English Grammar and Language Usage: Part 35

punctuation

 

Punctuation marks help to specify meaning, indicate emphasis, and signal the representation of speech, quotations and intonation. The conventions of punctuation are therefore not simply a useful addition to writing but an essential part of meaning. In English, the following thirteen items are the most commonly used features of punctuation:

 

 

apostrophe

 

The apostrophe which is represented by ’ is used to indicate 1 possession:

 

the teacher’s plan (singular) the teachers’ plan (plural) the children’s response someone’s shoe

a home of one’s own

 

The apostrophe is not used for possessive pronouns:

 

The house is his not hers. Whose is it? It is theirs.

 

2  contractions:

 

there is>there’s cannot>can’t

of the clock>o’clock

 

3  omissions:

 

’86 (1986)

’alf (half)

walkin’ (walking)

 

 

brackets

 

There are several types of brackets, parentheses (), square [], angle <>, brace {}. Only the first two are regularly employed in writing.

Parentheses () are used:

1 to isolate any information that is supplementary to the meaning of a sentence, not essential to the syntax, and logically more remote than an enclosure marked by commas or dashes:

 

The result (a 20% swing in favour of the ruling party) was conclusive.

 

A whole sentence may be marked off:

 

The result was conclusive. (There was a 20% swing in favour of the ruling party.)

 

2  to supply further information about a person or detail in a text:

 

John Fletcher (1887–1945) is still remembered in his village.

Dialects (p. 7ff) have already been discussed.

 

3  to indicate options:

 

Any volunteer(s) will be welcome.

 

4  for numbers within a sentence:

 

It was (1) well researched) (2) accurately documented and (3) clearly presented.

 

Material within parentheses should be treated according to its status and position. A full sentence within parentheses should start with a capital letter and close with a full stop, exclamation or question mark when it can stand on its own:

 

Mary Ann Evans chose ‘George Eliot’ as her pseudonym.

(She may never have had her works published if she had used her own name.)

 

A full sentence should start with a lower case letter and have no full stop (though it may have a question or exclamation mark) when it is incorporated into another sentence:

 

Michael Finnegan (he was the thin one) was very versatile.

There is usually no punctuation before a parenthesis, although it may occur after the closing parenthesis:

 

It was a decisive vote (as you’ve seen), but feelings are still running high.

 

Square brackets [ ] are used:

1 to indicate that a letter, word or phrase is not part of the original text but has been inserted by the editor or someone quoting the original:

 

And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens [who] Was walking on the strand.

 

2 with the word sic (‘thus’), to signal that the writer quoting the passage has confirmed an unconventional or unexpected spelling, word or structure:

 

Eritrea should be annecksed [sic].

They presented her with a volume of poesy [sic] written by her former students.

 

Angle brackets <> are occasionally used to indicate graphemes, that is, the minimum contrastive unit in a system of writing. Thus <n> would represent all the various ways in which the letter n might be written.

Brace brackets {} are also called ‘curly brackets’ and they tend to be used to enclose alternative elements:

 

 

colon

 

The colon which is represented by: is used:

1 to introduce a word, phrase, sentence, list that explains, illustrates or rephrases the previous statement:

 

The list was comprehensive: a compendium of bibliographical information, recommended texts and required reading.

 

2 to introduce a long quotation that is separated from the text, indented and without quotation marks.

3 to separate a title from a subtitle, as in:

 

Beowulf: A New Translation

for ratios:

 

Common nouns outnumber proper nouns in the proportion 3:2 (i.e. by three to two).

 

and for bibliographical references:

 

English World-Wide, V:1, 1984.

 

4 The colon follows the salutation in formal letters in the USA:

 

Dear Sir:

 

 

comma

 

The comma is represented by, and is one of the most widely used marks of punctuation. Conventions for comma use vary slightly as between language written to be read silently, where the commas indicate logical subdivisions, and language written to be read aloud, where the commas may indicate breath groups. Generally, however, there is little ambiguity. The chief uses of the comma are:

1 to mark off clauses:

 

Since detailed descriptions are rare, this one is particularly welcome.

 

or phrases from clauses:

 

As a detailed description, it is particularly welcome.

 

2    to isolate interpolations (in contrast, in addition), sentence modifiers (however, likewise, thus) and phrases introducing examples (for example):

 

They received, in addition, a bonus every three months.

The stranger, however, was never seen again. Take Freddie, for example.

3  with words or phrases in a series but not before and: It was warm, sunny and cheerful.

They were in love, in harmony and in Paris in Spring!

 

4  between adjectives modifying the same noun:

 

He was a tall, elegant man.

Again, if an and occurs between the adjectives, a comma does not precede and: He was a tall and elegant man.

5  to introduce a direct quotation:

 

She said, ‘I can’t see anything.’

 

6  to isolate names, terms of address in speech and tag questions:

 

Hey, James, what’s going on?

I want to go home, you great big oaf! We went every year, didn’t we?

 

7  to indicate thousands, millions and billions:

 

There are, perhaps, 100,000 suns.

His personal fortune was estimated at $10,000,000.

They travelled 2,000,000,000 miles.

 

8  to follow the salutation in all letters in the UK and in informal letters in the USA:

 

Dear Sir, (UK)

Dear Joan, (UK and USA)

 

 

dash

 

The dash which is represented by—is used:

1  as an alternative to parentheses or commas:

 

It was—on balance—a successful enterprise.

