A word, please
The reader mail that reaches my in-box never ceases to amaze me. Often these e-mails contain questions, most of which are really interesting and thought-provoking, yet they almost all start with self-deprecating remarks by the writer. Take Daniel of city unknown. He calls himself a “grammar weakling” because he has to ask: “Is it ‘one plus one equal two’ or ‘one plus one equals two’?” The source of his confusion: “‘One and one equal two’ seems natural to me. So why do I want to say ‘equals’ when I use ‘plus’?”
In other words, Daniel knows exactly how to handle these two scenarios, yet considers himself a grammar weakling because he doesn’t fully understand why. I couldn’t disagree more.
Daniel’s instinctive understanding of the language is telling him that “one and one” is somehow different from “one plus one.” And he’s right. The difference is that “and” creates a plural subject and “plus” does not.
Remember that plural subjects usually take different verb conjugations than do singular subjects: Bob likes chewing tobacco, but Bob and Sue like chewing tobacco. Bob equals trouble, but Bob and Sue equal trouble.
To get grammatical about it, “and” is a conjunction — one with the special power of being able to create a plural subject. “Garner’s Modern American Usage” spells out what Daniel and the rest of us already know: “If a sentence has two or more singular subjects connected by ‘and,’ use a plural verb.” There are some exceptions, “Garner’s” notes. Mainly that “if the subjects really amount to a single person or thing, use a singular verb: ‘The apple of his eye and the source of his inspiration is Heather.'” But those are oddball cases. Usually “and” in a subject means you have a plural subject.
“Plus” can be any of several different parts of speech, but mostly it’s a preposition. Prepositions don’t create plurals. I’ll use the preposition “with” to illustrate: “Bob and scabies are two things I like to avoid,” but, “Bob with scabies is something I try to avoid.” Tacking a prepositional phrase such as “with scabies” or “plus one” doesn’t change a singular into a plural the way “and” does.
That’s the kind of thing that most people never take time to think about. And those who do hardly qualify as grammar weaklings.
The other types of messages that land in my in-box are peeves and complaints. But in these cases I’m usually powerless to help.
Consider this note from Danielle: “It bothers me when people use the transitive form of the verb ‘grow’ to refer to growing a large abstract thing like a business, as in ‘I am trying to grow my business.’ You don’t grow a business; you build, expand, or develop it. You might grow plants, produce, hair, and inches in height — but not businesses. The intransitive form of ‘grow’ seems more appropriate when referring to the growth of a business: ‘My business has grown this year.'”
She makes a good case — one many of us can support, especially considering the proliferation of icky business-speak like “We need to be proactive, synergize and grow the brand.”
Unfortunately for Danielle, the dictionary doesn’t discriminate against ickiness: “Grow: vt (that means ‘verb, transitive’): to cause to grow.” The fact that “Webster’s New World College Dictionary” and “American Heritage” both define it in exactly these words tells us “grow the brand” haters we don’t have a linguistic leg to stand on.
The so-called grammar weaklings, on the other hand, should stand tall.
— June Casagrande is author of “Mortal Syntax: 101 Language Choices That Will Get You Clobbered by the Grammar Snobs — Even If You’re Right.” She can be reached at junetcn@aol.com.