English is a funny language. There are so many rules that need to be followed, and some words that don't follow the rules, and some that only apply on Tuesdays when there's a full moon and Jupiter is aligned with a hotdog. Enter Trihan, stage left.
I've been around the block a bit when it comes to the English language. I've studied it at great length, and have always been fascinated by the nuances of it, like the fact that the meaning of a sentence can change completely depending only on how you inflect or stress the syllables in words.
I know that for some people here English isn't their first language, and some others who just have trouble with certain aspects of it, so here's what I'm going to do:
You tell me what aspect of English you don't understand/have trouble with/want to know more about, and I will do the best I can to explain it in a way you can understand that will hopefully illustrate the uses of that aspect and why it is the way it is.
Maybe nobody will actually reply to this, but it's just something I wanted to do for fun so if there's no interest it's not a big deal.
When using brackets (like this), do you put the full stop outside or inside at the end of a sentence. (Like this.) or (Like this).
I've never known how to do it properly because some people do it differently. :) Thanks.
I've read it on the net a couple of times but possesive pronouns (I guess) really confuse me at times. I know IT'S is actually IT IS and stuff like that but I don't get things like JOHN'S, JOHNS - when is it a possesive pronoun and when it is a plural of a noun, the usage of 'S in those cases really messes with me. I go and check every once in a while but I just end up using the wrong things. I just can remember it.
Most of my tenses usage is from what sounds correct to me, but I used to repeat grammar before exams in highschool. ;D
anian - As far as I know:
John's apple = the apple belongs to john
John's an idiot = John is an idiot
Johns = plural
a car's transmission = possesive
cars = plural
Elders - old people
Elders' apples - these apples belong to elders
I may be wrong, but that's how I understand it for years now.
Nouns naturally ending in 's' can be used to show possession in two ways:
Davis' car.
Davis's car.
Both are acceptable.
And yes, you use punctuation OUTSIDE of parenthesis.
What are the correct rules for speech?
''So,'' I said, ''Is the correct way to write speech?''
Where does the punctuation and all the capital letters go? And how does speech within speech work?
Quote from: AtelierGames on Sun 28/06/2009 10:40:50
When using brackets (like this), do you put the full stop outside or inside at the end of a sentence. (Like this.) or (Like this).
I've never known how to do it properly because some people do it differently. :) Thanks.
A full stop is always outside the brackets, as it ends the sentence not the brackets.
@Oliwerko: Correct.
@Progz: In english, we only have Davis' car, not Davis's car. I don't know whether it's a different rule in american. However I suppose you could have Davis's an idiot, although that's one I'm not sure on.
Quote from: Phemar on Sun 28/06/2009 12:58:24
What are the correct rules for speech?
''So,'' I said, ''Is the correct way to write speech?''
Where does the punctuation and all the capital letters go? And how does speech within speech work?
"So I was reading this this thread on English and phemar said, ""So," I said, "Is this the correct way to write speech?""
I think that's right. Think of it like nested loops. And If you weren't be serious, stop trying to be a smartarse :P
Trihan, can you do a lot of us a favor and explain the differences among "they're," "their," and "there?"
My name isn't Trihan but I'll give it a go. :)
They're is a contraction of 'they are'. So you could say: "They're coming home." or "They're very tired."
Their is the possesive: "Their car."
And there: "Is that them over there?"
Thank you Oli, I do not promise to memorise that though, nothing personal. ;)
Quote from: AtelierGames on Sun 28/06/2009 13:59:14And there: "Is that them over there?"
But beside "position", it can also be a statement of "existance"/generally position like: Is there a God? Is there somebody in here?
It's more complicated from a grammar stand point but we're talking about applying it in a sentence.
Yeah, "there is" is similar to german "es gibt", which means something like "exists".
One thing I've always had troubles with are commas. What are the general rules for applying them?
I've been taught a fun -- not too correct I suppose, but still fun in a way -- rule for commas. Probably applies mostly if you've been taught Finnish comma rules first, but still: "If you feel like there should be a comma, there shouldn't and if you think there shouldn't be a comma there probably should."
Commas are one of the few things I don't remember the real rules for.
Heheh...the rule I was taught for commas was that unless you're going to apply them constantly and consistently in the text, it is better to leave them out (except in the obvious places like lists, of course).
Otherwise, the simplest way to place commas is read out the text, and if you think there should be a pause at one point that is not the end of a sentence, put a comma there.
Quote from: ProgZmax on Sun 28/06/2009 12:42:59
And yes, you use punctuation OUTSIDE of parenthesis.
... except when you have a whole sentence in parentheses. (This would be an example.) In that case the punctuation goes inside. The rule of thumb is that if you deleted the brackets and everything inside, you shouldn't have to change anything else (except possibly the spacing around it).
Quote from: Oliwerko on Sun 28/06/2009 11:01:59
a car's transmission = possesive
cars = plural
Just to make things confusing, there are a handful of exceptions where you
can use apostrophe-S to indicate plural, like in the expression "mind your p's and q's."
Quote from: Phemar on Sun 28/06/2009 12:58:24
What are the correct rules for speech?
''So,'' I said, ''Is the correct way to write speech?''
Where does the punctuation and all the capital letters go? And how does speech within speech work?
That's not quite correct. You shouldn't use capital letters after either of the commas:
"So," the commenter explained, "this is the correct way to write dialogue."
This is also true if the bit before the narration ends with some other punctuation, like a question mark or exclamation point:
"What?" replied Phemar. "Like this?"
(If the initial quoted bit would normally end in a full stop, you use a comma instead.) This example also demonstrates that you'll often want to put a full stop after you've identified the speaker, and start the next bit of dialogue as an independent sentence. Whether you should do that depends on where you interrupted the speaker to insert the narration.
For speech-within-speech, you change from double quotes to single quotes (or from single quotes to double quotes), and otherwise do the same thing:
"This is how it goes," said Snarky. "'How does speech within speech work?' you ask. Well, here's your answer!"
Quote from: Oliwerko on Sun 28/06/2009 14:51:10
One thing I've always had troubles with are commas. What are the general rules for applying them?
Well, first of all comma rules differ between American and British English. To generalize, the American rules tend to be more analytical and reflect the grammatical structure of the sentence, while British rules tend to be based more on the rhythms of speech, indicating natural pauses. There are too many rules and exceptions to summarize in a single post. What I have noticed is that Germans often use commas excessively by English standards, typically putting it in front of "that." For example, they might punctuate that sentence:
*What I have noticed is, that Germans often use commas excessively by English standards.
Regarding commas.
Basically, use commas to separate clauses and subclauses.
"I thought that he, an experienced programmer, would be able to do it." is a correct usage as "an experienced programmer" is a subclause to that sentence.
"I thought that he an experienced programmer would be able to do it." This clearly isn't correct as it doesn't make sense.
To be honest, nobody is going to bust your balls about using commas to indicate pauses but the subclause thing is the main reason for them. Also:
"What I have noticed, is that Germans often use commas excessively by English standards" is how I would punctuate that sentence. Of course if I went on to say ", typically putting it in front of "that."" my comma would be incorrect as the new sentence would be this:
What I have noticed, is that Germans often use commas excessively by English standards, typically putting it in front of "that".
This looks wrong to be because " is that Germans often use commas excessively by English standards" isn't a subclause by any means. However, someone might still write that since those are the places where you pause.
Oh that reminds me, you always use a comma after saying "However" if it's a conjuction.
Edit by the Monkey05_06 Foundation for Grammatical Specificness
There is one exception where the full-stop does come inside the parenthesis. (When the content itself is on its own like this and doesn't come as part of another sentence.)
Notice the subtle difference there? That is grammatically correct.
Quote from: ProgZmax on Sun 28/06/2009 12:42:59
Nouns naturally ending in 's' can be used to show possession in two ways:
Davis' car.
Davis's car.
Both are acceptable.
You have to be careful because nouns that are plural and end in 's' just get the apostrophe at the end.
The kids toy. (the toy intended for children)
The kid's toy. (the toy that belongs to a child)
The kids' toy. (the toy belonging to multiple children)
But with formal names, things also change.
John's toys. (the toys belonging to John)
Johns' toys. (the toys belonging to more than one John)
Names that naturally end in 's' can be tricky.
James's toy. (the toy belonging to James)
James' toy. (the toy belonging to James)
There are some names that naturally end in 's' but may also be plural versions of a singular name, like the last name Michaels.
Michael's toy. (the toy belonging Michael)
Michaels's toy. (the toy belonging to Michaels)
Michaels' toy. (the toy belonging to Michaels, or the toy belonging to more than one Michael)
The later doesn't come up often, but sometimes it can be helpful. Usually people can figure it out from the context of what you're writing, but sometimes not. My girlfriend's name is Frances. Unfortunately, most people believe it is spelled like the male Francis. Because it is not a common name (and a surprising number of people have never heard of the name), I make an effort to write her name with the possessive 's rather than a single apostrophe at the end.
Quote from: Mr Flibble on Sun 28/06/2009 16:35:21Oh that reminds me, you always use a comma after saying "However".
That may be true, however there are instances where it's not. :P
Another complication in English is words like "read", "read", "live", "lives", "live", etc.
To explain:
read (RED): Although he had already
read the sentence, he had to go back over it to understand what it meant.
read (REED): He really enjoyed
reading books, particularly by Michael Crichton, author of novels such as
Timeline.
live (LIEv): The news broadcast is being broadcast
live as the story unfolds.
live (LIV): It is said that people try to
live to the fullest when they feel that the end is near.
Also, I'm not entirely sure my list above is accurate...should the commas be inside the quotation marks? There's plenty more examples but you get the idea.
Quote from: monkey_05_06 on Sun 28/06/2009 19:07:15
Quote from: Mr Flibble on Sun 28/06/2009 16:35:21Oh that reminds me, you always use a comma after saying "However".
That may be true, however there are instances where it's not. :P
You always use a comma when it's a conjuction.
When it means something like "no matter how" or something (eg. You wear that damn coat however warm it is outside) then it doesn't take a comma.
Thanks for the commas help everyone.
I think I tend more not to use commas than to use them excessively (and I've been strongly taught not to use commas in front of that).
Is ^^ that parenthesis thing ok?
Trihan, this is really funny actually, cause I thought of starting a thread like this since a few weeks, not because I'm so good in English, but instead because I'm not sure about some words or phrases every now and then and always wanted to ask about it.
But... now I can't think of anything but I'll post next time I have a problem ;).
Quote from: monkey_05_06 on Sun 28/06/2009 19:07:15
That may be true, however there are instances where it's not. :P
In this case you should still have a comma after 'however'.
Of course, this is only if you want to please the pedants. Since I started studying Linguistics, though, they've been banging into us how we should take a
descriptive attitude to English usage rather than a
prescriptive one... if enough people are not using a comma after 'however', then that's what they are doing, and as long as they are understood then it shouldn't be described as 'wrong' or 'bad English' (although, ironically they still check our grammar in our exams and essays...).
I never understood why language teachers think colloquialisms are such a good thing.
Ooh, I need this. I have this line in an email in my game that I have no idea how to punctuate. To make things worse, it is written by a newspaper editor, so it had better freaking be right, right?
Quote
Listen, about that story you're working on, tread carefully.
Do I need a semicolon in there or something. I don't think that second comma is right...
@Vince - I'd say a semi-colon would be correct. You might even get away with a full-stop, but a comma would be wrong.
Me being me I'd probbaly use elipses...
but thats just a bad habit and I'm not entirely sure of it's correct function...
[edit]
Oooh... so we know that someone is working on a story, and that they need to tread carefully... I feel spoiled now... don't think I'll bother to play Resonance anymore. :P
You know, I always thought english is probably the simplest language to start using. Not like it's "simple", because it is very developed in such a way to ease people into it. For example you can see how it's more developed than ie latin, or even german - latin has a lot of changing of nouns etc., while german doesn't follow a normal process of thinking (or thinking like other languages function, like putting verbs at the end of the sentences and how parts change their meaning completly if not placed in just the right order).
English is simple in that way that a beginner can try and use it and be understood. It has some issuses with read and speaking it properly and there are exceptions but all in all, you can easily construct sentences and thoughts.
Maybe it's just me, growing up on the net and watching Cartoon network and stuff since early age...but I think that just helps (for example to recognise frases) and expands the dictionary.
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Mon 29/06/2009 00:10:52Do I need a semicolon in there or something. I don't think that second comma is right...
Everything is ok with that sentence. It is clean, simple and still shows exactly what you mean to say.
I'm usually pretty good with grammar in my language and my profesor told me the rules are the same for english, in that aspect, so I'm pretty sure I'm right.
Quote
Listen, about that story you're working on, tread carefully.
Is fine.
"Listen; about that story you're working on, tread carefully."
"Listen, about that story you're working on: tread carefully."
"Listen, about that story you're working on. Tread carefully."
You could replace it with any of those but I don't consider them to be preferable in any way. Keep it as it is, it's fine.
I'm not sure. The comma seems like the least preferable option to me... but maybe this is an illusion because the main clause is considerably shorter than the rest of it.
If it was me writing I'd put either three dots or a dash in. None of the above seem wrong to me, some just less fitting than others.
What I always wanted to know is: What's the difference between these examples:
1. I painted the room.
2. I have painted the room.
3. I was painting the room.
4. I have been painting the room.
I guess you use 1 in a normal narration, 2 if you are in the present and refer to something you did in the past, that still is of matter now, 3 if you want to introduce a scene, that is interrupted and therefore not complete yet (I was painting the room, when suddenly ...), and 4, if you refer to the act of painting itself (like in "Wow, you're splattered with paint.-- Yes, I've been painting the room).? Or am I totally wrong there?
Generally...
1. I painted the room.
Simple Past
An action that took place at some point in the past.
2. I have painted the room.
Present Perfect Simple
An action that is has been recently completed
3. I was painting the room.
Past Progressive
An action that was going on at a certain time in the past
4. I have been painting the room.
Present Perfect Progressive
An action in the past that has recently stopped or is still going on or a finished action that hasinfluenced the present.
http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/tenses
Nihylist, isn't it the very same in german? At least 1-3, I'm not quite sure about 4. I've always been very good in grammar though I don't know anything about grammatical theory.
1.
Present Perfects are also used in narrative. Usually narratives (stories) are set in the present tense:
It was a dark and stormy night. John killed a man.
But if you're referring to events in the narrative's past, you use present perfect tenses, like so:
But then John remembered back to last Tuesday. There had been a knock at the door.
So John is remembering the past, and we are told that, at the time, there was a knock on the door.
John had answered the door, only to see the man. He was there to paint the bathroom.
Now that we've already established the time frame of "narrative's past", we can slip back into regular past tense.
I hope that makes sense.
2.
As for parentheses, the full-stop within or outside the parentheses really depends.
This is acceptable (and used to provide a thought that wouldn't be a sentence on its own).
This is also acceptable. (Note that this is now a separate sentence on its own, but still a thought outside of the subject matter.)
Hope that helps. :)
3.
Finally, the following would be the correct way to say the "listen" thing:
Listen, about that story: it sucks.
Seems to be a perfect thread for me to ask this (if there's a similar reply already, sorry about that, as I haven't read all the posts):
I once heard people saying when you're writing something about an incident, you cannot mix tenses (don't know if it's really the case), i.e. everything must be using the same tense in the same sentence, maybe even in the same paragraph. Now, I run into some problems, like in the following example (don't mind the genuinity of the matter as it's just randomly made up):
"I visited the Great Wall last week. It was one of the miracles of the world. It contained many... blah, blah..."
It would be obviously that the first "visited" should be in past tense, but how about the "was" and "contained" that follow? As these are considered univerally true facts can I use present tense there?
I recently asked a fellow member and she replied that it's indeed the case that people usually use past tense for the whole thing, so I'd take this advice.
However, today one of our consultants (note: not a consultant of the English subject) mentioned that "we can use present tense to describe something which is still there although the event has happened some time ago. So your example could be as follows:
I visited the Great Wall last week. It is one of the miracles of the world. It contains many... blah, blah..."
Now, I'm a bit confused. Is this just something that both kinds of presenting are accepted in general and it's not important either way I write it?
Quote from: Vince Twelve on Mon 29/06/2009 00:10:52
Quote
Listen, about that story you're working on, tread carefully.
If it was me (I?), I think I would use a colon or a dash (out of personal preference, I could be wrong!).
"Listen, about that story you're working on: tread carefully."
"Listen, about that story you're working on--tread carefully."
There is one thing, we were rehearsing this year, which I seem to have already completely forgotten. I've also forgotten, how this situation is called, so let us use an example. Tell me, one of these is correct:
1)A guy and some politicians were bulding a house
2)A guy and some politicians was building a house
Now, my intuition tells me, number 1 is correct, but it may be wrong. Anyway, please someone explain me the ruleset for these cases.
On a side note, intuition is a funny thing. My sudy of English started simultaneously both at school and home, where I was playing many interesting computer games with many unfamiliar words. So, when I spotted one, I'd open my grandfather's ENG-to-RU vocabulary, printed back in '92.
So, during primary school I'd often subconsciencly remember how this or that word or phrase is written and trust my intuition in tests, with no regard to grammar theory.
In secondary school I've finaly started to seriously study it. And now I've got a problem. Whenever a tricky spot appears, my intuition and knowelge of theory start fighting, terribly confusing me.
I believe you use 'were' when the subject of the sentence is plural (more than one person). You would use 'was' when the subject is singular (a single person).
So, you would say: "John was building a house."
But you wouldn't say: "John, Jessica, Jason, and Jeremy was building a house."
You would use 'were' in that case.
Quote from: Lionmonkey on Mon 29/06/2009 07:03:40
In secondary school I've finaly started to seriously study it. And now I've got a problem. Whenever a tricky spot appears, my intuition and knowelge of theory start fighting, terribly confusing me.
I know that and I can tell you one thing - thinking about the spot does things even worse and does not help at all at most times for me. When I'm in doubt, I usually trust the intuition - and mostly, it's correct. I don't know how, but it mostly is.
Quote from: Gilbet V7000a on Mon 29/06/2009 06:36:13
Now, I'm a bit confused. Is this just something that both kinds of presenting are accepted in general and it's not important either way I write it?
It's true that you use present tense to describe facts that are still true today.
When answering these questions, it's important to recognise that different varieties of English use different rules. An American writing the previous sentence would have written "recognize", for example, and this can also be used in British English (it is the form preferred by the Oxford English and used by the Times newspaper) but endings in -ise are more common and are equally valid. The argument for the "-ize" form is that these words derive from Greek verbs ending in "-izein".
In answer to the apostrophe question: in British English, the underlying rule is that you add an "s" after the apostrophe if you pronounce it, and don't if you don't. Hence "a dog's breakfast" (= the breakfast of a dog) needs an "s" after the apostrophe because we add one to "dog" when pronouncing this, but "the dogs' owners (= the owners of the dogs) has no "s" after the apostrophe because "dogs" (plural) already has one. Proper nouns ending in "s" can either take an extra "s" or not, according to preference and whether it "sounds right". So if you prefer to say "Davisiz ..." for something belonging to Davis, then you write "Davis's ...", but if you think this sounds clumsy and prefer to say "Davis ..." instead, you write "Davis' ...". Dublin has "St. James's Hospital" because whoever named it chose to pronounce two "s"s in the second word, but the football (soccer) stadium in Newcastle-upon-Tyne is "St James' Park" because whoever named it pronounced only one.
