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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004for my wife and I
Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare to find a "mistake" outnumbering the "standard" usage on the Web -- contrary to what some grinches assume. Yet this formula seems to do it. I'd appreciate it if one or two other people would double-check at least some of these results (set search to English only), since we have found that unfortunate problem of Google's erratic estimates. "for my wife and I" 6890 "for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 "for my husband and I" 5670 "for my husband and me" 2340 1:2 A check of the first hits shows that about 10% of these can be accounted for by other punctuation, such as: ...a problem for my husband (and I agree) I have lost my love for my wife, and I want to get... That still leaves plenty of hits remaining, though. Is it tied to the particular, frequently-used phrase with "husband" and "wife"? Apparently not. There is, for example: "for my boss and I" 84 "for my boss and me" 8 l:10 "for my sister and I" 1580 "for my sister and me" 1170 2:3 "for my brother and I" 1480 "for my brother and me" 1140 2:3 "for my friend and I" 1050 "for my friend and me" 192 1:5 No wonder this construction is starting to sound more normal to me -- it truly is being used a lot.  SignatureIntrigued -- Donna Richoux >Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some >surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >"for my wife and I" 6890 >"for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 Some of them may not have been incorrect, for my wife and I often go out together. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 > >Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > >surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Some of them may not have been incorrect, for my wife and I often go > out together. Clever, but I actually had looked for that in the first hundred hits. Not there. (That sort of "for" is known in US English but it is a little bit rare.) I don't want to depress you with too many real examples, but they are things like: Please pray for my husband and I. It relieved all stress for my husband and I immediately and... Wouldn't it be easiest for my husband and I to write one joint will It will be a much needed get away for my husband and I. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >I don't want to depress you with too many real examples, but they are >things like: [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Wouldn't it be easiest for my husband and I to write one joint will > It will be a much needed get away for my husband and I. It makes me laugh, rather than depressing me, because (at least here in England) it tends to be a class/snob issue: most of the people who do it are trying to sound good. The commoners (and the well educated) still say 'me'. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>I don't want to depress you with too many real examples, but they are >>things like: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > do it are trying to sound good. The commoners (and the well educated) > still say 'me'. It is possible that some of the examples Donna has found are ironic, given the royal associations of the phrase. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > > It makes me laugh, rather than depressing me, because (at least here > > in England) it tends to be a class/snob issue: most of the people who > > do it are trying to sound good. The commoners (and the well educated) > > still say 'me'. But 'commoners' make the mistake the other way round too: 'me and my friends went out...' Mike Gooding ------------ >> > It makes me laugh, rather than depressing me, because (at least here >> > in England) it tends to be a class/snob issue: most of the people who [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >But 'commoners' make the mistake the other way round too: 'me and my >friends went out...' That's dialect (-: SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>But 'commoners' make the mistake the other way round too: 'me and my >>friends went out...' >> >That's dialect (-: A nice example of dialect pronouns, which I beleive is authentic although I didn't hear it myself, is "Don't you worry about we, us'll be all right." David >A nice example of dialect pronouns, which I beleive is authentic ... Sorry; dyslexic fingers: "believe". David >>A nice example of dialect pronouns, which I beleive is authentic ... > >Sorry; dyslexic fingers: "believe". > > David Come to think of it, it probably really is dialect. The French have got it right - they never say 'Elle et je', do they? SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 While it was 28/11/03 1:16 pm throughout the UK, Mike Gooding sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus: <snip> > But 'commoners' make the mistake the other way round too: 'me and my > friends went out...' "Too"? That's the original mistake. ICYHN, the one that's the subject of this thread tends to be hypercorrection based on this. Stewart. SignatureMy e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment. Please keep replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit. >>>It makes me laugh, rather than depressing me, because (at least here >>>in England) it tends to be a class/snob issue: most of the people who [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > But 'commoners' make the mistake the other way round too: 'me and my > friends went out...' Excuse me, you've got the attributions wrong. I didn't say that - it was Paul. (I would never refer to commoners, even with scare quotes. Common and well-educated, me.) SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my wife and I" nor the folk who say "me and my wife are" are applying any _rule_. In both situations, the speakers are relying on vague memories of what they think they have heard in what they perceive as parallel situations--in short, on their "ear" for the tongue, which misleads them because the raw material they have absorbed to form that "ear" was too often defective (or, in some cases, sad to say, because they simply cannot distinguish what is and what is not a "parallel" situation). To repeatedly speak of grammar as being whatever the people (to whom all power be) say is to presume that the people reliably say the same things every time, which implies a known rule being consulted, which is a false implication. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ > I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my > wife and I" nor the folk who say "me and my wife are" are > applying any _rule_. I think you are wrong about "me and my wife are". People who say this _are_ applying a rule, albeit not a rule that is present in quite this form in standard English - namely, the rule that a nominative pronoun are used only when the pronoun stands by itself as the subject of a finite predicate. I suspect you may be correct about "for my wife and I", but I have neither data nor intuition about that construction. <snip> > To repeatedly speak of grammar as being whatever the people (to > whom all power be) say is to presume that the people reliably > say the same things every time, which implies a known rule > being consulted, which is a false implication. No: the above presumes that there cannot be rules that say "this and that are both permitted". I mentioned elsewhere in the thread the rule of standard English which says that in forming relative clauses, either a wh-word, or "that", or neither may be used, but not both. The people do not say the same things every time, and neither do the cultivated and educated users of the language, and to fail to observe that is to incompletely characterize the grammar. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >I think you are wrong about "me and my wife are". People who say this >_are_ applying a rule, albeit not a rule that is present in quite this >form in standard English - namely, the rule that a nominative pronoun are >used only when the pronoun stands by itself as the subject of a finite >predicate. I agree, and again offer French for comparison/support. In some English regions it would be considered affected to use ' X and I are'. