BS: Affect and effect.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jun 04 - 06:54 PM

'Can' instead of'may' was a hanging crime.

So, you had to ask if you might go to the may?

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 06:14 PM

Besides, Dave, that ain't necessarily true...ask the man who owns one! :>))

A

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 06:04 PM

Quite commonly I'll hear someone say something like "He's a Jewish rabbi."

My comment is, "Yes, and that's the very best kind!"

Along this line, I remember embarrassing myself at a party, when I heard two women discussing a statue that had "a stone male penis".

I said, "That's the very best kind!"

From the looks I got, I don't think they associated my comment with the tautology.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 01:10 PM

Well, ask her if she can define "a.m", mate. No clues, mind you!

Actually you could theoretically argue that the set of minutes included in "ante meridien" includes both morning and forenoon. Therefore, it would be perfectly sensible to say "a.m. in the morning" when referring to the morning watch, but not for the forenoon watch.

Just a wild and hazardous guess!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 12:37 PM

I dunno... my own mother says it (though I'm sure she didn't when I was young), and she's not illiterate. I don't think she even realises what she's saying...

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Amos
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 10:54 AM

I hear more & more people refer to "__ a.m. in the morning".

This is just illiteracy at work, I'm sure.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: JennyO
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 09:35 AM

Along with PIN numbers, there are ATM machines - automatic teller machine machines.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 06:28 AM

Well, now that we're on to *verbal* "offenses" ;-) ...

I hear more & more people refer to "__ a.m. in the morning". This seems to be a fairly recent thing (last 10 years or so?); I don't remember ever hearing it when I was a kid. These days, I even hear it from radio announcers. (Interestingly, I have yet to hear someone say "__ p.m. in the evening".)

Similarly, almost everyone refers to their "PIN number", which is redundant, since the N already stands for number. This one makes more sense to me, though, because referring to your "PI number" is more awkward/might not be understood; referring to your "PIN" also might be confusing to others, so I don't see this changing any time soon.

"I don't want any potatoes" means the same thing as "I don't want no potatoes." I don't care how much English ya know. When a 280 lb heavy weight world-class kick boxer says he don't want no potatoes, ya don't give him any. All that crap about two negatives equal a positive simply fly out the window. Trust me.

There's a story about a lecturer explaining to his English class that while a double-negative equals a positive, there are no incidences of a double-positive equalling a negative. At which point, from the back of the room, a sarcastic voice is heard saying "Yeah, yeah!"

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 03:50 AM

When I was at school there were many words that we were discouraged from using. Instead, we had to find elegant variations. "Forbidden words were 'nice' 'thing' 'got' and any slang. There were others that have no doubt been expunged from my memory. 'Can' instead of'may' was a hanging crime.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 07 Jun 04 - 03:44 AM

"When you gotta go you gotta go" loses something as "When you have to go you have to go"

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Amos
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 09:21 PM

I think there is a literal and legitimate distinction between saying "you have x" and "you have got x". The latter is certainly lessformal but I don't think it can be dismissed as improper entirely. After all there are plenty of parallel constructions such "You've bought a lemon". "you've found the missing link", and "you've loosed the cat among the pigeons".

Nigel:

Surely you mean precise. I don't believe there is any such word as precice.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 09:10 PM

And, of course, there are the "word whiskers" in spoken English. At one time, "you know" often found its way into just about every sentence, maybe a couple of times per clause. Now it's "like." Often the two are intermingled, such as "like, you know." Thanks to the repeated use of "like" and "you know," there are people who can talk for hours and use only ten or a dozen different words. If a person doesn't have much to say, it helps a lot.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 08:31 PM

No, Dave, if I'd wanted to use an invented word I could (probably) have provided one. But 'tautologous' provided the precice meaning I required.

Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 07:30 PM

Schoolteachers using 'you've got' twice in one sentence. Even one use is tautologous

Does that mean it's quatrologous?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Jun 04 - 01:39 PM

HuwG: I'm concerned that you say:
Or too many of the schoolteachers I remember, who could come out with long-winded constructions such as "What you've got to do, is you've got to take etc". What was wrong with, "You must take", or "You take". (Or even "Take", though perhaps that's getting a bit too peremptory, if used consistently.)
Schoolteachers using 'you've got' twice in one sentence. Even one use is tautologous.
'you've got' = you have got. the 'got' is superfluous (I almost typed 'totally superfluous', but stopped myself in time.)

