Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

[Cobalt Stargazer]

Ow.

[CoderLady]

Now I know how a vampire feels when someone is waving a bulb of garlic around. Ow, indeed. 

[legaleagle53]

Now, that's just plain rude!

11 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

 

Now, that's just plain rude!

[Cobalt Stargazer]

[Fairfax]

Inspired by the post above, I checked out Grammarly.com & was dismayed to find this mishmash of singular & plural:

"If you’re looking for a greeting card for a friend, think about what makes them laugh. No matter how serious the situation, laughter can help – and a pedantic grammar nut loves to laugh at themselves!"

[Milburn Stone]

1 hour ago, Fairfax said:

Inspired by the post above, I checked out Grammarly.com & was dismayed to find this mishmash of singular & plural:

"If you’re looking for a greeting card for a friend, think about what makes them laugh. No matter how serious the situation, laughter can help – and a pedantic grammar nut loves to laugh at themselves!"

There is no hope.

[legaleagle53]

On 12/14/2017 at 8:29 PM, Fairfax said:

Inspired by the post above, I checked out Grammarly.com & was dismayed to find this mishmash of singular & plural:

"If you’re looking for a greeting card for a friend, think about what makes them laugh. No matter how serious the situation, laughter can help – and a pedantic grammar nut loves to laugh at themselves!"

I don't really have a problem with the first sentence. As I've noted before, singular "they/them" has actually been a thing since the 1400s.  But that second sentence?  No, just -- NO.  Just say "pedantic grammar nuts love to laugh at themselves" if you don't want to be gender-specific in your choice of reflexive pronouns!

[Fairfax]

Lately, I've been seeing a pizza commercial that shows a woman in the car with her family, pondering whether she should go to Restaurant #1 (which offers pizza with lots of toppings), or Restaurant #2 (which offers "pizza with less toppings that costs more").  The other people in the car abandon her & rush to #1, but I like to think that it's her horrible grammar they're rejecting.  Of course I don't remember the name of #1, because I'm always so distracted by the painfully bad grammar.

[Ohwell]

12 hours ago, Fairfax said:

Lately, I've been seeing a pizza commercial that shows a woman in the car with her family, pondering whether she should go to Restaurant #1 (which offers pizza with lots of toppings), or Restaurant #2 (which offers "pizza with less toppings that costs more").  The other people in the car abandon her & rush to #1, but I like to think that it's her horrible grammar they're rejecting.  Of course I don't remember the name of #1, because I'm always so distracted by the painfully bad grammar.

Plus, she just looks dumb, especially the way her lower chin juts out.

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, Ohwell said:

Plus, she just looks dumb, especially the way her lower chin juts out.

Cro-Magnon Woman not know less from fewer.

[GaT]

I thought this thread would appreciate this

http://www.tmz.com/2018/01/27/kardashians-literally-bar-new-york-city-kicked-out/

[shapeshifter]

When I read this episode description for Madam Secretary:

Quote

Elizabeth seeks creative solutions when the president of Sri Lanka’s psychic convinces him to not move forward with a trade agreement with the U.S

—it conveys to me that, oddly, the country of Sri Lanka has an official psychic who has his or her own president.

Is there any grammatical rule violated? Or is it just me?

 

ETA: I do realize that the episode is really about the president of  Sri Lanka consulting a psychic on matters of foreign policy (which is reminiscent of the influence of Nancy Reagan's astrologer), but it took me three readings to get there.

Edited February 9, 2018 by shapeshifter

[OtterMommy]

43 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

When I read this episode description for Madam Secretary:

—it conveys to me that, oddly, the country of Sri Lanka has an official psychic who has his or her own president.

Is there any grammatical rule violated? Or is it just me?

 

ETA: I do realize that the episode is really about the president of  Sri Lanka consulting a psychic on matters of foreign policy (which is reminiscent of the influence of Nancy Reagan's astrologer), but it took me three readings to get there.

