BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have

Subject: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:05 PM

This afternoon I was doing some ESL tutoring. A student had written, " ... it is unfair to require that each course has an equal number of male and female students ... ", which I corrected to " ... that each course HAVE .... " Despite having warned my student that I would be unable to explain the reasoning behind that correction, I found myself trying to do precisely that, and making a muddle of it.

I know that there are several worthies on here who know this here grammar stuff inside out - anyone care to comment?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Andrez
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:19 PM

Happy to help. Courses 'have', a course 'has'. The sentence reads each course has…… . I think the student is owed an apology here :-)

Cheers,

Andrez

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:27 PM

"The student told the teacher that each course has an equal number of male and female students." - that's correct, isn't it? To my mind, it would be absolutely incorrect to use the word "have" in my example.

But in your example? I think I could go either way, but deep in my heart there's the voice of my mother the English teacher telling me that "have" is the correct word in your example.

I think my dead mother is correct, but I don't know why. Oh, wait....I can't believe I found this - it's the mandative subjunctive.

Thanks, mom.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:30 PM

The student is correct, but I know I have made that mistake in speech....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:40 PM

Digression; reminds me of UK "The Army are" and American "The Army is."

Joe, I have a sneaking feeling that I was taught 'have'....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:40 PM

What they said. It's "each...has". "Each" is singular.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:44 PM

No, Joe is right. I was going to say [but he got in first] that the 'that' implies necessity for a subjunctive of intent or compulsion to follow, in strict accuracy; tho of course the subjunctive is largely obsolete in contemporary English, and many stylists would feel insisting on it to be both somewhat obscurantist and somewhat pernickety.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:50 PM

The student is correct, though the sentence is inelegant. It's often a good idea to ditch one's first beloved notion and boldly seek a different form of words.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:56 PM

If only it were the case that I understood this. (I think I've figured out why it's "have".)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 07:59 PM

The question is not whether or not I am correct: I am correct. The question is, why am I correct? And Joe has kindly and promptly provided direction to the answer. I quote from the link he provided: "Like the formulaic subjunctive, the mandative subjunctive consists of the base form of the verb. It is distinctive only in the third-person singular of the present tense. (In other words, the -s ending is omitted.)"

Thank you, Joe!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 08:08 PM

Don't thank me, "meself". Thank my dead mother. She regularly appears to me in visions and reminds me of grammatical rules....

Is there no wonder why I awake screaming, after such visions???

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 08:16 PM

Okay - thanks to your dead mother!

(If her visitations have you screaming, I hate to think of what Mudcat must do to you ... ).

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 08:19 PM

...as I was finishing my first post in this thread, the word "mandative" popped into my mind (probably placed there by my dead mother the English teacher). I Googled, and there was the answer. You know, I thank God for having created Google. Otherwise, I might have spent days poring through grammar books in search of the answer.

My dead mother's voice also told me that "poring" was the correct spelling, but Google confirmed it.

If it weren't for Google, I'd be in an asylum somewhere, constantly hearing my dead mother's voice giving me grammar instructions....

Did I ever tell you the story about how I found out at the age of forty that my dead mother had been a nun???? Oh, and she taught Latin, too. I was almost sixty before she finally admitted that my Latin was better than her Latin...she died shortly after that, and then the grammatical voices in my head began.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 08:35 PM

A story? Do tell!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 08:38 PM

Joe, you're weirder than I thought. ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 09:05 PM

Yeah, but I have a very fun life...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 09:37 PM

OK, OK, the story. My mother was a brilliant woman, but we had a very difficult relationship. Still, she and I had deeply intellectual discussions all through the years until she died. When I was about forty, I was visiting and we were having one of those discussions at the dinner table. I can't remember what my mom said, but I responded, "Gee, that almost makes it sound like you had been in the convent or something like that...." And my dad said, "Well, now that you mention it...."

And that's how I found out. I think she was in the convent for a couple of years, but I don't really know. After my mom died, my dad said that after she left the convent, my mom prayed to St. Joseph to help her find a man. And she found my dad and married him, so that's how I ended up being named "Joe."

Now you know.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 09:44 PM

I'd think St. Joseph would be overworked if that news got out.... even among Catholics.

great story, though

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,ketchdana
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 09:54 PM

It seems to me that there is an implied word in the sentence:

" ... it is unfair to require that each course (should) have an equal number ..."

Can't justify that right now, but it feels right. Maybe it's all part of that subjuctive stuff you mention.
--Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: LadyJean
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 10:02 PM

Have is singular, so each course is right, because each course is singular. English, Math and Science would be plural.

I had an elderly neighbor, an RC, who would advise me to pray to St. Joseph. I explained that I'm Presbyterian. She said he wouldn't care.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 10:33 PM

St. Joseph was a Jew, and doesn't really know the difference between Catholics and Presbyterians. So, if you pray to St. Joseph, LadyJean, he'll find you a man - whether you want one or not.

And if you bury a statue of St. Joseph upside-down in your garden, you'll sell your house - whether you want to or not....

Gotta be careful about these things.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Jun 14 - 10:39 PM

He have a lot of skills!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: JennieG
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:11 AM

Joe, someone recently told me she had bought a "house sale kit" from a religious supply shop, and was gong to follow the directions......one of which was to bury poor St Joseph! As a collapsed Presbyterian I did wonder about that, I have to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:59 AM

Gotta be upside down, Jennie, otherwise you never know what might happen. Oh, and there's something about the face pointing in the right direction - otherwise, it may be that your neighbors will sell their house instead (which may be an advantage sometimes...)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Amos
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:13 AM

The sense is that each course "might," or "should" have. For that construction the verb have is correct and the verb "has" is incorrect or lazy. I believe the technical term is subjunctive. You would not say, for example, that "he might has a chance to go...".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:55 AM

'Mandative subjunctive' (see above). That would be 'mandative' as in 'mandate', I assume (i.e., something is being 'mandated').

I don't think the verbs 'should', 'might', or, for that matter, 'must', have anything to do with it, other than as analogies - but I'm not capable of constructing an argument to that effect without doing a lot of research, which I don't have time to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:58 AM

Curious story, joe - I always wondered how you got that name .....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 06:31 AM

"something about the face pointing in the right direction - otherwise, it may be that your neighbors will sell their house instead (which may be an advantage sometimes...)"

[think I might give that one a try - yesterday they cut through my gas supply while trying to erect a fence]

On "has" versus "have" - Joe and Amos (and others) are right. It isn't a question of singular or plural, it's about the difference between what DOES happen and what SHOULD happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 06:35 AM

Grammar evolves, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 06:45 AM

French contains loads of subjunctives. I had to learn them all as my grammar school was very strict. I remember 'eussions pu' ('had we been able to...) My friends and I used to giggle and purse up our lips like posh ladies and say "Eussions pu!" Nowadays I believe the French don't bother with most of the subjunctives, as the forms are very clumsy. The student mentioned above was quite correct. We might say for example, "Were she to apply herself, she'd do better." It seems to be connected with doubt or supposition and not incontrovertible fact. Didn't Shakespeare write something along the lines of, "An it were done, it were done quickly." (Can't remember the blooming thing, I expect Michael does, but you get the gist!)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 07:00 AM

Thanks for the confidence, Eliza. Here are the first few lines. Easy to google the rest, if desired! ~~

MACBETH: ACT I, SCENE VII. Macbeth's castle.

    Hautboys and torches. Enter a Sewer, and divers Servants with dishes and service, and pass over the stage. Then enter MACBETH

MACBETH

    If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
    It were done quickly: if the assassination
    Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
    With his surcease success; that but this blow
    Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
    But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
    We'ld jump the life to come...

&c &c. Wonderful soliloquy. A frequent misquotation is to render that "'tis" in the first line as another "were"; which is to confuse the subjunctives most unconscionably with the indicatives!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: gnu
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 07:04 AM

"Grammar evolves, innit?" Yup... " ... it sucks that the courses gotta have the same number of girls n guys... "

S'all I'm gonna say.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 07:50 AM

Hope you not superstitious, BTW Eliza. Don't you know how unlucky it is to quote Macbeth! Mainly in the dressing-room, admittedly; but I have known actors who wouldn't even say its name, and always refer to it as "the Scottish play".

So beware ~~~

Double double toil and trouble!...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 09:08 AM

It depends on what you mean by "correct."

It depends on what you mean by "evolves."

It depends most of all on how you think your perceived audience will react.

In general, however, Meself is right for the reason given by Joe and others, and the student is wrong. Now what?

Grammatical features like "the mandative subjunctive," which are so difficult to comprehend in the abstract, weren't (for the most part) the mere inventions of elitists. They reflected usage that came unconsciously to people who spoke English. As Eliza says, French has a more complicated subjunctive system than English, and Latin was more complicated still. Of course, nobody was or is entirely consistent. "Grammar" changes when one alternative becomes both usual and accepted as the only proper form for serious discourse between strangers.

