Was that uncle who wiped the floor with you in a card game a cardsharp or a card shark? Also, we look at what it is about using "they" as a singular pronoun that makes it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked. | Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates. |Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course. |Peeve Wars card game. |Grammar Girl books. |HOST: Mignon Fogarty |VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) |Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network. |Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk. |Links: https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/ https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl http://twitter.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://facebook.com/grammargirl http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Was that uncle who wiped the floor with you in a card game a cardsharp or a card shark? Also, we look at what it is about using "they" as a singular pronoun that makes it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked.
Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/cardsharp-the-old-new-singular-they-grignug/transcript
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
|Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing course.
|HOST: Mignon Fogarty
|VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475)
|Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
|Theme music by Catherine Rannus at beautifulmusic.co.uk.
|Links:
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/podcasts
https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/subscribe
https://www.tiktok.com/@therealgrammargirl
http://twitter.com/grammargirl
http://facebook.com/grammargirl
http://facebook.com/grammargirl
http://instagram.com/thegrammargirl
https://www.linkedin.com/company/grammar-girl
Grammar Girl here. I’m Mignon Fogarty, and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language. We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.
Today, we'll talk about what to call that relative who wiped the floor with you playing cards over the holidays, what it is about using "they" as a singular pronoun that makes it sometimes stand out and sometimes get overlooked, and family words for that crusty stuff called sleep you get in the corner of your eyes.
Cardsharp or Card Shark?
Western novels, movies, and television shows regularly contain scenes of men in saloons playing cards—and cheating at cards. Sometimes a cheater is called a “card sharp” and other times a “card shark.” So which one is correct?
“The Ox-Bow Incident,” published in 1940, is a western novel set in the year 1885. And the story opens with Art Croft and Gil Carter riding into the fictional town of Bridger’s Wells, Nevada. They enter a saloon and almost everything seems normal with men drinking and playing cards, but something doesn’t seem quite right. For one thing, Art is surprised he doesn’t hear anyone being called a “card sharp” (p. 19), which is what he called people who cheated, or were suspected of cheating, at cards.
Here's another example: In one episode of a 1960s western television show called “The Rifleman,” which is also set in the mid-1880s, Lucas McCain (played by Chuck Connors) walks into a saloon in fictional North Fork, New Mexico, and sees his friend Lariat Jones (played by Richard Anderson) in a card game. From the camera angle, viewers see his opponent pull an ace of spades from inside his jacket to complete a royal flush. Then, Jones lays down four of a kind in aces, which includes an ace of spades. Since there’s only one ace of spades in a deck, one of them cheated and viewers know who it was. McCain says, “We shoot card sharks in this part of the country, mister,” and the cheater runs out.
In those two instances, why were two different words—“sharp” and “shark”—used to refer to the same thing: a cheater?
“Cardsharp” is often defined as someone who cheats at card games. The words “cardsharper” or “cardsharping” have the same, or similar, meaning, as does just the word “sharper.” alone However, the word “sharp” in some contexts, can be a compliment and a positive description of something or someone too. He's really sharp!
“Card shark” can refer to a person who is good at playing cards without cheating *or* a person who cheats at cards. However, the word “sharker” alone refers to someone who cheats or is dishonest, but the word “shark” can have either a positive or negative connotation depending on the context.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the words “cardsharp,” “card-sharper,” and “card-sharping” date as far back as the 1840s and refer to someone who cheats at cards. The word “card shark” first appeared a few decades later, in the 1870s, and referred either to a person skilled at card games *or* a person who cheated at cards. However, the word “sharker” dates as far back as the late 1500s and referred to a person who lived by cheating or being dishonest. The term “sharper” meant the same thing as “sharker” and has been dated to the later 1600s.
As time has gone on, “card shark” has been used more often in its positive sense to refer to someone who is skilled at cards. A game show that began in the 1970s called “Card Sharks” has contestants wager money and try to correctly guess cards. People don't win by cheating, but by skillfully playing the game. In that context, being a shark is a good thing. But consider what happens if we replace the word “card” with “loan.” A “loan shark” is known for generally operating outside the laws that regulate money lending to take advantage of people and make a profit. In that regard, being a “shark” is a bad thing. Now think about the popular television show “Shark Tank” where the sharks are the investors bidding to fund entrepreneurial ventures for a return on their investment. It often gets competitive, but there’s nothing unlawful. In that scenario a “shark” is not bad.
