Why Grammar Matters: A Place To Discuss Matters Of Grammar

[WarnerCL45]

Another one for you, I see/hear this quite often.  "This should not of happened"

A few more from my list of goodies:  "He put her on a pedal stool"  "She's such a fame hoar"  "She grabbed him by the gentiles"  "He was guilty of lued behavior"  

Please don't knit-pick my choices!   LOL

[topanga]

3 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Furthermore, they'll argue that it doesn't matter whether they muck up the spelling or the grammar because people understand what they're trying to say anyway.  Anyone who clutches his or her pearls over it is just a pedantic tight-ass who needs to loosen up and get over it because "language evolves."

That last sentence is you quoting ‘them,’ right? Because those words hurt my heart. 

[bilgistic]

I keep seeing "balling" used where "bawling" is the correct word. These are two very different things.

[bilgistic]

Language does evolve, but accepted/"correct" spelling takes a very long time to change. Many English words no longer have an e on the end of them, for example (olde, shoppe, etc.). That took hundreds of years. Spoken language can rapidly evolve via dialect and regional colloquialisms. That doesn't change the words' spelling.

[shapeshifter]

22 hours ago, meep.meep said:

And "moo point" was a joke.  "It's like the cow's opinion - a moo point!  Who cares?"

I'm trying to think of a quip to tie this to the cowwa lily/Calla lily error, but I can't quite get there.

[meep.meep]

4 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I keep seeing "balling" used where "bawling" is the correct word. These are two very different things.

It's wiser just to weep.

My YMCA got a big screen and would put up pictures of the kids and what classes they could take.  I ran screaming in horror to the front desk to complain when  they were advertising their classes in the marital arts.  It took a long time to get through to him.

[ABay]

In one of the places I used to live, there was a bowling alley with adjoining hotel. Or a hotel with an adjoining bowling alley. It was called something like Livingston Bowling Ball Inn ...which I thought should be changed to Livingston Bowl 'n' Ball.

[legaleagle53]

11 hours ago, topanga said:

That last sentence is you quoting ‘them,’ right? Because those words hurt my heart. 

Yes.  The views of certain linguistic cretins most definitely do not reflect my own. I am a polyglot and linguist of nearly 44 years' standing, and I'm as pedantic as they come when it comes to language, spelling, and grammar, precisely because studying so many foreign languages over the years has made me acutely sensitive to the many sins that are committed against my native tongue, English.

[MaryPatShelby]

22 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Furthermore, they'll argue that it doesn't matter whether they muck up the spelling or the grammar because people understand what they're trying to say anyway.  Anyone who clutches his or her pearls over it is just a pedantic tight-ass who needs to loosen up and get over it because "language evolves."

My favorite (read: least favorite) in the "language evolves" argument is "redic" for ridiculous.  "Ridic" I'd reluctantly accept.  But why change one letter to a new letter that was never a part of that word? Is it because most people pronounce it ree-diculous?

[GHScorpiosRule]

8 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

Yes.  The views of certain linguistic cretins most definitely do not reflect my own. I am a polyglot and linguist of nearly 44 years' standing, and I'm as pedantic as they come when it comes to language, spelling, and grammar, precisely because studying so many foreign languages over the years has made me acutely sensitive to the many sins that are committed against my native tongue, English.

I’ve alwsys liked you @legaleagle53, but after reading this, I ❤️❤️ you! As someone who had to take ESOL in the first grade, though born in the US, I’m particularly anal when it comes to spelling, punctuation and grammar. So much so that I wear the hat of Grammar Nazi with PRIDE.

[WarnerCL45]

22 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I keep seeing "balling" used where "bawling" is the correct word. These are two very different things.

OMG!  ?? Haven’t seen that one, but not surprised!  

Another recent one is convo - as in conversation.  I keep thinking, convoluted.

[Browncoat]

32 minutes ago, WarnerCL45 said:

23 hours ago, bilgistic said:

I keep seeing "balling" used where "bawling" is the correct word. These are two very different things.

OMG!  ?? Haven’t seen that one, but not surprised!  

 

I used to see it a lot on TWOP.  I don't think I've seen it around here, though.

My local news apparently thinks we have a state delagate.  I'm not sure what that is.  (I know what they mean, though.)

