Green-Leaf Theory

I once fell into a conversation with a young lad who told me that he had an interesting theory about the seasons. He said that he new why the seasons changed; it was all to do with the number of green leaves on the trees. The lad lived in the UK and so he observed the changing leaf-colours and made an interesting correlation between the number and colour of leaves on deciduous trees and how this varied from season to season. This observation and correlation would have been more difficult to make had he lived in an equatorial region. He then went on to advance his theory: when the leaves are green, there is active removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a result of photosynthesis; however, when there are no leaves on the trees, there is no photosynthesis. This means that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases and prevents the sun’s heat getting to us. This is why it is cold in the winter and warm in the summer. Interesting theory I thought.

Making a 'Thud'

Here are two interesting sentences that differ only in respect to one word:

The boy hit the wall with a hammer.
The boy hit the wall with a thud.

The Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition, page 1840) uses the following example in its definition of the word 'thud': 'he hit the wall with a terrific thud'. Hmmm! I thought. This is an interesting sentence since it conjured up visions in my mind of someone actually hitting a wall with an object called a thud. But what then is a thud? A thud is a type of noise - so how can a thud be used to hit a wall? I guess what people would normally mean is 'He hit the wall making a thud'. Alternatively, 'he hit the wall and his impact was accompanied by a thud'. But each of these also conjures up interesting pictures in the mind. For example, one can envisage a person hitting a wall to manufacture a thud - as happens when someone bangs a big base-drum. I suppose the problem is that there are always hidden implications in the words and sentences that people use and these implications become an inherent aspect of the language that we use in conducting our day to day activities. Naturally, these implications can introduce ambiguity, fuzziness and absurdity unless one is 'in the know'. And, there I go!

Nouns as Adjectives

Why is it that so many people are fond of using nouns as adjectives? I think it is probably due to laziness in relation to the correct use of punctuation - usually a missing apostrophe or hyphen. For example, people who work in education often talk about ‘the learner experience’. What do they mean?

They probably wish to express the meaning “the experience (or experiences) that one or more learners is/are exposed to” - in which case, they should probably write one or other of the following expressions:

the learner’s experience (for a single learner having a single experience)
the learner’s experiences (for a single learner having multiple experiences)

the learners’ experience (for a group of learners having a single experience)
the learners’ experiences (for a group of learner having multiple experiences)

On the other hand, we could talk about the ‘learner-experience’ as a single experience that one or more learners are exposed to. The plural form of this composite would now be ‘learner-experiences’ - this would describe multiple experiences that one or more learners have. The problem with this composite is that it does not give any indication of the number of learners involved - one or many? It is interesting to speculate on whether four forms of the composite are needed in order to cover each of the possibilities listed above: (1) learner-experience, (2) learner-experiences, (3) learners-experience and (4) learners-experiences. Interesting!

Someone I know will tell me ...

I was recently listening to a radio programme. At one point in his delivery the presenter was not very sure about something he said, and so, he remarked "Someone I know will tell me". I took some time to think about this remark because I was not really sure about the meaning of what he said. What did he mean? Was he implying that somone he was acquainted with would tell him? Or, on the other hand, was he suggesting that he had the knowledge that someone would tell him? The interesting problem is, of course, how should the written sentence be punctuated or modified in order to remove the ambiguity that it embeds?

Of course, a slight re-wording of the sentence would remove any possible mis-interpretations. Here are some examples of disambiguated sentences that the broadcaster might have used:

I know someone who will tell me.
Someone who I know will tell me.
Someone will tell me I know.

---

Gruntled and Disgruntled

I was having a telephone conversation with a friend and we got to tallking about the word 'gruntle'. She looked it up in her dictionary and told me that the verb 'to gruntle' means "to grumble, murmour or complain" and that its origin goes back to 1589 (page 839 in Volume 1 of the Oxford Shorter English Dictionary, 3rd Edition, 1979). I looked up the word in my Collins English Dictionary (page 648, 1979) where I found the adjective 'gruntled' along with the definition "happy or contended; satisfied". In order to resolve this apparent inconsistency in meaning, I turned to Wiktionary where I found the following statement: "Gruntle is today considered obsolete and is not in normal usage. Gruntled is used only humorously as the imagined opposite of disgruntled" - see here. Apparently, the word 'disgruntled' is of American origin; it therefore appears that 'gruntle' left the UK. went to America and had its meaning changed!

I wonder if 'disappointment' is the opposite of 'appointment'?

---

Dead, Solid and Brittle

Here are three interesting sentences:

(1) He was dead.
(2) The water was frozen solid.
(3) Her bones were brittle.

Each of the words denoted by italic script is used in an adjectival sense. Two of the words (dead and solid) have corresponding verbs to describe the related process; that is, 'to die' describes the process of passing from a live state into that of being dead. Similarly, 'to solidify' refers to the process of becoming solid (from a liquid or gaseous state). However, there does not appear to be a corresponding verb to describe the process of becoming brittle? As there seems to not be a verb 'to brittlify', it is necessary to introduce a verbal phrase 'to become brittle' - as in the expression 'her bones became brittle'. Very interesting!

---