VOA慢速英语2015 Everyday Grammar: Words Come and Go in English

Everyday Grammar: Words Come and Go in English

For VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar. This week’s Everyday Grammar is by a guest author, David Sullivan. He is Assistant Managing Editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Vice¹ President of the American Copy Editors Society.

Part of the reason that English has grown as a world language is that it adjusts easily to change. Unlike some other languages, there is no "official" English that must be used generation after generation, and there never has been.

However, this means that what one was taught as a child in school may be out of fashion a couple of decades later. Slang is meant to come and go, but when common phrases change, it can make speakers feel "wrong" because they were taught that something else is "right."

One example of this is a term linked to school itself. Today, it is common for people to say that they "graduated high school" or college. The word "graduated" has two common meanings. One is to mark off a series. The easiest way to think of this is to go back to high school chemistry class and remember the tubes used for experiments.  They are called "graduated cylinders³" because they have lines to show how much liquid to add: 10 milliliters, 20 mL, and so on. The lines make up a series.

The other meaning is closely related. As you move through school, you cross off a series of achievements: grade school, middle school, high school, and college. So, in a way, school itself is "graduated."

So, when people used to speak of getting a diploma, they said they "graduated from college." "To graduate college" would have meant, literally⁴, to mark it off by year – freshman⁵, sophomore⁶, junior, and senior. Similarly, "to graduate to college" would have meant to complete high school and move up to the next level. The use of the preposition was important.

But as happens often in English, when people understand your meaning, smaller words, verb forms, and other parts of speech can disappear. "I graduated college today" is easy to say. Sometimes written language reflects the spoken one, sometimes it does not. In this case, usage has moved rapidly toward "graduated college" as acceptable, if not correct.

This may upset people who were taught that you had to use "from" to be correct. But this is not the first time this phrase has been simplified. It used to be that you said, "I was graduated from college," instead of, "I graduated from college." The change may reflect how we think about the student and the university. Before, the emphasis was on the college: It graduated you. Now, the emphasis is on the student: I graduated.

A search in Google's NGram Viewer shows a sharp fall in the number of times people used "was graduated from" between 1920 and 2000. The phrase "graduate college" increased from 1930 to 2000.

Birds are silhouetted⁷ next to the sundial in Sevastopol, Crimea, March 29, 2014.Birds are silhouetted next to the sundial in Sevastopol, Crimea, March 29, 2014.

You can’t predict what English will keep and what it will lose. Who could imagine that we would still say we "dial" a phone number when we now push buttons on our cell? Yet we know what it means. And, of course, "dial," like "text," at one time was only a noun, not a verb.  You looked at a sundial or the dial of a compass.  

People complain that English uses too many odd spellings, like "through" or "doughnut."  Many want to change them to simpler spellings. When it comes to speaking, though, modern English speakers get to the point quickly. The question is, why are we complaining?

Words in This Story

generation – n. a group of individuals born and living about the same time.

slang - n. words that are not considered part of the standard vocabulary of a language and that are used very informally in speech

graduate - v. to earn a degree or diploma from a school, college, or university

graduated - adj.. marked with lines for measuring

cylinder² - n. a shape that has straight sides and two circular ends

emphasis - n. special importance or attention given to something

complain - v. to say or write that you do not like something

1 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

2 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。

3 cylinders   

n.圆筒( cylinder的名词复数 )；圆柱；汽缸；（尤指用作容器的）圆筒状物

参考例句：

• They are working on all cylinders to get the job finished. 他们正在竭尽全力争取把这工作干完。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• That jeep has four cylinders. 那辆吉普车有4个汽缸。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

5 freshman   

n.大学一年级学生(可兼指男女)

参考例句：

• Jack decided to live in during his freshman year at college.杰克决定大一时住校。
• He is a freshman in the show business.他在演艺界是一名新手。

6 sophomore   

n.大学二年级生；adj.第二年的

参考例句：

• He is in his sophomore year.他在读二年级。
• I'm a college sophomore majoring in English.我是一名英语专业的大二学生。

7 silhouetted   

显出轮廓的，显示影像的

参考例句：

• We could see a church silhouetted against the skyline. 我们可以看到一座教堂凸现在天际。
• The stark jagged rocks were silhouetted against the sky. 光秃嶙峋的岩石衬托着天空的背景矗立在那里。