The way I read it is that the President of Sri Lanka's president convinced "him" (who is the Madame Secretary) not to move forward.

It is definitely a clunker of a sentence.

[Milburn Stone]

7 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

When I read this episode description for Madam Secretary:

Elizabeth seeks creative solutions when the president of Sri Lanka’s psychic convinces him to not move forward with a trade agreement with the U.S

—it conveys to me that, oddly, the country of Sri Lanka has an official psychic who has his or her own president.

Is there any grammatical rule violated? Or is it just me?

The grammatical violation here that most bothers me is the split infinitive. I realize that splitting infinitives has become "acceptable"--certain publications that once held the line against it no longer do--but I think it's generally a mistake and I regret that the rules have been relaxed on it. This episode description is a perfect case in point. "Convinces him to not move forward" is painfully awkward. So much better to obey the rule against splitting infinitives and write, "convinces him not to move forward." And so easy to obey it! No trade-offs involved; nothing that has to be sacrificed in the realm of naturalness in order to do it. So why didn't the writer do it?

[shapeshifter]

36 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

The grammatical violation here that most bothers me is the split infinitive. I realize that splitting infinitives has become "acceptable"--certain publications that once held the line against it no longer do--but I think it's generally a mistake and I regret that the rules have been relaxed on it. This episode description is a perfect case in point. "Convinces him to not move forward" is painfully awkward. So much better to obey the rule against splitting infinitives and write, "convinces him not to move forward." And so easy to obey it! No trade-offs involved; nothing that has to be sacrificed in the realm of naturalness in order to do it. So why didn't the writer do it?

Maybe the writer thought it sounded more learned (like when people use I for me).

Similarly, I blame the late 90s and early 00s versions of Microsoft Word for training writers to always use active voice, even when passive provides a clarity not possible otherwise, as it would in this case:

     Elizabeth seeks creative solutions when the president of Sri Lanka is convinced by his psychic not to move forward with a trade agreement with the U.S.    

However, I think it might actually flow better with the split infinitive:

     Elizabeth seeks creative solutions when the president of Sri Lanka is convinced by his psychic to not move forward with a trade agreement with the U.S.

Is there a rule for when the split is preferred?

[Milburn Stone]

4 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Is there a rule for when the split is preferred?

Well, I guess it's different strokes, but for me, the split is never preferred. Mind you I'm talking about writing; in informal speech, I split it all the time, as does everybody. But in writing? A split infinitive always grates my inner ear.

I suppose there could be a case in which splitting the infinitive is the only way to make the meaning clear, but I've never come up against such an instance; in fact, in every case I've ever encountered, clarity and precision of meaning are enhanced by avoiding the split.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[legaleagle53]

On 2/8/2018 at 10:24 PM, OtterMommy said:

The way I read it is that the President of Sri Lanka's president convinced "him" (who is the Madame Secretary) not to move forward.

It is definitely a clunker of a sentence.

Not if you remember the rule that pronouns always agree in gender and number with the nearest antecedent.  It's very clear in the sentence that the antecedent of "him" is "the President of Sri Lanka," not "Elizabeth."

[SyracuseMug]

I'm curious about the distinction between "breathing heavy" and "breathing heavily." Specifically, I'm wondering which of these two sentences is grammatically correct:

1) "The runner began breathing heavy and was forced to slow down."

2) "The runner began breathing heavily and was forced to slow down."

I tend to favor the second one, but I've seen both examples used. I tried Google, and it was mainly focused on the medical aspect.

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, SyracuseMug said:

I'm curious about the distinction between "breathing heavy" and "breathing heavily." Specifically, I'm wondering which of these two sentences is grammatically correct:

1) "The runner began breathing heavy and was forced to slow down."

2) "The runner began breathing heavily and was forced to slow down."

I tend to favor the second one, but I've seen both examples used. I tried Google, and it was mainly focused on the medical aspect.