Example: In America, TV news people have become addicted over roughly the past decade to saying things like, "It isn't too big of an expectation," "It isn't so serious of an issue." The "of" presumably comes unconsciously from idioms like "It isn't too much of an expectation." For no reason except custom, "Much" requires "of" and the other words don't.

My point: the intrusive "of" is everywhere. Certainly it must have started in ordinary conversation long before it came to TV. But I've never seen it in an edited, printed article. That means it's still "wrong" in formal discourse. In a hundred years it may be "right." (Of course "ain't" and "irregardless" are still "wrong" after many more years than that.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 10:37 AM

I have read quite a few Carola Dunn detective novels ( I know, I know...) usually set in England during the roaring twenties. She's lived in USA now for a long time and it shows when her characters say, "Go speak to Susan..." or "You should go try the other door..." A Brit would always add an 'and', eg "Go and speak to Susan..." or "Go and try the other door..."
As to language evolving, I think it's extremely fascinating and we should go with the flow. I particularly like 'innit', but sadly its popularity seems to be waning.
Thank you very much Michael for the 'you-know-who' (not Voldermort!) quote, I guessed your erudition would come up trumps as usual. You'd better break a leg, as I didn't mention the Scottish play, you did!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 10:41 AM

Regarding Lighter's point about 'of', we used this in Infants' School. If someone misbehaved behind the teacher's back, one would adopt an excessively self-righteous expression, nod threateningly and say, "Ooooooh! I'm TELLING of you!" To tell of something is in fact quite correct of course, but that little word 'of' brings back those goody-goody moments when aged six.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 10:51 AM

At that age children where I went to school (southern England) would say 'I'm telling on you' rather than 'of you'.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:09 AM

We were in Middlesex, and it was 'telling of you'. Isn't it fascinating how language patterns change from one area to another, even those not too far apart?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:26 AM

If the sentence doesn't work for you, rewrite it. Instead of wasting time trying to get one word to fit, rearrange and move on.

Great story about your Mom, Joe! I also have a couple of those internalized parental voices that speak up on occasion.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:33 AM

Eliza: The student was wrong, at least as far as we can say that anyone is wrong when they depart from the standardized rules of grammar. Let me put it this way: " ... the mandative subjunctive consists of the base form of the verb. It is distinctive only in the third-person singular of the present tense. (In other words, the -s ending is omitted.)"

That said, I'm realizing that it's probably pointless to be training ESL students in the correct use of sophisticated grammatical structures, when, apparently, most of those native-speakers who are going to be reading their writing will be certain that the correct usages are wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:36 AM

"The student told the teacher that each course has an equal number of male and female students."

This misquotes the OP. The OP said,
" ... it is unfair to require that each course has an equal number of male and female students ..." which might be better (and more clearly) phrased as "to require each course to have an equal number". ...

Written that way, it's "have", hands down.
Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:41 AM

No, if a student's sentence doesn't work for me, I'm not going to re-write it and move on. I'm going to stop, and try to articulate the reasons that the sentence doesn't work for me, with the aim of having the next sentence of a similar nature that the student writes indeed work for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:43 AM

(My last in response to SRS).

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:51 AM

Thanks, meself and Joe.

I will remember this for the next 24 hours.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 11:53 AM

Atta boy!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:04 PM

'I'm telling on you' is the same construction as 'I'm informing on you' - it seems to me to sound more threatening than merely 'telling of', which suggests giving a simple account of something.

---

Topsie has said she wrote this, and typed Eliza's name in the wrong place.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:14 PM

The point of teaching "correct usage" - when the sense of an utterance isn't at issue - is to keep the student from being thought illiterate or incompetent by future, unknown readers or interlocutors.

It may be the sole point.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:16 PM

In my childhood, the phrase was often shortened to, "I'm telling!" Was/is that universal?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:24 PM

Not just often but ordinarily.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:31 PM

My apologies to Eliza, I thought I had addressed my message TO HER (12.04 pm), but I seem to have inadvertently put her name where I meant to put 'topsie'. That message isn't from Eliza, it was from me.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:48 PM

Oh, well. As long as the thought is communicated, it don't make no nevermind.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 12:49 PM

We said "I'm telling" where I grew up (USA) too.

There is familiar language that might be technically wrong, but it's how people express themselves. It's "I could've cared less", and "I got so bored of that, and "ain't", and "me and my friend went out to eat". Fine for communicating, as long as one is among a friendly bunch of people, but meself is teaching students, and try to help them know what is correct. I have a feeling students appreciate that.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:09 PM

> I have a feeling students appreciate that.

In the early '70s radical-left pedagogues in the USA launched a short-lived campaign to scrap all teaching of formal grammar as elitest, oppressive, and antidemocratic. Why shouldn't kids use the language they grew up with at home? Who says a famous writer's usage is any "better" than a laborer's any more than English is "better" than other languages?

The campaign was short-lived partly because the parents of such students (mostly from poor and minority backgrounds) were understandably outraged.

They understood the practical importance of getting it "right," even if what counted as "right" was no more than a matter of convention.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:10 PM

Question for the 'teach'.
Are students required to parse sentences? Or has this classroom practice disappeared?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 01:19 PM

Eliza ~~ I might have mentioned the Play by name; but it was you who quoted from it, albeit not entirely accurately. Nice point of consideration for superstitious thespians:-

Will it bring worse misfortune to quote the Scottish Play accurately or inaccurately?!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 02:13 PM

Hahahaha Michael! Maybe we'll both break a leg! (I'm touching wood, so don't worry.)
Topsie, I've done that often (typed the name of the person I'm addressing in the 'from' box), but just in time have stopped sending it! I agree that 'telling on' is a firmer-sounding way of putting it, but we certainly did say 'telling of'. It was often mouthed silently across the classroom, and the 'of' made the front teeth touch the bottom lip, which I always found quite menacing. Weren't we funny in those days? Sanctimonious little horrors!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Airymouse
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 03:37 PM

I think Joe is right and I believe the mandative subjunctive is still in use. I know I have seen something like, "It is required that the applicant BE 18 years old and that he POSSESS a valid driver's license."
Is there a a subjunctive of direct discourse? If so, is John Jacob Niles's version of "False Knight on the Road" an example of it: "Where BE you going," said the knight on the road." "I BE going to school," said the boy as he stood..."?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 04:54 PM

Each course has a professor, but it is not required that each course have students.

Love that subjunctive. Apparently it's hard to talk about counterfacutals with speakers of languages without one...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 05:26 PM

Those aren't subjunctives, Airymouse; they are (or be) but old dialectal variants of indicative "am" and "are."

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 05:37 PM

Is the 'mandative subjunctive' persisting more in North America than in England, I wonder (I don't think we've heard from any Scots or Irish)?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 06:00 PM

Q: If I'm the one you meant by 'teach', I haven't been in the classroom for a while; I do private tutoring now. However, I am sure it would be a rare classroom these days in which you find any 'parsing' going on. When I began teaching, I would have classes doing it, but soon came to feel that the dubious results did not justify the time and effort put into it. Generally, I did not find that there was much carry-over from the grammar lesson to the writing: a student might become good at doing certain grammar exercises, but continue to make the same old errors in writing assignments. I found it more productive to focus on student writing - specifically, to point out and discuss errors, and require re-writes. I found that after having to correct a certain type of error a few times, most students would avoid repeating that type of error.

(Please note that I am talking here only about the teaching of grammar, as opposed to the teaching or 'coaching' of other aspects of writing).

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 06:21 PM

" I've driven a cab in Boston for 25 years, but that's the first time I ever heard that question in the past pluperfect subjunctive."

No, not exactly relevant.. or even correct, but many will know the joke and the way some words are tricky to use.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 07:07 PM

About finding a good fish place, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 07:45 PM

meself, my advice was offered for those who have a little more latitude when editing their own work. I must say, even as an English MA who has spent a lot of time with this stuff, this thread is a classic example of mudcat pedantry. I must be getting old and cranky.

I liked Joe's stories, though.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 08:35 PM

Yes, you do sound old and cranky. Remember, we're under no obligation to follow threads that we find unappealing.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 08:41 PM

I'm not too crazy about being a teacher and not trying to teach people the right way to do things. I applaud meself for trying to do right by his students.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jun 14 - 09:22 PM

Lighter says: The point of teaching "correct usage" - when the sense of an utterance isn't at issue - is to keep the student from being thought illiterate or incompetent by future, unknown readers or interlocutors.
It may be the sole point.

