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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

Jul 16

Some words go together like jelly and peanut butter… wait, that sounds super weird.

A pair of words that is used in a fixed order in an idiomatic expression is called an ‘irreversible binomial.’

‘Peanut butter and jelly’ is an example of an irreversible binomial.
🧵⬇️

The order of these expressions is so fixed that the phrase becomes a standard part of the vocabulary.

Also, there isn’t ONE reason that determines order, but we do encounter some patterns.

Irreversible Binomials w/ Alliteration
- rock and roll
- sticks and stones
- the birds and the bees
- dine and dash
- mix and match
- wet and wild
- dos and don’ts

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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

Jan 24

Noncount nouns are words that don’t have usual plural forms.

These are words like ‘sand’ or ‘butter.’

They don’t use indefinite articles like ‘a’ or ‘an’ and take singular verbs.

“The butter is melting.”

“Sand blew in his face.”

The idea is that this kind of word notionally cannot be counted.

Even though sand is made up of many tiny parts, when we say “sand,” as when we say “water,” we mean an uncountable mass.

You wouldn’t say “a few sand” or “I need many water.”

Mass nouns are words where the plural is the same as the singular.

-deer
-sheep
-trout
-shrimp
-offspring
-series
-Japanese
-Vietnamese

These words don’t take the traditional plural '-s 'or '-es' ending—except sometimes.

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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

Oct 7, 2024

We don’t mean to sound possessive, but let’s talk about how to make last names plural.

The plurals of last names are just like the plurals of most nouns. They typically get formed by adding -s.

Jill and Tim Smith→ the Smiths
the Clarence family→ the Clarences

If the name already ends in s or z, the plural is formed by adding -es.

the Fernandez family → the Fernandezes
Mr. and Mrs. Jones → the Joneses

For Names that end in y, you only need to add an s to make them plural

the Daley family → the Daleys

If you want to talk about something that belongs to more than one member of a family, you start with the plural form and add an apostrophe to show possession:

the Smiths' car
a party at the Fernandezes' house
the Daleys' driveway

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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

Sep 27, 2024

The plural of ‘attorney general’ is ‘attorneys general.’

This is because ‘attorney’ is the noun and ‘general’ is the adjective.

It’s not an attorney that’s a general in the military.

It’s an attorney with the most general jurisdiction.

Words where the adjective appears after the noun it modifies are called ‘postpositive adjectives.’

notary public
poet laureate
professor emeritus
court-martial

These words all seem….official.

Why?

For centuries after the Norman conquest,

Latin and French were used for England's royal documents.

Adjectives in French typically come after nouns.

When England switched from French to English in the 1400s these official words/titles kept their French word order.

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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

May 1, 2024

Mayday = HELP ME

May Day = Help me... pick these flowers

‘Mayday’ first came into English in 1923.

There was a lot of air traffic between England and France in those days and both parties wanted to find a good distress signal that everyone would understand.

They could just use 'S.O.S.' - right?

Well…

The telegraph was the primary communication method of ships.

‘S.O.S.’ was easy to remember and decipher in Morse code.

Airplanes used radio instead of the telegraph.

‘S’ was harder to decipher via radio as it could sound like ‘F.’

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Merriam-Webster

@MerriamWebster

Mar 13, 2024

For no reason at all, here is a guide to British noble titles:

‘Prince’ comes from the Latin word that literally means “one who takes the first part.”

It shares its ultimate Latin root with words that denote firstness, like ‘principal’ and ‘prime’ and ‘primary.’

By tradition, only those born into the royal family can use ‘prince’ or ’princess.’

Even though many people refer to ‘Princess Diana,’ the title of ‘princess’ should properly come after her name, since she was not born into the royal family.

“Diana, Princess of Wales”

The title of Prince Philip, was the ‘Duke of Edinburgh’. He was also known as the ‘prince consort’ (husband of a reigning queen).

These peculiar titles with adjectives that follow the nouns are a byproduct of the French-speaking Norman Conquest of Britain in 1066.

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