[Bastet]

17 hours ago, MaryPatShelby said:

My favorite (read: least favorite) in the "language evolves" argument is "redic" for ridiculous.  "Ridic" I'd reluctantly accept.  But why change one letter to a new letter that was never a part of that word? Is it because most people pronounce it ree-diculous?

This is about real life rather than TV, but that ship seems to have sailed long ago, so I'll climb aboard:  Seeing that bugs me too, as does some variation of "Yaass" for a particularly enthusiastic "Yes."  If an exclamation point somehow won't do, fine, add some repetitive letters for emphasis, but why change the E to an A?

[riley702]

https://www.bustle.com/articles/73878-where-does-yaaas-come-from-heres-the-story-behind-the-internets-favorite-expression-of-excitement

[bilgistic]

It's much older than that.

Quote

...the word “yas” actually originated with the queer POC (people of color) community circa the late 1980s, specifically those involved in ball culture. 

Balls are underground events often staged by queer POC with prizes awarded to those with the most outrageous costumes and the fiercest “walks” in a variety of categories. 

https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_578ce747e4b0fa896c3f4306

Edited July 29, 2018 by bilgistic

[Ohwell]

Oh please.  My grandma was saying yaaasss! when she got happy in church when I was a kid, and that was eons ago.

[SyracuseMug]

On 7/27/2018 at 9:00 PM, legaleagle53 said:

I am a polyglot and linguist of nearly 44 years' standing, and I'm as pedantic as they come when it comes to language, spelling, and grammar, precisely because studying so many foreign languages over the years has made me acutely sensitive to the many sins that are committed against my native tongue, English.

Is German one of your languages? I studied it in college years ago, and I recently became interested in picking up where I left off. I began by refreshing my memory on the four noun cases, which left me a little confused about something. As you probably know (but I’ll say it for the benefit of others), the masculine singular articles “der” and “ein” change to “den” and “einen” in the accusative case, so if I wanted to say “the dog bites the man” in German, I could say either “Der Hund beißt den Mann,” or “Den Mann beißt der Hund,” and both sentences would carry the same meaning. The word order doesn’t matter.

But what if I wanted to say “the dog bites the woman”? Since the feminine, neuter and plural articles stay the same (in the accusative case), I’m assuming that I couldn’t switch the nouns as I did above. Otherwise I would be saying that the woman bites the dog.

Every German noun has an article, and if we assume that only a third of them (roughly) are masculine, then it seems inefficient to allow these particular nouns to be reversed, but not all nouns. Is there a reason? And is there another advantage to this rule beyond the reversal of word order?

Maybe you could shed some light on this for me.

[legaleagle53]

5 hours ago, SyracuseMug said:

Is German one of your languages? I studied it in college years ago, and I recently became interested in picking up where I left off. I began by refreshing my memory on the four noun cases, which left me a little confused about something. As you probably know (but I’ll say it for the benefit of others), the masculine singular articles “der” and “ein” change to “den” and “einen” in the accusative case, so if I wanted to say “the dog bites the man” in German, I could say either “Der Hund beißt den Mann,” or “Den Mann beißt der Hund,” and both sentences would carry the same meaning. The word order doesn’t matter.

But what if I wanted to say “the dog bites the woman”? Since the feminine, neuter and plural articles stay the same (in the accusative case), I’m assuming that I couldn’t switch the nouns as I did above. Otherwise I would be saying that the woman bites the dog.

Every German noun has an article, and if we assume that only a third of them (roughly) are masculine, then it seems inefficient to allow these particular nouns to be reversed, but not all nouns. Is there a reason? And is there another advantage to this rule beyond the reversal of word order?

Maybe you could shed some light on this for me.

No, you'd still be saying "The dog bites the woman" if you say "Die Frau beißt der Hund."  The difference is that by putting "der Hund" at the end of the sentence, you are emphasizing that it is the dog that is doing the biting, not the cat or the shark.  "The woman bites the dog" would be "Die Frau beißt den (not der) Hund"  (or "Den Hund beißt die Frau," if you want to emphasize that it's the woman -- not the man -- who is biting the dog). Remember, "der Hund" is always Masculine Nominative Singular; "den Hund" is always Masculine Accusative Singular.

And yes, I've been speaking, reading, and writing German for over 40 years -- but mind you, the cases and genders STILL throw me on occasion, especially when it comes to descriptive adjectives!

