926. You may remember being told not to start sentences with "there are," but do you know why? We have the answer! Plus, for Cinco de Mayo, we have five fun facts about Spanish.
926. You may remember being told not to start sentences with "there are," but do you know why? We have the answer! Plus, for Cinco de Mayo, we have five fun facts about Spanish.
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/expletives-spanish/transcript
| The "Five Fun Facts About Spanish" segment was written by Susan Herman, a former linguist, analytic editor, and language instructor for the U.S. Government.
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What do the Spanish words "librería," "éxito," and "delito" have in common? They may not mean what you think they mean in English.
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. This week, we'll talk about what's wrong with sentences that start with "there are" and then, in honor of Cinco de Mayo, I have five fun facts about Spanish.
What Is an Expletive Sentence?
by Mignon Fogarty
Have you ever heard it’s bad to start sentences with “There are,” “There is,” and “It is”? These phrases can be part of what are called expletive sentences. And no! I’m not talking about swearing!
The word “expletive” comes from Latin that means “to fill,” and in English, it’s come to mean something that takes up space without adding anything. The swear-word meaning goes back to the 1600s and may have been popularized by Sir Walter Scott in the early 1800s. And it was definitely popularized by the Watergate tapes in the 1970s that included the phrase “expletive deleted” over and over again because Richard Nixon and his aides apparently had potty mouths.
But we are talking about the grammatical meaning of “expletive,” which goes back even further. We had the word first, I tell you!
But the two meanings actually have something in common: they both essentially refer to filler words. Those “there are”s and “it is”s, take up space without adding any meaning to the sentences, and that’s why you’re generally told to avoid them.
Like most writing advice, it’s not absolute. Sometimes those phrases help you emphasize something or change the rhythm or focus of a sentence. For example, if Squiggly wanted to take chocolate making lessons in France, but didn’t speak French, Aardvark might say, “There is a problem with your plan.” That puts the word “problem” right up front in the sentence compared to “Your plan has a problem.”
Some people say an expletive sentence like that, with the word “problem” at the beginning, puts more emphasis on the word “problem,” and I feel like it does. But if you are an astute listener, you will notice that this contradicts the advice Roy Peter Clark gave us about the last word in a sentence being a point of emphasis. “Your plan has a problem.” It may be that there is a difference between speaking and writing. As a listener, hearing the word “problem” first makes it jump out at you. But as a reader, seeing the word “problem” last may make it stick with you more.
But I think either way, we can agree that the two sentences sound different, and there are times when you will want one or the other. But having looked at a lot of student writing when I was a professor, I can definitely tell you that a huge chunk of the time, you’ll improve your work by looking for expletive sentences and rewriting them.
“There are many people who wrote a letter to the editor,” can become “Many people wrote a letter to the editor.”
“There are a few things I need to do today,” can become “I need to do a few things today.”
Another problem with expletive sentences is that sometimes it can be tricky to pick the right verb because the subject isn’t at the beginning of the sentence where you’re used to seeing it most of the time.
In English, most of our sentences use the subject-verb-object structure. In “Many people wrote a letter to the editor,” for example, the subject comes first (“many people”), the verb comes next (“wrote”), and the object comes last (“a letter to the editor”). Subject — verb — object: Many people — wrote — a letter to the editor.
But in expletive sentences, the thing that comes first isn’t the subject. “There” isn’t the subject in “There are many people who wrote a letter to the editor.” Even though “there” is at the beginning of the sentence, and it’s followed by a verb (!), the words are just filler. “There” isn’t the subject. “Many people” is the subject. It’s doing the action of the verb: “writing.” But it’s playing hide-and-seek in the middle of the sentence.
Now, it might seem straightforward to pick the verb here — you probably wouldn’t be tempted to write “There is many people who wrote a letter” — but it can get tricky when you have a compound subject made up of singular nouns.
For example, I had a question from a listener named Joe a while ago about this sentence:
“There is a couch and a coffee table in the room.” Or should that be “There are a couch and a coffee table in the room”?
Well, you have to identify the subject, which is hiding in the middle of this expletive sentence. It might be tempting to start with “There is a couch…” but the entire subject is “a couch and a coffee table,” and the word “and” makes it plural even though the individual elements are singular. So just like we’d say, “Squiggly and Aardvark are best friends,” using the plural verb “are,” we say, “A couch and a coffee table are in the room.”
Therefore, when we flip it around in an expletive sentence, we still use the plural verb: “There are a couch and a coffee table in the room.”
