“Kind” is singular, “kinds” is plural, right? And “this” and “that” are singular and “these” and “those” are plurals. Right? Right! Then make them agree!
Last panel in the middle row. She gets it wrong.
It’s “those kinds,” Luann! Thank you, Mrs. Clemens, for teaching me this. I learned a lot in sixth grade…
“Is comprised of” is one of the worst pretentiousisms out there, and one that bugs me the most. Don’t ever say it!
Here’s the rule:
When you’re talking about a whole thing and its parts, compose goes from the parts to the whole, and comprise goes from the whole to its parts.
Here’s a guy who got it right:
OVER 5,000 YEARS AGO IN what is today Slovakia, a Neolithic community erected a new building. It wasn’t the first “longhouse” in Vráble, an early town comprising about 100 buildings in all.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/slovakia-neolithic-rotating-buildings
I mentioned this topic before. For more examples, use the search box in the upper right.
Here’s a picture:
PS—Just ran into another correct usage:
Another example is Isabel de Olvera, a free woman of African descent, who in 1600 went on an expedition to New Spain (a region comprising present-day New Mexico, Arizona, Florida and other parts of North and South America), in search of trade goods and new places to settle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-slavery/2020/02/07/d4cb0e6a-42e0-11ea-b503-2b077c436617_story.html
I don’t generally post two consecutive comics, but these are on the same topic. You know these words, right?
Okay, supply some definitions:
Tautology (you caught the “no not” and “unintentional accident,” right?)
Oxymoron
Obfuscation
—So I’d better call attention to it. Even though the speaker got everything else wrong.
“All right” is always two words, folks! “Already” can be one word, though.
Headlines are notorious for being misleading. They use oversimplification and distortion, mainly, I think. Many headlines amount to clickbait. I recall a recent series of articles that said Mt. Vesuvius had turned one victim’s brain into glass. What had actually happened was the heat had vitrified a couple patches of brain tissue next to the inside of the person’s skull. A few bits of overcooked tissue is not the same as turning the brain into glass!
This headline is bad for another reason: the punctuation is wrong, and it makes the headline misleading.
New Nanoparticle Eats Away At Heart Attack Causing Plaques
Interesting Engineering, Jan 31, 2020
The first time I read this, I supplied a comma after “attack.” A nanoparticle eats away at heart attacks? It causes plaques?
Okay, I can understand using the singular to refer to many of one type of thing, so I’ll give the writer a pass on that. But compound adjectives should be hyphenated! The headline should say “heart-attack-causing plaques.” The nanoparticles eat away at the plaques—plaques that cause heart attacks no less.
So think about your adjectives. Remember, if people can misinterpret something, they will.
Here’s an artist’s conception of this:
Scott Meyer does a pretty good job of illustrating meaningful content with nonsense. So ignore their conversation (unless you want a few laughs) and pay attention to the headings of the panels.
Maybe you can answer the kid’s question with something better than “That’s just how we do it.”
Adjectives in English almost always appear before the word they modify, but sometimes they appear afterwards. This happens so seldom, we have a word for them: postpositives. A few weeks ago, a site I have recommended several times, A Word A Day, featured several.
ad litem
errant
aforethought
immemorial
laureate
elect
to be
martial
general
public
simple
emeritus
You probably recognize them. Do the nouns they usually go after come to mind? If you need help, go to https://wordsmith.org/awad/archives.html#2020 (hint: several are legal terms.)
Here’s a picture of a poet laureate. See the crown of laurel?
A neologism is a word that you (or someone) made up to fit a circumstance that doesn’t have a word. Here’s a pretty good example.
It’s a bit long, but it has a pretty good ring to it, and I think the definition is pretty good, too.
This kind of word is also called a portmanteau word: Two (or more) words combined to make a new word, in this case blunder and catastrophe.
A rule in English is to put modifiers as close to what they modify as you can. Adjectives generally go directly before the noun they modify, a blue car, for example. (Except for post-positives such as “malice aforethought.”)
Adjectival phrases can go afterwards, but what do you do when you have more than one of those phrases? You put the phrase as close as you can to the thing it modifies. Here’s a guy who didn’t:
Decades ago, psychologist Benjamin Libet monitored subjects’ neural activity while they chose to hit a button, and he discovered a burst of activity preceding the conscious decision to push the button by a split second.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/my-go-to-arguments-for-free-will
What does that split second refer to? It refers to the burst of activity, not pushing the button! He didn’t need so many big words, either. How about this:
… he discovered a burst of activity a split second before the decision to push the button.
Well, I think the sentence is easier to follow now.
This sort of thing is part of good writing. No clear-cut rule, just good judgement.
