Companies are not people, but American – only US citizens. The nuances of the English language that you never even thought about
The English language is fraught with a huge number of secrets and interesting nuances that even native speakers often do not think about.
Today we decided to bring up a more fun topic that reveals a number of similar curious nuances and peculiarities of English. Almost all of them are known even to a student with the Upper-Intermediate level, but most of them cause a reaction “How is it?”. Let’s not pickle for a long time. Go.
“Half” can be singular or plural
The word “half” has the normal plural form “halves”, in which many students successfully make mistakes when trying to write “halfs”.
He cut an apple into two halves. – He cut the apple in half.
But this is not interesting. After all, the same “half” can be used both in the singular and in the plural.
Compare the following examples:
Half of pizza was eaten. – Ate half of the pizza.
Half of pizzas were eaten. – Ate half of the pizzas.
In the first example, there is only one pizza – and someone just ate half of it. In the second, there are a lot of pizzas, and the sentence says that they ate half of the total number of pizzas. And in the first example “half” is used in the singular, and in the second – in the plural.
And if you use “halves” in the second example, the meaning of the sentence will change completely. Halves of pizzas were eaten – eaten half of each pizza, not half of all pizzas. Literally cut each in half and ate only one piece.
The number of the word “half” depends on the addition next to it. If “pizza” is singular, if “pizzas” is plural. It’s simple. The main thing is to remember in what situations you still need to use “halves”.
By the way, compound words with a “half” part are also very mean. Because the devil knows how they need to be written: separately, together or with a hyphen. For example, half note, halfhearted, half-baked. Only a dictionary will help here – memorizing is pointless.
American – US resident or not
America is not a country, but a whole continent. After all, Europeans are residents of European countries, and Asians are citizens of Asian countries.
“Americans” does not fit into this series, because according to this logic, Brazilians, Canadians and Meshicans should be called Americans. All salt in a historical context. People in America called themselves Americans long before the US state was created.
The problem is that it is almost impossible for modern US citizens to come up with an adequate name. Usians? Statians? There are simply no alternatives.
“Americans” is today used solely to refer to US citizens. And if you need to designate the inhabitants of South America, then they say “south americans”, and the inhabitants of the North in the majority of situations simply do not generalize.
Companies are not people
It surprises many students that “company” is “it” and not “who”. After all, a company is made up of people – how can they all be “it” together?
In English, the concept of “animate-inanimate” is rather subtle. Previously, everyone in the language, except people, was considered inanimate. Girl is who and dog is it. Only the last few decades, domestic animals have also been “animated”.
“Company” – despite the fact that the company consists of people, it is not a person, therefore only “it”.
They’re kind of a strange company that listens to weird music.
They’re kind of a strange company, who listens to weird music.
The first option is grammatically correct, although it will sound strange for a Russian speaker.
Next – this week or next?
What day does the phrase “next friday” mean in English? The next Friday, no matter what day it is, or a specific Friday next week? The English speakers are divided into two almost equal camps.
In English grammar there is no, and never has been, a fixed rule on how to use “next” with the days of the week. Therefore, they use it as they are accustomed to.
This nonsense has long been known and makes native speakers laugh. Here’s how she was played on the hit sitcom Seinfeld:
In the Russian language, the norm “next week” has been fixed. Our week starts on Monday. That is, if on Tuesday we say “next Thursday” on the 2nd, then it will be the 11th, not 4. This is what they say in most cases, although there are still regions where “next Thursday” is understood differently.
And in English it is better to clarify. “Next Friday” – what is the date?
Possessive squared: looks scary, but grammatically correct
Let’s take an example straight away. The McDonald’s brand uses an apostrophe in the headline. Formally, this is the possessive case. But since this is a brand name, it can be used to form another possessive case.
I love McDonald’s Big Mac. – I love Big Mac from McDonald’s.
In oral speech, they say this so as not to complicate the design and not to use unnecessary turns.
In written speech, they prefer to avoid such situations. Because two apostrophes in one word look strange even for an ordinary speaker, but for a linguist it is like a sickle in common sense. There is even a whole debate about how to write correctly in such situations: “McDonald’s” or “McDonald’s” “. There is no single answer and hardly ever will be.
If you really have to write something like that, then it’s better to just rephrase:
I love Big Mac from McDonald’s.
“They” and “their” can be used for singular too
In the English language there is no single norm, how can you name a person whose gender you do not know.
Yes, now they are actively trying to come up with a gender-neutral pronoun. There are a dozen different options, including “ve”, “ze”, “xe”, “e”, “ey”. But they are used by a few and there are no general rules.
And many people with a traditional gender will be unhappy if they are called a pronoun for neutral. In general, everything is complicated here. But there is a perfectly valid option – “they”.
The plural pronoun has no gender and in English there is a practice when it was used in the singular – the so-called “royal we”. Queen Victoria, for example, used only “we” in most of her speeches.
If you call a person “they”, they will not have negative connotations. Because that’s what the royal people are called. And the speaker can not be mistaken with a person’s gender.
For instance,
Please, tell the next visitor, that their order is already completed. – Please tell the next visitor that their order has already been completed.
Over the past five years, the number of uses of “they” as the singular pronoun has increased dramatically. And it is very likely that “they” will be the new gender-neutral norm. But it is not exactly.
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The English language is constantly changing. This is especially noticeable in the Internet era. New nuances of the language, new words and phrases appear. And this is interesting to follow.
There are a lot of non-obvious features and details of the language. Are you interested in this format of materials? Write in the comments.
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