I couldn't understand why my children (ten years ago or so) were describing a simple doubling of a number as "times it by two". It was only at a parent teacher meeting that I was told by a teacher "we mark the tests out of fifty, then times it by two to get a percentage!"


Nigel (proud to be a pedant!)

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 05 Jun 04 - 11:41 PM

Whew! They sounded so venereal. Glad everything's OK.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Cruiser
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:12 PM

Good one brucie.

Ebola is contagious and infectious in a disease sense, but Ebonics or rap aren't contagious or infectious in the best sense of their alternate meanings (e.g. contagious or infectious smile) to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: HuwG
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:12 PM

There are a few uses of adjectives connected with "affect" and "disaffect" which could scarcely be called consistent.

"Affected", usually refers to a behaviour (or accent) adopted, e.g. to improve one's standing, or merge into a social class or setting.

(For effect <g>.)

For example, an "affected" upper-class accent, might be represented as, "I say, portah ! Carreh this beag [bag] to my compartment !"

However, "disaffected", does not usually mean, natural or sincere. It usually refers to groups of people and means discontented, sullen or rebellious.

("Unaffected" is valid enough, and does mean, unmoved, unimpressed or naturally stolid.)


My complaints about English usage are usually directed to those in petty authority, who use circumlocutory jargon designed to impress. e.g. Police officers, who say "There is a hostage situation, involving a male who has a revolver-type weapon". (Translation: a man armed with a revolver has taken hostages.)

Or too many of the schoolteachers I remember, who could come out with long-winded constructions such as "What you've got to do, is you've got to take etc". What was wrong with, "You must take", or "You take". (Or even "Take", though perhaps that's getting a bit too peremptory, if used consistently.)

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 10:53 PM

Ebonics or rap? Do they have cures?

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Cruiser
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 10:36 PM

I really like the English language and love words. However, I have a fondness for non-standard English "sich" as:

his'n, her'n, haint, if'n, etc.

Them wurds frum the hollers of Appillatcha, Tennessay, and the south.

But don't give me no ebonics or rap!

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Blackcatter
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 06:27 PM

Please don't do any cutting around my fly.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 06:16 PM

Yep! Flies. Measure twice, cut once.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 06:15 PM

Clint, I was way far impressed you asked that question.

The purpose of punctuation is to clarify the meaning of written English. The language provides us with many opportunities that would (and do) confound people who do not have it as their mother tongue.

"I don't want any potatoes" means the same thing as "I don't want no potatoes." I don't care how much English ya know. When a 280 lb heavy weight world-class kick boxer says he don't want no potatoes, ya don't give him any. All that crap about two negatives equal a positive simply fly out the window. Trust me.

Later.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:02 PM

I generly say "Winsdy."

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:51 PM

Thanks for the shortcuts Don. It's strange how conventions change: I remember being incensed by my editor's insistence that we adopt open punctuation, and omit periods and commas here there and everywhere. So Mr.B.J.Honnicutt became Mr B J Honnicutt and addresses had no commas, and paragraphs weren't indented after the first.

I now prefer it.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: emjay
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:47 PM

Yes, I do pronouce them the way they are spelled. The fourth edition of Webster's New World Dictionary gives Febrooary as the preferred, but they do give Wenzday not Wedn-sday. I'll have to accept defeat on that one, but I will continue to pronounce the d before the n. It sounds better to me.
How about culinary? I know it should not be pronounced with a short u as in cull-inary.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:42 PM

I was extemely impressed a few weeks ago when I heard Ray Milland (in a Hitchock movie) say "Wednesday" and pronounce every single by-god letter in it.

And he did it very smoothly, as though he was used to pronouncing it that way.

Should I have said "way impressed"?

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Blackcatter
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 04:09 PM

Do you pronnounce Wednesday & February the way they're spelled? I don't have a dictionary near me right now, but are those even accepted pronnunciations anymore?


