Month: July 2008

“… a guy who’s service goes down every day …”

Common English Blunders, Contractions, Pronouns

I saw this on a blog yesterday.

Problem:
A contraction appears where a pronoun is required.

Explanation:
The full sentence was something like, “I work with a guy who’s service goes down every day for an hour and a half.”

The writer used W-H-O-apostrophe-S, which is a contraction of the word “who” plus the word “is”.

What he should have put was the pronoun “whose” — spelled W-H-O-S-E — which is the possessive case of the pronoun “who” — just as “his” is the possessive case of the pronoun “he”.

Solution:
“… a guy whose service goes down every day …”

“Scallion” vs. “Scallop”

Nouns, Versus

At the risk of sounding like the celebrity who did not know whether “Chicken of the Sea”-brand tuna was chicken or fish, today’s post is not a deep exploration into grammar but instead is a simple review of the definitions of two food words that sound somewhat alike and are spelled almost identically.

Problem:
The distinction between “scallion” and “scallop” has been a long-time problem for me, probably because I don’t eat one and rarely eat the other.

Explanation:
A “scallion” — spelled S-C-A-L-L-I-O-N — is a leek, a shallot, or any green onion. The noun “scallion” dates back to the early fourteenth century and is named after the onion of Ascalon — spelled A-S-C-A-L-O-N — which is a seaport of Palestine.

A “scallop” — spelled S-C-A-L-L-O-P — is a bivalve molusk that swims by clapping its shell valves together. The noun “scallop” dates back to the late fourteenth century and is related to the word for a thin slice of meat.

Solution:
Think “onion” when seeing the noun “scallion” with the mnemonic that both words end in I-O-N. Think seafood when seeing the noun “scallop” with the mnemonic that it does NOT rhyme with the word “onion” and therefore is NOT an onion.

“Validate” vs. “Verify”

Verbs, Versus

I sometimes hear these two words used interchangeably.

Problem:
The verbs “validate” and “verify” are not synonyms.

Explanation:
The verb “validate” means to confirm.

The verb “verify” means to prove the truth of.

So one validates a computer program to confirm that it works as designed.

In contrast, one verifies a person’s identity to prove that the person is who he says that he is.

Solution:
Use the verb “validate” when confirming that something behaves as designed. Use the verb “verify” when focusing on the truth.