American usage differs... from my experience, there seems to be a rule that any noun ending in in "s" or even "z" has no extra "s" after the apostrophe (eg, "the bus' passengers", "the Ritz' clients") whether or not one is pronounced, although I might be mistaken. This looks odd to my British eyes because "the bus' passengers" looks like it should be pronounced "the bus passengers" rather than "the bussiz passengers".
So the point of my post... a lot of these rules depend which type of English (British/Commonwealth English or American English) you are referring to, so, when posting, it is helpful to point out which variety of English you are referring to as things may be different elsewhere in the world.
Quote from: TerranRich on Mon 29/06/2009 05:34:24
1.
Present Perfects are also used in narrative. Usually narratives (stories) are set in the present tense:
It was a dark and stormy night. John killed a man.
But if you're referring to events in the narrative's past, you use present perfect tenses, like so:
But then John remembered back to last Tuesday. There had been a knock at the door.
So John is remembering the past, and we are told that, at the time, there was a knock on the door.
John had answered the door, only to see the man. He was there to paint the bathroom.
Now that we've already established the time frame of "narrative's past", we can slip back into regular past tense.
I think you got confused here a bit.
First sentence is past tense not present and doesn't actually flow so well, you might want to go with: "It was a dark and stormy night, when John killed a man", otherwise I think it sounds strange.
Second sentence ("had been") is past perfect and not present perfect - present perfect is with a present tense of verb "have", ergo the name of the tense.
In the third sentence there should be "a man", not "the man," if only because we don't know who this man is, only that there's a general human male at the door. More importantly, since you used present tense "see", I think you might as well use regular past tense "answered".
Just saying.
1. I guess it's just personal preference. It was just a crude example to illustrate a point anyway.
2. You're absolutely right. I meant "past prefect".
3. It's the same man that John killed in the first sentence. Again, has nothing to do with the point I was trying to illustrate.
Plus, it was all written very late at night. :P
I'm always misusing "ä" [æ] when speaking english. I cannot understand why there isn't a letter for this vocal.
It's everywhere!
It's first sound human being makes after being born. Babies don't cry "aeaeaeae" or "aaaaa"! It's "äää"
An apple. (äpl)
Language. (längvich)
It's there! And yet, I'm never sure if it really is.
Dance. I say "dääns". British say "daans". I'm wrong. But it feels so natural there. And I think I've heard it with my version million times in hollywood movies.
Also, lack of "ö" in whole language feels like absurd. "World". I haven't heard it pronounced like "worm".
Say those words! Hear the difference between 2 "o"-s? Or is there none?
So there's "ö" in language. But it's SO rare! In estonian, shortest word is "öö" (night). A whole word dedicated to and made of 2 same vocals!
But english... none.
Helluva strange language. I will never get over misusing those two - for me - so natural letters.
Another sick thing is using in and on correctly. I usually make (or might make) mistakes. I got sick on december or in December? My language-sense points to latter. But I'm never sure really, since I rely on sense only (as with all languages I know) and never memorize any actual grammar rules.
ALSO thing I never made clear for myself, even though I got A's on tests:
Is an animal he, she or it? If I want to speak about a cat, do I have to lift (her/his/its) tail first to decide on gender? :D
Anyway, I got 90% of my initial english skills from AGI text-parser games :P
I would have never learnt the language to the level I know right now without those.
Yet still, I watch every english-spoken movie with subtitles. Reading clear text is one thing, hearing bloody hero mutter with accent and over explosions... and trying to understand what he just said - is way another...
Animals are "it", I believe. In slovak, cat is a female, while dog is a male, yet in english, I believe they are both "it" (male, female, how do you really call "it"?).
It's funny what you say about ä and similar vocals. I pronounce world and worm almost the same, not sure if that's correct.
With dance, cat and weekdays (sandi/sundey), it's all about the british/american english, there is no "correct" way of saying it.
It's similar with apple and language. The pronounciation rules in english are benevolent. I personally tend to pronounce apple and language with ae's more like e's.
The thing you mention with "in" or "on" December, it's purely a rule. I got used to it by using it :P
It's AT five o'clock, IN December, ON Monday. There are not many of these anyway, only a few you have to get used to.
Quote from: Mr Matti on Mon 29/06/2009 01:53:41
Nihylist, isn't it the very same in german? At least 1-3, I'm not quite sure about 4. I've always been very good in grammar though I don't know anything about grammatical theory.
Not really, though it differs from region to region. 1 and 2 are nearly the same as in English, if not the exact same thing. 3 and 4 are progressive forms, that we don't have in German; we have to find a way around it, 3 with a "gerade", but I don't know, if you can express 4 in German without lossing some of its meaning.
Quote from: InCreator on Mon 29/06/2009 18:58:49
ALSO thing I never made clear for myself, even though I got A's on tests:
Is an animal he, she or it? If I want to speak about a cat, do I have to lift (her/his/its) tail first to decide on gender? :D
When talking about their pets, people usually use "he" or "she" as appropriate. I'd use "it" if I didn't know the gender or I wanted to express a lack of personal attachment (since using gender pronouns is, to an extent, anthropomorphism).
Where's Trihan?
Holy crap, my topic exploded and I didn't even get to answer any questions!
I thought I'd leave it a couple of days because usually when I make a topic like this there isn't much interest, but DAMN!
I'm excited about other questions people might have now! Keep them coming! Or ask for my opinion on any of the questions presented thus far. :)
Final ruling on mine from the great and powerful Trihan?
English is my first language, but I still don't know when it's proper to use "i.e.," vs. "e.g.,"
Dx.
Quote from: Tijne on Tue 30/06/2009 11:39:23
English is my first language, but I still don't know when it's proper to use "i.e.," vs. "e.g.,"
Dx.
Because that's Latin, not English. "i.e." is short for "id est" which means "that is" and "e.g." is "exempli gratia" which means "for example"
See also on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.g.#exempli_gratia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.g.#exempli_gratia)
Quote from: Tijne on Tue 30/06/2009 11:39:23
English is my first language, but I still don't know when it's proper to use "i.e.," vs. "e.g.,"
Dx.
Ha, that was one of the questions I always wanted to ask and always forgot to ask. Thanks!
Quote from: cat on Tue 30/06/2009 11:57:31
Because that's Latin, not English. "i.e." is short for "id est" which means "that is" and "e.g." is "exempli gratia" which means "for example"
Hm, I always thought it was english and stood for "example given", but in a sense that's what it means ;).
I had similar problems with a.m. and p.m., since they sounded like "after mid day" and "past mid day" which obviously wouldn't make any sense but wiki told me that these are latin abbreviations too.
Quote from: anian on Mon 29/06/2009 14:11:23
First sentence is past tense not present and doesn't actually flow so well, you might want to go with: "It was a dark and stormy night, when John killed a man", otherwise I think it sounds strange.
Since we were talking about commas, that sentence shouldn't have one: "It was a dark and stormy night when John killed a man." It's not a great sentence anyway; should preferably be rewritten:
"It was on a dark and stormy night that John killed a man."
"The night John killed a man was dark and stormy."
"John killed a man on a dark and stormy night."
I agree with using "he" and "she" if you know the gender of the animal and have some level of affection for it. Otherwise, it's just "it".
As for i.e. and e.g., here are examples of their usage:
I have a cold (i.e., my nose is running and I'm congested).
I like all kinds of sweets (e.g., pie, cake, pudding).
"My car is more expensive than yours." vs "My car is more expensive then yours."
This is something that confuses me. Is the one with "then" considered to be right? I see examples of it all over and even some authors use it in their books.
- "My car is more expensive then yours."
- "When mine?"
Quote from: Mr Matti on Tue 30/06/2009 14:21:04
I had similar problems with a.m. and p.m., since they sounded like "after mid day" and "past mid day" which obviously wouldn't make any sense but wiki told me that these are latin abbreviations too.
Heh, I never had problems with these because my first language (Finnish) comes to a rescue. For a.m. it's "
aamu"=morning and for p.m. it's "
päivä"=day. ;D
@ Zabnat... do not use 'then' in this context. It's wrong. The fact that a lot of people use it on the internet is probably an indication of how badly they did/will do at school.
As far as then and than goes, I remember only two rules:
"My cock is bigger than yours."
"I will rape your wife, then your daughter."
THAN = comparison (I am smarter than you)
THEN = sequential order (I will laugh, then I will cry)
I'm still wondering what the short expression for "at your place" (or something) is. Maybe "At yours"?
Yep. "Party at your place tonight?" could be contracted to "Party at yours tonight?".
I've never heard it said "at yours" before. It's always "at your place" in conversation, at least in my experience.
True, but I've seen the phrase "up yours" used pretty frequently.
'at yours' is fine. It's pretty standard practice.
Quote from: Oliwerko on Tue 30/06/2009 21:32:09
True, but I've seen the phrase "up yours" used pretty frequently.
So have I, and it's not usually in good spirits. ;)
Quote from: Stupot on Tue 30/06/2009 23:09:46
'at yours' is fine. It's pretty standard practice.
as phrases like this usually are, because they don't really "contain" anything offensive ;D
Party up yours!
No, but I've got one serious concern. Lots of people seem to write things like "I used to date your mum, but I didn't used to brag about it.", which looks completely wrong to me. Is this correct, or is it a strange automatism that comes from using the fixed expression "I used to" in a negative context?
Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.
Quote from: kaputtnik on Wed 01/07/2009 11:09:17
Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.
Yup, that's the correct way. "Didn't used to" is wrong.
Is that because the "didn't" in "didn't use to" means it's already past tense, so the "use" doesn't have to be, while the other part doesn't have that modifier so you have to have "used"? Could you have (although it sounds clunky to my ear) "I did use to date your mother, but I never used to brag about it" - swapping the tense modifiers?
(If that's what you'd call them. Sorry, I'm a native English speaker but have no formal training - so my grasp of grammar and punctuation, etc, is more luck than judgement. As has been said, a trained non-native speaker probably knows the rules of a language better than the average native speaker.)
Incidentally: I pretty much exclusively hear 'at yours' used instead of 'at your place', unless whoever's saying it is going for a deliberately cheesy "Your place or mine, hur hur hur" vibe. Colloquial vs. 'proper' English, I suppose. 'Up yours' is generally used in good spirits in my experience - or at least jokingly, between friends. It's just too ... quaint sounding to have any impact if used 'for real' any more. Or maybe it's just that I know better swearwords now than I did as a teenager...
LOL, what do you mean native speaker without formal training? Didn't you go to school?
Yeah, you can "switch" between them, "didn't" and "did" puts it in the past tense.
@InCreatorQuote from: InCreator on Mon 29/06/2009 18:58:49
I'm always misusing "ä" [æ] when speaking english. I cannot understand why there isn't a letter for this vocal.
An apple. (äpl)
Language. (längvich)
It's there! And yet, I'm never sure if it really is.
Dance. I say "dääns". British say "daans". I'm wrong. But it feels so natural there. And I think I've heard it with my version million times in hollywood movies.
Also, lack of "ö" in whole language feels like absurd. "World". I haven't heard it pronounced like "worm".
Say those words! Hear the difference between 2 "o"-s? Or is there none?
So there's "ö" in language. But it's SO rare! In estonian, shortest word is "öö" (night). A whole word dedicated to and made of 2 same vocals!
But english... none.
Helluva strange language. I will never get over misusing those two - for me - so natural letters.
Another sick thing is using in and on correctly. I usually make (or might make) mistakes. I got sick on december or in December? My language-sense points to latter. But I'm never sure really, since I rely on sense only (as with all languages I know) and never memorize any actual grammar rules.
ALSO thing I never made clear for myself, even though I got A's on tests:
Is an animal he, she or it? If I want to speak about a cat, do I have to lift (her/his/its) tail first to decide on gender? :D
So many questions!
Unlike some other languages, English has more sounds than it has letters to represent them, so the same letter (or combination of letters) is used to represent more than one sound. The vowel "a" can represent the "short" sound in "cat" or the "long" sound in "day". The sound in "dance" is the
same as the sound in "cat" in northern England and the US, which is why you hear it pronounced like that in American films. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-open_front_unrounded_vowel. For the vowel in "bath" as pronounced in southern England (which is considered the standard for British English), see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_back_unrounded_vowel. (No point in me trying to explain this with words - you need to hear the sounds.)
The vowel sounds in "worm" and "world" are identical - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_central_unrounded_vowel. These are different from the sound in "for" - that is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_back_rounded_vowel. (This is for British English - other varieties of English may vary.) I'm not sure how "öö" is pronounced in Estonian. Maybe it is like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-mid_front_rounded_vowel or this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-mid_front_rounded_vowel
Animals... usually you use "it", but "he" or "she" can also be used when you know the (physical) gender of the animal, and especially when talking about an animal affectionately (such as when referring to a pet). For example "Is that your dog? She's lovely" ("It's lovely" would sound strange here, so usually you would ask whether it is a male or a female first and then say "He's/She's lovely").
@GuyAwesomeQuote from: GuyAwesome on Wed 01/07/2009 12:24:08
Is that because the "didn't" in "didn't use to" means it's already past tense, so the "use" doesn't have to be, while the other part doesn't have that modifier so you have to have "used"?
Yep, "to use" is an old verb meaning "to do habitually" that is now used only in the past tense, so, strictly speaking, "didn't use to" is correct, but because the verb is now only used in the past (as "used") and only before "to", "used to" naturally sounds like it should become "didn't used to" in the negative. Both forms ("didn't use to", "didn't used to") are now considered correct.
anian:
Heh. Yeah I went to school, even did a bit of Linguistics at university. I just don't count GSCE-level English Language (I was better at Literature, anyway) or a couple of months of 'paying the bare minimum attention to get a pass in Ling 101', as formal training :). Hell, my mum is a teacher*, and her grammar, punctuation, and spelling are worse than mine.
For comparison, GCSE French probably included more detail about the grammatical rules of the language in 2 years than I covered in however many years of English classes. (Of course, I remember even less of that than I do English grammar.)
* Admittedly, a primary school teacher and not a university lecturer. Still, the point stands - 'a basic education' is not the same as 'formal training'. I meant degree level, at least...
paolo:
Ta, didn't know that about 'use', but honestly both 'didn't use to' and 'didn't used to' sound pretty awkward to me.
Is 'use' in the sense of 'to utilise'/'make use of' ("I use my computer every day", "I often use the stairs instead of the lift") a different form, and so can be present tense? Or have I missed the point somewhere?
Quote from: Oliwerko on Wed 01/07/2009 11:10:29
Quote from: kaputtnik on Wed 01/07/2009 11:09:17
Normally you should think "I didn't use to" was the right way to put it.
Yup, that's the correct way. "Didn't used to" is wrong.
"didn't use to" is not correct at all... in
this context you always use "used". There is always a 'd' at the end, even it doesn't sound like it's there when you say it aloud.
However, in the original sentence you should omit the second used of "used to" altogether:
"I used to date your mum, but I didn't brag about it." is much better form.
Using "used to" with something you
didn't do always sounds a bit wrong (especially if you've already used it to describe something you
did do, in the same sentence).
It's probably better to say "I never bragged about it" and "I wasn't captain of the foozeball team" rather than "I didn't used to..."
Now I'm a bit confused.
"I did not use to" is gramatically incorrect, while "I didn't used to" is correct, but only sounds weird?
There are two contexts where you never say "use to" - you only use "used to":
1. (as we have been discussing) If you used to do or be something.
e.g. "I used to work on a farm", "I used to be good at swimming".
2. If you are accustomed to something or it happens often.
e.g. "I am used to being called a moron", "I am used to finding blood in my stools"
But, as for example 1... if you make that a negative it is just better form to say "I've never worked on a farm" or "I was never any good at swimming", rather than "didn't used to..."
...just avoid using it, think of it as a writing exercise ;)
According to the people here: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php91711 it's "didn't use to".
Then again, they also say to instead use "never used to" and all confusion would disappear. ;)
According to OED:
Quote21. With to and inf.: To be accustomed or wont to do something.
In very frequent use from c 1400, but now only in pa. tense used to, [...], and colloq. in did (not) use (or used) to: see also USEN'T, USETER; used to could: see CAN v.1 A. 7.
So, these days there is always a 'd', even when it's negative.
I like
usen't ('used not').
"I used to date your mum, but I
usen't to brag about it."
From what I read of the text you quoted, it seems as though either way ("didn't use to" or "didn't used to") is correct.
Usen't is uncomfortably close to amn't (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/amn%27t) and it makes me feel itchy inside.
Quote from: Stupot on Wed 01/07/2009 17:12:26
"didn't use to" is not correct at all... in this context you always use "used".
Nonsense. Would you say something like "when I was a kid, I didn't went to school"?
Quote from: Stupot on Wed 01/07/2009 19:01:50
According to OED:
Quote21. With to and inf.: To be accustomed or wont to do something.
In very frequent use from c 1400, but now only in pa. tense used to, [...], and colloq. in did (not) use (or used) to: see also USEN'T, USETER; used to could: see CAN v.1 A. 7.
So, these days there is always a 'd', even when it's negative.
No, the OED is just saying that these days we don't talk about "using to do something" except in the past tense. We don't say "I still use to get my coffee at Starbucks."
Everything I've ever learned about English tells me that "didn't use to" is the correct way of saying it. Every source I can find online substantiates this.
Ahh fair play. After a bit of looking about I think I'll have to put my hands up and make a u-turn. It seems that 'didn't use to' is accepted. But it also seems we're not the first ones to discuss this and it is a source of much confusion. And that is because 'didn't use(d) to', with or without a 'd' is slightly anachronistic and just horrible to say and there are plenty more elgent ways to make the same point.
So let's agree to stick with "never used to". So ends the meeting of the Honorable English Language Proper Use Syndicate (HELP US).
I vote for renaming this thread "English 101 without Trihan"
Gah! You people post too fast for me to keep up with! XD
I'm sorry I haven't actually answered anyone yet, but by the time I see the questions they've generally already been answered and if nothing else I've started a discussion so even without my input so far I'm glad to have opened the gates.
I've always written lists like this...
- I need: Milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and rocks. (For a rock cake :))
But recently I was told there should be no comma before the and. Ever. Is this right? And would it be grammatically correct to write it like this, without an and?
- I need: Milk, flour, eggs, sugar, rocks.
Thanks. I like the thread title change by the way. :)
Quote from: AtelierGames on Sat 04/07/2009 08:27:21
I've always written lists like this...
- I need: Milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and rocks. (For a rock cake :))
But recently I was told there should be no comma before the and. Ever. Is this right? And would it be grammatically correct to write it like this, without an and?
- I need: Milk, flour, eggs, sugar, rocks.
Thanks. I like the thread title change by the way. :)
I think the use of the colon means that you can leave 'and' out. You have decided to write your list horizontally, but if you were to write it veritacally it would look like this:
I need:
*milk
*flour
*eggs
*sugar
*rocks
(you wouldn't use 'and' in this list, so I suppose you wouldn't use it in the horizontal list either - although the vertical list also means you don't need commas or full-stops)
However, if you were to write the list without the colon, especially in a piece of written prose, then you
should always use 'and'.
e. g. "I went to the shop and bought milk, flour, eggs, sugar
and rocks."
(note there is no comma after 'sugar').[/list]
Comma and "and" only go together when followed by a clause which has a different grammatical function.
So it's like this:
I need milk, flour, eggs and sugar.
I need milk, flour, eggs and sugar, and then I need to visit the pharmacy.
