Grammar police, unite!

[Despardo]

And from what I understand, schools will not be teaching cursive penmanship anymore. So sad.

http://assets.amuniversal.com/7e9ab3f033b20133036a005056a9545d

[Despardo]

Time for a new discussion. A question I could never answer on tests as I was growing up. Finally, found someone to explain it to me.

 

Off you go------between vis-a vis among. When you have the answer, read all the literate news reporters and see how they mess it up. Same as elder and eldest.

Between means between two entities. Among means among several entities. I sat between the trees implies that there are only 2 trees, and so forth.

 

Shall we go back to Latin to insist that there can be only one "alternative" alter meaning the other of two?

 

News reporters stopped using good English sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. It has been all downhill since then.

[+ Charlie]

Time for a new discussion. A question I could never answer on tests as I was growing up. Finally, found someone to explain it to me.

 

Off you go------between vis-a vis among. When you have the answer, read all the literate news reporters and see how they mess it up. Same as elder and eldest.

between (two individuals); among (more than two individuals)--"Between you and me..." but "Among the three of us...."

 

elder (comparative: older than one individual); eldest (superlative: older than two or more individuals) "We are a married couple; my spouse is the elder," but "My spouse is one of four brothers; he is the eldest."

[bobchitown]

between (two individuals); among (more than two individuals)--"Between you and me..." but "Among the three of us...."

 

elder (comparative: older than one individual); eldest (superlative: older than two or more individuals) "We are a married couple; my spouse is the elder," but "My spouse is one of four brothers; he is the eldest."

 

Whilst we're speaking of such things, amount vs. number is also drop dead easy to remember.

 

Use amount when you're speaking of something you can weigh or measure, as in "What amount of lube should I use?"

 

Use number for something you can count, as in "What number of times did Mike make you cum last night?"

 

I've given up on I vs. me. That horse is way out of the barn.

[Despardo]

Whilst we're speaking of such things, amount vs. number is also drop dead easy to remember.

 

Use amount when you're speaking of something you can weigh or measure, as in "What amount of lube should I use?"

 

Use number for something you can count, as in "What number of times did Mike make you cum last night?"

 

I've given up on I vs. me. That horse is way out of the barn.

Similarly, "fewer" is to be used for distinct entities which can be enumerated--fewer apples. "Less" is for things which cannot be enumerated, i.e. collective nouns--less milk. There is an exception to this rule involving time or distance where the chunk of time or distance can be thought of as a single quantity--I will be here in 5 minutes or less, if I am less than 5 miles away.

 

What kills me involving the use of the correct case for pronouns, is that many get confused when there is a compound subject or object. The fact that the subject is compound does not affect its grammatical position in the sentence. Examples:

 

"Please wait for me to return."--Nobody would say, "Please wait for I to return."

 

But, how often do you hear, "Please wait for Jane and I to return?" The personal pronoun is still the object of the preposition "for," therefore the correct sentence should be, "Please wait for Jane and (for) me to return." I do not understand why this seems to be such a difficult concept to grasp.

 

English speakers should be grateful that case applies in English only to pronouns and not to all nouns as it does in inflected languages like German, where case endings on nouns can be nominative, accusative, dative or ablative depending on whether the noun is a subject, a direct object, an indirect object, or the object of a preposition. Worse yet, some specific verbs and prepositions take the dative case instead of the expected accusative or ablative. And of course, any articles (a, the, etc.) attached to the noun have to be in the correct case as well (not to mention matching in gender and number.) I am told that in Polish (I believe all Slavic languages are heavily inflected.) sometimes the objective case of a noun barely resembles the nominative case of that same noun rather than having just a change of ending.

 

Now then, would anyone like a tutorial on the correct use of "whoever" vs."whomever?" It is a bit tricky. If you can't handle simple "who" vs. "whom" you are not yet ready for it.

