Month: July 2008

“There’s some slate gray weaved in to the sofa.”

Contractions, Verbs

I heard this last evening during the HGTV television program “The Stagers”.

Problem:
A past-tense verb appears where the verb’s past participle is required.

Explanation:
The person who said this was referring to the colors in the fabric of a sofa.

The verb “is” — hidden within the contraction “There’s” — must be combined with a past participle of the verb “weave”.

Here are some examples of the verb “is” combined with past participles of verbs:

  • There is a piece taken from the pie.
  • There is a pink color painted on the wall.
  • The quarterback is hereby cut from the team.

The first example uses “taken” — the past participle of “taken”.

The second example uses “painted” — the past participle of “paint”.

The third example uses “cut” — the past participle of “cut”.

The past participle of “weave” is “woven”, not “weaved”, which is the past tense of “weave”.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following combinations (with the quotation marks) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “is woven” — 1,230,000 matches
  • “is weaved” — 47,400 matches

This tells me that Web authors favor “is woven” over “is weaved” by a 25.9:1, which is good but not great.

Solution:
“There’s some slate gray woven in to the sofa.”

“Avenge” vs. “Revenge”

Verbs, Versus

I heard both of these words yesterday, and it made me wonder about the difference between “avenge” and “revenge”.

Problem:
As transitive verbs, these two words are not quite synonyms.

Explanation:
Some argue that the word “revenge” is never a verb.

However, if you accept that the word “revenge” can be a verb, then you should know the difference between “revenge” as a transitive verb and “avenge” as a transitive verb.

Lexicographers see motivation as the key distinction between the transitive verbs “avenge” and “revenge”.

The transitive verb “avenge” essentially means to take vengeance on behalf of, and its motivation relates to administration of appropriate punishment for an immoral or criminal act.

“The district attorney avenged the vagabond’s murder.” is an example of widely accepted use of the transitive verb “avenge”.

The transitive verb “revenge” essentially means to exact punishment for a wrong on behalf of, especially in a vindictive or resentful spirit, its motivation relates to true hatred, and it is stronger than the verb “avenge” at stressing retaliation.

“He revenged his brother’s murder.” is an example of widely accepted use of the transitive verb “revenge”.

Solution:
Use the transitive verb “avenge” with justice as the motivation, and use the transitive verb “revenge” with retaliatory hatred as the motivation.

Randy Pausch: A Better Communicator

General

Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch died yesterday.

What is remarkable about this?

He was very public about his battle with cancer.

More important, he left a wonderful legacy, as my wife put it to me while I was writing this.

Pausch became well-known for the YouTube video titled “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” — and what turned out to be his last lecture.

As I write this, YouTube shows that this video has been viewed 4,031,952 times.

Why? I believe that the reason is simple: Randy Pausch was a better communicator.

Watch the video; you will see what I mean.

For more inspiration, read his book The Last Lecture.

And, if you believe that you have time to neither watch the video nor read the book, then just remember this one quotation from Pausch: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”