Something You Should Know - The 2 Keys to Your Happiness & Defying the Rules of English

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Download June's Journey now on Android or iOS. Today on Something You Should Know, how a restaurant's menu can make or break a meal. Then, true happiness. It eludes a lot of people because they think, I'll be happy when I get rich, I get married, I get thin. The idea that I'll be happy when is really the source of so much misery, because not only does it lead us to do things that make us miserable in the moment,

Starting point is 00:00:57 thinking they'll bring us happiness in the future. It also distracts us from all of the goodness that we already have in our lives. Also, is it really better to know a baby's gender before it's born or not? And the English language, it has lots of weird rules. Where did they come from? I'm encouraging people to ask that question when someone says, you can't do that in writing, or that's wrong, or that's not a real word. We can all ask, says who?

Starting point is 00:01:26 All this today on Something You Should Know. Mama, look at me. Vroom, vroom. I'm going really fast. I just got my license. Can I borrow the car, please, Mom? Kids go from 0 to 18 in no time. You'll be relieved they have 24-7 roadside assistance

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Starting point is 00:02:01 Something you should know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel. The world's top experts. And practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi. Welcome to another episode of Something You Should Know. I would imagine that most people like to go out to eat.

Starting point is 00:02:30 Some people like to go out a lot, some people just for special occasions, but most people enjoy the experience. And when you think about it, the menu at the restaurant has a lot to do with how well you will enjoy that experience. The menu is kind of the gateway to your meal satisfaction, or lack of meal satisfaction. U.S. Foods, which is a leading restaurant service provider, recently surveyed restaurant goers to get their take on restaurant menus and the whole ordering process. And here's what they discovered. First of all, menu indecisiveness is rampant. 79% of Americans say they have a difficult time deciding what to order.

Starting point is 00:03:06 American diners also do their homework. The survey found that 83% of diners review the menu beforehand and half have already decided what they're going to order before they set foot in the restaurant. Nine out of ten diners say the price of a meal impacts their decision on what they order.

Starting point is 00:03:25 On average, Americans say they're willing to spend about $44 on a meal for themselves when they go out. Menu preferences, they're kind of all over the map. One in ten people say they prefer using a QR code to view the menu. But one out of six people don't know how to use a QR code. And 51% of people say the whole QR code thing slows down the process. And 95% of restaurant goers believe that restaurants should always have physical menus even if they also have the QR code. And 72% of diners said they prefer menus with pictures of the food. And that is something you should know.

Starting point is 00:04:11 In the quest for happiness, it just may be possible that we misunderstand what it means to be happy. No one is happy all the time. Happiness is not a momentary feeling. Happiness is so much more than that. And it appears we often get it wrong. As you are about to hear, the secret to your happiness may lie with other people.

Starting point is 00:04:35 Meet Stephanie Harrison. She is creator of The New Happy Philosophy. Her work has been featured in publications like Fast Company, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review. And The New Happy's like Fast Company, Forbes, and the Harvard Business Review, and the New Happy's art, newsletter, podcast, and programs reach millions of people around the world.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Stephanie is also author of the book, New Happy, Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong. Hi, Stephanie. Welcome to Something You Should Know. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. There does seem to be lately a big focus on happiness in popular culture, in the media, books, podcasts. And yet you say that we get it wrong sometimes or even a lot of the time. So explain what that's all about. Yeah, that's exactly right. The premise of my work is that our society has conditioned us into believing all of the wrong things about happiness.

Starting point is 00:05:27 And in fact, those beliefs are not only failing to make us happy, but they're actually leading us towards greater misery and suffering in our lives. Well, that's not good. I mean, here we are trying to make ourselves happy. And if you are right, then we're making ourselves miserable in the process. So explain how that works. We have been conditioned into these three core beliefs that one, we need to be perfect because there's something wrong with us and we have to prove that we're good enough. And we can do that through what we achieve by doing more and more and more, and that we have to do everything by ourselves. And these three beliefs come together into something that I call old happy, which is our societal definition of happiness. And all three of these beliefs actually end up contributing to outcomes like mental illness,