[+ Charlie]

Compounds that include a pronoun are the ones that are most subject to misuse by the semi-educated (e.g., TV sports commentators), and they almost always overcorrect toward the nominative case, because the uneducated are stereotyped as always using the accusative where a nominative is required ("Jimmy and me were watchin' the game"), so the commentator will show his sophistication by announcing, "The viewer told Sean and I that they were watching the game."

[liubit]

I am told that in Polish (I believe all Slavic languages are heavily inflected.) sometimes the objective case of a noun barely resembles the nominative case of that same noun rather than having just a change of ending.

Yes, Slavic languages are heavily inflected. I don't know about Polish, but in Czech there are seven cases for each noun or adjective (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative and instrumental). Declining them has many rules and the process can be quite tricky.

[+ Eric Hassan]

And don't forget the rules about ending a sentence with a preposition.

 

" ... up with which I will not put."

[Despardo]

Yes, Slavic languages are heavily inflected. I don't know about Polish, but in Czech there are seven cases for each noun or adjective (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, vocative, locative and instrumental). Declining them has many rules and the process can be quite tricky.

I hear the same holds true for Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian (which is similar, but not quite the same.) In Croatian I know only:

 

Dobro jutro (good morning)

Dobar dan (good day)

Hvala ti (thank you)

 

Fortunately, practically everybody spoke English--and well.

[Despardo]

Compounds that include a pronoun are the ones that are most subject to misuse by the semi-educated (e.g., TV sports commentators), and they almost always overcorrect toward the nominative case, because the uneducated are stereotyped as always using the accusative where a nominative is required ("Jimmy and me were watchin' the game"), so the commentator will show his sophistication by announcing, "The viewer told Sean and I that they were watching the game."

A friend of mine once referred to that kind of overcompensation as a "genteelism."--a misguided attempt to sound refined.

[Despardo]

English grammar is not nearly so difficult as the grammar of other Germanic languages or Slavic languages. The real bitch about English is its wildly irregular spelling and pronunciation where no rules apply:

 

English Pronunciation

 

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world.

 

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

 

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

 

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité

[AdamSmith]

Fired up my browser and found today's Firefox Free Thought (which I heartily concur with ):

 

Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be afraid of.

[mike carey]

Fired up my browser and found today's Firefox Free Thought (which I heartily concur with ):

 

Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be afraid of.

Indeed, a contivance (along with no split infinitives) forced on English by Latinist grammarians whose sole justification for it was that it is impossible in Latin so it is impermissible in English.

[AdamSmith]

Indeed, a contivance (along with no split infinitives) forced on English by Latinist grammarians whose sole justification for it was that it is impossible in Latin so it is impermissible in English.

Jawohl. As previously discussed, English grammar is Germanic, not Romance, so those imported Latin rules are altogether irrelevant.

 

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/linguistic-tree.png

[+ Charlie]

Fired up my browser and found today's Firefox Free Thought (which I heartily concur with ):

 

Ending a sentence with a preposition is nothing to be afraid of.

Observing the rule about not ending a sentence with a preposition almost always requires the use of more words (e.g., "....is nothing of which to be afraid"). In the age of Twitter, with its limits on the number of characters, the rule will surely fall into desuetude. (Even better, eliminate the preposition altogether: "....is nothing to fear.")

[+ glennnn]

However, I took German in college and my wife studied Latin in HS. When I taught her some basic German, we were struck by the similarity that both have strict nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive cases that govern the endings applied to nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Since the Romance languages I've studied (Spanish, Italian, and French) don't change endings according to case, this seems like a Latin to German connection that the Romance languages missed. Or am I missing something?

[+ Funguy]

There's that dangling thing again!

[+ Gar1eth]

Indeed, a contivance (along with no split infinitives) forced on English by Latinist grammarians whose sole justification for it was that it is impossible in Latin so it is impermissible in English.

Jawohl. As previously discussed, English grammar is Germanic, not Romance, so those imported Latin rules are altogether irrelevant.

 

http://images.mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/linguistic-tree.png

 

I think I'd have to disagree to some extent. As regarding split infinitives, in both German and Latin it would be impossible for the simple reason that in most cases their infinitives are composed of single words.

