Language & Grammar discussion

http://litreactor.com/columns/20-comm...

Nice find Ruth....very useful!

I love it:

Impactful It isn't a word... Seriously, stop saying this.

hahaha!

A useful list. I still have problems with "which" and "that", but not "who" and "whom", because I learned Latin. Strange, however,that the writer finds the confusion between "nauseous" and "nauseating" to be "the most common mistake I encounter." What strange documents he must read to find such infrequent words improperly used. In contrast, the greengrocer's apostrophe(which is not mentioned)is everywhere to be seen.

That and which gets me every time. "Fewer" is what I yell at the TV when the news announcer says "less."

That irritates me, too, more or fewer.

"If he would have done it..." is my pet peeve. Arrrgh!

....worse if they say 'would of done it'!

Would've if he could've. It's the contraction that goes into contractions until the "of" crowns and is born.

I'd forgotten about "would of"... that's even peevier!

I don't like "on accident."

Never heard of that one, Joanne. Can you give an example of how it's used (or misused)?

I think it might be a regional thing. I know members of my family back east would say, I did such and such on accident.

Ah. We say "by accident."

I say by accident also. Of course I have been away from that area many years .

I understand that less is for uncountable nouns, fewer for countables.
I have less furniture than you do, but I have fewer hats than my sister does.

How about the now almost universal use of "There's ..." followed by a plural subject? "There's several ..." "There's three points I'd like to make"? And now it's morphed into "There is three things..."; not even the excuse of a contraction! Moan.

Mostly young people, saying "I did it on accident." It's wrong, ain't it ?

Geoffrey wrote: "I understand that less is for uncountable nouns, fewer for countables.
I have less furniture than you do, but I have fewer hats than my sister does."

Ah, but you have fewer pieces of furniture.

Joanne wrote: "Mostly young people, saying "I did it on accident." It's wrong, ain't it ?"

I've never heard that one before.

A new(ish) one which bothers me, although I know it's because of attempted political correctness (which might be just as good a reason as any to disregard it) is the singular subject and plural verb:

Everyone took their books and went to class.

attempting to avoid "Everyone took his books..."

What's wrong with a plural subject?

They all took their books...
All the students present took their books...

I have always said 'by accident'. I find that many of the children I teach, mostly from lower socio-economic backgrounds, say 'on accident'.

Genine wrote: "How about the now almost universal use of "There's ..." followed by a plural subject? "There's several ..." "There's three points I'd like to make"? And now it's morphed into "There is three thin..."

This is rampant in everyday speech. I find myself catching it in mine own writing.

What about people who write "mine own" instead of "my own"?

Newengland wrote: "What about people who write "mine own" instead of "my own"?"

It's from As you Like it: "an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own", usually rendered as "a poor thing but - - - ".

Ah, residual habits from teaching the Bard. Speaking of, there's supposed to be an impressive release of Corialanus this Friday directed by Ralph Fiennes. Looks interesting.

Geoffrey wrote: "I understand that less is for uncountable nouns, fewer for countables.
I have less furniture than you do, but I have fewer hats than my sister does."

Ah, but you have fewer pieces of furniture.

Yes, Ruth. But if you don´t write "pieces" it´s uncountable. Strange language, this English. It´s a beast of many colors.

Geoffrey wrote: "Yes, Ruth. But if you don´t write "pieces" it´s uncountable. Strange language, this English. It´s a beast of many colors. ..."

Absolutely. Less sugar. Fewer grains of sugar.

How sweet it is, crazzzzzy gugenhime

Debbie wrote: "I have always said 'by accident'. I find that many of the children I teach, mostly from lower socio-economic backgrounds, say 'on accident'."

Ruth wrote: "Joanne wrote: "Mostly young people, saying "I did it on accident." It's wrong, ain't it ?"

I've never heard that one before."

Definitely a generational thing. It started about 25 years ago, as near as I can figure. The Grammar Girl did a post about it approximately a year ago.

One of the grammar issues that drive ME nuts is the misuse of 'at'. As in, "where are you going to be at?" Argghhhhh.

I find myself puzzling over which pronoun should come after 'than' and 'that'. My English teacher (bless her heart) always told us to hear what is unsaid to make the determination. She is older than he [is] is easy but some sentences don't make sense either way. Do you all find yourselves just rewriting the sentence until it makes sense? I used to drive my kids nuts when I'd read to them and I'd have to stop to figure things out.

Aryn wrote: "One of the grammar issues that drive ME nuts is the misuse of 'at'. As in, "where are you going to be at?" Argghhhhh. "

That gets me too, Aryn. On a similar note*, there was a song years ago: "Where are you going to...?"

*I made a funny :-)

Key of C Major Humor.

Hayes wrote: "A new(ish) one which bothers me, although I know it's because of attempted political correctness (which might be just as good a reason as any to disregard it) is the singular subject and plural verb:
Everyone took their books and went to class.
attempting to avoid "Everyone took his books..."
What's wrong with a plural subject?
They all took their books...
All the students present took their books..."

There is nothing new about singular they/their, and it predates political correctness by centuries, though it’s far more common and acceptable in BrE than AmE.

Certainly there are times, as in your example, where the most elegant answer is to rewrite with a plural subject, but there is no need to attempt it in all cases. For example, many prefer “Somebody dropped their key” to “Somebody dropped his key”, “Somebody dropped his/her key” or the dreaded passive, “A key was dropped (by someone)”.

