Plurals

“Lagniappe”

Apostrophes, Foreign Languages, Nouns, Outsider's Perspective, Plurals, Possessives

This post is not about a problem, explanation, and solution.

Instead, it’s about an interesting word whose use is designated as Chiefly Southern Louisiana and Southeast Texas.

I first saw this word when I moved to Houston, Texas. It was on the sign of a popular restaurant and was written with an apostrophe and ‘s’ as “Lagniappe’s”.

I don’t know whether this apostrophe-‘s’ form on the sign was meant to be a possessive or was supposed to be a plural noun but was a blunder by a sign maker who is part of the crowd of sign makers who insert apostrophes where they don’t belong.

Leaving aside the possessive-apostrophe/plural issue and focusing on the singular noun, a “lagniappe” is something that is added to a purchase as a gift by a merchant, to say “Thank you!” for doing business with the merchant.

A commercial, mass-marketing version of a “lagniappe” could be a cosmetics bag given with a purchase of Lancôme perfume. However, the noun “lagniappe” is traditionally reserved for what an individual merchant adds, such as a small bag of fertilizer when the customer buys several flower bulbs.

The noun originally was “yapa” — Quechuan for that which is added.

Spanish speakers in Mexico turned this into “la ñapa”.

I don’t know where the French speakers from Louisiana first heard “la ñapa” and converted it into the French spelling — “lagniappe” — for the same pronunciation.

But I imagine that the greater Houston area could have been that location, given its mingling of people from Mexico and people from New Orleans and other French-speaking parts of southern Louisiana.

So there you have it: an American English word tied to Houston at the intersection of Spanish and French speakers.

“Monster … Gold Angled Spade Connectors (2 Pair)”

Commas, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Number, Plurals

I saw this at Amazon.com.

Problem:
“Pair” is a singular noun being used incorrectly as a plural noun, and two commas are missing.

Explanation:
As I wrote last November, two of anything together is a single pair. Multiples of this means multiple pairs.

I continue to believe that use of “pair” instead of “pairs” helps to prove my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It is simpler to say “pair” than to say “pairs”.

Beyond the “pair” problem, the product heading is missing a couple of commas.

“Gold” and “Angled” and “Spade” modify the noun “Connectors”; when one has multiple modifiers of a noun, commas should appear between the modifiers (in this case to get “Gold, Angled, Spade Connectors”).

I believe that omission of commas in a multiple-modifiers situation also is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to omit the commas than to include them, and advertising copywriters lean toward simpler text, even if it is grammatically incorrect and is more difficult to read.

Solution:
“Monster … Gold, Angled, Spade Connectors (2 Pairs)”

“Communication mediums:”

Plurals

I saw this in a PowerPoint presentation as the title of a list of ways for teams of employees to communicate with one another during a weekend software-launch project.

Problem:
The plural form of medium for most of its definitions, including the one used in this title, is not “mediums”.

Explanation:
One of the definitions of “medium” is psychic (someone who claims to be able to communicate with the dead or predict the future).

The definition of “medium” that the title writer had in mind is means of communication. The title writer probably put the word “Communication” at the start of title to emphasize that she was using this particular definition.

The plural form of “medium” when it means psychic is “mediums”; the plural form of “medium” for other definitions, such as means of communication, is “media” (not “mediums”).

Solution:
“Communication media:”