Well said, Lighter, in most cases. However, I had to interview people in investigations, and then write up affidavits for them to sign. I that sort of situation, and actually in a large number of situations, correct usage can be extremely helpful. It allows one to be able to write succinctly and incontrovertibly - what you write can be understood in only one way, the way the writer intends. It allows one, for example, to write a legal document without all the "legal gobbledy-gook," because the writer has written incontrovertibly without the need for all that extraneous legal bullshit. And in 30 years, nobody ever questioned or corrected an affidavit I wrote.

That being said, maybe I'm a nicer person than "meself." I would have left the student's writing untouched, despite the fact that I would have considered meself's "each course HAVE" to be proper usage.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 12:15 AM

When I went back to graduate school I had to take a couple of "leveling" classes, to get me back up to speed since I'd been out of college for a long time. The most difficult class I think I've ever taken was "The History and Development of the English Language," taught by a native-West Texas professor who has the most amazing broad accent, and when he quoted Shakespeare, it was astonishing. I suspect he was someone who always had to deal with the contradiction of a strong regional accent (the bias one might have in hearing it) in an institution of higher education where accents are often leveled out.

He made a point during one of our grammar discussions that has stuck with me. We speak English, and native-born or ESL, can generally make ourselves understood. Grammar is simply the manners part of speech, the protocol that we mostly try to follow.

In the first post meself said which I corrected to " ... that each course HAVE .... " Despite having warned my student that I would be unable to explain the reasoning behind that correction, I found myself trying to do precisely that, and making a muddle of it.

The niceness (I would say kindness!) that Joe refers to is the instinct to simply understand what the student was saying, without jumping on them for the wrong protocol. It's just manners. Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, direct object, indirect object, prepositional phrases - all things that as native speakers we don't realize we understand pretty well. The most basic thing we learn is to string words together in order to make meaning. Jumping on someone for the wrong word when you understood what they meant - I've come to learn that this is a petty act, and you can be bigger than that.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 03:45 AM

I don't entirely agree, Stilly.(I too have an MA which included an English Literature module along with the French.) If one is merely teaching 'conversational English' one is justified in accepting minor errors, as long as the meaning is fairly clear. I had to teach my husband English, and watched with amusement his development over the years. I wouldn't have dreamt of correcting his many grammatical errors, and over time he has spontaneously modified his English in line with the 'rules'. But if one is teaching towards a qualification or to a literary standard, I feel it's important to attend to the more complex grammatical points. English can be many things; it is an elegant and rich language at its best, and I wouldn't wish to see this eroded. I expect you've read Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson, and The Last Word by Ben Macintyre. There are so many forms of our lingo, from Pidgin to Chinglish to Cockney Rhyming Slang, that I'm certain there's room for a bit of pedantry too!
By the way, I'm led to believe that old Shakespoke had a Northern English accent and didn't by any means talk in a posh Received Pronunciation BBC English.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 04:41 AM

More of a W Midlands accent actually, I should think, as he came from Warwickshire.

~M~xxx

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 08:22 AM

Alas poor Yorick, Tarar fo' a bit.

Oh pardon me thou bleeding piece of earth that I am meek and gentle with these geezers from over Wolverhampton.

I somehow doubt Shakespeare can be responsible for a speech impediment that affects a few million people, let alone the common gene dysfunction....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 09:21 AM

Nobody has a real Shakespearean accent today, because, like everything else, the Stratford accent has altered over the past 500 years.

And nobody had a BBC accent in 1600.

>It's just manners....The most basic thing we learn is to string words together in order to make meaning.

A reckless oversimplification. As Joe says, it's important to be unmistakable. But it's also important to be taken seriously.

"Just" manners? How's this for a business letter to a large corporation?:

"Dudes we got a company here makin some awsome innovativ cybershit and were like lookin for a distributer if you can dig it. If you're into it gimmie a holler at 555-555-5555. Thanx iregardless."

Meaning unmistakable. Likely effectiveness zero.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 10:51 AM

The student I alluded to in the OP pays me good money to help her to improve her written English. She is not paying me for comfort, empty praise, or warm fuzzies. She expects me to, among other things, point out her errors, explain them, and show her how to avoid them. That's fairly straighforward, is it not?

Incidentally, note that this thread need only have consisted of two messages: my question and Joe's answer. Most of the rest is ... well, call it what you will ....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 11:34 AM

I didn't say never teach the correct word. I added to the conversation by suggesting that there are times when one goes too far to see that every word is used precisely. I added it because I would like for none of you to lose a friend because you were too busy correcting their writing or speech. Pedantry is not an attractive behavior when it is practiced unconsciously, or is used to change the subject and bring attention to the one doing the correction.

Lighter, you suggested an absurd example based upon my remark that pedantry has a negative component. You offered a classic example of what Mudcat has become - a place to tear down, not a place to share and grow.

Mudcat is devolving into an online adaptation of The Lord of the Flies. You're armed with sharp tongues instead of sticks, but you're driving conversations into the ground and good members are leaving in disgust. A simple grammar question loses its cordial tone and becomes a place for personal attack. I rest my case.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Airymouse
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 11:54 AM

Oops. Before some sharp-tongued grammarian takes me to task, I wish to confess that I have it backwards: there is an subjunctive of indirect discourse (which I don't understand), but it doesn't explain "Where be you going," said the knight on the road. Oh well, I don't sing Niles's version anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 12:35 PM

There is indeed a "subjunctive of indirect discourse."

It's routine in German but it isn't used in English.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 12:39 PM

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, SRS.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Amos
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 12:59 PM

I would submit that there is another and stronger purpose in teaching a student to parse, namely the clarity of comprehension. In the slop of ordinary, live dialogue ambiguity in the forms of speech is countered by the presence of context and live intentionality from the speaker.
But at one or more removes from that context it becomes more and more critical to be able to instantly sort out the concepts buried beneath the semantic and semiotics being used, and the common code for doing so is agreed-upon grammar and agreed=upon definitions.

This is why I get so very ticked off when politicians and advertisers twist words out of their definitions in order to force them to serve some slimy PR purpose. It is not only dishonest, but it undermines the lovely crystalline network of agreements, and leads the unwary to completely distrust all kinds of language--a great loss to civilization.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 01:02 PM

This isn't about my feelings, Lighter, though I made a bet with myself that you would post such a response.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 01:16 PM

Parsing (as usually understood) is about grammar only, and the confusion bad grammar sometimes creates.

Most deceitful language from ads and pols is grammatically correct and, of course, easily comprehensible. That's what makes it work.

The most important course any student can take is what my alma mater called "practical reasoning."

Deduction. Induction. Close attention to the meanings of the words used. Identification of misleading arguments and appeals.

As an undergraduate I had a full semester of this. (It wasn't enough.) Every student had to learn composition, but "practical reasoning" was only an elective.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 01:24 PM

BBC- "received, posh..." The spoken English used on that service is understandable to English-speaking people living outside the UK, and certainly is good for ESL students learning the language.

As far as I am concerned, it is excellent, following mostly the usage of the OED and Fowler ((some concessive spelling departures- e.g. -ise instead of ize, and occasional idioms which have spread widely).

I would not watch their news broadcasts if the language used was that of some of the people I heard during visits to the UK (some of the BBC weather people have similarly poor diction). My contacts were mostly with university people, and they were understandable. Posh? certainly not. Educated? Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 06:03 PM

When I use the word 'posh' I'm reverting to my young days as a working-class child in W London. Anyone who spoke 'nicely' was labelled posh. This was reverse snobbery of course. People who called a settee a 'sofa' were posh, as were people who called pudding a 'dessert'. And in the early days of the BBC, all the presenters were incredibly 'posh', with extremely cut-glass accents. (I was quite Cockney in my speech.) It wasn't until I went to Uni and did one year of Phonetics that I learned about RP, accents, dialects and the physiology of human speech. But my grammar school was (the clue is in the name!) hot on good grammar, and we were corrected at every turn. I just adore all kinds of speech in any language, but I still maintain that grammar has its place. Innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 06:49 PM

> People who called a settee a 'sofa' were posh, as were people who called pudding a 'dessert'.

If Americans used the word "posh" in that way, I believe your examples would be precisely reversed!

Ordinarily, however, it only applies to things like hotels, apartments, and automobiles. And the word itself is sort of posh.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: gnu
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 07:10 PM

Right on eh? Top notch. Yees' gotter down tenfold. What Amos said there? Agreed. Agreed wit nearly all, really, me. Keeper comin as I needs edification.