The first is wrong because heavy is an adjective and so it cannot modify or describe the verb breathing—that is why we have adverbs such as heavily. Also, it doesn't look right or sound correct to me, and it doesn't even make sense to me. I know what it is to breath heavily, but what is meant by "breathing heavy?" I am imagining a runner breathing in the manner of an old movie gangster, or "heavy." Heh.

 

ETA: I suppose "breathing heavy" could be an acceptable colloquialism amongst runners who, after running 26 or more miles, cannot manage to utter the "i" syllable with its short intake of breath. I expect to talk to my oldest daughter later today, who is an ultra-marathon runner as well as a writer, editor, and former spelling bee champion, so, if we have time, I will ask her.

Edited February 25, 2018 by shapeshifter

[Milburn Stone]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

The first is wrong because heavy is an adjective and so it cannot modify or describe the verb breathing—that is why we have adverbs such as heavily. Also, it doesn't look right or sound correct to me, and it doesn't even make sense to me. I know what it is to breath heavily, but what is meant by "breathing heavy?" I am imagining a runner breathing in the manner of an old movie gangster, or "heavy." Heh.

 

I agree with you, but there's a remote case to be made for the adjective here. As you know (but not everyone does), an exception exists to the rule that verbs are modified by adverbs and not adjectives. That is when the verb is a form of "to be." Example: "is," as in, "He is heavy." Despite that "is" is a verb, it takes an adjective as a modifier, not an adverb. The same applies to the verb "look" when it is a variation of the verb "to be." We say, "He looks heavy," not "he looks heavily." And there are some other examples: for instance, the verb "appears," when it is a variation of the verb "to be."  To the extent that to breathe is the essence of being, you could almost make a case that "breathe" is a variation of the verb "to be," in which case "he breathes heavy" would be acceptable.

Edited February 25, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[shapeshifter]

25 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

I agree with you, but there's a remote case to be made for the adjective here. As you know (but not everyone does), there's an exception to the rule that verbs are modified by adverbs and not adjectives. That is when the verb is a form of "to be." Example: "is," as in, "He is heavy." Despite that "is" is a verb, it takes an adjective as a modifier, not an adverb. The same applies to the verb "look" when it is a variation of the verb "to be." We say, "He looks heavy," not "he looks heavily." And there are some other examples: for instance, the verb "appears," when it is a variation of the verb "to be."  To the extent that to breathe is the essence of being, you could almost make a case that "breathe" is a variation of the verb "to be," in which case "he breathes heavy" would be acceptable.

I like your reasoning, @Milburn Stone, although now I am mentally humming an updated version of a song released in 1969 by the Hollies, "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" (http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1905) with a verse for distance runners that includes the phrase, "they breathe heavy, they're a runner," with, of course, the gender-neutral singular use of the plural "they," because it is 2018.

[bijoux]

2 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

I agree with you, but there's a remote case to be made for the adjective here. As you know (but not everyone does), an exception exists to the rule that verbs are modified by adverbs and not adjectives. That is when the verb is a form of "to be." Example: "is," as in, "He is heavy." Despite that "is" is a verb, it takes an adjective as a modifier, not an adverb. The same applies to the verb "look" when it is a variation of the verb "to be." We say, "He looks heavy," not "he looks heavily." And there are some other examples: for instance, the verb "appears," when it is a variation of the verb "to be."  To the extent that to breathe is the essence of being, you could almost make a case that "breathe" is a variation of the verb "to be," in which case "he breathes heavy" would be acceptable.

Even though the adjective follows the verb in these instances, it doesn't modify it. An adverb is used to describe an action, which breathing is. Similarly, to modify the verb look, you would actually use an adverb, i.e. He looked longingly. Not, He looked longing. In the examples you give, the adjective describes the subject of a sentence. What you are talking about here is predicative use of adjective, which applies only to certain verbs. 

[shapeshifter]

Sorry, @Milburn Stone, but @bijoux is correct. Still, I'll try to remember to ask about whether runners who generally use correct grammar would say "breathing heavy" when they are breathing heavily.

