Adjectives

“Polka Dot” vs. “Polka-dot” vs. “Polkadot”

Adjectives, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Versus

I wondered which spelling was correct after seeing each in writing.

Problem:
One of the three spellings is incorrect.

Explanation:
The compound noun “polka dot” — with a space in the middle — is an Americanism that dates back to the 1880s.

The word “polka-dot” — with a hyphen in the middle — is the adjectival form of this noun.

The word “polkadot” — with neither a hyphen nor a space in the middle — is not recognized in most dictionaries, although a search for this form (with the quotation marks) in Google returned about 2,090,000 matches.

In contrast, a search in Google for “polka dot” — with a space in the middle — returned about 9,300,000 matches.

I believe that the elimination of the space in more than two million Web instances is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to omit the space than to include it.

Solution:
Use “polka dot” — with a space — as a noun. Use “polka-dot” — with a hyphen — as an adjective. Never use the no-space, no-hyphen form, which is a misspelling of the other two forms.

“I don’t think they’ll be adverse to …”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders

I heard this yesterday in a conference call.

Problem:
The speaker used the wrong adjective.

Explanation:
The speaker was trying to say that he believed that “they” would not be against something.

The primary definition of the adjective “adverse” is antagonistic or unfavorable in effect or purpose, as in “adverse comments”.

It is a common English blunder to confuse the adjective “adverse” with the adjective “averse”, which lacks the letter “d” and means having a strong feeling of antipathy or opposition, as in “averse to kissing in public”.

In other words, “averse” relates to feelings or emotions and is what the speaker should have used.

Solution:
“I don’t think they’ll be averse to …”

“Download it for free.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Idioms, Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs

My wife saw this the other day on Oprah.com.

Problem:
“For free” is an informal idiom that bothers many readers.

Explanation:
For fun, I checked Google for the idiom “for free” (with the quotation marks) and got about 348,000,000 matches. Wow!

Many readers are bothered by the “for free” idiom because the word “for” is a preposition, prepositions should be followed by nouns or pronouns, and the word “free” is neither a noun nor a pronoun.

The word “free” is either a verb or an adjective. Some use the word “free” as an adverb — as in “running free” — but the correct way to make “free” into an adverb is to add the letters L-Y to the end — as in “running freely”.

One of the definitions of the word “free” as an adjective is without charge, cost, or payment — as in “free nachos with every beer purchased this evening”.

This gives us our solution, given that any preposition — such as “for” — should not be followed by an adjective — such as “free”.

Solution:
“Download it without charge.”