2000 – chad – A chad is a “piece of the waste material removed from punched cards or tape during punching.” Chad became the 2000 word of the year because of the controversy surrounding hanging chads—chads that were not completely detached from ballots—in Florida during the 2000 presidential election.

2001 – 9/11 – The numerical word 9/11 refers to the terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City; on the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and in rural Pennsylvania.

2002 – weapons of mass destruction (WMD or WMDs) – A weapon of mass destruction is a “weapon intended to cause widespread devastation and loss of life” and refers especially to chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons. The phrase garnered attention in 2002 when then President George W. Bush used the unsubstantiated threat of WMDs to generate support for the invasion of Iraq.

2003 – metrosexual – The word metrosexual is a blend of the words metropolitan and heterosexual that refers to a man “whose lifestyle, spending habits and concern for personal appearance are likened to those considered typical of a fashionable, urban, homosexual man.” British journalist Mark Simpson coined the term to describe a new masculinity in a post-industrial, capitalist culture.

2004 – red state/blue state/purple state – Color-coding states by political leaning became increasingly popular during the 2004 presidential election. Red states favor conservative Republicans. Blue states favor liberal Democrats. Purple states lack strong support for either side of the political spectrum.

2005 – truthiness – Truthiness is defined as “a ‘truth’ that a person claims to know intuitively ‘from the gut’ without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.” American comedian Stephen Colbert popularized the word on the political satire The Colbert Report in such discussion as the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the invasion of Iraq.

2006 – plutoed – The verbs to pluto or to be pluto mean “to demote or devalue someone or something.” The word plutoed refers to the 2006 decision of General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union that Pluto no longer met the definition of a planet.

2007 – subprime – The adjective subprime means “below the highest quality of grade” and within banking describes a “risky or less than ideal loan, mortgage, or investment.” Subprime became the 2007 word of the year as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis that lead to real estate and financial crises in the United States.

2008 – bailout – A bailout is a “means of release or rescue from difficulty or crisis” such as “an act of giving financial assistance to a failing business.” In response to the subprime mortgage crisis, the United States government provided failing banks with bailouts in 2008.

2009 – tweet – A tweet is a text-based post of up to 140 characters sent via the social networking and microblogging service Twitter. The verb to tweet means to send a message via Twitter. Twitter and tweeting gained in popularity during 2009.

Word of the Decade

As voted by the American Dialect Society, the word of decade of 2000 to 2009 is the verb google. Converted from the proper noun Google of the search engine variety, to google means “to use the Google search engine to find information on the Internet” or simply “to search the Internet.” Both the Oxford English Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary officially added google as a verb to their pages in 2006.

Google has launched efforts to stop the use of google as a generic verb, but other examples of trademarked words such as aspirin and Xerox becoming generic words through extensions almost certainly predict the future of such a fight. As shown time and time again, once such a word enters into everyday language, stopping such use is virtually impossible. So, google on!

Akin to Modern German and Dutch, many verbs in Old English consisted of verbs with separable preposition or p-word prefixes (Fischer et al. 2000: 182; Williams 1970: 286; Strang 1974: 275). For example, the Modern German aufwachen meaning “to wake up” and the Modern Dutch uitlachen meaning “to laugh at” both consist of the separable preposition or p-word prefixes auf and uit and the verbs wachen and lachen (Fischer et al 2000: 182). When verbs with separable preposition or p-word prefixes are conjugated, however, the preposition or p-word prefix “separates” from the beginning of the verb to the end of the predicate phrase as in ich wache morgens auf meaning “I wake up in the morning.” Phrasal verbs, single semantic units formed by a verb phrase followed by a marooned preposition or p-word such as wake up, only developed in the English language during the Middle English Period (Smith 2005: 104). According to Barbara M. H. Strang in A History of English (1974: 275), the separable nature of certain intransitive verbs with preposition or p-word prefixes produced many patterns in which the separated preposition or p-word prefix immediately followed the verb as in the Modern German du kommst auf meaning “you arise” or “you get up” and wir kommen an meaning “we arrive.” Such syntax in which the preposition or p-word followed instead of preceded the verb became the preferred word order in English, which consequently developed into the modern phrasal verb (Strang 1974: 275). The English phrasal verb is therefore a rather Germanic verb construction.

