BS: Pedants be damned

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 10:23 PM

I was teaching English as a second language once. To factory workers, most of whose first language was Spanish or Portugee. As we know, those languages use a simple form corresponding to " X HAS Y."
Yet the textbook I was supposed to teach from had only the form of " 's got". What a ball of confusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 08:44 PM

those signs are in pubs when you are walking down narrow steps trying to find the "lew"

of course here we call them restrooms, outhouses, shit house, library , john's and a host of other names. However, it all comes out in the end

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 08:38 PM

all over England signs that read "Mind your Head"

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Elmore
Date: 10 Dec 13 - 06:35 PM

Saw a sign at the big beautiful supermarket today. Waldorf salad was on sale in Hayesville, NC. However, they spelled it Waldrof. Made me laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 07:03 PM

If I were much younger and had lots of time to waste on a troll I would rip you a new one.However, I don't, and you obviously have a juvenile need to have the last word, and I don't so fire away, your target has left the room.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 05:22 PM

Eh? Anyone any idea what he's on about?

Or, even, what he's on?

He's becoming increasingly incoherent, isn't he? It isn't me, as promised, that is being abused. Maybe it's some substance?

Still, he did have the grace, quite rightly, to call me 'Sir' in his penultimate post. At least he seems to have some idea of his place.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 03:11 PM

I'm busy trying to imagine you with a personality.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 02:47 PM

I'm trembling in my shoes [except that I am wearing sheepskin moccasins -- I suppose they count as shoes].

So ~~ earwig-o: Piss off Kendall, you googleheaded goon!

So; now:

go on something ~~~

HAPPEN!

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 02:34 PM

Sir, you aint seen nothin'. Piss me off and see what happens.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 01:33 PM

Kendall, you are disgracing yourself, and it is distressing for all of us to see. Such unmannerliness is no part of the Morse Code. And I have every right to say what I please to you: perhaps not to tell you what to do; but certainly to comment on what you choose to say. You don't seem to be suffering from any inhibitions in that particular just now.

Seamus -- No, it's a subjunctive.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 01:12 PM

Shouldn't the thread title read "Pedants are damned"? Unless it was posted by a pirate.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 12:48 PM

MtheGM, don't flatter yourself. You have no right to tell me what to do or not to do.
I've been in a bad mood ever since Bush got appointed president.

"Never argue with someone whose opinion you don't respect."

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 12:35 PM

spelt? Isn't that a kind of fish?

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 12:34 PM

MtheGM:
Sorry, in this case I must side with the colonials.
My understanding (however misguided)has always been that get/got includes some extent of fetch/collect/gather.
If you possess something you have it. If you have got it, I would ask where you have got it from.
I don't "get a train", I "Catch a train". A shunter driver may get a train (from the sidings).
"Britain has talent" does not have quite the same ring. There again the existing title could refer to the gathering in of talent to appear in the show.

Cheers
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 11:05 AM

Well, dearie me ~~ Not like poor old Kendall to be such a stinking-mannered slob. Tch! Tch! Now what can have got his knickers into such a terrible twist?

Rhetorical question, of course; so please don't anyone waste time answering, as if somebody somewhere might just give a — um — rodent's posterior for the answer.

~M~ shaking ☹ sadly

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:36 AM

Lighter, it is common here, so is aint, me and her, me and you, and nome sane.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:33 AM

Mthe GM, we have the same tv show here, and I don't give a rats ass where it is used, I don't like it. So, you know what they say about opinions. I suggest YOU bugger off.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 10:23 AM

Oh, I got plenty o' nuttin'
And nuttin's plenty for me.
I got no car, got no mule,
I got no misery.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 09:37 AM

"Has got" is perfectly normal here in the US as well.

Colloquial: "How many you got?" "I('ve) got plenty." (But!: "How many has he got?"

Standard/Formal: "How many do you have?" "I have plenty."

Formal but rather uncommon: "How many have you?" "I have plenty."

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Paul Reade
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:53 AM

Re "Pillock". My favouraite definition is from the late Jake Thackray: "a Yorkshire scrotum"

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:48 AM

Maybe GUEST of two posts back. But Britain is here; so I don't see it matters in the lest whether it is acceptable there or not. So perhaps you would be good enough to butt out of the names of our [not your] tv programmes [thus spelt], if it is not too much to ask...

Thank you.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:38 AM

Pillock is an interesting word; it has no meaning here, but I was encouraged to not use it in the UK.

Like "Schmuck", fairly common here but I dare say most non Jews use it without knowing what it means.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 13 - 08:31 AM

MtheGM, as George Bush said, "When in Rome, do as Romanians do."

Britains got talent may be acceptable over there, but it's poor grammar here.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 03:15 PM

No, Q, I wasn't objecting to 'gotten'; just pointing out that 'has got' is the normal UK usage where in the US you use the simple 'has'. No particular animus; tho,as I said, you appear to find ours tautologous and we find yours perhaps a bit prim. A matter of one's customary mode of thought & expression, really, rather than involving any sort of 'pedantry' as implied or desiderated by this thread.

