英语语法：49 A Few Short Questions

Grammar Girl here. I get a lot of questions about things that are too short to make up a whole podcast, so today I'm going to answer a few of those short questions.

So here's our first listener question.

Dreamed Versus¹ Dreamt
Hi Grammar Girl. D. Chap here. Here's a new one, a Marine² with a grammar question. I was thinking about the words dreamed and dreamt. I've heard it used both ways and I've seen it written both ways, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me about what the proper usage would be if there is one. You don't say creamt when you're trying to say creamed, or the same thing with gleamed and gleamt; you never hear those. So I was wondering what the proper usage was for dreamed versus dreamt.
Hey, D. Chap. You're actually not the first Marine to submit a grammar question. I've heard from a few Marines, including some guys who wrote in from Iraq. The reason you are confused is that dreamed and dreamt are both allowable past tense forms of the verb dream. Dreamed is more common in American English, and dreamt is more common in British English (1, 2, 3). The same holds true for most other words that have these two forms. For example, learned and spilled are more common in American English whereas learnt and spilt are more common in British English.
Regular Verbs Versus Irregular Verbs
Most of the time you add -ed to a verb to put it in the past tense; jump becomes jumped, for example. So verbs taking an -ed are called regular verbs. The less common past tense forms that end with a t, such as dreamt, are called irregular verbs.  (Wikepedia has an interesting article about the origin of irregular verbs. )
OK, here's another question:
Octopi Versus Octopuses⁴
Hi, Grammar Girl. I am a college student, and I recently questioned if octopi is the correct way to say the plural⁵ form of octopus³, and I got different answers from two different professors. I know it has something to do with the derivative⁶ and if it's Latin or Greek, so I was wondering if you could address the plural forms of octopus or pegasus and any other words you can think of. Thanks. Bye.
You're right that foreign words sometimes keep their foreign plural, especially when they aren't commonly used words.  Fungus⁷ comes from Latin and the proper plural is fungi⁸, for example. But most words that came into English through Latin or Greek take the standard -es to make them plural. The proper English plurals⁹ are octopuses, hippopotamuses¹⁰, Pegasuses, cactuses, and so on*. There are varying forms of acceptance for forms like octopi, hippopotami, and cacti¹¹ -- for example, cacti is more common among people who work with plants -- but it's usually safest to go with the -es for plurals (4).

Here's another one.

Nauseous Versus Nauseated¹³

Hi Grammar Girl. This is Brian from Seattle, and I have a question about the word nauseous. I always thought that nauseous meant that you were causing nausea¹², and that when someone says, "I'm feeling nauseous," they are causing me to throw up on them. But everyone says it! Everyone says, "I'm feeling nauseous." And I always thought it was wrong, but movie stars say it and books say it, and maybe I've been wrong this entire time. I thought if I'm feeling sick, I'm nauseated. And that big pile of trash on the floor is nauseous, meaning it's causing me to throw up. Anyway, I think you understand my question, I'd appreciate an answer. Thanks. Bye.
Brian is right! And this is a good reminder¹⁴ that I should get a flu shot, too, so thanks. It's common to hear people say they're nauseous when their stomach is upset, but language sticklers¹⁵ hold that nauseous means to induce nausea, whereas nauseated means you feel sick. So when you're describing how sick you feel, you should say you are nauseated; when you're describing something that makes you sick, you should call it nauseous. At least that's how you should do it if you want to be extremely proper. Most usage guides note that the improper¹⁶ use is far more common than the proper use (5, 6), which is always a bad sign for a rule. And the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage even goes so far as to say there is no basis for the rule (7). So it's likely that the confusion will continue for a while and eventually nobody will object when you say you feel nauseous when you're sick. Whether that will happen in 20 years or 200 years, I don't know.

Try to Versus Try and
Hi, Grammar Girl. This is Shannon in Phoenix¹⁷, Arizona. I was hoping you could set the record straight about the use of try and versus try to. For example, "I'm going to try and give Grammar Girl a call," versus "I'm going to try to give Grammar Girl a call." My inclination¹⁸ is that try to is the only correct construction, however I increasingly hear people say "try and." Could you please set this straight. I'm dying to have an authority hold forth¹⁹ on this. Thanks.
Hi, Shannon. I got really frustrated²⁰ while researching this topic because none of my books seemed willing to take a stand. They all said "try and" is an accepted informal idiom that means "try to." They say to avoid "try and" in formal writing, but not to get too worked up about it otherwise. But none of them addressed what bothers me about the phrase "try and," which is that if you use and, as in your example sentence -- I'm going to try and call Grammar Girl -- you are separating trying and calling. You're describing two things: trying and calling. When you use "try to" -- as in I am going to try to call Grammar Girl -- you are using the preposition to to link the trying to the calling.
I may have to put this on my list of pet peeves²¹, and as I've said before, people almost always form pet peeves about things that are style issues or where the rules aren't clear.

Grammar Clip From The Office

There was a really funny grammar-related clip on YouTube that I want to tell you about that was brought to my attention by a listener named Scott. Last week on the TV show The Office, the characters got into a big fight about whether to use the word whoever or whomever. I thought about doing a tie-in episode, but I covered who versus whom six months ago, so it seemed too soon to do it again. But you should really see this clip. I'm putting up a link on the Grammar Girl website.
NaNoWriMo

For all you aspiring²² novelists out there, November is National Novel Writing Month and you might want to check out a website called NaNoWriMo which holds a novel writing contest for the whole month. It looks like much more than a contest though. There is a lot of support and encouragement for getting your novel written. It's at NaNoWriMo.org and I'll put a link on the Grammar Girl website too.

