Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

[DearEvette]

This dialect expert (I saw some refer to him as Dialect Daddy. LOL) mentions the fewer vs. less and how it came into use because of a person's preference and not necessarily because of a real grammatical rule.   I found this entire thing rather an interesting listen:

 

 

[Cowgirl]

Interesting @supposebly.  Thanks.

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

This dialect expert (I saw some refer to him as Dialect Daddy. LOL) mentions the fewer vs. less and how it came into use because of a person's preference and not necessarily because of a real grammatical rule.   I found this entire thing rather an interesting listen:

 

❤️🥰😍😻😙❤️

And, yes, a little humility is a good thing. 
So is a little humidity. 😉

[Milburn Stone]

Thanks for sharing the video of that guy, @DearEvette. He's smart and likable. I enjoyed him and learned a few things I didn't know.

And, I'm very glad he's not completely permissive. He's more on the permissive end of the spectrum than I am, but he does have his limits.

Language is constantly changing; he's not wrong about that, and he produces a lot of evidence to support the point. 

And, it's true that in any place and time, there are classes and castes, determined not only by wealth but education. The language spoken and written by higher castes is different from that spoken and written by lower castes. This does not make people in higher castes "better." It does mean that if you'd like to move into a higher caste, you'd do well to learn and follow the rules that govern the higher caste grammar of that time and place. 

Edited August 21, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[DearEvette]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

And, it's true that in any place and time, there are classes and castes, determined not only by wealth but education. The language spoken and written by higher castes is different from that spoken and written by lower castes. This does not make people in higher castes "better." It does mean that if you'd like to move into a higher caste, you'd do well to learn and follow the rules that govern the higher caste grammar of that time and place. 

This is what I would call 'code-switching' and so many people do it almost subconsciously.  I know that many languages have explicit forms of formal vs. informal speech  that are actual grammatical rules (e.g. tu vs. vous (singular)  in French), but English doesn't accommodate those rules, so  formal vs. informal typically comes in the form of pronunciation, regional dialects and usage that will sometime elide into new words ( e.g. 'you all' becoming 'y'all' or ' to fix my eye to' becomes 'fixin' to' which becomes 'finna') .

I am one that falls a little closer to Dialect Daddy (LOL) on the permissive scale.    I do agree that formal writing does require sticking to good rules of usage.  And I am a huge fan of the oxford comma.  But outside of that, give me all your local expressions!  One of the things I love about the evolution of language is when I learn a new expression that is used regionally or even colloquially by a group that has a specific, nuanced meaning that the one word can convey so much where if you had to translate it using 'formal' language you would need three sentences to explain it?  We already sort of borrow these from other languages ('schadenfreude' comes to mind) but in English for instance, the colloquial meaning 'Shade' as defined by black & latino drag queens is a good example of one word doing the most.

Edited August 21, 2020 by DearEvette

[Browncoat]

I am thrilled that Mattress Warehouse finally corrected their grammatically incorrect commercial!  For so long, they said, "just lay back", but I just now saw the same ad, but it now says "just lie back".  Hooray!  

[legaleagle53]

On 8/13/2020 at 11:29 PM, Irlandesa said:

Yep. I  thought of sing, sang, sung.

Verbs like "bring" and "think" never belonged to the same class of verbs as "sing," and "sink," which is one reason that the analogy has always failed.  However, there is, oddly enough, one very common verb for which the analogy has worked: "ring." Originally, it was conjugated "ring, ringede, ringedon, geringed," so today, we would be saying "The bell ringed" and "The bell has been ringed" if the analogy had failed.

Edited August 24, 2020 by legaleagle53

[shapeshifter]

I hope this post doesn't lower the level of discussion here.
I just wanted to share.
(At least half of the replies are relevant to our "Literally" thread too.)

 

Edited August 23, 2020 by shapeshifter

[Brookside]

On 8/21/2020 at 10:03 PM, legaleagle53 said:

Verbs like "bring" and "think" never belonged to the same class of verbs as "sing," and "sink," which is one reason that the analogy has always failed.  However, there is, oddly enough, one very common verb for which the analogy has worked: "ring." Originally, it was conjugated "ring, ringede, ringed," so today, we would be saying "The bell ringed" and "The bell has been ringed" if the analogy had failed.