Yes the CMS is expensive, but I doubt that too much has changed since the last edition. Do they have a basic website with help?

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: emjay
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 03:41 PM

I dislike writers and speakers who modify unique, as in something was the most unique or very unique. Unusual would be the word to use with the modifiers.
And in speech chuldern for children, Wensday for Wednesday, Febuary for February, and nucular. Ugh. (Isn't that a new book?) And though I have impulsively and rudely corrected other people's speech, I know there is no surer way of guaranteeing your own will be carefully noted.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 03:10 PM

I've got the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th edition, which I should probably use instead of some of the briefer (and lighter) paperback ones like Rules for Writers or The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. I just checked Amazon and they want an arm and a leg for the newest (15th) edition, even with a seventeen buck discount. (Sigh) I guess I should bit the bullet. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Amos
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 03:00 PM

We who use Macs have it much easier. We hold down the Option key and bingo!

¡™£¢?§¶•åß?ƒ©???¬…æ??ç??˜µ??÷

Howdja like THEM Apples?


A

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Blackcatter
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 02:56 PM

If your writing for publication - you should stick to the latest Chicago Manual of Style or some similar in importance style manual to be safe.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 02:42 PM

Uh—that assumes that you're using a recent edition of MickeySoft Word.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 02:35 PM

s&r, picky is good. Thanks for stirring me to check further.

Most of the older style manuals I have insist that the close quote goes after the other punctuation. I think this must have come from some convention that printers used to follow. There were several oddball things printers used to do that involved protecting easily damaged letters in moveable type when moveable type was made of soft lead, and many of these conventions didn't help the sense of what one was trying to say (such as the position of the quotes). It always seemed more sensible to me, depending on intended meaning, to put the exclamation point or question mark after the close quote, but when I did, teacher invariably circled it with her red pencil. Since I write with publication in mind, I generally attempt to follow standard manuscript practices, so I try to stick pretty close to the style manuals even when I do think something they prescribe is kinda dumb.

However—as I flipped through my copy of Rules for Writers: A Concise Handbook (Second Edition) by Diana Hacker, St. Martin's Press, New York, 1988 (one of my favorites, because things are easy to find and clearly stated), she says differently. "Put commas and periods inside the quotation marks," BUT "Put question marks and exclamation points inside the quotation marks unless they apply to the sentence as a whole" [emphasis mine]. Ah, SO! That makes a heck of a lot more sense. Things have changed since I was in high school (understatement of the year!). I'm going to reevaluate some of the older manuals I have and maybe clean a few out.

They say that a man with one watch always knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never quite sure. Same with style manuals, I guess.

I didn't check "thesaurus" in the OED, I did a "quick and dirty" by looking it up on the Tom Swift magical electric Merriam-Webster I have on my computer. It gives both "thesauri" and "thesauruses" as plurals, but I picked the former just 'cause I'm some kind of a wise guy (as in "smart-ass").

The em dash? For some reason the "alt 0151" doesn't work on my computer. You can get it two ways that I know of: click on Insert > Symbol > Special Characters tab, and there's a list of wild and hairy stuff there, such as ©, ®, §, and several others. The em dash is on the list; but you'll note that it gives you keyboard shortcuts as well. Much faster and easier. For the em dash, hold down CTRL and ALT, and press the minus sign on the number pad. Presto!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Hessy
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 12:00 PM

Effection is effecting to affect the affections of your affectee.

Sean is also spelled Sion in some places. The "si" in Irish is usually a "sh" in sound.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:31 AM

–––Alt 0150 doesn't join up so I can type a dashed line. In word it does join up so I can't, unless I use a non propotionally spaced font.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:11 AM

— – —— and if you type alt 0151 twice, the dashes join up! Wow

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Blackcatter
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:04 AM

Sean is a Gaelic name. It means "old," I beleive, I know that the traditional type of Irish singing is "Sean nos" which basically means "old style."


A lot of Irish names are "odd looking" because of the way that Gaelic was fit into the Engish lettering/pronnunciation conventions.