Administrative²³ Stuff

You can find a transcript²⁴ of this podcast, my contact information, a link to the Facebook quiz to go with this episode, and all the other great Quick and Dirty Tips podcasts at quickanddirtytips.com. This week Mr. Manners is celebrating his first anniversary as a podcaster with an episode about how to make a toast.

*Note: Before anyone bothers to write in, I know that the classical plural of octopus is octopodes, but I wanted to keep this episode simple and Garner²⁵ and Fowler both say octopodes is pedantic²⁶.
 

1 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

2 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

3 octopus   

n.章鱼

参考例句：

• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。
• One octopus has eight tentacles.一条章鱼有八根触角。

4 octopuses   

章鱼( octopus的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Snails and octopuses are molluscs. 蜗牛和章鱼是软体动物。
• Limpets, snails and octopuses are mollusks. 帽贝、蜗牛和章鱼都是软体动物。

5 plural   

n.复数；复数形式；adj.复数的

参考例句：

• Most plural nouns in English end in's '.英语的复数名词多以s结尾。
• Here you should use plural pronoun.这里你应该用复数代词。

6 derivative   

n.派(衍)生物；adj.非独创性的，模仿他人的

参考例句：

• His paintings are really quite derivative.他的画实在没有创意。
• Derivative works are far more complicated.派生作品更加复杂。

7 fungus   

n.真菌，真菌类植物

参考例句：

• Mushrooms are a type of fungus.蘑菇是一种真菌。
• This fungus can just be detected by the unaided eye.这种真菌只用肉眼就能检查出。

8 fungi   

n.真菌，霉菌

参考例句：

• Students practice to apply the study of genetics to multicellular plants and fungi.学生们练习把基因学应用到多细胞植物和真菌中。
• The lawn was covered with fungi.草地上到处都是蘑菇。

9 plurals   

n.复数，复数形式( plural的名词复数 )

参考例句：

10 hippopotamuses   

n.河马（产于非洲）( hippopotamus的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Hippopotamuses teem in this river. 这条河里有很多河马。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 cacti   

n.（复）仙人掌

参考例句：

• There we could see nothing but cacti.那里除了仙人掌我们什么也看不到。
• Cacti can survive the lack of rainfall in the desert.仙人掌在降水稀少的沙漠中也能生存下去。

12 nausea   

n.作呕，恶心；极端的憎恶(或厌恶)

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕期常有恶心的现象。
• He experienced nausea after eating octopus.吃了章鱼后他感到恶心。

13 nauseated   

adj.作呕的，厌恶的v.使恶心，作呕( nauseate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I was nauseated by the violence in the movie. 影片中的暴力场面让我感到恶心。
• But I have chewed it all well and I am not nauseated. 然而我把它全细细咀嚼后吃下去了，没有恶心作呕。 来自英汉文学 - 老人与海

14 reminder   

n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示

参考例句：

• I have had another reminder from the library.我又收到图书馆的催还单。
• It always took a final reminder to get her to pay her share of the rent.总是得发给她一份最后催缴通知，她才付应该交的房租。

15 sticklers   

n.坚持…的人( stickler的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They infuriate word sticklers by presenting a and leaving the reader to decide which is correct. 它们会提出一堆解释让读者自己判断哪个是正确的，令人大为光火。 来自互联网

16 improper   

adj.不适当的，不合适的，不正确的，不合礼仪的

参考例句：

• Short trousers are improper at a dance.舞会上穿短裤不成体统。
• Laughing and joking are improper at a funeral.葬礼时大笑和开玩笑是不合适的。

17 phoenix   

n.凤凰，长生(不死)鸟；引申为重生

参考例句：

• The airline rose like a phoenix from the ashes.这家航空公司又起死回生了。
• The phoenix worship of China is fetish worship not totem adoration.中国凤崇拜是灵物崇拜而非图腾崇拜。

18 inclination   

n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好

参考例句：

• She greeted us with a slight inclination of the head.她微微点头向我们致意。
• I did not feel the slightest inclination to hurry.我没有丝毫着急的意思。

19 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

20 frustrated   

adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's very easy to get frustrated in this job. 这个工作很容易令人懊恼。
• The bad weather frustrated all our hopes of going out. 恶劣的天气破坏了我们出行的愿望。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 peeves   

n.麻烦的事物，怨恨，触怒( peeve的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• It peeves me to be ordered out of my own house. 命令我从自己的家中出去，真太气人了。 来自辞典例句
• Write down two of your pet peeves about home or any other situation. 写下两个你厌烦的家务事或其他的情况。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

22 aspiring   

adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求

参考例句：

• Aspiring musicians need hours of practice every day. 想当音乐家就要每天练许多小时。
• He came from an aspiring working-class background. 他出身于有抱负的工人阶级家庭。 来自辞典例句

23 administrative   

adj.行政的，管理的

参考例句：

• The administrative burden must be lifted from local government.必须解除地方政府的行政负担。
• He regarded all these administrative details as beneath his notice.他认为行政管理上的这些琐事都不值一顾。

24 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

25 garner   

v.收藏；取得

参考例句：

• He has garnered extensive support for his proposals.他的提议得到了广泛的支持。
• Squirrels garner nuts for the winter.松鼠为过冬储存松果。

26 pedantic   

adj.卖弄学问的；迂腐的

参考例句：

• He is learned,but neither stuffy nor pedantic.他很博学，但既不妄自尊大也不卖弄学问。
• Reading in a pedantic way may turn you into a bookworm or a bookcase,and has long been opposed.读死书会变成书呆子，甚至于成为书橱，早有人反对过了。