Oh, and one more thing -- the letter "ß" (es-tset) is considered somewhat archaic in modern written German, ever since a spelling reform was carried out sometime in the 1990s.  While you should still be able to recognize it when you see it in writing, most modern German writing uses "ss" in place of "ß."

Edited August 1, 2018 by legaleagle53

[SyracuseMug]

5 hours ago, legaleagle53 said:

No, you'd still be saying "The dog bites the woman" if you say "Die Frau beißt der Hund."  The difference is that by putting "der Hund" at the end of the sentence, you are emphasizing that it is the dog that is doing the biting, not the cat or the shark.  "The woman bites the dog" would be "Die Frau beißt den (not der) Hund"  (or "Den Hund beißt die Frau," if you want to emphasize that it's the woman -- not the man -- who is biting the dog). Remember, "der Hund" is always Masculine Nominative Singular; "den Hund" is always Masculine Accusative Singular.

And yes, I've been speaking, reading, and writing German for over 40 years -- but mind you, the cases and genders STILL throw me on occasion, especially when it comes to descriptive adjectives!

Oh, and one more thing -- the letter "ß" (es-tset) is considered somewhat archaic in modern written German, ever since a spelling reform was carried out sometime in the 1990s.  While you should still be able to recognize it when you see it in writing, most modern German writing uses "ss" in place of "ß."

Thank you for the response. It helped me to understand the reason for changing the word order. However, if you don’t mind a followup question, what if we had a situation where the cat bites the woman, and I want to emphasize that it’s the cat, not the dog, doing the biting? Would you understand me if I said “Die Frau beisst die Katze,” or would you think I was saying that the woman is biting the cat? Since there are no masculine articles in the sentence, how does one indicate an accusative singular? 

Regarding the "ß", my college German courses were back in 1985-86, so I was going by what I remembered. I wasn’t aware of the spelling reform, although I have noticed “ss” replacing the “ß” in many instances. Now that I know this, I’ll start using “ss” exclusively.

While I love languages, it would be dubious to even call myself bilingual. I can read some German, but there’s still plenty of room for increasing my vocabulary. I know even less about Spanish, Russian, Greek, Latin, Norwegian, and Japanese, even though I’ve studied them all from time to time over the years.

[legaleagle53]

4 hours ago, SyracuseMug said:

Thank you for the response. It helped me to understand the reason for changing the word order. However, if you don’t mind a followup question, what if we had a situation where the cat bites the woman, and I want to emphasize that it’s the cat, not the dog, doing the biting? Would you understand me if I said “Die Frau beisst die Katze,” or would you think I was saying that the woman is biting the cat? Since there are no masculine articles in the sentence, how does one indicate an accusative singular? 

The overall context would make clear who is the subject and who is the object.

But I think that we are running just a tad far afield from the topic, so any further discussion of German grammar (or Spanish, French, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Greek, Old English, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Hungarian, Finnish, Japanese, or Mandarin Chinese, all of which I speak to various degrees -- my strongest being the Romance and Germanic languages and Greek) should probably be done in private.  Feel free to DM me with any further questions!  :)

Edited August 1, 2018 by legaleagle53

[bijoux]

Despite the reform, scharfes S is still used and taught. It didn't go quietly into the night. 

[WarnerCL45]

This was on a "Yahoo" news feed, which showed various royals in Vanity Fair.  Poor apostrophe - such a difficult punctuation mark to use!  Sigh.

Queen Elizabeth

To celebrate her 90th birthday in 2017, the Queen posed for portraits alongside her beloved corgi’s taken by acclaimed fashion photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

Image via Vanity Fair.

[Pallas]

Does there seem to be any pattern as to when the apostrophe is shoehorned-in? Does this seem to happen more often when the singular noun ends in i or y, so that the plural would be es or ies?  That is, would corgi's be more likely than dog's?

[ABay]

It does make me want to ask, alongside her corgi's what?

[Milburn Stone]

11 minutes ago, Pallas said:

Does there seem to be any pattern as to when the apostrophe is shoehorned-in? Does this seem to happen more often when the singular noun ends in i or y, so that the plural would be es or ies?  That is, would corgi's be more likely than dog's?

I suspect that mistake would be likelier.