Similar to nonperiphrastic verbs such as cough in The baby coughed and sneeze in My puppy sneezed on my hand, phrasal verbs may be intransitive. Intransitive verbs including intransitive phrasal verbs differ from transitive verbs in that intransitive verbs cannot or do not take objects (Jacobs 1995: 248). For example, the verb cough is always intransitive as in The baby coughed or The baby coughed during the night because cough cannot take an object as in *The baby coughed mucus or *The baby coughed the formula. Many phrasal verbs are also intransitive (Jacobs 1995: 248). In the sentences He finally showed up by the end of the party and My puppy woke up early, the phrasal verbs show up meaning “to arrive” and wake up meaning “to awake” are both intransitive because neither take objects in the example sentences. Other intransitive phrasal verbs include get up as in She got up from bed, break down as in The car broke down on the highway, die down as in The commotion finally died down, and run away as in The delinquent ran away from home (Courtney 1983: 47, 132, 231, 521). The preposition or p-word functioning as a particle almost always directly follows the verb in intransitive phrasal verb constructions as in She threw up on the floor but not *She threw on the floor up.

Phrasal verbs, like other nonperiphrastic verbs such as eat as in The cat eats her pâté and nibble as in The puppy nibbled the leaf, may also be transitive. Unlike intransitive verbs that cannot or do not have objects, transitive verbs require direct objects and may also take indirect objects (O’Dwyer 2000: 60). Most phrasal verbs, however, only take direct objects. For example, the verbs deck out and soak up as in We decked out the house for the holidays and He soaked up the information both have direct objects in the form of the noun phrases the house and the information making both phrasal verbs transitive (Courtney 1983: 125, 590). Within the transitive category, phrasal verbs may be either nonseparable or separable. Phrasal verbs in which the preposition or p-word functioning as a particle cannot move or be separated from the position directly following the verb are nonseparable (Jacobs 1993: 249). Nonseparable phrasal verbs include run into as in She ran into an old friend, stand by as in He will always stand by his wife, go for as in The cat went for the rabbit in the garden, and come across as in Lyndsey came across a rare book in the stacks (Jacobs 1993: 249). The prepositions or p-words in all the examples of the nonseparable phrasal verbs can only appear immediately after the verb. Therefore, the syntax of the phrasal verb ran into in the sentence She ran into an old friend is grammatically possible in English but *She ran an old friend into is not.

The phrasal verbs look up and chew out differ from nonseparable phrasal verbs in that the preposition or p-word functioning as a particle may appear directly after the verb or immediately following the direct object without changing the function of the preposition or p-word (Jacobs 1993: 248; Justice and Ezell 2002: 147). For example, both My mom chewed out my baby brother for being late and My mom chewed my baby brother out for being late are grammatically possible in English. According to Joseph M. Williams in Origins of the English Language: A Social and Linguistic History (1975), the separable phrasal verb construction developed as a result of the relative flexibility in the syntax of prepositions or p-words to direct objects (286-287). As abovementioned, many verbs in Old English consisted of verbs preceded by separable preposition or p-word prefixes, which moved to the end of the predicate phrase during conjugation (Williams 1970: 286). Up until the fourteenth century during the evolution of such verbs into modern phrasal verbs, the preposition or p-word in the new verb form consisting of a verb directly followed by a preposition or p-word could appear either before or after the direct object in the form of a noun phrase (Williams 1970: 286). As such prepositions or p-words stopped functioning as heads of prepositional phrases and began functioning as particles in phrasal verb constructions, the position of the preposition or p-word remained flexible (Williams 1970: 286). Therefore, while the Old English syntax of the phrasal verb look up would more closely resemble the Modern English He looked the word up and the Modern English construction should only be He looked up the word, both syntaxes remained grammatically possible for separable phrasal verbs in Modern English (Williams 1970: 287). That certain transitive phrasal verbs are separable further supports the idea that the English phrasal verb is highly Germanic in form.

Many separable phrasal verbs, however, are only optionally separable when the direct object is a noun phrase in any form other than a pronoun. Two word orders, verb-preposition/p-word-noun phrase and verb-noun phrase-preposition/p-word, are possible when the direct object is a prototypical noun phrase consisting of a noun and any number of modifiers (Fischer et al. 2000: 180). However, when the direct object is in the form of a pronoun, the preposition or p-word functioning as a particle must be separated from the verb (Jacobs 1995: 249). For example, the phrasal verb check out is optionally separable as in Many patrons check out this book and Many patrons check this book out because the direct object of the verb phrase is the noun phrase this book consisting of the determinative this and the noun book without any pronouns. If, conversely, the direct object this book is replaced by the pronoun it, then the phrasal verb check out is obligatorily separable. Therefore, the construction Many patrons check it out is grammatically possible in English but *Many patrons check out it is not because phrasal verbs with pronoun direct objects must be separable. Many prescriptive grammarians argue against the placement of the preposition or p-word after the noun phrase, stating that ending sentences with prepositions is ungrammatical according to proscriptive grammar rules. Prescriptive grammarians also claim that phrasal verbs are colloquial in register and should be avoided in formal writing because more formal nonperiphrastic synonyms also exist i.e. get up ~ arise, wake up ~ awake, look up ~ consult (Smith 2005: 104). But, the obligatorily separable construction of phrasal verbs with pronouns functioning as direct objects only strengthens the Germanic nature and therefore legitimateness of phrasal verbs in the English language.

