Adjectives used as nouns (the rich, the poor, the high and mighty) can only function as nouns; for example, they can be used as subjects, objects or be governed by a preposition. The poor are always with us (subject); Gandhi spent his days among the poor (object of a preposition); All governments profess to help the poor (object). These are syntactic functions. The converted adjective behaves exactly like a noun phrase in these respects.

But nouns also have certain morphological features: they (generally) have different forms for the singular and the plural (boy – boys); they can take the possessive inflection (Sachin’s admirers); and they can be, again generally, preceded by the articles a, the (a hill, the sky). But converted adjectives are always found only with the (the rich, the poor, the tough); phrases like a rich, a tough are impossible. As for the number distinction(singular, plural) one or two may be found in the plural (a couple of young toughs) but in general they can’t be used in the plural.

The same restriction is found in respect of the possessive form. Converted adjectives cannot be used with an apostrophe and s. The poor’s perception of the problem (an authentic example) is not possible.

Deliver is a word frequently misused by most of us. If you say: She delivered a baby girl, she can only mean the doctor or the nurse, not the mother.

In respect of the woman giving birth to a child, deliver is used only in the passive. She was delivered of a baby girl. A formal expression.

A much more common (and hardly ever noticed) misuse is of the word staff. Staff is a collective noun and refers to the whole body of persons employed in an organisation. Such being the case, a sentence like The Director has called all the staff to a meeting is pretty silly. Corret it to: The Director has called the staff …

The mistaken usage arises because of such (correct) phrases as: some of the staff, a few members of the staff. If we can speak of some or a few, why not all? All the staff…

The point becomes clear when we consider a parallel case: crowd. You can speak of a few in the crowd, some members of the crowd but you can’t say: all the crowd.

Merit and deserve share a common meaning as seen in: His performance deserves/ merits special mention. But this does not mean that they both enter into the same syntactic patterns. You can say: His performance deserves to be noticed . But you cannot say: His performance merits to be noticed. In: merits to be noticed we have a passive infinitive. But merit cannot be followed by an active infinitive either. It merits to notice/ mention are equally unacceptable.

In short, merit is a transitive verb (when used as a verb) and takes a direct object (noun / noun phrase). It cannot be followed by an infinitive.

It can, however, be followed by a gerund: It merits mentioning. That is because a gerund is more of a noun than an infinitive. (This last comment may surprise some readers. But John Robert Ross, an MIT linguist, showed a long time ago that the notion of ‘Nouniness’ is needed to understand the behaviour of that-clauses, infinitives and gerunds.)

This apart, notice that adjectives like necessary, important, relevant … can be correctly followed by infinitives. It is necessary/important/relevant to mention. This and the fact that deserve can be followed by a passive infinitive may have misled the writer (Saptagiri, Feb.2005, p.30) into writing It merits to mention…

Mr Phadnis of Deccan Herald has drawn my attention to a usage which, he says, he has frequently encountered. (To the question) … the Minister replied in the positive.

Positive and negative are opposites. The Minister could have replied in the negative to the question. But did he answer in the positive or affirmative?

It can only be in the affirmative (and not positive).

Here is the ALD (Advanced Learner’s Dictionary) on this point. ‘affirmative … (answering ) ‘yes’; an affirmative answer. The answer is in the afirmative, is ‘Yes’

Negative: (opp of affirmative of words and answers) indicating no or not: give somebody a negative answer’.

Positive in these contexts can be used to refer to a person’s views, ideas on a matter; his reaction. If the person is inclined to support the idea, suggestion or whatever you can say: his reaction/reply was positive (="helpful," constructive).

To sum up: An answer to a specific question may be in the affirmative or negative. A reaction to a suggestion, proposal can be positive or negative.

The writer can be contacted at ksyadurajan@yahoo.com

Maxims and Observations of Kay S. Wye

Globalisation is the new face of colonialism.