop language on the street. It very rapidly caught on and it's in dictionaries now as an alternate meaning of the words "to relax or to take it easy."