Starting point is 00:06:16 loneliness, disconnection from our relationships and our communities, a lack of a sense of purpose, essentially everything that we don't want in our lives. And so what is happiness then to you? What is, define it for me. To me, after doing all of this research and scouring through everything that I could ever get my hands on written about happiness, I've come to believe that it has two components. True happiness comes from being who you really are and then using yourself to help other people. And it's the integration of both your unique gifts and strengths and then how you offer it up to others that ultimately contributes to a lasting sense of well-being. And not doing

Starting point is 00:06:57 those things is what makes you unhappy. Yes. Or pursuing things like potentially trying to change who you are or denying who you are, ignoring the gifts that you have that are important and meaningful to you, or becoming obsessed with external achievement and extrinsic goals, or thinking that you should separate yourself from other people and be totally independent in the world. If that's all true, why do people seem to go the other way? You would think that we would naturally be inclined to do what you're suggesting because that would lead to being happier. Yeah, that's a really

Starting point is 00:07:32 good question. You know, I think it's because happiness is the greatest goal of a human being's life, right? It drives everything that we do and all of the choices that we make. And so if you have an idea of happiness that's flawed or incorrect, then it's almost like you have punched in the wrong destination into your GPS, right? And you don't actually know until you get to your destination that you're going to end up somewhere that you didn't want to go. But it's persistent and it's pervasive. We continually are driven towards these old happy beliefs simply because they're so ingrained within us. From the

Starting point is 00:08:10 time that we were born, we were conditioned into this set of ideas about what we need to do in order to be happy. And so part of the problem is that we haven't been able to name this issue. We haven't been able to isolate it and point it out and say, hey, that's something that's affecting us. It doesn't mean that it's true and it doesn't mean that it's me. I can take a step back and move away from that experience and decide, is this actually working for me or might there be a better way to do this? So do you think when you feel happy, when you are happy, what is that? Is it a feeling? Is it a thought? What is it? that you have that signifies contentment or the joy and brightness that comes with achieving something meaningful in your life or spending time with your loved ones or families. There's all these different feelings that fall under the sense of happiness that we can have. But then more

Starting point is 00:09:16 broadly, it's also an evaluation of your life, how you believe that your life is going and what you would say to somebody if they asked you, would you do these things all over again? Do you feel satisfied with the way that your life has gone and where you're going in the future? So it has both an emotional and a cognitive element to it. But nobody, I don't think, feels that their life has gone 100% perfectly. It just doesn't work. Life throws things at you that make you unhappy, that are unhappy, that make you go in a direction that you had no intention of going in because that's what life has dished up. Absolutely. And I think that really happy people are those who learn how to navigate those challenges because as you said, they are inevitable and they learn not only how to get through them, but even to turn them into

Starting point is 00:10:10 experiences that might provide them with meaning and purpose or help them to develop their empathy and compassion. So they find a way to take those difficult raw ingredients of life and turn them into something else. This idea of, you know, happiness comes as the result of something else. So you'll be happy when you get married, when you get that job, when you have so much money in the bank, that seems to be those things that, you know, that it never seems to work out that way. No, it doesn't, does it? I think once you've experienced that a few times and you have a couple of those big life events

Starting point is 00:10:50 that you thought would make you happy under your belt, you can start to look around and go, yeah, this doesn't seem to be a good strategy. And I think that the idea that I'll be happy when is really the source of so much misery because not only does it lead us to do things that make us miserable in the moment, thinking they'll bring us happiness in the future, but it also distracts us from all of the goodness that we already have in our lives and all of the beauty and the joy that's

Starting point is 00:11:17 available right here. And we're so distracted by thinking about the future that we fail to attend to it, which is a profound source of happiness that exists that's right in front of us. So help me understand the difference or how they intersect, happiness and pleasure and joy. Because pleasure is not happiness, but pleasure seems to be somehow tied to it. And same thing for joy. Happiness, pleasure, and joy are, I would call them related, but as you're saying, they do have important differences. And so pleasure is most often described as hedonistic in nature. It's the satisfaction of one of your needs or your wants. And so you could find

Starting point is 00:12:02 deep pleasure from, let's say, a glass of water on a really hot day. That could give you a feeling of pleasure, but that's not going to make you lastingly happy. And then there's joy. My favorite understanding of joy comes from the scientific research, and it argues that joy is the result of connection, of being connected to others, to oneself, or even to something transcendent like your relationship with a God or with a spiritual presence. And that sense of connection provides us with a deeper experience of well-being. But again, it's more of an emotion. So it has a rise and a fall and fades away. So it will last for longer than pleasure, but not as long as happiness, which is much more of, in my belief, it's much more of this sense of contentment that