Actually, the final comma is optional, and depends on the house style. Both of these are correct:
"Milk, flour, eggs, sugar, and rocks"
"Milk, flour, eggs, sugar and rocks"
A comma in this position is called an "Oxford comma" (because the Oxford University Press style guide insists on it while the Cambridge University Press avoids it) or a serial comma.
Even if you pick one style, there may be times when it's best to make an exception in order to avoid ambiguity. (Although Wikipedia provides an amusing example of a sentence that can be misread however you punctuate it: "Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.")
Oh, interesting input there...
I would still recommend that when you write a simple list (without any possible ambiguities) just avoid the final comma. I think it disrupts the prosody, as it - in my eyes - presents the final item with some kind of special emphasis.
As with most "either way is right" deals in English, just go with whatever (1) causes the least confusion, and (2) sounds the best.
Even when using colons and semicolons, an "and" can still be used, especially with long sentences:
A beepobroxal can be derflegongled in many ways: by haefering the loobilom; through nefiterication of gergipeens, which are bumberiferously dextrible; and by laughing at the mentall impaired.
It's not the best example of semicolon usage, but I vaguely remember something I wrote a while ago that used this format.
Quote from: TerranRich on Sat 04/07/2009 18:11:44
A beepobroxal can be derflegongled in many ways: by haefering the loobilom; through nefiterication of gergipeens, which are bumberiferously dextrible; and by laughing at the mentall impaired.
To my eyes that last semi-colon needs to be a comma though it's hard to tell what the clauses are and what's part of a list and what isn't since it's all gibberish, but as we all know the semi-colon introduces a list (or acts as a conjuction) it shouldn't reappear in the list unless there's a second list happening inside the list (which may be what you were writing here, it's hard to tell).
Actually, the colon indicates that a list is beginning, while each semicolon denotes the next item in said list, so TerranRich's sentence is grammatically correct.
If there are commas within each list item, semicolons are preferred, to tell the difference.
I need some items: a vacuum, a hair brush, and a toilet seat.
That's just a regular list, but if you needed to explain something about one of the items, you'd do this:
I need some items: a vacuum, which my sister stole; a hair brush, which I accidentally the whole thing; and a toilet seat, which I collect.
While the underlying logic of what you said is true, that sentence is pretty horrible. XD though one reason for that is likely a typo.
A hair brush which you accidentally the whole thing? :P
Also, maybe it's just personal preference, but "and a toilet seat, which I collect" flows awkwardly to me. Technically speaking it sounds like you're saying that you only collect that one toilet seat. I'd much prefer "and a toilet since, because I collect them".
Of course, if you want to eliminate commas entirely, you could reword it as "I need some items: A vacuum which was stolen by my sister; a hair brush which I accidentally [whatever you meant to say]; and a toilet seat for my collection."
------
LEVEL 1 GRAMMARTECH: SPECIAL LESSON
------
Now here's one for free: the difference between "was" and "were". It's a subtle difference, but one that does exist and I'm now going to explain it to you.
In terms of past tense, you use "was" if the past event you are referring to is true or actually happened. You use "were" if it isn't true or didn't happen. For example:
"I was on my way to the shops when I stumbled and fell." In this case, you actually were on your way to the shops, so you use "was". "I were on my way to the shops" is obviously incorrect.
"I wish I were more popular on the MSPA forums!" I'm not popular on the MSPA forums, so I use were. "I wish I was more popular on the MSPA forums!" while technically acceptable, is grammatically incorrect simply because I'm referring to something that isn't true.
Really, anything that you -wish- were true, you should use "were" for. And now you know!
You don't really need to wish that it was true, it can be just any hypothetical situation.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Quote from: Trihan on Sun 05/07/2009 05:32:39
In this case, you actually were on your way to the shops,
If what you're saying is true then surely you mean:
"In this case, you actually
was on your way to the shops"
because it's a true statement. But that sounds wrong to me.
Equally, you wouldn't say "you was late for the party", even if the subject
was late.
Surely, it all depends on the pronoun... 'I/he/she
was late' and 'you/they/we'
were late.
Maybe the system you describe was used once upon a time, but equally nobody says 'thee, thine, thou' or 'thither, hither, whither' any more in real conversation.
Yeah, it doesn't work for EVERY situation, obviously. It's just one of those general rules of English that gets subverted by everything else. :P
I'll add a corollary to it.
If you're talking about -yourself-, using first person pronouns, or he/she, then my was/were rule applies. Generally because in cases where you'd use "were" you're talking about hypothetical situations and not something based in reality. So obviously you're never going to start a sentence with "I were". Likewise, if using you, they or we, as you accurately pointed out, the next word would have to be were.
Of course this doesn't take into account dialect, since cockneys would absolutely say "you was late" or "you was on your way to the shops". :P
Trihan: You always use a comma before "which".
As for the "accidentally the whole thing", it was a joke: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-accidentally
Quote from: TerranRich on Mon 06/07/2009 00:10:49
Trihan: You always use a comma before "which".
I don't know(,) which plonker told you that. Perhaps he needs some new books with(,) which to learn English.
Yeah, I don't know where you learned that one Terran but it's just been pretty thoroughly disproven. :P
Hi
Well, I won't ask anything about English :).
But if you think English is strange I will give one example from my language (Slovenian) that a lot of languages don't have.
In English you use: He, she or it -> for 1 person (thing)
They -> for 2,3,4 or more persons
In Slovenian we use: On, ona -> for 1 person
Onedva, onidve -> for 2 persons
Oni, One -> for 3 or more persons
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I must say that English is not that hard to understand. And some things are far easier to explain in english than a slovenian language. And we have a lot of rules on how to place "commas", which I hate :).
-> a bit off topic <-
If English isn't that hard to understand, why do so many people have trouble with it? :P
;D Well it's far easier to understand and construct simple sentences, it's harder to master it. What Sector was trying to say that other languages have more grammar rules to learn adn for instance German has 4 but in some Slavic languages there are 7 declinations (don't know if that's the word to use though, 'cause English doesn't even have that):
for example: I'm coming closer to the boat. & I am a boat. --> in Croatian the word boat in the first sentence would be "čamac" while in the second it would be "čamcu." And those are simple things.
Latin has even more and even different for different types of nouns.
Ugh. So I mistyped. I didn't mean before every single usage of the word "which", I mean usages of the word "which" used as such:
I have a dog, which is a good thing. ("good thing" describes the act of having a dog, not the dog itself, hence the word "which")
I'm not sure what the correct term is for the usage of the word "which" in that case (restrictive clause?), but in such a usage a comma should be used. If you use the word "that", no comma is needed nor is it used:
I have a dog that smells funny.
That's what I meant. :) In other words, it is incorrect to say I have a dog which has brown fur.
Although as an addendum to that, the comma can actually change the meaning of the sentence entirely. To wit:
"I have a dog that is funny." = "I have a dog, and he has a good sense of humour."
"I have a dog, that is funny." = "I have a dog. It is amusing that I have a dog." (though technically you can still mean the first meaning even with the comma. In spoken English the meaning is determined by your -pronunciation- of the word 'that'. If you're conveying the first meaning, you'll pronounce it "thaaat" while the second is more like "tht" or "thit". Who said English was simple? :P)
To make the second meaning even clearer in written English, you'd use a semicolon: "I have a dog; that is funny."
Though really to avoid confusion if you meant the first meaning you could just go ahead and say "I have a funny dog."
Quote from: Trihan on Tue 07/07/2009 07:14:30
"I have a dog, that is funny."
I have been not to put a comma before "that". Does it apply only for clauses?
It's frowned upon, yes, but there's nothing inherently wrong with doing it. It's really better to use a semicolon.
Quote from: Trihan on Tue 07/07/2009 07:14:30
"I have a dog that is funny." = "I have a dog, and he has a good sense of humour."
I would've written "...and
it has a good sense of humour.", since animals are usually referred to as it. Do pets get the proper he/she?
[edit]
Thanks, good to know!
|
v
Quote from: Trihan on Tue 07/07/2009 09:18:50
It's frowned upon, yes, but there's nothing inherently wrong with doing it. It's really better to use a semicolon.
Ah, but that
is what is wrong with it. Joining two sentences with a comma is incorrect; a semicolon, colon or conjunction should be used instead. So in this case: "I have a dog and he has a good sense of humour"/"I have a dog and that is funny" or "I have a dog; he has a good sense of humour"/"I have a dog; that is funny" (= it is funny that I have a dog).
Quote from: Ghost on Tue 07/07/2009 11:49:03
Quote from: Trihan on Tue 07/07/2009 07:14:30
"I have a dog that is funny." = "I have a dog, and he has a good sense of humour."
I would've written "...and it has a good sense of humour.", since animals are usually referred to as it. Do pets get the proper he/she?
See my reply earlier on in this thread. "He/she" is OK for pets.
[/list]
Yeah, Terran, you're right about the restrictiveness.
If the information after the "which" is optional, it becomes a non-restricted subclause and thus gets a comma before it.
"She will bring pies, which I like." In this sentence, the fact that I like them doesn't change the pies in any way, it's just extra information.
However:
"She will bring pies which I like", means that she will only bring pies that I like.
In the latter case, most people would prefer "that" instead of "which", although it's not grammatically incorrect.
Trihan: "I have a dog, that is funny." is still not correct. If you mean it to be two separate sentence, then separate them as such.
I have a dog; that is funny. (Meaning. "I have a dog. That fact in itself is humorous.")
Andail: That's not the way I was taught in school. Though I guess my teachers could've been wrong. I do live in America, after all. ;)
No worries, I just read on wikipedia that Americans tend to consider using "which" for restrictive clauses incorrect, so you're partly right.
Well, the spellchecker in M$Word (2000, which I'm now using, don't know if this is fixed in newer versions) loves to annoy me with the green curly line whenever a sentence contains a 'which' and wants to force me into changing it to 'that' (no matter the language is set to UK or American English). I just ignore it and consider it stupid.
Quote from: Gilbet V7000a on Wed 08/07/2009 08:10:30
Well, the spellchecker in M$Word (2000, which I'm now using, don't know if this is fixed in newer versions) loves to annoy me with the green curly line whenever a sentence contains a 'which' and wants to force me into changing it to 'that' (no matter the language is set to UK or American English). I just ignore it and consider it stupid.
That's odd. Maybe it's just your application, but I've seen other word processors suggest replacing "X which Y" with either "X that Y" or "X, which Y". Do you not get the second option?
Solution: It's Microsoft.
Right. And I don't find this "odd". It would take AGE if I need to post its other "oddities" here.
Ee-ther, i-ther, or nee-ther? Or perhaps ni-ther?
What? Are you asking the difference between "either" and "neither", as well as their pronunciation?
Just the pronunciation. I think the function should be pretty obvious :)
And it's only related to regional accent, I would say. "ee-ther" is prevalent among Americans, while "eye-ther" appears among Brits, but is far from universal anywhere.
Even amongst the UK I've heard people use both pronounciations. As far as I'm aware they're both considered correct.
Both pronounciations are interchangeable. I'm pretty sure I use both and I don't even think it's especially regional.
It's weird... I pronounce "either" ee-ther, and "neither" nye-ther.
Yeah, it's mostly personal preference. Both pronunciations are fine IMO. It's also somewhat dependent on the context in which it's used. For example:
"Neither of us were there that day." I would pronounce nigh-ther.
"You weren't there that day? Me neither!" I would pronounce nee-ther.
Quote from: Trihan on Fri 10/07/2009 10:43:58
Yeah, it's mostly personal preference. Both pronunciations are fine IMO. It's also somewhat dependent on the context in which it's used. For example:
"Neither of us were there that day." I would pronounce nigh-ther.
"You weren't there that day? Me neither!" I would pronounce nee-ther.
It's weird, I do the same thing and I don't know why.
Same here.
And now I have a question of my own.
Is it "me either" or "me neither"?
Me neither. Generally speaking you never have two words next to each other in a sentence where the end of the first and the start of the second are vowels with the same pronunciation.
Quote from: Trihan on Sat 11/07/2009 03:32:18
Me neither. Generally speaking you never have two words next to each other in a sentence where the end of the first and the start of the second are vowels with the same pronunciation.
I don't think that's true in English? (Although quite likely the pronunciation of one of the vowels will be automatically modified to make the separation clear.) And in this case it doesn't even apply, because (1) you can easily construct a sentence with "me either", e.g.: "You can help me either by doing X or by doing Y", and (2) if it were a problem, you could just use the "eye-ther"-pronunciation.
The reason we say "me neither" is semantic. It's a negative; you're saying that something is
not true of you either. Other, perhaps less elegant ways to put it would be "not me either" or "nor me".
Yes, 'me either' isn't really correct, although I often hear it in American TV and cinema.
Think of it in these pairs... and stick to them if you want to please the pedants.
*either/or
*neither/nor
('either/nor' and 'neither/or' are grammatically not incorrect. Please avoid ;))
e.g.
* You can either bat or bowl, but not both.
* Children should be neither seen nor heard.
So if something is negative, i.e 'I don't like old people', you would say "me neither", not "me either"
Just like you would never say "Or do I", but you would say "Nor do I".
I say "Or do I" sometimes if I'm playing at being mysterious.
Edit: I was doing a joke. I'm just going to clarify that incase someone tries to learn wrong English from me.
Mr Flibble: That's incorrect. It would be "Nor do I" or "Neither do I". Hence, "Me neither" would technically be correct. Thanks all!
I just remembered one thing I wanted to ask for a long time now but always forgot about.
The word "realize" is used for when you're aware of something.... but is it also used for when you, say, bring an idea to life / make it real? So that you can say "I realized my idea and finally made a game!"?
In german you can use the word for both but I was never sure about it in English.
I'm very certain that you can use 'realize' in both contexts in English just as well as in German... as in:
(1) ...and only then I realized I wasn't wearing any pants.
(2) ...a project I wanted to realize for years but never got around to.
Quote from: Mr Flibble on Sun 12/07/2009 00:56:46
I say "Or do I" sometimes if I'm playing at being mysterious.
Haha, yeah, I see what you mean...
...Or do I?
I have a question not about english spelling but about pronounciation.
"Pritty" is spelled wrong, but if pronounced, does it sound different than "pretty"? Can a person hear the difference?
The same goes for:
sense - sence
would - wood
eye - I
knows - nose
That's all I can think up right now.
Just wondering, really.
hmm, wondering - wandering.
Phonemes (sounds) are not bound to letters. 'Eye' and 'I' for example are spelled differently but if you record the sounds when pronouncing or transcribing it using the IPA both are identical (/ai/). So, to answer your question, no, there is no difference in pronunciation between none of your examples (at least in AmE, can't speak for BrE).
EDIT: Yeah, sense - sence would be different. The quality of the final sound (the 's') is different, sense would be /s/ and sence /tz/ (can't use proper IPA symbols here unfortunately) basically, I guess.
Quote from: jetxl on Sun 12/07/2009 17:32:52
sense - sence
Sence?
Anyhow, usually c and s differ in the sense that after vowels (and in some cases consonants), c is always voiceless, whereas s typically is voiced /z/.
Hence, words like ice and eyes are pronounced differently, but beginners/foreigners often miss it.
You might know this, just wanted to add something useful after my "sence?" comment.
Edit 2:
Dkh, in your current edit, you're way off.
Quote
EDIT: Yeah, sense - sence would be different. The quality of the final sound (the 's') is different, sense would be /s/ and sence /tz/ (can't use proper IPA symbols here unfortunately) basically, I guess.
sence, whatever that word means, would be /s/.
Quote from: dkh on Sun 12/07/2009 17:51:22
no difference in pronunciation between none of your examples
I believe that would be "between any of your examples" ? :P
Double negation is completely accepted in African-American Vernacular English. :p
"Sence" is not a word. It's a misspelling of "sense". Just thought I'd mention that.
Quote from: Andail on Sun 12/07/2009 18:16:49
Edit 2:
Dkh, in your current edit, you're way off.
Quote
EDIT: Yeah, sense - sence would be different. The quality of the final sound (the 's') is different, sense would be /s/ and sence /tz/ (can't use proper IPA symbols here unfortunately) basically, I guess.
sense would be /z/ and sence, whatever that word means, /s/.
Of course, sense would be /z/, typo there. Sence isn't a word, if it were I would actually pronounce it with a /tz/ I think but I'm not a native speaker.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, you're probably right about sence too, let's not talk about non-existing words though... :)
Actually, neither word would be pronounced with /z/.
Sense is simply [sens].
But in other words, especially after vowels, and sometimes after consonants if it's a plural marker, s would be /z/.
Let's leave this boring chapter and move on to more interesting questions!
I never understood IPA all that well, but I personally pronounce "sense" as "sen-ss", pure "S" sounds.
Quote from: Andail on Sun 12/07/2009 20:10:18
...
Let's leave this boring chapter and move on to more interesting questions!
Geez, did I opened a can of english teacher whoopass?
So even though the vowel in "pritty" and "pritty" are different, they are pronounced the same. And the last vowel in "sense" isn't even pronounced.
I though there might be some minute difference only noticeable by the natives, which would make writing the words easier but I once again conclude that language, unlike math, is just kaotik krep.
Yea, let's stop with the phonetic/phonology talk, it's not exactly my favorite chapter either... :)
jetxl, the problem is that language is really quite arbitrary at the level of letters (these are called graphemes in linguistics), at the level of phonemes you can actually recognize a lot of progresses and changes that work in a very mathematical, logical and predictable fashion.
Anyways, one thing I'm curious about, when you say the word 'advertisement', what syllable do you stress, ADvertisement (I'd always do this) or adVERtisemet (heard people do it), is this an AmE vs. BrE thing? Also, issue, do you pronounce the 's' as in the word 'sure' (basically ishyou) or as in 'scent' (isyou)? Again I'd never even consider saying the second but I've heard it, even in American TV, I think.
I emphasise the VER myself, and pronounce it shoor.
Quote from: dkh on Mon 13/07/2009 01:13:43
Anyways, one thing I'm curious about, when you say the word 'advertisement', what syllable do you stress, ADvertisement (I'd always do this) or adVERtisemet (heard people do it), is this an AmE vs. BrE thing? Also, issue, do you pronounce the 's' as in the word 'sure' (basically ishyou) or as in 'scent' (isyou)? Again I'd never even consider saying the second but I've heard it, even in American TV, I think.
ad-VER-tiz-m'nt (SAMPA: /{d"v3:tIzm@nt/) is the standard British pronunciation. I can't vouch for the US pronunciation, but AD-ver-tize-m'nt (SAMPA: /"{dv3`taIzm@nt/) is considered incorrect in the UK.
"Issue" (and "tissue", etc) is usually "ISH-yoo" (SAMPA: /"ISju/) in UK English but some people prefer "ISS-yoo" (SAMPA: /"Isju/), which I believe is an earlier pronunciation.
Similarly, British English is starting to see the "tyoo" sound at the start of "Tuesday" change into "choo" (standard American English has "too" here, so the change is not happening there) and "dyoo" becoming "joo" (as in "dual", now pronounced identically to "jewel" by some speakers of British English), but these are currently considered non-standard.
What that guy said.
BONUS LESSON: than/then
----------------------------------
I've seen many, many people stumble headlong into the pitfall that is than/then. I think it's mostly people whose mother tongue isn't English, but since the two words are so similar I'll take a little bit of time to explain what each one actually is, and what it's used for.
