a little something for pedants and... (profanity)

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: weerover
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 01:06 PM

There's the story of the language expert who is addressing a group of Glasgow students on the subject of the double negative. He points out that there are circumstances where a double negative can be used correctly as a positive, and informally a double negative can be used and remain a negative, but that there is no circumstance in which a double positive can constitute a negative. At that, a loud Glasgow voice is heard to say, "Aye, right!".

wr.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: JennyO
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 10:58 AM

The Use of Big Words

In promulgating your esoteric cogitations or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable philosophical and psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosities.

Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, a coalescent consistency and a concatenated cogency.

Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement and asinine affectations.

Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast.

Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity, ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity.

Shun double entendre, prurient jocosity and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent!


In other words…

Say what you mean

Mean what you say

And above all, don't use big words!!

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: wysiwyg
Date: 24 Aug 04 - 10:22 AM

Two dozen ways to improve your writing

1. Don't use no double negatives.
2. About them sentence fragments.
3. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.
4. Between you and I, case is important.
5. Correct spelling is essentail.
6. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided.
7. Use your apostrophe's correctly. Omit the apostrophe when its not needed.
8. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
9. Of course, if any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
10. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences of 10 or more words, to their antecedents.
11. A writer must not shift your point of view.
12. Avoid clichés like the plague. They're old hat. So, go around the barn at high noon to avoid clichés and colloquialisms.
13. Do not be redundant; do not use more words than necessary; eliminate the superfluous in your writing.
14. One should NEVER generalize. Be more or less specific.
15. And avoid starting sentences with a conjunction.
16. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.
17. Don't use commas, that are not necessary. Parenthetical words however should be enclosed in commas.
18. Even if a mixed metaphor sings, it should be derailed. So, take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors.
19. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
20. Be careful to use the write homonym.
21. DO NOT use multiple exclamation points and all caps to EMPHASIZE a point!!!!!!!!
22. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
23. Understatement is always the absolute best way to put forth earth-shaking ideas.
24. Proofread your writing to see if you any words out.

~S~

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 07:33 PM

"If they would've said there were lynx there when there wasn't, all that does is initiate more looking to see if there are lynx there," he said. "It wouldn't have caused a whole bunch of area to become lynx habitat."

I can at least understand the "would've" part, though it is awkward, but the part after the comma doesn't modify ANYTHING. It is either a mal-formed subordinate clause that does not modify anything in the first part, or a sentence in its own right which needs a different intorduction!

sheesh!...even in a live interview, I'd look for better sense than that!

"Pedant, pedant...pedant, pedant, pedant, pedant"..(to the 'Pink Panther' theme)

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Deda
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 07:21 PM

I know that would, should and could are the past as well as the subjunctive forms of will, shall and can, respectively. At least that's how they started out; they have taken on lives of their own since some probably Anglo-Saxon or maybe Old English or Middle English beginning.

I am sorry to see the subjunctive vanishing, myself. I know that everyone now says "I wish I was in Dixie" but I miss "were". When I taught Latin and we got to the subjunctive I told students I was going to do a grammatical magic trick. I would write on the board "I were in New York" and I'd ask them if that sentence was OK. They'd all say no. Then I told them I was going to MAKE it OK without changing any word on the board. Then I'd add "If only--" or "I wish--". That would introduce them to the difference between subjunctive and indicative. I also used to draw someone watching TV, and I told them that indicative reality was the living room and subjunctive was TV-land -- hopes, wishes, unreality and possibilities. Enough! BASTA!

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 06:59 PM

"If only he had looked both ways, maybe he would be alive today."

"If only he'd looked both ways, maybe he'd be alive today."

Both times it's "he'd", but the meaning is different. Funny language.

But if you wrote "If only he would have looked both ways...", while it might technically be ungrammatical, it adds an additional sense of longing and the fragility of life, and that nuance might be just what you needed, in the context. That would mean it was good English.

Pretty well all rules need to be broken sometimes. That especially goes when it's poetry - and poetry is what people quite often speak in times of high emotion. Heightened use of language, one definition of poetry.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 05:45 PM

"Would" is a derivative of "will" and has an implication of futurity to it even when used looking backward as in "If he'd turned when I told him, he never would have run into that policeman". Its futurity is dependent on a different point than "now".

To say "if he woulda" abrades the sensibilities because it contorts time.