[Milburn Stone]

We come out the same place. We all agree that we say "he is heavy/he looks heavy/he appears heavy," etc., and not "he is heavily." And we agree the reason is that in these cases it's not really the verb that's being modified, it's the pronoun. (Which is why it takes an adjective.) The only point I was making in response to @SyracuseMug's question was that in cases of the verb "to be" (and its variations), the general rule-of-thumb that the modifier that follows the verb should be an adverb does not apply. (Note that I say the modifier that follows the verb, not the modifier that modifies the verb--since it doesn't in this case.) And that one could construe (or argue), although it's a stretch, that "to breathe" is a variation of the verb "to be."

Edited February 27, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[legaleagle53]

15 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

We come out the same place. We all agree that we say "he is heavy/he looks heavy/he appears heavy," etc., and not "he is heavily." And we agree the reason is that in these cases it's not really the verb that's being modified, it's the pronoun. (Which is why it takes an adjective.) The only point I was making in response to @SyracuseMug's question was that in cases of the verb "to be" (and its variations), the general rule-of-thumb that the modifier that follows the verb should be an adverb does not apply. (Note that I say the modifier that follows the verb, not the modifier that modifies the verb--since it doesn't in this case.) And that one could construe (or argue), although it's a stretch, that "to breathe" is a variation of the verb "to be."

 

There's another reason that adjectives are often used to modify action verbs, and it goes back to the days when English was more highly inflected than it is now (about 1,000-1,200 years ago).  Back in those days, most regular adjectives and adverbs were nearly identical in form; the only thing that distinguished them was that adverbs ended in "e" (the "ly" ending had its origin in the adjectival suffix "lic" plus the adverbial suffix "e" = "lice," but that ending wasn't used as commonly as it is now.)  When English started losing its flexional endings beginning in the Middle English period (1100-1500 CE), the adverbial "e" was one of the casualties, so by the early Modern English era (1500 CE - present) you had adjectives and adverbs that were truly identical and thus easily confused.  That's why in 2018 we have athletes breathing "heavy" instead of "heavily" -- it's linguistic muscle memory that's persisted for over a millennium.

Edited February 28, 2018 by legaleagle53

[ABay]

Huh. And I thought it was just ignorance.

[riley702]

I think a lot of it is ignorance.

[shapeshifter]

A beautiful young actress just took her seat on a morning talk show and stated, "The energy in this room is impeccable."

[Ohwell]

Wow, that's impeccable.

[GaT]

5 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

A beautiful young actress just took her seat on a morning talk show and stated, "The energy in this room is impeccable."

Hey, were you there? She should know if the energy was impeccable or not. There is nothing worse than a talkshow with less than impeccable energy. :-)

[Milburn Stone]

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

A beautiful young actress just took her seat on a morning talk show and stated, "The energy in this room is impeccable."

Related: The increasingly common on-air use of "pluperfect" as if it means something like "beyond perfect." (Whatever that would be.) Pluperfect is a tense, people!

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, GaT said:

6 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

A beautiful young actress just took her seat on a morning talk show and stated, "The energy in this room is impeccable."

Hey, were you there? She should know if the energy was impeccable or not. There is nothing worse than a talkshow with less than impeccable energy. :-)

Hah!  ?
I was in a hurry when I posted, but upon further reflection I recalled the actress saying that she has dyslexia, so maybe someone had scripted her opening remarks, and they were originally written as "The energy in this room is incredible," which would at least sound familiar (if not very descriptive).

[bijoux]

26 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Related: The increasingly common on-air use of "pluperfect" as if it means something like "beyond perfect." (Whatever that would be.) Pluperfect is a tense, people!

This is the first time I’ve heard it. I hate it.

[legaleagle53]

7 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Related: The increasingly common on-air use of "pluperfect" as if it means something like "beyond perfect." (Whatever that would be.) Pluperfect is a tense, people!