Than is used in comparison. For example "I have a better grasp of written English -than- you." In this case, I am saying that my grasp of written English is superior to yours. Than is mostly used in conjunction with two or more nouns/adjectives/verbs that are being compared, though there are exceptions. Rather than list them all, I'll simply put a subtle one in this very sentence. Did you spot it? A famous example in common proverbs would obviously be "better late than never" in which case I'm stating that being late is preferable to never turning up. This might all seem like old hat, but bear with me. (note that technically when we say "rather than X", it's a shortened way of saying "I would prefer to do X as opposed to not doing X" so it does follow the same rules, sort of)
Now to then. I most commonly see people using this in place of than, not so much the other way around. Then is used in statements involving time, pretty much, generally to declare the next item(s) in a list of actions that are being performed on an implicit or explicit timescale. To translate what I just said into English, some examples: "I'm going to go to the shops and then take a bath." this basically means that I'm going to take my bath after I've been to the shops. It can also be used as a qualifier: "If you did your homework then you can play video games." then in this case is pretty much superfluous and isn't actually needed, but technically it's grammatically correct to have it there. It can also be used in things like "Well then, I guess we'll stay home!", but in those cases the "then" is definitely superfluous and I'm not actually sure grammar cares whether it's there.
Hopefully I've shed some light on this problem. I'd rather confuse some people and possibly educate some others then suffer people constantly misusing these two words. Until next time!
We already went over than/then in this thread, I thought.
I've always been confounded by the pronunciation of "advertisement" with the stress on the "VER". After all, the word "advertise" is pronounced "AD-ver-tize", is it not? That's just my American logic though. :P
As for "issue", I pronounce it with a "sh" sound, as do all the people I've ever spoken to.
You probably did, Terran, I've got a memory like a sieve.
Is the following gramatically correct?
"There's not much more insane than my mind can get."
No. I don't even understand what point you're trying to get across with that sentence.
"You can't get much more insane than my mind sometimes gets." (Still not a great sentence.)
I'm not sure there's an elegant way to say exactly, literally what you're trying to say, so I would rewrite it to something like: "There's nothing crazier than my mind at its craziest!"
I think the problem is that you're taking two phrases that are pretty awkward on their own, and sticking them together in a confusing way. Just to take the first part, "There's not much more insane..." doesn't work. I'm not sure why. "There's not much more we can do" is fine. "There's not much higher to go," likewise. "There's not much crazier you can get" is... acceptable, though awkward. "There's not much more insane you can get" is bad.
That's exaclty what I thought, but I still can't think of any more elegant way. :-\
How about "Few minds are as insane as mine." ?
"My mind is approaching the upper limits of its maximum potential for insanity." ;D
The verbosity of the preceding statement appeals greatly to my inherent penchant for obfuscation of simple sentences.
How about "I'm nucking futs."
Isn't that called a spoonerism, after the famous Dr Spooner?
Reverend Spooner, and yes. A spoonerism is taking the initial sounds of two words and swapping them around.
Other interesting nuances of English:
Mondegreens - misheard song lyrics. (for example, "she's got a chicken to ride")
Malapropisms - Words in a sentence replaced with other words that sound the same but mean something different. (for example: "If it's any consolidation, I'm not that great with English either.")
can anybody helpe me please?my question is in the first topic
Malapropisms come from Mrs Malaprop, a character in the play "The Rivals", written by playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Bet you didn't know that. ;) Or did you?
I was aware of that, yes. :)
*looks up emily's question*
Edit: Oh, I thought you meant you'd posted a question in here. I don't really know much technically about AGS. I'm sure someone else will be able to help you though.
Something I wish people would get right:
It's a phenomenon, multiple phenomena, and a criterion, multiple criteria. Yesterday, my boss was going on about how "our top criteria is" this and that, and how "all the criterias need to be fulfilled", and I had to grit my teeth not to interrupt.
Snarky: Likewise, a medium, multiple media. That gets on my tits too.
@Trihan:
Isn't "medium" like a surrounding matter (like water, air etc.) or is it both the same word?
By multiple media, do you mean like sensory (touch and taste) or like a digital term (like movies have sound and vision)?
(I'm not arguing with you, simply qurious) :)
In modern English media is used as a singular, but it derives originally from the singular medium. I was referring mainly to the digital term. It's sort of similar to the datum/data thing.
My pet peeve is the it's/its confusion. Even acclaimed writers tend to write things like "the cat waved it's tail".
So, to remind everyone: There is no possessive apostrophe for personal pronouns, like its, hers, and theirs.
Whenever you use apostrophe for "it", it indicates a contraction for it is or it has.
Okay...
Since this was her work, he accepted her showing them off as not breaking the pact.
I am pretty sure that I got the grammar right here (A woman is proudly presenting some photos to her husband). A friend of mine, however, insists that it should be
"Since this was her work, he accepted that she showed them off not breaking the pact."
and that my grammar wouldn't make it clear that there was a "pact" that both people agree to keep. I disagree- help from some native speakers?
To be honest, I would say:
Since this was her work, he accepted that her showing them off was not breaking the pact.
or even better (dependant on emphasis):
Since this was her work, he accepted that she was not breaking the pact by showing them off.
I agree both your edits read better, but is there actually something wrong with my grammar in the bold sentence? I'd really like to know- wrong use of passive voice or something, or is it just bad style?
Your example in bold reads better than your friends example to me.
"He accepted that she showed them off not breaking the pact" implies that the pact was to show them off (or for him to accept the showing off). I would stick a comma in after "off".
You do have mixed tenses "was her work" and "as not breaking the pact", but I think this is more of a stylistic than a grammatical thing. Your grammar makes it clear to me that there was a pact that the two people made and which her showing off of the photos did not break.
Unless I have misunderstood the intention of the sentence...
Your example is grammatically wrong, I would say.
her showing them off is in this case an inflectional action nominal, and should be treated as a noun.
"...as not breaking the pact", implies that whatever it refers to is a verb.
If you persist in using your original construction (although Intense Degree's suggestions are better), you would have to use a noun as an object compliment, resulting in this awkward construction:
Since this was her work, he accepted her showing them off as a non-pact-breaker
or with an adjective:
Since this was her work, he accepted her showing them off as pact-safe
Just to make them grammatically correct. Obviously, the solutions aren't very elegant :)
Thanks Andail, that really cleared it up. Really makes no sense then to force grammar over my original then... that sounds really clumsy. But good to see that I'm actually *able* to create inflectional action nominals ;) I'll go with Intense's edit then.
Andail is using technical terms and stuff, which makes me thinks he knows what he's talking about, but my intuition disagrees with his conclusion.
I don't necessarily see anything wrong with combining a noun (or noun-like clause) with an "as X-ing" construction. In fact, I'm having a hard time coming up with examples where you would use anything but a noun there.
Googling brings up examples like: "Encyclical seen as breaking new ground on social concerns." That doesn't look wrong to me.
I think your friend's version is much more unambiguously wrong. That said, Intense Degree's rewrites are better than what you had.
Quote from: Trihan on Fri 17/07/2009 19:02:02
Mondegreens - misheard song lyrics. (for example, "she's got a chicken to ride")
Awesome example: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=E16B78DAB5EAC98E
And Ghost's phrase works better if you swap the parts round:
He accepted her showing them off as not breaking the pact, since this was her work (after all).
Or add a therefore:
This was her work, therefore he accepted her showing them off as not breaking the pact.
Quote from: Andail on Mon 20/07/2009 12:39:39
Just to make them grammatically correct. Obviously, the solutions aren't very elegant :)
That's the problem with the rules of grammar, sometimes you end up with a ridiculous result! ;)
I like to think of it as similar to music. For certain situations there are rules (like harmonising a Bach chorale) but ultimately the test is; Does it sound/look good/right? That will (sometimes) over-ride the rules.
What's the rule on apostrophes with "its"? Apart from the shortened form of it is, should they ever be used to show possession? One of the things that really annoys me is when I see shop signs with apostrophes in the wrong place. Do the makers not grammar check them?
For possessive you use its. You only use an apostrophe when you're contracting it is or it has.
STEALTH EDIT
This was mentioned earlier by Andail.
Its = possessive
It's = contraction (it is, it has)
Quote from: Trihan on Mon 13/07/2009 16:03:08
BONUS LESSON: than/then
----------------------------------
I've seen many, many people stumble headlong into the pitfall that is than/then. I think it's mostly people whose mother tongue isn't English, but since the two words are so similar I'll take a little bit of time to explain what each one actually is, and what it's used for.
Actually, the thing is, that I've probably mostly seen this from the people (and authors too) whose mother tongue is English (American English to be precise). And I knew it was wrong, that is what confused me. :) On the other hand, maybe they are the same people who say "teh bestest thing ever". ;)
Quote from: Trihan on Mon 13/07/2009 16:03:08
I'd rather confuse some people and possibly educate some others then suffer people constantly misusing these two words. Until next time!
You evil man. ;D
Snarky, you're absolutely right!
Bah, this is what summer break does to a teacher.
Ho ho! I have a question and there is actually a proper thread kicking around in which to ask it so that I do not have to make a new one :D
In writing, I sometimes see the word "O" where I would usually expect an "Oh", and I am wondering whether there is any particular rule which dictates when or where this is appropriate.
For example, last night I wrote the line "O Timothy, my love, why must we be separated so?" into my game, but when playing it I was unsure if it was correct or not. Any thoughts?
O 3 |oʊ| |əʊ|
exclamation
1 archaic spelling of oh.
2 archaic used before a name in direct address, as in prayers and poetry : give peace in our time, O Lord.
Taken from my computer's dictionary. :) It's acceptable, but just an old version of Oh.
EDIT: And especially used in prose poetry.
Yep, perfectly acceptable. In fact if the game is set some time in the past, I'd definitely use O over Oh.
I was thinking the other day does the word "Hyperbole" relate to understatements as well as exagerations?
For example "I couldn't believe the size of that pizza, I could barely see it."
I searched but couldn't find anything really definative.
Green Boy, a hyperbole is only an exaggeration.
If you claim that a pizza is so small that you can barely see it, that's an exaggeration (unless it is literally that small). It doesn't become an understatement just because it's a matter of small size.
Yeah, an understatement isn't saying that something is smaller than it really is (as the term may suggest) but rather a statement that seems to inadequately describe the truth of the situation.
So to carry on from your example, "That pizza is a bit small" would be an understatement if the pizza was actually the size of a biscuit. Or "The pizza seems rather large" if the pizza had enveloped your entire house.
Understatements aren't really a grammatical device, though - it's purely subjective from one person to another if a term describes something adequately or 'understates' the facts.
Thanks for the tips, AtelierGames and Trihan :)
It isn't set in the past, but with that in mind I might keep it the way it is anyway.
Maybe it feels so only for a non-native speaker, but US english and UK english have mixed too much to make any sense anymore.
* Defense or Defence? (i personally prefer S-version)
* color or colour? (are they same? Or is latter a verb? Sounds french so I assume it's UK-version)
* what's the verb of relieving a running nose? Is there a better word than "running nose", describing it as condition? It's quite strange word with adjective. In other languages, it's usually only one word.
As far as defence/defense, colour/color, valour/valor, honour/honor etc. go it's really up to the individual, there is no right or wrong way.
We usually say runny nose.
Quote from: Trihan on Tue 04/08/2009 14:37:30
As far as defence/defense, colour/color, valour/valor, honour/honor etc. go it's really up to the individual, there is no right or wrong way.
We usually say runny nose.
It's actually an American English/British English thing.
British- Defence
US- Defense
British- Colour
US- Color
Valour/Valor seem to be perfectly legitimate alternative spellings in either.
British- Honour
US- Honor
Quote from: InCreator on Tue 04/08/2009 10:54:26
* what's the verb of relieving a running nose? Is there a better word than "running nose", describing it as condition? It's quite strange word with adjective. In other languages, it's usually only one word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runny_nose
Rhinorrhea, apparently
Rhinorrhea! I've got to remember that! ;D
Quote from: InCreator on Tue 04/08/2009 10:54:26
* Defense or Defence? (i personally prefer S-version)
Not a question as such, just a possible branch of discussion...
Its interesting how American and British English (and others) differ in the stress of certain words, such as 'defence'. Where as the Brits say deFENCE, the Yanks among us say DEfence.
Same with lemonADE vs. LEMONade and... damn, I can't think of any other examples right now, but there are probably thousands.
Really? Do you call Robert Gates the DEE-fence Secretary?
Quote from: Snarky on Sun 09/08/2009 23:43:46
Really? Do you call Robert Gates the DEE-fence Secretary?
Hmm, good point, but I still hear that a lot in American English... perhaps more in a sporting context.
Don't you say DEfence in certain isolated cases, as in "he's on the defence"... or other strategy/sport-related cases?
Another thing I've noticed lately is the use of "try and do something". I've seen this even in professional writing. Surely it must be incorrect to use anything but the infinitive marker "try to do something". It seems like something that began in spoken English and then made its way into even more formal texts.
But '(to) try' can stand without an object, so you can say:
"Well, I tried."
If you use '(to) try' in such an intransitive way, the following is in fact correct:
"Let's try and do this."
If you paraphrase the meaning, it could be like this:
"Okay, let's do this. Well, let's try (to)."
I absolutely see what you mean though and what I said there is probably really over-interpretation, of course the saying 'try and do sth.' implies 'try to do sth.' more than what I said. In any case, there are tons of examples of things you can say that are technically grammatically incorrect, yet people started using it in spoken language (often due to the principle of economy, ie. simplifying pronunciation etc.) and then it entered written and then even formally written as well.
Quote from: Andail on Mon 10/08/2009 17:27:16
Another thing I've noticed lately is the use of "try and do something". I've seen this even in professional writing. Surely it must be incorrect to use anything but the infinitive marker "try to do something". It seems like something that began in spoken English and then made its way into even more formal texts.
I think you're right. I guess its a bit like those who say "It must of been him..." when they mean "It must have been him..."
People who confuse of/have really irritate me, I'd say it's my Number 1 pet hatred in terms of English mistakes.
It's an accent/pronunciation thing, I think.
The contraction of "must have", "must've", is pretty much pronounced "must'ff" in some British accents, and it's a small step from there to "must of".
Yeah I always figured that was what it was. The reason it bothers me is because it's based on a misconception. It's easily avoidable by anyone who's studied language though, I wouldn't expect a non-native English speaker to make an error like that. (Since they would be aware that have is an auxiliary verb and the sentence requires it.)
But yet I've seen it ("that must of been a mistake") used in novels, and not even in dialogue, but in narrations. It quite confused me, but I figured it must be some kind of transcript from spoken word.
It's because most people never give a single thought to the logic behind what they're saying. "Must of" doesn't make any grammatical sense, but it sounds right. That's because the "of" should really be contraction "'ve" (which sounds almost the same).
There's a lot of things that are considered incorrect, but still are used in modern language. For example, in German, we are starting to use a tense the German language doesn't actually have, p.e. "Ich habs Dir gesagt gehabt," which would mean something like "I've had told you." There are a lot of languages (especially the Romanic ones, like French) having that tense, and we probably have it from there. However, it wouldn't surprise me if, a few years from now, we would have incorporated that into German.
Grammar is, and always was, a try to normalise the way people talk, a try to find rules for the respective languages. Hence, while it's a good thing to know your grammar(s), one shouldn't be too bothered if other people don't, because the mistakes of today might well become correct with time.
/tbi
Quote from: The Bedminster Incident on Tue 11/08/2009 11:36:15
because the mistakes of today might well become correct with time.
And I really, really hate that. When enough people are wrong, suddenly they're right by consensus, and the people who were doing it right all along are penalised and frowned upon for not being stupid in the first place.
Exactly. By the same means, our current grammar has evolved. So you should hate the current grammar as well, not to mention all the ones of the last two millenia.
Seriously. Nobody has ever followed grammar (except for the pedants, naturally), grammar has always followed the people's language usage. That is why language changed, that is why grammar changed, and that is why every generation of language complains about the decay of the next one.
/tbi
So, as grammar follows usage, in a few years the comma will be replaced by the words "innit" or "y'know" :D
For the first time in history we have a pretty solid written tradition and firmly set rules for grammar and spelling. It's not like the 18th Century when things were more fluid and spelt differently each time you wrote them. The way we do things now has been recorded and set in stone by the sheer amount of written material being produced.
I know it sounds untenable to acknowledge the progression of language and simultaneously claim it should stop now, but I'm not doing that. There are good changes and there are bad changes. Contractions were a good idea, for instance. But, surely most people would agree that text-speak in a book, or making "must of" a valid phrase (to use the old example) would be a step in the wrong direction.
I live in fear of the day I see the message "Ur post woz editd 4 skul lik spelln" replace the "txt-speak" one...
If you were speaking of a noun, that's a singular, but actually consists of more than one persons, like "a mob" or "a band", would you refer to it as "it" or "they"?
And what I'm actually after here, is: If I'm to write something like: "The band was originally formed by mr. X in 1975 though ****** had been playing with various setups in different occasions before."
I know it's a crappy example, but the ****** should imply to the band, not to mr. X, so should it be "it", or "they", is what I'm after. If you get my drift :)
These are called "collective nouns". Band is actually not one of them, it's always plural. As in:
"The band was originally formed by John McFarm in 1975 although they had been playing [...]"
Police is an example for a collective noun. Whether or not you use the singular or plural form depends on, guess what, whether you're using British or American English.
dkh, the noun "band" can definitely appear in singular. Just think of phrases like "the band is playing" and "the band comes from etc".
Sure, when you refer back to it, you can substitute the pronoun "it" for the plural "they", but that doesn't imply that "band" as a noun is treated as a plural.
The difference between "band" and "police" is that police is uncountable, or a non-count noun, meaning you can't say "two polices".
Quote from: The Bedminster Incident on Tue 11/08/2009 17:39:05
Seriously. Nobody has ever followed grammar (except for the pedants, naturally), grammar has always followed the people's language usage. That is why language changed, that is why grammar changed, and that is why every generation of language complains about the decay of the next one.
I don't think that's entirely true. Notions of grammar do affect how people actually speak. First of all, "natural grammar", or the application of a rule to all similar cases by analogy (even if it's a rule you just made up), is one of the most powerful drivers of language changes. People say it in the way that "sounds right" based on the grammar they know subconsciously, even if that's not actually the way people use to say it, or used to say it before (an example of hypercorrection). So the past tense of "dive" goes from "dived" (traditionally) to "dove" (more recent alternative), probably under the influence of an imagined analogy with "drive/drove" and similar words.
Second, explicit knowledge of prescriptive grammar influences how individuals speak and write directly: not just pedants, but everyone. Generally, this acts as a stabilizing influence, slowing down language change, because the prescriptions were based on how people actually spoke. However, sometimes the rules spouted are spurious, but actually become part of real usage. According to this article (http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/hangedgloss.htm), the distinction between "hanged" and "hung" (to be hanged is to be executed by hanging, any other time you hang something up it has been hung) was invented by grammarians, but it has subsequently been generally (though not universally) observed.
Similarly, spelling affects pronunciation. "Waistcoat" was once pronounced "wisket", and the American pronunciation of "Anthony" with a TH sound is solely down to the spelling (itself changed from the original "Antony" based on an erroneous etymological argument).
You can actually affect the development of a language by what you teach in schools, and many countries have much more active language policies than what is found in the English-speaking world; France being the standard example. For many years, Norway had a policy aimed at changing standard written Norwegian ("bokmål"), and the associated upper-class/educated Oslo dialect, to be less like Danish and more like other Norwegian dialects (especially the standardized written synthesis of dialects called "nynorsk"), and ultimately for the dialects to converge to a unified standard Norwegian ("samnorsk"). This was to be achieved by periodic spelling and grammar reforms. While the effort was eventually abandoned, it did have a major impact on both written and spoken Norwegian (both in the bokmål and nynorsk varieties).
