It's ensure, not assure

In my copy editing/proofreading gigs, and even in other jobs that don't primarily focus on text, people often use "assure" when they really should use "ensure." For instance, I've seen people mistakenly write "They used that instrument to assure they would be accurate." That is not correct because "assure" means, according to the Cambridge dictionary, to "promise" or "make certain" or "say with certainty...that something is true," as in "I assure you that you will get the job" or "The mayor assured the people that corruption will be investigated during her administration." Basically, it's a way to let other people know that they shouldn't worry about something. I assure you that what I'm writing is true.

"Ensure" simply means to make sure of something. So you ensure that you have your bus pass. You ensure that all the doors are locked. You ensure that you've done all the necessary paperwork. Basically, when you're thinking "I want to make sure," use "ensure."

Here's a visual: the name of the drink Ensure implies that you want to make sure, i.e., ensure, that you get all the nutrients you need.

the Sun or the sun?

I was proofreading something that referred to "the Sun," but I wasn't sure if it should be capitalized. My hunch was that it shouldn't be, but when I did a search online, I found conflicting results. For instance, NASA capitalizes it in a student worksheet, but they could be doing that for stylistic purposes. Meanwhile, The Atlantic, which seems to take language and writing seriously, does not capitalize it.

After seeing various examples online, I assumed it's standard practice to not capitalize it, until I saw a discussion on Quora, with an answer by a highly educated science person: "The International Astronomical Union rules in this context, and they say that the names of each planet, each planetary satellite, each asteroid, each comet, each star, each stellar/planetary system, and each galaxy is a proper name and, therefore, a proper noun to be capitalized." Then he says that not capitalizing it is fiction-oriented. But the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, aka MIT, one of the most prestigious science and technical institutions on the planet, instructs people to not capitalize it. And the MLA style guide (by the well-known Modern Language Association) makes the same conclusion.

So I'm assuming it should not be capitalized, thus I corrected what the author wrote. Now that I'm writing about it, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but when I saw it, it made me think about it for the first time, since I don't usually have to deal with the issue. I even discussed it with a professional writer, who didn't really know the answer either, which made me even more curious and concerned about doing the right thing.

That vs which confusion

I'm pretty clear about when to use "that" vs "which," but I often come across stuff (to be intentionally vague) that often has "which" when it should have "that." So I strike out the word and replace it, though sometimes I don't want to be a killjoy, so I leave it in, especially if the screed is several pages long and I want to vary the style. I'm not a style editor, though someone tried to make me operate in that manner, but I feel that if I keep correcting every misuse, it'll seem sort of crazy and monotone. So yes, I purposely am incorrect sometimes for the sake of keeping the peace and offering some diversity in a sea of hyper-functional sentences and concepts.

Anyway, there are a lot of resources online that explain the difference between "that" and "which." Basically, "which" is used with a clause, a subset that explains the main subject of the sentence. "Which" is a "nonrestrictive modifying clause...that adds extra or nonessential information to a sentence. The meaning of the sentence would not change if the clause were to be omitted." In fact, usually people use "which" with the sentence I just quoted from the University of Illinois; they would say "which adds extra..." instead of the correct "that." So here's an example of correct "which" usage:

The ramshackle house, which is down the block, is scheduled for demolition next week.

Essentially, the "which" section could be taken away and it wouldn't affect the integrity of the sentence. It's like an added comment to further describe the house, which is why the U of I calls it an "adjective clause."

Then there's the kind of sentence that I usually see, even by people who have lots of publishing experience with impressive titles that they display proudly on their business cards:

The house which is down the block is slated for demolition.

It should be:

The house that is down the block is slated for demolition.

In that case, "down the block" is an important piece of information, thus "that" is used, and the segment isn't set up to be separate, which is achieved with commas around a "which" clause. The U of I calls "that" a "restrictive modifying clause" because it's essential.

Actually, those definitions weren't invented by the U of I, but I like their explanation and the fact that their page isn't loaded down with ads that slow down my computer, which is common with popular grammar sites.

So, moving forward, I hope people use "that" and "which" correctly. It's not like the world is going to end, but still.

Language predictions for the coming 50-100 years

Language and languages are constantly changing, and, in my opinion, considering language evolution over decades and centuries is quite fascinating. Often when we read literature from hundreds of years ago, it becomes obvious which words, structures, and other language "trends" have gone out of fashion and which trends have become embedded somewhat permanently in language. An example is the use of "to be" in the perfect tense in English with certain verbs such as "to come" (e.g. "he is come" instead of "he has come"). This would appear to have been influenced by French, where as distinction is made between verbs, such as "venir" (to come), which form the past tense (passé composé ) with "être" ("to be"), and the majority of verbs, which form this tense "avoir" ("to have"). Look at this interesting article on the archaic "to be" vs. "to have" in English verbs like "to come".