 

Where the parenthesis occurs in the middle of a sentence, there must always be a closing as well as an opening dash.

2  as an alternative to a colon to indicate apposition or explanation:

 

The    list    was comprehensive—a        compendium of bibliographical information, recommended books and required reading.

 

3   together with the colon and usually at the end of a line to introduce an example, an illustration or direct speech:

 

He selected the following:—

three turtle doves and a partridge

Contemporary writers tend to use a colon alone instead of:—

4   in fiction to indicate disjointed or fragmented speech, as in the following passage from the speech of Miss Bates in Jane Austen’s Emma:

 

I was reading it to Mrs. Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for it is such a pleasure to her—a letter from Jane— that she can never hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, only just under my huswife—and since you are so kind as to wish to hear what she says;—but, first of all, I really must, in justice to Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter—only two pages you see—hardly two—and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses half.

 

The dash is often overused. It is rarely an adequate substitute for a conjunction and whenever possible more precise vocabulary or punctuation should be used. In contemporary writing, the dash is seldom combined with another punctuation mark such as a comma or a question mark.

 

 

ellipsis

 

Ellipsis consists of three spaced dots … and indicates that something has been omitted from the original text or statement:

 

Last night there were four Maries Tonight there’ll be but three.

There was Marie Seaton and Marie Beaton And Marie Carmichael…

 

Ellipsis may also be used to express tentativeness:

 

I may or I may not, who knows…

 

 

exclamation mark/point

 

The exclamation mark or exclamation point which is represented by ! is used: 1 to signal emphatic utterances:

 

You ran away!

 

2 to mark emphatic but often syntactically incomplete utterances:

 

Not on your life!

Holy Toledo!

Not likely!

 

 

full stop/period

 

The full stop or period which is represented by . is used:

1 at the end of a sentence that is not an exclamation or a question:

 

Suddenly, we reached the top.

 

2 with some abbreviations:

 

He loved his wife, i.e. the wife of the moment.

 

The use of the full stop to mark abbreviations is more common in the USA than in the UK but is gradually disappearing in international English.

 

 

hyphen

 

The hyphen which is represented by - is used:

1 at the end of a line to indicate that a word has been split. The division should take place between syllables, thus per-mission and not perm-ission (although the divisions often depend on house styles). In texts that are to be printed, a double hyphen is used at the end of a line if the hyphen should be retained irrespective of the position of the word:

 

Nobody knew her age or cared. She might have been twenty= one…

 

2 in some compounds: twenty-two, mother-in-law, off-the-cuff remarks, a dyed-in-the- wool conservative

3   after some prefixes (co-occur) but not others (expel). The more frequently such compounds are used, the less likely are they to retain the hyphen.

4  after the first part of a compound when two related compounds are mentioned:

 

first- and second-class tickets

 

5  for written fractions:

 

a two-thirds increase

one twenty-fifth of a mile

 

6  to abbreviate numbers and dates:

 

pages 125–27 (=125 to 127)

the years 1916–18 (=1916 to 1918)

A slightly longer line, but similar to the hyphen, is used between proper nouns that are not compounds but combinations:

 

the Spain-France match the Kaylor-Sibson fight

the Washington-New York flight

 

 

oblique/slash

 

The oblique (UK) or slash (USA) / is used: 1 to juxtapose alternatives:

 

It could be for staff and/or students.

Tea/coffee will be served.

 

2  for a period passing from one calendar year to the next:

 

the academic year 1986/7

 

3  to mark off lines of poetry quoted as or in ordinary lines of prose:

 

In ‘April Rise’ Laurie Lee writes of ‘Blown bubble-film of blue, the sky wraps round/Weeds of warm light.’

 

4  two slashes indicate phonemic script:

 

The phonemes /p/ and /f/ were both realised as /p/.

 

 

question mark

 

The question mark which is represented by ? is used: 1 to indicate a direct question:

 

Am I late?

I’m late?

 

Indirect questions are not followed by a question mark:

 

I asked if I was late.

 

2  within square brackets, to query a detail such as a date:

 

It was published in 1916[?] by his brother.

3   in front of a linguistic example to indicate a structure which is only marginally acceptable:

 

?It had been being beaten.

 

 

quotation marks

 

Quotation marks may be single ‘’ or double “”. Single quotation marks or inverted commas are more commonly used in the UK and double quotation marks are the norm in the USA. They are used:

1 for direct quotations:

 

‘I’m hungry,’ he complained. (UK)

“I’m hungry,” he complained. (USA)

 

2 for the titles of short stories, short poems, chapters of books, radio and television programmes, songs and short musical works:

 

‘From the Depths’ was the name of my first story.

She sang ‘Greensleeves’ and several other traditional airs.

 

 

semicolon

 

The semicolon which is represented by ; is used:

1 between clauses that are syntactically independent but semantically closely related:

 

He was an academic; he was a researcher of consummate skill; he was a skilled horseman; he was also a devoted husband.

 

2 to avoid over-using conjunctions:

 

In this passage, the kind of emotive emphasis carried in speech by stress and intonation is suggested by the exclamation marks; the attribution is marked (‘complained’ rather than ‘said’); volume is indicated by the word ‘loudly’ in the narrative; and feeling is suggested by ‘warmly’.