I have to admit that while I know the plural of corgi is not corgi's, I wasn't certain until I looked it up whether the correct plural is corgis or corgies. The answer is the former.

[Pallas]

I undertook a quick review. Fezzes. I suppose the advancing apostrophe catastrophe may be a rough beast slouching toward uniformity of all plurals. Plural's.

[supposebly]

This is rather hilarious to me. German has its own apostrophe catastrophe.

https://www.br.de/nachrichten/oberbayern/inhalt/apostrophenkatastrophen-deppenapostroph-auer-dult-100.html

In German, the genitive 's usually has no apostrophe (Peters corgi = Peter's corgi) but people are starting to spell it with one, mimicking English spelling. To the dismay of many people.

Although it has been somewhat acceptable practice with proper nouns since 1996 as noted in the Duden, the 'bible' of German grammar and spelling.

55 minutes ago, Pallas said:

I undertook a quick review. Fezzes. I suppose the advancing apostrophe catastrophe may be a rough beast slouching toward uniformity of all plurals. Plural's.

As to #4 on that site, if there are more examples of exceptions than examples for the rule, it's unlikely to be a rule.

[riley702]

8 hours ago, ABay said:

It does make me want to ask, alongside her corgi's what?

Read it again. The corgi's portrait is in her portrait.

[ABay]

On 8/2/2018 at 8:09 PM, WarnerCL45 said:

To celebrate her 90th birthday in 2017, the Queen posed for portraits alongside her beloved corgi’s taken by acclaimed fashion photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

@riley702, I was referring to this sentence ^^^  in an (apparently failed) attempt at humor based on the apostrophe being used to make corgi plural when it usually indicates a possessive form. 

[WarnerCL45]

On 02/08/2018 at 8:09 PM, WarnerCL45 said:

This was on a "Yahoo" news feed, which showed various royals in Vanity Fair.  Poor apostrophe - such a difficult punctuation mark to use!  Sigh.

Queen Elizabeth

To celebrate her 90th birthday in 2017, the Queen posed for portraits alongside her beloved corgi’s taken by acclaimed fashion photographer, Annie Leibovitz.

Image via Vanity Fair.

I posted the frickin' thing originally!  I was remiss in just posting the text.  There was NO corgi portrait - there were multiple corgis in the photo.

[SyracuseMug]

For me, adding an apostrophe to “corgis” suggests that, at an earlier time, one of the queen’s beloved corgis had its own specific portraits taken by the acclaimed fashion photographer, Annie Leibovitz. 

Then, to celebrate her 90th birthday in 2017, the Queen posed for portraits alongside these earlier portraits; and the photographer on this occasion may or may not have been Annie Leibovitz.

But of course, the photo above negates that interpretation. :-)

[fairffaxx]

This has nothing to do with the apostrophe issue but:  2 of those dogs don't look like Corgis to me -- the one closest to the Queen's left foot & the black one on the upper stair don't have the Corgi SMILE! or the big ears. 

[kassygreene]

Apparently she still has two dorgis, Vulcan and Candy according to Wikipedia at this instant (the word would look better with an apostrophe, and if it weren't for the current conversation I would use one as I seem to remember it being an obscure but correct use of apostrophe, but I am chickenshit for some reason tonight).  A dorgi is a corgi/dachshund cross, first created when one of the Queen's corgis had an encounter with one of Margaret's dachshunds, IIRC.

Edited August 5, 2018 by kassygreene
spelling

[Pallas]

Replying on the royalty topic, From Across the Pond.

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, kassygreene said:

 (the word would look better with an apostrophe, and if it weren't for the current conversation I would use one as I seem to remember it being an obscure but correct use of apostrophe,

The only "obscure but correct" exceptions to the rule of not using an apostrophe to form a plural (that I can find) is for single letters and numbers:
   mind your p's and q's
   all 3's went into the Marines
and sometimes in American English for decades:
   1970's
but I am American and always use 
   1970s
because it bugs me to have an unnecessary apostrophe there. 
If it were up to me, instead of 
   p's and q's
it would  be 
   Ps and Qs
but even autocorrect knows that I would be wrong, heh.

Thank you, @kassygreene, for the explanation of the Dorgis.
 