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >> I think you are wrong about "me and my wife are". People who say this >> _are_ applying a rule, albeit not a rule that is present in quite [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I agree, and again offer French for comparison/support. In some > English regions it would be considered affected to use ' X and I are'. Sure, and there are places where educated people are thought to be "putting on airs". SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>> I think you are wrong about "me and my wife are". People who say this >>> _are_ applying a rule, albeit not a rule that is present in quite [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >Sure, and there are places where educated people are thought to be "putting >on airs". Though *if* it's only educated people who 'correctly' say ' X and I are', then I suggest it has no real roots in the language, but was one of those things foisted on us by grammarians. I don't know whether this is true or not - it's just a suggestion. Someone with access to historical data will know, I expect. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 [...] >Though *if* it's only educated people who 'correctly' say ' X >and I are', then I suggest it has no real roots in the >language, but was one of those things foisted on us by >grammarians. I don't know whether this is true or not - it's >just a suggestion. Someone with access to historical data will >know, I expect. Where is the logic in that proposition? If, as was once the case, only educated persons know that the world is round, does that make that rotundity "one of those things foisted on us" by natural philosophers? Why does a larger scope of knowledge than the average have to have all elements of it beyond that average "foisted on" those who possess it? I suppose that the argument will be that one situation is physical and factual, the other conventional. That will not withstand much prying at. Manners are conventional. Is the idea that we ought not to show up at a funeral in cutoff jeans and a tie-dyed T-shirt just something Emily Post "foisted on us"? In fact, we do not need to stretch much. With the usual modest quota of exceptions that wear and tear bring, grammar _is_ logic. A verb with forms that distinguish singular and plural used in its plural form when yoked to a noun in a uniquely singular conformation is not some prissy nonsense, it is insanity. For a word that clearly is the topic of a thought, and the initiator of whatever action is expressed in that thought, to be expressed in a form that clearly marks out the _recipient_ of an action is insanity. If you want to take the position that sanity is a nonsense foisted on us by grammarians, suit yourself. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ >Where is the logic in that proposition? If, as was once the >case, only educated persons know that the world is round, does >that make that rotundity "one of those things foisted on us" by >natural philosophers? <snip> Grammar is logic? You read too much into it. Are the French illogical when they use 'moi' where you might prefer 'I'? It's not logic - it's convention. We can dispense with most of it. You ask where is the logic in my claim. If correctness of language is a function of popular usage, maybe the picture is clearer for you. Of course, you may believe that correctness of language is not a function of popular usage - so what on earth makes a usage correct? Logic doesn't vary from one country to the next - grammar often does. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 On 11/29/03 8:16 AM, in article bqagpl$1vqhar$1@ID-61580.news.uni-berlin.de, >>> I think you are wrong about "me and my wife are". People who say this >>> _are_ applying a rule, albeit not a rule that is present in quite [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Sure, and there are places where educated people are thought to be "putting > on airs". And there are educated people who do "put on airs". >> I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- >> and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > are used only when the pronoun stands by itself as the subject of a > finite predicate. I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are speaking. People just speak the way they have heard others speak. Rules are the furthest thing from their minds. I, certainly, do not think about any rules when speaking, as I don't recall having been taught any (for English). I just picked up the language as I went along. When I write, I pay more attention to how things go together, but I'm not thinking of any particular rules -- I am merely copying what I have seen written by other educated people. Sure, I've had English Composition in college, and I paid attention to the corrections, rare as they were, but rules are not what I was thinking about. Anyway, that's just my experience. Others, apparently, are slaves to some rules, but at times they lose a "feel" for the language (the "a number is" thing when they are not talking about the 34 on Shaq's jersey, for instance). SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > >> I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > >> and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > thing when they are not talking about the 34 on Shaq's jersey, for > instance). Everyone uses rules when speaking any language. It's a system of rules which distinguishes a true language from a pidgin, in which people are to some extent making it up as they go along--once a pidgin acquires set rules, as has Tok Pisin, for example, it becomes a creole, a true language, rather than a pidgin. American Sign Language is a true language rather than simply gestures and pantomime because it follows a set of rules: It has a grammar, involving such things as rules about word order and how morphemes are combined to make words. It is only in the last few thousand years that people have become aware of the rules of language and written some of them down. Before that--and in most illiterate cultures today--people were unaware of most rules, although they could certainly recognize when someone was "talking funny." Even today, most English speakers are utterly unaware of many rules which they use when speaking. How many people know that they use "bound" and "unbound" morphemes? How many know what a phoneme is? Not many. Yet they use them correctly, and when a non-native speakers of English violates the rules, the native speakers recognize that something about the foreigner's speech is not right, even if they can't pin down what exactly makes the speech sound odd. It follows from "Everyone uses rules when speaking any language" that nonstandard dialects are also rule-based. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com >> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. >> My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > It follows from "Everyone uses rules when speaking any language" that > nonstandard dialects are also rule-based. What I was saying was that people don't think about rules when speaking. They may follow a pattern they had heard before, and for which someone had documented some rules, but they are not actively applying any rule. The leading sentence of your next-to-last paragraph agrees with that, but it is in direct opposition with the very first sentence of your post. So, are you agreeing or disagreeing with my "My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are speaking" in my previous post? I can't tell. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >So, are you agreeing or disagreeing with my "My >opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when >they are speaking" in my previous post? I can't tell. I read it that she was agreeing with you, but, since, as is well known, it's impolite here to agree mindlessly, she was trying to seem as polite as she could, and therefore adopted an oppositional tone. >> So, are you agreeing or disagreeing with my "My >> opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > known, it's impolite here to agree mindlessly, she was trying to seem > as polite as she could, and therefore adopted an oppositional tone. She? We are talking about Raymond, aren't we? SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ Skitt asked: >She? We are talking about Raymond, aren't we? Oops. I thought we were talking about Donna! > Skitt asked: >> She? We are talking about Raymond, aren't we? > > Oops. I thought we were talking about Donna! Oh, with Donna I could tell! SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > >> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. > >> My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > agreeing or disagreeing with my "My opinion is that no one thinks about any > rules when they are speaking" in my previous post? I can't tell. The leading sentence of my next-to-last paragraph: "Even today, most English speakers are utterly unaware of many rules which they use when speaking." The very first sentence of my post: "Everyone uses rules when speaking any language." There is no opposition between these two sentences. I did not say, after all, that everyone *consciously* uses rules when speaking. On the contrary, the leading sentence of my next-to-last paragraph makes it clear that I believe people are using rules when they are speak of which they are unaware. That English speakers are aware of *some* rules, as I indicated, does not mean that they are conscious of applying those rules during ordinary conversation. In both literate and illiterate societies, people are usually aware of using certain rules during speech only when those rules are unusual to the speaker's experience. A native speaker of a nonstandard dialect who has learned to speak the standard dialect will be aware of those rules in the standard dialect which he has not mastered, just as I am aware when I speak French that I do not know the correct gender to use with certain words. In the case of an illiterate society, you might have such rules as "Words A and B are not to be said in front of the king," or "Don't say Word A when a relative is gravely ill." If the person rarely has occasion to speak to the king or has relatives who tend to be healthy, he will not have much practice in using the rules in question, and so he must keep them in mind when speaking in such situations. So my reply to your "My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are speaking" is that "People very rarely think about any rules when they are speaking, but there are indeed occasions when people are aware of some rules when they are speaking." That "people are applying rules as they speak" does not mean that they are conscious of applying those rules. In most cases they are not aware of the rules they are using, and when they are aware of a rule, they are not going to be conscious of all the other rules which they are using. Furthermore, I'm sure there are rules of English which linguists have not yet uncovered, so that *no one* who uses them is aware of them. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com >>>> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" >>>> stuff. My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > The very first sentence of my post: "Everyone uses rules when > speaking any language." OK, right there, if they are unaware of any rules, can they be said to use them? <three paragraphs of succeeding wiggle snipped for being irrelevant and tedious> SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ } Raymond S. Wise wrote: ... }> The very first sentence of my post: "Everyone uses rules when }> speaking any language." } } OK, right there, if they are unaware of any rules, can they be said to use } them? ... Sure they can. Any two-year-old kid is constantly making up rules and applying them. They are rule-making bots. They can craft a creole out of a pidgin. They can generate stuff they've never heard before. People that call kids' talk gibberish just aren't paying enough attention. No linguist alive can compare to an average baby for coming up with rules and using them. They just don't publish, so they don't get the credit they deserve. SignatureR. J. Valentine <mailto:rj@smart.net> >} Raymond S. Wise wrote: >}> The very first sentence of my post: "Everyone uses rules when >}> speaking any language." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > out of a pidgin. They can generate stuff they've never heard before. > People that call kids' talk gibberish just aren't paying enough attention. who are you Coop in drag? > No linguist alive can compare to an average baby for coming up with > rules and using them. > > They just don't publish, so they don't get the credit they deserve. More's the pity. That's what we need -- what you said. (Damn the editing of the attribution symbols, but hey, it's you, and you need all the help I can give. Anyway, were it anyone other than you, I'd let it stay messed up, but you are the only one I assist because I'm kind to the handicapped. Oh, there's another weirdo, Richard Maurer, doing his own little trip to be different, but he's in my immediate area, so I may have to scoot over to educate him.) SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> No linguist alive can compare to an average baby for coming up with >> rules and using them. >> >> They just don't publish, so they don't get the credit they deserve. > > More's the pity. That's what we need -- what you said. If you don't publish, you don't deserve credit. Everybody knows that. Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's suggestions.... > Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's > suggestions.... Oy! >> Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's >> suggestions.... > > Oy! Those many suggestions of the one referee, where "referee's suggestions" is treated as one lexical item. No Oy! SignatureSimon R. Hughes >>Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's >>suggestions.... > > Oy! Eh? One referee, multiple suggestions. Problem? > >>Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's > >>suggestions.... > > Oy! > Eh? One referee, multiple suggestions. Problem? No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that silliness get started? > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm > certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that > silliness get started? I hope this isn't a shot at Garry, Bob. > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm > > certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that > > silliness get started? > I hope this isn't a shot at Garry, Bob. Ir wasn't. Did he have something to do with starting the "Oy" thing? I almost never read anything he posts. Anyway, what if it was a shot at Garry? I'm entitled to lots of shots at him after the despicable things he said about me. (I'm assuming we're talking about Vass, not Kasparov.) > > > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Did he have something to do with starting the "Oy" thing? I > almost never read anything he posts. [snip] > (I'm assuming we're talking about Vass, not Kasparov.) Garry V. has used "Oy" since, and no doubt before, I joined this forum. But Garry used it in a different sense than used now, however. > > > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm > > > > certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that > > > > silliness get started? > > > I hope this isn't a shot at Garry, Bob. > > [It] wasn't. > > Did he have something to do with starting the "Oy" thing? I > > almost never read anything he posts. > [snip] > > (I'm assuming we're talking about Vass, not Kasparov.) > Garry V. has used "Oy" since, and no doubt before, I joined this forum. > But Garry used it in a different sense than used now, however. I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same thing. oy /<revc>I/ int.2 Also oi.L19. [Yiddish.] Used by Yiddish-speakers as an exclamation of dismay, grief, etc. Also oy vay, oy vey /veI/ [Yiddish vey woe]. Do AUE posters really mean to express dismay, grief, etc. when they say "Oy"? Isn't there a better way, in English, to express their great sadness? For what they probably really mean, whatever happend to "Hmmm"? Or "Tilt"? In this modern day of super-sophisticated arcade games, I wonder if anyone under about fifty knows the significance of the disastrous "Tilt". << [Bob Cunningham] In this modern day of super-sophisticated arcade games, I wonder if anyone under about fifty knows the significance of the disastrous "Tilt". [end quote] >> Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [ . . . ] > Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines > are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. Live and learn. > [ . . . ] > > > Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines > > are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. > > Live and learn. Yes, even my "3D-Pinball for Windows-Me Space Cadet" goes "Tilt" if your not careful with the "x" and "n" keys. You play it the "m" and "y" key (on a swiss keyboard). Thomas F. Howald Thomas F. Howald filted: >> > Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines >> > are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. For suitably small values of "everyone", of course...how many of us have seen the actual mechanism that registers the "tilt" condition?... >> Live and learn. > >Yes, even my "3D-Pinball for Windows-Me Space Cadet" goes "Tilt" >if your not careful with the "x" and "n" keys. You play it the "m" >and "y" key (on a swiss keyboard). You can remap those functions to whatever keys you find suitable...I play it with the keypad cursor keys myself...(best score is somewhere around 39 million; I got into a notch one day and kept winning extra balls)....r > Thomas F. Howald filted: > > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > For suitably small values of "everyone", of course...how many of us > have seen the actual mechanism that registers the "tilt" condition?... I have. It is like a bell with a bobbin or clapper, right? When the bobbin hits the bell the circuit is closed and the machine goes "Tilt". Automobiles used to have a similar contraption to unlock all doors on impact. > >> Live and learn. > > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > You can remap those functions to whatever keys you find suitable... I didn't know, but then I never played much, but I like the sounds it makes. Just like a real pinball machine. > I play it with the keypad cursor keys myself...(best score is > somewhere around 39 million; > I got into a notch one day and kept winning extra balls)....r Good show! Thomas F. Howald >> Thomas F. Howald filted: >>>> "Richard Maurer" said: >>>>> Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines >>>>> are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > bobbin hits the bell the circuit is closed and the machine goes > "Tilt". The machines I used to play in the 'fifties had several tilt-sensing mechanisms, but the main one was a solid cone suspended in the center of a ring. The cone could be adjusted up or down, thus allowing more or less jostling of the machine before registering a tilt. I used to make money playing those machines. I made a point of trying to be there when the service guy opened the machine for repairs or to collect the money, so that I could observe the setting of the mechanism, and, with luck, shove the cone to a higher position. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > [ . . . ] > > > Although the numbers are vastly reduced, new pinball machines > > are still being made and they still "Tilt". So everyone knows. > > Live and learn. Yes, even my "3D-Pinball for Windows-Me Space Cadet" goes "Tilt" if your not careful with the "x" and "n" keys. You play it with the "m" and "y" key (on a swiss mapped keyboard). Thomas F. Howald >I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I >see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >when they say "Oy"? Isn't there a better way, in English, to >express their great sadness? I was familiar with the simple "Oy" long before I came to America and encountered "Oy Vey". In my idiolect, it was (is) an exclamation requesting attention as in "Hey!" or "You there!" Oy! Turn the sound down! We're trying to get some sleep here! Oy! You there! Yes you... with the pointy head! Over here - right now! Oy! That's a split infinitive! Two points deducted! (The second example above may be etymologically related to "Ahoy".) Jitze [ ... ] > In my idiolect, it was (is) an exclamation requesting attention > as in "Hey!" or "You there!" [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > (The second example above may be etymologically related to "Ahoy".) As a Jewish naval officer, I was permitted the occasional "Ahoy, vay!" I think Jitze's "oy" may be the same as the "oi" mentioned earlier by some of our Celts. SignatureBob Lieblich Gevalt >> I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I >> see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > I was familiar with the simple "Oy" long before I came to > America and encountered "Oy Vey". I was familiar with "Oy vey" and "Oy Gevalt" long before I came to America and encountered "Oy", and yes -- it expresses dismay when I write "Oy!" in AUE. The meanings of the two-word terms are easily understood if one speaks German, which I did. > In my idiolect, it was (is) an exclamation requesting attention > as in "Hey!" or "You there!" [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > (The second example above may be etymologically related to "Ahoy".) No, that's the "Oi!" thing, as I've learned here. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > >> I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I > >> see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > came to America and encountered "Oy", and yes -- it > expresses dismay when I write "Oy!" in AUE. That's gratifying to read. It tells me the dictionaries aren't completely out in left field with their definitions. If I were to write "Horrors!" in response to someone's posting, it wouldn't usually mean that I was really horrified, although that's what it implies literally. So when you say "it expresses dismay", would it be more accurate to say that it expresses mock dismay, or maybe hyperbolic dismay? > "Skitt" said: >>>> I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I >>>> see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > accurate to say that it expresses mock dismay, or maybe > hyperbolic dismay? Yeah, that's how I use it. Things I see written here hardly cause me any real dismay. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>>I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I >>>see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > AUE. The meanings of the two-word terms are easily understood if one speaks > German, which I did. "Au, weh", I believe. (Sometimes sounds Aue/Auer or can be Oh, weh.) >>In my idiolect, it was (is) an exclamation requesting attention >>as in "Hey!" or "You there!" [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > No, that's the "Oi!" thing, as I've learned here. I thought it was RichardF who invented 'Oi', but there's no such word. "Oy" is and always was a standard BrE exclamation. SignatureRob Bannister [...] >> I was familiar with "Oy vey" and "Oy Gevalt" long before I came to >> America and encountered "Oy", and yes -- it expresses dismay when I >> write "Oy!" in AUE. The meanings of the two-word terms are easily >> understood if one speaks German, which I did. > > "Au, weh", I believe. (Sometimes sounds Aue/Auer or can be Oh, weh.) In German, yes. I was able to figure out many Yiddish words by their similarity to German words. [...] SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> No, that's the "Oi!" thing, as I've learned here. > > I thought it was RichardF who invented 'Oi', but there's no such word. Oy! > "Oy" is and always was a standard BrE exclamation. Oy! (You do know a y when you see it, don't you? Oü!) SignatureSimon R. Hughes [ . . . ] > I thought it was RichardF who invented 'Oi', but > there's no such word. "Oy" is and always was a > standard BrE exclamation. Lesson number one for the neophyte AUE poster: Never say "never", "always", or "no such ... ". From a British dictionary, _The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary_: oy /<revc>I/ int.2 Also