This and previous posts remind me of my irritation when people describe, for example, a prisoner as being "hung" rather than "hanged."  I realize it's a long lost battle, but it still annoys me!

[shapeshifter]

I think upthread it was determined that the War of Less Versus Fewer has reached a detente. 
Still, I just read a tweet correcting “four less years” to “four fewer years,” which triggered the rebuttal that “less” was correct incorrect* in this case because it was in comparison to “four more years.” Any strictly apolitical thoughts on the use of “less” in such an instance?

________________

*To my great chagrin, I now see that I incorrectly typed that 'the rebuttal that “less” was correct' instead of that 'the rebuttal that “less” was incorrect.

Edited September 23, 2020 by shapeshifter

[praeceptrix]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I think upthread it was determined that the War of Less Versus Fewer has reached a detente. 
Still, I just read a tweet correcting “four less years” to “four fewer years,” which triggered the rebuttal that “less” was correct in this case because it was in comparison to “four more years.” Any strictly apolitical thoughts on the use of “less” in such an instance?
 

As far as I know, more doesn't work the way less and fewer do. More (less) sugar, more (fewer) bricks. The rebuttal tweet is creating a false parallel.

[Silver Raven]

On 8/17/2020 at 6:17 AM, praeceptrix said:

I'm also having fond memories of the Pros and Cons of Closed Captioning thread at Television Without Pity. Both computer generated captions and those done by humans can produce some amusing mistakes. 

Ugh, the automatically generated captions on Youtube are ridiculous.

[Milburn Stone]

On 9/22/2020 at 6:20 AM, shapeshifter said:

I think upthread it was determined that the War of Less Versus Fewer has reached a detente. 
Still, I just read a tweet correcting “four less years” to “four fewer years,” which triggered the rebuttal that “less” was correct in this case because it was in comparison to “four more years.” Any strictly apolitical thoughts on the use of “less” in such an instance?
 

As a chant, in that instance, "less" is preferable--even though it is incorrect, I say at the risk of restarting the War--because it is one syllable. You want a retort to the original that matches it in meter and scansion. "More" is one syllable, so a rhetorically-correct (if not grammatically-correct) retort requires an opposite word of one syllable.

[shapeshifter]

On 9/22/2020 at 7:43 AM, praeceptrix said:

As far as I know, more doesn't work the way less and fewer do. More (less) sugar, more (fewer) bricks. The rebuttal tweet is creating a false parallel.

I was puzzled by the wording of this reply until I realized, to my great chagrin, that I incorrectly typed
    'the rebuttal that “less” was correct'
instead of
    'the rebuttal that “less” was incorrect.
I apologize. 😔

Nevertheless, I was able to reply to the tangential Twitter thread  about the grammar of the original tweet with a careful paraphrase (to fit the character limit) of:

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

As a chant, in that instance, "less" is preferable--even though it is incorrect, I say at the risk of restarting the War--because it is one syllable. You want a retort to the original that matches it in meter and scansion. "More" is one syllable, so a rhetorically-correct (if not grammatically-correct) retort requires an opposite word of one syllable.

Thanks!

[SVNBob]

On 9/22/2020 at 4:35 PM, Silver Raven said:

Ugh, the automatically generated captions on Youtube are ridiculous.

And yet they took away community created caption feature, because they claim it was underutilized.

[Anduin]

I was just going through all my music bookmarks when I hit upon a problem. Does Acid King go before or after AC/DC?

[SVNBob]

5 hours ago, Anduin said:

I was just going through all my music bookmarks when I hit upon a problem. Does Acid King go before or after AC/DC?

That is an interesting point to ponder.  And looking around, there's not exactly a standard.

To begin with, everyone seems to agree that the digits 0-9, in that order, come before letters.  Number words spelled out though, go by standard alphabetical order.  After that, it diverges.

Some (mainly business) practices decide to "spell out" the symbol when alphabetizing.  So in this case it'd be Acid King before AC "Slash" DC.

However the NISO guidelines put non-punctuation symbols (which include brackets of all kinds and quote marks, but not dashes or slashes) ahead of numbers.  So it'd be AC/DC before Acid King.

In the end, I agree with a comment I saw on another forum (although that discussion was mainly about how to alphabetize bands named after fictional people; ie. does Jethro Tull go under J or T.).  To wit: it's your collection, so put them in the order that makes the most sense to you.

