There They're Their

My cable was out for the better part of the day yesterday, so even though I started writing this, I wasn’t able to post anything to my blog. But it looks like it’s back (the cable and the electricity managed to remain functioning after the big thunderstorm we had this morning – actually, I can’t even tell if it’s morning yet. Is it really past 10:30? Looks more like 5:30… hope the sky clears up soon…)

Anyway, what I was trying to say yesterday, before I was so rudely interrupted by a delay in my cable service, is that I said something earlier to Faisal about his fiancée, and it got me thinking about how strange our language is. When it’s spelled with two e’s like that – fiancée – the word refers to an engaged woman. Whereas spelled with ONE e – fiancé – it refers to an engaged man. So while Faisal himself is a fiancé, he is NOT a fiancée. And while his fiancée is certainly a fiancée, she is not a fiancé. I think it’s all very clear and makes perfect sense. Right?

People frequently ask me how to spell certain words – I guess, because of my years of proofreading work, it’s assumed I am a decent speller. However, the truth is that I’m NOT the best spontaneous speller in the world. In fact, I was never very good at spelling bees in school – mainly because of all the pressure to spell correctly off the top of my head. You could give me a perfectly simple word like “door,” and my thoughts would fly OUT of said door and into the hallway, where they’d cower in confusion for several seconds. What I AM good at, though, is LOOKING at a word and knowing whether or not it’s spelled correctly. Which would explain the proofreading proficiency. As long as I can SEE the word, I’m usually able to know if it’s spelled the right way. At the very least, I’m able to know if I need to look it up to make sure. So if someone calls me up and asks, “how do you spell onomatopoeia?” chances are I’ll have no idea. But if I grab a piece of paper and a pen, and write it out so the word is actually in front of me, there’s a better chance I’ll know what I’m dealing with. (Of course, in the case of onomatopoeia, I’d still need to look it up…)

One word I DON’T have to look up anymore is “broccoli.” The place I used to work had a small cafeteria, and every Friday they would send the next week’s menu to my area to be proofread and printed. And every week, one of the vegetables on the menu would be broccoli. And every week – every single week – the menu would be sent to me with the word spelled “brocolli.” I would correct it – again – and send it to the printer, knowing full well that whoever was writing that menu would never notice. Sure enough, the very next week, “brocolli” would be on the menu again.

But the misspelled broccoli incidents didn’t annoy me nearly as much as dealing with people who assumed they knew more than I did. Although it was MY job to proofread everything that happened to end up on my desk, it was up to the original authors to decide if they wanted to accept my changes. I remember one particular incident where someone had used the word “affect” instead of “effect,” so I changed it. When it was sent back to the author, she called me to ask about it, sounding slightly offended that I would have the nerve to mark up her page with my red pen. And even AFTER I’d explained why “affect” was the incorrect word to use in that case, she insisted the word remain as is. So the page was printed with a mistake… but at least I could take comfort in knowing I hadn’t skipped over it.

“Affect” and “effect” can be tricky words to figure out, but at least fiancée and fiancé are pretty simple to decipher. One is male, one is female. We don’t do that very often with English words. While we do refer to people who act as "actors" and "actresses," we certainly don't have doctors and doctresses. Or teachers and teacherettes. In German, however, all nouns are divided by gender – so you wouldn’t simply be, say, a lawyer (first profession that popped into my head since I was talking about Faisal…). You’d be a male lawyer (ein Jurist) or a female lawyer (eine Juristin). I’m not just a writer, I’m eine Schriftstellerin (as opposed to ein Schriftsteller, which would be a male counterpart). I imagine a lot of languages are like that, and the “fiancée” and “fiancé” difference is the same sort of thing – adding an extra “e” differentiates between male and female. And instead of creating one, single, all-encompassing English word to use, we’ve just stuck with the original French forms.

I suppose I should ask – does anyone besides me find this interesting? Probably not. Maybe tomorrow I should start talking about chocolate again… :)