Question: For years, I have heard on radio and TV the word "maven." It seems strange that a word used so often cannot be found in my dictionary. Could you help me track it down?Answer: Take heart. Your search is over. The word "maven" (also spelled "mavin") is now very familiar, but it's also a surprisingly recent addition to the language, having been first recorded only in the 1950s. We define "maven" in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary as "one who is experienced or knowledgeable." It is derived from Yiddish "meyvn," which in turn comes from the Late Hebrew word "mebhin." The earliest example for the word in our own files is from 1965, when an advertisement in the Hadassah News Letter advised readers to get a particular product "at your favorite supermarket, grocery or delicatessen. Tell them the beloved Maven sent you."
Over the years there have been "literary mavens," "media mavens," "food and drink mavens" and more recently "computer mavens." The word now often implies enthusiastic interest in a given subject in addition to expert knowledge.
Question: I never know how to write a sentence using a gerund. Should I say "I appreciate your coming" or "I appreciate you coming?" Please help.
Answer: This is a tricky question, and one that has been much discussed. Both forms have in fact been used side by side for many centuries. When grammarians first discovered that fact in the 18th century, they were perplexed; it never occurred to them that there could be two ways of doing anything, so they felt that one of them must be wrong. The 18th-century grammarians disagreed as to which was right, but 20th-century handbooks opt for the possessive pronoun ("your coming") and disapprove both the objective pronoun ("you coming") and the so-called common-case noun ("I appreciate Bob coming" rather than "Bob's coming," for instance). Historical grammarians, on the other hand, have shown that choosing one case or another is not always a simple matter.
If the gerund is certainly a noun, the possessive is always used ("I admire his singing"). Unfortunately, clear-cut noun gerunds are relatively uncommon; most gerunds seem to be more verblike. Verblike gerunds can take either the possessive case or the common (or objective) case, but again subtle differences are at work.
If a pronoun precedes the gerund, it is in fact more likely to be in the possessive than the objective case, as in "if you don't mind my saying so." But if the pronoun is linked to a noun in the common case, as in "they joked about my brother and me talking so much," the objective case is usual. Words intervening between the pronoun and the gerund can also trigger the objective case, as in "I don't understand you, of all people, complaining." The objective case of pronouns and common case of nouns may also be felt to be more emphatic in a sentence like "I can't imagine him or "John" letting that happen."
When the word preceding the gerund is a noun, examples of the possessive case and the common case appear to be somewhat more evenly divided. Constructions such as "afraid of the money's being wasted" and "seemed disappointed at the book being out of print" are both typical. But the possessive is not usually used after nouns ending in an "s" sound, as in "afraid of the house being robbed." Some plurals without the final "s" are used in the common case because the possessive simply sounds wrong, as in "whatever is responsible for my feet's hurting," which would therefore usually be phrased "feet hurting." Some words, like "there," lack a possessive form and so never appear with that construction -- "never dreamed of there being a different way to do it." Using the common case permits the addition of a parallel construction with the gerund omitted, as in "was sorry to see Tom getting all the credit and Paul none." All of these constructions are standard English, and when there is no reason prompting one form or another, the choice is open.
This column was prepared by the editors of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Tenth Edition. Send questions to: Merriam-Webster's Wordwatch, P.O. Box 281, 47 Federal St., Springfield, Mass. 01102. Merriam-Webster Inc. Dist. by Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service