{"id":2251,"date":"2016-07-05T13:07:43","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T19:07:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2021-01-05T12:25:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T18:25:58","slug":"small-dishes-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/small-dishes-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Dishes (2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Here is the type of sentence that makes grammar sticklers crazy: one of the students forgot to bring their lunch<\/em>. You probably know this old tune: laissez-faire scholars and editors say the sentence is just fine, whereas nitpickers demand a rewrite because one<\/em> is singular and their<\/em> is plural. Things took a turn in January, when the American Dialect Society, siding with the freethinkers, proclaimed the singular they<\/em><\/a> the Word of the Year for 2015, hoping to put to rest a rancorous, energy-draining dispute that has raged for decades.<\/p>\n

We now expect to see a revival of themself<\/em>, as in one of the students helped themself to my lunch<\/em>. Many proponents of the singular they<\/em> reject themself<\/em>, although it has been around for centuries. But when they <\/em>is singular, themself <\/em>rather than themselves <\/em>seems the logical choice. Surely anyone who champions the singular they <\/em>should also embrace themself<\/em>, recognizing that monumental decisions have unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

\u2022 May the best man win<\/em> is an old catchphrase that boxing referees used to say to two fighters about to contend for the championship. It has also been applied to politics\u2014the author Gore Vidal wrote a memorable 1960 Broadway play titled The Best Man<\/em>, a sophisticated study of two political rivals vying for the presidency. The saying seems to violate a basic grammatical principle: A superlative adjective (best<\/em>) should only be used to compare three or more entities. When comparing A to B, we say A is better than<\/em> B; we do not say A is the best<\/em> of the two. Therefore, shouldn\u2019t the referee say, \u201cMay the better<\/em> man win\u201d? And shouldn\u2019t the play be retitled The Better Man<\/em>?<\/p>\n

Context is all. To qualify for a shot at the boxing championship, both combatants have had to take on and beat top contenders in their weight class. So when the referee says \u201cbest man,\u201d he is including and saluting all the valiant fighters who came up short. Similarly, in U.S. politics the race comes down to the nominees from the two major parties, but only after a ferocious, protracted process of elimination. Anyone who witnessed the 2016 presidential brawl, with its never-ending parade of challengers, will vouch for the legitimacy\u2014grammatically speaking\u2014of Vidal\u2019s title.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Amazing<\/em> and awesome<\/em> are the two reigning go-to adjectives for those afflicted with acute vocabulary anemia. Now a third word has joined this select company: surreal<\/em>. It is used to describe everything from a transformative experience to a chocolate cookie. Some random online examples: \u201cIt is, in many ways, a surreal<\/em> conflict.\u201d \u201cRealtor: Irvington housing market is surreal<\/em>.\u201d \u201c\u00a0\u2018It\u2019s a surreal<\/em> moment I\u2019ll never forget,\u2019 Carlson said of putting on the Cardinals uniform.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why keep regurgitating surreal<\/em> when something atypical happens\u2014is that all you\u2019ve got? If you dig deep, you might come up with astounding, memorable<\/em>, outlandish<\/em>, peculiar<\/em>, startling, unearthly <\/em>\u2026 really, the possibilities are endless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2022 Here is the type of sentence that makes grammar sticklers crazy: one of the students forgot to bring their lunch. You probably know this old tune: laissez-faire scholars and editors say the sentence is just fine, whereas nitpickers demand a rewrite because one is singular and their is plural. Things took a turn in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,12,53,8,26,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adjectives-adverbs","category-effective-writing","category-idioms","category-pronouns","category-singular-vs-plural","category-subject-and-verb-agreement"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}