Wow. That's kind of a new piece of information for me. I didn't know there were actual examples of grammar inventions. (Plus, I never knew the exact difference between nynorsk and bokmål. I always thought that was due to some spelling reform or something, because of the "ny," but never did any research.) Still, I consider my statement "true in the major part of cases." Because that's how grammar actually was created, people looked at how people spoke, and tried to find a set of rules (hence all the irregularities and exceptions).
My (hopefully not too harsh) rant against what I like to call "grammar pedants" (in a general sense--I do not mean to imply that any of the forum members are pedants) probably is due to my experiences here in Germany, where almost everybody complains about how people talk nowadays, using more and more English words and less German ones. Some actually see this as the downfall of the German language. (My standard reply uses the example of "level," the 'German' word for which would be "niveau" or "etage," both borrowed from the French language.)
Still, I can't imagine people who write "must of" instead of "must've" actually caring that much about current grammar, so this part of the discussion might not be as important as I (we?) see it right now.
/tbi
I have two small questions on grammar, and what better place to ask them than here? :) First off, when writing an abbreviation for an object, does the rule for using AN if the noun starts with a vowel and A if it begins with a consanant still apply? Is it:
I recently received an ASBO for listening to Classic FM. (When the abbr. begins with a vowel?)
A NASA official has been suspended indefinitely for claiming the moon is made of Roquefort. (When the abbr. begins with a consanant?)
I think these two examples are correct, but is this one?
Chris Tucker, an NYPD policeman, has been running riot through Chinatown with Jackie.
My last question is about which/that, and which one should be used when. Are they interchangeable, or are there actually any rules to discern whether one is wrong and the other is right?
Whenever I go shopping I feel like an F1 driver, weaving through the trolley chicanes, which/that people leave sticking out halfway into the aisle.
PS: I had fun writing these examples. :)
When it comes to acronyms (which are pronounced), treat it like a word:
a NASA official
When it's a set of letters where you pronounce each one individually, pay attention to the first letter:
an HBO movie (an aitch)
an NYPD officer (an enn)
a WTF warning (a double-u)
So yes, your NYPD example is correct.
Which/that was discussed earlier, but after 11 pages, it's understandble you missed it. Usually "which" is preceded by a comma, while "that" is not:
I like to pick my nose, which makes people uneasy.
I have an idea that would revolutionize the pickle industry.
Usually "which" is used for describing the fact that preceded it (the picking of the nose makes people uneasy), while "that" is used for describing the object that preceded it (it's the idea that will revolutionize the industry).
If you changed the "that" in the 2nd example to "which" (and added the comma, which is required), you'd get a whole different meaning, although most people would translate it to the "that" version of the statement.
Quote from: TerranRich on Tue 06/10/2009 22:31:33
When it comes to acronyms (which are pronounced), treat it like a word:
a NASA official
When it's a set of letters where you pronounce each one individually, pay attention to the first letter:
an HBO movie (an aitch)
an NYPD officer (an enn)
a WTF warning (a doubleyou)
The implicit general rule here is that you write what you would say. Unfortunately, people don't always verbalize abbreviations (especially Internet abbreviations) the same way. For example, some people pronounce FAQ as "eff-aye-queue", while others say "fack" (though the latter is probably less common than it used to be). Personally, I would expand WTF into "what the fuck" in speech (on the basis that an abbreviation shouldn't take longer to say than the phrase it abbreviates), though in this case it doesn't affect the a/an issue.
Quote from: TerranRich on Tue 06/10/2009 22:31:33
an HBO movie (an aitch)
Do we drop our 'haitchs' now, Mr Rich?
A HBO movie.
H is often considered to be a vowel in many languages (most notably french since h is not pronounced and always precedes a vowel). However, English is not one of them.
Although the letter 'H' isn't considered a vowel, the rule for "a" vs. "an" is entirely pronunciation-based. You wouldn't, for example, say, "I waited a hour..." You would say, "I waited an hour..."
The letter 'H' is pronounced as Terran displayed, such as "aitch" (<ref (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/H#Pronunciation)>). The name of the letter is not prefixed with an 'H' sound. You don't pronounce the letter 'F' as "feff". It's pronounced "eff".
"an HBO movie" is therefore correct.
In American English, we pronounce it "aitch". :)
Quote from: monkey_05_06 on Wed 07/10/2009 00:44:41
Although the letter 'H' isn't considered a vowel, the rule for "a" vs. "an" is entirely pronunciation-based. You wouldn't, for example, say, "I waited a hour..." You would say, "I waited an hour..."
The letter 'H' is pronounced as Terran displayed, such as "aitch" (<ref (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/H#Pronunciation)>). The name of the letter is not prefixed with an 'H' sound. You don't pronounce the letter 'F' as "feff". It's pronounced "eff".
"an HBO movie" is therefore correct.
Thats because 'hour' has a silent h. It isnt pronounced.
Happy, Hill, Hex, Ham and Help all have a 'huh' sound. and the letter 'H' is pronounced 'haitch'
Thus its A HBO film. not an
Calin, it's "an HBO film" to Americans, because we pronounce the letter "H" with a vowel sound at the beginning. You Brits can say it however you want. :P
Same with "an LOL moment", because "L" is pronounced with a vowel sound at the beginning ("ell").
I think we need to specify which English this thread is about. LOL
it 'An HBO film' to alot of londoners too. Doesn't make it right :p
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Thu 08/10/2009 00:17:19
it 'An HBO film' to alot of londoners too. Doesn't make it right :p
I've lived for years in the UK and the US, and I've
never heard anyone pronounce H as "haitch", except for comedic purposes when cockney characters are trying to talk "proper" (such as in the old joke about "dropping your haitches"). Wikipedia offers a capsule discussion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H#Name_in_English), which seems to suggest that "aitch" is the original and most widespread form and "haitch" a hypercorrection.
That's what makes it right.
"An Uwe Boll Film"
That's not right, I thought to myself, my mouth can't form that sentence! It should be "A"! A John Carpenter Film, A Peter Jackson Film, A David Fincher Film..."An" doesn't make any sense!
Uwe = OO-VEE
Oh!
Though, I pronounce "H" as it's meant to be pronounced...intact. Hated, Hero, etc. I don't use "'aitch" as Americans do.
HBO. Hay-ch Bee Oh!
I also use colour, centre, neighbour, and defence, as anything else would just be American. And therefore wrong.
The page I referenced (English Wiktionary entry for 'H') references this audio file (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/En-uk-h.ogg) which both the link and filename indicate as the "UK" pronunciation. Firefox didn't seem to want to play it properly (though I don't know for certain whether that's FF or one of the plugins I have), but audacity revealed the file to say "aitch" and not "haitch". I can accept that some people pronounce it as "haitch". but according to Snarky's sources, "aitch" is correct. Somewhat. :P
Quote from: LimpingFish on Thu 08/10/2009 01:53:35
Though, I pronounce "H" as it's meant to be pronounced...intact. Hated, Hero, etc. I don't use "'aitch" as Americans do.
HBO. Hay-ch Bee Oh!
I also use colour, centre, neighbour, and defence, as anything else would just be American. And therefore wrong.
This isn't actually an issue of British vs. American usage. It's more a case of the Irish (except for Northern Irish Protestants) vs. Everyone Else. "Aitch" has always been the standard in English, as reflected in the (phonetic) spelling. Try Googling "aitch haitch" to see that this "mispronunciation" you're promoting is upsetting pedants and considered "uneducated" all over the world. (This article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/22/comment.comment) in
The Guardian provides a mild example.)
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 08/10/2009 08:33:34
This isn't actually an issue of British vs. American usage.
True, but I think the general American usage of "aitch" is a major contributory factor to the H debate - more so than a minority of pedantic language snobs - due to the multitude of US TV shows and movies that we outside the US consume.
What always struck me as weird is that the name "Herb" will be pronounced with a strong H, but "herb", as in Oregano, will be pronounced "'erb".
I think "aitch" - if used as suggested in the article linked above - though seemingly correct in the classical sense, would strike some people as old world; similar to spelling Show as Shew, and other such archaic variations on the written word.
Personally, I would think using "'aitch" exclusively would make the speaker sound a little...off. Or a tad cock-er-ny.
And to be honest, I've only ever heard it used in UK regional dialects and in the US. And even in the US it seems to fluctuate.
Screw it. I'd rather be wrong. Haitch Em Vee, Haitch Pee, Haitch Rider Haggard, Haitch R Pufnstuf.
I can honestly say that I have never once heard an American pronounce the letter H as "haitch", as opposed to "aitch". When I speak about movies on HBO, I use the article "an" as naturally as I would scratch an itch without thinking about it.
On old Yorkshireman once told me that if an 'aitch' word starts with an 'A' sound then using 'an' is correct.
"an honest mistake"
"an hourly routine"
"a homely appearance"
"a historic event"
The above are all correct, as the "H" sound is different between the top 2 and the bottom 2.
But "an historic event" would also be correct. ("An history of the United States" would be wrong, however.) There's something about the stress pattern that makes the H in "historic" so light that it has conventionally been disregarded for "a/an" purposes.
I was going to say, my English teacher once alluded to the rule being about syllables and stresses but he never properly revealed it.
Quote from: Snarky on Thu 08/10/2009 08:33:34
This isn't actually an issue of British vs. American usage. It's more a case of the Irish (except for Northern Irish Protestants) vs. Everyone Else
As a Northern Irish dweller myself I can tell you this is absolutely correct. If you're a Protestant you say "aitch" and if you're a Catholic you say "haitch". It's one of the things people use to guage your upbringing, like if you say "The North of Ireland" instead of "Northern Ireland", or "Derry" as opposed to "Londonderry".
Though as far as *I* was concerned, the "haitch" pronounciation was for English middle class people putting on heirs and graces, inserting H sounds h'into h'words h'where they don't belong.
I had always heard that putting "an" before words beginning with the "H" sound was incorrect, as the "H" sound was considered a consonant. I can't say for certain however.
Yes, that's the general rule, but when the first syllable is unstressed it has traditionally been applied as if the H wasn't there (because in those words it once used to be silent), particularly in longer words. There's a pretty good explanation here (http://grammartips.homestead.com/historical.html).
Particularly in England, pronouncing one's aitches in the "right" places was an important class marker, so "educated people" stuck very strictly to these complicated rules and exceptions. So while this has relaxed somewhat in recent years, the more conservative "an historical, an hypothesis" is still preferred in formal use (I don't think many people still say or write "an hotel", though apparently the BBC Manual of Style recommends it). American references tend to prefer the simplified rule, and sometimes consider "an+unstressed H" to be pretentious.
Quote from: Mr Flibble on Sat 10/10/2009 18:24:47
Though as far as *I* was concerned, the "haitch" pronounciation was for English middle class people putting on heirs and graces, inserting H sounds h'into h'words h'where they don't belong.
"I Don't get why you're saying it that way"
"Saying h'what h'what 'hway?"
Hot Rod: good movie
One that I'm actually surprised to see hasn't cropped up here yet:
This affected that which in turn gave the effect.
The general rule as I was taught it on this is that "effect" is used (in most cases) as in "cause and effect":
The effect of the volcano's eruption was the loss of many lives and homes.
Most other cases use "affect":
The devastation the eruption left behind affected many people.
There are also "special
effects" though and certain circumstances in which "effect" can be used as a verb, actually denoting that the scenario described is a direct result of something else (producing an effect).
His poor performance effected his low final score.
That is, the "
low final score" was a direct result (an effect) of "his poor performance."
I often see people using "affect" and "effect" interchangeably and thought this might help clarify things a bit.
Where is Trihan these days?
He's h'on h'a h'grammatical h-h-h-hiatus. 8)
I worked at the Odeon when Horton Hears a Who was released...
One of my colleagues was French...
Hilarity Ensued ;D
Is there a difference between "on" and "about", as in "on writing" and "about writing"?
Quote from: nihilyst on Thu 12/11/2009 02:10:33
Is there a difference between "on" and "about", as in "on writing" and "about writing"?
Could you give an example sentence? I'm not sure I understand without any context.
If you mean 'writing on' and 'writing about' then the only difference I can think of is the subject matter that is referred to. Writing on usually refers to a blanket issue or topic.
e.g. "Jim is writing a self-help book on marriage"
Note: 'about' can be used interchangeably here, although 'on' is, I believe, the convention when referring to books and reports.
'Writing about' refers to the content.
e.g. "In it he will be writing about confidence, communication and rekindling the romance"
In this example, 'on' isn't really interchangeable. 'Writing about' is the one you'd use 9 times out if 10.
Hope this helps
Scar
Yeah, thanks. I had to think of Stephen King's book "On Writing". Could he have named it "About Writing" instead? According to your explanations, he could, so thanks :D
Quote from: nihilyst on Thu 12/11/2009 12:30:08
Yeah, thanks. I had to think of Stephen King's book "On Writing". Could he have named it "About Writing" instead? According to your explanations, he could, so thanks :D
Yes, he could have, but there is a subtle difference, I think. "On Writing" sounds more scholarly than "About Writing". The title "On ..." is typically used for academic publications, whereas "About ..." would be a more suitable title for a book aimed at a more general market. That's the way I see it, anyway.
To me "On Writing" also sounds much more personalized than "About Writing". For example if I saw the book titled "On Writing" by Stephen King I would take it as, "This is Stephen King's thoughts, ideas, impressions, etc. on the topic of writing..." whereas "About Writing" might seem more generalized as "Stephen King wrote this book about the topic of writing..." That's how it seems to me anyway.
Yeh, in this context I think they are pretty much interchangeable. Take the following few example phrases:
1. the Prime Minister's speech on climate change.
2. my essay on the existence of black holes.
3. that documentary on why fat people fart more than thin people.
4. Stephen King's book on writing called On Writing.
In each of these sentences 'on' could be swapped to 'about', but Paolo has a point... Notice most of my examples were all documentaries, essays and speechs focusing on some specific area of academic or specialist interest.
It's a weird use of the preposition which can create some interesting(?) ambiguities:
5. the documentary on BBC2.
(was it a documentary about cats that was broadcast on BBC2, or a documentary about BBC2 that was broadcast on Sky1?)
6. I read the paper on the table.
(this could technically have 3 possible meanings...)
7. I read the paper that had been placed upon the table.
8. I read the paper while I was standing on the table.
9. I read the paper that had been written on the subject of 'The Table'
In fact, interestingly, it seems that 'on' is really just a condensed version of 'on the subject of'. This usage of 'on' seems to have evolved from the longer version, which was possibly shortened because of the awkwardness of having two prepositional phrases for essentially one peice of information.
I've always believed "on" in that context was short for something like "focusing on". "The Prime Minister's speech [focusing] on climate change." "I'm writing a book [focusing] on the economy."
Makes sense.
To me "on" implies musings whereas "about" implies general information. So I'd consider "on" to be more subjective.
Flibble I like the way you said exactly what I was trying to say, only better. :=
A friend of mine is notorious for confusing "write", "right", and "Wright". To assist her (and certainly not to make fun of her in any way... ::)) I wrote this:
Mr. Wright wrote a letter to right a wrong, which due to an error was sent to Hong Kong. It went to the left instead of the right, which could have been avoided if he'd learned to write more legibly so the address could have been read; for now you see Mr. Wright is dead! The moral dear children is learn to spell before the time comes for your funeral bell.
I've had a crisis of confidence in my English grammar paradigm:
I've always been told to use the subject "I" instead of the object "me" when pairing myself with someone else as a subject. For example, it is proper to say "Johny and I made an adventure game," while it is improper to say "Johny and me made an adventure game." I understand now, after a Latin class in university, that "I" is nominative and "me" is accusative, dative, etc. I was comfortable with the fact that English inherited these rules from Latin, or at least had these rules successfully grafted onto the language, so assimilating them into my everyday usage was easy.
But just today I noticed a quirk in French: nobody says "Johny et je avons fait un jeux aventeur!" They say "Johny et moi avons fait un jeux aventeur!" (all verb conjugation and spelling errors are mine, but stay focussed on the pronouns). French, classified as a romance language and descended directly from [vulgar] Latin speakers (compared to the germanic English), doesn't obey the Latin rules! And English is much more influenced by French (spoken by the ruling classes for three centuries during the formative period of Middle English) than by Latin (known only to the elite clergy virtually until modern English had fully formed). So my question is, shouldn't it be proper to say "Johny and me...." after all?!?
Quote from: Baron on Thu 19/11/2009 03:36:16
I've had a crisis of confidence in my English grammar paradigm:
I've always been told to use the subject "I" instead of the object "me" when pairing myself with someone else as a subject. For example, it is proper to say "Johny and I made an adventure game," while it is improper to say "Johny and me made an adventure game." I understand now, after a Latin class in university, that "I" is nominative and "me" is accusative, dative, etc. I was comfortable with the fact that English inherited these rules from Latin, or at least had these rules successfully grafted onto the language, so assimilating them into my everyday usage was easy.
But just today I noticed a quirk in French: nobody says "Johny et je avons fait un jeux aventeur!" They say "Johny et moi avons fait un jeux aventeur!" (all verb conjugation and spelling errors are mine, but stay focussed on the pronouns). French, classified as a romance language and descended directly from [vulgar] Latin speakers (compared to the germanic English), doesn't obey the Latin rules! And English is much more influenced by French (spoken by the ruling classes for three centuries during the formative period of Middle English) than by Latin (known only to the elite clergy virtually until modern English had fully formed). So my question is, shouldn't it be proper to say "Johny and me...." after all?!?
Well, as far as I know, the subject doesn't chance upon the addition of Johnny. At the start of a sentence, you'd use I, (e.g. "I made an adventure game") so in this case you would say "Johnny and I".
At the end of a sentence though, you would use me (i.e. "The game was made by me"), which becomes "The game was made by Johnny and me" (
Note: many people incorrectly say "Johnny and I" at the end of a sentence, in accordance with the rule you stated above, although the rule only applies to the beginning of a sentence).
I hope that made sense.
Peace
Scarab
This is an age-old controversy. Traditionally, puritans have claimed that it's "Johnny and I" because, as you said, "me" is reserved for the object position he shot me.
I think most modern grammarians will accept that people use both forms (just as the entire society of grammarians tend to move towards a descriptive view on language instead of a prescriptive one.)
This issue affects other areas too: It has always been a pet peeve amongst puritans that people use the object form in comparisons "Johnny is bigger than me", and the language law enforcers have advocated the usage of "Johnny is bigger than I", although I think this controversy is slowly waning, as people find it completely silly to say things like "I'm bigger than she".
"un jeu d'aventure"
In French, the rule goes something like "If you have to coordinate pronouns, no matter their function in the sentence, use the disjunctive form.", which to everybody but grammarians is equivalent to "Well, because." and doesn't have much to do with Latin grammar anymore. (That happens a lot in French. ;) )
Elle, lui, toi et moi avons fait un jeu d'aventure. -> Her, him, you and me have made an adventure game.
Maybe it's correct in English, maybe it's not. And it's not correct in Spanish. So yeah...
Quote from: Andail on Thu 19/11/2009 11:54:07
This issue affects other areas too: It has always been a pet peeve amongst puritans that people use the object form in comparisons "Johnny is bigger than me", and the language law enforcers have advocated the usage of "Johnny is bigger than I", although I think this controversy is slowly waning, as people find it completely silly to say things like "I'm bigger than she".