 

See: abbreviations, apostrophe, ellipsis, quotation.

 

 

purist

 

The term purist is applied to a person who:

1  sets great store by correct usage

2  objects to the use of foreign words

Purists tend to concentrate not on intelligibility or the pervasiveness of a form but on an item’s etymology, on details of pronunciation, on grammatical precision and on style.

Many purists dislike semantic change (insisting, for example, that aggravate does not mean ‘irritate’), recommend Latin-based structures (It is I.) and insist on logical usage (‘since due to is a complement it cannot, logically, occur at the beginning of a sentence’). The idea of the ‘purity’ of the English language is discounted by any study of the history of English vocabulary, more than 30% of which derives from French and Latin. It is equally unrealistic to expect that word meanings will remain unchanged in a changing

world.

Purists have been criticised by scholars who insist that a linguist’s job is to ‘describe and not prescribe’. This may be true, but purists are correct in claiming that rapid and uncontrolled change can lead to ambiguity and lack of precision. Most teachers realise that a touch of purist conservatism is necessary.

See: ‘chestnuts’.

 

 

 

qualifier

 

The term qualifier is applied to adjectives and adverbs which expand a headword such as a noun or verb. In traditional grammars, an adjective was said to qualify a noun whereas an adverb was said to modify a verb. Today, the terms are used interchangeably, with modifier being in wider use.

See: modifier.

 

 

 

quasi-modal

 

As well as the nine modals, can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, there are two sets of verbs which share some of the characteristics of modals and which can therefore be described as quasi-modals.

1  Dare, need, ought to and used to share some of the formal properties of modals:

(a)  they can combine directly with ‘not/n’t’:

 

You daren’t say that again!

 

(b)  they can form questions directly:

 

Needn’t I fill in this form?

 

They differ in the number of characteristics they share with the modals, but all the quasi- modals share at least two modal characteristics.

2   A number of verbs share the semantic characteristics of modals in being able to express attitudes concerning ability, compulsion, insistence, intention, obligation, permission, possibility and willingness. Below we list the most frequently occurring verbs in this set, together with exemplary sentences and parallel sentences involving modals:

 

BE to: He is to sing tomorrow./He will sing tomorrow.

BE able to: She is able to walk now./She can walk now.

BE about to: I’m about to set out./I’ll set out now. BE going to: You’re going to make it./You’ll make it. GET to: We didn’t get to play./We couldn’t play.

HAVE to: Has he to come?/Must he come? HAVE got to: You’ve got to try./You must try. had better: We’d better go./We should go.

let: Let me try./May I try?

SEEM to: They seem to be all right./They may be all right.

 

See: modality.

 

 

 

question

 

Questions ask for information and they are signalled in the written medium by a question mark. Questions normally differ from statements in that they invert the order of the subject and the auxiliary verb:

 

He can dance well.→Can he dance well?

 

Where there is no auxiliary in the verb phrase, the dummy auxiliary DO is used:

 

He danced well.→Did he dance well?

There are five main types of question in English:

1 yes/no questions which demand the answer yes or no: Are you tired?

2   Wh-questions involving the question words: how?, what?, when?, where?, which?, why?:

 

Why haven’t they been told?

 

3  tag questions, involving auxiliaries:

 

He isn’t going, is he?

 

4  intonational questions which do not involve inversion of the subject and the predicate but indicate a query by rising intonation:

 

You won’t have any?

 

5   rhetorical questions which are questions in form but not in meaning. A rhetorical question is often the semantic equivalent of an emphatic statement:

 

Am I hungry?=I’m very hungry. Isn’t it a shame?=It’s a shame.

 

See: auxiliary, interrogative, question tag, sentence.

 

 

 

question tag

 

A question tag or tag question is an interrogative structure consisting of an

auxiliary+pronoun and placed at the end of a statement:

 

He’s very cheerful, isn’t he?

 

Tags can be both positive and negative. A positive tag follows a negative statement and a negative tag follows a positive one. Both types of tag can be used to request information:

 

You posted it, didn’t you? (Please tell me.)

You didn’t forget, did you? (Please tell me.) to solicit agreement:

He’s a fool, isn’t he? (I know you agree with me.)

She’s never on time, is she? (I’m sure we agree.) or to soften an imperative:

Sit down, won’t you?

 

English is unusual in having so many tag questions: auxiliaries (including modals and

DO) and the quasi-modals (need, ought to):

 

I’m not on the committee, am I?

You have seen her, haven’t you? She doesn’t smoke, does she?

They needn’t come, need they?

 

Many speakers of English as a second or foreign language find the proliferation of tags difficult to master and tend to use an invariant tag such as isn’t it? or not so?

See: questions, tags.

 

 

 

quotation

 

The term quotation is used to indicate any phrase, verse, sentence or paragraph taken from another writer. A quotation should normally be an exact copy of the original, any alterations being clearly indicated and explained. The conventions for presenting quotations are as follows:

1 Quotation marks (or inverted commas) are double in the USA:

 

It has been called an “ynkehorne letter”.

 

and single in the UK:

 

It has been called an ‘ynkehorne letter’.