Starting point is 00:12:52 lasts, that pervades your life, that allows you to live a happy life amidst those ups and downs that we're talking about, the experiences of both joy and pleasure, but also of grief or sadness or anger and all of the other emotions that we experience. Don't you think though, and isn't there research that you can talk about that it really depends in part on your ability to handle those down moments. Some people can handle them and, you know, it's water off a duck's back. Or maybe it's not that easy, but still it's not so. Whereas other people just take it and absorb it, and it's really hard to overcome it. Whereas other people just, eh, life's ups and downs.

Starting point is 00:13:38 Well, for some people, those downs really take a toll. Yeah, they do. And those people, I think, just were never taught the skills that they needed to process it. And, you know, I think one of the most common ways that we actually make this worse for ourselves is when we experience a painful emotion like sadness or grief, we beat ourselves up for it. We tell ourselves that we're bad or there's something wrong with us for experiencing that emotion. And ultimately all that does is makes it even harder to bounce back for it. So what I often counsel is to practice self-compassion and treat yourself with kindness

Starting point is 00:14:15 when you are experiencing those difficult moments. It's not weak. It's not letting yourself off the hook. It's not, you know, wallowing in your pain. It's actually what helps you to transcend it and to move on. But because we've been told that you just need to kind of practice a stiff upper lip and pretend that nothing affects you, a lot of people silently suffer. And as you're describing, they further absorb those emotions and they ultimately end up really weighing them down. Because it seems that there's plenty of happiness to be had if you know how to find it, but there are a lot of people that they don't know where that path is. And so they take the hard knocks of life and use that to define their happiness, which is, you know, not much.

Starting point is 00:14:58 You know, I'm sure you know this, but the brain has a negativity bias, right? So we're always inclined to focus on the things that are going wrong. And that's a part of our biology. And as you're saying, we have to practice what it means to shift our attention away from, you know, the achy back or the difficult meeting you had with your boss or the worry about a certain thing on the horizon, and instead learn to focus our attention on something else that's more generative for our wellbeing. Talk about, because we've all heard this idea that, you know, happiness can come from, there's something in human beings that when you do something for other

Starting point is 00:15:38 people, when you help other people, that brings you probably more happiness than the person you're helping often. And I don't think a lot of people get that or know exactly, like, what is that? How does that work? I think that this is the secret to happiness, really, is if you want to be happy, help other people to be happy. And it works because we're not disconnected from one another. As we're talking about, you know, you're connected to other people in ways that you can't even observe. And when you contribute to another person, you get these powerful benefits unfolding within you

Starting point is 00:16:15 and around you from even, you know, something that's known as the helper's high, which is the release of hormones and endorphins when you help other people, all the way through to the sense of fulfillment and purpose that you get to a better relationship and a better connection with that person, to increasing your self-esteem and your sense of well-being. The benefits, as you're saying, are absolutely huge. And unfortunately, we're missing them. We're neglecting them because we're so distracted by our society's understanding of happiness that we're actually ignoring the opportunity for well-being that's right in front of us by reaching out to help another person in whatever way you can, no matter how small it is, you still will benefit.

Starting point is 00:16:57 And hopefully so will they. Yes, exactly. And so together, that action ends up making the world a happier place. You're not just focusing on your own happiness anymore. You're actually helping to make other people happy, and that adds up to create a world of greater well-being. We're talking about happiness, the new happiness. And my guest is Stephanie Harrison. She's author of the book, New Happy, Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong. This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter fares include beer, wine, and snacks, and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation, and great Gulf Coast weather.

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Starting point is 00:18:15 That's why there's BetterHelp Online Therapy. Connect with a credentialed therapist by phone, video, or online chat. Visit betterhelp.com to learn more. That's betterHelp.com. So Stephanie, I love this conversation because I'm one of those people who learned a long time ago that there is so much joy in helping other people. And I can just tell you a quick story because this just happened very recently. There's a woman at my gym. I don't know her well, but she's struggling financially. She's a single mom. She has a teenage son who's in a wheelchair.