I think that a lot of people would get round that by saying "Johnny is bigger than I
am" and "I'm bigger then she
is" (which is probably what I would say) but I don't know if, gramatically speaking, that's really any better.
Also on the Latin/Germanic thing I think
based on is the key here, but languages (particularly English) tend to do their own funny things for reasons best known to themselves. Rules are all very well and good, but look at the number of irregular plurals/verbs etc. we have.
on 'me' vs 'I', I think its proper to use "Johnny and I" (or He and I) in circumstances where a personal pronoun would be used. i.e 'we' but you would use 'Johnny and me' (or Him and Me) in places where an object pronoun would be used i.e "Us".
so its incorrect to say "He shot Johnny and I" but its correct to say "Johnny and I shot him"
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Thu 19/11/2009 13:22:19
so its incorrect to say "He shot Johnny and I" but its correct to say "Johnny and I shot him"
For
I I would agree with you there, and so would the pedants.
But as for Johnny and
me, I personally use
me in both case (regardless what the presrciptive view is). Most people would agree "He shot Johnny and me" is correct. But where I disagree with the standard view is with "Johnny and me shot him". Most pedantic people would tell me off for saying that, but I don't care. It rolls off my tounge more easily and doesn't structurally clash with any other part of the sentence.
The only reason I agree with avoiding
I when you and Jonnhy are the object is because it feels like you haven't completed the sentence.
"He shot Johnny and I..."
And you what? Phoned the police? Ran away? died laughing?
This is because
I inherently belongs in the subject position, so when someone uses it at the end of a sentence your brain interprets it as such, and expects another verb at the very least.
Correct: The house is bigger than Johnny and I.
Correct: The house belongs to me.
Correct: Johnny and I live in the house.
Quote from: TerranRich on Fri 20/11/2009 04:16:00
Correct: The house is bigger than Johnny and I.
I would disagree since in this case the pronoun used would be 'us'
Good point, Calin.
The pedants would prescribe "Johnny is bigger than I", but noone in their right mind would say "Johnny is bigger than we" instead of "Johnny is bigger than us". Or?
Hmm, I got a little mixed up there, Calin, which brings up the fact that apparently it's a hotly debated topic: http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/than-I-versus-than-me.aspx
I personally use I as a subject and me as an object, consistently.
So, Jonny and I went to the zoo, where the lions ate Jonny and me.
So I'd consider such things as "Jonny and me went to the zoo, where the lions ate Jonny and I" to be incorrect, since if you remove the "Jonny and" from either clause, it stops making sense on its own.
Quote from: Andail on Thu 19/11/2009 11:54:07
This is an age-old controversy. Traditionally, puritans have claimed that it's "Johnny and I" because, as you said, "me" is reserved for the object position he shot me.
I think most modern grammarians will accept that people use both forms (just as the entire society of grammarians tend to move towards a descriptive view on language instead of a prescriptive one.)
This issue affects other areas too: It has always been a pet peeve amongst puritans that people use the object form in comparisons "Johnny is bigger than me", and the language law enforcers have advocated the usage of "Johnny is bigger than I", although I think this controversy is slowly waning, as people find it completely silly to say things like "I'm bigger than she".
I agree that linguists and grammarians today are generally descriptivists, but surely part of being a descriptivist is to note that certain usages are considered incorrect by many people (even if regularly used by others, or even those same people)?
Incidentally, I highly doubt that this rule has anything to do with Latin influence on grammar. Certainly in the Germanic languages I know, you'd say something equivalent to "Johnny and
I made an adventure game" (not "Johnny and me"). My instinct would be to say, in Norwegian, "He's taller than
me", but I'm not confident that more conservative purists would agree. TerranRich's link explains that the original Old English (i.e. Germanic) form was "taller than I", so this almost certainly isn't a Latinate/Romance form either.
Another question of preference: "Data"; plural or singular (uncountable/mass noun)?
Data is plural,
Datum is singular
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Fri 20/11/2009 16:59:41
Data is plural,
Datum is singular
That is correct of course, but I would say most people nowadays would say in conversation "That data is interesting" rather than "These data are interesting" (except in scientific papers etc.). I probably would myself even though it is technically wrong :(
If you steal some military equipment from the british empire, what would a soldier/guard tell you via radio?
(except the obvious puns ;)
Attention, you're hijacking a military unit from
the british crown
the United Kingdom
the royal crown of her majesty??
I'm pretty lost here ;)
Quote from: Intense Degree on Fri 20/11/2009 17:12:33
That is correct of course, but I would say most people nowadays would say in conversation "That data is interesting" rather than "These data are interesting" (except in scientific papers etc.). I probably would myself even though it is technically wrong :(
Well, that depends on whether you treat data as countable or uncountable. As far as I know sometimes you treat it as an uncountable collective term like with the word 'information'. In that case you may use 'that data' as mentioned, in some circumstances you may use 'a piece of data' as well (as with 'a piece of information').
When in the countable department, it seems that there is an increasing trend to use the word 'data' even for singular nouns (some people do not even know the word 'datum' nowadays) and it's arguable whether this is straightly wrong now. This is similar to the case of whether we use 'die' or 'dice' for the singular form of a certain 'gambling tool'. Even though historically 'die' was correct MANY people prefer to use 'dice' now (even more-so than the case of 'data', maybe for obvious reasons). I think the singular form is still
definitely 'die' for those internal circuit... err.. "stuff" though.
When we wrote our books there was some debate over such uses of words. The conclusion was that we use 'datum' for the singular form of 'data' (and in some scenario, if required, we use 'a piece of data' as well) but in the case of 'die' and 'dice', we eventually surrendered and use 'dice' as the singular form, seeing that even most major textbooks published in UK use 'dice' also (those that we had purchased for reference at least, as we prefer using British English to American English whenever possible). Note that this is just a matter of consistency for a series of mathematics textbooks, rather than being right or wrong.
Hey, I got an interesting question for you, english-language professors.
Can the word "precision" be used to describe a person's skill (like 'accuracy' or 'strength'), or is it used only to quialify some action?
Sounds fine to me. Accuracy and precision are more or less inter-changeable i think.
Not according to all those police shows and stuff :D
Accuracy is the skill of hitting the right place
Precision is the skill of hitting near the same place everytime.
So.....precision is having a lower standard deviation?
Babar, I would definitely say that your destinction belongs to a very narrow technical field, and the general definitions of those adjectives are synonymous
Barbar's definition is exactly what I would say, these terms span through the field of science as well (when collecting data).
As my chemistry teacher once explained to us...
"If you're dating some girls who are good looking, and some who are ugly, then you are accurate, just not precise.
If you are consistently dating ugly girls, then you are precise, but not accurate."
The reason I think people sometimes use them synonymously is because they would generally be referring to both, as one is not a whole lot of use without the other.
To answer CW's question, yes, just as someone who is 'accurate' has great accuracy, someone who is 'precise' has great precision.
Just found out that 'sensical' isn't a word...
What the hell is the opposite of Nonsensical then?
:-\
its called a lost positive.
You also cant say something is 'maculate' (which would be latin for 'spotty' since immaculate means 'without spots' or 'spotless')
also there's no couth from uncouth plus lots more.
Err, actually, sensical and maculate are both words and feature in some dictionaries (not all, perhaps)
I just referenced the top three (that I know of) online dictionaries: Dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/), Merriam-Webster (http://www.merriam-webster.com/), and Wiktionary (http://en.wiktionary.com/).
All three of them had entries for "maculate". Only Wiktionary had an entry for "sensical" and that entry listed it as "nonstandard". ::)
It's interesting though, that even if some of these alleged "lost positives" theoretically exist, it's more common to use the negative form and then negate that.
"Evitable" exists, but you would probably rather say "it's not inevitable" than "it's evitable".
Ahh, well Word gave me the red scrigglies when I typed 'sensical' so I assumed it was not acceptable...
But to be honest I find this whole topic rather portant.
Tripod wrote a nice song about prefixes, it's called Kempt or something.
Isn't "sensible" equivalent to "sensical"?
I don't think so.
You cant say sensical, but you cant say nonsensible...can you?
Well, insensible exists but doesn't quite match every meaning of sensible.
Some thing sensible is something that makes sense. Isn't that the same meaning that sensical would have, or am I missing a nuance?
A classic PG Wodehouse line goes: "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."
Filling your shopping list with anger and bile would be nonsensical.
Trying to do your shopping inside a volcano would not be sensible.
I'm always angry and bilious when I fill my shopping list... ;)
In other new, QI revealed that not only is Stephen Fry not bothered by Grocers' apostrophes but also that there are only 3 apostrophes in the whole of the USA.
lol
I joined the APS (Apostrophe Protection Society) straight after that broadcast, because Im really scared that one day all the apostrophe's will be used in the wrong place. But oh well.
Quote from: Lufia on Sat 28/11/2009 16:29:51
Well, insensible exists but doesn't quite match every meaning of sensible.
Some thing sensible is something that makes sense. Isn't that the same meaning that sensical would have, or am I missing a nuance?
I'd say that's the main usage of 'sensible'. As you say, 'sensible' and 'insensible' can match, with a slightly archaic sense of 'sensible':
"I was sensible of John's love for Nancy." - that is to say, it was present to my senses.
"John was utterly insensible." - Nancy must be quite something.
Incidentally, my new perfume 'archaic sense of sensible' will be in the stores by Christmas.
I like this discussion :) ... to think if we weren't having it we would be having a cussion... how boring would that be.
I don't disagree...
I agree!!!!
no wait
"dis-" is usually a negative prefix as in "disagree", "disabled", "dysfunctional" (yes I know that's not the same spelling :P). Clearly the reason "discussion" then has that prefix is indicative of the fact that 99.99% of all "cussions" will, given appropriate stimuli and time, devolve into little more than some sort of political view/religious belief bashing, which is never productive or educational by any standards. :D
Quote from: Ali on Mon 30/11/2009 11:17:33
"I was sensible of John's love for Nancy." - that is to say, it was present to my senses.
Really? I would have thought that one would be
sensitive to John's love of Nancy, if it was present to their senses. (I like using 'one' because I can pretend I'm
the queen royalty...)
I've never heard sensible be used in this fashion before. Only really in reference to common sense (or similar meanings such as 'making sense').
Please correct me if I'm wrong
Chambers includes "cognizant, aware (of)" among the more familiar definitions of 'sensible'.
I'm not a common usage, so I don't blame you for not recognising it, Your Highness Scarab!
Sensitive means something enters your senses... i.e. you're taking something into consideration
Sensible means you're using your senses... mainly your wits and rational thinking
Nonsensical means it makes no sense.
Though these words have several definitions with a degree of fluidity, I'd disagree with you Terran Rich.
'Sensitive' usually means capable of sensing, but also tender (and in King of the hill, gay).
'Sensible' usually means level headed and logical. However a person can be sensible of an object, and an object can be sensible. In the first case, 'sensible' means that the person is aware of the object. In the second, it means that the object is present to the senses or able to be sensed.
Yeah, I was just trying to match each word to how they related to the base word "sense". :P
Quote from: Ali on Tue 01/12/2009 16:09:34
However a person can be sensible of an object,
Gahh! It just can't not sound weird to me :-\
Is this a phrase you would use Ali? Or are you saying it is just
technically correct?
I mean, for me, in any sentence where it could be used in this fashion, 'aware' or 'knowledgeable' would be much more natural sounding words.
p.s. What's all this about apostrophies? Is there something I'm missing here?
Quote from: Scarab on Thu 03/12/2009 14:20:16
Quote from: Ali on Tue 01/12/2009 16:09:34
However a person can be sensible of an object,
Gahh! It just can't not sound weird to me :-\
Is this a phrase you would use Ali? Or are you saying it is just technically correct?
Well, I would use it. But I'd might be talking in a high falutin' old timey way and pretending to puff on a pipe while using it. If someone made a game set in 19th Century England, this usage would help add verisimilitude to the dialogue. For me at least!
Most words in the title of a book or movie are capitalised except words like a, the. What is the proper way to make this determination? I'm embarrassed to admit that I have been guessing at it all these years without knowing for sure. ;)
Perhaps if someone compiles a more or less complete list of exceptions I will make a string extender function, String.Titlize(), that converts a string to a properly capitalised title.
Generally its conjunctions (but, while, and, etc) and articles (the, a) that are not capitalised.
the preposition 'of' is also often not capitalised but most prepositions are.
Edit: for your perusal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case#Headings_and_publication_titles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Title_case#Headings_and_publication_titles)
Edit2: Also i noticed someone said 'dysfunctional' was using the prefix 'dys' as a negation.
This is not true. 'Dys' means 'bad' and not 'not' and is the opposite of 'Eu'
so dysphonious, dysphemism, dystopia.
I didn't strictly say it means "not" I just said it was a negative (i.e., non-positive, not strictly a direct negation) prefix. Something functioning badly would certainly be considered a negative compared to it functioning well. Though I understand the point that grouped with the "dis-" prefix as I used it, although in-context yields the same results either way, it's good to clarify that. ;)
Here's a question.
is "Hello." a sentence?
I'm fairly sure to be considered a sentence you need a verb dont you?
So how would one have a greeting as a proper sentence?
"I say hello to you." ??
Also what IS 'Hello' Conjuction? imperative? interrogative? something else?
"Hello" is considered a salutation, which although not necessarily a proper sentence, is still considered grammatically correct. Technically its etymology lies in the High German 'halã, the emphatic imperative of the verb meaning to 'fetch'. Meaning, in a sense 'I recieve you'.
Interestingly, your "I say hello to you" would still defeat the purpose because the 'hello' in there still doesn't follow correct established grammar patterns. It would be more appropriate to say 'I greet you'.
So it falls into a separate category of grammar which is mostly outside the rest of the established precepts of the English language, much like salutations in nearly any language that I'm largely familiar with (Though the list is comparatively small).
Where is that Trihan and his stickman comics?
Quote from: Ryan Timothy on Sat 02/01/2010 23:36:14
Where is that Trihan and his stickman comics?
He hasn't updated those in half a year.. just as I was getting into them :(
I didn't bump the thread to say that, I have two small, simple questions:
- When do you use to / too respectivly? I never bothered to learn that.
- And is minute spelled minute?
I think I know the answer to both, but I want to be absolutly certain.
Quote from: Bulbapuck on Fri 08/01/2010 13:11:39
When do you use to / too respectivly? I never bothered to learn that.
'Too' is the adverb, 'to' is the preposition. Where 'to' is used in such phrases as "I am going to town" and "What are you going to do?", 'too' is used in such places as "There are too many people on this bus!" and "Too right, sir!"
QuoteAnd is minute spelled minute?
Hahaha! YES! It is :D.
Both 'minute' as in "sixty seconds" and 'minute' as in "Very small" share this spelling.[/list]
Thank you Ben :)
Don't forget "I like that, too!"
*Bump*
So I'm starting the thread for the fifth hoursong competition when it strikes me: Weekdays. Do they begin with a large letter? i.e. Is it "Hoursong Saturday" or "Hoursong saturday"?
Saturday
Capital letters. I thought for a moment you were going to ask which day a week started on := But everybody knows the start of the week is Sunday.
Edit: Whuh?? Wikipedia crippled my brain. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday#Position_in_the_week)
Great, thanks guys :)
~join~
I wonder what Trihan's up to these days... :'(
Quote from: AtelierGames on Fri 13/08/2010 12:44:27
everybody knows the start of the week is Sunday.
Sunday is part of the weekend, hence it falls at the
end of the week. QED. ;D
Ah, but a week, like a rope, has two ends... ;)
He's got you there, Snarky!
A rope has no logical progressive direction.
A week does (time)
thus it has a beginning and an end.
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Fri 13/08/2010 21:12:23
A rope has no logical progressive direction.
It doesn't? They're infinitive? ;D
...well not to be the one that brings religion into the topic, but if the "it's part of the weekEND" argument is not enough, acording to the Bible, Sunday was the end of the week therefore it isn't at the begining...some weird nations use it as a begining of a week, but I don't get the concept since Monday is the day you start the part of the week that you work thus it's logical that that is the begining
...then again some nations use metric system (which uses the same logic as the number sistem) unlike other nations which use 3/8 of stuff etc. ...it takes all kinds.
Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 13/08/2010 22:46:13Time is an illusion though.
And the cake is a lie.
Quote from: anian on Fri 13/08/2010 22:24:33
Quote from: Calin Leafshade on Fri 13/08/2010 21:12:23
A rope has no logical progressive direction.
It doesn't? They're infinitive? ;D
The infinitive would be "to rope". ;)
Quote from: Dualnames on Fri 13/08/2010 22:46:13
Time is an illusion though.
Lunchtime... is awesome.
Quote from: anian on Fri 13/08/2010 22:24:33
...well not to be the one that brings religion into the topic, but if the "it's part of the weekEND" argument is not enough, acording to the Bible, Sunday was the end of the week therefore it isn't at the begining...some weird nations use it as a begining of a week, but I don't get the concept since Monday is the day you start the part of the week that you work thus it's logical that that is the begining
...then again some nations use metric system (which uses the same logic as the number sistem) unlike other nations which use 3/8 of stuff etc. ...it takes all kinds.
Sorry to burst your bible ( ;D), but in my bible, the Hebrew version, Sunday was the first day of creation... More than that, in Hebrew, Sunday is actually called "the first day", monday is called "the second day" and so on.
And even the weekend argument doesn't work, because in Israel, the weekend ends in Saturday, and everybody goes to work on Sunday...
Quote from: tzachs on Sat 14/08/2010 00:29:55Sorry to burst your bible ( ;D), but in my bible, the Hebrew version, Sunday was the first day of creation... More than that, in Hebrew, Sunday is actually called "the first day", monday is called "the second day" and so on.
And even the weekend argument doesn't work, because in Israel, the weekend ends in Saturday, and everybody goes to work on Sunday...
...awww, somebody didn't read my post all the way through. ;D
And the weekend argument does work, it's in the name and that was the argument... it's not a good one, but unless the word "weekend" is translated into jewish as "week begining," the argument is valid. ;)
It's not "my" Bible, nor is it my religion.
Quote from: Alun on Fri 13/08/2010 23:08:53The infinitive would be "to rope". ;)
Stupid english. :P I've used the term from my language and made an incorrect application.
Quote from: anian on Sat 14/08/2010 01:01:56...awww, somebody didn't read my post all the way through.
I'm not sure why just because he disagrees with you you think he didn't read your post... I've read your post all the way through and I don't agree with it either. Mainly because the Bible
doesn't in fact say anything at all about Sunday being the end of the week. It doesn't mention Sunday at all (http://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=Sunday&qs_version=NIV). The closest thing it says is that God rested on the last day of Creation, and that this day should be set apart as the Sabbath and made holy. But associating the Sabbath with Sunday came much later, and still is far from universal; Judaism defines Saturday as the Sabbath, and so do some Christian denominations (like the Seventh-Day Adventists). So nope, no Biblical support for Sunday ending the week, I'm afraid.
I should add, though, that really I'm just being a devil's advocate here. I don't think this particular argument holds water, but I do agree with the more general point that it's more logical (at least given typical Western societal norms of the weekend at all) to consider the week to begin on Monday. As an American, I'm used to thinking of Sunday as the first day of the week... but I admit that starting the week on Monday is more logical, even though that's not what I'm used to.