Within the four different types — intransitive, nonseparable transitive, optionally separable transitive, and obligatorily separable transitive — phrasal verbs remain periphrastic forms whose meaning is derivable only from the combination of the verb and preposition or p-word as a single semantic unit (DeCarrico 2000: 132-133; Tyler and Evans 2003: 62). In the example He looks up the word, the meaning of the phrasal verb look up cannot be determined by the meanings of the individual verb look meaning “to visually turn attention to” and the individual preposition or p-word up meaning “at a higher point” (Fischer et al. 2000: 180). When he looks up the word, he is not visually turning his attention to a word at some higher point; he is instead searching for or consulting the word probably in a dictionary or some other reference material. That the meaning of phrasal verbs cannot be inferred by simply combining the meanings of the verb and preposition or p-word further indicates that phrasal verbs are single semantic units (Fischer et al. 2000: 180). The preposition or p-word, which in addition to the verb comprises the phrasal verb, no longer functions like a prototypical preposition or p-word but rather functions as a particle, which is part of the verb (Justice and Ezell 2002: 146). The preposition or p-word functioning as a particle in the phrasal verb look up in the example He looks up the word is therefore more grammaticized than the preposition or p-word functioning as a complement in the prepositional verbs look at or look out in the examples He looks at the sky and He looks out the window (Tyler and Evans 2003: 62). Thus, phrasal verbs are periphrastic verb constructions because the grammatical relationship is expressed not through inflection but through two or more words.

References

Courtney, Rosemary. 1983. Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs. Essex, England: Longman Group Limited.
DeCarrico, Jeanette S. 2000. The Structure of English: Studies in form and function for language teaching. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Fischer, Olga, Ans Van Kemenade, Willem Koopman, and Wim van der Wurff. 2000. The syntax of early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hopper, Paul J. 1999. A short course in grammar. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Jacobs, Roderick A. 1995. English syntax: A grammar for English language professionals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Justice, Laura M. and Helen K. Ezell. 2002. The syntax handbook: Everything you learned about syntax…but forgot. Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Thinking Publications.
O’Dwyer, Bernard. 2000. Modern English structures: Form, function, and position. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Oxford English Dictionary. 2008. Periphrasis, n. http://dictionary.oed.com.proxy2.library.uiuc.edu/cgi/entry/50175668?single=1&query_type=word&queryword=periphrasis&first=1&max_to_show=10 (12 Oct. 2008.)
Smith, Jeremy J. 2005. Essentials of early English: An introduction to old, middle and early modern English. London: Routledge.
Strang, Barbara M. H. 1974. A history of English. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.
Tyler, Andrea and Vyvyan Evans. 2003. The semantics of English prepositions: Spatial scenes, embodied meaning and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Williams, Joseph M. 1975. Origins of the English language: A social and linguistic history. New York: The Free Press.

Sun

Form the hand into the signed letter C. Hold the hand in front of the forehead. Move the hand away from the face.

Moon

Form the thumb and index finger into a C with the other three fingers resting on the palm. Hold the C in front of the eye. Raise the hand above the head.

References

Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

Rain

Hold the hands by the sides of the face with the palms facing forward. Rotate the wrists while closing the fingers to the palm twice.

Snow

Hold the hands in front of the body at shoulder level. Wiggle the fingers while moving the hands back and forth and in a downward motion to mimic snowflakes floating to the ground.