It is perfectly all right to say "Oh!! I would have come along!" implying (...if only I had known where you were going), because that is simply a contracted form of the "future as it would have been from a past point" construction. But to say "If he would have...." meaning "If he had....." is as offputting as wearing your kidney on the outside.

A

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 05:20 PM

Deda, I think it has to do with the second clause being conditional on the first, while there is no prior condition for the first clause. But I could be wrong. I also think that there is an "archaic" formation in which "had" would be used instead of "would have". But I could be even more wrong there. These are the problems we run into when we try to apply Latin rules of grammar to an English that's lost most of its inflections and much of its Latin-based structure. Subjunctive? We don't need no steenkeeng subjunctive! But I don't do this for a living either, and would be interested in hearing from a real expert.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Deda
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 03:10 PM

If he had paid attention at school, he would have been able to express himself. These are both contrafactual conditions with subjunctive verbs, and I'm not at all sure why they have to fit the way they do, and why it is painfully wrong to say "If he would have paid attention..." I'd be interested to hear the technical answer from a more advanced pedant.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 01:59 PM

If Churchill was trying to show that the rule is silly, then he stacked the deck when he wrote "This is the sort of [stuff] up with which I will not put." That sentence simply doesn't prove his case. It's awkward only because he deliberately made it awkward. He could have written, "I will not put up with this sort of [stuff]."

If you ever have to choose between clarity and good grammar, choose clarity – but you seldom have to choose. You can nearly always have both, if you think about it a little bit.

And Leeniea is right that most of the "prepositions" in that other sentence ("What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for?") are actually adverbs. A preposition always has an object. If I say "Bring the book up the stairs" then "up" is a preposition and "stairs" is its object. But if I say merely, "Bring the book up," then "up" is an adverb.

I don't do this sort of thing for a living, but I wish I could.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:03 PM

Oh, we have a similar group of people in the States. We call them politicians.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:00 PM

I was recently musing over Glenn Hoddle's verbal howler at the time he upset disabled folk by alluding to them being wicked in previous lives.

"At the present moment in time, I never said them things"

He, my American friends, is a footballer. This profession seems to be legendary in its inarticulacy, and we require endless interviews from these poor ill-equipped sods. It's a national sport in itself.

Skipjack

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 11:28 AM

Most pedants are revolting enough without encouragement, I would think.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: GUEST,Which Tyler
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 07:38 AM

Would anyone like to join a pedants' revolt?

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 02:42 AM

Dicho, I think you're correct, and I owe the gentleman an indirect apology. If I'd been thinking straight, I would have (!) recognized this as a transcription of spontaneous speech, which generally bears only a superficial resemblance to formal written language. Except for Abba Eban, who spoke in finely crafted paragraphs.

However, the fact remains that many bureaucrats (and others, including, sadly, many English teachers) actually do write that badly.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:51 AM

The poor guy was probably talking to a reporter holding a mike in his face.
Would have, could have and should have are very commonly misused. I think I do it all the time in speech, but try to get it right on paper.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Amos
Date: 19 Dec 01 - 12:04 AM

I thik the correct structure would be:

"Had they said there were lynx there when there were none, it would only have caused more people to look for lynx. It would not have caused any growth in the actual area inhabited by lynx."

I am also glad I do not do this sort of thing for a living.

A

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: GUEST,Dan Kelly
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 11:03 PM

Thanks, Mark. (But you most surely gave your own self away on that error; no one else would have.) ;)

Dan

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 10:42 PM

Oh, all right...This man clearly has taken speech lessons from his boss. OK?

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 10:40 PM

Dan, from the whole of that stupefying amalgamation of bureaucratic claptrap and fractured grammar, the only thing that bothered you is "would have"? Your ears must be deadened from hearing too many fingernails on chalkboards!

Yes, I think the correct phrasing is "If they had said..." Now, what about "when there wasn't", and "initiate more looking to see", and "a whole bunch of area", and......???? This man has clearly taken speech lessons from his boss.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: GUEST, Dan Kelly
Date: 18 Dec 01 - 10:02 PM

Here's the right thread for my question. I've looked through several websites, but I'm not coming up the answer. This has bothered me for a long time. Here's an example from today's news:

"If they would've said there were lynx there when there wasn't, all that does is initiate more looking to see if there are lynx there," he said. "It wouldn't have caused a whole bunch of area to become lynx habitat."

Never mind that this fellow is the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, and surely has written many a memorandum. My question is limited to his use of "would have." I only know what sounds right and what doesn't, and this use of "would have" sounds like nails on a chalk board. However, I hear it ALL the time (daily?), and even newscasters use the term.