I appreciate the irony implied in your asterisked alternative formulation; but if you think I should have any objection of any sort whatever to your first usage, then I assure that I should not. My pedantries, "legendary" tho they have been stated to be, involve only matters of fact, not of linguistic usage.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 03:00 PM

Sorry, I put two posts together. The "has" with "got" was the one *I was referring to.

(*to which I was referring)

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 02:08 PM

To which who objects, Q? Your last post appeared to be in reply to mine; but I have certainly never so objected...

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 02:04 PM

The usage (punter) in England does not extend to North America as yet.
I read a lot of fiction, a good deal of it UK, so I am aware of its usage there.

Got, gotten; The OED has the usages to which you object. They seem to have become rare in the UK, but persist in North America. This was brought up in another thread some time ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 01:35 PM

Quite right M, "punters" are bookmakers customers, but I don't believe bookmaking is legal in the US.
Racecourses operate a totalisator system. So the odds are completely determined by how much money goes on each horse or greyhound.

This system cuts out much of the cheating at sports events where betting takes place.
A "punt" is the Irish for one pound sterling, and the word was applied to those who "invested" their punts with "Slippery Pat" :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 01:25 PM

Q - A punt is a colloquial word here for a bet. So a punter was originally a racegoer; and the word extended to cover people who choose to attend or participate in other events. I can just about see why some fussy churchgoers might just consider it a somewhat disrespectful, slang or over-idiomatic way to refer to the congregation at what to them is a sacred occasion, tho it must have been obvious that Eliza intended no disrespect; but Will's usage was perfectly colloquially acceptable, surely?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 12:44 PM

From Webster's Dictionary-

punter- a player who punts [football]
punter- a person who propels or travels in a punt.

What peculiar usages these English have.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: akenaton
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 08:25 AM

Shurely shome mishtake?

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,Triplane
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 07:42 AM

The pedants. ARE revolting , let them create ache

"Alons enfant de la Patrie let jour de gloire est arrive/"

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 07:30 AM

I was once roundly told off by someone on Mudcat - some years ago - for using the word "punters" when talking about audiences in clubs and pubs. I was told it was demeaning to them. Well, the punters never heard us talking about them. It was (and still is) a word very much in use in the music business. So I disagreed with that rather pedantic comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 07:06 AM

We clean a holiday barn once a week for a very posh couple. The owner was most put out when I referred to the 'guests' as 'punters'. I love that word, and once disgraced myself at church when preparing the service books and remarked that we probably wouldn't get many 'punters' as the weather was so cold. Frosty looks and meaningful silences all round.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Will Fly
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 06:36 AM

Well, that's quite a long-standing custom, isn't it? We've had guesthouses for years - and a Gasthaus is just the same thing in Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 05:09 AM

Another minor irritation is deliberate or habitual misuse of words such as when, for instance, a hotel calls me a 'guest'. No, I'm a paying customer which means I can expect to get what I pay for. A guest suggests I should be content with what I am given. Its the mirror image of describing patients and so on as customers to try to influence how they think of themselves

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 03:12 AM

Yeah. Burger and fry's winds me up too.

It should be burger and chip's, surely?

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Dec 13 - 12:30 AM

No, Kendall. This is a national difference. We find the American insistence on "has" where we would say "has [or 's] got" rather irritatingly picky.

NB spelling of Britain, BTW.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MartinRyan
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 07:17 PM

There's a famous hostelry in the Galway village of Clarinbridge which once belonged to a man called Paddy Burke. Not surprisingly, it was/is always known as Paddy Burke's (the pub is silent, so to speak). In recent years, after several changes of ownership, the main sign on the frontage announces "Paddy Burkes". There's a large car-park to one side of the pub - which now proudly bears the title "Paddy Burkes's Car-park".

And I can see why…


Regards

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: kendall
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 06:58 PM

When I see a sign such as "Burger and Fry's" I go batty. It's the dumbing down of America that gets to me, not the mistake itself.
\
Another is   "I brought my car to Meineke".That would only be proper if you were there.
While we are on it, : I saw the EGGZIT sign! I was EXpecially relieved.
It's cold in Anartica.

Britian's got talent. NO! Britain HAS talent. Is it laziness or ignorance?
She was, like, and then I was like, and it was like, nome sane? AAAAAGGGHH!

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 06:22 PM

I saw it, Dave, but wondered if I dared comment. You solved my problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:53 PM

Or even 'licence' Uncle Dave! (Just teasing)

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:50 PM

Am I the only one who noticed "sufficient thickness to bear it's weight"?

(I just had to validate my Pedant's License.)

Gnu's point in the two versions of the story, however, is clear enough.
"Good" speech and writing style depends upon the setting, the occasion, and the speaker/writer's intention. And for most occasions common courtesy is more important than proving one's superiority.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: gnu
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 05:34 PM

I'll take that, froggy, with appreciation and humble gratitude. Matter a fact, it's a damn site better than the the shit that will rain down from some of the high and mighty whose prose don't stink. Either that or such and same will actually find it somewhat amusing but would never stoop to actaully acknowledging it in the false assumption that their (non) opinion matters two fucks from Tueesday to anyone but themselves.