References

Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

Complex sentences, too, contain a single clause known as the main, independent, superordinate, or matrix clause (Hopper 1999: 212; Quirk et al. 1985: 991). In addition to the main clause, however, complex sentences also contain one or more subordinate or dependent clauses (Hopper 1999: 212; DeCarrico 2000: 142; Quirk et al. 1985: 987). For example, the sentences Because the evening was terribly chilly, we lit a roaring fire and The puppy will sleep through the night assuming he tires himself out are complex because both contain the subordinate clauses Because the evening was terribly chilly and assuming he tires himself out as well as the main clauses we lit a roaring fire and The puppy will sleep through the night. As constituents of the sentence as a whole, subordinate clauses are not arguments of the predicate and therefore not subjects or objects but instead function as modifiers of the entire main clause (Quirk et al. 1985: 987; Jacobs 1995: 66; Hopper 1999: 212). Subordinate clauses can therefore only appear attached to main clauses as in He attended the concert even though he hated the band but not *even though he hated the band or *Because the sky was dark (DeCarrico 2000: 142-143; Jacobs 1995: 66; Justice and Ezell 2002: 217). Subordinate or dependent clauses are thus called because of their subordination to or dependence on the main clause.

Similar to clauses in simple sentences like Apple cider tastes sweet and Clowns terrify children as well as most librarians and main clauses in complex sentences like Lucy will hold the football because Charlie Brown has a signed document and Sally will be angry unless the Great Pumpkin arrives, subordinate clauses must contain both a subject and a predicate (Justice and Ezell 2002: 217). For example, the subordinate clauses in the complex sentences Trees loose their leaves once the weather turns chilly and Although that she hated his mother surprised him, he still allowed her to attend the family dinner contain both subjects and predicates. The subject of the first example is the noun phrase the weather and the subject of the second the noun clause that she hated his mother. The predicate of the first example contains the verb phrase turns and the adjective phrase chilly and the predicate of the second the verb phrase surprised and the noun phrase him. Unlike clauses in simple sentences and main clauses in complex sentences, however, subordinate clauses also contain subordinating conjunctions that precede the subject (O’Dwyer 2000: 200; Jacobs 1995: 67).

Subordinating conjunctions or subordinators are conjunctions that introduce subordinate clauses (DeCarrico 2000: 143). For example, the lest in the complex sentence Linus always waits in a sincere pumpkin patch lest he miss the Great Pumpkin and the considering in Considering he bravely flew during battle, Snoopy is a great World War I Flying Ace introduce the subordinate clauses lest he miss the Great Pumpkin and Considering he flew bravely during battle; lest and considering are therefore examples of subordinating conjunctions. Bernard O’Dwyer (2000) identifies the functional potential of subordinating conjunctions as connecting subordinate clauses to main clauses as in the subordinating conjunction because connecting the subordinate clause his daddy dropped it to the main clause The puppy ate the pea in the complex sentence The puppy ate the pea because his daddy dropped it (201). Similar to other grammatical categories such as sentences and prepositions, subordinating conjunctions differ in form as either simple or complex. Simple subordinating conjunctions, which are the most prototypical subordinating conjunctions in the English language, consist of one word such as although, because, once, since, unless, whereas, and while (Quirk et al. 1985: 998; O’Dwyer 2000: 98-99). For instance, the complex sentence Although I would like to go to bed early, I must finish my essay first contains the simple subordinating conjunction although.

Unlike simple subordinating conjunctions, complex subordinating conjunctions are periphrastic consisting of multiple words as in in that, assuming that, provided that, except that, insofar as, and as though (Quirk et al. 1985: 998). Within the complex category, subordinating conjunctions obligatorily end with that as in in that and in the event that, obligatorily end with as as in as soon as and insofar as, optionally end with that as in so that or so and given that or given, or fall into a small category of other complex subordinating conjunctions as in as though and in case (Quirk et al. 1985: 998). Many subordinating conjunctions optionally ending with that resemble participles and some prepositions in form as in considering that or considering and provided that or provided but are distinguished from other forms by the following clause (Quirk et al. 1985: 998). For example, the subordinating conjunction considering is distinguished from the preposition considering in the examples Considering my brother ate the entire pie, we will not be having dessert tonight and You will write a detailed essay considering the topic by the clause my brother ate the entire pie following the subordinating conjunction and the noun phrase the topic following the preposition.