 

For regular Latin verbs the active present tense infinitive consists of a verb stem and one of the following endings in -are, -ēre, -ere, and -ire. I think to be perfectly correct the actual stem of the verb includes the -a,-ē, -e, and -i with the infinitive ending really being only -re, but hopefully all of you will forgive this slight fudge.

 

For regular German verbs, the present tense infinitive ending is -en.

 

I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier in this thread as I'm not going to go through all the previous postings (even if some are my own:p) I am told that the infinitive in English is strictly speaking the unadorned verb without adding the preposition 'to'. *

 

From Wikipedia:

 

In traditional descriptions of English, the infinitive is the basic dictionary form of a verb when used non-finitely, with or without the particle to. Thus to go is an infinitive, as is go in a sentence like "I must go there" (but not in "I go there", where it is a finite verb). The form without to is called the bare infinitive, and the form with to is called the full infinitive or to-infinitive.

 

 

Another point against saying that English grammar is Germanic vs Latin/Romance is that German grammar echos much of Latin grammar. I don't know whether it's due to underlying shared Indo-European roots, the Romans conquering much of Europe, or whether German was molded to be more like Latin to some extent as all notable ancient German scholars would have known Latin and most likely used it for their own writings. So maybe Latin bled through into their German.

 

I thought some of you might like this t-shirt.

 

https://teespring.com/btea143#pid=2&cid=2397&sid=back

 

Gman

 

* I have a vague memory of posting something on infinitives earlier in this thread. For all

I know my current post is a repeat of one I did months ago.

[MsGuy]

I don't know if there's any scholarly support for this but my own take on English is that it's descended from a pigeon spoken between the natives and their Norman masters in the first centuries after the conquest. Gotta have some way of telling those peasants to get their lazy ass in gear and deliver their crops to the lord's storehouse.

 

I do know that the nobility of England spoke Norman French as their first language until after their estates on the continent were lost in the various wars with the Kingdom of France. In it's failure to designate words as masculine or feminine, the way it denotes verb tense with separate words, it's loss of case endings and it's simplified sentence structure, English much more resembles a pidgin than either German or Latin/French.

 

Besides, It's kinda hard for me to see why English, and English alone, dumped all these linguistic features when no other modern Latinate or Germanic language has done so.

 

If by some chance this is an original thought, I will be glad to accept a large cash award from the Modern Language Association.

[+ Gar1eth]

I don't know if there's any scholarly support for this but my own take on English is that it's descended from a pigeon spoken between the natives and their Norman masters in the first centuries after the conquest. Gotta have some way of telling those peasants to get their lazy ass in gear and deliver their crops to the lord's storehouse.

 

I do know that the nobility of England spoke Norman French as their first language until after their estates on the continent were lost in the various wars with the Kingdom of France. In it's failure to designate words as masculine or feminine, the way it denotes verb tense with separate words, it's loss of case endings and it's simplified sentence structure, English much more resembles a pidgin than either German or Latin/French.

 

Besides, It's kinda hard for me to see why English, and English alone, dumped all these linguistic features when no other modern Latinate or Germanic language has done so.

 

If by some chance this is an original thought, I will be glad to accept a large cash award from the Modern Language Association.

 

My understanding which might be fellatious was that the Normans sent their children to Paris for education. The Parisians of the time made fun of their Norman French-imagine that-as it was considered 'rustic'/uncouth. So that helped the push the change from Norman French to English. Remember Chaucer wrote of the Prioress in his Prologue-

 

There was also a nun, a prioress,

Who, in her smiling, modest was and coy;

Her greatest oath was but "By Saint Eloy!"

And she was known as Madam Eglantine.

Full well she sang the services divine,

Intoning through her nose, becomingly;

And fair she spoke her French, and fluently,

After the school of Stratford-at-the-Bow,

For French of Paris was not hers to know.

At table she had been well taught withal,

 

Gman

[AdamSmith]

@Gar1eth's Chaucer quotation spurred (through fairly free association ) the recall of this bagatelle taking a dig at the early 20th-century literary critic and Harvard prof Irving Babbitt.