Starting point is 00:18:52 I mean, she's been dealt a pretty lousy hand, but we speak at the gym sometimes. We have a mutual acquaintance and I know that going to the gym is her refuge. It allows her to get away from the trouble in her life to go to the gym, but she didn't have the money to is her refuge. It allows her to get away from the trouble in her life to go to the gym. But she didn't have the money to continue her membership and she was going to have to stop coming. So I just paid it. I paid her membership for the next year. And it wasn't a lot of money and it made her happy. And that made me feel so great for helping. And I'm not looking for a pat on the back or anything, but I find it interesting that I know there were many other people in the gym who were aware of

Starting point is 00:19:31 the situation, but nobody else jumped on this. Nobody else volunteered to pitch in and that's fine. And maybe it's because it's hard to know how to insert yourself into a situation like that if you're not involved, But it helped her out and it made me feel great. Yeah. Thank you for sharing. What a beautiful story. I have goosebumps listening to it. And I think you're pointing out something that's so important, which is that there are opportunities to help people that are all around us, but we have to one, notice them and then two, take advantage of them. Right. And what you're describing is people who noticed it, but didn't hop on it the way that you did to actually jump in and help in a way that they were likely equipped to do, even if it was just to contribute

Starting point is 00:20:14 a small portion of the gym membership for that woman, which I can only imagine how much that meant to her and how grateful she is to have that space for herself and for her own wellbeing. And I think that, you know, too often we think of helping as this nice to have thing that we'll do when we're successful or when we have enough money, whatever that looks like, or when we figured our own lives out. But there is no point in time where we are going to have our lives all figured out, or we're going to have our lives all figured out or we're going to have enough and feel like we have everything that we need or have this sense that our lives are complete and then we can help. It's never going to happen.

Starting point is 00:20:55 We're always going to have this experience of being a work in progress and needing to try for more and grow and all of that. So the only solution is to help now, help anyways, don't wait to help other people. And it's really admirable that you were somebody who jumped in to do that. Well, you know, the phrase I hate is the phrase, well, you can't save the world. Yes, you can. I mean, you may not save the whole world, but if everybody, there was a great quote that supposedly came from Mother Teresa, but I've never found any reference that she ever said this, but somebody said that she

Starting point is 00:21:31 had said this, that if we all took care of our own little corner of the world, the world would be a better place. And you define what your own little corner of the world is. It's your family, your neighborhood, your school, your church, whatever. But if everybody did that, the world would be a better place. And I've just, I thought that was so, even though she's barely never said it, it's such a beautiful thought because you can define what that means to you and you can save the world. You may not save everybody today, but if everybody tried to do a little bit, we could save the world or a good portion of it. But people use that as like, well, since I can't save everybody, screw it. I'm not going to save anybody. Exactly. People give up before they even get started. And then they miss the chance to

Starting point is 00:22:17 actually find the happiness that they want as well, right? It's this terrible situation that we find ourselves in because we've been so misled. And I adore the sentiment behind that quote. And I couldn't agree more with it. Everybody has a corner of the world. And all of us have not only the opportunity, but also, I would argue, the responsibility to nurture and to care for our corners and to do what we can. And the benefit is your happiness, your well-being. And isn't that what you want the most?

Starting point is 00:22:49 So my hope is that through this new understanding, people will come together to help one another in ways that might not have been visible or possible for them in the past. Right. And because the benefit to you is so great, that it's not a big sacrifice, which I guess that's how people often look at it. But there's a huge benefit that, you know, whether it's the helper's high or whatever it is, but it feels good to help people. I mean, everybody knows that. But especially when it comes to money, people are very like, well, no, we can't really do that. Yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:27 I think you're completely right. And, you know, sometimes I think that people think, oh, like, you know, helping is, it's sweet, it's nice, but it's not the be all end all of my happiness. You know, if I can just get more for myself or achieve more or strive to perfect myself, then I'll experience the real type of happiness, right? Like there's this other more powerful, more pervasive experience of happiness out there once you get to a certain place. And I think what I would want to say to those people

Starting point is 00:24:02 is there isn't, that doesn't exist. You know, the happiness that's possible for you when you help others, and especially when you help others in the ways that you're uniquely positioned to do, that is the purest, greatest form of happiness there is. There isn't anything else out there. So take advantage of what's possible right here and now, because there are, as you've so beautifully described, opportunities to help people all around you. We sort of talked about this when we were talking about the whole concept of I'll be sacrifice, that first you have to do something noble or that happiness can only come from sacrifice. You do not have to punish yourself and you can't hurt yourself into a state of greater happiness. So many people believe that

