I received a message from my health care provider with this headline: "Steps to Eating Healthy at Home." Should this not be, "...eating healthily...?" As it is, "healthy" is a noun, and I have no idea what "healthy" might taste like.

I agree. Tho I don't consider myself a prescriptivist, that grates on my ear. Perhaps they should kick off the program with a recipe for how to harvest, prepare and eat that elusive victual...

How to eat healthy at home more?
When prepped right it really tastes top-drawer.
I forage for healthy
Cuz I am not wealthy,
But look for it down at your health store.

Nice, Bethree!

It sounds to me like Mr. Healthy is being eaten.

quote:

Eating Healthy

Well, healthily grates on my ears.

As for the trend, neither phrase much appears before 1980.

Maybe "eat healthy" is short for "eat in a healthy manner".

Addendum: after googling '"eat healthy" adverb', I fell down a rabbit hole of peeving. My favorite was the one-ups-man-ship of the properer adjective to qualify food or diet is "healthful" not "healthy: a person is healthy, but a diet is healthful. I suppose one could insist that "eat healthy" is a common and accepted usage these days in spite of the P-ists.

We all of us have words we tend to favor or avoid: e.g., cellar-door, moist, irregardless, &c. Most of them are mere shibboleths we use to sort friend from foe.

Jan Freeman has an interesting take and cites Fowler (the patron saint of peevers).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

Although I see your point, Z, it still seems to me that "healthy" is an adjective, and I am inclined to think, "healthy what?" Per the N-gram, was "eat well" preferred? If not, what was? Did nobody think about it before then?

BTW, is "peever" a urological problem? Perhaps there needs to be a TV show about a linguistically challenged kid called "Leave It To Peever!"

quote:

Per the N-gram, was "eat well" preferred?

I added "eat well" to the results. It certainly was more common, but I am not sure it means the same as "eat health(il)y".

An emeritus professor of linguistics I follow whom I follow on Facebook, coined the term Peeverein meaning something like a society of prescriptivists.

As for which phrase to use, I follow my own conscience.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: zmježd,

I'm completely with zm on this, though I haven't done the research. I've seen the silly distinction about "healthy people" but "healthful food" before and I have literally never heard or seen it anywhere but in articles by peevers.
As for "eat healthy" rather than "eat healthily" I think it's just a matter of rolling of the tongue more easily and so will be something that's commonly said.
I also agree that "eat well" has a potentially different meaning - does someone who eats a six course meal every evening and have a giant breakfast and lunch eat well? I'd say so, but it probably wouldn't be healthy. (Or in a more personal vein - someone who can eat noodles in soup using metal chopsticks without ending up wearing as much as he's eaten certainly eats well - sadly that person isn't me.)

I don't think the graph proves much though because uneless you have a way to eliminate all the "eat healthy + name of food" results (eg. Eat healthy vegetables) the two things are not being measured in a comparable way.

But...but... if your name is Healthy and you end up in cannibal country...?

In truth, I see your points, Z and Bob. It would no doubt do my blood pressure good if I were to let go of the ambiguities and contradictions of English. Fat chance, but I'll try.

Yeah, Bob., I just did the graph for funsies. I also noticed (in a recency error kinda way) "eat fresh"/ What's the proper way? "Eat fresh foods" or "eat freshly"?

quote:

irregardless

Generally I am not a prescriptivist. However, I am a peeverein about the use of that word. While a synonym apparently of "regardless," it really should be the opposite of it.

Don't most of us (who are interested in language) have something we are peeverien about? I think people are kidding themselves if they say no. I remember Arnie's was "moot point."

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:

quote:

irregardless

Generally I am not a prescriptivist. However, I am a peeverein about the use of that word. While a synonym apparently of "regardless," it really should be the opposite of it.

Don't most of us (who are interested in language) have something we are peeverien about? I think people are kidding themselves if they say no. I remember Arnie's was "moot point."

How do you feel about flammable and inflammable?

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:

Don't most of us (who are interested in language) have something we are peeverien about? I think people are kidding themselves if they say no. I remember Arnie's was "moot point."

I suppose mine would be "enormity" to mean size.

I have very few of those peevy issues. Something to do with being a student of languages combined with a pusillanimous drive to ‘fit in’ linguistically. Somewhere in my subconscious I seem to believe I’m more persuasive if I sound like I’m from the same locale or perhaps social class as those with whom I’m speaking. [See what I did there?] Which can lead to embarrassing faux pas like saying “you have a phone co-wall” while with native NYC speakers, or sounding like Inspector Clouseau when among Frenchmen conversing in English. [Wasn’t K Harris accused of doing that recently?]

My problem with "enormity" is that when someone uses it I don't know which meaning they intend. Are they saying it's big or it's evil? Even in context it's often hard to tell.

I'd always think of "enormity" to mean size. I'll have to look it up.

I have always hated "inflammatory." With the "in" it almost sounds that it isn't flammable.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
I'd always think of "enormity" to mean size. I'll have to look it up.
.

it's self-evident: Not normal, or out of line. IIRC, later used to mean criminally abnormal.

Although commonly used to mean great size or scale that's NOT it's original meaning which was great wickedness. You will see here that there is a third definition of "great size" but that's a much more recent addition and has been added because so many people (even Barack Obama a particularly good public speaker) use it that way.

I, too, was taught that enormity referred to great evil or wickedness. For great size I relied on words such as huge.
Here's what Wide Wide Words and The Word Detective have to say about it.

My objection to it is that it's open to interpretation. As a general rule in public speaking it's a good idea not to use words which may be interpreted in an unintended way. Of course given the the quality of our own dear leader's public speaking...

Here he is making one of the most important annual speeches that a Prime Minister makes as he speaks to the CBI (Confederation of British Industries) - the body that represents all of British Industry. The fact that he loses his place might, I suppose, happen to anyone but (and now I sound like clickbait) what happens next is astounding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zHURhs0DbM

OMG - that is hilarious! Not much different from our ex-President who is still pushing that he won the 2020 election.

I particularly like the bit where he asks a room full of top-flight business leaders to put up their hands if they have been to Peppa Pig World as if he is standing in front of a class of toddlers.

The trouble is people think his cartoonish buffoonery is charming and still vote for him. Never mind that he has led us off the edge of a cliff with Brexit and that he has changed his mind so often on what to do about COVID that the whiplash must make him dizzy.

Same has happened, and is continuing to happen, here. I don't get it at all. The legislators are afraid to go against him.

I agree, that was so funny, Bob. And then he told them more should go to Peppa Pig World. I don't believe we have that here in the U.S., do we?

Well, I am wrong. There is one in Chicago...

Interesting. I just published an article in the American Journal of Nursing (Dec 2021) on practice-academic partnerships. You are always at the mercy of the editors. In the beginning of the second paragraph I see they changed our verbiage to: "The enormity of the crisis [referring to COVID] prompted the NCSBN to mobilize nurse leaders nationwide..."

I suppose an errata is in order.

I suppose that if you believe that the virus was a) man made and b) intentionally released, it would be the right word.

Politically speaking, some do. Not me though. And I am sure AJN does not want to start that subject.