oi. L19. [Yiddish.] Used by Yiddish-speakers as an exclamation of dismay, grief, etc. Also oy vay, oy vey /veI/ [Yiddish _vey_ woe]. And from an American dictionary, _Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary_: oy1 [...], interj. (used to express dismay, pain, annoyance, grief, etc.) Also, oi. [1890-95; < Yiddish] Mark Israel, in his 1997 AUE FAQ, suggests some things to avoid in posting. One of his suggestions: (3) generalities. If you make a statement like: "Here in the U.S. we NEVER say 'different to'", "Retroflex 'r' is ONLY used in North America", or "'Eh' ALWAYS rhymes with 'pay'", chances are that someone will pounce on you with a counterexample. > [ . . . ] > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > pain, annoyance, grief, etc.) Also, oi. > [1890-95; < Yiddish] Why stop at Yiddish? "Oi" or "oy" or "oj" a Germanic interjection. It certainly exists, independent of Yiddish influence, in the Scandinavian languages. What is it with Yiddish that makes everyone stop looking any further? Perhaps that's one way the word got to the US, but there were also thousands of Swedes immigrating with their "oj"s. Why not credit , too? SignatureSimon R. Hughes > Why stop at Yiddish? "Oi" or "oy" or "oj" a Germanic > interjection. It certainly exists, independent of Yiddish [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > were also thousands of Swedes immigrating with their "oj"s. Why > not credit , too? I think it's pretty clear that the AmE-known "Oy!" is a direct borrowing from Yiddish and not from any other language. I'll grant you that in a state like Minnesota with a large concentrated Scandinavian immigrant population you might have a Swedish "oj" survivin' and thrivin', and perhaps Minneapolis Ray Wise has something to report on that (if he can be distracted from scarfing down those pannekoeken <sp>). But Minnesota is, culturally speaking, a marginal state for 20th-century purposes (NTTAWWBAMS). >I think it's pretty clear that the AmE-known "Oy!" is a >direct borrowing from Yiddish and not from any other >language. As wannabe lexicographers should know, <oi> is a Samoan exclamation of surprise! (See Pratt 1911 and Milner 1966.) I'm not making this up. ::winkwink:: >>>> I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I >>>> see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same [quoted text clipped - 36 lines] > I thought it was RichardF who invented 'Oi', but there's no such word. > "Oy" is and always was a standard BrE exclamation. No such word? Standard BrE? I disagree, as does the OED, which gives for "oi": ----------------------------------------- Repr. colloq. or vulgar pronunc. of HOY int. as a call to attract attention. 1962 JACKSON & MARSDEN Educ. & Working Class I. iii. 57 Father said, 'Oi, you two{em}you're not doing anything. Get some paint and paint under there!' ---------------------------------------- It also has "oi" as a variant of "oy" ---------------------------------------- An exclamation used by Yiddish-speakers to express dismay, grief, etc. Occas. in wider use. Also oy vay, vey [a. G. Weh woe] (see quot. 1968). 1892 I. ZANGWILL Childr. Ghetto I. xii. 270 The dispute thickened; the synagogue hummed with 'Ei's' and 'Oi's' not in concord. 1924 Dialect Notes V. 274 Exclamations in American English... Oy: {emem}, {emem} yoy. 1928 H. CRANE Let. 22 Feb. (1965) 317 Oy-oy-oy! I have just had my ninth snifter of Scotch. 1932 L. GOLDING Magnolia Street III. viii. 570 'And if you hadn't..oi! oi!' said Ada. 'It would have been awful!' 1934 WODEHOUSE Right Ho, Jeeves xi. 141 A story about a Scotchman, an Irishman, and a Jew... I said 'Hoots, mon,' 'Begorrah,' and 'Oy, oy.' 1939 MRS. P. CAMPBELL Let. 28 June in B. Shaw & Mrs. Campbell (1952) 332 A Jewish Mother... The Mothers dialogue consisting of: 'Oi; Oi; tch: tch.' 1959 B. KOPS Hamlet of Stepney Green I. 12 Children, oy vay, don't talk to me about children. 1963 V. NABOKOV Gift iii. 181 His trick of garbling Russian, in imitation of a farcical Jewish accent as when he said..'Oy, vat a mudnik!' 1968 L. ROSTEN Joys of Yiddish 14 Two A[lteren] K[ockern] had sat in silence on their favorite park bench for hours, lost in thought. Finally, one gave a long and languid 'Oy!' The other replied, 'You're telling me?' Ibid. 273 Oy is often used as lead-off for 'oy vay!' which means, literally, 'Oh, pain', but is used as an all-purpose ejaculation to express anything from trivial delight to abysmal woe. 1975 New Yorker 3 Mar. 34/3 The family gathered round for Passover. Oy, nephew! What's the world coming to. 1976 K. THACKERAY Crownbird v. 91 'Oy vey, but he's recovered well,' Stein thought. ------------------------------------------- Studying the examples, it looks as if "oi" is the more common BrE spelling of "oy" (Golding and Mrs Patrick Campbell). SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote... > [...] > Studying the examples, it looks as if "oi" is the more common BrE > spelling of "oy" (Golding and Mrs Patrick Campbell). And, just to summarise for the n'th time: Use "Oi!" to call attention, "Oy!" to express dismay. Matti -- oy oy > "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > And, just to summarise for the n'th time: Oi! Oy! > Use "Oi!" to call attention, "Oy!" to express dismay. > > Matti > -- oy oy Aha! We haven't yet discussed the meaning of "Oy oy!", have we? SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote... > > And, just to summarise for the n'th time: > > Oi! Oy! What's the problem there? Ah, its apostrophization! (But I bystand it, nevertheless.) Matti > "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote... > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Use "Oi!" to call attention, "Oy!" to express dismay. In answer to you, Laura, the Oxford Dictionary and Mr Cunningham, I had never seen the spelling 'Oi' outside AUE before. I can appreciate that it might be a variant spelling of 'Oy', but I feel the dictionaries are wrong here in that they have not investigated enough British texts. PS Apologies for ambiguous punctuation. I've just realised the above could be read as "you, Laura" - perhaps I should have inserted an 'and'. SignatureRob Bannister > > > > > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > Yiddish-speakers as an exclamation of dismay, grief, > etc. Also oy vay, oy vey /veI/ [Yiddish vey woe]. I think the NSO isn't quite right--maybe the editors of the NSO are being too strict in their interpretation of "Shorter.". The "Oy vey" is a shortening of the phrase "Oy vey ist tsu mir" which idiomatically translates to "Oh, boy, I'm in pain," an expression of distress. "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" or "Oh, boy." > Do AUE posters really mean to express dismay, grief, etc. > when they say "Oy"? Isn't there a better way, in English, to [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > wonder if anyone under about fifty knows the significance of > the disastrous "Tilt". I see nothing wrong with "oy" unless there is some kind of French-like language-purity issue here. [ . . . ] > > I've long been familiar with the Yiddish "Oy vey!" Now I > > see in _The New Shorter Oxford_ that "Oy" means the same > > thing. > > oy /<revc>I/ int.2 Also oi.L19. [Yiddish.] Used by > > Yiddish-speakers as an exclamation of dismay, grief, > > etc. Also oy vay, oy vey /veI/ [Yiddish vey woe]. > I think the NSO isn't quite right--maybe the editors of the NSO are > being too strict in their interpretation of "Shorter.". The "Oy vey" is > a shortening of the phrase "Oy vey ist tsu mir" which idiomatically > translates to "Oh, boy, I'm in pain," an expression of distress. > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" > or "Oh, boy." Since "oy" has not been part of either my passive or my active vocabulary, I can only go by what dictionaries tell me and by what normally trustworthy people like Murray and Bob Lieblich tell me. When there's a conflict, as there seems to be here, I'm quandarized*. So far, the dictionaries I've looked in either don't mention "oy" or mention it only in terms of things like dismay, grief, perplexity, doubt, and the like. I see no suggestion in them that it's merely an attention getter or