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Открыта: 09-07-2001
Адрес автора: job.lang.edvenglish-owner@subscribe.ru

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Костенко Андрей Владимирович

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Продвинутый English Advanced English Newsletter #144


A warm welcome to all subscribers! Здравствуйте, уважаемые подписчики!
Выпуск #144
 "ПРОДВИНУТЫЙ ENGLISH" 27/10/09
Электронные записки для изучающих английский язык

Hi there.  There was recently some confusion about when we add -al to adjectives ending in -ic, e.g., algebraic(al), generic(al), econometric(al), mathematic(al), ironic(al), algorithmic(al), stochastic(al), classic(al), botanic(al). So when do adjectives take the -ic form and when the -ical form?


Suffixes -ic and -ical is one of the more common suffixes in English, as listed by Richard Nordquist, together with their meanings. (If you feel rusty, or don't know what a suffix is, go over Rich's sumup and try to get the right feeling.) There are some rules on how to use them, with exceptions and special cases to them. For starters, see A Short Historical English Grammar, by Henry Sweet, p.253, para 954. While the two forms can mostly be used interchangeably, they diverge in meaning sometimes. See this BBC material  for a few more examples.  Also, traditions may prevail upon logic: "topographic maps" but "topographical engineer", and not the other way round. It's usually good to be consistent in each piece of writing. Hence it's okay to write "econometrical and statistical research" (see para 954), it's hardly a mistake to have it as "statistics and econometrics research", but the most natural option appears to be "statistical and econometric research", as in this post by Rob Hyndman. This is an example of where striving for consistency may do more harm than good.

Here's some old advice: do like all, and you'll never be mistaken. One thing that may help is the British National Corpus (here and  here) or the like. Google Scholar can also be useful. Type in your alternatives and see which has been used most. If you've seen it all wrong, as it later turned out, don't be upset. After all, you don't need to be perfect, only good enough (and to be good enough you must always try to be perfect). Ancora imparo, as Michelangelo scribbled, meaning that typo reports and other comments are still welcome at eenglishproo@mail.ru. Till next time.

Tags: formation, adjective, suffixes

Warmly,
Andrey Kostenko
Автор рассылки: Andrey Kostenko  (c) 2001-2009
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