Sons-in-law and attorneys general

Posted on by Mark DuPré

When we pluralize words like son-in-law, mother-in-law, daughter-in-law, etc., we do that by simply taking the noun and adding an s.

So it’s mothers-in-law, fathers-in-law, sons-in-law, etc. For example, the author has two lovely daughters-in-law. (They are not daughter-in-laws.)

Some of you are screaming at me now and saying, “But law is a noun, too.” Aye, but there’s the rub: the phrase “in-law” is an adjective describing the kind of mother/father/son/daughter you’re talking about. So in that two-word construction, law is not a separate noun.

This week’s other funny/funky plural is a legal and/or governmental term: attorney general. In this phrase, general is an adjective, not a noun. It describes the kind of attorney we are talking about. (Insert tasteless lawyer joke here.] So we take the noun—attorney—and add an s when we want to make it a plural. So one attorney general, two attorneys general, three attorneys general (and that’s really all the attorneys anyone wants to deal with, yes?).

Don’t overcomplicate things here. Just find the noun and add the s there.

They’re and Their and There

Posted on by Mark DuPré

They’re is a contraction joining they and are. The apostrophe has nothing to do with a possessive, but simply takes the place of the missing “a” when you combine the two words (such as didn’t, which of course is did + not).

So if you can write they are for a situation, then you can write they’re instead.

Their means belonging to them, whoever they are. Their friends, their boots, their thoughts. We can never say they are boots unless you are calling those people boots. If they own boots, we would say their boots.

There used to be spelled correctly almost all of the time. Now it’s in the same danger as those other two words that sound like it. There indicates a direction: “I put it over there, next to the couch.” But you already knew that.

Note: Next Tuesday is July 4, and a holiday. So the next entry after today will be on July 11. Happy Independence Day!

Words to Never Say, Part Three

Posted on by Mark DuPré

One phrase that should rarely if ever escape our lips is the ubiquitous “no problem.” I know that I am not the only one driven crazy by that. It’s somehow become synonymous with “You’re welcome.” It doesn’t mean that, and yes, that’s a problem.

Chick-fil-A employees have this down. They say, “My pleasure” or some version of that. That’s a kind and gracious way of saying, “You’re welcome.” Saying “no problem” is just the opposite.

Saying “No problem” implies that your serving someone is indeed an imposition, but that you have overcome this difficulty and appear to be gracious enough to dismiss the incredible hard work you did to provide the service. When someone says “No problem,” it implies that you have asked someone to do something out of the ordinary, and one that poses “a problem.” If you’re providing a normal service in a normal service situation, you should say, “You’re welcome” or something equally as gracious.

If you have been presented with a challenging task that is unanticipated, and you have gone WAY out of your way to do something that wasn’t expected of you, then you could say, “No problem” to an expression of gratitude and be seen as gracious. But when you give me my coffee and I say, “Thank you,” I’m assuming that it wasn’t a major issue or challenge to give it to me. Answering “No problem” implies that.

So don’t say it. Strike it from your vocabulary.

Can I get an Amen, somebody?!