[Anduin]

Thank you! Currently, AC/DC is before Acid King. Unless I feel the urge to fiddle around some more, it'll stay that way.

[Milburn Stone]

10 hours ago, Anduin said:

Thank you! Currently, AC/DC is before Acid King. Unless I feel the urge to fiddle around some more, it'll stay that way.

I was "brought up" to think that articles (the, a, an) should not be taken account of in the alphabetization scheme. E.g., A Farewell to Arms should be filed under F, not A. (As "Farewell to Arms, A.") But lately I'm seeing more lists in which the article is taken into account in the alphabetizing. It's fine with me either way; I just want to know, is the standard changing?

Edited September 26, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[shapeshifter]

54 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

I was "brought up" to think that articles (the, a, an) should not be taken account of in the alphabetization scheme. E.g., A Farewell to Arms should be filed under F, not A. (As "Farewell to Arms, A.") But lately I'm seeing more lists in which the article is taken into account in the alphabetizing. It's fine with me either way; I just want to know, is the standard changing?

In order for a computer to sort while ignoring the beginning article, all possible articles must be entered, and/or the sort algorithm must ignore the article, and/or the items must be entered in the form of: First, A. 
In other words (punny?) it’s cheaper to sort without considering beginning articles of A, An, The, La, Le, Les, etc.   
That’s probably why telephone books never ignored initial articles, which gave rise to a lot of businesses with names like “AAAA Hotel.” 

But libraries will continue to sort beginning with the first letter of the first word after the initial article so that books can sit on the shelves in a logical manner. 🙂

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

In order for a computer to sort while ignoring the beginning article, all possible articles must be entered, and/or the sort algorithm must ignore the article, and/or the items must be entered in the form of: First, A. 
In other words (punny?) it’s cheaper to sort without considering beginning articles of A, An, The, La, Le, Les, etc.   
That’s probably why telephone books never ignored initial articles, which gave rise to a lot of businesses with names like “AAAA Hotel.” 

But libraries will continue to sort beginning with the first letter of the first word after the initial article so that books can sit on the shelves in a logical manner. 🙂

This is great info. Totally explains the changes I'm seeing. I've got a complete edition of Anthony Trollope on my Kindle, and the novels appear in alphabetical order. And the first two are An Eye for an Eye and An Old Man's Love. I thought, "That's odd." The Kindle being an electronic device, now I understand.

[Zella]

Yeah I work part-time for a library, and we disregard articles in titles. It irks me when computer programs (like Word) don't alphabetize this way, but I can see why they're programmed differently. 

[SVNBob]

8 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

In order for a computer to sort while ignoring the beginning article, all possible articles must be entered, and/or the sort algorithm must ignore the article, and/or the items must be entered in the form of: First, A. 
In other words (punny?) it’s cheaper to sort without considering beginning articles of A, An, The, La, Le, Les, etc.   
That’s probably why telephone books never ignored initial articles, which gave rise to a lot of businesses with names like “AAAA Hotel.” 

But libraries will continue to sort beginning with the first letter of the first word after the initial article so that books can sit on the shelves in a logical manner. 🙂

This jives with the information I found when looking up answers to the previous question.  Business practices still tend to ignore initial articles, while the NISO guidelines say to include them.

[Milburn Stone]

9 hours ago, Zella said:

Yeah I work part-time for a library, and we disregard articles in titles. It irks me when computer programs (like Word) don't alphabetize this way, but I can see why they're programmed differently. 

I'm glad libraries still do this. It's the right way. I'm also glad I thought to ask the question, because I never knew there were two different approved standards in use--the right way and the expedient-for-devices way. :) Given how much of our world is being given over to devices (hey, I'm no different; after getting a Kindle for expedience, I learned to actually prefer reading on it), I wonder how long the older alphabetization standard can hold out. I hope a long time.

Edited September 27, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[Quof]

2 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

after getting a Kindle for expedience, I learned to actually prefer reading on it

I've realized that I prefer electronic reading because I can enlarge the font.  And over time I've been making it bigger, and bigger....  Funny that.  

[SweetieDarling]

I'm convinced there are no editors or proofreaders:

"Police are investigating after a 27-year-old woman, a 23-year-old man, and a man was shot overnight throughout Baltimore."

