Much as I understand...

Conversation in the UK:
First person, "Ford are introducing a new model."
Second person, "Yes, they are".
Conversation in the USA:
First person, "Ford is introducing a new model".
Second person, "Yes, they are".
The British version seems more consistent, but I've never heard a negative comment on the American version. Something to think about.
 
The use of a plural pronoun such as "they" when the meaning clearly should be a singular form drives me to distraction. I consider it a gutless refusal to properly use "he" as the general singular pronoun for a human being of either gender, so some imagined "she" will not get her feelings hurt.
Aarrggh!
 
Collocations are habit forming. While "Much as..." is rare, "...as much as..." is common. The grammatical intent is different, of course.

My feeling is that in the grand scheme of poor English, that ranks as a pet peeve. Why not slay the dragon: overuse and misuse of "like."
 
My new favourite word is REFUDIATE, as recently coined by Sarah Palin. Seems to be a combination of REPUDIATE and REFUTE. I think she's trying to channel George Bush....
 
"OR" is confusing. In spoken language, it is an exclusive or. As a logic gate, it is an inclusive or.

The "Either" in the sentance gets dropped.

"Choose A or B" should be "Choose either A or B".

If you ask me "choose a black M9 or a chrome M9", my answer will be "Okay". If you ask me "Choose either a black M9 or a chrome M9", I will have to decide.
 
Brian Sweeney said:
"OR" is confusing. In spoken language, it is an exclusive or. As a logic gate, it is an inclusive or.

The "Either" in the sentance gets dropped.

"Choose A or B" should be "Choose either A or B".

If you ask me "choose a black M9 or a chrome M9", my answer will be "Okay". If you ask me "Choose either a black M9 or a chrome M9", I will have to decide.
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Dear Brian,

Then there is In re Blackwell's trusts, which turns on whether 'or' should be read conjunctively or disjunctively. The testator left his fortune to be applied 'to such charitable or benevolent purposes as the trustees shall in their absolute discretion think fit' (this is all from memory, almost 40 years ago, so it may not be word for word).

If 'or' is read disjunctively -- that the causes may be charitable (but not necessarily benevolent - unlikely) OR benevolent (but not legally charitable, which is quite possible) -- then it's not a charitable bequest. If it's read conjunctively -- that 'benevolent' is merely another way of saying 'charitable', with the object of throwing some light on the sort of charitable purposes -- then it was.

In the end, the lawyers got all the money anyway...

Cheers,

R.
 
flip said:
Collocations are habit forming. While "Much as..." is rare, "...as much as..." is common. The grammatical intent is different, of course.

My feeling is that in the grand scheme of poor English, that ranks as a pet peeve. Why not slay the dragon: overuse and misuse of "like."
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It's a pet peeve because when a sub-editor screws up my English, I get REALLY peeved. Few if any editors take as much care over their English as I do, and if there are differences of opinion, mine should triumph. They are there to correct things that are plain wrong. Yes, I make mistakes -- we all do, especially typos -- but when someone 'corrects' the grammar (and changes the sense) of something I've written, because of some indefensible prejudice they picked up from a semi-literate third grade teacher, it really annoys me.

Cheers,

R.
 
You made me laugh. Reminds me: I wouldn't be the first to think LOL stood for 'Lots of love' till a teenager put me straight!

Tom
 
A pupil questioned my English when I started a sentence with 'because'. Apparently somebody who taught her had decided this was ungrammatical: I suppose the reason was that some people start a sentence with a subordinate clause but never get round to having a main clause to hang it on.

And I ended a sentence with a preposition.

And I started two sentences with 'and'.

Just try explaining to anyone why 'between you and I' is wrong. A whole generation or more exists that has the impression the word 'me' is inadmissible at all times when the word 'and' is at hand.

Fused participles, anyone?

I forgot this is the Rangefinder Forum; I should be on the Desiccated Pedants' Forum. Forums or Fora?..... .....

Tom
 
Pablito said:
Ya gotta love, "...it was 7:00 a.m. in the morning..."
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Well, at the end of the day we all have to get up in the morning.

John Major, British Prime Minister sometime in the 80s/90s, really mixed his metaphors - something along these lines:

'There is a tide going out which we must grasp with both hands and build upon.'

Tom
 
Spavinaw said:
Conversation in the UK:
First person, "Ford are introducing a new model."
Second person, "Yes, they are".
Conversation in the USA:
First person, "Ford is introducing a new model".
Second person, "Yes, they are".
The British version seems more consistent, but I've never heard a negative comment on the American version. Something to think about.
Click to expand...

What do you think about 'they' used for 'he or she'?

'If anybody is feeling ill, they should see the doctor.'

And what about 'none'? None of us is right; none of us are right? We say 'a lot of people are doing it', but logically it should be 'a lot of people is doing it'. Anyway, a lot of people nowadays are saying 'there IS' with a plural subject: for example, 'there is loads of lenses in that shop window'.

Oh well, got that off my chest. Off of?

