By The Grammar Diva, Arlene Miller
20 Interesting Facts About the History of Our Language
Here are 20 fascinating facts about the history of the English language. If you have heard me speak, you have probably already heard some of these (just a warning):
1. According to Global Language Monitor, the estimated number of words in the English language is 1,025,109. There is some controversy over that exact figure, but it’s safe to say there are over a million.
2. There is actually something called the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar. It was founded by Martha Brockenbrough, who designated March 4 as National Grammar Day in 2008.
3. English is a hodgepodge of many languages: Latin, Greek, French, German, Dutch, and others.
4. Chaucer was the first writer who chose to write in English, although it is an English that might sound pretty foreign to us.
5. Shakespeare is probably the most famous person to write in English. He added many words and idioms to the language including these: it’s Greek to me, salad days, vanished into thin air, refuse to budge an inch, green-eyed jealousy, tongue-tied, fast and loose, tower of strength, in a pickle, knitted your brows, slept not a wink, laughed yourself into stitches, the long and short of if, foul play, without rhyme or reason, dead as a door nail, and laughing stock.
6. Shakespeare had one of the largest vocabularies of any English writer at about 30,000 words. Estimates of an educated person’s vocabulary today is half that, or 15,000.
7. The book generally regarded as the first English dictionary was published in 1604 with only 120 pages; it was called A Table Alphabetical, written by Robert Cawdray, a schoolmaster and clergyman containing “hard words for ladies or other unskillful persons.”
8. The first “real” dictionary was published in 1755 and was written by Samuel Johnson. A Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson’s Dictionary, is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.
9. Webster published his first dictionary in 1806, having written some grammar and spelling books before that.
Gadsby, a book written by Ernest Vincent Wright, has over 50,000 words in it (about 250 pages), none of which contain the letter e! And you can get it on Amazon for about 7 bucks.
10. China has more English speakers than the United States.
11. A new word is added to the English language every two hours, and about 4000 new words are added to the dictionary every year.
12. Since 2001, English has been the official language of all international air travel, regardless of the nationality of the pilots.
13. In its earliest known written record, the English alphabet had 29 letters.
14. Samuel Johnson left the letter X out of his dictionary, claiming that X “begins no word in the English language.”
15. One-fourth of the world’s population speaks at least some English.
16. The United States doesn’t have an official language.
17. Engish is the only major language that doesn’t have any organization guiding it. French has the Académie Française, Spanish has Real Academia Española, and German has Rat für Deutsche Rechtschreibung. These organizations are responsible for controlling the evolution of their respective language in terms of usage, vocabulary, and grammar.
18. English is the official language of 67 countries and the third most commonly spoken language in the world (the first and second are Mandarin Chinese and Spanish). The closest languages to English are Dutch and West Flemish.
19. Over 80% of the information stored on computers worldwide is in English.
More Mispronounced Words: Part 2 – F Through J
Several weeks ago I posted aboutten words from A through E that are commonly mispronounced. This post continues with some words from F through J that are often mispronounced:
foliage — The word has three syllables. Say FO-LI-UJ, not FOL-UJ. And certainly not FOIL-UJ.
forte — There are two words spelled this way. One comes from Italian and the other from French. The Italian word is a musical term meaning “loud” and is pronounced with two syllables, FOR-TAY. The French word, an adjective meaning “strength” or “strong point,” is pronounced with one syllable: FORT.
federal— This word should really be pronounced with all its three syllables: FEDERAL, not FED-RAL.
frustrate— Yes, it is frustrating to hear people pronounce this word as if the R were silent. It is FRUSTRATE, not FUS-TRATE.
gala — This word is pronounced GAY-LUH, even if it might sound fancier to pronounce it GAH-LUH.
GIF (graphics interchange format) — Those short social media videos are pronounced with a hard G, not JIF.
gyro– This one is not pronounced like gyroscope, This Greek treat is pronounced YEE-ROH and was added to the dictionary this year.
Halloween – This word derives from “Hallowed Evening,” or “holy evening.” It is not pronounced as HOLLO-WEEN, but rather HALLO-WEEN.
height – Not to be confused with width, which ends in a TH, height ends with only a T. It is HEIGHT, NOT HEIGHTH.
heinous— Meaning very bad, the word is pronounced HAY-NUS, not HEE-NUS or HEEN-I-US.
hummus— This yummy spread made out of chickpeas is pronounced HOOM-US. There is not HUMMING in it.
jewelry – The word has three syllables and is pronounced the way it is spelled: JEW-EL-RY. It is not pronounced JEW-EL-ER-Y, JEWL-RY, or JEW-LER-Y.