 

[SuprSuprElevated]

16 hours ago, SweetieDarling said:

I'm convinced there are no editors or proofreaders:

"Police are investigating after a 27-year-old woman, a 23-year-old man, and a man was shot overnight throughout Baltimore."

 

They've cut staff.  Forced to use the rodents, between exterminator visits.

[Milburn Stone]

19 hours ago, SweetieDarling said:

I'm convinced there are no editors or proofreaders:

"Police are investigating after a 27-year-old woman, a 23-year-old man, and a man was shot overnight throughout Baltimore."

 

I pray to God that's not from The Baltimore Sun. It used to be one of the best local papers in the country.

[SweetieDarling]

1 hour ago, Milburn Stone said:

I pray to God that's not from The Baltimore Sun. It used to be one of the best local papers in the country.

You can breathe easy, it was foxbaltimore.com. They're, usually, better at updating the headlines than some of the other local sources, despite the story about the cruise ship coming into port with 82 flu patients, that's been in the side bar since the beginning of March.

[SweetieDarling]

Here's today's contribution from foxbaltimore.com:

"That makes for five people shot in the city so far today."

 

 

[Milburn Stone]

On 10/1/2020 at 4:13 PM, SweetieDarling said:

Here's today's contribution from foxbaltimore.com:

"That makes for five people shot in the city so far today."

That makes for publicly-encouraged illiteracy.

[legaleagle53]

On 9/23/2020 at 4:58 AM, Milburn Stone said:

As a chant, in that instance, "less" is preferable--even though it is incorrect, I say at the risk of restarting the War--because it is one syllable. You want a retort to the original that matches it in meter and scansion. "More" is one syllable, so a rhetorically-correct (if not grammatically-correct) retort requires an opposite word of one syllable.

It's not necessarily incorrect. It depends on whether you are talking about four individual years (which would require "fewer," since you are implicitly counting the individual years as separate units) or four years as an amount of time (which would require "less" because you are then talking about an uncountable amount rather than four individual years).

Edited October 4, 2020 by legaleagle53

[shapeshifter]

A TV commercial for insurance harangues:  
“You can save up to $1400 or more for…” 
“You can save up to $2500 or more for…”  
“You can save up to $160 or more…” 
And so on. (The amounts are approximate.)

Am I wrong, or does “up to n amount or more” not promise any amount whatsoever?

 

[Milburn Stone]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

A TV commercial for insurance harangues:  
“You can save up to $1400 or more for…” 
“You can save up to $2500 or more for…”  
“You can save up to $160 or more…” 
And so on. (The amounts are approximate.)

Am I wrong, or does “up to n amount or more” not promise any amount whatsoever?

 

The not-promising is not the issue. The internal contradiction is. "Up to" means the figure being provided is the maximum. "Or more" says exactly the opposite.

As far as promising goes, even if it simply said "up to" $1400, without the contradiction, it could mean $0, because $0 is less than $1400. The only way to promise some amount would be to say, for example, "you can save anywhere from $500 to $1400." Even then, the "can" gives them an out. 

[Browncoat]

2 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Even then, the "can" gives them an out. 

You can (or could, in some ads), but you probably won't.

[legaleagle53]

On 10/15/2020 at 12:23 PM, Milburn Stone said:

The not-promising is not the issue. The internal contradiction is. "Up to" means the figure being provided is the maximum. "Or more" says exactly the opposite.

As far as promising goes, even if it simply said "up to" $1400, without the contradiction, it could mean $0, because $0 is less than $1400. The only way to promise some amount would be to say, for example, "you can save anywhere from $500 to $1400." Even then, the "can" gives them an out. 

Correct. What "up to x or more" actually means (to me, at least) is "at least x." What they really mean to say, however, is "as much as x, if not more." And that's how they should say it.

[AimingforYoko]

On 9/27/2020 at 12:25 AM, SVNBob said:

This jives with the information I found when looking up answers to the previous question.  Business practices still tend to ignore initial articles, while the NISO guidelines say to include them.

I've learned to let this go, since it's right up there with faze-phase in its ubiquitousness, but since we're in this thread, it's jibe.

[SVNBob]

1 hour ago, AimingforYoko said:

I've learned to let this go, since it's right up there with faze-phase in its ubiquitousness, but since we're in this thread, it's jibe.