On a serious nut, I am enjoying the discussion. My inane interjections into this erudite banter is simply displaying the fact that I feel dwarfed by the mass of knowledge and prowess of prose of others herein which I lack. Please forgive my transgressions and simply ignore them... oh... yeah... right... no need to say that. >;-)

Carry on... smoke em if ya got em.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 07:27 PM

The reason Airymouse's examples are subjunctives is the suppression of the somewhat unnecessary "should" before each verb, "should be", "should possess", indicating a somewhat mandatory conditional. You might also use the ghostly "must" to much the same extent, indicating a selection from all possible objects only those meeting the qualifying condition.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 08:04 PM

People can make themselves understood without bothering to use subjunctives and a lot of other rules of speech, but I think that there is real value in well-crafted writing. Using grammatical tools leads to concise and precise writing, and a well-written piece can be a real pleasure to read. The writing of certain Mudcatters is almost always a pleasure to read - two of the best were Sandy Paton and Rick Fielding.

I like to know the rules of grammar - I see them as tools. However, I do not believe in a slavish obedience to grammatical rules. If the rules force clumsy word constructions upon a writer, I think the rules should be set aside. Other times, I will defy grammatical rules when they cause problems with the meter of what I'm writing. I think the meter and meaning often are far more important than the rules.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jun 14 - 08:06 PM

Don't listen, Airymouse!

"Where be you going?" has nothing to do with the "subjunctive."

Do you mean, GUEST, that the False Knight is "really" asking, "Where should you be going?" And the child replies, "I *should* be going to the school (but I sure as heck ain't!)"?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 03:07 AM

Lighter, you are wrong about parsing.

The English always parse the port.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 04:27 AM

But Lighter is right about the sofa and pudding. People who have settees and desserts are trying to sound posh - and if they are trying, then obviously it doesn't come naturally. The really posh people have no need to try.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 05:08 AM

I've been thinking about the sofa/settee question. When I envisage a 'settee' I see a rather prim object, with padded seats but with wooden legs, and a clear space beneath. When I envisage a 'sofa' I see a very soft object with padding all over, right down to the floor - somewhere you could doze off in comfort. Thinking back to my childhood (in a family where we had pudding, never dessert), we had a 'three piece suite' - two armchairs and a couch.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 05:20 AM

Sofa? Settee?

Nope, it's none of the above - it's a davenport.

Gee, I wonder where the name "davenport" came from - Iowa??

On second thought, maybe it's just a couch....I think I'll agree with Topsie.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 05:59 AM

I found this definition of a Davenport in the Urban Dictionary:

"The word used, in particular by grandmas and those from the south, to call a large sofa, typically brown and furry. The sofas are "L" shaped and decorated with doilies and cheeto dust. Itchy blankets don the arm rest and occasionally orniry cats emerge from in between the cusions. When used in this sense, it is commonly pronounced "Damport"
2) A town in Iowa
3) More simply put, a couch "

However, in England a Davenport is more likely to be a kind of writing desk.

I have now been wondering about the people who were neither posh nor trying to be posh (referring to people maybe forty or fifty years ago). What would they have sat on? Would it be a divan? And rather than pudding would they have had a "sweet", or maybe just "afters"?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 08:31 AM

Settee / sofa in England is a bit more of a regional as well as cultural affair. Where I come from, we had a settee. We certainly weren't posh. Posh people had sofas.

In a similar way, expanding on Topsie and her pudding.. We had dinner near midday and tea early evening. My wife, who is a southerner, has lunch near midday and dinner early evening. I go with the flow, and have become familiar with her foreign terminology.

She'll never wean me off my Sunday dinnertime pint though....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 08:37 AM

My working-class NYC grandparents, born in the nineteenth century, both said "sofa" and "dessert."

They also said "vahz" and "tomahto." And, believe me, (or "trust me!" as whippersnappers say), they were in no way "posh."

Proof? My grandfather also customarily said "ain't," "raddio," "terlet," and the unspellable "beyrd" (or "boid" as cartoonists have it). Think "Archie Bunker."

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 09:14 AM

My children laughed at me for saying Glahstonbury, where they said Glasstonbury with a short 'a'. I made a point of listening to how the locals pronounce it - after all, they should know - and found it was somewhere between the two, something like Glaasstonbury, the short 'a' as in my children's version, but with that 'a' stretched out so that it lasts as long as the 'ah' in my 'presumably posh and/or southern' pronunciation.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 10:15 AM

Joe, when I was a kid in Washington State we had a "davenport." At some point we shifted over to calling it a couch. My father wasn't originally from that area - I suspect it is a term he used and eventually got out of the habit.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 12:45 PM

I remember "davenport" and "couch," as being the common terms for that thing with short legs (or just buns) on which three people could set (sit). It could be spare or well-covered, but one that was soft all over was a sofa.
Our davenport was Stickley design. so exposed wood in arms, sides and feet.
Regardless of the term used, people understood that you were talking about that big three-seater in the living room.

Which reminds me, the word parlor was seldom used in the area where I was raised (west U. S.)

We understood settee to mean the same sort of seating device, but the word was not used commonly.
Divan was understood, but not used in verbal communication.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 01:10 PM

This is developing into a discussion about 'U' and 'non-U' terms. Isn't there a poem by John Betjeman which makes fun of people trying to be genteel? Something about serviettes and fish knives? I bet Michael will know. Come on MtheGM, do your stuff!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 01:12 PM

I think it was called 'How To Get On In Society'.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 01:49 PM

Eliza, this is a digression into usages that are typical of certain regions or countries. Not U or non-U, which is not a common distinction outside of the UK.

Serviettes were discussed in another thread. The OED prefers table napkin, but outside of Oxford-Cambridge educated, napkins are used on babies.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 02:05 PM

I see that I may have digressed too much from the OP. In which case, I'm very sorry about the thread drift. I'll bow out now and let things get back to the Grammar Question.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 02:38 PM

Eliza -- Yes, that is the correct title of Betjeman's poem. It begins "Phone for the fish knives, Norman". It will be found in an old Penguin Book edited by Nancy Mitford called Noblesse Oblige, which IIRC also contains the original scholarly essay by Prof Ross about 'U & nonU English'; an essay of Mitford's own on usage &c; and some correspondence on the subject between her & Evelyn Waugh. Some of Mitford's novels also have some of the upper class characters talking about what they perceive as 'acceptable' usages; I think either The Pursuit of Love or Love in a Cold Climate, or possibly both, contain passages of dialogue covering such topics. Both very entertaining novels, anyhow.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 02:40 PM

Thank you for your confidence BTW. Hope to have lived up to it!.

❤x~M~x❤

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 02:46 PM

Eliza - Carry on; the grammar question in the OP was answered within about 5 minutes, so ....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 02:56 PM

Eliza, who says you can't drift, especially in a BS thread?

When I was young, we used the word "sofa" or "couch" - never davenport or settee. But of course, we were never allowed to sit on it or on any of the furniture in the living room. That room was for the adults and their martinis, not for us common people...

There was class warfare in my family. We children were clearly the oppressed class.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 03:42 PM

My grandparents used "couch" as well as "sofa," but my impression is they thought it rather newfangled.

"Davenport," never. "Parlor," never. (It was the "living room").

Under their influence, I still say "icebox" for "fridge." And "vahz"; plus "avviator" for "ayviator."

"Raddio" never appealed to me, and I got ridiculed out of "tomahto" long ago. (I've never heard anyone in the USA say "potahto" except in the song.)

New Yorkers did not "bump" into things; they "bunked" into them. And they stand "on" not "in" line. Or used to.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 03:46 PM

"I think my dead mother is correct, but I don't know why. Oh, wait....I can't believe I found this - it's the mandative subjunctive."

I thik the teacher i correct, and the way that it was explained to me in Eng. Lang. was as follows:

"Have" and "be" will replace "has" and "is" whenever there is an implied "should" preceeding.

i.e. "It is required that the course (should) have an equal number of male and female students."

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 04:01 PM

DAMN! Keyboard full of crumbs, including the one operating it.

Should read "I think the teacher is correct,"

Now where the hell is that camel's hairbrush?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 04:12 PM

The reason that I doubt the idea of the "implied 'should'" is that that implied "should" is redundant. It would be enough to say, "Each course should have .... " (However, if it is a "requirement", then each course "must" have - which would still be redundant following "It is required that ... ").

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 05:22 PM

Just want to thank Michael for coming up with the goods as usual!

Sticking to the OP, I'd definitely say. "It's better that he have the measles now..." "I'd rather they be sent to prison than fined..." and
"Were I to repeat that..." In all three examples, the subjunctive doesn't sound 'clumsy' to me, just correct.

(Hope I'm allowed back on this thread, I'm trying to be good and stay with the subject!)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 06:28 PM

Troubadour, if you can't find the camel's hairbrush, why not search everywhere for it using a "toothcomb" - a fine example of what happens when those who are careless with language go uncorrected (it started life as a fine-toothed comb).

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 06:56 PM

As children we had a proper breakfast - cereals then eggs, usually with bacon, and bread or toast and marmalade. Like Musket, in the middle of the day we had dinner, and about five o'clock we had tea. I now realise that my parents would have had another dinner once the children were tucked up in bed.