My next book will be a “little” (of course!) punctuation book, which I am hoping will be out in June or so . . .
To warm up, here is a “little” punctuation quiz. Actually, I planned a punctuation quiz for a couple of weeks ago because I thought it was National Punctuation Day. I was a “little” confused; it was National Grammar Day. National Punctuation Day is in September.
Answers to this quiz will be at the end . . . after you scroll down a bit. Explanations will be provided next week.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I will be late for the meeting, please save me a seat.
- This must be (James’/ James’s) book.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I am here, therefore, I am not there.
- Punctuate this sentence: Did he ask, Are we there yet
- Is this sentence correct? He said, “I heard the song ‘Forget You.”’
- Is this sentence correct? Why or why not? “The Hobbit” is my favorite book.
- This book is from the (1940’s/ 1940s).
- Punctuate this sentence: Please bring two shirts, blue, black, and brown pants, and black and blue socks.
- Punctuate this sentence: She said I can’t go because I have to stay in to read Romeo and Juliet.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? My sister and her friends are coming to visit.
- Punctuate this sentence: Bob was usually a quiet man however he screamed upon entering the room.
- Punctuate this letter salutation: To whom it may concern
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? It is a cold rainy day.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? This book which is written by William Golding is my favorite.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? The book that is on top of the coffee table is next on my reading list.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I decided not to cook dinner and went to the movies instead.
- Punctuate this sentence: I was born on August 10 1980 in Lincoln Nebraska.
- Punctuate this sentence: The only four ingredients in this recipe are sugar vanilla eggs and flour.
- Punctuate this sentence: I did not do very well on the test however so I failed the course.
- Punctuate this sentence: Yes Elaine the party is at my house.
- Punctuate this sentence: My address is 1487 Markham Place Boston Massachusetts 01987 please send my mail there not to my old address.
- Is this sentence correctly punctuated? I want to see that movie, I heard it’s great, but I haven’t had the time.
- Is this dialog correctly punctuated?
She screamed, “I have had enough of this . . .”
“Calm down,” he interrupted.
Answers:
- I will be late for the meeting, please save me a seat. Not correct. Needs a semicolon or period instead of the comma; or you add a conjunction to the comma.
- This must be James’s book.
- I am here, therefore, I am not there. Incorrect. Comma after hereneeds to be a semicolon. (Or you could put a period after here, and initial cap therefore.)
- Did he ask, “Are we there yet?”
- He said, “I heard the song ‘Forget You.”’ Correct as is.
- “The Hobbit” is my favorite book. No. The Hobbitshould be italicized rather than in quotation marks.
- This book is from the 1940s.
- Please bring two shirts; blue, black, and brown pants; and black and blue socks. Or you could rewrite it somehow.
- She said, “I can’t go because I have to stay home to read Romeo and Juliet.”
- My sister and her friends are coming to visit. Correct as is.
- Bob was usually a quiet man; however, he screamed upon entering the room. You could also put a period after manand capitalize however.
- To whom it may concern:
- It is a cold, rainy day. No. You need a comma between coldand rainy.
- This book, which is written by William Golding, is my favorite. No. The clause beginning with whichneeds to be set off with commas.
- The book that is on top of the coffee table is next on my reading list. Correct as is.
- I decided not to cook dinner and went to the movies instead. Correct as is.
- I was born on August 10, 1980, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
- The only four ingredients in this recipe are sugar, vanilla, eggs, and flour. The comma after eggs(the Oxford comma) is optional, but I recommend using it.
- I did not do very well on the test, however, so I failed the course.
- Yes, Elaine, the party is at my house.
- My address is 1487 Markham Place, Boston, Massachusetts 01987; please send my mail there, not to my old address. You could also put a period after the zip code and initial cap please.
- I want to see that movie, I heard it’s great, but I haven’t had the time. Not correct. You can use dashes or parentheses, but not commas to set off I heard it’s great.
- Not correct. The ellipsis(…) is used for trailing off. The em dash(long dash) is used for interruption.
She screamed, “I have had enough of this—”
“Calm down,” he interrupted.
Verbs are probably the most exciting part of speech because they have various qualities that other parts of speech wouldn’t dare to dream about having. Verbs have tense, verbs have mood, verbs can be either transitive or intransitive — and verbs have voice.
There are two verb voices: active and passive. And it all depends on how you use the verb in a sentence.
If the subject of the verb is actually performing the action of the verb, we call it active voice:
- Jane drove the car to school.
- He threw the ball.
- The thief ran off with a bag of jewelry.
