Of Chinese New Year and Ukrainian Christmas

I hear people were using the phrase Chinese New Year a lot.  It even gets abbreviated to CNY sometimes.   Recently, though, it dawned on me that this isn't actually the best terminology for this occasion, and it surprised me even more that in Canada, where people try to be politically correct to a fault, that no one has as yet taken up this cause.  The more correct phrase is actually Lunar New Year.  It's already known that Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar, but thing is that many other Asian countries celebrate this event as well, meaning that it could be just as correct to call it Vietnamese New Year or even Singaporean New year, for that matter!  To incorporate all the countries that celebrate it, Lunar New Year is definitely a better option.  I assume the Chinese New Year name sticks because there are just so many Chinese, population-wise, that maybe that's just what you'll end up hearing more often anyway.

I also wonder if that same cause holds true for Ukrainian Christmas in Canada.  There are a lot of Ukrainians here, especially in the prairies, and they also celebrate Christmas according to a different calendar.  But it turns out that it's not just the Ukrainians that do it.  Any group of Orthodox believers or practitioners celebrate Christmas at the same time, and non-Ukrainians actually refer to it as Orthodox Christmas.  This holiday is celebrated by many other Eastern Europeans (as that's where you tend to find more Orthodox churches), but it's also celebrated by the Coptic Egyptians, who follow a lot of Orthodox practice.

I guess if no one's offended by the less generic terms, I'm not going to get too upset about it either.  It's just that I do find it a little odd that in Canada, we're not using the most politically correct terms for these holidays.

To loan or to lend?

For a long time, I've been wondering about when I should use loan as a verb rather than lend.  I thought there were actual grammar rules for this, but it turns out it's one of those British/American differences again!  I don't know how many times that has confused me over the years.

In American English, loan and lend are used interchangeably as a verb, but not in British English.

Now, you may wonder what this means for Canadian English.  Because our English tends to be a mixture of American and British English, both forms are very likely as acceptable in Canadian English as they are in American English.

Personally, now that I know the difference, I think I'm going to use loan as a noun only and lend as the verb because I feel like it's less confusing that way.

Condiments for meals

For a long time, it has really bugged me in restaurants when you see a description of an item served with au jus.  This is one of the French terms we use in English that just really irks me when it isn't used correctly.  Au jus is not a noun but an adjective in French and describes the way that a dish is served, usually some type of sandwich.  The juice itself is a beef-based juice, more like a broth, used for dipping your sandwich into, so on a menu, you could say "Sandwich au jus," and you should understand that your sandwich is coming with beef broth or juice.  That would be a more accurate description.  It would be like saying about pie a la mode that your pie is being served with a la mode.  It just wouldn't make sense because a la mode is not a noun but describes the way that a dessert is served, with ice cream.  Sadly, I don't think I have any hope of changing the world to fix this problem! ;o)

Numbers and amounts

As promised--and I hope you weren't holding your breath--I thought I'd continue from my last post about countable and uncountable nouns.

Now that you know the difference between these two, another difference that you should know about, other than  when to use "fewer" and "less", is the difference between "number" and "amount".  The use of these words is when you're referring to how much of something there is.

With countable nouns, you use "number" and with uncountable nouns, "amount".

Example with countable nouns: There was a large number of birds chirping out my window this morning.
Example with uncountable nouns: There was a small amount of sugar left over after all our Christmas baking.

So it would be incorrect to say "There was a large amount of birds" because "birds" is a countable noun.  I hear people use "amount" a lot when it should be "number".  Usually, people don't think of it the other way around, though.  I've never heard someone say, "There was a small number of sugar".  I think it sounds so funny that people just know not to use that!

Now that I think about it, there's a difference between the use of "much" and "many" with countable and uncountable nouns.  I guess that's for yet another entry!

A serious grammar discussion today!

Folks, this is about countable and uncountable nouns.  I'm getting really tired of hearing and seeing inappropriate uses of the word "less" when it should be fewer.   The one that bothered me most recently was a television commercial for a L'Oréal product that's supposed to help you get rid of dark spots on your facial skin.  It promises that you'll see "less dark spots over time."  You know, if I'm going to pay a lot of money for expensive French remedies for my skin ailments, you would think they could use of my purchase price to sponsor ad writers that know the difference between countable and uncountable nouns!  Here it is with a more formal explanation.

Countable nouns: any noun that you count indvidually
  Example: potato (one potato, two potatoes, three potatoes, etc.)

Uncountable nouns: any noun cannot be counted
   Example: justice (here, you cannot say one justice, two justices, etc.)

Now, when you use nouns in comparison with each other, you have to decide whether to use "fewer" or "less". When you are using countable nouns, you need to use "fewer" and when using uncountable nouns, you need to use "less".

For example, which is correct?

There were less goblins under my bed last night.
or
There were fewer goblins under my bed last night.

Since a goblin is a countable noun, the second sentence is the correct one.

Here's another example, and guess which one is correct:

I have seen less sadness in her since she started playing soccer.
or
I have seen fewer sadness in her since she started playing soccer.

I think this one is more obvious because it sounds really funny to say "fewer sadness."  Sadness is an uncountable noun, so "less" should be used in this sentence.

Knowing the difference between these is useful for using the words "amount" and "number", but I think I'll leave that for another day.

More on I's and E's

The letter I and the letter E often mess us up.  There's our age-old rule, I before E except after C, though there are exceptions to that rule (see this blog for more on exceptions).  However, it's also not clear when to use them in certain words, like is is artifact or artefact?  Compliment or complement?

It turns out, there are two different things going on in those examples.  Artifact is simply the American spelling of the British artefact, but compliment and complement mean two different things.  Compliment is when you acknowledge or give praise to someone or something.  For example, if you tell someone that you like his or her outfit, you are giving that person a compliment.  Complement is when you complete one thing with another or improve upon one thing with another.  You can complement a meal with a good wine, for example.  Or sometimes you hear a couple described as complementing each other because perhaps they have opposite traits that balance each other out.

For other words that are often easily confused, check this web site for a list of different words and expressions!

How many spaces do I use after punctuation?

When I do proofreading, I notice a lot of confusion about whether to put two spaces after a period (full stop, if you're a British English speaker) or other punctuation used to end a sentence or just one space.  This used to matter more than it does now.  The difference is actually one of British vs. American style.  Historically, British English required two spaces after a period, question mark, exclamation mark, or colon, and one space after all other punctuation, but American English preferred two spaces after all of those but one after other punctuation.  More recently, the American preference is to use only one space after all punctuation.  I know that some British style writing is trending toward simplification such that only one space will be used after all punctuation (and they're even paring down on using commas, just as a side note!).  However, unless you're writing a manuscript where there are strict publishing guidelines, you can always use your personal preference, within reason.  I personally still use two spaces after all punctuation that ends sentences (? ! and .) and one after all others ( : ; and ,).  I think that's how I was taught when learning to type on a computer, so that's what I went with.

!;,.:?

And no, I'm not swearing!