Common English Blunders

“Please call me David.” vs. “Please call me, David.”

Commas, Common English Blunders, Versus

Open the text-messaging app on your smartphone, touch the microphone icon, and try dictating the imperative “Please call me, David.” as a text message. You should expect to get “Please call me David” instead. Speech-to-text technology in these apps often does not treat pauses as anything special.

You might type a period to terminate the sentence, but you might miss the need to insert the comma where it is needed.

Now, imagine three things:

  1. You are sending the text message to a man by the name of David.
  2. He knows you as John Smith.
  3. He has heard rumors that you might go by a different name.

Now consider two different messages that this man could get, depending on whether you inserted a comma after “me” in your imperative message.

“Please call me David.”

This is asking the recipient to refer to you by the name “David” (instead of by “John” or “Mr. Smith” in our imaginary example).

“Please call me, David.”

This is asking the recipient to telephone you.

Conclusion

If you want someone to refer to you by the name “David”, then send a “Please call me David.” text message.

If you want someone to telephone you and that person’s name is David, then send a “Please call me, David.” text message.

“How are you gorgeous?” vs. “How are you, gorgeous?”

Commas, Common English Blunders, Versus

Proper use of commas is becoming a lost art. Many children are not learning how to use commas. And, smartphones are not helping.

For example, dictate “How are you, gorgeous?” into the speech-to-text feature of the text-messaging app of your smartphone, and you likely will get “How are you gorgeous” instead.

Current speech-to-text technology does not detect the inflection of a question. Still, many users of this technology will resolve this by typing a question mark before sending the message.

But, many users will not insert the comma when it is needed.

“How are you gorgeous?”

This is asking the recipient to justify how he or she is gorgeous.

“How are you, gorgeous?”

This is asking the recipient how he or she is feeling or doing AND is referring to him or her as gorgeous.

Conclusion

If you want to offend a friend or relative who knows that a comma means a pause, then send a “How are you gorgeous?” text message to him or her.

If you want to compliment someone about his or her looks while asking about his or her well-being, then send a “How are you, gorgeous?” text message.

“Myriad saw it.” vs. “Myriad people saw it.” vs. “Myriad of people saw it.” vs. “A myriad of people saw it.”

Adjectives, Common English Blunders, Nouns, Prepositions

According to Merriam-Webster.com and Dictionary.com, the word “myriad” can act as a noun or as an adjective.

“Myriad saw it.”

The first use of the source-word for “myriad” was in 1555 Greek.

The original Greek noun for “myriad” — “myrioi” — meant “ten thousand”.

Based on this, “Myriad saw it.” means “Ten thousand saw it.”

The noun “myriad” got generalized to “a great number”.[1]

Based on this, “Myriad saw it.” means “A great number saw it.”

“Myriad people saw it.”

The first known use of “myriad” as an adjective was in 1735, according to Merriam-Webster.com.

The primary definition of “myriad” as an adjective is “innumerable”.

Based on this, “Myriad people saw it.” means “Innumerable people saw it.”

“Myriad of people saw it.”

As noted, the definition of “myriad” as a noun got generalized to “a great number”.

Dictionary.com says that this is the primary definition for the noun; Merriam-Webster.com says that this is the secondary definition for the noun.

No matter which way you rank this definition of “myriad” as a noun, this definition tells us that “Myriad of people saw it.” means “A great number of people saw it.”

“A myriad of people saw it.”

This “a myriad of people or things” usage is problematic.

The word “myriad” in this usage is acting as a noun, but look at the two definitions for “myriad” as a noun:

  • ten thousand
  • a great number

Plugging in each definition, we get:

  • “A ten thousand of people saw it.”
  • “A a great number of people saw it.”

Each expression looks wrong.

Conclusion:
These three usages of “myriad” are clearly correct:

  • “Myriad saw it.”
  • “Myriad people saw it.”
  • “Myriad of people saw it.”

This usage of “myriad” may be incorrect:

  • “A myriad of people saw it.”

[1] This is equivalent to what happened to the verb “decimate”. It originally meant “to kill every tenth man”; its meaning got generalized into “to destroy in great number” instead.