Question: What I call "jeans" my mother calls "dungarees." Is one of us wrong?
- T. L., Kent, Washington
Answer: You're both right. The ever popular trousers that are almost an American uniform are called different names by different people, including not only "jeans" and "dungarees" but also "denims." We may think of these terms as inextricably a part of 20th-century American culture, but all three actually originated long ago and far away.
"Dungaree" first appeared in English in the late 17th century. It derives from a Hindi word, "dugri," denoting a heavy, coarse and durable cotton twill woven from colored yarns. "Dungaree" eventually came to refer specifically to blue denim, and trousers made from blue denim have been called "dungarees" since the late 1800s.
The word "denim" is derived from the French "de Nimes," meaning "of Nimes," a place where the fabric was manufactured. It was originally used in the phrase "serge de Nimes," which appeared in English in the 17th century as "serge denim." "Serge," from the Latin adjective "sericus," meaning "of silk," is a durable twilled fabric, and Nimes is a city of southern France where textiles are still an important industry. Today "denim" is used to refer both to the cloth and, in its plural form, to the clothing made of it.
The same is true of "jean." In its relatively uncommon singular form, "jean" is a term for a durable twilled cotton and is short for the phrase "jean fustian," which first appears in texts from the 16th century. "Fustian," from Medieval Latin "fustaneum," is a cotton or linen fabric, and "jean" is the modern spelling of Middle English "Jene" or "Gene," from "Genes," the Middle French name of the Italian city Genoa, where this fabric was made and shipped abroad.
"Jeans" and "blue jeans" have become the most common names for denim trousers in the past several decades, so the difference between your usage and your mother's is generational, but neither one of you is wrong.
Question: I often hear things like "It wasn't that bad of a day." Is it correct to use the word "of" in such a sentence when "a" by itself would do?
- S. S., Reno, Nevada
Answer: While it's true that your sample sentence could be recast without the word "of," that fact alone does not mean that the sentence using "of" is incorrect. It's often possible in English to say the same thing in two (or more) ways. The construction without "of" is older and better established, which may be why some people consider it preferable, but the form with "of" has been recorded in American English since the early 1940s.
In your sample sentence, the word "of" has no real meaning or function. When a word is used unnecessarily in this way, the construction is called a "pleonasm." This use of "of" is not wrong, pleonasm or not, but it is considerably more common in speech than in writing.
Question: I'm confused about the word "none." Should "none" always be singular? A sentence like "None of the children goes to school yet" sounds wrong to me, yet I seem to remember being taught that the verb must be singular.
- A.J., Murray, Utah
Answer: The fact that "none" means both "no one" and "not any" shows that "none" can be used with either a singular or a plural verb. Yet many people are convinced that the pronoun "none" can be used only with a singular verb. This idea is rooted in the word's etymology. The Old English equivalent of "none" was formed from the combination of the word meaning "not" with the word meaning "one." Nevertheless, the Old English word was used both in the singular and the plural as far back as the 9th century. Not until 1788 did the plural use of "none" meet with disapproval.
The notion that "none" should always be singular is firmly rooted in the folklore of English usage. Often, however, in a sentence like your example, where "none" is followed by a phrase beginning with "of" and containing a plural noun, a plural verb is used. Your "ear" tells you that the plural verb is correct, even though the rule you remember learning tells you that it's wrong. We think you're usually better off in such cases to trust your ear, despite the possibility of criticism from those who embrace the rule.