Having been brought up to believe that teatime is five o'clock, I have often got caught out by teashops that close at five.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 07:01 PM

You use a "toothbrush"; why not an accompanying "tooth comb"?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 07:42 PM

"...better that he have the measles now." A good example. Both sides of the fishpond.
Eliza, don't let my comment about grammar cause you to leave the thread. We all wander off topic.

In Canada-U. S. tea is cakes and tea (or coffee at about 3 PM. One of the best in Canada is at the Empress in Victoria.

I remember in Scotland, after a day of driving, we were very hungry and tired about 5 PM. We stopped in a restaurant and had a proper tea (I took the pork chops- excellent!).

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jun 14 - 08:31 PM

I have never known anyone in the US to "take tea" with or without cakes at 3 p.m. or at any set or regular time.

When they want a cup of tea, they drink "a cup of tea." Same for coffee. Anything beyond the beverage is entirely at discretion, as is the time of consumption.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 04:12 AM

'Toothbrush' for brushing the teeth,
'Tooth comb' for...combing the teeth?
It started life as a fine-tooth/ed comb. (and not for combing fine teeth either!) I use one to get the fleas out of my cats' fur.

Anyone remember High Tea?

And Lighter, we in UK don't drink 'a cup of tea', we always drink 'a NICE cup of tea'. About every hour on the hour if one's retired!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 04:24 AM

Only one an hour, Eliza? Why, I should die of thirst...

x~M~x

And remember, a 'nice' one means just the tea: no milk or sugar!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 04:30 AM

Hahaha Michael! But you haven't seen the size of my cup.

(Sounds like the punchline to a rather dubious joke!) :)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 04:59 AM

Where I come from, we don't drink a nice cup of tea, we have a mash. There again, those weird buggers the wrong side of the Pennines have a brew.

This can be confusing, because if my pet dog has a brew, we evacuate the room quickly.

Whereas my youngest came back from university under the impression that to get mashed is to partake of the falling over liquid via a sniff of the barmaid's apron.




No milk Michael? Pervert.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 05:21 AM

Cattle lactations polluting a decent cup of tea, Ian? For shame!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 05:27 AM

Pull the udder one.

Baileys contains cattle lactations, you know.....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 05:40 AM

That's why I have drunk none of it since the one sip on Xmas Day 2010 -- the only alc to pass my lips since 2002.

You knew that; you're making fun, aren't you!

Mind you, I do have lotsa cream with strawbs or Mr Kipling Bramley apple pies 'n' such; & real Tesco Finest Greek yogurt for brekkie every day, with a frankfurter or a pork pie or a couple of multigrain crackers. But these accompany & enhance: they don't pollute

Anyhow -- who's perfect?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 05:44 AM

... Tesco Extra Thick Double Cream ···


YUM!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 06:10 AM

YES!!!!! By the gallon!!! ("Were I to limit my consumption of dairy fat...") (Subjunctive very much required, as this is extremely unlikely to happen.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 06:26 AM

Ah, if only, Eliza: we could dance Les Sylphides together, couldn't we? And I was such a thinny when I was young. Look at my wedding pic, halfway down this, not just the one at the top --

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1091443/Why-I-helped-Parkinsons-disease-suffering-wife-plan-suicide--left-die.html

Then (1959) I was a thinso. Now I'm a fatso.

It was the Tesco Extra Thick wot dunnit!

LoL

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST, topsie
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 06:46 AM

Bailey's - YUK

Tesco double cream - OK. But once, when up north, I was in a small town with only a Co-op, and their double cream was seriously weird, like jelly (jello, for you over the water).

On breakfast, here are three extracts describing breakfast, from The Little Breakfast Book by Jennie Reekie.                

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965):

"If you would eat well in England, you must eat breakfast three times a day."

Diary of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV, 10th May 1451:

"Breakfasted. The buttock of beef rather too much boiled, and the ale a little the stalest."

Harold Nicolson (1886–1968):

"Edwardian breakfasts were in no sense a hurried proceeding. The porridge was disposed of negligently, people walking about and watching the rain descend upon the Italian garden. Then would come whiting and omelette and devilled kidneys and little fishy messes in shells. And then tongue and ham and a slice of ptarmigan. And scones and honey and marmalade. And then a little melon and a nectarine or two, and just one or two of those delicious raspberries!"

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 08:31 AM

I reckon another Mudcatter has been on the extra thick stuff but I digress...

I used the stuff again at the weekend when we had a BBQ. I always set out to make a pavlova and when I try to separate my meringue from the baking parchment, I decide Eton Mess isn't such a bad idea after all....

Extra thick double cream is also best for savoury sauces as you don't need as much to achieve the same effect.

I don't like full fat milk in tea to be fair, and the Sainsburys orange lidded 1% is about as good as it gets. When I lived alone however, I got into a rather bad habit of Frosties for breakfast with hardcore full fat gold top Jersey milk on top. My girlfriend, (now Mrs Musket) came close to falling at the first hurdle when she "inspected" my kitchen for the first time and made the connection..... (To try to impress her, I had made a lovely meal and she enjoyed it but started lecturing me on too much food. I thought "I'l keep my trap shut about the apple crumble I have in the oven...")

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 10:37 AM

I fully believe that good dairy produce does no harm. We don't have pig swill (ie skimmed milk) in the house. And I only use real butter for mashed spuds, on lightly cooked greens, and on toast/crumpets. My husband needs a lot of calcium, and vitamin D, so dairy is a good source. I'm old as the hills; I'm a good advert for the old milk/cream/butter/cheese diet! Personally I think sugar is the demon, not natural fat.
Michael, I was pencil thin too when I was young. My dress size was an 8 but with the waist taken in! My thick hair was so long I could sit on it. Sigh...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 10:49 AM

Ahhhh! That wedding pic: the day I married Valerie, 30 March 1959, I weighed under 9 stone!

Sigh!

I have lots of butter; prefer unsalted in general, but can eat salted when it's what comes in those little foil wraps they give you. We have semi-skimmed because it's what Emma likes. I don't do milk at all, in tea of coffee, so it makes no difference to me.

And you are not as old as the hills, my dear; why, you are not even as old as me...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 11:08 AM

But full fat milk tastes awful in tea... Granted, I'm not quite kinky enough to try Michael's solution, although I drink my coffee black.

With the exception of the milk, which is for tea taste and ironically, makes a better yoghurt, we tend to buy full high octane food. Proper butter, double cream etc. Moderation rather than watered down versions.

Lifestyle to health is a fairly subjective thing. I used to wind up our director of public health by saying that the happiest most contented people are those with a BMI of over 25, not under and happy in their skin. Stress is the biggest killer. If you have furry arteries, its still the adrenaline rush of blood pumping through stress or excitement that causes the actual issue.

I should start an agony column...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 11:34 AM

Seriously, Ian. It really is much nicer without the milk, so that you can really taste the tea. Try it for a couple of weeks, and I bet you will never want to pollute such a delectable bevvy as tea with cow-juice ever again.

I expect that, like all of us, I have my share of kinks, at that [tho what they may be is very little of your put-in, Poky-nose]; but I really can't see why anyone should consider preferring tea black as one.

~M~

[Now, time for some entertainment ~~ where did I leave my rubber tartan kilt, my minklined handcuffs, my barebum spankipaddle, and my Marilyn-wig?]

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 11:38 AM

So the cruel stereotype of L***ys is correct....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 11:51 AM

Rubber tartan kilt?

You didn't used to write songs for Stan Arnold perchance?

"Whilst hopping about on a six foot stilt,
Wearing surgical rubber snow shoes and a plastic kilt."

Err.. if none of us turn up for the entertainment I am sure you can start without us... Eventually?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 12:56 PM

Hahahahahaha!!!! A Barebum Spankipaddle!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 01:07 PM

Fancy trying it, eh, Eliza? I am sure you have been ever such a naughty girl!

LoL.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 01:16 PM

Preferable is a mug of strong black coffee.

An article in "The Telegraph" says Britain now a nation of coffee-drinkers as tea sales plunge. 11 June 2014.
Coffee sales in restaurants 2 1/2 times higher than tea, says chief of Dunkin Doughnuts.
Coffee sales in high street stores at One billion pounds, more than twice that for tea. Mintel, market research specialist.

Is British taste improving?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 01:22 PM

British taste is impeccable to begin with.

Dunkin Doughnuts? Bad enough having to eat their ruddy doughnuts without thinking about their tea! They sell something called tea?

If you pour hot water in a paper cup and then put a teabag in it, it is not tea. Trust me on that if nothing else. I have travelled extensively in North America, both USA and Canada, and one year I recall spending over ten months within the tax year. I have never ever been given a cup of tea yet.