But the word literally does mean "more than perfect," from the Latin plus quam perfectus.  However, I agree that to use it to literally describe something as beyond perfect is ridiculous, because perfection by definition is the ultimate state of existence.  It's not logically possible to go beyond the ultimate, which is why "perfect" as an adjective is absolute in nature and cannot be compared or qualified in any way.  Either something is perfect or it isn't -- it can't be "more perfect" or "beyond perfect."

[Bastet]

While it's a synonym for the past perfect tense, I hardly ever hear pluperfect used that way; I hardly ever hear it used at all, but the rare times I do, it's not even as "more than perfect," it's as a regional expression, an adjective meaning the most-extreme (most-perfect) form of Whatever. 

This goes back to, in my lexicon, "Dadgummit, Ed Earl, if you ain't a pluperfect fool" from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, from which I learned the word as part of an expression rather than as a tense - and probably before I ever understood the Latin origin - and it has over the years been repeated as such by some OK/TX folks I know.  A pluperfect fool = as big a fool as one can be, a pluperfect moron = as stupid as it's possible to be, etc.

[Milburn Stone]

Interesting. While pluperfect in Latin literally translates as "more than perfect," I wonder how ancient this meaning is in English. That is, I wonder if it predates Best Little Whorehouse and its colloquial use in OK/TX by very much. Put another way: Part of me suspects that this meaning in English arose recently, i.e. in the second half of the twentieth century, as a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word. After all, if you just heard the word being spoken by someone and didn't know he was talking about tense, it could sound to you as if it meant "more than perfect" and you might mistakenly start using it that way. And then others would hear you using it this way and assume you used it correctly (when you weren't), and start using it themselves. One of those cases in which a mistake becomes not a mistake just because a lot of people are making it. (Which, IMO, doesn't change it from being a mistake.)

On the other hand, maybe this usage of the word in English goes back to Chaucer or something, in which case I'll stand corrected.

[Moose135]

9 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

I agree that to use it to literally describe something as beyond perfect is ridiculous, because perfection by definition is the ultimate state of existence. 

That reminds me of my other grammar peeve "very unique".  Unique means "one of a kind", something can't be "very unique".

[supposebly]

Quoted from Oxford Living Dictionaries' entry for 'unique':

There is a set of adjectives—including unique, complete, equal, infinite, and perfect—whose core meaning embraces a mathematically absolute concept and which therefore, according to a traditional argument, cannot be modified by adverbs such as really, quite, or very. For example, since the core meaning of unique (from Latin ‘one’) is ‘being only one of its kind’, it is logically impossible, the argument goes, to submodify it: it either is ‘unique’ or it is not, and there are no in-between stages. In practice the situation in the language is more complex than this. Words like unique have a core sense but they often also have a secondary, less precise sense: in this case, the meaning ‘very remarkable or unusual’, as in a really unique opportunity. In its secondary sense, unique does not relate to an absolute concept, and so the use of submodifying adverbs is grammatically acceptable.

This second meaning 'special, remarkable' has been around since around the mid-19th century according to the Online Etymology Dictionary.

I would suspect that can also apply to the usage of 'perfect'. If the Romans can talk about something being plus quam perfectus, then who are we to argue. ;-).

[Milburn Stone]

24 minutes ago, supposebly said:

Quoted from Oxford Living Dictionaries' entry for 'unique':

There is a set of adjectives—including unique, complete, equal, infinite, and perfect—whose core meaning embraces a mathematically absolute concept and which therefore, according to a traditional argument, cannot be modified by adverbs such as really, quite, or very. For example, since the core meaning of unique (from Latin ‘one’) is ‘being only one of its kind’, it is logically impossible, the argument goes, to submodify it: it either is ‘unique’ or it is not, and there are no in-between stages. In practice the situation in the language is more complex than this. Words like unique have a core sense but they often also have a secondary, less precise sense: in this case, the meaning ‘very remarkable or unusual’, as in a really unique opportunity. In its secondary sense, unique does not relate to an absolute concept, and so the use of submodifying adverbs is grammatically acceptable.