Having read around the subject quite widely, it seems undisputed that the prohibition was first documented, and probably invented by Anne Fisher, an 18th-century British schoolmistress who wrote a grammar book that became very popular. There is nothing wrong with that except that it didn’t reflect even educated usage at the time, before or since. It was personal preference, not a grammatical rule. Chaucer, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, Eliot, Trollope, Dickens and many others have used it routinely. I presume they did so because it was (and is) useful, widely used and unambiguous. In fact it’s so common, I expect that those who abhor it must find it very distracting reading anything other than a few newspapers that have very rigid style guides, and I wonder if American publications remove it, in the same way they change "centre" to "center" and "pavement" to "sidewalk"?

I think the only thing to worry about is whether verbs agree, e.g. avoiding “The jury was [singular] out for three hours, before they [plural] reached their verdict”.

If “you” and “your” can be singular or plural, why the objections to “they” and “their”?

Most intriguingly, why are BrE speakers so much more relaxed about it than AmE speakers, even though it was a Brit that caused the problem and Fowler partially supports her?

Cecily wrote: "Certainly there are times, as in your example, where the most elegant answer is to rewrite with a plural subject, but there is no need to attempt it in all cases. For example, many prefer “Somebody dropped their key” to “Somebody dropped his key”, “Somebody dropped his/her key” or the dreaded passive, “A key was dropped (by someone)”."

I don't like using the default masculine pronoun either, but how about another perfectly elegant solution: "Somebody dropped a key"? (Especially as we will never know if the key that was dropped actually belonged to the dropper or not.)

As I said, it's something that bothers me, and I will always find a way around it.

ETA: "If “you” and “your” can be singular or plural, why the objections to “they” and “their”?" Isn't that like saying that because "put" (present) is the same word as "put" (past) it then becomes okay to use any two verbs in the same way? I drop the key whenever I take it out of my pocket and I drop the key yesterday.

You're right, of course; the key dropping example is easy to rewrite, but I used it to illustrate various options. And there is nothing wrong with striving to avoid singular they/their at every opportunity; I just wanted to put the case that it is a stylistic preference, not a matter of grammar. Actually, if writing for an American audience, it may be a necessity, lest you be thought ill-educated, but that's not really an issue for Brits.

As for the "put" analogy, I can't say it works for me: little about language and grammar is logical, yet one of the objections to singular they/their is one of logic ("they" is plural, so you can't use it for a singular entity), and I was trying to make the point that the logic is faulty.

But hey, each to their [sic] own. ;-)

Cecily wrote: "and I was trying to make the point that the logic is faulty."

I didn't explain myself well. The logic isn't faulty at all.

The physical words are the same, but the meaning is different:

(1) You are a student. vs. (2) You are students.
Here the meanings of "you" are perfectly clear, because of the singular or plural student/students. There is no way to mix these up, and no one would assume that they are the same word with the same meaning; in the southern US you might even get a "you all" to emphasize the vous form in sentence (2).

(3) Is this your book?
(4) Are these your books?

There are two choices for each sentence and here it is not clear what the meaning is. [I have to do it in Italian to illustrate properly, sorry.]

(3) Questo libro e' tuo/vostro? One book, one owner/multiple owners
(4) Questi libri sono tuoi/vostri? multiple books, one owner/multiple owners

I need context to help me, and when there is no context it's a problem. When I have to translate something like sentence 3 or 4 I have to call the author to make sure of the meaning, because I would never take the responsibility of assuming that the word "your" has just one meaning, nor that it is interchangeable with something else.

Feel free to continue hating singular they/their, but translating sentences without context is a rather specialised case; most of the time, its meaning is clear and unambiguous in English. (I fear that I may have missed your point, in which case, apologies.)

According to Grammar Girl, "...The Chicago Manual of Style allows OD'd for overdosed, and the AP Stylebook recommends OK'd for okayed. Based on those two examples, I recommend that Michael use NAT'd (if NAT is a verb)." Oh, no! All those grocery stores are correct???

From my daughter's Facebook account: Grammarly:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."

College kids these days....

Good morning, NE. I hope your weather is better than ours has been.

Cecily wrote: "Feel free to continue hating singular they/their, ..."

Didn't mean to disappear right at the end there... have been unwell (nothing serious, but it makes me cranky, so I apologize for that) and busy (ditto). Forgive me.

Aryn wrote: "A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right." "

hahaha, clever.

Hayes wrote: "...have been unwell (nothing serious, but it makes me cranky, so I apologize f..."

Hope all gets better. I, too, enjoyed the 'voice from the back'.

Thanks Aryn. It's my usual Spring asthma/lurghy double whammy. I can breathe again, so I'll be out and about this afternoon. It's a gorgeous day.

Aryn wrote: "From my daughter's Facebook account: Grammarly:
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. "In English," he said, "A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, su..."

Heehee. I love it!

I'm beside myself.

Gabi wrote: ""However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative." A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right." ..."

Just saw this and I love it.

My grammar conundrum of the day is with the possessive form of humanity. I'm going with humanities but humanity's just feels more correct to me...

The only rule that I can find seems limited to verbs that end in Y

Humanity = singular, not possessive
Humanities = plural, not possessive
Humanity’s = singular and possessive: humanity’s future is in the balance.
Humanities’ = plural and possessive: the humanities’ faculty.

Cecily wrote: "Humanity = singular, not possessive
Humanities = plural, not possessive
Humanity’s = singular and possessive: humanity’s future is in the balance.
Humanities’ = plural and possessive: the humanitie..."

What Cecily said.

Thanks all.

Hayes wrote: "(1) You are a student. vs. (2) You are students.
In Northern Ireland and in parts of Great Britain too there is a plural for "you", which is youse", translatable, as you remark, in parts of the USA, by "you all". In my Yorkshire childhood, everybody used "thee", "thou" and "thy" (not however pronounced like that)as familiar singulars like "tu" and "du" in French and German.