Nouns

“One of the most deadly phenomenon …”

Common English Blunders, Hypercorrection, Nouns, Plurals

I heard this from a USGS spokeswoman on television.

Problem:
The noun “phenomenon” is not plural.

Explanation:
The phrase “one of” should be followed by a plural noun.

The noun “phenomenon”, which means an observable occurrence, is the singular of the plural noun “phenomena”.

I believe that the use of “phenomenon” in place of “phenomena” represents hypercorrection. In particular, because so many people hear that “phenomena” is not always the correct noun, they use “phenomenon” even when “phenomena” is the correct noun.

Solution:
“One of the most deadly phenomena …”

“This should be another cumulative criteria.”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Plurals

I saw this in a document for a software project’s business requirements.

Problem:
The noun “criteria” is not singular.

Explanation:
The adjective “another” means an additional, which requires a singular noun.

The noun “criteria” is the plural of the singular noun “criterion”, which means a standard for evaluation.

Many will use “criteria” when what they mean is “criterion”. I believe that this is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. The noun “criteria” is simpler to say than is the noun “criterion”. In particular, it’s simpler to speak a word that ends with “a” than it is to speak a word that ends with “on” (which has to be held longer than “a”).

Solution:
“This should be another cumulative criterion.”

“WordPress Red Womens T-Shirt”

Adjectives, Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Possessives

I saw this at shop.wordpress.net/usa/t-shirts.

Problems:
1. An apostrophe is missing.
2. The modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order.

Explanations:
1. The first problem is that the plural noun “Women” requires a possessive apostrophe followed by an “s” to indicate the possession of the “T-Shirt” by the women.

I believe that the absence of a required possessive apostrophe can be attributable to:

  • A typographical error;
  • Ignorance about possessive apostrophes.

Given how often I see “Mens” and “Womens” (instead of “Men’s” and “Women’s”) in department stores, I doubt that “A typographical error” applies to this situation.

That leaves us with “Ignorance about possessive apostrophes”. I believe that this ignorance is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to write possessive words without apostrophes than to write them with apostrophes.

I blogged about possessive apostrophes yesterday (“NEW YEARS EVE WITH CARSON DALY”), too. Maybe something is in the water for the holidays.

2. The second problem is that the modifiers of “T-Shirt” are in a confusing order. I doubt that the writer meant to refer to “Red Women”, but one could easily infer this from the current order of the modifiers. This is analogous to “Green Lady’s Handbag” (when what is meant is “Lady’s Green Handbag”).

The solution to this confusion is to start from scratch. We have a T-shirt. Most important, it comes from WordPress, so it’s a WordPress T-shirt (with the noun “WordPress” acting as an adjective to modify the noun “T-shirt”). It comes in red, so it’s a red WordPress T-shirt (with the adjective “red” modifying the noun phrase “WordPress T-shirt”). It’s for women, so we put the possessive “women’s” in front of red WordPress T-shirt to get the solution.

Solution:
“Women’s Red WordPress T-Shirt”