A Dictionary of Cont..

matter 294
get building material during the war. The top of
the table was covered with some hard, smooth
material painted to resemble marble).
Stuff has much the same meanings as material.
When used to refer to material objects, it is a
loose term (The building was made of some
funny white stuff. Any sort of stuff will do to
fill in the holes). When used abstractly, it is
literary and poetical (The stuff of life to knit me/
Blew hither; here am I).
matter, the. The use of the phrase the matter to
mean trouble or difficulty, especially in the question
What’s the matter? is standard usage. It has
been so employed for five hundred years and
more. Horwill seems to feel that it is an Americanism,
and certainly we use the phrase freely to
mean “what is the objection to?’ or “what can be
alleged against?” this or that proposal or course
of action, but it was so used in England from at
least the fifteenth centurv on (Falstaff: How
now? Whose mare’s dead- What’s the mutter?)
and if it has fallen into disuse in England in the
past few decades (for it was certainly in use at
the end of the nineteenth century), it is a change
there rather than in the United States.
maunder; meander. To maunder is to whine or
grumble in an incoherent way, to mutter or talk
idly and disconnectedly. Burton in The Anatomy
of Melancholy characterizes a demented man
as maundering, gazing, listening, affrighted with
every small object. Carlyle speaks of one who
was always mumbling and maundering the
merest commonplaces.
To meander is to proceed by a winding course,
to wander (Five miles meandering with a mazy
motion/ Through wood and dale the sacred river
ran. He was just meanderin’ down the pike with
nothing special in mind). Indeed, the word is
derived from the name of a Greek river which
wound a great deal in its course. But one can
meander in speech as well as in walking or flowing
and the question of at what point divagation
ceases to be meandering and becomes maundering
must be decided by the individual observer
or listener. Meandering can often be brilliant;
maundering is stupid. But whether a digression,
especially an aimless and wandering one, is to be
described as brilliant or stupid often depends on
the charity and sympathy of the listener.
mausoleum. The plural is mausoleums or mausolea.
maximum. The plural is maximums or maxima.
may. This is the present tense. The past tense is
might.
He may does not have the s ending we ordinarily
expect in a present tense verb. This is
because may is an ancient past tense form. But
it had come to be felt as a present tense by the
time English became a written language. Might
is a new past tense form that was created for it,
but which has also come to be felt as a present
tense. Today may and might are treated as subjunctive
tenses. They represent different degrees
of probability rather than a difference in time.
The present subjunctive form may represents an
event as possible while the past subjunctive
form might represents it as possible but not
likelv, as in he may come and he might come.
In asking permission, might is more diffident
than may, as in might I come in?, since it
politely suggests that the speaker does not
expect to get what he is asking for and so
won’t be surprised by a refusal. See subjunctive
mode.
The verb may has no imperative, no infinitive,
no past participle, and no -ing form. Because the
words may and might are grammatically past
tense forms, just as the word went is, they cannot
follow (that is, they cannot be dependent
on) another verb. We can no more say will may,
did may, used to might, than we can say will
went, did went, used to went. Since we cannot
use auxiliaries, such as do, be, have, we form
negative statements and ask questions in the old
direct way that is now obsolete for most verbs,
as in he may not come and may Z come?
May and might themselves are always used as
auxiliaries and require another verb to complete
their meaning. This may be the simple form of
the verb, as in Z might say, or have and the past
participle, as in Z might have said. In the first
case, the statement refers indefinitely to the present
or the future. In the second case, it refers to
a past event. The complementary verb must be
actually stated or easily supplied from the context,
as in do you think you might see him? and
Z mav.
Can frequently is, and sometimes should be,
used in place of may. For a discussion of this.
see can; may.
maybe has been so long “as natural as perhaps, or
more so,” in American speech that Fowler’s
characterization of it as “stvlishlv archaic”
sounds very strange. He admits that It was once
normal English, but insists that it became rustic
and provincial and is now something of an tiectation.
So it may be in England, or may have
been a generation ago when Fowler first wrote,
but in the United States it has always been
acceptable.
me. In natural, well-bred English, me and not I
is the form of the pronoun used after any verb,
even the verb to be. When Mayor Cermak of
Chicago was shot by a bullet intended for
Franklin Roosevelt, he said: “I’m glad it was
me instead of you.” A local newspaper thought
they could improve the dying man’s words and
quoted him as saying, “I’m glad it was I.” See
objective pronouns.
meal. See flour. See also repast.
mean. The past tense is meant. The participle is
also meant.
When this word means intend it may be followed
by an infinitive, as in Z mean to wait.
When it means signify it may be followed by
the -ing form of a verb, as in this means waiting.
mean. See average.
meander. See maunder.
meaningful verb. This expression is used in this
book to mean the element in a verbal phrase that
supplies the meaning to the phrase, as eaten in
the tzukey will have been eaten by now. It is
sometimes called the notional verb, in contrast
to the others in the phrase, which are auxiliaries.