Is it correct?? Is it "American?" (Can it be both?)

Thanks in advance.

Dan

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 09:16 AM

Thanks, Kevin, that was fun.

Spaw, thank you. ONly you could make so muhc sense out of what I was trying to say...right up your alley, after all of that work you did on the Icelandic KGT!

kat

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 01 - 06:08 AM

Sorry about that. Well, it was New Millennium Night. Here is the missing URL: http://www.englishpage.com/prepositions/phrasalverbintro.html

Or in clicky form

Thanks kat

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 10:36 PM

Right kat! Sure!!! And if you take cranberries and stew them like prunes, they taste much more like applesauce than rhubarb does...............

Spaw (delete this one too)

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 09:54 PM

Kevin, you forgot to paste in the addy. If you put it in the next message, I can fix the one above to make it work and delete this message to you and your subsequent one, if you'd like, if it is just the addy. Thanks, kat aka -el joeclone -

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 07:54 PM

A pot of the confusion about prepositions is sorted out once you start thinking in terms of "phrasal verbs" - here is a tutorial about them (They never talked about them when I was at school either...)

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 12:21 PM

I used to have a Japanese neighbour, who was working on her linguistics Phd., and she used to ask me all these weird questions about prepositions in English, and I would have to make up rules. My favourite: she once asked me if she could "topple things." After a few seconds, I suggested that in English the only thing you could topple transitively was a throne. Everything else "toppled over (buildings, vases). If she hadn't asked, I would never have noticed. You could have toppled me with a vase when I realized it!

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Haruo
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 01:08 AM

(leeniea) I think y'all are forgetting that English has two parent tongues, the Germanic and the Latinate.

(Liland) I think it's safe to say the "Latinate", as you put it, is at best a domineering stepparent.

(leeniea) Some of the words you have been calling prepositions are actually Germanic separable prefixes. Examples: "on" in "Turn the light on." "Off" in "He's a show-off." And "up" in "put up with." These are not prepositions, they are adverbs that come late in the sentence.

(Liland) That's true, though I'm not sure they are "actually Germanic separable prefixes". "Are descended from" perhaps, but not "are." "Adverb" is a better term, though still an attempt to make modern English grammar conform to the categories of the grammar of some other, older tongue.

(leeniea) If I change "turn the light on" to "turn on the light" I invoke a vision of a tiny ballerina en pointe, spinning atop a light bulb. Is that what we want to see happening to our mother tongue?

(Liland) Actually, I rather like it. A vision of my mother tongue transformed into a tiny ballerina en pointe... It would certainly remove one of the barriers to the final victory of Esperanto. ;-)

(leeniea) Logically speaking, a true preposition must precede its noun, because it's a "pre-position," a thing which goes in front. Those old scholars weren't so dumb. (Liland) True again, and there are many languages that have, instead, "postpositions" (nothing to do with equestrianism), which equally sensibly follow after the nouns they refer to. Often they are SOV languages (that's Subject-Object-Verb, not Single-Occupancy Vehicle), like Hindi and Japanese. Latin is basically SOV, too, but has more prepositions than post-. Though it does have some post-style items, like the "-cum" in "Pax vobiscum" as well as similarly postpositional conjunctions like the -qve in SPQR (SENATVS POPVLVSQVE ROMANVS).

Incidentally, and quite tangentially, when I was learning Hindi (which is an Indo-European tongue, thus related to English) I found that its word order was so frequently identical to that of Japanese, that if I was trying to adlib a Hindi sentence and needed a vocabulary item I didn't know, I was apt to fill it with the Japanese word, rather than English or Esperanto or something, because in the sentence structure it just "felt right". And since my Hindi professor knew no Japanese it was a bit confusing at times (I wasn't always aware I'd done it....)

Liland

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Dec 00 - 12:38 AM

I think y'all are forgetting that English has two parent tongues, the Germanic and the Latinate. Some of the words you have been calling prepositions are actually Germanic seperable prefixes. Examples: "on" in "Turn the light on." "Off" in "He's a show-off." And "up" in "put up with." These are not prepositions, they are adverbs that come late in the sentence.

If I change "turn the light on" to "turn on the light" I invoke a vision of a tiny ballerina en pointe, spinning atop a light bulb. Is that what we want to see happening to our mother tongue?