I've decided to make some unofficial predictions about language in the future based on today's trends. Some may come true, some later, and perhaps none will ever come true. Still, it can be fun to speculate:

1) The ban on ending questions with prepositions will become archaic. When I was a child, I was taught never to end a question with a preposition. It should never be "who are you speaking for?" but "for whom are you waiting?" While this tends to still be true in formal business and academic writing, in informal writing and conversational speech, prepositions seem to come at the end of questions more often than not unless the speaker is especially careful about "correct speech" and/or is a language prescriptionist. However, even in some recent English teaching worksheets for non-native speakers, I was surprised to see it listed as allowable to end questions with prepositions. In certain other Germanic languages (to which English belongs), it is (and has been perfectly acceptable) to end questions with prepositions; Norwegian is one such example, as far as I know. In other Germanic languages, such as German, as well as the Romance and Slavic languages, the ban tends to persist in formal and informal writing and speech.

Nevertheless, this "schoolmarmish" rule in English appears to be dying out as it seems unnecessarily stilted and rigid, and I predict that in 50-100 years, even formal academic and business writing will reflect what is patently obvious in conversational speech.

2) This brings us to the next prediction: the loss of the word "whom." This accusative/dative form of "who' is one of the last vestiges of the English case system, which was, in the past more complex, more along the lines of the modern German or Slavic case systems. However, the use of "whom" mirrors the "proper" placement of prepositions in questions, and these days "whom" seems to be limited to formal business and academic writing in English and the speech of very meticulous grammar enthusiasts, who are in the minority. Its days are numbered. But those who are nostalgic for the once vibrant case system of English shouldn't be too disappointed, as cases will likely continue to remain alive and well in personal pronouns (I/my/mine/me, you/yours/your, he/his/him, she/hers/her, it/its, we/our/ours/us, they/their/theirs/them) and in the possessive apostrophe-s or s-apostrophe added to singular and plural nouns.

3) The complete merger of the subjunctive mood in English with the simple past tense. Today the subjunctive (contrary-to-fact) mood in English, which is highly complex in some languages, such many of the Romance languages, is mostly identical to other tenses, such as the past tense ("I wish he had it"), but in some cases, there are differences, most notably with "to be" (the traditional prescriptionist form being "I wish I were" rather than "I wish I was"). However, again, the use of "were" (which is historically similar to the German subjunctiv) in such cases is becoming increasingly relegated to formal and academic contexts and the speech of those who consciously wish to adhere to the rules and speak "properly." I predict that it will become archaic and fall out of use.

4) Profanity will likely become less "profane." I predict that so-called "swear words" in English will lose much of their taboo status and become more permissible in a greater number of contexts and arenas. This will, in my opinion, be the result of an increasingly less formal society in general (along the lines of women no longer wearing white gloves to public functions and the observation that far fewer people '"dress up" for air travel).

5) The ever-growing influence of technology and popular culture on English due to increased media saturation. In fact, I would guess that, over the next few decades, most new words entering English will reflect both of these spheres, some words becoming permanent fixtures of the linguistic landscape and perhaps being extended metaphorically. For instance, maybe the "Facebook verb" "to friend" ("to add someone as a friend") will gradually replace the current "to befriend" as the verb of choice when referring to act of establishing a friendship. It's possible! SMS-style shorthand, such as "u" for "you" and "lol" for "laughing out loud" will likely be around for a long time, but I doubt that these forms will become mainstream in anything but informal settings, at least not anytime soon.

6) Increased standardization of English. When I took linguistic classes as an undergraduate, I was exposed to the theory that dialects of English will eventually develop into their own distinct languages, just as dialects of Latin have developed into French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and so on. The theory hypothesized that eventually there will be separate British, Canadian, American, and Australian languages, among others. However, what the theory seemingly failed to consider was that the countries (and dialects) of the Anglosphere (collection of English-speaking nations) are far less isolated on a daily basis than the constituent territories of the Roman Empire. Due to the pervasive global media, English speakers all over the world can log on or turn on various devices and be exposed to (or flooded with) English from all over the world. I believe that this cross-exposure will lead to the various Englishes borrowing more from each other and becoming more alike, with each dialect retaining some of its "quirks."

7) The increased use of English around the world. It seems hard to imagine how this could be possible, as English is today's lingua franca, but I predict that English will continue its sweep across the globe, with increasingly fewer non-English speakers. I'll also forecast that a number of historically non-English-speaking countries with large numbers of speakers of English as a second language will legally adopt English as an official language, alongside the historical national language(s), as a nod at internationalization (perhaps the Netherlands and at least one of the Scandinavian countries) or as a "neutral" compromise between rival officially national languages (such as Switzerland).

Some of these predictions may seem extremely obvious, but it is still useful, in my view, to view them as part of the dynamics of language change in English, which is going on as we speak!

(Posted by language fan and friend Silas McCracken.)

Update August 2022: reader Aleksa shared this great resource for checking spelling and grammar for various languages: https://www.websiteplanet.com/webtools/spell-checker/