Starting point is 00:25:02 they have to punish themselves for being who they are or for not doing enough or for struggling with something and it couldn't be further from the truth if you want to experience greater happiness in your life you're going to have much better luck if you treat yourself with love and actually love yourself into more happiness well Well, I'm sure you've noticed there are a lot of books and podcasts and people's influencers who talk about happiness. So I'm wondering, like, are we getting happier overall? Is it all working? The World Happiness Report came out, which is a study of all of the countries in the

Starting point is 00:25:41 world led by a number of scholars to look at the happiest countries and the factors that contribute to it. And for the first time, the US has dropped out of the top 20. And that's the first time that's ever happened in the history of the report. And I think it speaks to the growing sense of unhappiness and dissatisfaction that so many people feel and the desire that they have to learn more is not potentially being satisfied by the tools and information that we have available right now. Well, I like your new happy philosophy because it gives people something really concrete to follow to achieve happiness as opposed to, you know, cheer up and be happy. I've been talking to Stephanie Harrison. She's creator of the new happy philosophy. And I encourage you to check Harrison. She's creator of the New Happy Philosophy.

Starting point is 00:26:26 And I encourage you to check out her website, which there is a link to that website in the show notes. And the name of her book is New Happy, Getting Happiness Right in a World That's Got It Wrong. And there's a link to the book at Amazon in the show notes. I appreciate you coming on and talking about this, Stephanie. It was fun. Thank you so much, Michael. It was so lovely to talk to you. Metrolinks and Crosslinks are reminding everyone to be careful

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Starting point is 00:27:25 because the way they play today shapes who they become tomorrow. Melissa and Doug, the play is pretend, the skills are real. Look for Melissa and Doug wherever you shop for toys. Remember those rules you learned in English class, like it's better to not start a sentence with and or but? Remember those rules you learned in English class, like it's better to not start a sentence with and or but, or don't end a sentence with a preposition, or ain't isn't a real word?

Starting point is 00:27:56 Well, says who? Where do these rules come from? Who makes them? Who decides what is proper English and what isn't? More importantly, do you really need to follow these rules? Here to talk about the rules of English and what you need to know about them is Anne Curzan. She is a professor of English language and literature, linguistics, and education at the University of Michigan. She also serves as the dean of the College of

Starting point is 00:28:22 Literature, Science, and the Arts. Anne is also the author of a book called Says Who? A Kinder Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words. Wait, funner's not a word. Hey, Anne, welcome to Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm delighted to be here. So these rules of the English language, like I mentioned at the beginning, they oftentimes seem to get in the way, like, okay, we could follow the rule, but it would be a lot easier

Starting point is 00:28:52 if we didn't, and it would be clearer if we didn't. So why do we have to follow these rules if there's another way? And I'm encouraging people to ask that question when someone says, you can't do that in writing, or that's wrong, or that's not a real word. We can all ask, says who? So that we can know the answer to that question and be more informed about whether we think that that is a useful rule or not a useful rule. So pick one of those kinds of rules and let's talk about that one is that you should not end a sentence with a preposition that would have been the first one i picked too i i when i think of rules of english that i learned you know in school it's the don't end a sentence with a preposition rule. And yet, if you do that, it makes sentence writing or can make sentence writing very, very difficult.

Starting point is 00:29:50 Right. Because we can end a sentence with a preposition. Here's a sentence that ends with a preposition. That's the person to send it to. That's the person to send it to. That to is a preposition. It's sitting at the end of the sentence. We're told that we should not do that. And instead we should say, that's the person to whom you should send it. Now, I think for many of us to say to whom feels very, very formal,

Starting point is 00:30:19 maybe a little bit stilted. We're allowed to ask the question, why can't I end a sentence with a preposition? It sounds idiomatic to do so. The answer goes back several centuries, and it started with a personal preference by John Dryden, who thought it was not particularly elegant to end a sentence with a preposition. And when this first entered into usage guides, one of the grammarians actually made a joke about it. And he said, it's not very elegant to do this, but it's a construction our language is inclined to. Exactly. He had a sense of humor. He got that, in fact, we do this all the time. But Lindley Murray, at the end of the 18th century wrote a highly influential grammar book and he picked up that rule and he actually got rid of the joke