[WarnerCL45]

Here's a good book for the grammar fanatic.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/294386/eats-shoots-and-leaves-by-lynne-truss/9781592402038/

[topanga]

5 hours ago, WarnerCL45 said:

Here's a good book for the grammar fanatic.

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/294386/eats-shoots-and-leaves-by-lynne-truss/9781592402038/

One of my favorites. I’ve reread it a couple times. 

[Sandman87]

From tonight's news, fresh off the teleprompter: "Civil Protection is reporting 20 people dead and likely to rise." I don't know whether to celebrate the impending Rapture or prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

[shapeshifter]

26 minutes ago, Sandman87 said:

From tonight's news, fresh off the teleprompter: "Civil Protection is reporting 20 people dead and likely to rise." I don't know whether to celebrate the impending Rapture or prepare for a zombie apocalypse.

LOL! And I don't no which is funnier: the quote or your comment, @Sandman87.
Perhaps the author of the chyron text was having a bit of fun with character limits?

 

Again today I heard an educated NPR reporter use "me" as the subject of a sentence. Is this going to become acceptable usage like the singular use of "they" as a non-gender-specific pronoun, and if so, why?

[bijoux]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

 

Again today I heard an educated NPR reporter use "me" as the subject of a sentence. Is this going to become acceptable usage like the singular use of "they" as a non-gender-specific pronoun, and if so, why?

What kills me even more is using I instead of we. As in, as for Mary and I... You have swerved too much!

[Brookside]

2 hours ago, bijoux said:

 

Edited August 15, 2018 by Brookside

[Milburn Stone]

9 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

Again today I heard an educated NPR reporter use "me" as the subject of a sentence. Is this going to become acceptable usage like the singular use of "they" as a non-gender-specific pronoun, and if so, why?

It is a scourge! I find myself hoping for small favors--like, was the subject of the sentence at least a compound subject, as in "Mary and me went to the store"? That would be completely inexcusable, but not quite as offensive to the ear as "Me went to the store."

Edited August 15, 2018 by Milburn Stone

[GHScorpiosRule]

3 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

It is a scourge! I find myself hoping for small favors--like, was the subject of the sentence at least a compound subject, as in "Mary and me went to the store"? That would be completely inexcusable, but not quite as offensive to the ear as "Me went to the store."

????????

[shapeshifter]

11 hours ago, Milburn Stone said:

It is a scourge! I find myself hoping for small favors--like, was the subject of the sentence at least a compound subject, as in "Mary and me went to the store"? That would be completely inexcusable, but not quite as offensive to the ear as "Me went to the store."

 

It was in the form of "Me and Mary went to the store," which isn't quite as dissonant to my ears as what my mind always immediately plays in response ("me went to the store").

Edited August 15, 2018 by shapeshifter

[Brookside]

On the BBC World Service yesterday, within the space of five minutes I heard one journalist use deduct rather than deduce, and another refer to marijuana as illegitimate rather than illegal.

[WarnerCL45]

1 hour ago, Brookside said:

On the BBC World Service yesterday, within the space of five minutes I heard one journalist use deduct rather than deduce, and another refer to marijuana as illegitimate rather than illegal.

If you can’t trust the BBC, who can you trust?

[Sandman87]

Heard during a news break on the radio today: "...and he was killed when his truck was envelope-ed by fire." Damn the post office and their flaming envelopes!

[Brookside]

"Mr. Brennan's lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation's most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos."

Regardless of one's politics, is it too much to hope that the White House Press Secretary could write a coherent opening sentence?

Edited August 17, 2018 by Brookside
Clarity.

[legaleagle53]

On 8/16/2018 at 7:11 AM, WarnerCL45 said:

If you can’t trust the BBC, who can you trust?

Ahem.  Whom can you trust?

On 8/17/2018 at 12:25 PM, Brookside said:

"Mr. Brennan's lying and recent conduct characterized by increasingly frenzied commentary is wholly inconsistent with access to the nation's most closely held secrets and facilities, the very aim of our adversaries which is to sow division and chaos."

Regardless of one's politics, is it too much to hope that the White House Press Secretary could write a coherent opening sentence?

Well, if I read it slowly, I get what she's saying.  She could have taken a much shorter and clearer path to get there, however.

[WarnerCL45]

29 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

Ahem.  Whom can you trust?

See what I mean?   LOL