Alternatively, "Alternate" (Writing a Good dooyoo Review)

Member Name: Plumptious

Product:	Writing a Good dooyoo Review
Date:	06/02/01 (39 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clearer communication

Disadvantages: Getting confused

English is a stunning language. I speak three languages, but English is very definitely my favourite. Its strength comes from its tradition of absorption of words from other cultures.

To convey a simple, seemingly inconsequential action, the English speaker has a wealth of choices - "hit", "bang", "thwack", "wallop", "smack", it goes on for ages. I remember coming across some additional lovely rustic choices for this word. Regretfully, I have forgotten them through misuse.

My personal favourites are "thingy", "thingamajig", "whatchamacalit", and a host of other words for that can be substituted for "that". If you know of any along this vein, please post them here. I'd be very interested to add them to my collection.


It was the language of Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Keats, names known the world over. Its users have much to be proud of, and much to fight for.


ALTERNATIVE as an alternative to ALTERNATIVE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The reason why I feel compelled to write this is that I have noticed several worrying trends.
I have applauded the availability of alternatives in the language, but have noticed the gradual demise of the word "alternative" in itself.

To me, an "alternative" is another possibility, as in "Plan B" being available in the event that "Plan A" fails. However, more and more American films have come up with gems such as "We will use an ALTERNATE plan".

This is ridiculous. What the speaker has proposed is to use plan A, and then plan B, possibly followed by plan A again. The sentence should have been "We will use an ALTERNATIVE plan".

I protest against this as it directly opposes the language's tradition of enrichment by adopting additional methods of conveying nuances, clearing confusion
by clarifying. What this particular practice has done is to exile "ALTERNATIVE" into disuse, using "ALTERNATE" in its stead, causing confusion.

We would be doomed to evermore wonder if the movie character with "an alternate identity" is a schizophrenic, constantly switching between identities alternately, or if they simply had a fake identity ready for a nefarious purpose. If the latter were the case, could we have summon the word "alternative" into use, please?

Dog, Dog's, Dogs, Dogs'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have noticed that this is causing a lot of confusion to modern day Britain. It used to be only market stall signs which had this problem. Signs advertising tomatoes would read "TOM'S -15p". They would often be accompanied by signs proclaiming "SPUD'S - 16p lb"

Unfortunately, this has resulted in a generation which seems to have learnt the habit, growing up reading these signs on shopping expeditions.
The superfluous use of the apostrophe is annoying as what they actually convey is that something belongs to the potatoes. "SPUDS" is all that is required to denote the plural of "SPUD".

In the same way, "Dog's ears" means that the ears belong to a single dog.
"Dogs' ears" lead the reader to understand that there are more than one dog, and that they have ears which belong to them.
"Dogs" denotes more than one dog.

This misunderstanding of how simply adding the letter "s" at the end of words is becoming very widespread. I have noticed it in magazines, supermarkets and PC World. I find myself increasingly confronted with signs advertising "CAN'S" for 99p.


IT IS ITS
~~~~~~~
Consider the sentence "How does the dog know that it's its tail?"

"IT IS" can be abbreviated to "IT'S".
Unfortunately this has caused some confusion. When meaning to convey "DOG'S TAIL", "IT'S TAIL" is sometimes used, as opposed to "ITS TAIL".
In this case, ITS is like HIS, HERS and THEIRS. An apostrophe is not required.


I am all for playing with words. After all, someone who has latched onto a hybrid word such as "Plumptious" could hardly claim otherwise, could they? But my plea here is to encourage the use of our wonderful language for the purpose of communicating ever more clearly, and not to cause confusion. And isn't DooYoo just the place to promote this?

Summary: