Adjectives

“These extra-ordinary times called for extra-ordinary actions.”

Adjectives, Hyphens, Misspellings

I saw this in a corporate message.

Problem:
The adjective is misspelled.

Explanation:
The correct spelling of the twice-used adjective in the sentence should have no hyphen.

I believe that the insertion of the hyphen reflects the writer’s discomfort with the presence of adjacent vowels that are parts of separate syllables.

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

  • “extraordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 65,500,000 matches
  • “extra-ordinary” — spelled E-X-T-R-A-HYPHEN-O-R-D-I-N-A-R-Y — 1,470,000 matches

This tells me that Web authors have spelled this adjective correctly versus incorrectly by a ratio of 44.6-to-1, which is good but not great, especially given the nearly 1.5 million misspellings.

Solution:
“These extraordinary times called for extraordinary actions.”

Fun with Numbers

Adjectives, Adverbs, Nouns, Number, Verbs

I realized recently that I did not know well how to express different types of numbers in Italian.

I started thinking about examples in English and realized that there are several types of numbers and number-related words.

It became a game to list examples of these different types in English.

The game became more interesting when I determined that there was very little coverage about this topic on the Web.

For example, Wikipedia has an article about the names of numbers in English, but this article does not cover every type of number and number-related word that I could identify.

Because my list kept growing, I decided to wait a bit before trying to create the same list for Italian.

Here is my list for English:

  • One, two, three, … :
    • Name: These are called “cardinal numbers”, or “cardinals” for short.
    • Use: Cardinal numbers are for counting things. Two sets of objects (e.g., automobiles and flowers) have the same “cardinality” if the two sets have the same number of objects.
    • Form: These words can act as nouns or adjectives.
  • First, second, third, … :
    • Name: These are called “ordinal numbers”, or “ordinals” for short.
    • Use: Ordinal numbers are for ordering things (that is, placing things in a certain order).
    • Form: These words can act as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs. The word “second” can also act as a verb.
  • Once, twice, thrice, … :
    • Name: I do not know the name for this type of number-related word.
    • Use: These words are for referring to the number of times, occasions, or instances or for referring to an n-fold quantity or degree.
    • Form: These words act only as adverbs.
  • Single, double, triple, … :
    • Name: I do not know the name for this type of number-related word.
    • Use: These words are for referring to the number of parts, kinds, or degrees or for referring to a group, set, or series.
    • Form: These words can act as nouns, adjectives, or verbs.
  • Twin, triplet, quadruplet, … :
    • Name: As with “one”, “two”, “three”, etc., these words also are defined as “cardinal numbers”.
    • Use: These words can be used to refer to items as a collection. These words can also be used to refer to any item in such a collection.
    • Form: These words act as nouns. The word “twin” can also act as an adjective or a verb.
  • Singular, plural, trial … :
    • Name: These are called “grammatical number” in linguistics.
    • Use: Among their many uses, these words are for expressing count distinctions in grammar.
    • Form: These words can act as adjectives or nouns.

I am sure that I missed some number-related words, but that is part of the fun of this exercise!

“Nintendo is going to sell eleventy billion of them.”

Adjectives, Euphemisms, Outsider's Perspective

I saw this in an Ars Technica article published today about the Nintendo DSi.

I like the creativity of “eleventy billion”.

I searched for “eleventy” (with the quotation marks) on Google, and I got about 304,000 matches.

According to Wikipedia, the word “eleventy” was coined by linguist and author J. R. R. Tolkien and refers to the number 110.

I can imagine that some non-native speakers of English must be puzzled when they see this word, but it also makes sense when one compares it to the rhyming word “seventy”.