Starting point is 00:31:11 and said to which our language is inclined. And we have been stuck with this idea that there's something wrong with ending a sentence with a preposition when there's nothing wrong with it. What's another example of one of these rules that makes English so difficult? Another really powerful example is singular they. Now, this is one that every time I write about this, I get hundreds if not thousands of comments because people have very strong feelings about whether the pronoun they can be singular because many of us, myself included,

Starting point is 00:31:46 grew up being told that they cannot be singular. It's only plural. It's wrong to use it as a singular. It's not wrong. If you listen to the way we talk, we use they as a singular. Even people who don't like it usually use it. It's something like someone who knows where they're going should give us directions. Someone who knows where they're going, someone is singular, they're going, they is singular there. And we often don't even notice that we're doing it. And we've been doing it for hundreds and hundreds of years. And the option would be he or she rather than they. That became the option in the 80s and 90s. For a couple hundred years, we were told it should

Starting point is 00:32:37 just be he. We had singular they for centuries. We've got singular they back to the 1300s or so. And once again, I mentioned Lindley Murray, this powerful grammar at the end of the 18th century. And in his grammar, he crossed out singular they and he put singular he with the idea that he can be generic. We had that for a couple hundred years. Then by the 80s, 90s, we were told that's not inclusive. Use he or she. And the question we can ask is, why can't I just use singular they in writing if I use it in speech? And people will sometimes say to me, a pronoun can't be singular and plural at the same time, which is a really interesting

Starting point is 00:33:19 argument to make about English because we already have a pronoun that's singular and plural at the same time. And that is you. You are one person. You are many people. And you'll notice that you use the plural verb are even with the singular. It does seem that how we say things is a better way of saying things often than the way we write things and that there's like two sets of rules because you would never say some of this formal stuff that is supposedly correct in writing because it's just it would sound so ridiculous. I think you're making a really important point about the difference between speech and writing. And it's one of the things that makes writing hard. I remember occasionally people would say, just write it

Starting point is 00:34:12 down the way you'd say it, which in general is advice that doesn't work unless you're trying to get through writer's block or something. When we're writing formally, we are asked to write in a way that is different from the way that we speak. But I think many of the rules that we all learned about formal writing create actually stilted writing as opposed to fully effective writing. The rules are helpful when they do things like help us minimize ambiguity. That is one of the really hard things about writing. When we speak, we can get away with more ambiguity because often the other person is there. We say something that's ambiguous. They look confused. We clarify. They ask a question. We clarify. Most writing, we're not there to clarify. They ask a question, we clarify. Most writing, we're not there to clarify.

Starting point is 00:35:06 I certainly remember being told in writing and in speaking that you're not supposed to use the word ain't, that you should say isn't, not ain't, that ain't isn't a word. But it is, I mean, it's in the dictionary, so it's a word, right? It's been a word. Ain't's been a word for a long time. And I agree. You hear this ain't ain't in the dictionary. As you know, it's been in the dictionary for a long time because it's a word. And I've been interested for a long time in this discourse around real words where people will ask me, Ann, is that a real word?

Starting point is 00:35:44 And I think, okay, what do we mean by that question? And I think people mean, is that word in a standard dictionary? If it is, then it's real. And of course, that then raises the question of who are the people who get to decide if it's in a dictionary and what are they up to? And what I think many people don't realize is that if you talk with dictionary editors, which I do because many of them are friends of mine, they will say, we're just trying to keep up with all of you. You keep changing the language and we're just paying attention and listening and trying to see which changes will stick.

Starting point is 00:36:21 And the ones that are going to stick, we're going to put into dictionaries because they're part of the language. But do we know where ain't came from and then how it was determined that ain't ain't a word that who says so? The question of what's wrong with ain't is that we've said there's something wrong with ain't. It's a contraction from M-naught. And there was a time when all of these contractions were condemned. Won't, shouldn't, isn't, wasn't, ain't. They were all condemned. And most of them have been redeemed. They may still be seen as informal, but they're not seen as illegitimate, except for ain't. And that when people will say, I don't like the way it sounds. And I say, well, how do you feel about paint?

