Month: October 2008

“Dwarves” vs. “Rooves”

Nouns, Plurals, Versus

I thought of these two words after learning recently that the singular form of one of them relates to Fannie Mae.

Problem:
One of these is not a proper word.

Explanation:
Fannie Mae — the U.S. Federal National Mortgage Association — has been in the news a lot recently, given the recent failures in the U.S. mortgage and banking industries.

I learned the other day that a “dwarf” in Fannie Mae lingo is the name given to a pool of mortgage-backed, Fannie Mae-issued securities with a maturity of 15 years.

As I wrote earlier this year, the plural form of the singular noun “roof” is “roofs” and never “rooves”.

In contrast, the plural form of the singular noun “dwarf” is either “dwarfs” — spelled D-W-A-R-F-S — or “dwarves” — spelled D-W-A-R-V-E-S.

This gives us the solution.

Solution:
“Dwarves” is a proper word (a plural form of the singular noun “dwarf”). “Rooves”, in contrast, is not a proper word.

“He hit the ball hardly.” vs. “He hardly hit the ball.”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Versus

I thought of the adjective “soft” and its adverbial form “softly” and was not sure whether the adverbial form of the adjective “hard” was “hardly”.

Problem:
The most popular meanings of the adverb “hardly” are not the opposite of the adverb “softly”.

Explanation:
If you ask most Americans what the adverbial form of the adjective “soft” is, they very likely will respond that it is the adverb “softly”.

However, if you ask most Americans what the adverbial form of the adjective “hard” is, they probably will not respond that it is the adverb “hardly”.

From most to least popular, here are four definitions of the adverb “hardly”:

  1. barely — as in “He hardly graduated from high school.”;
  2. scarcely — as in “The news is hardly surprising.”;
  3. with small likelihood — as in “She will hardly attend the wedding.”;
  4. forcefully — as in “He threw the baseball hardly.”

So the fourth definition of the adverb “hardly” does go with the adjective “hard” in the same way that the most common definition of adverb “softly” goes with the adjective “soft” .

It is worth noting that — at least in American English — the first three definitions typically go with putting the adverb “hardly” adjacent to the verb, whereas the fourth definition typically goes with putting the adverb “hardly” adjacent to the object upon which the action is performed forcefully.

This gives us the solution.

Solution:
Use “He hit the ball hardly.” as a substitute for “He hit the ball forcefully.” Use “He hardly hit the ball.” as a substitute for “He barely hit the ball.”

What a year it has been!

General

KirkMahoney.com launched one year ago today, and what a year it has been!

A Wonderful Opportunity

This website has given me a wonderful opportunity to talk about better communication, a personal passion that has made it easy to write 366 blog posts over the past year. (Yes, we had a February 29 in the past twelve months!)

Readers Around the World

Visitor statistics tell me that I get readers from all over the world.

For example, a KirkMahoney.com reader in August referred others on a page in the LiveJournal Russian-to-English translation forum — in Russian! — to my blog post about “Classic” vs. “Classical”.

A huge spike in readership recently came from Brazil, so I have to say “Olá!” to all of the brilliant Brazilians whom I have met on LiveMocha.com.

“Hello!”, too, to my LiveMocha.com friends from South Korea to Dubai. Now that I am “back on my feet” a month after Hurricane Ike hit Houston, I will be back at LiveMocha.com, exchanging more help with fellow language enthusiasts!

Feedback, Please!

I believe that, when compared with a blog-comments approach, a forum provides a better way for readers to discuss issues raised by a website’s topics, so I plan to add a forum here, too, and to review it regularly.

You already might have seen a pop-up window that invites you to an optional survey that appears when you arrive here.

I plan to continue that general survey, but I also will look at creating specific surveys on particular topics.

Together, this will give you four ways to give me feedback:

  1. the contact form;
  2. the pop-up survey;
  3. the forum;
  4. specific surveys.

Serving You Better

I welcome your feedback because I want to do everything that I can to better meet your desires for this website.

Toward that end, I plan to:

  • review all sidebar content and eliminate what isn’t being used;
  • refine within-website advertising to focus better on your interests;
  • write more articles, for in-depth discussions that go beyond my blog posts;
  • promote the relatively hidden gems here at KirkMahoney.com;
  • highlight the most popular blog posts;
  • make it easier for you to share blog posts with others;
  • connect better to fellow bloggers.

For example, if feedback from another blogger triggers a new article or blog post at KirkMahoney.com, then I will acknowledge that blogger with a link to his or her blog.

Thank You!

Even if you have never contacted me, your visits mean a lot to me. So thank you for your explicit or implicit support over these first twelve months. May the next twelve be even more valuable for all of us!