DearEvette August 20, 2020 Share August 20, 2020 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: 5 Link to comment
shapeshifter August 20, 2020 Share August 20, 2020 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. 😉 3 Link to comment
Milburn Stone August 21, 2020 Share August 21, 2020 (edited) 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 3 Link to comment
DearEvette August 21, 2020 Share August 21, 2020 (edited) 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 5 Link to comment
Browncoat August 21, 2020 Share August 21, 2020 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! 5 Link to comment
legaleagle53 August 22, 2020 Share August 22, 2020 (edited) 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 2 Link to comment
shapeshifter August 23, 2020 Share August 23, 2020 (edited) 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 16 Link to comment
Brookside August 24, 2020 Share August 24, 2020 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! 10 Link to comment
shapeshifter September 22, 2020 Share September 22, 2020 (edited) 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 Link to comment
praeceptrix September 22, 2020 Share September 22, 2020 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. 1 2 Link to comment
Silver Raven September 22, 2020 Share September 22, 2020 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. Link to comment
Milburn Stone September 23, 2020 Share September 23, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
shapeshifter September 23, 2020 Share September 23, 2020 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! Link to comment
SVNBob September 25, 2020 Share September 25, 2020 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. Link to comment
Anduin September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 I was just going through all my music bookmarks when I hit upon a problem. Does Acid King go before or after AC/DC? Link to comment
SVNBob September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 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. 6 Link to comment
Anduin September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 Thank you! Currently, AC/DC is before Acid King. Unless I feel the urge to fiddle around some more, it'll stay that way. 1 Link to comment
Milburn Stone September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 (edited) 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 1 Link to comment
shapeshifter September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 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. 🙂 3 2 Link to comment
Milburn Stone September 26, 2020 Share September 26, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
Zella September 27, 2020 Share September 27, 2020 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. 2 Link to comment
SVNBob September 27, 2020 Share September 27, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
Milburn Stone September 27, 2020 Share September 27, 2020 (edited) 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 4 Link to comment
Quof September 27, 2020 Share September 27, 2020 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. 3 7 Link to comment
SweetieDarling September 29, 2020 Share September 29, 2020 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." 2 Link to comment
SuprSuprElevated September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 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. 4 Link to comment
Milburn Stone September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 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. Link to comment
SweetieDarling September 30, 2020 Share September 30, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
SweetieDarling October 1, 2020 Share October 1, 2020 Here's today's contribution from foxbaltimore.com: "That makes for five people shot in the city so far today." Link to comment
Milburn Stone October 3, 2020 Share October 3, 2020 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. 1 1 Link to comment
legaleagle53 October 4, 2020 Share October 4, 2020 (edited) 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 1 1 Link to comment
shapeshifter October 15, 2020 Share October 15, 2020 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? 3 Link to comment
Milburn Stone October 15, 2020 Share October 15, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
Browncoat October 15, 2020 Share October 15, 2020 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. 1 Link to comment
legaleagle53 October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 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. 2 Link to comment
AimingforYoko October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 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. 1 4 Link to comment
SVNBob October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 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. Link to comment
Bastet October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 Jibe: informal•North American be in accord; agree. "the verdict does not jibe with the medical evidence" Jive: 12 2 Link to comment
shapeshifter October 17, 2020 Share October 17, 2020 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: Link to comment
Kromm October 30, 2020 Share October 30, 2020 (edited) This is very entertaining. Note this is from 1958. Edited October 30, 2020 by Kromm 2 1 Link to comment
ABay November 12, 2020 Share November 12, 2020 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. 6 Link to comment
shapeshifter November 12, 2020 Share November 12, 2020 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. 2 Link to comment
SuprSuprElevated November 12, 2020 Share November 12, 2020 Hot water heater...and...go! 2 Link to comment
ABay November 12, 2020 Share November 12, 2020 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. 5 Link to comment
shapeshifter November 13, 2020 Share November 13, 2020 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. 4 Link to comment
Milburn Stone November 13, 2020 Share November 13, 2020 (edited) 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 3 Link to comment
legaleagle53 November 13, 2020 Share November 13, 2020 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." 5 3 Link to comment
shapeshifter November 13, 2020 Share November 13, 2020 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. 😉 1 1 Link to comment
meowmommy November 13, 2020 Share November 13, 2020 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." 🤔 4 1 Link to comment
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.