Verbs

“Las Vegas was beat out by Liverpool.”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Passive Voice, Verbs

I heard this on a Travel Channel show about “extreme Christmas” celebrations.

Problems:
1. The verb “beat” is incorrect here.
2. The adverb “out” is unnecessary.

Explanation:
The statement is written in passive voice, albeit incorrectly. In particular, “beaten” — not “beat” — is the passive form of the verb “to beat”. (The statement in active voice would be “Liverpool beat Las Vegas.”)

I believe that the use of “beat” instead of “beaten” when the latter is appropriate represents

  • ignorance about passive voice, and
  • a laziness that favors shorter, fewer-syllable words over longer words.

The one-syllable “beat” is simpler than the two-syllable “beaten” to say, which is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis about American English. Throw in a common lack of understanding how sentences in the active voice are converted to sentences in the passive voice, and it’s no wonder that many English speakers choose “beat” (incorrectly) instead of “beaten” in a statement posed in the passive voice.

The other problem with the original statement is that the adverb “out” is unnecessary. Even in active voice — “Liverpool beat out Las Vegas.” — the adverb “out” is unnecessary. I have noticed a trend in American English (I can’t say whether the trend exists in other English-speaking countries.) to add one or more unnecessary adverbs after verbs, and this problematic statement contains yet another example of this trend.

Solution:
“Las Vegas was beaten by Liverpool.”

“echo back”

Adverbs, Common English Blunders, Self-negation, Verbs

I heard this in a conference call.

Problem:
The adverb “back” in “echo back” is redundant.

Explanation:
The verb ” echo ” means to return a signal or message, so the meaning of “echo back” would be to return back [sic] a signal or message.

The “re” in “return” means back. Therefore, one could argue that something that “echoes back” would never reach the original sender.

Solution:
“echo”

“We can setup a meeting.”

Common English Blunders, Nouns, Verbs

I saw this in an email message.

Problem:
Other than the auxiliary verb “can”, there is no verb in this (non-)sentence.

Explanation:
The word “setup” is a noun and means the way in which something is planned or arranged.

The writer of the email message should have used the verb phrase “set up” instead of the noun “setup”.

The verb phrase “set up” in the context of what was intended by the writer means arrange or establish.

In other words, “setup” and “set up” are not synonyms!

Solution:
“We can set up a meeting.”