A Nit Pick

The mistake is in the first panel. I bet you won’t see it. I’m not referring to the false subject (there’s) either:

Here’s the goof: technically, “slower” is an adjective, and she’s using it as an adverb, to modify “drive.” You can have a slow driver, but you drive slowly, or in this case, more slowly.

Ah, idiomatic spoken English is so full of solecisms…

Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed

Okay, so where does the apostrophe go?

Not before the “s,” not after the “s.” You remove it! This is another of those uncommon cases in English where you put the adjective after the noun, such as “court martial” and “attorney general.”

Can you think of any others?

What??? You ask. Hear me out.

First, numbers in most contexts are adjectives. Adjectives don’t show number in English. We say “five apples” but not “fives apples.” But that’s not my point.

Let’s move on to arithmetic. We (correctly) say “Three and six are nine.” Plural verb, so plural numbers, right? Not quite. That sentence has a plural subject, three and six. You could as easily say “Tom and Pete are sick.” The two persons are one each, and they make a plural subject.

A number is singular when you talk about the number itself!

For example, you say, “six is half of twelve, thirteen is a prime number.” Singular verbs! You’re referring to the number itself (not themselves), not six of something, such as six people.

Finally we get to the comic. Third panel. The guy confuses referring to the number itself with the number of things. Sounds wrong, doesn’t it?

Anyway, there’s a little incongruity for you that I bet you never noticed.

Lots of people introduce sentences with an adverb when they should use an adjective. Here’s an example of someone doing it right:

Most important, after more than a decade, puberty was finally done with me.

https://www.thecut.com/2019/01/precocious-puberty-patrick-burleigh.html

He didn’t say “Most importantly,” which means “in a most important manner,” not exactly the intended meaning. He means that the event was itself important, not just acting important.

Whenever you see a sentence start with something like “Reportedly,” or “Significantly,” or “Importantly,” you’re probably seeing one of these (incorrect) introductory adverbs.

If you don’t do this, your writing will be tighter and easier to follow.

PS—The linked article that I took the quote from is adult reading. Adult in the adult sense, not the pornographic sense.

We normally expect adjectives to have a noun that they refer to; however, some adjectives get their noun from the context, and we are expected to supply it ourselves. I recommend that you supply the noun anyway, particularly when you write expositorily (when you’re explaining something). In English, using “many” without its noun assumes you’re referring to people. Sentences such as these are taken to refer to people:

How many died in the hurricane?
How many came to your party?

But we use the noun when we’re not referring to people:

So, pardner, how many head of cattle yeh got out back?
How many pages in your term paper?

So I suppose these guys have a point. 

So put in the noun!