If the subject of the verb is not performing the action of the verb, we call it passive voice:
- Jane was driven to school. Jane is still the subject, but she didn’t do the driving, so we have passive voice. Sometimes the doer is mentioned in the sentence: Jane was driven to school by her brother. Brother still isn’t the subject; it is the object of the preposition by. Jane’s brother drove her to school is in the active voice.
- The ball was thrown. Ball is the subject, but the ball didn’t do anything, so this is also an example of passive voice.
- The jewelry store was robbed. The store didn’t do anything, so this is another example of passive voice.
The general rule is to write using active voice most of the time. It is — well — more active, and that is a good thing.
However, there are times when you either want or need to write in the passive voice:
- You don’t know who did it.
- You don’t care who did it.
- You neither know nor care who did it.
The school was built in 1970. Passive voice because you probably don’t really care who built it. You may not know either.
She was awarded the title of Miss Apple Blossom. The important thing is that she was given the title. We probably don’t care who gave it to her.
That song was first released in 1995. In this case we might really care who first sang that hit song, but we can’t remember. Of course, nowadays, you can find anything out by just “googling it.”
I remember once when I was a newspaper reporter (way back before the internet) that I once did not get the name of the perpetrator of some story. The only solution — if I really could not have found out with my tight deadline — was to write the lead in the passive voice.
We tend to speak and write in the passive voice when we are not emphasizing who did it — when the important thing is that it was done. Here are sentences that fare well in the passive, whether or not we know who did it.
- I was given an award for my math skills in 6th grade. (It is important that I got the award, not who gave it to me.)
- The cake was decorated incorrectly when I picked it up from the bakery. (We don’t really care who decorated it.)
- He was elected President in 1990. (It is obvious who elected the President, so we don’t need to say it.
On the other hand, it is possible that the doer in those sentences matters a lot — so much that you want to use active voice:
- President Clinton gave me an award for my math skills in 6th grade. (emphasizes who gave the award as the important thing)
- My cousin, who is the chief baker at the grocery store, put the wrong names on the wedding cake! (emphasizes who made the mistake)
- The new Liberty Party elected him President in 1990.(emphasizes that it was a new party that was instrumental in electing the President — we aren’t talking about the United States, of course!)
We do tend to instinctively use the voices in the best way. However, sometimes a writer will overuse the possessive, which usually makes the writing wordy:
TOO MUCH PASSIVE – She was given a huge birthday cake by her mother, who had spent all day baking and decorating. Then when the cake was gone she moved over to open the mountain of gifts that were given to her by her big family. A fun time was had by all!
REWRITE – Her mother gave her a huge birthday cake after spending all day baking and decorating. After everyone was done eating cake, she opened the mountain of gifts her huge family had given her. A fun time was had by all OR Everyone had a fun time.
According to Global Language Monitor, the estimated number of words in the English language is over a million — 1,025,109, to be exact, but there is some controversy over that exact figure. However, it’s safe to say it is over a million. Language is something to celebrate. Some people think that grammar is just a boring set of rules for language, but it is more than that: it is a system for understanding language. And understanding this system and structure helps us to communicate better and even learn new languages more easily.
So….to celebrate National Grammar Day 2018, here is a fun quiz, the answers to which are grammar terms — so it’s not a quiz about the rules. The answer to each of the following 20 questions is something you might find in a glossary of grammar terms (so, hint, hint, don’t look at the glossary that is at the back of some of my books). You will find the answers if you scroll way, way down.
Here we go….
- A pronoun takes the place of a noun or another pronoun somewhere in the sentence. What is that noun or other pronoun called in relationship to the pronoun?
- A, an, and the are called what?
- There are two of them when referring to a quality of verbs: active and What is this quality that verbs possess?
- A group of words that contains a subject and a verb (and might or might not be a complete sentence) is called what?
- There is a special term for nouns like these: bunch, group, team, herd, class. What is that term?
- There are five of them in Latin and even more in German and other languages. English has three. They are nominative, objective, possessive. What are they?
- A verb that is being used as an adjective (and usually ends in -ing or -ed) is called a what?
- What are these called? in a box, out the door, above the tree, under the table
- I like pizza. Pizza is a noun. What function does it have in that sentence?
- Which tense is the verb in this sentence an example of? I have read that book twice.
- I am going to the movies is a simple sentence. What is this one called? I am going to the movies, and I am meeting my friends afterwards.
- If you want to connect two sentences that are closely related, and you don’t want to use a period or a conjunction, what punctuation might you use?
- What is this called? I think you will like that movie, I certainly did.
- The little line that is used for the minus sign and to indicate a range of numbers in an index is called what?
- A verb with an -ing ending is sometimes used as a noun. What is that called?
