Tantamount, paramount, catamount
Photo from Skinny MooseI woke up thinking of the word tantamount. What part of speech is it? I discussed this question with my daughter, a linguist. It is an adjective, she confirmed, but of a special kind. It only follows the be verb and never features in the subject portion of a sentence.
In view of its structural similarity, a parallel case should be the adjective paramount, but it’s not. This one has no prepositional companion, and it is allowed to appear in front of a noun.
The kicker is catamount, a noun meaning lynx or cougar. Not only are these three similar words wildly divergent in meaning and usage, each represents a different part of speech.
So why are these words so similar? We English teachers tell our students to look for word structure patterns to use as context clues, but this can be a frustrating quest. Just as you think you’ve found a pattern, exceptions start jumping out of the woodwork.
No wonder it’s so hard to teach this language to those with other mother tongues. As for how these people learn it, that’s quite simply a miracle. The real translation of ESL should be English is a Strange Language.