908. You had word-related questions after watching the World Cup. We have answers! And for the holidays, we look at the origin of toasting with wine (and why it actually IS related to toasted bread).
908. You had word-related questions after watching the World Cup. We have answers! And for the holidays, we look at the origin of toasting with wine (and why it actually IS related to toasted bread).
| Transcript: https://grammar-girl.simplecast.com/episodes/world-cup-words/transcript
| Subscribe to the newsletter for regular updates.
| Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.
| HOST: Mignon Fogarty
| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475) or https://sayhi.chat/grammargirl
| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.
| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.
| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.
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’re going to answer a question about team names being singular or plural during the World Cup, and we'll talk about the origin of toasting.
Here’s a question from a listener named David.
"Ms. Fogarty, it's David H. Lawrence the 17th. I miss you. I miss us speaking together at blogging and podcasting events, but right now I am, I am hurting. I feel like everything that I've learned about singular versus plural matching has been called into question after watching the World Cup. I don't know what it is about football/soccer announcers, world football/soccer announcers. But they seem to have an issue with what is normal matching of a name, an object, with singular versus a group with plural. For example, ‘France trying to defend their crown’. ‘Argentina are in the lead.’ As opposed to ‘is in the lead.’ If France miss this kick, not ‘if France misses this kick,’ but ‘France miss’ ... France is a country. Then, ‘Argentina win the World Cup’ not ‘wins the world cup.’ Then ‘Argentina win the World Cup’ and then the ultimate ‘Argentina have won the World Cup. Argentina beat France in a shoot out.’ What is going on in the world where these things don't match, or am I missing some rules, some grammar rule, that I should have learned in the third grade? I come to you, oh Grammar Girl, please set me straight."
Hi, David. It’s great to hear from you, and I can hear the confusion and frustration in your voice. You didn’t miss anything in the third grade; what you’re noticing is a documented difference between British and American English. In American English, we treat team names as plural, the Seattle Sounders are playing Sunday, for example, but we treat them as singular when we just use the city name, Seattle is playing Sunday, for example.
But in British English, they treat the names as plural whether they’re using the name or the city. So they’d say something like “Leeds United are playing Sunday,” but also something like “Leeds are playing Sunday.” Always treating it as plural.
You’ll find other differences along these lines too. For example, British English tends to treat company names as plural, whereas American English tends to treat them as singular.
So on an American English news site, you’d read that Netflix is cracking down on password sharing, while on a British English news site, you read that Netflix are cracking down on password sharing.
The British also refer to their government as plural. For example, a sentence on the BBC website about coronavirus says, “The government are right to be cautious,” whereas in the United States, we’d say “The government is right to be cautious.”
The same is generally true for band names too. Here’s an example with a band name that felt so weird to me that I had trouble understanding what it meant at first. The headline was about the band Nirvana, and the article was about music history and the rise of grunge and the fall of a genre known as “hair metal” (which I’d roughly define as ‘80s metal bands with big hair, like Poison, Quiet Riot, Motley Crue, and Guns N’ Roses). In the headline, “The Guardian” treats “Nirvana” as plural, writing “Nirvana kill hair metal.”
Now as an American, I’d have written, “Nirvana kills hair metal.” I have a hard time even processing “Nirvana kill hair metal.”
And if you’re having trouble immediately determining whether a sentence is using singular or plural verbs, try substituting pronouns.
“They kill hair metal” is plural, and “It kills hair metal” and “He kills hair metal” are singular.
Of course, Americans do also often treat names that sound plural like they’re plural. So we’d say, “The Beatles are the greatest band of all time.” But in general, we are much more likely to treat names as singular than people who speak British English, so it’s another difference you might notice. Thanks for the question.
Soccer versus Football
by Mignon Fogarty
And before we leave the topic of the World Cup and team names, here’s another tidbit you might enjoy: Why do we call it soccer in the United States when the British call it football?
Well, there wasn't always such a clear geographical divide. The British actually called it both “soccer” and “football,” as did Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Both sports come from the same precursor sport, but the rules were fuzzy and different in different locations. When the rules started getting more codified, the American and British games diverged, and the different names became more associated with one game or the other.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "soccer" actually started as slang in Britain. Football there (or soccer as we call it) was called "association football" referring to the association rules, and the "soc" at the beginning of "soccer" comes from the "soc" in the middle of the word “association,” with an "-er" added to the end because that was a slangy thing to do at the time. It's the same reason you might have heard a freshman referred to as a "fresher," for example.
So don't get too worked up about the two different names — "soccer" and "football" — at one point, everyone called them both.
—
Burned Bread + Wine + Poison = Toastmasters
by Erik Deckers
What do burned bread, wine, and poison have to do with public speaking?
Well, at first glance, nothing. Ah, but that's because you don't understand the crucial role toast has played throughout history. It can't be used as a lectern, and it makes a barely passable gavel, but toast has had a significant influence on public speaking as a whole, and the Toastmasters organization in particular.
We know toast is nothing more than lightly burned bread — or if you're bad at it, heavily burned bread. And while no one knows toast's actual history, some food historians believe it started in 3000 BCE when the Egyptians dried their bread in front of open fires to make it stay mold-free longer.
So what's so great about toast? Why didn't we stop toasting bread in 2100 BC, when the Ancient Mesopotamians invented the plastic baggie?
