Month: July 2008

“They credited me back the whole amount.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation

I heard this yesterday during a news interview on a local television station.

Problem:
The adverb “back” makes the statement self-negating.

Explanation:
To “credit” an amount to someone is to refund what that person had paid.

The “re” in “refund” means back. Therefore, one could argue that a “refund back” action would never reach the intended recipient.

In other words, the adverb “back” should NOT be used to modify the verb “credit”.

For fun, I searched Google for “credit back” (with the quotation marks). Unfortunately, I could not use the results to get a reliable estimate of the number of erroneous instances because there are many instances on the Web of correct use.

For example, “Colorado lawmakers want to bring tax credit back.” is an example of correct use of “back” after “credit” because “back” in this sentence is modifying the verb “bring” instead of the noun “credit”.

Solutions:
“They credited me the whole amount.”
OR
“They credited the whole amount to me.”

“Physical Year”

Mispronunciations

My wife used to hear this from one of her finance professors.

Problem:
This is a nonsensical mispronunciation of a meaningful phrase.

Explanation:
Everyone is accustomed to thinking of a calendar year when hearing the word “year”.

However, not all companies base their accounting on a calendar year.

For example, a company can set up its fiscal records to encompass the period of April 1 of one year to March 31 of the next year.

This leads to the solution, which is what my wife’s professor consistently mispronounced.

Solution:
“Fiscal Year”

“She totally condescended to him.”

Verbs

I heard this last night on the TMZ television program.

Problem:
The “totally” adverb reveals that the verb was not used correctly.

Explanation:
The reporter on the TMZ TV program used “totally” to indicate that the woman about whom the reporter was speaking was rude to the man identified by “him” in the statement.

In other words, the reporter essentially was saying that the subject of the sentence — “She” — was rude to the object of the sentence — “him”.

One may condescend “to” someone, but the verb “condescend” when used in this way means to put aside one’s superiority and assume equality with another person normally considered inferior.

In contrast, the reporter clearly indicated that the subject of the sentence did NOT put aside her feeling of superiority, so the subject did NOT condescend to the object of the sentence.

Solution:
“She was totally condescending with him.”