Sunday, June 17, 2007

Language quiz

The host of Bargain Hunters sums up the rules of the show:
The contestants get 200 pounds and go out into a fair; they only get one hour and "they buy something they think is a bargain. It goes into an auction and the name of the game is to make a profit. And hopefully if they do make a profit they get to keep it. What could be fairer than that?"
The previous quiz was:
This is from the NCAA site:
Check out our WCWS Blog from Oklahoma City or email well-wishes to your favorite WCWS team and players.
This is enormously common and stems from the fact that "well" is both an adjective and an adverb - but with different meanings. "Well" as an adverb is the irregularly formed adverb of "good"; as an adjective it means "healthy".

Now, adverbs are not used in English to modify nouns. For instance, using a normal derived adverb, we see: "I wish you ran quickly" -> "I wish you were a quick runner." but "Well" is not a flat adverb, the same form in both functions (compare to the flat adverb "fast" - he runs fast / he is a fast runner), it's irregular. "Well wishes" is formed from "I wish you well", but you have to used the adjective - and that's "good".

"Well wishes" works if by "I wish you well" you mean "I wish you were well" (get well wishes). But if you mean "I wish good things for you" your wishes are "good wishes".

Remember the old aphorism: Do well by doing good.

And look here for Previous Quizzes, 36 so far.

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2 Comments:

At 1:45 PM, June 17, 2007 Blogger Barry Leiba had this to say...

Oh, that annoying "hopefully". In this case, it's not even the wrong word: no word is needed there at all.

 
At 2:13 PM, June 17, 2007 Blogger The Ridger, FCD had this to say...

I don't think there's anything wrong with sentenc-initial hopefully - but of course it doesn't belong here. It does considerable damage to what he means to say - after all, they do get to keep the money if they win any...

 

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