But…even though it’s right, that still sounds weird to a lot of people, which is why Joe asked the question in the first place. Some sentences sound bad even when they’re right. It’s enough to make you use the other kind of expletive!
So although this has been an interesting exercise — figuring out how to identify the subject — this is exactly the kind of expletive sentence you want to just delete (swoosh!) so you can start over and write something better like “The room has a couch and a coffee table.”
When you're editing your work, look for sentences that start with the words "there” and “it” to see whether rewording them would make them better. Often it does.
Five Fun Facts about Spanish for Cinco de Mayo
by Susan Herman
Happy Cinco de Mayo! But before you get too excited or end up in a taco-induced coma, do you know the real origins of the celebration? It may surprise you that Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) is not Mexican Independence Day; that is actually September 16th. According to the History Channel, “Cinco de Mayo, also known as Battle of Puebla Day, celebrates the … Mexican army’s May 5th, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.” In fact, Cinco de Mayo is not widely celebrated in Mexico – except, of course, in the state of Puebla. But it has become a celebration of Mexican culture and food in the U.S., particularly in areas with large populations of Mexican-Americans.
Let’s not totally burst your Cinco de Mayo bubble, though. It is still a great opportunity to appreciate and learn about Mexican culture and the Spanish language. Today, we have five fun facts about Spanish in honor of Cinco de Mayo:
1. Spanish is widely spoken in the U.S. and around the world. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 67.8 million people speak a language other than English in the home, and in 62% of those homes, the other language was – you guessed it – Spanish. There are a whopping 41 million Spanish speakers in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (or ACS). Since Hispanics are the largest minority population in the U.S. this is not surprising. In fact, per the Wilson Center, the U.S. has the fourth largest number of Spanish speakers of any country in the world.
And when it comes to world languages, Spanish is also up there. Per the language learning website Babbel, there are 450 million native speakers of Spanish in 20 countries, plus Puerto Rico. Another 75 million people speak Spanish as a second language. Spanish falls only behind Chinese when it comes to the number of native speakers around the world (English is #3). And, for the Cinco de Mayo revelers, Mexico has the largest number of Spanish speakers of any country, but the U.S. is #2! And the Cervantes Institute in Spain predicts that, by 2050, the U.S. will take the top spot!
2. Spanish is (relatively) easy to learn! No, really; it is! And not just because your high school Spanish teacher said so. According to Berlitz, which used data from the Foreign Service Institute to rank the easiest languages to learn, Spanish is #4! Not bad, right? Spanish is a Romance language, meaning it has its roots in Latin, and a lot of English words also come from Latin. So you will recognize a lot of Spanish words just from knowing English (more about that in a minute). Also, Spanish uses the same alphabet as English (with a couple of exceptions), and it is a phonetic language, meaning it is pronounced (almost always) as it is spelled and written. So, if you know the alphabet, you can pronounce any word! (And this is also why spelling bees aren't a big deal in Spanish-speaking countries. Spelling just isn't difficult enough to merit competitions.) And, in general, Spanish follows consistent grammar rules. If you learn the basic structure (and the exceptions), you got it! Not so with English, which is very hard to figure out! You’re welcome!
3. You probably already know more Spanish than you think! Thanks to the many cognates Spanish shares with English, you can likely already understand several spoken and written words. Cognates are words that come from the same root language and look or sound the same, or at least similar. Think of the Spanish “inteligente” (“intelligent”) or “hospital” (“hospital’). Just beware of false cognates, or “false friends,” as they’re also called. Those are words that appear to be cognates but really aren’t. For example, “pan” in Spanish means ‘bread,’ not “pan.” And “embarazada” means “pregnant,” not “embarrassed” (and could cause a huge embarrassment if misused). Colorín Colorado’s website has a great list of Spanish-English cognates. You are already well on your way, mis amigos!
4. Spanish has a lot of influence from Arabic. The Moors, who ruled the Iberian Peninsula (primarily mainland Spain and Portugal) for eight centuries, hailed from Northern Africa, practiced Islam, spoke Arabic, and left a significant mark on the Spanish culture and language. According to Arabic Language Online, there are about 4,000 words of Arabic origin in Spanish (around 8% of all Spanish words). One surefire way to recognize a word of Arabic descent is that it begins with “al-,” like “Alhambra” (a beautiful example of Islamic architecture in Granada, Spain), and "artichoke," (“alcachofa”). Some of these words that come from Arabic are also cognates of English, like “algebra” (“álgebra”), “alcohol” (“alcohol”), “lemon” (“limón”), and “coffee” or “café” (“café”).