 

Quotations within quotations are signalled by the reverse of the above, thus single within double in the US and double within single in the UK:

 

It has been described as ‘the “novel within a novel” technique’.

 

2  Any alteration to a quotation must be clearly indicated. Additions are marked by square brackets, omissions by ellipsis:

‘For pronunciation, the best general rule is to consider …as the most elegant speakers [those] who deviate least from written words.’

Samuel Johnson

 

If the original has an inaccurate or unusual spelling, an unexpected feature of vocabulary, unconventional syntax or a wrong date, the interpolation [sic] may be used to confirm that the quotation is accurate:

 

He called it ‘a euphemistic [sic] style’ and argued that it ‘shewed [sic] a strong sense of morality’.

 

An alteration, such as the italicisation of a word or phrase for special emphasis, should be recorded:

 

‘Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.’

Samuel Johnson (italics mine)

 

3  It is normal practice to place all punctuation marks belonging to the passage inside the quotation marks and those belonging to the writer outside:

 

He wrote, ‘Men have become the slaves of their machines.’ I love the phrase ‘paradoxical ratiocination’.

 

When a sentence ends with a quotation that ends with a full stop, the one full stop is sufficient.

4  Quotation marks are used for the titles of short poems, articles, stories and chapters in books. They may also be used for words cited as linguistic or lexical items rather than for their meaning:

 

She alternated between ‘one’ and ‘I’.

 

(Italics may be used instead of quotation marks for this purpose but a writer should make consistent choices.) Quotation marks may also be used for a word that a writer disagrees with:

 

What he calls a ‘dialect’ is really an accent.

 

and for a word from a different language or a markedly different stylistic level:

 

She was always talking about her ‘ambience’.

They were instructed to ‘scram’ and never return.

 

5  Prose quotations of up to ten typed lines or 100 words should be given within quotation marks and incorporated in the text. Longer quotations should not be given within

quotation marks, should be separated from the text, be indented on the left-hand side, and be typed in single spacing for a dissertation, double for a typescript. A colon is normally used to introduce a longer quotation. (Some writers prefer to indent and separate from their text all quotations of more than ten words. Again, consistency is more important than dogma.)

6  Quotations of poetry consisting of a single line or less should be in quotation marks and incorporated in the text. Two lines are sometimes presented in this way, in which case the lines should be separated by a slash or oblique:

 

It is an echo of the poem ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B.Yeats, in which he writes that ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’.

 

Two or more lines of poetry are usually presented separate from the context without quotation marks, indented on the left-hand side and introduced by a colon. Quotation marks are retained if they occur in the original.

7  If a single paragraph is quoted, the first line is not usually indented further than a normal quotation, but if more than one paragraph is quoted consecutively then the first line of each is indented. When the paragraphs are a transcript of a speech, and so require quotation marks, the quotation marks are used at the beginning of each paragraph but at the end of the last paragraph only.

8   Footnote numbers, which give references for quotations, are typed slightly above the line, after the quotation and any punctuation. A series of quotations from one writer in a paragraph may be given a single footnote.

9  When quotations are set in a different type, quotation marks are unnecessary.

10   Quotation as part of scholarly argument is a way of providing evidence or illustration, and should therefore be used with discrimination. As part of a conversation, it may help to support an argument, perpetuate a tradition (such as the repetition of proverbial wisdom) or provide amusement. However, quotation can also be an unpleasant means of scoring points against someone who does not know a particular language (especially Latin or French) or who may not be as widely read as the speaker. This hostile use of quotation is evidence not of a cultured person but of one who uses knowledge (as others use gossip) for an ulterior motive.

See: bibliography, ellipsis, footnote, plagiarism, punctuation, typescript.

 

 

 

quotation, quote

 

These terms have slightly different uses in the UK and the USA, although the US usage is becoming increasingly common in the UK.

In the UK, quotation is a noun referring to something that is quoted:

 

You shouldn’t use such long quotations.

and as part of the compound referring to the marks (or inverted commas) signalling it:

 

Don’t forget to close your quotation marks.

 

The word quote is used as a verb:

 

I must remember to quote that back at you.

 

and as a noun meaning ‘estimate’:

 

His quote for building the house was too high.

 

In the USA, quotation is used for the matter quoted:

 

Those quotations are very revealing.

 

and quote is used as a verb:

 

You must learn to quote accurately.

 

as a noun for the punctuation marks:

 

Put that in quotes.

 

and, increasingly, as an alternative to quotation: Will you give us a quote?

 

 

racialism, racism

 

For most speakers of English, these terms are used interchangeably to mean:

1  the belief that each race has distinctive physical (and perhaps mental) features which are determined by heredity

2  the belief that hereditary factors can cause one race to be superior to another

3    aggressive prejudice or discrimination based on race and the belief in racial inequality.

Some speakers try to reserve the word racialism for the first belief, which admits racial differences but not racial superiority or inferiority, and the word racism for a belief that implies inherent superiority of any race. This would be a useful distinction, but both terms have been so widely used for the second and third beliefs that it is simplest to regard the words as synonymous.

See: racist language.

 

 

racist language

 

Attitudes towards race and sex are relatively fixed in western society. For at least four centuries, the norm has been a white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant male and anyone deviating from that norm has been at best ‘different’, at worst ‘inferior’. The language reflects such prejudices.