a mild interjection equivalent to "oh oh". Some dictionaries I've looked in are: the _Eleventh Collegiate_, _NSOED_, _Random House Webster's College Dictionary_, and a couple of American Heritage dictionaries that don't even mention "oy". _RHWCD_ adds "pain" and "annoyance" to the sentiments that can be expressed with "oy". Now I see that the _Chambers Dictionary_ and also the big Thorndike Barnhart dictionary that came with our World Book Encyclopedia many years ago mention "oy" only to mean a Scottish grandchild. (That's an old friend of mine -- it can also be spelled "oe" -- from my scrabble-playing days.) _Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary_ has the definition in terms of expressing "dismay, pain, annoyance, grief, etc.", and it also has the Scottish grandchild definition. So, so far no dictionary I've seen agrees with Murray or Bob. I guess one possibility is that dictionaries base there content on what they find in printed material, while the definitions Murray and Bob have mentioned are used only orally. Another possibility is one that has been mentioned in AUE, that sometimes one dictionary gets it wrong and a lot of other dictionaries copy the bad definition. I've never had much faith in that idea, though. Dictionaries go through many editions, and if they have a significant error, the publishers hear about it. * Note: "quandarize" is copyright 2003 by Woody Wordpecker. >[ . . . ] > [quoted text clipped - 58 lines] > >* Note: "quandarize" is copyright 2003 by Woody Wordpecker. Slightly OT, in Finnish Oy is the equivalent if "Incorporated", an abreviation of osakeyhtiö. Considering the revelations of the misbehavior of large corporations of late, it seems appropriate. S& > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" > or "Oh, boy." [..] I'm not sure that "oops" and "Oh, boy" mean the same thing but the BrE "Oi!" might cover both of those. My understanding of "Oy!" encompasses the idea of something personally painful but "Ouch!" wouldn't quite capture it. When I read it I hear my grandmother saying "Oy, oyoy!" with the emphasis on the first and last oys. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > capture it. When I read it I hear my grandmother saying "Oy, oyoy!" with > the emphasis on the first and last oys. "Oi!" is what I would shout at the kids I have caught keying my car, as they run off down the road. SignatureSimon R. Hughes > > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" > > or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > capture it. When I read it I hear my grandmother saying "Oy, oyoy!" with > the emphasis on the first and last oys. This "oy, oyoy!" must be related to the "ay yay yay" /aI jaI jaI/ that is known in AmE. Is the origin Yiddish, some other Germanic language, or some other European language, or a combination thereof? > > > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation > > > equivalent to "oops" or "Oh, boy." > > [..] > > I'm not sure that "oops" and "Oh, boy" mean the same thing but the > > BrE "Oi!" might cover both of those. My understanding of "Oy!" > > encompasses the idea of something personally painful but "Ouch!" > > wouldn't quite capture it. When I read it I hear my grandmother > > saying "Oy, oyoy!" with the emphasis on the first and last oys. > This "oy, oyoy!" must be related to the "ay yay yay" /aI jaI jaI/ > that is known in AmE. Is the origin Yiddish, some other Germanic > language, or some other European language, or a combination thereof? "¡Ay, ay, ay!" is also a common Spanish exclamation, usually one of admiration, surprise, or dismay. This Spanish exclamation is used in the 1946 German song "Maria aus Bahia" and is spelled the German way: "Ei, ei, ei, Maria / Maria aus Bahia...." I used to sing it as a ten-year-old.... The German Amazon.com site even has a sound-clip of it: http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/clipserve/B00002DFNX001001/302-0902717-9080030 German also has the exclamations "Ei!" (surprise; sort of like "Wow!" or "Hey!") and "Ei, EI!" and "EI, ei, EI!" with different meanings and intensity. Like Yiddish "Oy!", its German cognate "Ei!" is from the Middle High German exclamation _eiâ!_. Unlike the woe-ish Yiddish "OY-oy-OY!", the German "EI-ei-EI!" is mainly used to express (great) surprise, joy, or astonishment. I believe that all three languages were the source for the AmE exclamation; chronologically, based on immigration: first German "EI-ei-EI!", later Yiddish "OY-oy-OY!", and quite late, Spanish "¡Ay-ay-AY!" SignatureReinhold (Rey) Aman >> > > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation >> > > equivalent to "oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > >http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/clipserve/B00002DFNX001001/302-0902717-9080030 Cf. also the well-known "¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Canta y no llores" (from *Cielito lindo*). Spanish also has the "Oops!" equivalent *¡Uy¡* and the excellent "Oy, oy! oy!" equivalent (as in "Here we go, now the sh.t's really gonna hit the fan"), *¡Uy, uy, uy!" (pronounced for best effect as a cross between "OO-ee" and the French *-euil*). -- Ross Howard > Cf. also the well-known "¡Ay, ay, ay, ay! Canta y no llores" (from > *Cielito lindo*). So who gets credit for introducing the "Oh no!" sense into General AmE, Desi Arnaz? SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Feeling good about government is like 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |looking on the bright side of any Palo Alto, CA 94304 |catastrophe. When you quit looking |on the bright side, the catastrophe kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |is still there. (650)857-7572 | P.J. O'Rourke http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > capture it. When I read it I hear my grandmother saying "Oy, oyoy!" with > the emphasis on the first and last oys. I'm stunned at your claim that "Oi" is a BrE word. I am even more stunned that no dictionary I possess contains either 'Oi' or 'Oy', but the 'y' spelling is the only one I have ever seen in books. In BrE, 'Oy' is normally followed by expression like 'you there' or 'stop that' and is said in a rather cross voice. SignatureRob Bannister > >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" > >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > is normally followed by expression like 'you there' or 'stop that' and > is said in a rather cross voice. Mastertexts doesn't find either in its collection of novels. It does find a few hits like: "So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily (Thackeray) Those are all spelled "oi," no "oy" at all. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux [ . . . ] > Mastertexts doesn't find either ["oy" or "oi"] in its > collection of novels. It does find a few hits like: > > "So should oi," said Joe, grinning sulkily (Thackeray) But, as you probably know, that's entirely unrelated to the "oy" people are discussing in this thread. Joe is obviously saying "So should I" in a dialect that has "oy" for "I". You can here a Cornish speaker with that vowel in the AUE Audio Archive at http://www.alt-usage-english.org/audio_archive.shtml#Arthur . The speaker quite clearly says "Oy don't know" for "I don't know". > [ . . . ] > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > . The speaker quite clearly says "Oy don't know" for "I > don't know". Is that "Here an 'Oy!', there an 'Oy!'"? Oy, the punctuation! >> >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" >> >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > >Those are all spelled "oi," no "oy" at all. There was also a Seventies punk-offshoot genre, popular among skinheads, called "oi!" (never "oy!" by the few cognoscenti who could vaguely spell).[1] [1. Oi! 