No wonder they don't understand it. They have never tasted the bugger!



(Are there any Dunkin Doughnuts over here? I can't recall having seen any and trust me, I would have ranted at it whilst driving past if I had. Ditto Taco Bell.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 01:38 PM

I have to admit that there are Dunkin Doughnuts in Canada and U. S. A recent business item is that they are expanding sales in California.
For the UK, there is a store locator on the net.

These chains can no more make a good cup of coffee than a good cup of tea. I an sorry that I mentioned Dunkin Doughnuts in polite company.

Some Starbucks have good coffee but many are slapdash; proper care not taken by manager or barista. They do sell good beans.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 02:35 PM

I remember a Dunkin' Donuts [NB spelling] in Picadilly Circus about ¼C ago. Now it appears they are back -- From BakeryInfo website:

American brand Dunkin' Donuts has opened its first UK store in Harrow, north London, 20 years after quitting these shores.
Opening with a soft launch on 14 December...

I think I went to the one all those years ago, just to try. (Must admit I like doughnuts: eat lots of Tesco mini ones, either plain sugared or chocolate iced, but not the rather tasteless strawbs, while watching tv footie & tennis, along with their Southern Fried Chicken Straws & Bacon&Egg Bites. Ah me, no wonder I may be expanding a bit from that sylph-like character from all those years ago.) But iirc I drank coffee that time, altho I daresay that something they pleased to call 'tea' might have been available. Or maybe it was hot-choc at that, come to think of it...

Anyway, there's yr answer. Google Dunkin' Donuts & read all about it...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 02:50 PM

Ah...Canada and Starbucks.

The scene was Musket in a Starbucks in Banff, Alberta.   "Come on, make me a coffee I can at least taste. It isn't a Starbucks thing, I can taste the bugger in Starbucks back in Blighty. Make me a happy Musket, do yer barista bit."

"One real coffee for my English friend!"

Err.. Thanks.

Still weasel piss, but too polite to say anything.

Now.... Up the road at Lake Louise, The Deer Lodge hotel CAN make decent coffee you can stand your spoon on. The tea is as bad as ever mind and once drunk twice avoided.

A time zone West and there is a cafe at Whistler that is run by an Italian couple. They know what coffee is all about. Still crap tea though, all the same.

It's a bit like your southern neighbours. They don't get the water hot enough either. You have an excuse, the weather doesn't allow boiling water. But they even chucked it in Boston harbour. Too cold and too diluted. Possibly tasted about the same as usual though...

(To be slightly fair, most of my time in Canada is a fair few feet above sea level, normally there for the skiing, and as I know from my annual trip to The Alps, water boils at too low a temperature to make tea. Plus you have the French.

Always the fookin' French.....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: mayomick
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 03:27 PM

it is unfair to require that each course has an equal number of male and female students.


no faults detected by online grammar checks: http://www.reverso.net/spell-checker/english-spelling-grammar/
http://www.onlinecorrection.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: mayomick
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 03:35 PM

I would have been unsure and would probably have written "should have".Isn't it horrible the way you-sorry one- becomes all pedantic whenst writing upon threads concerning grammar and syntax?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 11 Jun 14 - 04:44 PM

I've just lost whatever respect I might have had for on-line grammar checks.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 02:13 AM

Meself, this is the original sentence:

"The student told the teacher that each course has an equal number of male and female students."

This is correct. Take out the subject and verb and you'll see it:

"Each course has"

You're being foxed by the complexity of the object:

a) "an equal number", and
b) "male and female students".

But don't worry about them: whether the verb is singular or plural depends on its subject, and in this case, that's simple, it's "each course". Singular.

If this makes you unhappy, you could recast the sentence for clarity:

"All courses have an equal number of male and female students".

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 03:56 AM

They all end up with student debt they can't afford to pay back anyway....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: mayomick
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 08:38 AM

Thompson , the original sentence is :

" it is unfair to require that each course has an equal number of male and female students "

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 09:20 AM

In that case, mayomick, the best way to phrase it would be "It is unfair to require that each course must have an equal number of male and female students". That's clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Airymouse
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 10:04 AM

Thompson. Even for someone like me for whom English is the first and only language, this is a tricky question. "Each course" is certainly singular. but the question is what is the mood of the verb. And the tricky answer is that the verb is in the (mandative) subjuctive. Had it been in the indicative, it would have been "has", because, as you say, "each course" is singular. So Joe Offer gets an A on the grammar quiz, but many, probably most, people would make the same error the student made.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 10:44 AM

Let's also remember that the grammar of informal speech is always a lot looser than formal grammar.

Also that some constructions - like those requiring the mandative subjunctive - occur mainly in formal writing. Thus the frequent confusion among speakers who have little occasion to use it.

Compare:

Formal writing:

"It is unfair to require that each course have an equal number of male and female students."


One likely form in everyday speech (others, of course, being possible):

"It's unfair to require an equal number of male and female students in each course."

The need for the subjunctive disappears.

In fact, most news and magazine editors would prefer the "everyday" form because it's simpler, more direct, and two words shorter.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 11:29 AM

I'm really surprised at the number of people here who seem unfamiliar with and baffled by the usage in question; i.e., the 'mandative subjunctive'.   I've used it in both speaking and writing virtually all my life, and I'm sure I've heard it being used all my life. I'd never had occasion to think about it until the aforementioned student asked me to explain why it was correct. Again, I wonder if this usage has lingered longer in (regions of?) Canada more than in other places ... ?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 11:35 AM

' "It is unfair to require that each course must have an equal number of male and female students". That's clear.'

Clear - but redundant.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 12:03 PM

It's normal for me too, but since we both wound up as teachers we're hardly typical of the "average speaker," who - let's face it - is likely to be less print-oriented.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 01:01 PM

Can you imagine people using the subjunctive on Facebook, Twitter and in texting? "Is poss he be dmpd innit?"

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 01:07 PM

They only say poss because inev isn't in the list of top ten words...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 01:35 PM

Know your audience.

A verse (or is it "voice"?) from my youth:


Prince, when you call on a Brooklyn goil,
Say "oil" for "earl" and "earl" for "oil."


Slightly exaggerated, to be sure. But the actual vowels are (or were) nearly identical for many people.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: mayomick
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 01:59 PM

"I'm really surprised at the number of people here who seem unfamiliar with and baffled by the usage in question; i.e., the 'mandative subjunctive"
But you were unable to explain the reasoning behind the mandative subjunctive to your student and made a muddle of it when you tried.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 02:05 PM

Carrying out a mental process and being able to explain it to someone who hasn't a clue are two different things.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: mayomick
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 02:17 PM

True , but I imagine meself's student -who seemed bright enough to argue   a point of grammar - would have had enough of a clue to understand the mandative subjunctive if explained properly.   .

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 03:02 PM

I was accused of splitting an infinitive the other week in an email and the nice kindly recipient let me know.

In an attempt to match his wit and deportment, I told him to fuck off.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 03:27 PM

You mean, you 'told him to immediately f*** off.'

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 12 Jun 14 - 03:39 PM

My student was not 'arguing'; she has an inquiring mind, and wanted to know the reasoning behind what she accepted, on my say-so, as the correct usage. And she would indeed be able 'to understand the mandative subjunctive if explained properly' - which is what led me here in the first place.

Yes, I made a muddle of it when I initially tried to explain it. However, I am quite familiar with what I had thought of as a familiar usage. I was surprised to find, here, that so many people are unfamiliar with that usage. Further, I was surprised that so many would express doubt, if not outright denial, that it could have any validity, particularly after an authoritative, though certainly not exhaustive, explanation had been provided (that is, linked to). If I was baffled myself, it was previous to receiving an explanation; after having received such, my bafflement, in that regard, ceased. Now I am baffled as to why so many others apparently remain baffled.

I hope that makes everything clear.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 13 Jun 14 - 09:24 AM

Presently fuck off?

I told him gratuitously to fuck off, but I didn't tell him to gratuitously fuck off.

Not many words in that sentence predate Chaucer you know....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 13 Jun 14 - 02:59 PM

Ah, but you see, I put in a Split Infinitive for you Musket!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: bbc
Date: 13 Jun 14 - 08:49 PM

I would agree that adding should/could/might would make a more agreeable-sounding sentence, even if "have" alone is correct. Nice to see a grammar discussion, here!

If we are allowed to drift, I'd mention that I named my son after a naked statue in Italy or, if you prefer, my high school boyfriend. Poor David; he's so confused! ;)

Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 13 Jun 14 - 10:29 PM

Do you not see that adding could/should/would makes the sentence illogical? If something is "required", then it is not enough that it could/should/would be; it must be, that being the point of the requirement. (As for the possibility of adding 'must', that 'must' is implicit in the idea of requirement; to use it in the sentence would be redundant.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 03:31 AM

If I wrote in Latin, I'd have a hang up over split infinitives I suppose. but I write in Yorksheer...

