BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Emma B
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 10:23 AM

improving lettuce the Australian way?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:15 PM

Last night I was reading a book by P.G. Wodehouse, that magician of syntax. I came across two sentences in a row that caused me to smile when I considered diagramming them.

1. Here he is, an hour before my important dinner, with some of the most wealthy and exclusive people in New York expected at any moment, refusing to put on his dress-clothes and saying that all a man that is a man needs is to shoot his bison and cut off a steak and eat it by the light of the western stars.

2. And what I want to know is what I am to do?



Sometimes I dream of sponsoring a Real People's Olympics, with competitions such as going into a huge supermarket and finding the toothpicks with dispatch and finesse. Another event could be diagramming sentences like these.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: autolycus
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:53 PM

The last words of the French grammarian Dominique Bouhours, died 1702, were,(in French)

"I am about to, or, I am going to die. Either expression is used."


    Ivor

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 01:56 PM

Flammable--capable of burning.
Inflammable -- capable of being set alight and then burning.
Non-inflammable -- not readily capable of being set alight.
Fireproof -- not capable of burning.


Of course anything is capable of burning at high enough temperature, so you have to take thes emeanings in the context of normal use.

A word may disappear from use, but that will not change the cognitive stream previosuly associated with it. However it will reduce the strength of agreement surrounding those cognitive events and therefore tend to make them become suppressed (as unexpressible, and not likely to be approved by others). It is the social fabric that changes, not the basic experiential fabric, which by nature is much richer and wider than can possibly be covered by agreed-on definitions.

It is a strange thing, and a bit of a sorrow to me, that we tend to block out from our consciousness things we cannot readily express to our peers. It puts the footing of individual thought on the wrong basis, requiring agreement to yield certainty, a very shaky and potentially treacherous basis indeed.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Rowan
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:10 PM

Amos, I presume anything is capable of burning at high enough temperature (your caveat aside) means we can ignore the one Liz omitted

nonflammable

My smartypants remarks aside, it is precisely such confusion that has caused most who have to deal with hazardous substances (some of which may burn in the context of normal use) to limit modern warning signs to read either "flammable" or "nonflammable".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Slag
Date: 29 Nov 07 - 05:13 PM

That was incendiary Amos! Lettuse sea...Hmmm? If a word like "flivver" disappears from the language, it may be because the object itself has disappeared. Another scenario might be that the word has mutated in some way or a deeper meaning or understanding has replaced it. The very real terror of sea monsters seems to no longer exist but sharks and such DO have my complete respect!

The dreaded "N" word has had many transformations. In the Book of Acts chapter 13 verse 1 we have "Simon called Niger". The Greek word is spelled nu (nee) iota (ee-o'-tah) gamma (y[n]e- amma) eta (ate-ah) rho (hu-roe'). Put it all together and it's pretty much pronounced the way the "N" word is pronounced today. The "g" part, the gamma in Greek is more like the "g" in "gyro"; the gyro sandwich. James L. Strong in "Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible" gives the pronunciation "neeg'-er" and it simply means "black". The point is that this was a perfectly acceptable word. What happened to it? The 2000 years of the history of the abuse of this people! As late as Mark Twain it was still pretty much an acceptable word but the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, lynchings, etc. so tainted it that polite society and folks in general don't discuss it except perhaps in an academic sense such I have just done.

Language and grammar is a living thing shaped by time, circumstance and usage. Variety and change used to occur mostly because of geographical isolation, tribalism and such. Today, with instantaneous communication fad and technology seem to have the greater influence.

The argot of the street urchins in the movie (one of my all time favorites btw) "Blade Runner" was very interesting to me and I wished they would have expanded more upon that. The James Olmos character seemed to have a fluent understanding of it. Nailing down exactly where and when a shift or a change takes place I find extremely interesting and culturally significant. Good thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 04:10 AM

Surely nailing down a shift would prevent the lady from running away!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:10 AM

Slag - "...and I wished they would have expanded..."

Another example of American v British English grammar!
"...and I wished they had expanded..." is how that is phrased on this Eastern side of the pond.