Actually I was reffering to me mentioning how basically everybody (nation, country, continent etc.) has their own strange differences.
Quote from: anian on Sat 14/08/2010 10:11:08
Actually I was reffering to me mentioning how basically everybody (nation, country, continent etc.) has their own strange differences.
What you said was:
Quotesome weird nations use it as a begining of a week, but I don't get the concept since Monday is the day you start the part of the week that you work thus it's logical that that is the begining
...then again some nations use metric system (which uses the same logic as the number sistem) unlike other nations which use 3/8 of stuff etc. ...it takes all kinds.
He pointed out that in Israel Monday
isn't the "day [they] start the part of the week that [they] work", so it isn't particularly "weird" for them not to have it as the beginning of a week. Again, not sure how you get from this that he didn't read the end of your post...
But anyway, by now I think there've been
waaaay too many posts about the days of the week, so let's try to get things back to English grammar. Which I will do by mentioning one of my own grammatical pet peeves, something that I have even made up a word to describe: "miswhoming". This is when people use "whom" when they should be using "who". (The other way around doesn't bother me at all, for reasons I'll explain below.)
The reason this bothers me so much, I think, is because it seems it almost has to be a conscious choice. "Whom" is kind of on the way out anyway, and barely used; I don't think it comes naturally to people to stick it where it doesn't belong. It seems they decide to use "whom" in a conscious effort to sound educated, which of course backfires completely when they use it wrong.
I could go on at length here giving the details of when exactly it
is correct to use "whom". ("For whom the bell tolls"? Correct. "To whom it may concern"? Correct. "The man whom they thought had died"? No. Wrong. Don't do that.) But my advice? If you're not completely sure whether to use "who" or "whom", just use "who". Like I said, "whom" is rarely used and kind of on the way out anyway. If you use "who" in the objective case, nobody is going to care, with the possible exception of some of the most persnickety pedants whose opinions don't matter anyway. But if you use "whom" in the subjective case... well, then to those who know the difference, you're going to look kind of silly.
This has been my English grammar rant for the day. I'll shut up now.
Well, whom has quite a wider usage than you seem to suggest.
Basically, in its object function it's always right to use whom, even though it may sound a bit pretentious to most people. As in "whom do you love?" or "whom shall we choose?" both of which are grammatically correct.
A good thumb rule is that whenever the answer is (or could be, hypothetically) "him" you can use whom instead of who.
Quote from: Andail on Sun 15/08/2010 09:28:26
Well, whom has quite a wider usage than you seem to suggest.
Basically, in its object function it's always right to use whom, even though it may sound a bit pretentious to most people. As in "whom do you love?" or "whom shall we choose?" both of which are grammatically correct.
A good thumb rule is that whenever the answer is (or could be, hypthetically) "him" you can use whom instead of who.
Yes, I know all that. As I said, I
could have gone on at length explaining when to use "who" and when to use "whom". And in fact, I
have done just that, some years ago, in my LiveJournal (http://alun-clewe.livejournal.com/52345.html), even giving the same rule of thumb that you cite in your post. I intentionally didn't do that here, because I didn't figure it was worth the trouble... those who knew the difference between subjective and objective would already know, and for those who didn't, they'd still likely be tripped up. My point is that most people
don't really know the difference between objective and subjective, and "whom" gets used a lot when it shouldn't be. (As in my last example, "The man whom they thought had died". There it's actually
subjective -- after all, you'd say "they thought he had died", not "they thought him had died" -- so it should, of course, be "who". But I've seen sentences like that in which "whom" is misused all over the web... including in posts here on the AGS forums.)
I'm not saying nobody should use "whom". (I'm one of the last people in a position to criticize anyone for sounding a bit pretentious.) All I'm saying is, if you
don't know the difference, and you're not
sure "whom" is correct, when in doubt it's better to err on the side of using "who". That doesn't apply, of course, to those who
do know the difference. If you
do know the difference, and you're sure you're using the words correctly, go for it.
Quote from: Alun on Sun 15/08/2010 09:50:19
My point is that most people don't really know the difference between objective and subjective, and "whom" gets used a lot when it shouldn't be. (As in my last example, "The man whom they thought had died". There it's actually subjective -- after all, you'd say "they thought he had died", not "they thought him had died" -- so it should, of course, be "who". But I've seen sentences like that in which "whom" is misused all over the web... including in posts here on the AGS forums.)
I'm not saying nobody should use "whom". (I'm one of the last people in a position to criticize anyone for sounding a bit pretentious.) All I'm saying is, if you don't know the difference, and you're not sure "whom" is correct, when in doubt it's better to err on the side of using "who".
I don't think the example is so much about not knowing the difference between "who" and "whom" as about English sometimes being tricky about whether you should use the subjective or objective. We discussed this issue earlier in the thread following this post (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=38116.msg518390#msg518390).
Quote from: Snarky on Sun 15/08/2010 12:30:05
I don't think the example is so much about not knowing the difference between "who" and "whom" as about English sometimes being tricky about whether you should use the subjective or objective.
I'm not so sure everyone knows that "who" is subjective and "whom" is objective; I get the feeling seeing some of the ways "whom" is misused that many people think there's some other rule for their usage, or just use them interchangeably, or use "whom" whenever they want to sound smart. Still, of course, even for those who
do know the difference, it's easy to make mistakes.
Here's a question. What is the official term for a noun that describes an innumerable amount of something? For example: snow, dirt, sand, etc. You can't have "one snow, two snows," etc. Is there an official term for that kind of noun?
Quote from: TerranRich on Mon 16/08/2010 17:08:56
Here's a question. What is the official term for a noun that describes an innumerable amount of something? For example: snow, dirt, sand, etc. You can't have "one snow, two snows," etc. Is there an official term for that kind of noun?
Officially, it's called a mass noun (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/mass+noun). (I've also sometimes seen it just called "uncountable", but apparently "mass noun" is the more technical term.)
Thanks! "English 101 with Trihan Sometimes" has come through yet again! :)
Back to the weekend/sunday thing, in Chinese the days are called:
Zhou yi (lit. Week One) = Monday
Zhou er (lit. Week Two) = Tuesday
Zhou san (lit. Week Three) = Wednesday
Zhou si (lit. Week Four) = Thursday
Zhou wu (lit. Week Five) = Friday
Zhou liu (lit. Week Six) = Saturday
Zhou tian (lit. Week Heaven) = Sunday
So you can be sure that Chinese calendars will ALWAYS start on Mondays. Its also way more logical than naming your days after Celestial bodies, Norse Gods and Roman Gods.
Any months are easy too: yi yue, er yue, san yue, etc. English's month name etymology is totally screwy.
Quote from: SSH on Thu 19/08/2010 07:25:22
So you can be sure that Chinese calendars will ALWAYS start on Mondays. Its also way more logical than naming your days after Celestial bodies, Norse Gods and Roman Gods.
No. I haven't really dug deep into the topic (i.e. maybe just reading the Chinese Wikipedia article would give better explanation), but as far as I guess these one, two, three, etc. stuff were possibly adapted from the western counterparts.
In ancient time, we Chinese DID use Celestial bodies to name the week days. This practice is still used in Japan (and possibly Korea) but we changed that (with the exception of Sunday that we still use Sun/Day (Sun and Day are interchangeable terms in Chinese for obvious reasons, so are Moon and Month, funny, eh?) to refer to it and it's a bit incorrect to say that Tian refers to 'Heaven' as it's probably used in the context that it means Day) probably just because of convenience.
Also, 99% of calendars would put Sunday on the first column.
In Hong Kong here, it is actually enforced that Sunday is the first day of the week (though some people would use this incorrectly like saying 'from Monday to Sunday'), but I think it's probably mainly a British convention. When we wrote textbooks we made sure that we taught children that a week starts from Sunday. When I inspect the exercises from say item banks, etc. I also make sure that this rule is followed.
Edit:All right. I've checked the Wikipedia article (http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hk/星期). The Chinese version is short but it is straight to the point (if only its information are all accurate). We have the transition to using one, two, three... for only about 100 years. When we still used Celestial bodies for the names there was no confusion (i.e. Japanese and Korean should still be okay with this as they hadn't changed this practice). Sun-day was the first day of a week for sure. But after that change in names certain people have changed their preference, leading to the confusion in some districts (seems that there isn't any unified standard for Chinese speaking people now and this confusion mainly lies in the Mainland). Hong Kong is never affected as it uses British convention. Sad thing is, the ISO-8601 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601) standard now uses 1 to represent Monday and 7 for Sunday.
what? people don't start the week with monday?
that's just too weird.
edit: just read that it used to like that here too.
All my calendars begin with Sunday as the first day of the week.
Another It's/It is one.
I came across this on another forum.
QuoteIn related Swedish news, I understand that now you also have a nationalist-socialist (or a (neo)nazi) in a communal council (or whatever it's in English) in a small municipality somewhere...
(my emphasis)
Now clearly saying "whatever it's in English" isn't "good" English, but I'm not sure if it is
technically incorrect. Obviously we're all aware of the possessive vs contraction situation, and it seems to me that what is meant here is clearly "it is".
So therefore my question is, is this a technically incorrect usage of "it's", or is it just not the done thing in practice?
"It's" is a very commonly used, and (as far as I'm aware,) not incorrect contraction of "It is".
...not sure if that was being asked....
Not quite i'm afraid! :)
I'm aware that "It's" is a contraction of "It is" (or has etc.) but my question was if it is appropriately used in the context of "or whatever it's in English" as this is something that would sound very strange to hear spoken, but appears to me to be technically correct as a contraction of "it is".
Both are grammatically correct, as you said, but it's a good rule, that writing scientifical text, you don't use the ', you write the whole words like do not and it is instead of don't & it's. This I learned in ground school.
Again, not quite the point, I think.
I understand what you're saying, Intense Degree. There's something about the structure or rhythm of this sentence that means you wouldn't say, and therefore shouldn't write, "it's."
There are a number of contexts where contractions aren't used in English. For example, consider:
"I've got a new bike."
"Well, have you got a helmet?"
"Yes, I have."
In the first sentence, "I've" is fine, but it would be ridiculous to say "Yes, I've."
That's exactly the point Snarky!
I think i'm going to assume that it may be technically correct, given a strict interpretation, but that conventional usage of the contraction demands it must be "it is" in this circumstance.
Although as to the reason for this I don't think I can do any better than the fact, as you point out, that it would be ridiculous to do otherwise! :) (with no offence at all to the fine gentleman who originally made the post - just in case he also frequents this forum! ;D)
There's no hard-and-fast distinction between what's incorrect and what's just unidiomatic. I would consider this a mistake, although a not particularly significant one.
I do vaguely remember a story by some American staying in an Asian country (it might actually have been Dave Gilbert or Vince Twelve) and visiting an English class. They had taken the textbook and changed all the "don't"-s and "doesn't"-s and so on to the expanded form. This led to sentences like "Do not you want some wine?" When asked about this, they explained that the textbook was in American English, but they were teaching British English, "and there they always say it like that." He couldn't convince them that this was quite simply wrong.
I am pretty sure that there is a systematic rule that controls whether a contraction can be used, but I don't know what it is.
Quote from: Intense Degree on Fri 24/09/2010 10:37:04
So therefore my question is, is this a technically incorrect usage of "it's", or is it just not the done thing in practice?
Well, in a sense, whether or not a grammatical formulation is correct depends on whether or not it's done in practice, so those amount to more or less the same thing. Though admittedly it's another matter whether any respected grammar guides actually explicitly forbid such a usage of "it's", which I don't know. (I checked Strunk and White's
The Elements of Style, which is one of the best known such grammar guides (albeit one somewhat deprecated by linguists for its occasional flights into unfounded prescriptivism), and didn't find anything there.) Certainly it's unusual, though.
I think another interesting question, however, is how one could define exactly when "it's" is and isn't used -- what is it about this particular example that's different from other sentences in which "it's"
would be used? My inclination is to say that "it is" is only contracted to "it's" when it occurs at the beginning of the clause, or at least before the complement (that is, the noun or adjective that the "is" is linking the "it" to). I'm not sure this is completely right, but seems to cover the cases I can think of offhand. In "it is raining", the complement is "raining", which comes after the "it is", so it's okay to contract it: "it's raining". In "I'll go see if it is the police", the clause containing "it is" is "it is the police"; the complement is "the police", which comes after "it is", so it's okay to contract it: "I'll go see if it's the police". In "whatever it is in English", the complement is "whatever", which in this clause is
before the "it is", so contraction isn't allowed (or at least isn't idiomatic), which is why "whatever it's in English" looks and sounds wrong.
As I said, though, I'm not completely sure this rule works in all cases, or if it just happens to hold in a few examples I've thought of but perhaps with more thought I could come up with other examples that violate it. It's easier for a native speaker to say whether or not a particular phrasing seems right than to be able to express exactly
why it doesn't seem right...
EDIT: And, after glancing over Snarky's penultimate post, I already came up with an example that violates my proposed rule: You wouldn't contract "Yes, it is" to "Yes, it's", even though there's no complement before the "it is". On the other hand, there's no complement
after the "it is" either -- the complement here is elided and implied -- so maybe it's not a violation after all; maybe the rule is simply that the complement has to occur after the "it is", so it can't be contracted if the complement comes before the "it is" or if the complement is omitted. And, indeed, adding a complement to this sentence does allow contraction: "Yes, it is the police" can be contracted to "Yes, it's the police". Hmm...
Maybe when the emphasis lies on the "is", you don't contract?
Quote from: Khris on Fri 24/09/2010 19:24:56
Maybe when the emphasis lies on the "is", you don't contract?
Hm... also true -- in "I was wrong! It
is the police!" you wouldn't contract that to "I was wrong!
It's the police!" But I'd be inclined to regard that as a separate, additional rule rather than as a replacement for the rule I stated. After all, in "whatever it is in English", the emphasis
isn't on the "is", so this doesn't apply.
EDIT: Meh, the police example is a bad example here, because there's nothing really wrong or ungrammatical about the second version; it's just a matter of what you want to emphasize. If you want to emphasize one of the words, it makes sense not to contract them -- which I suppose holds for contractions in general. But I don't think that's the only thing that prevents contractions, and in particular I don't think that explains the "whatever it is in English" example, since the "is" isn't emphasized there. Still leaning toward my "only contracts if the complement comes after the 'it is'" rule for now...
I'd still say it's a matter of emphasis.
First of all, in all cases of ellipsis, you wouldn't use contractions.
As in
"is this your bike?"
"yes it is." (ellipsis for "yes it's my bike")
or
"Do you take Sarah Dumbleton for your lawfully wedded bride?"
"I do." (compare "I'd." which would be incorrect, and very weird)
I think in order for "it's" to be considered ungrammatical, the is has to be the main verb. In sentences like "it's raining" is is auxiliary and wouldn't need to stand alone unless there should be special emphasis on it, as in
"only bring your umbrella if it's raining"
"well it is raining!"
It is clear that when there is another main verb, you could contract "it is" without problems, as in "or whatever it's called in Swedish".
So...when it comes to non-ellipsis cases where you shouldn't contract....
I think what we have here is two different meanings of "is". When "is" has the purpose of identifying or defining something, rather than just classifying or pointing something out, or taking an auxiliary function, it somehow takes a deeper, more universal meaning and is thus not contracted.
Compare
"The bike's in the garage" and "a bike is a two-wheeled vehicle". The former statement is answering the question "where is it?" whereas the latter is answering the question "what is it?" a question of definition. I'm not saying this sentence would be ungrammatical if contracted, but my guess is that most people would say it with "is" standing alone.
"If that's what I think it is..." In this sentence, the 2nd is has a defining function. It could never be contracted.
Well I dunno, just brainstorming now really.
Andail, how does your theory work with sentences like "That's it!" where "is" is the main verb? There must be some other factor that makes the contraction improper.
I'm also curious if there are sentences where "it's" is grammatical but "it is" isn't.
I think this might be the first time in this thread that we're discussing a question that is interesting and subtle enough that I think it might be worth bringing to a real language expert.
Quote from: Snarky on Sat 25/09/2010 18:27:18
Andail, how does your theory work with sentences like "That's it!" where "is" is the main verb? There must be some other factor that makes the contraction improper.
I didn't quite say that no sentences with "is" as a main verb can be contracted - I said that one prerequisite to the no-contraction-rule (with neutral emphasis) is that "is" is the main verb.
And yeah, I agree that this is one issue we probably won't solve ourselves...
Quote from: Andail on Sat 25/09/2010 18:06:42
I'd still say it's a matter of emphasis.
But, again, that doesn't work in all cases. It's certainly not a matter of emphasis in the "whatever it is in English" example.
QuoteI think what we have here is two different meanings of "is". When "is" has the purpose of identifying or defining something, rather than just classifying or pointing something out, or taking an auxiliary function, it somehow takes a deeper, more universal meaning and is thus not contracted.
Again, how does that work with "whatever it is in English"? Is it "identifying or defining something" there? Or, for that matter, in "What's that?" "It is a whale", it
is identifying or defining something, but it
can be contracted -- "What's that?" "It's a whale." is perfectly natural and grammatical... much more natural than "It is a whale", in fact.
Quote"The bike's in the garage" and "a bike is a two-wheeled vehicle". The former statement is answering the question "where is it?" whereas the latter is answering the question "what is it?" a question of definition. I'm not saying this sentence would be ungrammatical if contracted, but my guess is that most people would say it with "is" standing alone.
Not really. "A bike's a two-wheeled vehicle" sounds perfectly natural to me. Granted, you wouldn't see it contracted in a dictionary definition, but in everyday speech there's nothing unusual about that sentence.
Quote"If that's what I think it is..." In this sentence, the 2nd is has a defining function. It could never be contracted.
But in "I think it is a whale," the "is" also has a defining function, but
can be (and generally
would be) contracted: "I think it's a whale."
Again, still seems to me that it's OK to contract "it is" only when the complement is after the "it is", and not okay when the complement comes before the "it is" or is elided. Still haven't seen any counterexamples to that, and it doesn't rely on fuzzy notions of what function a word is serving in a sentence. Of course, it's hard to analyze because native speakers don't really consciously think about why it's okay in some circumstances and not in others, but that still seems to me the most workable rule I've seen for it so far.
For a further example, consider the following exchange:
"Is that a shark?"
"No... looks like a whale to me."
"Ah, yes. A whale it is."
That last sentence has exactly the same words, fulfilling exactly the same functions, as "It is a whale" -- just in a different order. But while "It is a whale" would usually be contracted in everyday speech to "It's a whale", you'd never contract it that last sentence to "A whale it's" -- that sounds horribly unnatural.
Though you did bring up one case that does throw a slight curve to that idea, the clause "whatever it's called in Swedish". The complement is "called whatever in Swedish", but, although the "called" appears after the "it is", the "whatever" appears before. Still think this fits the rule, though, because, even though the complement is split up and part put before the "it is" and part after, the head of the phrase is "called", which comes after the "it is". It makes sense that if part of the complement is before the "it is" and part afterward, it's where the head of the complement is that matters.
Quote from: Snarky on Sat 25/09/2010 18:27:18I'm also curious if there are sentences where "it's" is grammatical but "it is" isn't.
I'm almost positive there aren't. After all, in formal writing, contractions are often avoided altogether, and it doesn't make sense that formal writing would be less grammatical. There are some sentences where "it is" would sound stilted and grammatical in speech, but it would still be correct in formal writing. Well, here's an example: "Who's there?" "It's me!" I think it would be very rare to say "It is me!" (Of course, technically the complement should be in the subjective case, and it should be "It is I!", but that's opening a different can of worms that's already been covered and probably isn't worth bringing up again... and anyway, almost nobody says that. Although, come to think of it, "It is I!" still seems more natural than either "It is me!" or "It's I!" I guess because the formal register matches...)