Subordinate clauses that begin with subordinating conjunctions such as because and assuming that in sentences like Her house was freezing because the furnace broke and Assuming that you carefully follow my directions, you should arrive in less than five hours are termed adverb clauses. Adverb clauses function similarly to other adverbials, which are broadly defined as phrases that express time, place, manner, condition, reason, or purpose of a clause (O’Dwyer 2000: 200; Hopper 1999: 67, 256; Justice and Ezell 2002: 220; DeCarrico 2000: 143). For example, the prepositional phrase because of the fierce winter storm functions as an adverbial to the clause The university closed for an entire week in the sentence The university closed for an entire week because of the fierce winter storm by expressing the reason for the occurrence of the main clause (Hopper 1999: 119). The prepositional phrase because of the fierce winter storm describes the reason for which the entire clause occurred. Subordinate clauses functioning as adverb clauses also modify the entire main clause to which the subordinate clause is attached (DeCarrico 2000: 143). In the complex sentence The university closed for an entire week because the fierce storm completely covered the roads with snow, the subordinate clause functioning as an adverb clause because the fierce storm completely covered the roads with snow again expresses the reason for the occurrence of the main clause. In other words, the proposition of the subordinate clause is the reason for the proposition of the main clause. Just as the prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial because of the fierce storm modifies the main clause The university closed for an entire week, the subordinate clause functioning as an adverb clause because the fierce storm completely covered the roads with snow modifies the other main clause The university closed for an entire week.

Like other forms with adverbial functions, subordinate clauses functioning as adverb clauses are optional, meaning adverb clauses can be introduced and removed without changing the kernel semantics or grammaticality of the main clause (Justice and Ezell 2002: 217; Hopper 1999: 258; Jacobs 1995: 68). For example, adding or deleting the subordinate clause functioning as an adverb clause because she is evil to or from the main clause The kitty stole my milk changes neither the meaning nor the grammaticality of the sentence propositioning that a feline animal usurped my dairy beverage. As an adverb clause, the subordinate clause because she is evil expresses the reason for the occurrence of the main clause and therefore modifies. Conversely, the noun clause That the kitty stole my milk functioning as the subject of the sentence That the kitty stole my milk upsets me cannot be removed without destroying the grammaticality of the sentence as in *Upsets me or changed without altering the meaning of the sentence as in The evil kitty upsets me and That my husband stole my milk upsets me. The noun clause That the kitty stole my milk functions as the subject as opposed to modifying. Therefore, by modifying the entire main clause, subordinate clauses functioning as adverb clauses form close grammatical relationships not with any one word or phrase in the main clause but with the main clause itself (Hopper 1999: 258; Jacobs 1995: 69). Subordinate clauses can therefore occupy any number of positions adjacent to phrases within the sentence. For example, the subordinate clause functioning as an adverb clause when we met him can occupy the positions preceding and following the noun phrase functioning as the subject as well as the position preceding the verb phrase functioning as the predicate in the sentence The puppy licked our faces. Therefore, all three of When we met him, the puppy licked our faces, The puppy, when we met him, licked our faces, and The puppy licked out faces when we met him are grammatically possible in the English language because of the omissibility and flexibility of forms in adverbial functions.

References

DeCarrico, Jeanette S. 2000. The Structure of English: Studies in form and function for language teaching. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Hopper, Paul J. 1999. A short course in grammar. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
Jacobs, Roderick A. 1995. English syntax: A grammar for English language professionals. New York: Oxford University Press.
Justice, Laura M. and Helen K. Ezell. 2002. The syntax handbook: Everything you learned about syntax…but forgot. Eau Claire, Wisconsin: Thinking Publications.
O’Dwyer, Bernard. 2000. Modern English structures: Form, function, and position. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press.
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svarkvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.

Shirt

Tug at the shoulder using the index finger and thumb of the hand.

Pants

Hold the hands at the waist with the palms facing the body. Lift the hands up in the motion of pulling up the hands while closing the thumbs onto the palms.

References

Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

Bicycle and Bike

Form the hands into fists. Peddle the hands in front of the chest in the motion of peddling a bicycle.

References

Acredolo, Linda & Susan Goodwyn. 2009. Baby signs: How to talk with your baby before your baby can talk, 3rd edn. New York: McGraw Hill.

Rabbit

Place the hands on the sides of the forehead with the palms facing backwards. Lower the fingers to the palms.

Fish

Hold the hand in front of the body with the palm facing the chest. Wiggle the hand back and forth in the motion of a fish swimming.

References

Beyer, Monica. 2006. Baby talk: A guide to using basic sign language to communicate with your baby. New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.
Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

Coat

Hold the hands in front of the holds. Move the hands down to the waist in the motion of putting on a coat.

Hat

Touch the hand with the palm flat to the top of the head.

References

Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.

Pacifier and Binky

Shape the index finger and thumb into the shape of a letter C. Hold the hand in front of the mouth. Move the hand in towards the mouth.

References

Porpora, Tracey. 2011. The complete guide to baby sign language: 101 trips and tricks every parent needs to know. Ocala, FL: Atlantic Publishing Group, Inc.