Logically speaking, a true preposition must precede its nous, because it's a "pre-position," a thing which goes in front. Those old scholars weren't so dumb.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Lanfranc
Date: 30 Dec 00 - 06:10 PM

Did you hear the sad story of the Latin scholar, who, on his honeymoon, was asked by his wife if he would like to conjugate, but declined?

Not the kind of anecdote any true pedant would give credence to.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Dec 00 - 12:57 PM

Well, if it's Mediaeval Latin you're after, here are some good songs.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Peter T.
Date: 30 Dec 00 - 10:53 AM

Yes, Medieval Latin already shifted drastically in that direction. Speaking of pontificating, I remember a Professor at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies who was somewhat renowned for doing his thesis on word order in Thomas Aquinas. Can't remember his name. One of his students (in a parody moment, but it may have been reflecting a real argument) said that he argued that the whole dispute between the Western and Eastern churches over the Trinity was about the weight and order in which you took the possessives -- Son of God. To quote the parody: "Of course, the arrival of the barbarian hordes across Europe somewhat loosened the grammatical rigour of the times....."

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Haruo
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 09:09 PM

Now if I may point out an oddity in Latin word order... It is true that in English it is if anything more important than in Latin to keep a preposition right up against its object (since in Latin the case may, I'm not saying will, clarify matters), and it's true that nonetheless English more often than not goes ahead and dangles the preposition off the far end of the clause, usually without great damage to the sense and usually with a net profit in colloquiality, and it's also true that Latin rarely if ever even contemplates much less consummates the like dangling, yet Latin hath his (taking it as sermo Latinus, not lingua Latina) own funny ways with words. Note for example Lucretius' famed title, De rerum natura ("On the nature of things", but even a nonpedant can tell at a glance that it actually says "On of things the nature"), and then there's the old Christmas chant (now usually sung to Divinum Mysterium), Corde natus ex parentis ("Of the Father's love begotten", but it looks to me more like "Heart born of the Parent's" and the -e on "corde" strongly suggests to me that it's the object of the "ex"...) Of course, by the time Englishmen got around to aping Latin, Latin itself had settled down into imitating Italian in its sentence structure, ...

How's that for pedantia? (I would make more of my pedantry, but I'm always afraid people will think it's a fancy word for child molestation...)

Liland

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 08:38 PM

Now that wasn't the right link - this should be

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 08:35 PM

Anyone reading this thread should know that Fowler's is online

The 1908 edition - later editions are a bit more flexible. But he's a very sensible bloke about things like this anyway.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Snuffy
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 08:07 PM

Didn't Saint Bob write "Lie, Lady, lie, lie upon your big brass bed"?

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 07:59 PM

"I believe the correct quotation is, "This is the sort of errant pedantry up with which I will not put!"

*sigh*...I have seen 27 different formulations of what Winnie might have said...he probably DID say something close to one of them...but I doubt there was anyone with a recorder there...the was I remember it is "....sort of 'arrant'nonsense up with which"....

arrant connotes a different sense than 'errant',

Main Entry: ar·rant
Pronunciation: 'ar-&nt
Function: adjective
Etymology: alteration of errant
Date: 1553
: being notoriously without moderation : EXTREME <we are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us -- Shakespeare>
- ar·rant·ly adverb

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 07:13 PM

If you carefully read all of the examples given above, you will find that the rules of "prescriptive grammar" give the only unarguably precise meanings.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 06:19 PM

Ah, I love these threads. Think of "embedding" - the man the dog bit died. Then think of multiple embeddings - the man the woman the dog the cat bit knew married died. Even OK rules can lead to un-OK solutions if misapplied. What is possible is not always feasible, to use Jargon. And while I'd heard "what did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of up for" I hadn't heard it with the added Down Under, which unfortunately are grammatically, I believe, nouns in that sentence... still, very good updating!

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 03:36 PM

Yeah! McCartney's written some pretty wretched doggerel in his time...but that one bites the big one! EEEE-YUCK!

He should have taken lessons from Bob.

- LH

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 02:30 PM

And what of Paul McCartney's classic: "And in this ever-changing world in which we live in"? (Live and Let Die).

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 02:00 PM

What a delightful thread this is...

Okay, everyone knows (or at least everyone should know) that Bob Dylan is the world's foremost authority on the use of proper grammar. Now, he said in at least one song "no one was ever sure where he was really at". Therefore, it is perfectly all right to end a sentence with "at". Case closed.