Starting point is 00:37:14 And they'll say, well, paint's fine. Well, they do rhyme. But we need to realize that when we're judging language, it is often about more than language. And it is about the speakers who use that language. And so these judgments are really loaded. Well, but I... There are words that I don't use. Say, for example, ask and ax. I would never say, let me ax you a question. I would say, let me ask you a question. But when someone says, axe, I know what they mean. So, you know, we're good. I get it. I know what

Starting point is 00:37:52 they're talking about. It's not a word I would use, but if you want to use it, go ahead. Okay. I love that example. And I love the way that you're thinking about that. But I don't know about you. I have heard many people who, rather than saying, that's great, you say ax, I say ask, we're all good not give them the job as in axe a question, is as old and perhaps even older than ask, that the swap of the K and the S was probably, from what we can tell, from axe to ask, not from ask to axe. And Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales uses axe, as in axe a question. And for the people I know who are extremely judgmental about ax a question, it often turns their world upside down to realize how old, what an illustrious history ax has, and that the social judgment there is exactly that. It's a social judgment, not a question of whether there's something wrong

Starting point is 00:39:26 with that pronunciation. Yeah, well, I get that. But I love that that's the way you're thinking about this because living language, A, it always changes and B, you're always going to get variation. So give me another example of something that's changing in the English language that, well, I don't know if it keeps you up at night, but something that you've noticed that's worth mentioning. I don't know if you've heard this, but many younger speakers are now saying on accident instead of by accident. Well, that's been going on for a while. It has. And they're going to win. But again, I would never say that i i don't care if you say it but i would never say that language to me is something that kind of gets embedded in your

Starting point is 00:40:14 head and you use it the way you've learned it pretty much and yeah you might start to vary it a little bit but things like that i'm not i, I'm never going to say on accident, but I know plenty of people do. And it doesn't, it doesn't bother me, but, but going back to the ask, ax, I want to ax you, ax you a question. It's okay if people say ax, but if somebody came to you and said, you know, Ann, I have a tendency to say ax and I'm going on a job interview. Do you think it's okay if I say it? Your answer would be yes or no. I wouldn't be able to answer it with just one word. I would say, I think you're being smart to think about what kind of audience you may encounter. And it's not fair, but it's smart to think about as being a rhetorically effective, savvy speaker. And we know that there are stigmas out there about acts of question. It's not fair, but you may want to

Starting point is 00:41:13 think about depending on the context of this interview, because I also want to recognize that different interviews are going to have different audiences in terms of what's going to be the best choice, because I want this person to feel like they have the choice. And it's not a question of right or wrong. It's what choice do they want to make based on the audience? Okay. Well, that's not the answer I would give because it's just a safety thing. In some circles, if you say ask instead of ask, people will judge you negatively for doing that. But no one is going to judge you negatively for using ask. So that's the safer way. If you're in a job interview, why not take the safe way? Those things can change over time and

Starting point is 00:42:02 they change over time when we push on those boundaries. And I take your point, and I think it's a very fair one, that we make decisions about, am I going to be the person in this context who is pushing this boundary at this moment? Talk about starting a sentence with and, because I do it a lot. And I mean, people do it a lot in speech, but sometimes when I write things to say on this podcast, I will start a sentence with and, and it sounds funny if I don't. That's exactly right. This rule is interesting because many of us, did you learn this in school as a rule?

Starting point is 00:42:37 My recollection of the rule was it's better if you don't. It wasn't forbidden. You weren't like points taken off because you did, but you'd be better off if you don't it wasn't forbidden you weren't like points taken off because you did but you'd be better off if you didn't and if every other paragraph had a sentence that started with and that you might have to stay after class and if you look in usage guides what many of them will say is this idea that you can't start a sentence with and or but is a myth perpetuated by English teachers. It's actually not a rule. And if you look at formal writing, fiction writing, you will find, as you note, lots of sentences that start with and and start with but because it can work very well rhetorically. I think where this probably came from

Starting point is 00:43:28 is teachers who are working with early or emerging writers and are trying to help them use a range of conjunctive resources as in, in addition, however, and they're, don't always use and or but. There's a whole repertoire there that you need to employ. And somehow along the way that became, don't start a sentence with and or but. But it's fine to start a sentence with but or and. An interesting word. Well, it's not a word, but you use it as a word in the subtitle of your book. And the word is funner. And usually the only people you hear say funner are kids. Kids use funner and they invent it. That is exactly right. And we can explain why kids want to do it. What's interesting with fun is that for much of its life, it was a noun. And we still can use it as a noun in

