Wrong may beright sometimes

Not long ago I did a column on English errors that really aren?t errors, according to some grammarians at any rate. I personally find this an interesting subject, since English is so riddled with rules, some of which can be broken, and some of which are just broken.

Herewith a few more of these non-errors. Of course, as before, some of these may have been correct at some point, but have changed as the language and accepted usage and grammar have evolved over the years.

All of these are courtesy of the home page of Paul Brians, an English professor at Washington State University. You can visit his page at www.wsu.edu/~brians/ on the net. Mr. Brians has a list of common errors in English, along with his list of non-errors. It?s a great place to visit for anyone who writes, or aspires to be a writer.

Here?s one of Mr. Brians? entries I find interesting.

Over vs. more than. Some people claim that ?over? cannot be used to signify ?more than,? as in ?Over a thousand baton-twirlers marched in the parade.? ?Over,? they insist, always refers to something physically higher: say, the blimp hovering over the parade route. This absurd distinction ignores the role metaphor pays in language. If I write 1 on the black board and 10 beside it, 10 is still the ?higher? number. ?Over? has been used in the sense of ?more than? for over a thousand years.

Well, no point in getting overwrought about that one.

Here?s a word I find myself using a lot, and I was glad to find I was using it correctly, even though I must confess I really didn?t know I might not be using it properly.

?Since? cannot mean ?because.? ?Since? need not always refer to time. Since the 14th century, when it was often spelled ?syn,? it has also meant ?seeing that? or ?because.?

Well, I?m glad to know that about ?since,? since I use it all the time.

Here?s a word that?s a perfect example of one that has changed over the years.

Momentarily. ?The plane will be landing momentarily? says the flight attendant, and the grumpy grammarian in seat 36B thinks to himself, ?So we?re going to touch down for just a moment?? Everyone else thinks, ?Just a moment now before we land.? Back in the 1920s when this use of ?momentarily? was first spreading on both sides of the Atlantic, one might have been accused of misusing the word; but by now it?s listed without comment as one of the standard definitions in most dictionaries.

Here?s one I used to adhere to, but now find is really a dubious distinction. I always thought I should say, ?Hey, lend me a dollar,? and then say ?Thanks for the loan.? With lend being a verb, and loan being a noun. Seems I was wrong.

Lend vs. Loan. ?Loan me your hat? was just as correct everywhere as ?lend me your ears? until the British made ?lend? the preferred verb, relegating ?loan? to the thing being lent. However, as in so many cases, Americans kept the older pattern, which in its turn has influenced modern British usage so that those insisting that ?loan? can only be a noun are in the minority.

And finally, here?s one I?ve always wondered about, since I?ve never been quite sure which is correct.

Till vs. ?til. Since it looks like an abbreviation for ?until,? some people argue that this word should always be spelled ??til? (though not all insist on the apostrophe). However, ?till? has regularly occurred as a spelling of this word for over 800 years and it?s actually older than ?until.? It is perfectly good English.

Well good readers, that?s it. Till we meet again that is.

Charlie Johnson is news editor of the Standard. He can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].