 

I Went to See Irving Babbitt

by Richard Eberhart

I went to see Irving Babbitt

In the Eighteenth Century clean and neat

When he opened his mouth to speak French

I fell clean off my seat.

 

He spoke it not fair and fetisly

But harshly laboured it like a Yankee

Even as my nubian Swahili

Is sweet and pleasant to me.

 

And when we went out of the critical door

Crying for more, crying for more

I saw the hater of mechanical America

Bulge through the Square in a critical Ford.

 

Harvard is a good place, Harvard is the best,

Among the immemorial elms you'll come to rest

Strolling the Yard, the only proper yardstick,

Warbling your native foot-notes mild.

[+ ArVaGuy]

@MsGuy, your post reminded me of a PBS program called The Story of English hosted by Robert McNeil from 1986. Its a comprehensive history of the English language and all of its varieties (dialects) and how it spread around the world.

 

Here's a clip.

 

[+ Gar1eth]

@Gar1eth's Chaucer quotation spurred (through fairly free association ) the recall of this bagatelle taking a dig at the early 20th-century literary critic and Harvard prof Irving Babbitt.

 

I Went to See Irving Babbitt

by Richard Eberhart

I went to see Irving Babbitt

In the Eighteenth Century clean and neat

When he opened his mouth to speak French

I fell clean off my seat.

 

He spoke it not fair and fetisly

But harshly laboured it like a Yankee

Even as my nubian Swahili

Is sweet and pleasant to me.

 

And when we went out of the critical door

Crying for more, crying for more

I saw the hater of mechanical America

Bulge through the Square in a critical Ford.

 

Harvard is a good place, Harvard is the best,

Among the immemorial elms you'll come to rest

Strolling the Yard, the only proper yardstick,

Warbling your native foot-notes mild.

 

If the average Havardian understands this, then I guess it explains why my degree is from a state school.

 

Gman

[AdamSmith]

@Gar1eth's Chaucer quotation spurred (through fairly free association ) the recall of this bagatelle taking a dig at the early 20th-century literary critic and Harvard prof Irving Babbitt.

 

I Went to See Irving Babbitt

by Richard Eberhart

I went to see Irving Babbitt

In the Eighteenth Century clean and neat

When he opened his mouth to speak French

I fell clean off my seat.

 

He spoke it not fair and fetisly

But harshly laboured it like a Yankee

Even as my nubian Swahili

Is sweet and pleasant to me.

 

And when we went out of the critical door

Crying for more, crying for more

I saw the hater of mechanical America

Bulge through the Square in a critical Ford.

 

Harvard is a good place, Harvard is the best,

Among the immemorial elms you'll come to rest

Strolling the Yard, the only proper yardstick,

Warbling your native foot-notes mild.

Eberhart has been somewhat forgotten, the pity which. His intensities of vision and rhetoric were taken up and used to even higher means by the British poet Geoffrey Hill, now one of the two or three greatest poets alive. Eberhart's great war poem:

 

The Fury of Aerial Bombardment

 

You would think the fury of aerial bombardment

Would rouse God to relent; the infinite spaces

Are still silent. He looks on shock-pried faces.

History, even, does not know what is meant.

 

You would feel that after so many centuries

God would give man to repent; yet he can kill

As Cain could, but with multitudinous will,

No farther advanced than in his ancient furies.

 

Was man made stupid to see his own stupidity?

Is God by definition indifferent, beyond us all?

Is the eternal truth man's fighting soul

Wherein the Beast ravens in its own avidity?

 

Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,

Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall

But they are gone to early death, who late in school

Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl.

[AdamSmith]

If the average Havardian understands this, then I guess it explains why my degree is from a state school.

 

Gman

It is just one of those stupid in-jokes.

 

 

Babbitt is an earlier version of the once fairly widely respected but irredeemably middlebrow cultural critic Hilton Kramer, whom Gore Vidal always referred to as the Hotel Hilton Kramer.