White is equated with God, the angels, goodness; black with Satan, the damned, evil. And, in spite of the evidence of their eyes, to many people anyone who is not white is black. Speakers of English have had to make a special effort to stress that ‘black is beautiful’ and so counteract the negative impact of ‘black’ in such collocations as blackguard, blackmail, black market.

Non-Anglo-Saxons have been described as Dagos, Frogs, Grease-backs, Gyppos, Micks, Polacks, Wogs and Wops or, less offensively though no less racially, as Ivans, Erics and Jocks. Such attitudes are often enshrined in such children’s verses as:

 

Taffy was a Welshman. Taffy was a thief.

Taffy came to our house and stole a leg of beef.

 

or:

 

My mother said I never should

Play with the Gypsies in yonder wood.

 

Religious prejudices, which often have a racial component, are less apparent in the language now than in the past but can still be found in words like street urchin (Muslim), Tague (Catholic), Yid (Jew).

Wherever differences exist in terms of class, money, race, religion or sex, prejudices have arisen and these prejudices find expression in our language and our stereotypes.

See: black, Gypsy, racialism, sexist language.

 

 

 

radio

 

Until the middle of the 1920s, people were exposed mainly to the language of their region, with the standard language being taught through school and the written medium. Increasingly, however, the radio impinged on the lives of most English speakers. At first,

only the rich could afford sets but the radio rapidly became as normal an item of household furniture as a clock.

Radio has affected society in many ways but we shall limit our comments to its effect on language. First, most listeners assumed that the people broadcasting the news were speaking English the way it should be spoken, with the result that the pronunciation of newsreaders became equated with ‘standard’ pronunciation. Secondly, radio pronunciation was imitated, both consciously and unconsciously, with the result that regional differences in speech began to diminish.

From the early 1950s, the influence of the radio on language has been reinforced by television. People have become familiar with other varieties of English and US English, in particular, is well known and influential.

The popularity of radio and television programmes in English has helped to spread English throughout the world, making it possible for the first time in history for people to learn standard English chiefly through the spoken medium.

See: network norms.

 

 

 

raise, rear, rise

 

These words have different distributions in UK and US English, though US influence is increasingly evident in the UK.

Raise as a noun in the USA means an increase in pay or in a gambling stake:

 

I didn’t get the raise I was expecting.

Make it a raise of $10.

 

As a verb in both the USA and the UK raise means ‘lift, set/place in an upright position, bring up one’s own children’:

 

He raised his eyes/family/hat/.

 

In the USA raise can mean ‘bring up a child’:

 

She was raised by her aunt.

 

Rear is used in the UK to mean ‘bring up, foster’:

 

He reared his family single-handed.

 

Rise as a noun is the usual word in the UK for an increase in pay:

 

We’ve been limited to a 3% rise.

It can also be used as a nominal equivalent of the verbs raise and rise:

 

There was a rise in the water level. (cf. They raised the water level.) There has been a rise in the number of people out of work. (cf. The number of people out of work rose last month.)

 

See: problem pairs, UK and US words.

 

 

 

rankshifting

 

Certain models of grammar such as ‘Scale and Category Grammar’ (a model of grammar developed in Britain by Michael Halliday in the early 1960s) recognise such hierarchical arrangements of units as:

phoneme  morpheme un- as in unfit word Under

phrase (group) under the trees

clause  which were under the trees

sentence      The plants which were under the trees were stunted.

 

Such arrangements are referred to as rank scales because, usually, a sentence is composed of one or more clauses; the clauses are composed of one or more phrases; phrases are composed of words, words of morphemes and morphemes of phonemes.

The term rankshifting is applied to units that are ‘shifted’ down in ‘rank’ so that a clause may modify a phrase:

 

the title which he gave it

 

or a phrase a word:

 

off-the-cuff remarks

 

or, on rare occasions, one word can be infixed into another:

 

absobloominglutely

 

See: grammar.

real, really

 

In very informal US English real is often used instead of really before adjectives and adverbs:

 

That’s real nice.

She drives real fast.

 

Often, the entire adverb phrase consists of ‘real+adjective’:

 

Drive real careful now.

 

Most purists disapprove of this usage.

See: adjective, adverb.

 

 

 

Received Pronunciation

 

Received Pronunciation, now usually referred to as RP, is a prestigious British accent which was and is associated with Oxford, Cambridge, the court, public schools, the BBC and with educated speakers whose regional origins are not apparent in their speech.

See: accent, phonetics, pronunciation.

 

 

 

redundancy

 

Redundancy has two main meanings in English:

1 It can refer to the use of unnecessary words or phrases:

 

a wee, small, tiny child at this moment in time

 

2 In linguistics, it refers to data which may be unnecessary but which may help our understanding. In a phrase such as:

 

those two dogs

plurality is marked three times. Most speech contains redundancies and so we often understand utterances even if we miss part of what was said.

See: circumlocution, pleonasm, tautology.

 

 

 

reduplication

 

Reduplication refers to partial or complete repetition:

 

abracadabra puff puff

 

It is used in some languages, such as Sierra Leone Krio, to indicate intensity:

 

(talk)

(chatter)

 

plurality:

 

ston (stone)

soso stonston (stones everywhere) and class change:

 (corner=noun)

(secretive=adj)

 

In English, we find the following types of reduplication: 1 complete reduplications such as:

 

bye bye

fifty fifty Hear! Hear!

