Month: March 2009

“WERE MOVING OR HAVE MOVED!”

Apostrophes, Contractions, Devolution toward Simpler

My wife spotted this on an envelope.

Problem:
The contraction is missing an apostrophe.

Explanation:
“WERE MOVING OR HAVE MOVED!” was stamped in red beneath a business’s old address in the return-address section of an envelope.

The business obviously had a lot of envelopes that had been printed with its old address in the return-address section, and beneath that section the business had stamped a new message in red to let envelope recipients know one of the following:

  • The business was in the process of moving.
  • The business had already moved.

The new address appeared — also in red — beneath “WERE MOVING OR HAVE MOVED!”, so that envelope recipients would have the new address of the business.

The problem with the red-stamp headline is that it is missing an apostrophe.

When one creates a contraction — in this case from the pronoun “WE” plus the verb “ARE” — an apostrophe must be included to indicate the letter or letters that one has removed to create the contraction.

I believe that the omission of the apostrophe is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to omit an apostrophe than to include one.

Solution:
“WE’RE MOVING OR HAVE MOVED!”

“Photos are always welcome.”

Devolution toward Simpler, Outsider's Perspective, Passive Voice, Verbs

An American wrote this sentence the other day in an email message to my wife.

Having lived several years in England, she told me that it looked odd to her.

She would have written “Photos are always welcomed.” — with a “d” at the end.

In other words, she sees this as a passive-voice sentence (in which the actor is not specified).

The active-voice form of the sentence could be “We always welcome photos.”

Given that speaking or writing in the passive voice requires the use of the past participle of a verb, the passive-voice form of “We always welcome photos.” requires the past participle “welcomed” — with a “d” at the end.

I believe that the American tendency to drop the “d” from the past participle “welcomed” in “Photos are always welcomed.” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to say “welcome” (without the “d”) than to say “welcomed” (with the “d”). And, even if someone says “welcomed” (with the “d”), many American listeners will not hear the “d” and will write “welcome” (without the “d”) instead.

Devolution of “prescription drug”

Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Outsider's Perspective

I was waiting in a pharmacy line the other day when I started thinking about the devolution of the phrase “prescription drug”.

Americans used to go to pharmacies to pick up “prescription drugs”.

But it is rare to hear any of them say that phrase today.

Now we call these drugs simply “prescriptions”.

But a “prescription” is what a doctor writes or makes.

So it must sound odd to many non-Americans to hear an American telling a pharmacist that he or she wants “to pick up my prescription”, when what the person actually wants to do is to pick up the drug, not what the doctor wrote.

The truncation, if you will, of the phrase “prescription drug” into the noun “prescription” is only the first step in the phrase’s devolution.

The second step comes in many American hospitals.

I was telling my brother, who has been an operating-room technician, about this devolution, and he said that many American hospital employees do not even call the drug a “prescription”.

No, they refer to such a drug by the noun “script” — the six letters in the middle of the noun “prescription”.

So there you have it: “prescription drug” devolved to “prescription”, which devolved to “script”.

I wonder what is next — a “scri”?