Now that we've got that one behind us, I think it's time to consult the Holy Scriptures (Dylan's writings) for further revelations in the proper use of language.

Consider this line "with unseen consciousness I possessed in my grip, a magnificent mantlepiece, though its heart being chipped". If everyone had a mastery of grammar like that, think where we would be today... Admittedly it was in a song (about Suze Rotolo and her sister Carla) that even Bob himself has said of..."I must have been some kind of schmuck to write that one", but he wasn't criticizing the grammar, mind you, but rather the general theme of the song, in that it was totally unfair and nasty toward Carla...but I'm getting off topic here. Sorry!

Now, where were we? Oh yes, the Bob Dylan grammatical mastery discussion. Well, I could give innumerable examples, but why bother? All you have to do is read his lyrics.

Ah, yes, and SPAW...are you listening???

C) Bite me, fuckface!

I think that one deserves consideration before making a final decision on the matter.

- LH

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 11:03 AM

I don't think we disagree, Gary, I did say "often critical", not always. I pointed out why ending a sentence with a preposition occasionally sounds odd -- one is haunted by what seems to be missing because of the influence of the usual pattern. Speaking of always, one problem your note elides is that the written language is trying to cope with things that can be handled without difficulty in oral speech through emphasis -- He ALWAYS agreed to call before visiting, and He agreed ALWAYS TO CALL before visiting work quite happily in speech, but less well in writing (depending on whether you are American or English as well), because written English doesn't capture voice emphasis unless you are very careful in your poetics. To prevent the ambiguity you mention, you have to move the "always" around (a true pedant might say that you are actually creating a new infinitive -- "to always call" -- I always call, you always call, etc.)

I have posted this before, I think. The longest string of prepositional endings in the language (with some cheating). The irritated query of the child at bedtime when his father for the umpteenth time decides to read about the history of Australia: "What did you bring that book I didn't want to be read to out of about "Down Under" up for?" (8).

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Gary T
Date: 29 Dec 00 - 03:39 AM

Word order in English is of generally greater importance than it is in Latin. Many Latin sentences could have their meaning unchanged no matter how the words were jumbled around, whereas most English sentences (and even phrases) change or lose meaning if the word order is altered. However, not ALL of English is slavishly dependent upon word order. I have to disagree with Peter T. His point about word order is generally true of the language as a whole but is not applicable as the final word on placement of prepositions. Is there really anyone here who does not understand, "That's a toy I used to play with?" Is there any improvement in saying "That's a toy with which I used to play?" I think not.

I think you'll find, Murray, that the proscription of split infinitives is also based on obsequious deference to Latin grammar. Latin infinitives are single words and thus CANNOT be split. English infinitives, being two words, lend themselves readily to splitting. Sometimes this can enhance clarity by eliminating any doubt as to which word in a sentence is modified by a particular adverb. And consider "He agreed to always call before visiting." The placement of "always" anywhere else in that sentences either changes the meaning or makes it come across as terribly stilted and awkward. There's really no good reason to disallow spit infinitives in English.

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 06:30 PM

Mud Cat and Cat Mud?**BG**

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: MarkS
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 06:11 PM

Word order is indeed most critical in English, just see the difference between "house cat" and "cat house" for example. Anybody think of any others?
MarkS

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 01:21 PM

Murray, I forgot to address your question. My reply: As I will, after sometime, be going to heft my massive volume on grammar off of the shelf sometime soon, I expect to, once I've read through it, answer your question quite thoroughly.

(Oh, gawd! Mrs. Worcester must be turning over in her grave by now!)

Paddymac, would you please restate your question?*BG*

kat

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 12:11 PM

Not unless I can see his dangling participle first!

Thank you, Peter! Always love to hear your knowledge on these things, too! Ah, I was Brill for 15 minutes....sob, sob...LOL!!

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Hollowfox
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 11:58 AM

Now 'Spaw, don't get your knickers in a knot over ol' Zeb. After all, I never said *I* was a pedant, he said he was. He told me how to be pedantic if I so desired (no worry there, what with my spelling abilities).
Kat, are you prepositioning ddw right here in front of all of us?!?

Subject: RE: a little something for pedants and langu
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Dec 00 - 11:58 AM

Rizla the Green said: "Wintson [sic] Churchill is quoted as saying..."This is something up with which I will not put".

I believe the correct quotation is, "This is the sort of errant pedantry up with which I will not put!"

Dave Oesterreich