Best wishes D

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:40 AM

Lettuce just doesn't taste as good in the UK, as it used to in Greece when I was a kid. Should I ask my sister to send me some in the post, now and then? And would that be lettuce from home?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:42 AM

And does the neighbour's tomcat think "lettuce spray", before he does so all over our veggie patch?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:44 AM

I think I'm getting the hang of it now (ATASTTB)...

Alan Titchmarsh has written a number of gardening books; does that mean he's a man of lettuce?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:48 AM

(Sorry, bored to tears at work)
Is houmous an aphrodisiac? It must be, otherwise why call it "houmous erectus"?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 06:50 AM

I'd go and lie in a darkened room - but would that make me more believable?

So many questions...so little time...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 07:11 AM

AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 08:58 AM

Why were they spelling the Latin niger (black) in Greek, rather than using the Greek work (melanos)? Is it an insult to call a Black person a Melon?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:09 AM

There's a vegetarian church in town where the minister says, "Lettuce pray". They're a pretty radishcal bunch, who don't carrot all for some of the other churches. In fact, they turnip their noses as the Lutherans, feeling down to their marrow that they are holier. There was a schism recently though, with some of the parishioners screaming at the Pasture, "You fraud! Yukon Gold from us and russet our cattle!"

I'd let you know how this theological skirmish ends, but I'm making my self sick to my stomach.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:56 AM

Intersting that the minute we start divorcing cognitive experience from the language with which we cloak it, everyone goes a bit loopy, eh?

Even queasy.

Low tolerance for footloose conscious experience? Untrammeled awareness a bit much? Feeling an urge to slam new vocabulary back into place in an effort to fill in the hole in the sea-wall, are we?

Hmmmmm. Dot isch veddy normal. Not to vorry.


Liebenscheiss
Analyst undt Iatrist to der Mudcat Vorld

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Peace
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:57 AM

"Alan Titchmarsh has written a number of gardening books; does that mean he's a man of lettuce? "

George, that was BAD!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 10:57 AM

What I get a kick out of is how the British approach collective nouns, eg, 'the team have to play hard'-team as a third person plural vis-a-vis the American, 'the team has to play hard'-where team is treated as a singular noun.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 11:18 AM

Quite so, John. No sense doing things half-way, is there? If one is intent on creating a collective noun, one should make it completely collective. It is A team, after all, not a "teams". If we depart from this sterling principle, we will not be able to pronounce what the Gummint should do in the singular tradition, as so many half-witted citizens no do.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 12:03 PM

   Here he is
          |
          |________ an hour before my important dinner,
          |                                        |
          |                with some of the most wealthy and exclusive people in New York 
          |                                                           |
          |                                                expected at any moment
  (refusing to put on his dress-clothes) and 
  (saying) 
    |
    |___(that all a man needs is)______________________________
                     |_(that is a man)                              | 
                          (to shoot his bison) and (cut off a steak) and (eat it ) 
                                                                         |_ (by the light of the western stars.)
  
  
  

---

I am sure the connectors will get all scrambled, but you get the general diea.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Slag
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 08:08 PM

Good job Amos (Hebrew for "burden")!   Ye-or-yah (George, Greek ['ellenika] for "farmer") terrible "lettuce" joke. Bad cabbage.

Here is something to consider: Primitive, stone-age cultures such as the American Indian, the Australian Aborigines, and so on, wore their symbols on their bodies in paint or tattoos or both and they also transferred some of these symbols to cave walls, clothing or desert rocks. They participated in and closely identified with those symbols. It appears that the Egyptians, while wearing some symbols had moved them almost exclusively to walls and tablets and papyrus and we see a proto-written language emerge. A good dictionary will demonstrate the origins of our symbols/letters and you have to ask yourself if we still carry those strong identifications as the primitives did/do? I say yes! T-shirts with messages, signet rings, tattoos (yet), face paint. Is all language metaphor? Are words worth fighting for? Dying for? What then is meaning? All the stuff of philosophy (love of wisdom). Jesus said "I am the Alpha and the O-mega". Interesting indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 08:47 PM

In the thread "Solar Post Light: Suggestions?"

Donuel said that he "ran a black extension cord up the back side"

..........

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 08:51 PM

All this delight in the non-uniformity of English is missing entirely the terrible beauty of the language. Terrible, because it requires great exposure and attention to be able to use well; but beautifl in its capacity for nuances, shades of meaning, and the wealth of varying human experiences it can capture and relay.