The Late Late Show tomtom

 

2  complete reduplications with additional elements such as:

 

all in all

by and by so and so

3  identical stem reduplications such as:

 

hanky panky hocus pocus teeny weeny

 

4  identical consonant pattern with a vowel change:

 

knick knack ping pong zig zag

 

See: pidgins and creoles.

 

 

 

register

 

In phonetics, the term register refers to the voice quality, which is affected by the length, tension and thickness of the vocal cords. The vocal cords of a soprano, for example, are shorter and tenser than those of a baritone.

In sociolinguistics, register refers to varieties of language used in specific contexts. We can have, for example, a scientific register (a type of English characterised by the use of passives, by symbols and formulae, and by polysyllabic words); or the register of religion (characterised by archaisms such as Thou, literal translations such as die the death and an abstract vocabulary involving concepts such as charity, eternity, faith, forgiveness).

 

 

 

relative clause

 

A relative clause is an adjective clause. It is called a relative clause because it is often introduced by a relative pronoun or a preposition +relative pronoun:

 

The meal which you made will be wasted.

The women whom we interviewed refused the job. The parents whose children we teach have arrived. The horse on which I put my money is still running!

 

In speech and informal writing, object relative pronouns which introduce clauses can be omitted:

The letter (that) I wrote must have been delayed.

 

See: clause, defining and non-defining clauses, restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses.

 

 

 

repetition

 

Repetition may occur at all levels of a language, including sound:

 

Coca Cola

 

syllable:

 

What have the words deduct, defeat, defence and detail got in common?

 

word:

 

Work, work, work, that’s all I ever seem to do.

 

and structure:

 

If you drive carefully and if you avoid accidents you can get cheaper insurance.

 

Repetition can be both effective and impressive when used skilfully, but when it results from carelessness it can contribute to poor style:

 

He had a really great idea and he was really glad that he had thought of it. He had never really had such a great idea before.

 

English can avoid nominal repetition by the use of pronouns and possessive adjectives, and verbal repetition by the use of auxiliaries and adverbs like too and so:

 

John Smith loved John Smith’s wife and John Smith loved John Smith’s children.→John Smith loved his wife and his children too.

 

See: elegant variation, parallelism, redundancy, tautology.

 

 

reported speech

 

Reported (or Indirect) Speech is the term used to describe a set of conventions by which we express what someone is supposed to have said or thought. The temporal and spatial references, word order, degree of formality, as well as the pronouns and some adverbs, tend to differ from those in the postulated ‘original’ direct speech. However, as a study of the reported speech in any novel shows, there is often no one-to-one correlation between direct and reported speech:

Direct Speech Reported Speech

‘I love you,’ she said. She said that she loved him/her/them. ‘Don’t do it,’ he cried. He urged him/her/them not to do it.

‘Hell! What’s up now?’ He swore and asked what was happening then.

 

Some stylisticians have criticised the oversimplistic dichotomy and argued for a continuum between direct and reported speech.

See: direct speech, speech in literature.

 

 

 

rhetoric

 

The term rhetoric has two related meanings:

1  It can apply to the rhetoric practised and described in Classical Greek. This rhetoric was prescriptive, defining formulas for effective public speaking (and later, writing) in the form of rhetorical devices (such as repetition) or figures of speech (such as litotes). Aristotle claimed that rhetorical prose appealed to reason, whereas poetry appealed to the senses. Prescriptive rhetoric became popular in England in the sixteenth century. Modern examples of prescriptive rhetoric are the teaching of effective public speaking and instruction in the principles of composition.

2  It can apply to the devices used in literary language. Stylisticians examine rhetoric in their analysis of literary texts.

A person does not have to be trained in rhetoric to use rhetorical devices. Every effective speaker uses parallelism and repetition, often in threes:

 

I have come not to inform you, not to appeal to you, not to plead with you. I have come to demand your support.

Trade Unionist speech

 

See: figurative language, parallelism, style.

rhotic

 

The word rhotic (occasionally rotic) is used to describe accents in which the r is pronounced in words such as pair and park. The degree of rhoticity can vary: in some accents of English, such as those of the eastern seaboard of the USA or the southeast of England, postvocalic r is not pronounced; occasionally, in regionally-modified accents, it is barely perceptible; and in others, such as many Scottish accents, the r is rolled in all positions.

Rhotic accents are prestigious in the USA and Canada and non-prestigious in England, Australia and India.

See: accent.

 

 

 

rhyme

 

Rhyme is a form of parallelism in which there is a correspondence of sounds between syllables. The likeness depends on similar vowels (pea, tea) or similar vowels plus following consonant(s) (jam, cram or bind, find). Because rhyme depends on sound, similarity of spelling is not essential (lamb, dram or head, red).

The following types of rhyme are usually distinguished:

1 masculine rhyme, where we find correspondence between single stressed syllables:

 

crime and rhyme delight and sprite

 

2  feminine rhyme, which has two consecutive rhyming syllables, the first being stressed, the second being unstressed and final:

 

breaking and taking pleasure and treasure

 

3  triple rhyme, which has three consecutive rhyming syllables:

 

condition and contrition happily and snappily

 

In English verse, feminine and triple rhymes tend to be limited to light or humorous verse.