Starting point is 00:44:26 something like we had fun. And when it's a noun, if you had fun that is greater than the fun you had yesterday, then you had more fun. You can also imagine how kids, if they heard something like the party was fun and assumes that fun is an adjective because you could also say the party was boring or the party was great. The kid interprets it as an adjective because you could also say the party was boring or the party was great. The kid interprets it as an adjective, at which point the kid can say that was a fun party. And that happened in the early 20th century, that fun became an adjective. What kids now are doing is because fun is an adjective, they're trying to make it behave like other one-syllable adjectives. Tall, taller, tallest. Wide, wider, widest.

Starting point is 00:45:08 Short, shorter, shortest. Fun, funner, funnest. They're just trying to follow the pattern until, as you say, some authority figure is like, no, stop that. That is terrible. Say more fun and most fun. In the long run, I don't know that we'll live long enough to see this, but we might. Funner and Funnest are probably going to win. I think Funnest is

Starting point is 00:45:31 going to come in first. I've been doing surveys with undergrads for years now. And what I'm seeing is that they have a less strong reaction to Funnest. They'll say, either I don't notice it or it's not terrible. They will still, most of them say, I really don't like funner. But I think funnest will come in first and funner will scoot in on its coattails. I only have a few minutes left here, but I wanted to ask about a word that has crept into the English language. Well, this usage of it has crept into the English language maybe in the last, I don't know, 60 years. And that is the word like.

Starting point is 00:46:10 So I'm like, and then he's like, that actually does bother me because it isn't really a word in that instance. It's just filling space. It doesn't mean anything. And when it's every other word, it just sounds dumb. Linguists have devoted a lot of time and ink to the word like, because like is such a versatile word. And I think it's worth noting all the different uses of it because, Mike, you just

Starting point is 00:46:41 described it as a filler, which is one of the things that it can do, but it does many other things. So it's a preposition. It's a conjunction. And there used to be in the 1960s, around that period, a lot of controversy about like as a conjunction. And there was a very controversial ad about Winston's cigarettes that taste like a cigarette should. And people really thought that like in that, which was on billboards, was terrible. Then we have like as a quotative. And I think that's what you, the examples you gave, Mike, she was like, he was like, now I do this. I realize that when I am speaking, I very rarely use say. That if I'm telling a story, I will say, I just did it there, I will say. I was like, do you want to go to that show? And he was like,

Starting point is 00:47:33 sure, but I'd have to go tomorrow. And I was like, well, that works for me. That is my quotative. And it's doing that work of either quoting speech or quoting thought. Then there is the filler-like, which works a little bit more like um or uh, holding onto the floor. There is also what some linguists will call focuser-like, which puts the focus on whatever's coming next. And this is something such as, and he like hit my car or, and he like ran up to me and said, blah, blah, blah. And that like is putting the focus on whatever's coming next. The focuser like, the filler like tends to index youth. We will often notice it. The fact is we'll notice almost any discourse marker that is overused. If somebody uses uh or um a lot, if somebody uses you know or I mean,

Starting point is 00:48:33 these little words that function like traffic signals and fillers, if they get overused, they stop doing the subtle work that they can do and we start to notice them and then they become less effective. Well, I love discussions about language, because it's something everybody uses. It's changing all the time. People have their opinions of what's right and wrong, and it's fun to kind of throw it out on the table and see where we are.

Starting point is 00:48:59 I've been speaking with Anne Curzon. She is a professor of English language and literature, linguistics and education at the University of Michigan. And she's author of a book called Says Who? A kinder, funner usage guide for everyone who cares about words. And there is a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks for coming on. This was fun, Anne.

Starting point is 00:49:19 Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate the questions. They're great questions and such fun to talk with you about language. I would imagine that most soon-to-be parents know in advance the gender of their baby before it's born. And knowing that may actually help fathers bond with their unborn child. Researchers followed some fathers-to-be and found that those dads who knew the gender and had already named their baby had an easier time thinking of him or her as a real person when they finally showed up. Those dads were also more likely to be actively involved in the pregnancy and reported feeling more connected to the child the minute they learned the gender.

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Something You Should Know - The 2 Keys to Your Happiness & Defying the Rules of English

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