So in other words, the Oxford Living Dictionary has succumbed to the Visigoths. :)

[GaT]

4 hours ago, Moose135 said:

That reminds me of my other grammar peeve "very unique".  Unique means "one of a kind", something can't be "very unique".

This makes me nuts when I hear it, either it's unique or it's not. There aren't degrees of unique.

[shapeshifter]

6 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

Interesting. While pluperfect in Latin literally translates as "more than perfect," I wonder how ancient this meaning is in English. That is, I wonder if it predates Best Little Whorehouse and its colloquial use in OK/TX by very much. Put another way: Part of me suspects that this meaning in English arose recently, i.e. in the second half of the twentieth century, as a misunderstanding of the meaning of the word. After all, if you just heard the word being spoken by someone and didn't know he was talking about tense, it could sound to you as if it meant "more than perfect" and you might mistakenly start using it that way. And then others would hear you using it this way and assume you used it correctly (when you weren't), and start using it themselves. One of those cases in which a mistake becomes not a mistake just because a lot of people are making it. (Which, IMO, doesn't change it from being a mistake.)

On the other hand, maybe this usage of the word in English goes back to Chaucer or something, in which case I'll stand corrected.

From the OED:

Quote

2.

†a. Having or being more than what is needed; superfluous. Obs.

1802    W. Taylor in  Monthly Mag. 13 12   Junius had a dislike to the letter k..: it would have been more rational to indulge an antipathy against c, which is a very pluperfect letter, and represents sometimes k, sometimes s, and sometimes ts.

1856    Leisure Hour 31 Jan. 74   It will happen in all binderies..that on examination certain volumes are found imperfect or pluperfect, either wanting a sheet, or having a sheet too much.

 

 b.  hyperbolically. Utterly perfect; ideal, faultless.

1831   [implied in:  Biblical Repertory & Theol. Rev. Oct. 496   We are perfectly, and rather pluperfectly, passive. (at pluperfectly adv.)].

1864    C. B. Fisk Let. 25 June in  War of Rebellion (U.S. War Dept.) (1891) 1st Ser. XXXIV.  iv. 552   The loyal element of my district has been heretofore unhappily divided into as many factions as there are tenses in the grammar. We have present, past, imperfect, perfect, and pluperfectloyalty.

1928    A. Philips Boy at Bank  i. v. 49   Mrs. Fravalton, one of those mothers who believe their children pluperfect.

1965    N. Coward Diary 11 Apr. (2000) 597   It was a perfect, pluperfect, evening; absolutely clear and not a breath of wind.

1992    Newsweek 25 May 97/2   While Johnny [Carson] may have been his own best guest, he was also the pluperfect guest.

 

†c.  Music. Designating an augmented (as distinguished from a perfect) fourth or fifth. Obs. rare.

1876    J. Stainer & W. A. Barrett Dict. Musical Terms 242/2   Intervals greater than major or normal have been termed (besides augmented) extreme, sharp, superfluous, pluperfect, &c.

1876    J. Hullah in J. Stainer & W. A. Barrett Dict. Musical Terms 306/1  Imperfect as applied to the exceptional fifth. As an antonym to this I have long used the epithet pluperfect, which has been very largely adopted.

 

Quote

 3.  colloq. As a general intensifier.

1889    Virginia Univ. Mag. Dec. 186   So take a drink, oh, Phæon, dear, we'll raise pluperfect Cain.

1918    Mansfield (Ohio) News 11 Jan. 8/1   The big inspector is coming around today and if this place isn't clean I will catch pluperfect hell!

1977    Newsweek (Nexis) 30 May 79   How could these kids, while making such a pluperfect mess of their lives, insist that they alone could, indeed must, reform the world?