Is it?  Wait a sec... *googles*  Huh.  So it is.  I stand corrected.

I would guess the the blurring of the b and v sounds common in Spanish (similar to that of the l and r sounds in Asian languages) contributed to this happening.

[Bastet]

Jibe: informal•North American

be in accord; agree.

"the verdict does not jibe with the medical evidence"

Jive:

 

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, SVNBob said:

Is it?  Wait a sec... *googles*  Huh.  So it is.  I stand corrected

And yet, the Google dictionary (what you first see if you type: Jive definition) shows:

 

[Kromm]

This is very entertaining. Note this is from 1958.

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Kromm

[ABay]

This is pronunciation rather than grammar but it's driving me crazy. Accessible=ACKsessible, not ASSessibile, you jackasses. I am dismayed by how many times I have heard ASSessible recently. WTF? Do you halfwits also say ASSent instead of ACKcent? So fucking annoying.

[shapeshifter]

36 minutes ago, ABay said:

This is pronunciation rather than grammar but it's driving me crazy. Accessible=ACKsessible, not ASSessibile, you jackasses. I am dismayed by how many times I have heard ASSessible recently. WTF? Do you halfwits also say ASSent instead of ACKcent? So fucking annoying.

I recall observing that pronunciation of accessible as a dialect oddity among persons from a common cultural background. 

[SuprSuprElevated]

Hot water heater...and...go!

[ABay]

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I recall observing that pronunciation of accessible as a dialect oddity among persons from a common cultural background. 

To them I say, Persons from a common cultural background, cut that shit out.

I'm watching webinars in which both ACKsessing and ASSessing are under discussion. It's not like saying libarry instead of library or ekcetera instead of etcetera because libarry and ekcetera aren't actual words that can be confused with the properly pronounced words. Access and assess are both actual (or perhaps assual) words that are pronounced differently.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, ABay said:

To them I say, Persons from a common cultural background, cut that shit out.

I'm watching webinars in which both ACKsessing and ASSessing are under discussion. It's not like saying libarry instead of library or ekcetera instead of etcetera because libarry and ekcetera aren't actual words that can be confused with the properly pronounced words. Access and assess are both actual (or perhaps assual) words that are pronounced differently.

Very true and good point. I have had customer support people on both chat and telephone using what seemed, in context, to be an incorrect term. If I really need information (and why else would I be contacting them?) I ask which word they mean. Ultimately it turns into a "Can I talk to your supervisor?" moment, which, these days, makes me feel more politically incorrect than smart. *sigh*

I wonder if 50 years from now accessing and assessing will have become confusingly interchangeable like inflammable and flammable, and, if so, what the meaning will be.

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, shapeshifter said:

I wonder if 50 years from now accessing and assessing will have become confusingly interchangeable like inflammable and flammable, and, if so, what the meaning will be.

verb, transitive: to evaluate through analysis the likelihood that a product or service can be obtained

Edited November 13, 2020 by Milburn Stone

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, ABay said:

To them I say, Persons from a common cultural background, cut that shit out.

I'm watching webinars in which both ACKsessing and ASSessing are under discussion. It's not like saying libarry instead of library or ekcetera instead of etcetera because libarry and ekcetera aren't actual words that can be confused with the properly pronounced words. Access and assess are both actual (or perhaps assual) words that are pronounced differently.

Blame a linguistic phenomenon known as assimilation. Language speakers like to take the path of least resistance when it comes to pronouncing words, and "assessing" is simply easier to pronounce than "ack-sessing," so the hard "c" over process of time simply gives way to the soft "c" that follows it.  It's why we say "immortal" instead of "inmortal," "illiterate" instead of "inliterate," and "assimilate" instead of "adsimiliate."

[shapeshifter]

18 hours ago, SuprSuprElevated said:

Hot water heater...and...go!

Never fear, @SuprSuprElevated, Dear. we’ve been around this block before, and it looks like the poop is getting scooped before I really step in it. 😉

[meowmommy]

16 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Ultimately it turns into a "Can I talk to your supervisor?" moment

Ah, but then, you get into the "can" vs. "may" debate.  "Yes, you are physically able to talk to my supervisor, but I'm not putting you through."  🤔