5. The number of Spanish/English bilingual speakers in the U.S. is rapidly increasing. Many languages are spoken in the U.S. (350 to 430, according to Translators without Borders). In fact, about 25% of people speak a language other than English at home, per the Census Bureau’s ACS. And Spanish is the largest contributor to bilingualism in this country. According to the Pew Research Center, 36% of Hispanics in the U.S. are bilingual (meaning they can use both English and Spanish fluently).
The language-learning website Lingoda lists several benefits to being bilingual, including sharpening your brain (it can even delay the onset of Alzheimers!), connecting with more people, and increasing career prospects and earning potential. It can even make you happier! And being that Spanish is so quickly gaining popularity in the business world, it might behoove you to check out some of the many Spanish language-learning resources available online through private companies and academic institutions.
We hope these five fun facts about Spanish enlightened your Cinco de Mayo celebrations and encouraged you to learn more about the beautiful and diverse Spanish language. ¡Viva México!
That segment was written by Susan Herman, a former linguist, analytic editor, and language instructor for the U.S. Government.
And what did those words I mentioned at the beginning mean? Well, a "librería" is a bookstore, not a library. "Éxito" means "success," not "exit." And "delito" is a crime; it doesn't mean to delete something. Good luck out there!
Next, I have a call from our old friend and guest writer, Neal Whitman, who has another addition to our list of terms for not-in-person learning.
"Hi, Mignon. This is Neal Whitman. You know me; I've written a few pieces for you over the years. Anyway I enjoyed listening to your segment on virtual learning, distance learning, or remote learning, and I wanted to share with you something that I wrote on my office white board back in August 2021, as we returned to in person teaching after a few semesters of COVID-induced teaching from home, and coming back, were still all kinds of regulations about, you know, when and where to mask up, and when to cancel class, and what to do if you were exposed or a student was symptomatic, or whatever else. But what I wrote on my white board is still there — I'm looking at it right now — I wrote, 'Welcome back. Staying home while the seasons were turning, coming back with routines still a churning, though we've gained a few skills, we have all had our fill, of social distance learning.' All right there you go. All my best to Squiggly, Aardvark, and the rest of the gang. Hope you're all doing well. Bye."
Thanks, Neal! Very clever, and I'll mentally add "social distance learning" to the mix from now on.
And finally, I have a familect story from Sheila.
"Hi, Mignon. This is Sheila from Calgary, Alberta. Our familect is a foreign phrase my dad used to tell us when we'd ask as kids what was for supper. And his grandmother — so my great-grandmother — used to tell him when he was a kid (it's a Belgian phrase I'm told, and I'm probably murdering the pronunciation) and it 'isehtuffin, nosehtuffin, crestuffin, which I was told is a little bit of this and a little bit of that all mixed together. Brings back memories to me. My Dad died when I was 18, which is 40+ years ago. So I can't ask him how to pronounce it any more. Thanks. Bye."
Thanks, Sheila! I really wanted to help you find out the correct pronunciation or meaning of what your father was saying, so I asked some of my helpful Dutch-speaking friends on Mastodon. Nobody recognized the saying outright, but people did have some ideas. The e-sound at the beginning could mean "it is."
And the part you remember as "tuffin" could be "toffe" meaning something like "a good one," (and I’m going to do my best on these Dutch pronunciations, but they might not be quite right) but, so, this would give us something like "'t is toffe, d'as ne toffe," meaning something like "It's a good one. That's not a good one."
Another possibility for the first two parts could be "iets hiervan, nog iets ervan," meaning "some of this, some more of this."
Or the part you remember as "tuffin" could be related to the Dutch word "happen," meaning "to eat" or "to bite" or the Dutch word "stoven," meaning "stew."
I hope one of these ideas rings a bell for you or another listener who will let us know. And thanks for the call.
If you want to share the story of your familect, a family dialect or a word your family and only your family uses, call the voicemail line at 83-321-4-GIRL. Call from a nice quiet place, and we might play it on the show.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast, and thanks to the team. Our audio engineer Nathan Semes, our director of podcasts is Adam Cecil, and our marketing associate is Davina Tomlin. Our ad operations specialist is Morgan Christianson, our digital operations specialist is Holly Hutchings, and our intern is Kamryn Lacy, who is the oldest of four girls (no boys, unfortunately, she says).
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.