Foreign Languages

“behoove”

Foreign Languages, Verbs

I overheard this verb used in a sentence the other day.

The sentence was something like “If you want to go to college, then it behooves you to do all your homework in high school.”

I had been intending to look up this verb, and I finally did.

You see, I was wondering whether “behoove” was somehow related to the noun “hoof”, the plural of which can be “hooves”.

In particular, I was wondering whether “behoove” in some way once meant to put hooves on (oneself) and had its meaning become a more generic to protect (oneself).

Okay, maybe that is a stretch.

And I should have known better, given my knowledge of Spanish-language false cognates for English speakers.

One of my favorite false cognates is the Spanish word “embarazada”, which looks to many Americans like the English word “embarrassed” but actually means pregnant instead.

But I learned when I looked up the verb “behoove” that it originated a millennium or so ago and is related to the noun “behoof”, which means behalf.

Lesson learned (again!): Check your assumption about the meaning of a word when it looks like another word that you know.

Why do people say “Shavez” for Venezuela’s president?

Devolution toward Simpler, Foreign Languages, Mispronunciations

The notorious Hugo Chávez has been president of Venezuela, a Spanish-speaking country, since 1999.

I believe that many Americans ten years later still pronounce the “H” in his first name, even though the letter “h” in Spanish is silent, because of their ignorance about this aspect of the Spanish language.

Aggravating that ignorance, perhaps, is the fact that the name “Hugo” in American speech is often pronounced with a hard “H” — as when meteorologists repeatedly referred in 1989 to Hurricane Hugo.

What puzzles me more is the pronunciation of the C-H in his surname as if it were spelled S-H instead.

Many Americans know that they should pronounce the C-H in the Spanish words “chico” and “chihuahua” just as they pronounce the C-H in “church” and “chapel” and other English words.

But somehow they get thrown by the C-H in Chávez and end up pronouncing the name as if it were Shávez — with an S-H — instead.

Maybe the confusion comes from the S-H pronunciation of the beginnings of the surnames of such French personalities as Marc Chagall and Maurice Chevalier.

Given the strong influence of French on the English language, this could explain the mispronunciation of Chávez as Shávez.

Another explanation is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis: It is simpler to pronounce the “soft” S-H found in words such as “shoot” and “shout” than it is to pronounce the “hard” C-H found in words such as “chore” and “chow”.

What do you think? Let me know!

“Face time matters.”

Devolution toward Simpler, Foreign Languages, Hyphens, Nouns, Verbs

I instant-messaged this to a friend last week.

Problem:
The statement is ambiguous without a hyphen.

Explanation:
What does “Face time matters.” mean to you?

Soon after I instant-messaged this statement, I realized that my friend could interpret what I wrote in two ways.

One interpretation of the statement is that I was commanding or imploring my friend to seriously consider “time matters”.

In other words, one interpretation of “Face time matters.” is that this was an imperative statement.

The other interpretation of “Face time matters.” is that I was telling my friend that “face time” with other people makes a difference.

These two interpretations are possible because the word “face” is both a noun and a verb and because the word “matters” is both a noun and a verb.

The solution comes from using a hyphen to indicate whether one is talking about about “time matters” or about “face time”.

Written schematically, what we have is [NOUN|VERB] NOUN [VERB|NOUN], and any sentence that follows this pattern will be ambiguous without a hyphen between the first and second words or between the second and third words.

Some might argue that using an exclamation mark instead of a period in “Face time matters.” would make it clear to the reader that the statement is an imperative.

Unlike Spanish, which tends to favor the use of exclamation marks for imperative statements, American English seems to have dropped the common use of exclamation marks for imperatives a long time ago.

Using a period instead of an exclamation mark at the end of an imperative statement is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to write a period than it is to write an exclamation mark (one stroke versus two strokes). And it is simpler to type a period than it is to type an exclamation mark (one key versus two keys).

So the absence of the exclamation mark does not assure American readers that the statement is not an imperative.

But I would counter-argue that the presence an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence with this pattern does not ensure that the sentence will be interpreted as imperative. Instead, the exclamation mark could be interpreted as turning a declarative statement into an exclamatory statement.

Solution:

  • Use “Face time-matters.” — with a hyphen between “time” and “matters” — to ensure that the statement is interpreted as an imperative sentence about facing matters of time.
  • Use “Face-time matters.” — with a hyphen between “Face” and “time” — to ensure that the statement is interpreted as a declarative sentence about the importance of spending face-to-face time with others.