Looking back at the history and use of those words reveals that “cardsharp” has referred to someone who cheats, but a “card shark” can be either someone who cheats at cards or who is skilled at cards and doesn’t cheat.
Because “cardsharp” dates to an earlier usage than “card shark” and both sound similar and can have the same meaning, some have proposed that the newer phrase is an eggcorn. An eggcorn is a word that comes about when someone mishears how a word is supposed to be pronounced. However, the etymologies of “card sharp” and “card shark” and their related words do not actually support that claim.
Although in common use there is significant overlap between the two words, both the AP Stylebook and Garner's Modern English Usage recommend using "cardsharp" when you're talking about a cheater and "card shark" when you're talking about a skilled player. And of course, when you're reading or listening, take the context into account to help figure out the meaning. Finally, note that "cardsharp" is often written as one word, especially in American English and especially in modern times, and "card shark" is always written as two words.
That segment was written by Brenda Thomas, a freelance writer and online educator.
In this next segment, Kirby Conrod explains something I've noticed when writing about the singular "they" before, but haven't been able to articulate very well, and I think you'll find it helpful and interesting!
Old 'They,' New 'They'—Why Singular 'They' Is an Example of Language Change in Action, Even Though It's Hundreds of Years Old
Why did the AP style guide say it’s OK to write “Some student forgot their backpack” but suggests that writers avoid “Aiden forgot their backpack” in the same 2017 update?
Why can some people say “That driver didn’t use their blinker” but not “Alex never uses their blinker” without getting confused or mixing up pronouns?
Or, more relevant to many of us who aren’t journalists: what’s going on with this ‘Dear Amy’ letter in which an advice-seeker writes, “Dear Amy, I am fine addressing someone whatever gender-identification they prefer. What I object to is the use of ‘they’ as a singular pronoun.” You may notice, as many readers did, that this letter-writer used singular “they” in the exact same sentence where they objected to the singular use of “they.” This is surprisingly common, too—that people will use “they” in the very same breath as insisting that it’s too difficult or confusing to use “they” for a single person. So what’s going on? Are these people hypocrites? Careful linguistic analysis says no: these people are reporting an actual constraint on their unconscious mental grammar; they just don’t know how exactly to clarify when singular “they” sounds natural and when it feels mentally difficult.
The reason people struggle is that there are really two uses of singular “they”: an old use, which has been in use in English as far back as 1375, and a new use, which is part of a big language change in the 21st century. The difference between the old singular “they” and the new singular “they” has nothing to do with agreement between singular and plural words. In fact, the thing that makes the difference for your brain is whether you’re using “they” to refer to a general or unknown person, or whether you’re using it to refer to a specific person—especially someone you know. Uses like “some student” or “each person” are grammatically singular, but the vast majority of English speakers will use and accept “they” with these phrases. These general uses don’t even need to be gender-neutral: “each woman has a right to feed their baby,” and similar uses, are very common.
But the general uses are grammatically different from the specific uses. The new use of “they” is any use referring to a single, specific person, such as using a proper name or pointing someone out. Even definite generic phrases, like “the ideal student always does their homework,” don’t trigger the same response as a specific reference to a particular person that a proper name does. The AP style guide is picking up on this difference when they recommend that writers “use the person’s name in place of a pronoun, or otherwise reword the sentence, whenever possible. If 'they/them/their' use is essential, explain in the text that the person prefers a gender-neutral pronoun.”
Linguists have been researching the general use of “they” for decades, but research on this new use of “they” has increased a lot the past five years. Several large surveys by linguists like, Ellis Hernandez, Lauren Ackerman, Evan Bradley, and our guest writer Kirby Conrod have found that your social identity influences how natural you find the new use of singular “they.” People who are younger, for example, generally find sentences like “Basil forgets their backpack a lot” more natural than older people. When you see this kind of consistent difference in different age groups, linguists interpret this as evidence of language changing.
All living languages are always changing, but documenting the changes as they happen can be tricky—which is why these linguists use age as a way to investigate ongoing language shift. Younger speakers of a language tend to use newer forms, while older speakers hang on to the older forms. (It's just like we've talked about on this podcast before when we've pointed out that many young people say they "graduated college," adults say they "graduated from college," and much older adults say they "were graduated from college.")