The trick is to understand the provenance of the different usages and forms. Yiddish injected great color and vivacity into the language, but its shades of form and meaning make no sense if you are expecting High German or Romance configurations in your words. The fact that two entirely different channels of meaning (for a random example, "band" as a retaining ring and as an ensemble of musicians) can over time evolve into one form should be perfectly natural to one who knows how usages evolve. The fact that colloquialisms like "burn down" and "burn up" an end up in circulation at the same time is cause for rejoicing, not declamation of the irrationality of the language.

Language reflects the color, passion, sensibilities and challenges of those who live with it. So it only gets purely rational in some rare areas of engineering and science; anywhere else, and the demand for consistency would be a bane and a chokehold on the bouquet of rich cognitive realms which language maps for us. The lack of uniformity, puzzling as all Hades to an outsider, is part of the wealth, and can be quickly shared with a little study.

My position on the issue, therefore, is sod off and let her fly.



A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:26 PM

Yeah, Amos, "Terrible", like an Abrahams Fighting Vehicle... but with a little more subtelty...

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Rowan
Date: 30 Nov 07 - 09:56 PM

Brought up in the language at a time when wrought iron was both common and frequently encountered, I always regarded "wrought" as the correct, if irregular, past participle of "wreak". These days there are many broadcasters who cause my ears to flinch with the more regular, but less felicitous, "wreaked".

And whenever I see "there are a number of things" I flinch again. Like John, I suspect. If the example is in an assignment from a student I usually suggest "there are several things" as a substitution. But then, I was brought up to believe the govt, the parliament and the local footie team were singular institutions.

And while we're on the notion of pond separations, I was taught
"compared with", "similar to" and "different from". I believe this construction came to Oz from Britain; given Britain is also where the US got much of its English, I'm interested to learn how the US arrived at "different than".

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 03:51 AM

Wrought, wreaked, wrecked... or is it rorted?

:-)


"the govt, the parliament and the local footie team were singular institutions."

They are often 'single-minded' I will admit... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 05:52 AM

Rowan:

We have routinely surrendered the seat of public influence to the illiterate, the incompetent, and the dishonest; one of the three was responsible for "different than".


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 04:24 PM

From a parody paper called The Onion:

Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs

NOVEMBER 30, 2007 | ISSUE 43•48



WASHINGTON—Faced with ongoing budget crises, underfunded schools nationwide are increasingly left with no option but to cut the past tense—a grammatical construction traditionally used to relate all actions, and states that have transpired at an earlier point in time—from their standard English and language arts programs.

A part of American school curricula for more than 200 years, the past tense was deemed by school administrators to be too expensive to keep in primary and secondary education.

"This was by no means an easy decision, but teaching our students how to conjugate verbs in a way that would allow them to describe events that have already occurred is a luxury that we can no longer afford," Phoenix-area high-school principal Sam Pennock said. "With our current budget, the past tense must unfortunately become a thing of the past."

In the most dramatic display of the new trend yet, the Tennessee Department of Education decided Monday to remove "-ed" endings from all of the state's English classrooms, saving struggling schools an estimated $3 million each year. Officials say they plan to slowly phase out the tense by first eliminating the past perfect; once students have adjusted to the change, the past progressive, the past continuous, the past perfect progressive, and the simple past will be cut. Hundreds of school districts across the country are expected to follow suit.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Peace
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 04:32 PM

"Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so, uh, they wented somewhere.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 07:47 PM

Makes perfect sense to me, Amos. Remember, he who forgets the past has only the future to look forward to, provided he can move on from the present. He could be she, I not wanting to offend the distaff sex...er gender.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Peace
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 04:06 PM

"I not wanting to offend the distaff sex [meaning female]"

Though that one might slip by, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 10:21 PM

Peace, you may enjoy this. A story in today's Los Angeles Times sports section regarding the lack of female coaches in college, refers to R. Vivian Acosta, a researcher in this field, as, "professor EMERITA [caps mine] at...Brooklyn College."

In an age when we frequently use gender neutral terms, firefighter, server, actor (irrespective of sex), alumni (rather than alumnus/alumna) I think the author's use of the Latin feminine form for the retired reflects on what the problem in sports may be. Females are still often perceived as different from male counterparts.

