On a Zoom name just lately, somebody talked about the “onboarding” of a brand new office coverage. She pronounced it with the accent on the primary syllable — “ON-boarding” — despite the fact that we pronounce the unique expression “on BOARD.” Consider it or not, this received me fascinated about mayonnaise.
Extra particularly, it jogged my memory of an outdated radio commercial that has all the time caught in my thoughts for the best way, within the final line, the announcer pronounces the identify of the product with a delicate emphasis on the final phrase: “Miracle WHIP.” (He made it sound slightly beautiful: “Miracle Whip has such a beautiful taste — vigorous and teasing, peppy and but not a bit too sharp. It’s a taste that’s simply precisely proper!”) As we speak we put the burden on the primary phrase, “MIRACLE Whip.”
For those who pay attention for it, you may hear the same shift in many alternative locations. A personality in a Nineteen Thirties gangster film I noticed accused one other of performing like a “massive SHOT.” I distinctly keep in mind a pal excitedly telling me in 1977 that he had simply seen a neat new film known as “Star WARS.”
All of them observe the identical sample: As names and phrases turn into acquainted, audio system have a tendency to begin shifting the emphasis to the entrance. It occurs regularly, however the consequence could be unmistakable, leaving the unique pronunciation to sound odd and dated.
That radio business is from 1951, when the condiment was nonetheless newer to the market. Initially one referred to it as a type of whip that was designated a miracle, a miracle WHIP, like a magic CARPET or a silver FLUTE. However many individuals encounter Miracle Whip extra typically than magic carpets or silver flutes. Because the condiment grew to become acquainted to American shoppers, the emphasis shifted.
In that very same business, the announcer calls it a “salad DRESSing” as a substitute of our extra frequent “SALad dressing.” And the identical goes for the communication platform that individuals are immediately extra prone to name “WHATSapp,” slightly than “WhatsAPP,” as they did when it first got here into vast circulation. The shift occurred because the time period grew to become commonplace.
It’s one of many fascinating idiosyncrasies of the English language, and an ideal instance of how massive and bizarre and fascinating grammar actually is. In faculties, Anglophone college students study grammar principally as a sequence of errors to keep away from, reminiscent of saying “much less books” as a substitute of “fewer books” or “him and me sang” slightly than “he and I sang.” The underlying message is that we’re for some motive given to utilizing language incorrectly, and that it’s the work of a cultivated individual to study a greater means.
However nearly all the blackboard grammar guidelines are issues some individuals made up 200 or extra years in the past. (I can’t resist noting you can study extra about that in my forthcoming e-book “Pronoun Bother,” together with the “him and me” challenge.) The concentrate on these dos and don’ts distracts us from the complexity and nuance below the language’s hood, the issues that make it really fascinating slightly than only a minefield.
Emphasis shift, for instance, does greater than mark one thing as having turn into acquainted. It may also be a means of turning a verb right into a noun. You reJECT one thing; that factor then turns into a REject. You perMIT one thing, or get a PERmit for it. The accent shift makes one thing into “a factor,” so to talk.
One other factor college students are sometimes taught is that although English spelling is a little bit of a nightmare, English grammar is comparatively easy in comparison with, say, Spanish or Russian grammar. However that, too, underestimates the language. Take the long run tense. Look in a textbook and also you’ll discover that the best way to specific the long run is with “will”: “Tomorrow I’ll purchase an umbrella.” Discover, nonetheless, that although that sentence is appropriate, it’s not how a local speaker can be prone to specific the thought.
A lot simpler to think about is “Tomorrow I’m going to purchase an umbrella.” Easy, easy. You might additionally say “Tomorrow I’ll purchase an umbrella,” which hints that the acquisition was overdue. “Tomorrow I purchase an umbrella” implies that it is going to be a serious milestone in your growth. “Tomorrow I’m shopping for an umbrella” is what you’d say as a risk in case you had been fascinated about hitting anyone with it. The Duolingual “Tomorrow I’ll purchase an umbrella” sounds, compared to these different choices, as in case you have determined upon the motion after a protracted interval of deliberation. And admittedly, I don’t know what “I shall purchase an umbrella” means in any respect.
Marinating in these complexities (which I typically do by curling up with Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum’s magisterial but crisp “The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language”) opens us to the conclusion that somebody saying “ONboarding” isn’t just a random quirk. It’s an indication of a change, the emergence of a brand new distinction, of a form that makes the language an infinitely increasing device slightly than a dark impediment course. The provision is infinite: Did you ever discover how typically adjectives have their very own non-public substitute for “very” — model new, grime low cost, hopping mad, jet black? And isn’t that just a bit extra fascinating than a (concocted!) rule about when to make use of that and when to make use of which?
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By the best way, I’ve come throughout one other e-book that teaches us new methods of issues. It taught me that matter consists of the buildup not of bits of stuff however of standing vibrations. In contrast to other forms of vibrations, standing vibrations can’t penetrate each other. They’ll thus cluster, forming atoms and subsequently matter. I get this — if I received it proper! — from Matt Strassler’s marvelous new “Waves in an Unimaginable Sea.” What makes the vibrations “stand” is the drive that drives these Higgs bosons we heard a lot about some years in the past. Strassler’s e-book makes it attainable to know such issues with out experience in physics or math. The e-book picks up the place “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” left off and deserves the identical devoted readership.