On a Zoom name not too long ago, somebody talked about the “onboarding” of a brand new office coverage. She pronounced it with the accent on the primary syllable — “ON-boarding” — regardless that we pronounce the unique expression “on BOARD.” Imagine it or not, this acquired me desirous about mayonnaise.
Extra particularly, it jogged my memory of an previous radio commercial that has at all times caught in my thoughts for the best way, within the final line, the announcer pronounces the title of the product with a refined emphasis on the final phrase: “Miracle WHIP.” (He made it sound somewhat beautiful: “Miracle Whip has such a beautiful taste — full of life and teasing, peppy and but not a bit too sharp. It’s a taste that’s simply precisely proper!”) In the present day we put the load on the primary phrase, “MIRACLE Whip.”
In case you hear 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 appearing like a “massive SHOT.” I distinctly bear in mind a buddy excitedly telling me in 1977 that he had simply seen a neat new film referred to as “Star WARS.”
All of them comply with the identical sample: As names and phrases change into acquainted, audio system have a tendency to start out shifting the emphasis to the entrance. It occurs regularly, however the end result 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 form 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 usually 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 an alternative of our extra widespread “SALad dressing.” And the identical goes for the communication platform that individuals are as we speak extra prone to name “WHATSapp,” somewhat than “WhatsAPP,” as they did when it first got here into huge 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 attention-grabbing grammar actually is. In colleges, Anglophone college students study grammar principally as a collection of errors to keep away from, corresponding to saying “much less books” as an alternative of “fewer books” or “him and me sang” somewhat than “he and I sang.” The underlying message is that we’re for some purpose given to utilizing language incorrectly, and that it’s the work of a cultivated particular person to study a greater method.
However virtually all the blackboard grammar guidelines are issues some individuals made up 200 or extra years in the past. (I can’t resist noting that you would be able to study extra about that in my forthcoming ebook “Pronoun Hassle,” together with the “him and me” difficulty.) The give attention to these dos and don’ts distracts us from the complexity and nuance below the language’s hood, the issues that make it really attention-grabbing somewhat than only a minefield.
Emphasis shift, for instance, does greater than mark one thing as having change into acquainted. It can be a method 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, nevertheless, that although that sentence is appropriate, it’s not how a local speaker could be prone to specific the thought.
A lot simpler to think about is “Tomorrow I’m going to purchase an umbrella.” Easy, simple. You would additionally say “Tomorrow I’ll purchase an umbrella,” which hints that the acquisition was overdue. “Tomorrow I purchase an umbrella” implies that it will likely be a significant milestone in your growth. “Tomorrow I’m shopping for an umbrella” is what you’d say as a risk when you had been desirous 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 albeit, 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 software somewhat than a dark impediment course. The provision is limitless: Did you ever discover how usually adjectives have their very own personal substitute for “very” — model new, dust low-cost, hopping mad, jet black? And isn’t that just a bit extra attention-grabbing 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 ebook that teaches us new methods of taking a look at issues. It taught me that matter consists of the buildup not of bits of stuff however of standing vibrations. Not like other forms of vibrations, standing vibrations can not penetrate each other. They’ll thus cluster, forming atoms and subsequently matter. I get this — if I acquired 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 ebook makes it attainable to know such issues with out experience in physics or math. The ebook picks up the place “The Dancing Wu Li Masters” left off and deserves the identical devoted readership.