Much as I understand...

[JohnTF]

You got me Roger, I was thinking of all the exceptions as soon as I posted-- still, "Illford are an interesting company in that they still offer coated film products?"

The flexibility of English is preferred to the French who have a committee that decided that certain parts found only in women are masculine as they are body parts which are all supposed to use the masculine "le".

Now, we can all pick on the Canadians, who do not know which English to use, when they are not speaking archaic French.

My Canadian colleague arrived in the classroom and had the kids on the floor when she asked for the blackboard brushes, we had a bit of fun at her expense for about a year. Took that long to drop the "eh". ;-)

Always could tell her coming down the road, had an electric plug coming out the grill, we thought she had an early 70's electric car that had its extension cord gone missing.

Sadly, things will get worse, one of the side effects of the middle school movement is my friend is the last teacher in her middle school teaching English who has a degree in it, the current standards allowing anyone with a K-8 certificate to teach any subject in middle school. Often leaves the high school students a few years behind beginning a four year program-- bit hard to catch up by graduation.


It is OK to take notice of the differences, but all chiding should be in good spirit as I would hope.

My students used to take exception to my correction of their grammar, because it was not English class, I pointed out that education was not an "inoculation" that once you have it, you never need it again.

I really just wanted them to speak well some day when they had an interview, plus I was raised by two generations of teachers.

The media are making all on the net look as if they were English majors.

Regards, John

 

[JohnTF]

Many years ago, when I was working for an aircraft manufacturer in Manchester (UK) I picked up the 'phone to be told, without any introduction, that the "f**king f**ker's f**ked". The most surprising thing was that I knew exactly what he meant.

I was under the impression that those were German planes? ;-)

 

[JohnTF]

I remember a high school teacher of mine describing 'irregardless' as 'not regardless', which is 'regardless'.

Normally, something such as this would change slowly, if at all. It seemed this one was a real "Ah ha" moment for the majority -- even the media folks seem to have adapted very quickly.

I still do not understand how so many people who make witness statements to the TV folk cannot get verb and subject to agree? "I seen him---", I know we work on this in school early on and have never heard any of my students speak so poorly. Is it a code of some sort?

Now, if they would only speak well, like they should have learned-- sorry as they should have learned. ;-)

Regards, John

 

[Sparrow]

Ha ...........

 

[oftheherd]

Dear Greg,

That's a completely different meaning, as Fred pointed out. Consider the following sentences:

"Much as I admire him, I sometimes find him tedious"

and

"As much as I admire him, I sometimes find him tedious"

The former can be paraphrased, ""Though I admire him [with the implicaion that this is quite a bit, unless you're being ironic], I sometimes find him tedious".

The latter, if it means anything, might be paraphrased, "To the extent that I admire him [with the implication that it is not necessarily all that much], I also find him tedious".

The biblical quote is closer to the latter than the former, but different in meaning again: "As far as I am able, I shall..." or "To the best of my ability, I shall..."

Cheers,

R.

Well sir, it sounds as if you have answered your own original question.

 

[j j]

Many years ago, when I was working for an aircraft manufacturer in Manchester (UK) I picked up the 'phone to be told, without any introduction, that the "f**king f**ker's f**ked". The most surprising thing was that I knew exactly what he meant.

Sorry to be pedantic, but your colleague missed out a word there. The phrase should be: "f**king f**ker's f**king f**ked".

 

[antiquark]

Someone needs to publish the Backus-Naur Form for English. that would clear up all of these problems

I think it's a case of the "exceptions to the rule" gradually vanishing. Makes sense... why are there exceptions in the first place? Just get rid of them! It makes the language as a whole more logical.

Once we've got the grammar fixed, then we can continue on to pronunciation reform... I imagine a future where everyone pronounces "far" with an audible "r" at the end...

 

[oftheherd]

Much as I like many things British, I can't stand the use of plural forms of verbs with singular entities, such as "Parliament are ...."

Ask Oxford says:

http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/oriented tells us that Although the expression 'a number' is strictly singular, the phrase 'a number of' is used with plural nouns (as what grammarians call a determiner). The verb should therefore be plural: 'A number of people are waiting for the bus'.

This is not the case with 'the number', which is still singular: 'The number of people here has increased since this morning.'

It also tells us that orientated is primarily British, oriented is primarily American. Who knew?