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 03:45 AM

I had a lovely long conversation on Monday with my next-door neighbour who's a true broad Norfolk countryman. He talks just like the Singing Postman, and I find myself slipping into the same accent during our chats. 'Nprfolk' has its own grammar, dialect and pronunciation, as I expect does Yorksheer. Actually, most of the verb forms are already the subjunctive. "Thass be'er if he hev the operation naow; dew, he'll git arn his feet faaaaster." (He hev, he go, he do, he work etc are all by coincidence the subjunctive forms of he has, he goes, he does, he works) I love the word 'dew' which means 'if' or 'if not'. It's pronounced without a 'y' in the middle.'.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 04:55 AM

How you speak gives you away. My elderly father in law studied the classics at Cambridge whereas my studies were all physics and engineering.

We got onto the subject of Newton recently (Clapton only knows how..) and he referred to the prinkipia whereas I mentioned the prinsipia and I am sure we both would write principia.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 08:17 PM

Princhipia you fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 14 Jun 14 - 09:22 PM

"And Lighter, we in UK don't drink 'a cup of tea', we always drink 'a NICE cup of tea'. About every hour on the hour if one's retired!"

A nice POT of tea surely! Three cups each, and our kettle never gets cold between 8.00 am and 10.00pm.

That's not when I go to bed tho'. It's when I repair to my office with two bottles of real ale.

That's where I am right now, full of tea, ale and plumpsiousness, as Doddy would say!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 03:13 AM

You NEVER compromise on Newton, you fool!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 03:41 AM

I don't make pots of tea as I can't lift the blooming thing to pour. I make a giant mug of tea. With three tea bags. I know they're a bit dire, but very convenient.
If the 'c' in principia is/was pronounced as a 'k', was poor old Cicero in fact Kikero? (World Cup Mascot or something?)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Monique
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 04:30 AM

Yes Eliza, he was!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 04:31 AM

Glad this thread has drifted back on to matters gastronomic from its rather boring grammatical origins, on which I can re-engage with dear Eliza.

So, Eliza: tea bags have the disadvantage that you can't make up your own blends; even if you use two or three different sorts of teabag it isn't quite the same. Best thing, I find, if you can't do with a pot, is to make leaf tea in a strainer placed in the top of the mug, the water poured on to cover the leaves and left to infuse for 4 minutes. However you contrive, leaves of various teas, played with in various combinations or sometimes just straight [sometimes I feel like a cup of Darjeeling, other times a blend of smaller quantities each of Lapsang Souchong + Earl Grey + Ceylon, or ...?].

In any event, I think leaves beat teabags ☞☞☜☜☛☚ down any day of the week, whatever method of infusion one adopts.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 05:09 AM

I've seen handy steel infusers where you put a choice of leaves in and shut them (like two halves of an egg with holes in the sides) and let them sit in the cup while the flavour arrives. But teabags do for me. My husband adds horrible evaporated milk (can you imagine?) and three Hermesetas to his tea. Grooooo!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 05:15 AM

I don't have any milk or sugar or sweetener or anything. Just the leaf infusion.

I just happen to like TEA!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 05:27 AM

Monique, our Latin teacher was a very posh woman who'd rowed for Oxford in her youth. We were very working-class, and fascinated by Miss Bailey-Reynolds' accent and demeanour. She was frightfully patriotic and a W.A.S.P. in the worst possible way, and began our very first lesson with, "We're not Papists" (actually one or two of us were Catholics!) "so we shan't be using fancy Popish pronunciation of Latin. Caesar is Seezer and Cicero is Sisserow. There's no Latin oral to sit, so nobody is in the LEAST interested in your pronunciation." We spent all her lessons giggling as she intoned "Amo, amas amat" etc sounding like the Queen. To hear her announce, "Caesar Gallium in tres partis divisit." (or some such) was a delight to behold. My friend Susan had asthma, and we'd come out of those lessons with her wheezing terribly from giggling too much. But she got us through 'O' Level in only two years, bless her. I now can't remember much of the grammar, except that is was horrendously complicated with all those genders and declensions.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 05:50 AM

The Polar Ice Caps are melting, folks...

Last Tuesday I met Chief Raoni and Chief Megaron in London, who had come all the way from The Amazon Rainforest in their 'SOS AMAZONIA' tour to try to wake the world of the immense danger we are in...

Let GO of fecking Grammar and get REAL!!

Get out there, and do so fast, because, shortly, it won't matter a single feck WHERE you stick your apostrophe's''''''''''''''

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 06:18 AM

Re Latin pronunciation: I remember dear Miss Weavers, our lovely innocent old dear of a Latin teacher, teaching us how to tell the date in Latin. The Romans for some reason never got hold of such a simple idea of just counting the number of days they were into the month, but depended on telling the number of days before one of three key days in a month, the Calends, Nones, & Ides: so that 12th March is said as "3 days before the Ides of March" & so on. The month's name has to be in its accusative plural; and unfortunately [for innocent old her!] the one Miss Weavers chose for her examples was May - "Maia" ~~ whose accusative plural is "Maias" ~~ which is pronounced, in RP anyhow, exactly the same as "My Arse"! So dear Miss W was walking all around the classroom intoning, "3rd May: Ante diem quartum nones my arse", "10th May: Ante diem quinqum ides my arse"...

I fear we rather disgraced ourselves trying to suppress our natural response!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 08:10 AM

Anyone asked an ancient Roman how they spoke?

We know from rhyming verse that today's Pope would not be able to understand a sermon from a medieval Pope as it is.

I was brought up on loose tea. Glenghetti to be precise. Mrs Musket likes teabags though, Yorkshire Tea (hard water blend.)

I like it warm and wet.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 10:26 AM

Tee hee Michael!My friend Susan would have been rushed to A&E! We were terrible reverse-snobs and found any high-class accent excruciatingly funny.
Did the Romans have barebum spankipaddles do you suppose? I bet they did, as they were a sadistic lot IMO.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 01:01 PM

My, Eliza, that linguistic invention of mine did get to you, didn't it?

ɷɷɷ☄☄☄〽〽〽☝☝☝▼▼▼❢❢❢ɷɷɷ

LoL

x~M~x

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 02:05 PM

I hope you wrapped it in brown paper before you sent it her? A box would help as the shape even wrapped would possibly leave little to the imagination.

Didn't the blushing postman come from Norfolk?



Have you got a red arse boy? Have you got a rosy bum?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 02:49 PM

Is there nowhere too intimate for Ian to want to poke his long nose!?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 03:40 PM

If I pointed out your long nose I'd be labelled anti Semitic.

If you are getting intimate with Eliza, do it on pm or risk having me provide a running commentary.

Talking of intimate. I was in Surrey this weekend, just got back. The bloke behind the bar in a pub last night, not knowing me from Adam, offered to sell me some Bongo Bill's Banjo Pills. Is this what getting old is going to be like?

Good price mind....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 15 Jun 14 - 05:42 PM

Well I'm FAR too old (and fat!) for anyone to 'get intimate' with me!
I'd rather have a nice snooze followed by a plate of buttered crumpets.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 01:14 AM

As this is a grammar thread, should you acknowledge the colloquial existence of pikelets? The butter remains an international constant.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 03:03 AM

Regional differences in the names of certain comestibles are not a grammatical consideration, but a semantic one, Ian. I'm sure you are fully aware of the distinction really.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 03:53 AM

And their usage affects the grammatical construct of sentences. But I'm sure you knew that too...

As in;

SURREY

Where's the bin?

In the corner of the classroom sir.

BARNSLEY

Where's the bin?

Av' bin fo' a shit, where's tha bin?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 07:20 AM

But pronunciation isn't a grammatical concept either, Ian. Why are you being so bloody-mindedly obscurantist? What satisfaction are you getting out of so deliberately confusing the actual question at issue with irrelevancies?

I think we should be told...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 08:06 AM

Anyway, you shove off. Much more interesting talking to Eliza about cream and yogurt and tea and smacked·bottoms ɷɷɷ...

So just you take your wind-up-merchant doings elsewhere, if you would be so kind, my good fellow.

Much obliged

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 08:34 AM

Talking of bottoms;

If pronunciation doesn't inform grammatical construct, I'll show me arse in Burtons' window.

The problem is, I won't shove off. Without her permission, I have decided to appoint myself Eliza's chaperone. I have a healthy stock of crumpets, Lurpak and Adnams with which to entertain my charge.

I have no need of trinkets such as spankipaddles.

Up yours Gramps.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:04 AM

Which branch of Burtons? Will they be selling tickets?