---

Please note that anonymous posting is no longer allowed at Mudcat. Use a consistent name [in the 'from' box] when you post, or your messages risk being deleted.
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 02 Dec 07 - 11:03 PM

Put a dozen on a scrimmage line against them Green Bays and we'll see if there's a difference.

VIVA la difference!



A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Slag
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:05 AM

That was real neighborly of you Joe, to give fair warning and not just pull the rug out from under the poor guy. Very nice.

No past tense? We should then continue this thread in present and future tense only. Time is motion and if you turn around to look at where you is then that is also a new motion and so is also in the present (tense). So there really is nothing but the present. Motion defines the present and there is no good to come from mourning something that is not there.

Do you catch the movie "Memento"? a very here-and-now reel.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST,LTS pretending to work
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 03:12 AM

"Right Wright, write 'right' right, right away!"

Lettuce was the accepted spelling of Letitia for many a century... comes as a bit of a shock when you think your great great great aunt was a salad.

Could explain my crappy celery though.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 11:23 AM

An eloquent argument for the retun of Latin to the American school curriculum can be found in the Times.

It outlines succinctly why it is (or would be) of benefit, and offers heros worth emulating (and some not) who were steeped in the mysteries of Roman discourse in the original.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 02:44 PM

Great article, Amos, and fortuitously timed...Mudcat leads the way.
I took particular note, from the article, that President Bush studied studied Latin, and soon after he left school the study of Latin began its decline. The guy gets blamed for everything!

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 02:49 PM

I am the Guest at 02:44pm. For some reason my cookie had expired...happy to say I hadn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 04:28 PM

One of our Victorian (or thereabouts) Presidents -- I forget which -- was capable of reading in English while doing simultaneous translation into written Greek with his right hand, and written Latin with his left hand, one pen in each. Or so I have been told. This is the kind of mental acuity and discipline we need in tomorrow's thinkers.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 05:12 PM

Could explain my crappy celery though.
Liz, perhaps you should have tried to find, quickly, whether you had an ancestor named "Celerity"?

Amos
You've just reminded me of a lecturer I had at uni. Maggie had been a major in the army during WWII, was a member of the Soroptemists, had a (usually friendly but) forceful and large presence and specialised in genetics. The second year Ag Sci students were a rowdy bunch, as they spent the week stuck on a teaching farm at Derrimut, away from the city and came up to the Melbourne campus only one day a week for lectures and pracs in particular subjects; genetics was one such subject.

One week, Maggie was absent for this lecture and delegated Ilma to give it in her place. Ilma was tiny, petite in manner and stature, and unused to rowdiness. The Ag students rode roughshod over her for the entire lecture, with such noise that I came out of my lab to find out what was going on; I was merely a postgrad student at the time but was still concerned. Ilma left the lecture in tears and I took her away for a cup of tea.

Maggie sought me out after she returned and I told her what had happened. "Right!" she said. "I'll fix them!"

At the appointed time for that lecture the following week, I stood outside the back door of the lecture theatre (it was highly raked) and watched Maggie describe their behaviour as appallingly uncivilised, that the following material was going to be the topic of several questions on the exam paper and then proceeded to give one lecture orally, while writing another with her right hand on one end of the board and, simultaneously, write yet another with her left hand on the other end of the board.

Spectacular!

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Amos
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 05:14 PM

What an awesome display that must have been!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Rowan
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 05:24 PM

Yes, Amos; they were suitably awed.

As was I. And I noticed that AgSci students were always impeccably behaved around the Botany School after that lecture and for the next few years. Maggie retired sseveral years after that and later became Chancellor of Melbourne Uni, but I suspect I'm one of very few people (apart from the students) who knew of her abilities in that regard.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: Peace
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 06:47 PM

"Peace, you may enjoy this."

Thank you, Guest. I did. This world is gettin' crazier and crazier . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Is Your Grammar Up To Date?
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 03 Dec 07 - 08:35 PM

Peace, I was that Guest,,,hadn't noticed cookie expiration.
Amos, was that JQ Adams or Cleveland? Those names come to my mind, so it was probably neither.