Tom
 
F456 said:
A pupil questioned my English when I started a sentence with 'because'. Apparently somebody who taught her had decided this was ungrammatical: I suppose the reason was that some people start a sentence with a subordinate clause but never get round to having a main clause to hang it on. . . . I forgot this is the Rangefinder Forum; I should be on the Desiccated Pedants' Forum. Forums or Fora?..... .....

Tom
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Dear Tom,

At least one of my teachers had an irrational dislike of the word 'got'. We were told that "Have you one?" was a better form than "Have you got one."

This is patent twaddle -- you no doubt recall Henry Reed's poem, "Naming of Parts", with 'the piling swivel, which in your case you have not got' -- and besides, anyone who loves and studies language knows there there are all kinds of rhetorical tricks that are regarded as 'wrong' by those wot can't read and write too good. This includes distressingly many teachers.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Tom,

At least one of my teachers had an irrational dislike of the word 'got'. We were told that "Have you one?" was a better form than "Have you got one."

This is patent twaddle -- you no doubt recall Henry Reed's poem, "Naming of Parts", with 'the piling swivel, which in your case you have not got' -- and besides, anyone who loves and studies language knows there there are all kinds of rhetorical tricks that are regarded as 'wrong' by those wot can't read and write too good. This includes distressingly many teachers.

Cheers,

R.
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Dear Roger,
It's a funny business being a teacher. I sometimes worry what permanent damage I may have inflicted on a pupil simply because I was having a bad day, was trying to be funny and failed - wotevah. For a time the old 'can v may' pedantry occupied me every time someone asked if (whether?) they could go to the loo. I can't decide whether the point is worth making or if it's just desiccated pedantry. Probably the latter. But no-one will dare say it is definitely the latter, so i go on labouring the point.

Actually I have come round to preferring American English. I have a feeling it is more consistent in terms of spelling and, more generally, the Americans aren't so quick to jettison their history and systems as we are. Even those Britons that still use Fahrenheit for temperature tend to switch to Centigrade at the lower end. If I say 'it's about 70 today', most people know what I mean, but in the January cold spell I told a friend it was 28 degrees. She looked at me with great pity: I was clearly troubled in my mind. I wonder how your teacher with Invisible Got Fetish would have reacted to your saying 'gotten'.

You've given me an idea: I'm going to speak American English without the accent (without - only because I'm bad at accents) and use American spelling. It's mostly what we used to use anyway, and why shouldn't 'vapour', 'odour' etc be spelt 'vapor', 'odor' over this side of the ocean? After all, the verbs are 'vaporize, deodorize' without the u. Can't remember whether we write 'discoloration' or 'discolouration', but the point remains: the American style is more consistent.

And I can try out that brilliant word REFUDIATE.

Cheers,
Tom
 
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F456 said:
You've given me an idea: I'm going to speak American English without the accent (without - only because I'm bad at accents) and use American spelling. It's mostly what we used to use anyway, and why shouldn't 'vapour', 'odour' etc be spelt 'vapor', 'odor' over this side of the ocean? After all, the verbs are 'vaporize, deodorize' without the u. Can't remember whether we write 'discoloration' or 'discolouration', but the point remains: the American style is more consistent.

And I can try out that brilliant word REFUDIATE.

Cheers,
Tom
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Dear Tom,

Yes, but not "medieval" and the American pronunciation "m'deeval" instead of "mediaeval" and "meddy-eval", and I'm not keen on missing out the 'i' in the pronunciations "fertle" and "missle". Indeed, you can't distinguish in American speech between "missile" (guided) and "missal" (ecclesiastical).

On the other hand, aluminum/aluminium is defensible either way: stannum, cuprum, plumbum, hydrargyrum, etc., vs. chromium, potassium, niobium and the rest.

I always liked the description of spelling as practised by Ms. Anathema Device (Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman): "not so much appalling as three hundred years too late." Thus, why "succeed" but not "succede"? Terrible things, dictionaries, imposing unwarrant'd uniforme spellynge.

Cheers,

R.
 
Why is it acceptable to say "same exact...?" I was told, when I was young, that this was bad grammar and a redundancy. Yet this phrase is used all the time by radio and TV commentators.

Another example of the "dumbing down" of our culture?
 
Dear Paul,

I'd argue that 'same' is more general than 'exact same' which is a contraction of 'exactly the same'. Thus, "It's the same thing" = "It's not worth worrying about the differences" while "It's the exact same thing" = "You cannot make any meaningful distinctions" or even "There are no distinctions to be made." But I've never heard it the other way around, "same exact".

Cheers,

R
 
Sort of like "great big elephant" or "tiny little baby."

Those are redundancies. "Tiny little" can be replaced more efficiently by either "tiny" or "little."

Of course, when referring to tiny little babies, the paramount thing should be linguistic efficiency!

However, we all speak of tiny little babies. Let he cast the first stone who has not talked of tiny little babies!

To conclude: the English language is more than just a collection of grammar rules!
 
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