Hubbah·hubbah!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:34 AM

Luckily for me, my comment regarding grammar precludes my exhibitionism.

As we are talking grammar, it would most likely be the Reading branch I suppose. Tickets available from a bloke in a kiosk near Leicester Square as ever. Be quick or they will be all gone for a Burton

Etc

Ad nauseum


I once did show my arse on stage. I was wearing kinky women's underwear at the time and when I bent over, I heard a rip followed by a sense of coolness. The audience felt it part of the show luckily. As we performed eight nights of The Rocky Horror Show, I can state my impromptu improvisation only lasted one night and by the next night, my French knickers were a different design (and size.)

Amateur dramatics and church halls. Cameron forgot to mention that in his "being British" bollocks the other day.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:50 AM

This is most fascinating. I seem to be being offered so far:- Adnam's ale, crumpets, (or pikelets) tea, yoghurt, cream, chaperonage and Spankipaddles. I'm overwhelmed. Next we come to a bare bottom in Burton's window, split French knickers worn by a man and some grammar.
I'm wondering what posters from other countries are making of this extremely Pythonesque thread! It's resembling more and more the Opening to the 2014 London Olympics!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:50 AM

Ah. Did I ever mention that I won the cup for Best Actor at the Sawston [Cambs] Drama Festival 1977? It stands on my mantelshelf to this day. I played Harold Gorringe in Peter Shaffer's Black Comedy. In a school hall, not a church hall... I had to put on a Scouse accent [the adjudicator asked if I really came from the North - I don't], but it wasn't a trousers-down sort of comedy.

Needs a polish!... The cup, I mean.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:56 AM

Not just spankipaddles, Eliza dear: barebum ɷɷɷ spankipaddles!

And all this because silly old U-No-Who called me kinky for liking my tea without milk. I ask you --- where does he get off?

And what about my Marilyn-wig, then? Why didn't anybody get just as turned on by my mentioning that?

ɷ~M~ɷ

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 09:57 AM

I meant 2012 of course. The blasted football is all we have this year!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:20 AM

The blasted football is all we have this year!
Wimbledon starts in a fortnight!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:26 AM

No it doesn't. It starts in a week!

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:47 AM

Just polishing off the first test at Lords for that matter.

I am trying retirement again from the end of this month, other than a couple of academic commitments. A summer of cricket and folk festivals. (Then get bored and prostitute myself again no doubt.)

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:54 AM

Eliza, you forgot to mention the Bongo Bill's Banjo Pills I was offered in a pub at the weekend. Michael may wish to put them to one side with his spankipaddle.

Michael, I hope that tea sans cow juice allows you swallow them quickly. I'd hate to see you get a stiff neck.






I'm not too partial to see you after a Bongo Bill's Banjo Pill if truth get known....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 11:56 AM

"prostitute myself again no doubt."
.,,.
Want to borrow thee spankipaddle?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 12:22 PM

Er... what exactly IS a Bongo Bill's Banjo Pill? Is it for constipation perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 12:36 PM

Musket has brought up bin and bean- er, been.

Which areas of UK use one or t'other?
Bin is the big winner in U. S. and bean by a neck in Canada (dunno much about what they use in eastern Canada.

Bin also is a container but more specific names often used west of the pond; trash barrel, wastebasket, etc.

Enough of these furrin games. College football (ovoid ball) starts here in September and the professionals are at it already, Calgary defeating Winnipeg 23-20.

Cinnamon buns easily lead crumpits, 100-1.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 12:47 PM

You know where you can stick yer cinnamon buns mate! Crumpets every time, OK?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 02:01 PM

Crumpits my armpit, O fair Eliza. To be blunt.
A well-made bearclaw, or the best, those bossche bols of the Dutch or a cream puff or cream horn or.....dozens of others, all superior to the lowly crumpit. Even the biscotti which I dunk in my coffee.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 04:30 PM

Ginger nuts, to be honest. Dunked in coffee, never tea as I don't like tea sweet.

But I do like a squirt of a cow's tit in it. I'm not that depraved....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 05:43 PM

Ah, now: so reluctance to pollute one's refreshing beverages with the mammary emissions of the common domesticated ungulate is in some way symptomatic of sexual abnormality or depravity, eh?

Cant help observing one whose values would appear to be somewhat ɷ-over-Petroica·macrocephala.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 16 Jun 14 - 06:02 PM

Values?

Wrong Musket.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 04:44 AM

Had a delicious mug an hour ago: leaves of Darjeeling with an admixture of Ceylon, about ⅔ - ⅓, in a strainer placed in the mug, boiled water poured thru, left to infuse for 4 minutes; and absolutely no addition whatever of any bovine mammalian excreta. Time for more; think I will go down now, and this time have ½·&·½ Lapsang Souchong & Earl Grey; beautiful tan-brown liquid absolutely unneeding of any otiose whitening additions.

Yum!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 05:01 AM

Nothing that wouldn't be improved by a squirt of tit.

Ok, I sometimes, sometimes mind.... have a cup of Earl Grey sans Gertrude. I put it down to the older you get, the kinkier you get.

To be fair, through circumstance rather than preference, I drink far more coffee. At home I have a bean to cup contraption and I must remember to ensure I bring my similar machine back when I vacate my office at the end of the month.

I spend quite a bit of time at a large hospital with eight cafés and restaurants and not a decent cup of tea in them. That said, my Indian colleagues reckon the cardamon chai they recently started making in urns is worth a punt.

I like a bit of milk but that's taking the udder extraction....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 05:49 AM

I like milk too. When I get a pot of tea at a Costa or Starbucks, they always give me a jug of milk with it. I ask for an extra cup, & drink this separately with the cake after I have finished the sandwich or roll or panini. Milk is good stuff, and I have paid for it. So is tea. But, to my palate, a bit of apartheid needs to be practised in their consumption. If your palate is insensitive to vital distinctions, then enjoy! I am not one to be oppressively or self-righteously prescriptive, unlike some not a million miles from this post on this thread. But I also think there is something perverse [kinky, one might even say] about those who will strike moral attitudes over what are matters of taste, even if they hide them behind a mask of supposed ironic yoomah. Have you not noticed that I have had a complete SOH·ectomy?

The penultimate sentence is intended to be taken seriously. Just take a look at some of your attitudes, dear old Muskie-face; and consider your ways!

Meanwhile, enjoy your beverages, polluted to taste as they may be!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musk the et
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 06:56 AM

Attitudes? Ways?

We have neither. I thought you of all contributors would have made the link between split personality and Alexandra Dumas?

I never moralise, although I do point and laugh at the morality of others. As you do the latter, ask yourself if you do the former?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 10:18 AM

That worked.

Be as weird as him. Works every time.

Now.. Bucket and wellies needed, not forgetting my three legged stool. Could do with a cuppa.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 11:18 AM

What worked?

I mean, if you just wear down your interlocutors by drivelling incessant irrelevant and meaningless bullshit till they jut give up in despair and ennui, I am not sure that "work" is quite the thing that a rational creature would claim that it did.

If you just meant that I haven't posted back for a bit: I was watching that exquisite little Italian fairy Camila Giorgi take the first round match in Eastbourne from Victoria Azarenka 7-5 in the final set, after a penultimate game that went on for over ¼-hr, with 10 deuces. One of the best women's matches I remember. Beat sitting here reading incessant sesquipedalian poopooz from ole Muskititz ☛☚☝☟down...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 11:48 AM

I find the grunting a distraction.

Of the finest order.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jun 14 - 06:04 PM

I would never spoil a good cuppa tea with milk. Ever.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 12:19 AM

Brava, SRS. Welcome the the ever-diminishing band of people with taste.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:11 AM

SRS doesn't count.

All moderators are weird so not at all surprised about her lack of bovine lactate in the infusion compliment stakes.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:45 AM

I bet she does: why when she measures out spoonfuls, she will say "one, two, three, four"-- just like anybody else.

Time you learned how to spell 'complement', BTW, dear old chappie ~~
Mnemonic: A complement is that which completes.

You're welcome.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Musket
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 03:30 AM

I do spell complement correctly. I refuse to be held accountable for a %#}^!!ing iPad autocorrect that has a mind of its own.

Although I will accept full responsibility for not proof reading my post above. If you will excuse me, I need to take a loaded gun and a bottle of whisky into this empty room.

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 04:04 AM

Oh, well. I have always said they are taking over!

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 01:33 PM

Grammatical inquiry?

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: meself
Date: 18 Jun 14 - 07:23 PM

If only ....

Subject: RE: BS: Grammar Question: that he/she/it have
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 19 Jun 14 - 03:01 AM

If you two don't understand the sanctity of the teapot, let alone whether salted or unsalted butter suits crumpets the best, I suggest you start a thread on buckets of cola and spray on cheese.