4   end rhyme, where the corresponding syllables occur at the end of the line. The rhyming lines may be adjacent as in W.B.Yeats’s ‘There’:

 

There all the gyres converge in one,

There all the planets drop in the sun.

 

or alternate, as in Shakespeare’s sonnet 80:

 

O how I faint when I of you do write, Knowing a better spirit doth use your name, And in praise thereof spends all his might,

To make me tongue-tied, speaking of your fame!

 

or fit into a more unusual pattern, such as that used by Donne in ‘The Sun Rising’:

 

Busy old fool, unruly Sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to the motions lovers’ seasons run?

 

5   internal rhyme, where the rhyming syllables occur within a line as in the sonnet ‘Carrion Comfort’ by G.M.Hopkins:

 

O in turns of tempest, me heaped there; me frantic to avoid thee and flee?

 

6  eye rhyme bases its parallelism not on sound but on spelling:

 

love and move key and survey

 

7  half rhyme depends on a likeness (such as front vowel+consonant or diphthongs) rather than on perfect correspondence:

 

foot and goat bed and rid grow and shy

 

8  consonance, when only the end consonants match:

 

good and played wife and if

 

The term rhyme scheme is given to the sequence of end rhymes in a poem and is represented by a letter of the alphabet for each rhyme. Thus the rhyme scheme for a

Petrarchan sonnet is abba abba cde cde (or cd cd cd) and the rhyme scheme for most traditional ballad stanzas is abab.

See: parallelism.

 

 

 

rhythm

 

Rhythm refers to regular auditory patterns in speech. In English, these patterns are associated with the amount of stress given to a particular syllable. In a word  like hospital, for example, the first syllable receives more stress than the other two, whereas it is the second syllable which is stressed in because. Speech rhythms play a considerable part in intelligibility and so interference from a syllabletimed language such as French can create serious difficulties for a listener.

When the rhythm is systematically regulated as it is in verse it is known as metre. See: metre, parallelism, stress.

 

 

 

satire

 

Satire, from Latin satira (medley), refers to an entertainment or work of literature that holds up to ridicule prevalent follies or vices. The means by which a satire is realised  may vary but the intention is to cause amusement and through amusement to evoke protest or criticism.

Among the devices commonly used in satire are bathos, caricature, irony, ridicule, sarcasm and wit.

See: irony, parody.

 

 

 

scientific English

 

Since the end of World War II, more than 300,000 scientific words have been invented and accepted internationally. Many of these, such as diethylcarbamazine or dimethyltryptamine tend to be used only by scientists, doctors or students but others like DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) or vinyl/PVC (polyvinylchloride) have been popularised by the media.

English has become an international language for scientists but, while scientists need to know formulae and the vocabulary and syntax necessary to classify, define, measure,

quantify, explain, hypothesise and summarise, they may not need to know the technical vocabularies necessary for linguistics, rhetoric or phatic communion.

Scientific English tends to be marked by the following characteristics:

1 precise vocabulary, often polysyllabic and based on Greek and Latin roots 2 formulae interpretable throughout the world

3  complex premodification (highly concentrated dye solution)

4  simple or compound sentences preferred

5   when subordinate clauses occur, they are most frequently introduced by if, when, that and which

6  structures involving the passive

7  preference for present tense

8  preference for statements and avoidance of questions and exclamations 9 avoidance of the modals may, might, must, shall, should, would

10 avoidance of personal references

Scientists can, of course, write as parents and taxpayers as well as scientists. When they write as scientists, however, their aim is to communicate unequivocally and unemotionally with other scientists.

See: jargon.

 

 

 

Scotch, Scottish, Scots

 

The word Scotch should only be used as an adjective in fixed collocations associated with food, games, alcohol, animals and weather:

 

butterscotch (candy)

Scotch broth (thick soup)

Scotch egg (hard-boiled egg encased in sausage meat)

hopscotch (children’s hopping game)

Scotch terrier

Scotch whisky (often referred to as Scotch)

 

In all human contexts, Scots or Scottish should be used.

Scots can be used as a noun referring to both the people:

 

There were two Scots in kilts.

 

and the language:

 

I love English but I feel at home in Scots.

 

and as an adjective, especially before English, man, woman or their equivalents:

Scots English

a Scots lassie

Scottish is used as an adjective only and is in free variation with Scots: a Scottish tartan

Scottish English

 

 

 

Scottish English

 

Among the Germanic tribes that settled in Britain from the fifth century were the Angles, many of whom settled in southern Scotland.

Their language was Germanic; it was closely related to the dialects spoken by the Saxons and the Jutes; and it was described as Inglis until 1494, when Adam Loutful referred to it as both Inglis and Scottis.

Scots is the general term given to the dialect of English which developed in Scotland. It had its own orthographic conventions, its own translation of the Bible, and its standards were based on the court of Scotland, rather than that of England. The following extract from Nisbet’s version of the Prodigal Son parable (1520) illustrates the conventions of early Scots:

 

Bot his eldar sonn was in the feeld; and quhen he com and nerit to the hous, he herde a symphony and a croude. And he callit aan of the servandis, and askit quhat thir thingis war. And he said to him, Thy bruther is cummin; and thi fadere has slayn a fat calf, for he resauet him saaf. And he was wrathe, and wald nocht cum in.