Interesting discussions.
I'm now starting to think it could be simply about position in a sentence.
End of a sentence - clearly doesn't contract, i.e. "Yes it's.", "It is simply what it's.".
End of a clause, or part of a sentence (not sure of the correct termanology here but will attempt to explain) - doesn't contract.
So taking the initial example "or whatever it's in English", the sentence can be broken down into 2 parts (although not really clauses), "Whatever it is" and "in English". As the "It's" is then at the end of the first part of the sentence it must be "It is".
However, as pointed out, the sentence "or whatever it's called in Swedish" is fine, as in the first part "whatever it is called" the "it's" is not at the end.
Maybe? :)
That's more or less what I was saying; I just put it a little more technically (and therefore perhaps more confusingly). Instead of trying to break the sentence down into parts, I was just looking at where the complement of the clause was (the part that the "is" works to equate to the "it") -- if the complement comes after the "it is", it's okay to contract the "it is"; if not (because the complement comes before the "it is" or because it's omitted), it's not. I think you seem to be defining the "part of the sentence" in question as the "it is" plus the complement, which means that the "it is" comes at that end of the "part of the sentence" if and only if the complement doesn't come after the "it is". So I think you're saying about the same thing I was, just in different words.
On a not altogether related note, though, I've been rethinking what I said in the last paragraph in response to Snarky about there never being any cases where "it is" is ungrammatical but "it's" is okay. Actually, in fact, I kind of contradicted myself in that post by giving a counterexample: as I said, you'd rarely, if ever, hear anyone say "it is me". ("It's me", sure, "it is I", rare and a little pompous but not altogether unknown, but "it is me" just sounds kind of weird.) Don't know if it's ungrammatical, per se, but definitely a bit unnatural. The same goes, I think, for some other phrases that might come up in conversation but not in formal writing. "Who's there?" "It's the police!" sounds perfectly natural. "Who's there?" "It is the police!" sounds stilted and odd. Again, perhaps not strictly ungrammatical, but definitely unidiomatic.
Yeah, Alun, I admit now that you're making much more sense than I was...anyhow, it was fun speculating, even though it was quite a wild goose chase...:)
I've often noticed a specific difference between German and English when it comes to expressing a negative.
Here's an example:
Say Person A is talented. Person B though thinks otherwise.
In German we say "Person B thinks Person A is not talented."
However, in English the usual way of expressing the same thing seems to be "Person B does not think Person A is talented."
Superficially, the sentences convey identical meaning; however I'd say that the second version would also apply to a Person B who hasn't made up their mind about A being talented, while the first version explicitly states what Person B thinks of Person A.
Thoughts?
Edit: Here's the piece of monologue from Admiral Adama that made me write the post:
-They don't think I see it.
-But I do.
-I see it.
Note how "I do" relates to him (actually not) seeing it; why doesn't he say "They think I don't see it"?
It depends what the verb is I suppose. Change your A/B example Khris so you use a different verb.
• Person B knows Person A is not talented.
• Person B does not know Person A is talented.
In the second, it only implies an absence of knowledge, and cannot be read two ways. Therefore these sentences are complete opposites.
• Person B wishes Person A is not talented, (he does not wish A is talented)
• Person B does not wish Person A is talented, (he wishes A is not talented)
On the other hand, these two sentences are identical. If it's stated that he does not wish something, he must wish it, and vice versa; neutrality can't be assumed if the feeling is already created and stated. This is just philosophical rather than lexicological.
Of course, changing the verb will lead to completely different results.
I had a better example, I'm trying to remember it. I know, take this sentence:
"All of them didn't get the lecture." This seems to be a common way of expressing "Nobody got the lecture." which is how a German would put it. The first version sounds weird to us.
Is this a matter of dialect, or a colloquial thing?
Personally, I've never heard somebody say "all of them didn't get the lecture", it sounds so clumsy. At least, on its own:
• "John, Joe, Anne... all of them didn't get the lecture."
This sounds a little better if you define 'them' beforehand, as it were. Whereas with 'nobody', its already defined in itself because it means absolutely zero people.
• "John, Joe, Anne... all of them got the lecture."
This sounds correct. So, it seems that as soon as a negative is involved like in the first example, it sounds odd. =S
Yes, it sounds awkward, and moreover, I think a sentence of that form 90% of the time would mean "Not all of them got the lecture." In other words, some of them may have, but at least some people didn't.
This is more of an observation than a question, but feel free to discuss.
I've noticed how where British speakers of English say something like:
'you can't just come waltzing in here without knocking'
an American would say:
'you just can't come waltzing in here without knocking'... which to my British ears makes little sense.
Quote from: Khris on Sun 28/11/2010 16:39:23
Here's an example:
Say Person A is talented. Person B though thinks otherwise.
In German we say "Person B thinks Person A is not talented."
However, in English the usual way of expressing the same thing seems to be "Person B does not think Person A is talented."
I think the reason "B thinks A is not talented." is jarring in English is because it is more correct to use the prefix 'un-', or use an antonym instead.
"B thinks A is untalented" is far more natural to say, so to use the word 'not' to negate the word it makes more sense to refer to the verb.
For an antonym, consider "I don't think this is a good idea", "I think this isn't a good idea," and "I think this is a bad idea."
In the second example sentence, "isn't good" is more naturally replaced by "is bad".
Just my thoughts on the matter.
Is it more common in German to use 'not' rather than an antonym?
Quote from: Scarab on Mon 29/11/2010 15:41:32
Is it more common in German to use 'not' rather than an antonym?
Yes, some antonyms also have a slightly different meaning than just using 'not'.
thats true in english to.
Just because something is *not* the case doesn't mean the opposite *is* the case.
Quote from: Stupot on Sun 28/11/2010 22:30:47
This is more of an observation than a question, but feel free to discuss.
I've noticed how where British speakers of English say something like:
'you can't just come waltzing in here without knocking'
an American would say:
'you just can't come waltzing in here without knocking'... which to my British ears makes little sense.
Actually, I'm an American and the second one sounds a bit off to me as well.
I'm Canadian and the second one definitely sounds a bit off, but I wouldn't think twice about it if I heard it used.
*thunder clap* The thread... it's aliiive!
Important question -
Is century capitalised? 21st Century or 21st century?
Quote from: Atelier on Fri 20/03/2015 10:57:08
*thunder clap* The thread... it's aliiive!
Important question -
Is century capitalised? 21st Century or 21st century?
Unless "Century" is a name of your boat, and you've owned 20 before, you spell it century, lower case c.
Thanks :) I've been writing it wrong my whole life then, and only just now thought to question it.
I do a lot of proofreading for AGS games so I just thought I would put a simple bit of grammar down in here that I often find many people don't get (myself included until recently):
"any more" vs "anymore"
Here's the easy way to remember which to use:
"I don't want to take any more crap from that guy anymore."
"any more" indicates an amount of something.
"anymore" indicates time.
Okay, I'm not going to post any more usless crap in here anymore...
Quote from: Andail on Fri 20/03/2015 11:00:39Unless "Century" is a name of your boat, and you've owned 20 before, you spell it century, lower case c.
(http://www.coveredbridgesrealty.com/AccountData/150071194/maryradle7Logo.jpg)
(http://www.centurylink.com/assets/images/page-components/mobile_logo.png)
20th Century Fox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Fox)Only because you gave such a specific example about boats... :P Obviously,
any time (
not just pertaining to boats) it's being used as part of a name (and isn't being stylized for aesthetic purposes), then the first letter should be capitalized.
As an additional note (an an unabashed attempt to have something actually relevant to post), even in its anglicized form ("century"), the Roman "centuria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centuria)" is not capitalized either.
And I've also just realized that "anglicized" isn't capitalized (
unlike "Anglican"). (roll) The more you know...
I'm fairly certain the Associated Press used to capitalize Century, which is perhaps where you got that from. They don't anymore, though.
One thing that bothers me, since "anymore" was brought up, is the positive use of the word, i.e. "anymore" used as a replacement for "nowadays." Anymore people use "anymore" to begin sentences, like this one, and it bugs the living shit out of me. I wish they wouldn't do that anymore.
Can't say I've ever come across 'anymore' as a replacement of 'nowadays' not at the beginning of a sentence. That just sounds way off to me.
Yeah, some people just take there langugage for granted. Their making all these errors with such constistency that they're is no telling what the proper way to spell is, nowadays.
I mean, anymore.
Or do I?
Quote from: Stupot+ on Sat 21/03/2015 05:02:42
Can't say I've ever come across 'anymore' as a replacement of 'nowadays' not at the beginning of a sentence. That just sounds way off to me.
It's apparently a regional affectation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore), and I've just moved in recent years to the region that's affected.
I'm not English native, but that just rubs me the wrong way... 8-0
Quote from: Fitz on Sat 21/03/2015 07:28:31
Yeah, some people just take there langugage for granted. Their making all these errors with such constistency that they're is no telling what the proper way to spell is, nowadays.
ROFL!!! And GAWD!!! It drives me CRAZY when people make those mistakes for real. And the best part is: it's ALWAYS
native English speakers that make this mistake! Non-native English speakers always get their/there/they're correct. I mean come on! It's embarrassing!
Quote from: Eric on Sat 21/03/2015 18:26:19
Quote from: Stupot+ on Sat 21/03/2015 05:02:42
Can't say I've ever come across 'anymore' as a replacement of 'nowadays' not at the beginning of a sentence. That just sounds way off to me.
It's apparently a regional affectation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore), and I've just moved in recent years to the region that's affected.
Of the five examples given on that page, the middle one does sound kind of acceptable, but still slightly off. The other four just sound weird to me.
Interestingly, Fitz's example shows is how it might have come to be used as a synonym of 'nowadays' because it seems to be acceptable at the end of the word and in a negative sentence. So, I can kind of understand how some groups of people may have developed the positive usage. But not where I'm from.
Quote from: Mandle on Sat 21/03/2015 23:09:55
Quote from: Fitz on Sat 21/03/2015 07:28:31
Yeah, some people just take there langugage for granted. Their making all these errors with such constistency that they're is no telling what the proper way to spell is, nowadays.
ROFL!!! And GAWD!!! It drives me CRAZY when people make those mistakes for real. And the best part is: it's ALWAYS native English speakers that make this mistake! Non-native English speakers always get their/there/they're correct. I mean come on! It's embarrassing!
Damn it, Mandle, take it easy on me! Sometimes we get so caught up in trying to type our thoughts before we lose them we make dozens of simple grammar mistakes... :-[
BTW
I miss two spaces after the end of a sentence. Was that just a typewriter thing?
Quote from: Eric on Sat 21/03/2015 18:26:19
It's apparently a regional affectation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_anymore), and I've just moved in recent years to the region that's affected.
Ah that explains it, had me confused for a minute there as I've travelled all over the UK and not heard it used in that way!! You meant American not English!! Those folks like to do some strange things with the language over there!! ;)
On that subject, things like capitalize, institutionalized and scrutinize (which I suppose I'm kinda doing here heh) are Americanised versions of the word. The proper English way to do it is to use 's' not 'z'. So capitalise, institutionalised and scrutinise.
That annoys me as much as the incorrect usage of 'their , they're, there' - and I've seen myself do it a few times!!!
Quote from: Stee on Sun 22/03/2015 12:22:26
On that subject, things like capitalize, institutionalized and scrutinize (which I suppose I'm kinda doing here heh) are Americanised versions of the word. The proper English way to do it is to use 's' not 'z'. So capitalise, institutionalised and scrutinise.
Simple rule to remember: If
S is between two vocals, then it reads
Z...
(which implies that it's written with an s) ;)
We were taught that in Canada too, but all the spell checkers are killing it off.
Uhm, you are right... I normally don't think much about it, and have the English (US) dictionary installed, and it does correct those words to z... however, I just installed the British dictionary to my Firefox, and checking with that one will not correct the words... So it does depend on which dictionary you are using.
Here's something I came across a couple days ago. I am a native (American) English speaker, but it kind of bothers me when I see or (shudder) use contractions inside of a hashtag. Granted, I don't use hashtags very often, and when I do it's usually meant as a joke more than anything else.
The other day I was posting (to Facebook) about working out, and I was quite exhausted, so I appended the hashtag, "#pleaseexcusemewhileImdead". Including the apostrophe would break the hashtag, but saying, "while I am dead" just sounded excessively formal.
Obviously hashtags aren't even remotely proper grammar, but I was curious what the general convention is for cases like this. :-\
Quote from: Stee on Sun 22/03/2015 12:22:26
On that subject, things like capitalize, institutionalized and scrutinize (which I suppose I'm kinda doing here heh) are Americanised versions of the word. The proper English way to do it is to use 's' not 'z'. So capitalise, institutionalised and scrutinise.
That annoys me as much as the incorrect usage of 'their , they're, there' - and I've seen myself do it a few times!!!
This is not actually true. The "-ise" spelling is somewhat more common in British English, but both versions are in current use, and have been throughout history, with "-ize" being the older one (predating Americanization) and "-ise" a French borrowing. The OED and Oxford University Press use "-ize" (while the Cambridge University Press uses "-ise"), and it's therefore sometimes known as the Oxford spelling. "-ize" is also more authentic to the Greek root and to pronunciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-ise.2C_-ize_.28-isation.2C_-ization.29
Quote from: MiteWiseacreLives! on Sun 22/03/2015 06:33:55
Damn it, Mandle, take it easy on me!
Yeah right. I saw what you did there... ;)
It's been exact one month since this thread was last touched, so I hope that I'm not breaking the rules (and even if I am, it's for a good cause ;)). I've a very simple question (for those of you who are proficient or well-versed in English). Consider the following:
I ____ become a doctor. (may, might)
Which one is correct (or more suitable, in case both are correct and/or can be used)? The above question was given in a test, and I chose "might" but my English's teacher disagrees with me. She says that "may" is the correct option. It's not like I don't trust my teacher but my mind just can't seem to accept her opinion for some reason. It's just that I can't help but strongly feel that "might" is the more suitable option here. That's why I need an opinion of a third person. Can someone please help me? This little "thing" is constantly bugging me off and now I'm desperate to seek an answer.
Spoiler
Some of you may be wondering why I'm asking such a simple question (or why such a simple question was given in a test - after all, I'm not a student of 4 grade/class). Well, the reason is that English is a language foreign to us. I try to get a good grasp on English but occasionally, like a handful of sand, it feels as if it's slipping away from my hold. :(
'Might' suggests a less likely probability of you becoming a doctor, than 'may'.
Perhaps, that's the reason for your teacher to insist on 'may' (= as not to deliberately degrade
your own statement).
However, grammatically they are both interchangeable and both are 'proper' English in this instance.
Just expressing slightly different things:
I may become a doctor. // Certain connotation of somewhat more confidence.
I might become a doctor. // Not quite as likely of that happening.
Further to that, "may" often (not always) carries connotations of choice and "might" of trying.
So for instance:
"If I choose to, I may become a doctor. Otherwise I may go into law or teaching." (The ability is not in doubt, only the choice)
And
"I might become a doctor, if I can pass all the exams." (The ability is in doubt)
Or to put it another way with a slightly different emphasis:
“OK, you may become a doctor.†- i.e. you are allowed to become a doctor if you want
“OK, you might become a doctor.†- i.e. If you are able to achieve it, you could become a doctor.
(That isn't the only way of reading any of those sentences and, as Tramp said, both can mean a possibility with "may" being more likely than "might").
I agree with the posts above and it shouldn't really matter much in this case. In addition, there's another distinction between them. Formally (or traditionally), might is the past tense of may, therefore it's probably more logical to use may when talking about the present or the future and might when referring to the past.
In situations like this you should actually ask your teacher to clarify. A proper teacher should be able to explain his/her preferences with valid reasons, rules and regulations.
Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me, guys. One reason why I chose "might" be that I took the question personally. And thought, "how would I say that sentence in real life". There's a very little possibility that I would become a doctor since I didn't choose subjects related to medicine, besides having little to no interest in medicine either. Probably that's why my subconsciousness urged me to use "might", because the probability of my becoming a doctor is very low. This was, perhaps, the grave mistake on my part.
When looked from a neutral point of view, it indeed looks more of a choice rather than the ability. Besides, we are talking about future here. Hence, "may" is the best option to go with.
Quote from: Hobo on Fri 24/04/2015 15:17:16
In situations like this you should actually ask your teacher to clarify. A proper teacher should be able to explain his/her preferences with valid reasons, rules and regulations.
I had asked my teacher to clarify and she had given me her reasons. She even agreed to explain it more clearly the next day (so it's not her fault, really). Sometimes, I tend to get quite persistent when I have a strong opinion or feeling about something. That's why I need the opinion of a third person. :X
Thank you so much for your time and patience, guys. I certainly learnt a lot today! :)
Ok.
I have always regarded the countable form of youth (a youth, several youths) as a slightly dated equivalent of the Swedish "yngling" which historically has referred to a young man.
Now I've seen "youths" used to mean just young people in general, similar to teenagers. A quick dictionary check tells me that both meanings exist.
So, turning to native speakers, how common is it to use "youths" in the sense of "youngsters" or "teenagers", and do you agree that a language puritan would only use it about young men? Would you even use the word at all, or is it too dated?
Technically "youths" could refer to any group of young people - typically teens as you say.
In terms of common use in the UK, 10-20-30 years ago, "youth clubs" were quite common in places, which were for teenagers of any gender and even "youth centres" were around the place here and there, again for teens of both genders.
However, "youths" is (in my experience) not used so much that way any more. It is more often used in newspapers or in the news etc. as "a gang of youths" which conjures up the image of teenagers in hoodies, likely to be mostly male, drinking in the park at night and engaging in some light vandalism, or hanging around outside convenience stores on bikes which are far too small for them hoping to convince someone to buy them some alcohol, or to steal it! Therefore there is a slightly derogatory or rowdy connotation to it.
Also - on the male v female thing, if the group was entirely male then "youths" would be used in the paper. If a mixed group then "youths" would still be used. If entirely female then it wouldn't (in my opinion). Sexual Equality FTW! ;)
Either way, it is not that common in casual conversation. I wouldn't say "yes there's always some youths hanging around outside bargain booze" although it would be entirely correct technically speaking. It is a slightly outdated term I think, at least around my way, or it is a peculiar one, in that it is in some ways a "formal" term to describe something very much informal!
Intense Degree has it pretty much spot on apart from one point.
I think calling it 'dated' is wrong when used in casual conversation as I think that's just a case of where you are in England. I know for a fact some younger people I know from Nuneaton use it as a greeting e.g. Sup youth. How you doing youths?
Sorry (not sorry?) for the necro, but I have an English question!
Is "preconditional" a valid derivative of "precondition"?
As in: "In the vast majority of cases, no bypassing exemption will apply, and an area of land will thus be subjected to a preconditional physico-legal test."
It is in none of the dictionaries I've consulted, but seems like it should be right and I want to use it over everything else!
Sounds legit to me. But to be honest "conditional" does the job. The 'pre' part is redundant because it already implies you need to do something 'before' something else can happen.
Oh, I see how many replies are here and read that you thought that this topic will not be popular ;)
I`m also not a native English speaker. what is you the most unexpected rule in English?