If my dyslexia has raised it's ugly head in anything I have said, PM under the subject "I object" and I'll delete it unread.

I am a poet as well I can.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: frogprince
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 04:26 PM

gnu, I'm compelled to admit that I was somewhat amused by the redundant presentation of the equivalent narrative in alternative linguistic traditions.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: gnu
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 03:38 PM

I *can* write and speak reasonably well in English, American (no... don't... u no what I mean), Canuck, Maineac, Newf, Labradorian, Bluenose, engineering (technical), and a few others but my favourite is Kent County on accounta that's where my heart is. I learnt how ta talk Good Ol Kent County Boy around a lotta camp fires where I heard tales that would most assuredly be bland, nay, banal, in fact, in Her Royal Majesty's English. Hmmm… perhaps an example?…

We were following a new trail made by lumbering operations which proved to be a shortcut to the lake. The ice on the lake was thick enough to carry our weight close to the shore where it was fed from a stream of which the nearby headwaters emanated from springs. I knew about the springs because I had seen open water on the stream near the lake as we progressed along the trail. My analysis of the situation was that the ice might not be as thick away from the shoreline we arrived at due to the fact that the water velocity of the stream feeding the lake slows to a point where the colloidal suspension carried precipitates under the force of gravity, thus allowing the colder water to become ice more quickly. Indeed, the stream water was not frozen at the delta, that being some 20 metres from us, lending further credence to my conclusions. One of our party determined the ice thickness nearby by sounding the ice with the use of a length of a branch from a fallen maple tree. Essentially, he pounded the ice with the butt end of the maple branch and assessed the thickness by the sound. There was very little reverberation and he therefore concluded it was safe to journey forth. I was sceptical as it was only the middle of the month of December but, even after my objections and explanation, the general consensus was to carry on. I reluctantly agreed but said I would be the last of our troop to venture onto the lake ice and suggested that the man who sounded the ice take the lead. At approximately one hundred metres from shore, the lead snowmobile encountered ice which was not of sufficient thickness to bear it's weight. The ice gave way and the snowmobile sank. Thank goodness the operator, a Mr. David Owens, was able to cling to the edge of the ice until were extricated him and got him back to shore. We built a fire which we were able to start using birch bark and Spruce tree bottom branches devoid of needles. Needless to say, we were all appreciative of the fact the Mr. Owens was safe and sound, as was he. We broke open libations in celebration as Mr. Owens' and his clothing dried beside the fire. Unfortunately, the snowmobile will not be able to be extracted until the ice has become thick enough to bear the weight of a vehicle with a winch. His wife was not in a good mood when he explained to her the events of the day as his snowmobile was an expensive purchase. I hope he learned from this experience but he is well known for his rash bravado.

We was up ta the lake on sleds early on eh? Jus afore Kissmeass. Found a new skidder road what takes ya right ta tha lake in jig time. Davey… ya knows Davey Owens eh? Crazy fucker he is! I says no way I am takin my sled across tha lake on early ice and, besides, I seen open water onna brook jus back a ways eh? I even points at the open water at the enda tha brook like, oh, twenny yards away, an says fer him at look at that an think fer a fuckin minute right? He says she's fine an thumps er with a stick. Sounded perfect but, like I said eh, I seen open water on tha brook just back up a ways so I figger she's spring fed right? Sure it's gonna be thick close at shore near the delta once she drops her mud eh? Right? Eh? So I says, you go first…. matter of fact, all a youse go first and I'll sit here n have a beer n watch. So, I'm sittin back watchin Daveyboy head across and FUCK ME if he don't go down! Next thing, all we see is his sorry ass on the edge of a big hole. We got his ass out and fired up a birch fer ta dry him up and broke out the Mooze. He was some fuckin lucky an he knows it. His sled is toast at least until we can get back there with sumpin heavy. The little woman was pissed, man! Lotta coin got wet. That boy'll never learn. Dumb as a fuckin post.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 02:56 PM

Ah, Airy -- once you get on to the vagaries of English spelling, have you thought how you will go through a rough cough though? Enough to branch·of·tree your heavy head!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Airymouse
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 02:17 PM

Lucky I, grammar comes naturally to me. When everyone is chanting,'two, four, six eight, who do we appreciate", I say to him or to her,"I'm right amn't I, it should be "WHOM do we appreciate." But he or she, as the sex may be, gives me only a puzzled look. Punctuation is quite another matter, and it's not just the tricky words like "chthonian" or "pilau" that trip me up. Put a "t" on "won",you get "wont", not "want". Put a "t" on "cover" you get "covert", not "co-vert", just like "coverture." I can pronounce "biscuit" and "triscuit" and "circuit", so why do I suddenly want to make "conduit" a three-syllable word?

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: DMcG
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 01:08 PM

I don't get bothered by grammar or punctuation errors in general but it annoys me when it is on an official notice or similar company publications: hundreds or even more spent on preparation and publication and no-one thinks it worth the effort of checking it.

Subject: RE: BS: Pedants be damned
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Dec 13 - 12:47 PM

"Keep off from the Grass" seen in Santa Fe some time ago.