Siobhan (Shevaun)
Seamus (Shaymus)
Sinead (Shenayd)

Even non-Irish names were spelled in the Irish way:

Padraig (Patrick)
Mairi (Mary)

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 11:02 AM

the double dash can be done (on a PC) using "alt 0151" (the short one is "alt 0150) - — ? ? ? (hey...do you all see those? I accidently tapped into other fonts, because I also have a helper program, and mixed it with the "alt key" ? ? ?)

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:44 AM

Don, having scoured your post above, the only additional flaw in your usage I can see is your use of punctuation which is odd where you use quotation marks e.g. "Thesaurus??!" rather than "Thesaurus"??! If you don't like thesauri use thesauruses, and octopuses instead of octopodes and chrysalises instad of chrysalides, and cactuses instead of cacti. They're all accepted in the 'Concise Oxford'.

How's that for picky?

But where did you find the long dash on the keyboard (two-em rule?)?
Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,freda
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:28 AM

Two mice sat in their hole watching a Cat lurk outside. "I know how to make Cat go away," said the first mouse. "How?" the second mouse asked in surprise.

"Watch! Bow, wow!!!" barked the first mouse. Peering through their hole in the wall, they saw Cat running away in fear.

"Ah, see the benefit of knowing another language!"

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: s&r
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:12 AM

Sean is pronounced shorn, shorely

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Escamillo
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 05:08 AM

And could someone explain to me for which mysterious reason the name SEAN is pronounced as SHOWN ? Could it be of Irish or Welsh origin?

Un abrazo,
Andrés

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 12:29 AM

I am bothered by the fact that I hear more and more people in the media (who should know better) using the non-word "nucular" instead of "nuclear".

Just because the President is a moron, does everybody else have to dumb it all down?

But then again educational policies seem to have have long been in the hands of people that happily refer to Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic as "The 3 R's".

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 10:56 PM

..and our PM, little Johnnie Howard, is handless (and less of everything else too)

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 09:31 PM

my brother is handsome, but my cousin is handmore....still, I am by far the handmost.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 09:25 PM

Sorry for the double post -- the first time I hit "submit" I got an error message & assumed it didn't get through...

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: Peace
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 08:11 PM

. . . and then there's adjectives of degree (which should be " . . . there are adjectives of degree . . . ") such as good, better and best. One may have only one best friend, for if one has two, then one must have one of one's better friends. But then one of one's better friends might get miffed and become an ex-friend, thus actually leaving one with one best friend and only one better friend. However, a good friend wouldn't do that. I likely could have said that better. It wasn't my best, but it was good enough I hope. I expect one of my good friends will comment, and then one of my better friends will comment, and then one of my best friends will comment, also.

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: GUEST,Blackcatter at work
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 02:55 PM

bits in English are almost always *considerably* shorter than in any of the other (11?) languages

That is true, I've worked on the Spanish translations of U.S. textbooks (I worked on the formatting, not the language) and it is always difficult to fit the Spanish into the same space as the original English. This is true even in books for 1st through 6th grades where the language is a simple and very few "long" English words are used. We have one of the most compact languages, I believe, though I'm not sure if it is just the over-all length of the words commonly used.

By the way, that last sentence had, by my count, 88 words and used only 2 words of ten letters or more. On the other hand there were 44 words with 3 or less letters - fully 50%. We use contractions a lot - but of course in formal writing they're still a no-no.

as for real sure Arrgh! How did it happen that we stopped using "LY" so often? I'm usually not a stickler for "proper use" but so many people in the last 20 years don't even know that it's incorrect. What bothers me is the use of "fast" instead of "quickly." A car can be fast, but it doesn't "go fast" it "goes quickly."

Subject: RE: BS: Affect and effect.
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 02:05 PM

Was looking through the Inspirations catalogue today; one of the spreads featuring kitchen items is labeled "kitchen kitch". Sigh...

English vocabulary includes somewhere around 600,000 words, whereas Latin-based languages such as French, Italian, and Spanish encompass around 150,000 to 180,000 words.

My (English) husband says English is the most "efficient" language. If you take a look at the (EU compliant) labelling on packages over here, it appears to bear this out; whether describing an item or listing ingredients, the bits in English are almost always *considerably* shorter than in any of the other (11?) languages.

Cheers,

YY