Devolution toward Simpler

“You need to do a little bit more reading on it.”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Prepositions, Verbs

I heard a gardening expert say this today.

Problems:
1. The speaker misused the pronoun “on”.
2. The speaker misused the verb “need”.

Explanation:
I was listening this morning to a talk-radio program about gardening.

A caller asked the host about a topic.

The host responded with “You need to do a little bit more reading on it.”

The phrase “read on” is correct in sentences such as these:

  • “I read on the website that he is divorced.”
  • “I read on the subway the entire booklet.”
  • “I read on the electrical panel that it was rated for only 120 volts.”

But “read on” is incorrect in a sentence such as “I read on the topic.”

Such a sentence requires the preposition “about”, not the preposition “on”.

The pronoun “it” in the statement made by the host to the caller referred to a topic.

So “reading on it” is incorrect, and the host should have used “reading about it” instead.

I believe that the use of “on” in place of “about” is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis.

It is simpler to say or write the one-syllable, two-letter “on” than it is to say or write the two-syllable, five-letter “about”.

The second problem was that the talk-show host used the verb “need” where another verb was required.

There are very few actions that humans need to take because there are very few things that humans need.

The verb “should” is the correction for “need to do” in the statement.

The avoidance of “should” in favor of “need to” in American English has become a common blunder.

My impression is that this blunder originated in the popular psychology of the 1960s, when the focus was on needs and when many started to say the catch-phrase “Don’t should on me!”

Solution:
“You should do a little bit more reading about it.”

Prepositions Gone Missing

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Prepositions

Yesterday I wrote about days that I like to label as “Prepositions Gone Wild”.

Today I want to discuss the complement to this: what I like to label as “Prepositions Gone Missing”.

Again, I have to wonder when, where, why, and how American instruction about English prepositions went astray.

There seems to be a growing trend for many Americans to omit necessary prepositions.

And this trend seems to be consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. Omitting prepositions is simpler than including them.

The “Prepositions Gone Missing” label applies to any of these expressions:

  • “arrived home”
  • “graduated high school”
  • “graduated college”
  • “graduated university”

I wrote a blog post more than a year ago about “graduated college”. Similar discussions would apply for “graduated high school” and “graduated university”.

The travel-related use of the verb “arrive” requires a preposition between the verb and the destination.

Just as one does not “arrive the Moon” or “arrive England”, one does not “arrive home”.

Instead, one “arrives on the Moon”, “arrives in England”, or “arrives at home”.

Have you noticed any other common expressions with necessary prepositions that have been omitted? Please contact me, and I will write about them here!

“Hypothesis” vs. “Theory”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Versus

I often hear people use one word when they mean the other.

Problem:
These two nouns are not synonyms.

Explanation:
I often hear people say something like “I have a theory about …”, such as “about why Janey stays out late” or “about why Jim does not like his boss” or “about why women generally have more close friends than do men”.

The primary definition of the noun “theory” is a substantiated group of statements that explain a set of phenomena.

In contrast, the primary meaning of the noun “hypothesis” is a proposed, tentative explanation for an observation or phenomenon.

As noted at Wikipedia, “A scientific method consists of the collection of data through observation and experimentation, and the formulation and testing of hypotheses.”

So one starts with observations, then formulates hypotheses to explain those observations, and then tests those hypotheses. Once those hypotheses have been validated, one can create a theory.

I believe that the common English blunder of using the word “theory” where the word “hypothesis” is required is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. (Note that I call this a hypothesis, not a theory!)

It is simpler to say or write the two-syllable, six-letter “theory” than it is to say or write the four-syllable, ten-letter “hypothesis”.

Solution:
Use “hypothesis” for a proposition to explain an observation. Use “theory” to refer to an analysis of a collection of facts and their relation to each other.