From Ruth Little of Winston-Salem: "My nephew and I were talking about the term ‘piping hot.' Do you know how it got started?"
The earliest reference to "piping hot" that anyone has found is in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14th century. In modern translation, it reads: "He sent her sweetened wine and well-spiced ale and waffles piping hot out of the fire."
"Piping" refers to the hissing or whistling sound that very hot food can make, sometimes similar to the sound that high-pitched musical pipes make.
On another subject, Little wrote: "I think when someone says ‘having said that,' it is redundant. What do you think?"
It is not so much redundant as superfluous. If something has been said, you know it without being told.
"Having said that," along with such variations as "that said" and "that being said," is a cliché that has spread like a contagion among politicians and broadcast commentators.
Sometimes, I suppose, it could be justified on grounds that the speaker wants to qualify, perhaps softening or strengthening, a point just made. Most of the time, however, it is filler.
Quite often, people who begin a sentence with "having said that" end up committing a grammatical error in what follows it by turning it into a dangling modifier. For instance, this construction is correct: "Having said that, I believe the Iraqis should do so and so." The "having said" phrase modifies the speaker, I.
This construction would be incorrect: "Having said that, the Iraqis should do so and so." Here, too, the "having said" phrase is intended to modify the speaker but is followed by something it does not modify, "the Iraqis." I have noticed that this sort of error is common among speakers who are fond of "having said that."
Sarah Mast of Valle Crucis has written to point out how sentences can sometimes run away from a writer, especially when needed punctuation is omitted. She wrote:
"I finally figured out this (From the Dec. 6 Winston-Salem Journal): ‘It's a scene that's happening on the eastern side of downtown, where buildings that once churned out cigarettes have been transformed to house scientists and artists and art lovers are building a robust arts district.'
"I believe a comma after artists would make it easier to read." Yes, it would. It seems to me that newspaper writers, more than others, are prone to leave out commas where they are needed and place them where they are not needed.
Beyond the comma problem, the writer would have been well advised to break the sentence into two sentences. Packing too much into one sentence places a burden on the reader.
Warren Emerson of Winston-Salem has asked a question that other readers have asked periodically. He wrote:
"I read this in a BBC blog: ‘President Obama said he'd try and do just that.' I see ‘try and…' instead of ‘try to…' constantly not only on the Internet but in newspapers and on television.
"There is a distinct logical difference between ‘try and' and ‘try to.' If one tries and does something, they actually do it. But if one tries to do something, the outcome is uncertain, which is what most people mean.
"Is trying to fix this a lost cause, or should I just try and ignore it?"
The standard expression for most purposes is "try to," but some writers and speakers use "try and" interchangeably.
As I wrote in a previous column, "try and" is a colloquialism fit only for casual and unplanned speech, with one exception. "Try and" is an idiomatic response to a threat or challenge.
For instance, if you to say to an officeholder, "I am going to run for your office," he or she might well respond, "Oh, yeah? Well, just try and win."
Richard Creed is a retired Journal editor. He can be reached at richcreed@triad.rr.com
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