And lastly, on (as) much as:

much

• determiner & pronoun (more, most) 1 a large amount. 2 indicating that someone or something is a poor specimen: I’m not much of a gardener.

• adverb 1 to a great extent; a great deal. 2 for a large part of one’s time; often.

— PHRASES a bit much informal somewhat excessive or unreasonable. (as) much as even though. so much the better (or worse) that is even better (or worse). too much too difficult or exhausting to tolerate.

— ORIGIN Old English, related to MICKLE.

As much as anybody may care.

 

[KenR]

This has been one of the "funner" threads on RFF.

 

[Out to Lunch]

As a non-native Engrish speaker, I can only say that the English language is so idiomatic that the table manners don't really matter. Cheers, P

 

[Jamie123]

I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not really bothered that much by these things. I did recently talk to the English assistant of a philosophy professor and he seemed to be really bothered by the misuse of 'refute' that seems to be common these days in the UK. 'Refute' which means 'showing something to be wrong' is apparently often used in the sense of 'reject' or 'refuse', i.e. just not accepting something to be right.

What really bothers me personally, though, is the (seemingly American) tendency of explaining everything by putting it in dialogue form.

 

[JohnTF]

Am I the only one who notices that the "t" in often is often more pronounced these days, and "aunt" is less likely to be confused with an insect?

The whole world is going to ----

Regards, John---

Though I expect soon the "h" in my name to make it soon all but unpronounceable. Perhaps we also need a "Society to Conserve Silent Consonants." Or in the case of "aunt", let sleeping vowels lie?

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sorry to be pedantic, but your colleague missed out a word there. The phrase should be: "f**king f**ker's f**king f**ked".

There is of course the famous WW2 story of the Dutch fighter ace telling spellbound schoolgirls the story of how he was fighting 'three Fokkers at once'. Cue much giggling until the headmistress pointed out that a Fokker was a German fighter aeroplane. His reply: "Quite so, madam, but these fokkers were Messerschmidts."

My mother (a schoolgirl during WW2) told me that story when I was in my 'teens.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Am I the only one who notices that the "t" in often is often more pronounced these days, and "aunt" is less likely to be confused with an insect?

The whole world is going to ----

Regards, John---

Though I expect soon the "h" in my name to make it soon all but unpronounceable. Perhaps we also need a "Society to Conserve Silent Consonants." Or in the case of "aunt", let sleeping vowels lie?

Sehr geehrte Johannn,

'Ere, Jawn...

as my London chums say.

And don't forget bloody 'vunnerable' for 'vulnerable'.

Cheers,

R.

 

[semilog]

I still think the best word ever invented is f**k ... it's so f**king versatile!

It sure as * is.

 

[Rob-F]

I remember a high school teacher of mine describing 'irregardless' as 'not regardless', which is 'regardless'.

So, the teacher was saying that "regardless" and "not regardless" mean the same thing? Or what? I found this confusing.

 

[F456]

Add these dislikes to the AS:

ANTICIPATE used to mean 'look forward to' when it means 'forestall'; ON taking over from other prepositions in all sorts of ways - 'one on one' springs to mind - it used to be 'one to one'; additional OF, as in 'off of' and 'outside of'; FOR FREE for the perfectly good 'free'; and DOUBLE CHECK when nothing has yet been checked for the first time.

One other thing: why do most British English speakers insist on writing -ISE instead of the classically correct -IZE as in the Authorized Bible? It's not that -IZE is American; in fact -ISE is French. Is it true that the -ISE tendency came about because some journalists couldn't differentiate between words such as PRACTISE and the rest such as ORGANIZE, AUTHORIZE? So the Times decreed their style would be -ISE... The OED holds out for -IZE but hardly anyone follows their practice.

Sorry: just a late night rant!

 

[F456]

Thinking of how words take on new meanings I remember this exchange in a late colleague's cookery (Food Technology?) class. She wasn't up on the idiom...

Teacher, in response to rowdy behaviour in class:
"Form 6, I am very very sad."

Pupil:
"Yeah, you're right there, ma'am."

 

[Paul_C]

I
Want to get started on "Irregardless?"

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/irregardless.html (<-- a terrific site, btw)

Though one of my biggest peeves is "loose" where "lose" is intended.

Or that annoying survivalist guy on TV saying "slippy" instead of "slippery."

 

[Pablito]

Ya gotta love, "...it was 7:00 a.m. in the morning..."