Social factors also play into language change and natural variation in language. These studies have also found that people who have more prescriptive beliefs about language are less likely to accept the new use of singular “they,” and people who have more nonbinary friends are also more likely to accept the newer use.
In the case of singular “they,” these age differences are one piece of evidence that the specific use of the pronoun—the one used by some transgender and nonbinary people—is a newer use. That doesn’t mean it’s less correct, but it does mean that organizations dedicated to formal language guidelines are often somewhat behind the times. In fact, the editors at the Associated Press have said in the past that they aim to follow the way their writers and readers are using the language, not to lead when it comes to change.
Further, not all style guides are suggesting that you avoid this new form: the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA, and the APA style guides all say it’s absolutely fine to use “they” for a person if that person uses they/them pronouns. In fact, the Trans Journalists Association has its own style guide that gives the most up-to-date guidance: [it reads] “They/them pronouns are not new and should not require an explanation for audiences. […] The media has been reporting regularly on singular they/them pronouns in relation to trans people for at least a decade, and these pronouns are in the dictionary.”
If you’re one of the people for whom the new form just feels difficult and slightly unnatural, don’t worry: brain imaging studies from linguists and psychologists Dan Grodner, Sadie Camilliere, Peiyao Chen, Grusha Prasad, and others have shown that you’re not alone. In EEG scans, they’ve found that people’s brains react the same way to the new form of singular “they” as they’d react to any other syntax anomaly (like how some people find it strange to say “The car needs washed” or “It’s very crowded downtown anymore.”).
And linguists like Jennifer Arnold and our guest writer Kirby Conrod are studying how people learn new grammatical constructions like singular “they” over the course of their lives. This language change is unusual because it’s one that many speakers are consciously aware of (unlike language changes such as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, where people in states like Michigan and Minnesota sometimes pronounce vowels differently, such as “busses” sounding more like “bosses.” Such changes are often unconscious).
If you want to get better at using they/them pronouns for the people in your life, you can approach it kind of like learning a second language: the best thing to do is practice, as much as possible, and put yourself in situations where you get lots of positive reinforcement. Linguist and guest writer Kirby Conrod has some tips in their blog posts at kconrod.medium.com, and you might also like A Quick And Easy Guide To They/Them Pronouns by Archie Bongiovanni and Tristan Jimerson, available on bookshop.org or wherever you like to buy books.
Kirby Conrod received their PhD in linguistics from the University of Washington, and is currently a visiting assistant professor of linguistics at Swarthmore College. Their research focuses on the syntax and sociolinguistics of pronouns and nonbinary language. You can find them on Twitter @kirbyconrod, and they also blog about pronouns, linguistics, and higher ed at their Medium blog, kconrod.medium.com.
Finally, I have a familect story from Kevin.
"Hi Mignon this is Kevin from the State of Maine calling with a family story for you. Hope you like it. So the word is great and Doug which I suppose would be spelled GR I GE and UG and this is a word my family use to describe the sleep that you are about of your eyes and wake up in the morning. So coming from a very Franco American French Canadian family. I heard a lot of strange words of this one kinda made sense to me though because the GR IG sounded like the French word for gray and the and UG. I figured was the start of that work nugget. So kinda be a funny compound where the men-grade(?) nugget so use this word with my friends once who came from the Franco American Family made had no idea what I was talking about and I was I realize or something just my family used. So I hope you like it hope you think it's kinda funny and I love you show. Thank you very much. Bye now."
Thank you, Kevin. I can see why you'd think it was a real word, and I do think it's funnyA and what's also funny is that I had a story from a different family who also has their own word for the sleep you get in your eyes. The audio wasn't good enough to use on the show, but that family calls it crystallies. I guess there's just something about that eye goop that inspires people to make up words for it! Thanks for the call.
If you want to call with the story of your familect, a word your family and only your family uses, you can leave a voicemail at 83-321-4-GIRL, and I might play it on the show. And please, be like Kevin and call from a nice, quiet place so I can use the audio. I want people to hear your stories!
I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl.
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That’s all. Thanks for listening.