2000    J. E. Combs Play World ii. 61   The pleasure of living fully, including the alternative to unbutton and raise pluperfect hell.

[Milburn Stone]

Ok then.

[shapeshifter]

12 minutes ago, Milburn Stone said:

Ok then.

But for the #1 

Quote

Forms:  lME pluperfyth, 15 pluperfit, 15 pluperfite, 15 plusperfit, 15– pluperfect. 

Frequency (in current use):  

Origin: Apparently formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: French plus-que-parfait.

Etymology: Apparently short for Middle French plus-que-parfait... 

 A. adj.

 1.  Grammar. Designating or relating to a verbal tense which denotes an action completed prior to some past point of time, specified or implied; past perfect. Of a verb: in such a tense.

c1450   in D. Thomson Middle Eng. Grammatical Texts (1984) 26   Qwerby knowyst þe pretyrtens pluperfyth? For it spekyth of tyme more þan perfythly passyd, and hath þis Englysch wurd ‘hadde’, as amaueram: ‘I had louyd’.

1530    J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 113   Verbes actives circumlocute theyr preterperfit and plus perfit tenses throughe all theyr modes,..with the tenses of je ay and the participle preterit.

1623    J. Minsheu Spanish Gram. 22 in  Dict. Spanish & Eng.   Indicatiue moode. Pres. Imperfect. First preterperfect. Second perfect. Pluperfect tense.

1662    J. Howells New Eng. Gram. 126 (heading)    Pluperfect tense.

1798    L. Murray Eng. Gram. (ed. 4) ii. vi. 60   The Pluperfect [1795: Preterpluperfect] Tense represents a thing, not only as past, but also as prior to some other point of time specified in the sentence: as, ‘I had finished my letter before he arrived.’

1858    National Era 16 Dec. 199   The President is made to speak in the pluperfecttense, instead of the first future.

1876    T. L. Papillon Man. Compar. Philol. (1877) 162   Language seems originally to have employed..the augment—in Sanskrit a, in Greek ε..prefixed to aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect tenses in both these languages.

1913    P. Giles in J. E. Sandys Compan. Lat. Stud. x. 823   From the nature of the documents, pluperfect subjunctives are not found.

1995    Church Times 17 Nov. 17/3   They each gave us a few paragraphs of Mills & Boon prose which were rather hard going, being over-full of pluperfectverbs.

I wonder if it would it be redundant to say: He served a pluperfect parfait!

[Milburn Stone]

34 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

But for the #1 

I wonder if it would it be redundant to say: He served a pluperfect parfait!

If you said, "He had served a pluperfect parfait," you'd have a trifecta.

[riley702]

12 hours ago, Moose135 said:

That reminds me of my other grammar peeve "very unique".  Unique means "one of a kind", something can't be "very unique".

Reminds me of a young Mom who named her identical twins "Unique" and "Dominique". *facepalm* An identical twin isn't unique!

[biakbiak]

20 minutes ago, riley702 said:

Reminds me of a young Mom who named her identical twins "Unique" and "Dominique". *facepalm* An identical twin isn't unique!

Perhaps not physically but personality wise they certainly can be and perhaps what the mother was hoping for.

[legaleagle53]

7 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

If you said, "He had served a pluperfect parfait," you'd have a trifecta.

I see what you did there!

[riley702]

14 hours ago, biakbiak said:

Perhaps not physically but personality wise they certainly can be and perhaps what the mother was hoping for.

That would apply to all 7 billion of us. Not exactly the way we use the word unique.

[Brookside]

"If you actively do nothing."  From a recent (scripted) speech at a gun control rally.

Edited March 24, 2018 by Brookside
Clarity

[fairffaxx]

A local TV & on-line report tell us that the police found a body lying next to a bicycle on the shoulder of the highway & have concluded that "[the victim] then potentially flew from his bicycle and landed in the embankment".  If his flight is potential, he must still be on the bike, alive & well -- so, presumably, the reporter must have meant to say "presumably"?