Luke 15:25–8

 

Scots was and is a Germanic language which reached its peak in the sixteenth century  and began to decline as a written language after the kingdoms were united in 1603 and James VI of Scotland (James I of England) moved his court to London. It received a further blow when the parliaments were united in 1707 and the united parliament met in London. Nevertheless, Scots continued to be used as a literary dialect by poets like Robert Burns and, to a lesser extent, by novelists like Walter Scott. It was also preserved by the people in their speech and folk traditions, including such proverbs as:

 

A dog winna yowl if ye strike him with a bane.

 

and, apart from Standard English, Scots is the only English dialect with its own standardised orthographic conventions. In the twentieth century, Scottish writers created Lallans, a composite literary dialect of Scots illustrated by the following stanza from Hugh Mac-Diarmid’s Sic Transit Gloria Mundi:

 

Forbye, the stuffie’s no’ the real Mackay, The sun’s sel’ since, as sune as ye began it, Riz in your vera saul; but what keeks in Noo is in truth the vilest “saxpenny planet”.

 

In Scotland today, as in many English-speaking regions, we find a number of class, urban and regional subdialects. We can, however, isolate the following main varieties:

1  Standard English spoken with an RP accent. This variety is limited to Scots, usually the landed gentry, who have been educated in England.

2  Standard English spoken with a Scottish accent

3  Southern Scots, similar to dialects in northern England 4 Central Scots, increasingly influenced by Glaswegian

5  Northern Scots, more strongly influenced by Norse dialects than other varieties of Scottish English

6   Highland English. Gaelic speakers were forced to accept English in their schools after the Jacobite rebellions of 1715 and 1745. This English was Standard English rather than Scots, and so Scottish people whose ancestral mother tongue was Gaelic often speak a variety of English closer to SE than to Scots.

 

 

Phonology

 

All varieties of Scottish English, with the exception of SE spoken with an RP accent, have the following phonological characteristics:

1  Scottish English is rhotic, with the r being rolled especially when it occurs in initial position or after t or d.

2  Because it is rhotic, Scottish English has a smaller vowel inventory than RP, having usually    ten    monophthongs    and   four   diphthongs It thus does not distinguish between the vowel sounds in cap and psalm, both of which are realised as /a/ or those in pull and pool, both of which are /u/. There is less difference in length between long and short vowels in Scottish English (such as between beat and bit) than in RP and the diphthongs are also shorter than their RP equivalents.

3   Because of the influence of education and the media, many words which were previously different in English and Scottish English are now coalescing, but the following differences are still widespread: the use of in words like:

(traditionally written ain) (written hame) (written stane)

the use of /u/ rather than  in words like:

down—/dun/ (traditionally written doon) round—/run/ (written roon) town—/tun/

 

4   Scottish English uses two consonants more than RP: the velar fricative /x/ and the labio-velar  fricative  /x/  occurs  in  words  like  loch  and place names like Auchtermuchty  It is also regularly heard in words like light  and night    although   this   pronunciation   is   recessive.   is the usual Scottish pronunci ation of wh- in words like which and when

 

 

Vocabulary

 

1   Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, there were very close ties between Scotland and France. The so-called ‘Auld Alliance’ allowed Scots and French to have equal citizenship rights in Scotland and France. This close co-operation resulted in Scottish English absorbing many words from French, among them:

 

assiette>ashet (large plate)

fâcher>fash (angry)

 

2  Influence from Gaelic survives in words like:

 

clann>clan (extended family, tribe)

go leor>galore (a lot of)

 

as well as in place names involving ard (height), blair (plain) and inver (inlet).

3  Viking influence can be seen in such words as:

 

bryggja>brig (bridge)

kirkja>kirk (church)

 

4  A number of words are recognised throughout the world as Scottish, among them:

 

bairn (child) bonny (fine) burn (stream) dram (drink) sic (such) wee (small)

 

 

Grammar

 

The grammar of Scottish English is increasingly influenced by that of the standard language but a number of differences remain, especially in intimate interactions. The commonest of these are:

1 The use of nae as a negator:

 

He will nae go (He won’t go).

You cannae/canny sing.

 

2  The use of aye as an intensive:

 

We’re aye busy (very busy).

She was aye a bonny lassie (always a pretty girl).

 

3  The use of gar meaning ‘make, cause’:

 

It’d gar ye fash.—It would make you angry.

 

4  The use of maun meaning ‘must’:

 

Ye maun thole.—You’ll have to endure.

 

See: Received Pronunciation.

 

 

 

seaspeak

 

Seaspeak is a term coined on analogy with Newspeak to refer to a variety of English created to facilitate communication among people involved in navigation. English is the most widely-used maritime language in the world and confusion can arise when a master of a Greek supertanker, for example, talks to a Venezuelan harbour master. In 1980, a group of mariners and linguists analysed tape recordings of conversations between ships’ officers and isolated the words and structures necessary for unambiguous  communication. Thus, instead of a request such as ‘Please meet us at the SB buoy at 2 o’clock’, seaspeak users would give instruction, place and time like this: ‘Meet pilot. Position SB buoy. Time 1400 GMT.’

See: Newspeak.