Well, according to English writer Nick Parker, author of "Toast: Homage to a Superfood," ". . . a single piece of plain toast is tastier than a single slice of plain bread" because "at 154 degrees Celsius, the sugars and starches in the bread start to caramelize, intensifying the flavor."
OK, so what does toast have to do with wine?
In the 6th century BCE, the Ancient Greeks began the practice of saluting their friends' health with wine during dinner parties. They did it partly to show they respected and loved their friends, but mostly to show they weren't trying to poison them. (The Ancient Greeks had a nasty habit of poisoning wine to eliminate their enemies, thieves, and spouses.)
At dinner parties, the host would pour wine from a shared pitcher and take a drink before the guests. Then, assuming he didn't collapse in a heap, he would raise his glass to his friends and ask them to drink, making it the first incarnation of our present-day toast.
And since the Ancient Romans borrowed [nearly] everything from the Ancient Greeks — including how they dealt with social and political problems — they adopted the practice of toasting as well.
In fact, it's the Ancient Romans who gave us the term "toast."
To reduce the acidity of bad wines and make them more pleasant to drink, they would drop pieces of toast into their cups. Eventually the Latin term "tostus," which means "to dry up" or "scorch," came to refer to the drink itself.
The practice of drinking to one's health eventually made its way to England, where the first recorded toast was at a feast between British king Vortigern and his Saxon allies around 450 AD. Rowena, the daughter of the Saxon leader, Hengist, offered spiced wine to the king, with the words "Louerd King, waes hael!" (Lord King, be of health). Vortigern was so impressed with Rowena's toast (and beauty) that he threw over his current wife and married Rowena. Much to the dismay of the first Mrs. Vortigern.
Rowena's "waes hael" eventually became the modern wassail, the practice of drinking mulled or spiced wine from a large bowl at Christmastime (which you may remember from the recent episode about Christmas words). However, just like the Ancient Greeks, Rowena also poisoned her new husband, much to the delight of the now-former Mrs. Vortigern.
The ritual of drinking to a companion's health evolved over the next 12 centuries until it became known as simply "toasting" in the 1600s. Remaining true to the Roman custom, partygoers would drop a piece of toast into a shared glass. The last person who drank the wine claimed the toast at the bottom, trying desperately not to think of the backwash.
The 1700s saw the creation of the position of "toastmaster." This person was responsible for proposing toasts, announcing other toasts, and making sure all toasters were given the chance to make a contribution to the festivities.
By this time, wine drinkers were always toasting to the health of their companions, although unlike their Ancient Greek counterparts, they weren't trying to poison anyone. But the pre-drink ceremony became such a strict social obligation that poisoning may have been a less painful alternative.
By the early 1800s, toasting was not only fashionable, refusing to toast or drink with another was a grave insult. Lord Henry Thomas Cockburn, Scotland's Solicitor General, wrote in his “Memorials of His Time” that the drinking of toasts was "a perfect social tyranny. Every glass during dinner had to be dedicated to some one. It was though sottish and rude to take wine without this, as if forsooth there was nobody present worth drinking with."
As the ritual of toasting evolved, so did the quality of the toasts, which led to greater competition between the toasters. Everyone tried to give the perfect toast in order to earn a reputation for being well-spoken and intelligent. Every possible topic, situation, incident, or current event was considered fair game.
As we examine toasting history over the last 2700 years, it's easy to see how it has shaped not only dining etiquette, but public speaking, as many acclaimed writers were also notable toast makers and speakers.
Even in the speaking organization, Toastmasters International, the position of Toastmaster is there to ensure everyone has the chance to deliver their own speech. Speeches cover a variety of topics and there is even a sense of friendly competition among speakers.
At least I hope it's friendly. If you're not sure, don't drink anything offered to you until someone else drinks it first.
That segment was written by Erik Deckers, a professional writer and the co-author of four social media books, including "Branding Yourself." He recently published his first humor novel, "Mackinac Island Nation," and celebrated his 25th anniversary as a newspaper humor columnist. He is also the president of the Board of Directors at the Jack Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida.
Finally, I have a familect story from Linda:
"Hi. My name is Linda, and I have a familect story. It's actually my mother’s, who is passed away, and the word itself has sort of passed away with her, and I'm hoping by me telling it to everybody else, it kinda has a little revival. When she was tiny and during the Depression, she and my grandmother would go to a neighbor's house and pick berries, I think they were blackberries, and at the end, she would walk up with my grandmother with a basket full of berries, and my grandmother would say to my mom ‘What do you say?’ and of course, my grandmother was prompting her to say thank you, but in my mother's little-girl mind, she thought that the word ‘says’ meant she had just picked ‘says.’ She thought that was the name of the berry. For the longest time, she called them ‘says,’ and to this day when I go buy berries in the store, I think of my mom and that word. Thanks a lot. I hope you enjoy that. I love your podcast. Have a great holiday."
Thank you so much, Linda, for sharing that story, and I hope you and your family are having great holidays too.
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, and I might play it on the show. Be sure to tell me the story behind your word or phrase and call from a quiet place.
Grammar Girl is a Quick and Dirty Tips podcast. Thanks to my audio engineer Nathan Semes and my editor Adam Cecil. Our ad operations specialist is Morgan Christianson, whose favorite thing to do is watch old-school music videos on YouTube. Our marketing and publicity assistant is Davina Tomlin, our digital operations specialist is Holly Hutchings, and our intern is Kamryn Lacy.
And I’m Mignon Fogarty, better known as Grammar Girl. That's all. Thanks for listening.