'Oo are you callin' a coggywhateverthefuckyousaid? Wanna get your 'ead kicked in, you . . . ."] -- Ross Howard >>>>"Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" >>>>or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Those are all spelled "oi," no "oy" at all. But this example represents dialect pronunciation of "I". SignatureRob Bannister > > Mastertexts doesn't find either in its collection of novels. It does > > find a few hits like: [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > But this example represents dialect pronunciation of "I". Oi know, oi know. Oi was looking to see your distinction of the significance of "oi" and "oy" happened to be backed up in the 19th-century literature. I thought was worth reporting that neither one was present. Not to say you were wrong, though. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >>> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to >>> "oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > 'Oy' is normally followed by expression like 'you there' or 'stop > that' and is said in a rather cross voice. Whereas *I* have no recollection of seeing 'Oy' except where the Yiddish version was intended. OED has 'oy' and 'oi' for the Yiddish expression, but all the postwar cites use 'oy' OED's 'Oi' is a variant of 'hoy'. The only cite is:- 1962 Jackson & Marsden Educ. & Working Class i. iii. 57 Father said, 'Oi, you two-you're not doing anything. Get some paint and paint under there!' -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply > >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" > >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > is normally followed by expression like 'you there' or 'stop that' and > is said in a rather cross voice. Sounds like this "oy" is like modern AmE "yo!". "Yo!", BTW, has an interesting history. It seems to have been a working-class Philadelphian usage that was popularized in 1977 by the groundbreaking film _Rocky_. From there it seems to have initially caught on among young speakers everywhere (or at least in New York [Largest City in America] and environs), only to lose popularity rapidly among all but black speakers, who then repopularized it during the early 1980s. At least, that's what I've been able to piece together. But I think your "oy" is what I know as "oi!", an interjection that I closely associate with white-supremacist Nazi skinheads, especially if they have Cockney accents. I understand that at one time racist North American skinheads called the subgenre of punk music that they favored "oi music". There's definitely some sort of British influence thing going on there. [...] > "Yo!", BTW, has an interesting history. It seems to have been > a working-class Philadelphian usage that was popularized in > 1977 by the groundbreaking film _Rocky_. Oy! I heard "Yo!" was first uttered in Brooklyn by a dyslexic rabbi. SignatureReinhold (Rey) Aman > Oy! I heard "Yo!" was first uttered in Brooklyn by a dyslexic rabbi. Is there an audio dyslexia? What's it called? > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Oy! I heard "Yo!" was first uttered in Brooklyn by a dyslexic rabbi. I once read from a dyslexic atheist "Is there really a dog?" :-) BTW, "Oy" translates to "Ui" in swiss german. Thomas F. Howald >> >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to "oops" >> >> or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Sounds like this "oy" is like modern AmE "yo!". It seems more like "hey" to me. I don't have a _very_ good intuition for it, but it seems to me that modern "yo" is unlikely to be used for calling someone one doesn't know, whereas "hey" and "oi" both are. I could be totally off base here, though. > But I think your "oy" is what I know as "oi!", an interjection that I > closely associate with white-supremacist Nazi skinheads, especially if > they have Cockney accents. I understand that at one time racist > North American skinheads called the subgenre of punk music that they > favored "oi music". Also non-racist North American skinheads. (I went to high school with one, and he was very careful to explain the difference. Apparently the non-racist ones wore red suspenders.) > There's definitely some sort of British influence thing going on there. I agree. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom > > Sounds like this "oy" is like modern AmE "yo!". > > It seems more like "hey" to me. I don't have a _very_ good intuition for > it, but it seems to me that modern "yo" is unlikely to be used for > calling someone one doesn't know, whereas "hey" and "oi" both are. I > could be totally off base here, though. I think, unusually for you, you are off base. I've heard "yo!" used to address unknown persons. "Yo!" seems to differ from "hey!" in some way -- something like greater potential urgency or potential intensity, at least sometimes. >>>Sounds like this "oy" is like modern AmE "yo!". >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > "Yo!" seems to differ from "hey!" in some way -- something like greater > potential urgency or potential intensity, at least sometimes. The way I hear it used, it seems to mean little more than "Hello". SignatureRob Bannister > But I think your "oy" is what I know as "oi!", an interjection that I > closely associate with white-supremacist Nazi skinheads, especially if > they have Cockney accents. Time for some thread drift: in a novel I read recently by an American writer, I came across what appeared at first sight as "eye dialect": The story is set in London in 1901. The speakers in both cases are supposed to be Cockney. The first was "Satturday". Up to this point, I had largely ignored the hundreds of apostrophes which were, I suppose, meant to represent Cockney speech, but this brought me up short. After a think (or thing), I guessed the writer was trying to show a British medial 't' as oppposed to a 'd' flap. Pity she didn't realise that a Cockney would have said somehting more like "Sa'dee" (where ' represents a glottal stop with or without a short schwa after). The second one was worse - almost racist: "sorry" for "sari". I imagine that if I wanted to make a joke of this nature, I would have picked "surrey". I am aware the "sorry" may well have the "father" vowel in some American dialects, but the length of the vowel in "sari" is so different from "sorry" (and "surrey"), it was really ridiculous. SignatureRob Bannister > Sounds like this "oy" is like modern AmE "yo!". "Yo!", BTW, has an > interesting history. It seems to have been a working-class Philadelphian [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > environs), only to lose popularity rapidly among all but black speakers, > who then repopularized it during the early 1980s. Non-black Philadelphians never abandoned "Yo". -Dennis Waddaya know! I've just noticed that _The New Shorter Oxford_ has *two* quite different interjections spelled "oy". One is the cry of dismay, pain, or exasperation; the other is the "hey you" one that some of the posters in this thread have discussed. The "hey you" one can also be a verb. Dismay and all: oy /<revc>I/ int.2 Also oi.L19. [Yiddish.] Used by Yiddish-speakers as an exclamation of dismay, grief, etc. Also oy vay, oy vey /veI/ [Yiddish vey woe]. "Hey you": oy /<revc>I/ int.1, n.2, & v.M18. [Natural exclam. Cf. HOY int., v., & n.2] A int. & n. (A cry) attracting attention. M18. B v.i. Cry 'oy!' E19. They're what I like to think of as true homographs; that is, words that are spelled the same, have different etyma. and usually have different meanings. (See http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/homo-defs.html .) > Waddaya know! I've just noticed that _The New Shorter > Oxford_ has *two* quite different interjections spelled [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > words that are spelled the same, have different etyma. and > usually have different meanings. Exactly. I suspect I expressed myself badly earlier when I claimed 'oy' has always been a BrE expression - I did not mean it was not a Yiddish one as well. Still, I'm glad you've found support for the 'y' spelling: 'oi' looks very odd to me - sort of un-English. SignatureRob Bannister > "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to > "oops" or "Oh, boy." I don't think I'd ever say "Oy" to mean "oops." As for the "Oh, boy," that I can see but *only* when there is some element of dismay. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. >> "Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to >> "oops" or "Oh, boy." > > I don't think I'd ever say "Oy" to mean "oops." As for the "Oh, boy," > that I can see but *only* when there is some element of dismay. What about following "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie"? >>>"Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to >>>"oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > What about following "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie"? I think you mean "Oggy, oggy, oggy". (Or is that "Oggie, oggie, oggie"?) And whatever happened to Max "I was there" Boyce? SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) "Laura F Spira" <laura@DRAGONspira.fsbusiness.co.uk> wrote... > > What about following "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie"? > > I think you mean "Oggy, oggy, oggy". (Or is that "Oggie, oggie, > oggie"?) And whatever happened to Max "I was there" Boyce? He's still a regular feature of BBC2 Wales, bless him. Matti > >>>"Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to > >>>"oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > I think you mean "Oggy, oggy, oggy". (Or is that "Oggie, oggie, oggie"?) > And whatever happened to Max "I was there" Boyce? And that's definitely 'oi, oi, oi'. m. >>>>"Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to >>>>"oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >I think you mean "Oggy, oggy, oggy". (Or is that "Oggie, oggie, oggie"?) >And whatever happened to Max "I was there" Boyce? Oofff. This thread is going from bad to worse. Yesterday the Wurzels; today Max Boyce. (At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mike Powell -- and perhaps Simon, if his surname is any marker of family origin -- I must ask whether, top-notch acktaws and singers notwithstanding, Wales has ever produced a single comedian who has been, even a bit on a really good day, funny?) -- Ross Howard gguiri@yahoo.com spake thus: > Oofff. This thread is going from bad to worse. Yesterday the Wurzels; > today Max Boyce. (At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mike Powell -- > and perhaps Simon, if his surname is any marker of family origin -- I > must ask whether, top-notch acktaws and singers notwithstanding, Wales > has ever produced a single comedian who has been, even a bit on a > really good day, funny?) IANW, but: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/profiles/rob_brydon.shtml SignatureDavid ===== >gguiri@yahoo.com spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >IANW, but: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/profiles/rob_brydon.shtml Dunt count. He's an actor. (I meant stand-ups, really -- i.e. Dave Allen/Billy Connolly cognates.) -- Ross Howard > gguiri@yahoo.com spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > IANW, but: http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/profiles/rob_brydon.shtml Rob Brydon? Invariably fails to excite movement in my facial muscles. And let no-one mention H****y S*****e who wasn't funny either AND was a sh.t singer. Perhaps http://www.glee.co.uk/php/performer.php?id_performer=74 is what we're looking for, though you would need a well-trained team of Shire Horses to get me within 500 feet of a 'boi bach' I worked for a Welsh Manager whose son was part of the Boyce inner circle. My boss informed me that Max used to try out his new routines on this inner circle at dinner parties. He assumed my slack jaw was amazement at the idea of a free concert from Max rather than the discovery that he didn't make up his stage act as he went along. -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply john-dean@frag.lineone.net spake thus: > > gguiri@yahoo.com spake thus: > > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Rob Brydon? Invariably fails to excite movement in my facial muscles. The rubric said "a ... comedian who has been, even a bit on a really good day, funny". I am prepared to go that far. SignatureDavid ===== In alt.usage.english, david56 wrote: >john-dean@frag.lineone.net spake thus: >> Rob Brydon? Invariably fails to excite movement in my facial muscles. > >The rubric said "a ... comedian who has been, even a bit on a really >good day, funny". I am prepared to go that far. John Sparkes, creator of Hugh Pugh and other Welsh grotesques? Only funny if you find farting and bad teeth funny (I do) and you don't mind Welshmen being anti-Welsh (I don't). He is also the voice of Fireman Sam, apparently. And station-hopping one day, I stumbled on a phone-ins-plus-big-band-swing-music radio show whose presenter sounded and behaved very like Hugh Pugh. I'm still not sure whether it was supposed to be funny or whether it was some sort of cry for help from darkest Wales, but it had me laughing anyway. SignatureMickwick mickwick@use.reply.to spake thus: > In alt.usage.english, david56 wrote: > >john-dean@frag.lineone.net spake thus: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > funny if you find farting and bad teeth funny (I do) and you don't mind > Welshmen being anti-Welsh (I don't). Was he Shadwell? I'd forgotten him. I'm not familiar with his other work, but Shadwell was funny. > He is also the voice of Fireman Sam, apparently. John Alderton, Shirley. From Lincolnshire. > And station-hopping one day, I stumbled on a > phone-ins-plus-big-band-swing-music radio show whose presenter sounded > and behaved very like Hugh Pugh. I'm still not sure whether it was > supposed to be funny or whether it was some sort of cry for help from > darkest Wales, but it had me laughing anyway. SignatureDavid ===== >mickwick@use.reply.to spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] >Was he Shadwell? I'd forgotten him. I'm not familiar with his other >work, but Shadwell was funny. That's Siadwel. The Welsh orthography is an important part of the joke. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the addresses given in the headers is no longer being read. To mail me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com". don-aitken@freeuk.com spake thus: > >mickwick@use.reply.to spake thus: > > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > That's Siadwel. The Welsh orthography is an important part of the > joke. Of course. I don't recall seeing the name written down. For some reason, Siadwel puts me in mind of Kevin Turvey. SignatureDavid ===== > (At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mike Powell -- > and perhaps Simon, if his surname is any marker of family origin Nah. The only family history my family is proud of is my paternal grandmother's Jewish-German roots (her father fled Potsdam prior to WWI). The Welsh surname was picked up by accident, when she married a second-generation Welsh migrant, in Hayes, Middlesex. SignatureSimon R. Hughes "Ross Howard" <gguiri@yahoo.com> wrote... > [...] > I must ask whether, top-notch acktaws and singers notwithstanding, > Wales has ever produced a single comedian who has been, even a bit > on a really good day, funny?) Comedian? Perhaps not. Comedy actor? Definitely -- Victor Spinetti. Matti > "Ross Howard" <gguiri@yahoo.com> wrote... > > [...] [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Comedian? Perhaps not. Comedy actor? Definitely -- Victor Spinetti. I was going to propose Richard Coyle on the strength of "Coupling", but IMDB's biography starts Contrary to popular belief Richard Coyle is not a Welshman but was born and raised in Sheffield, UK SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |On a scale of one to ten... 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |it sucked. Palo Alto, CA 94304 kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ "Matti Lamprhey" <matti-nospam@totally-official.com> wrote... > "Ross Howard" <gguiri@yahoo.com> wrote... > > [...] [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Comedian? Perhaps not. Comedy actor? Definitely -- Victor Spinetti. Betcha didn't know he was Welsh. In fact my archives have just turned up a 30-minute programme in which he comes close to being a comedian. It's one of a series heard on BBC Radio 4 called _That Reminds Me_, and Spinetti's is simply outstanding. He reminisces about everyone from the Beatles to Zanuck by way of Carol Channing and Marlene Dietrich, Warren Beatty, John Gielgud and Noel Coward, all with spot-on impersonations. I've squeezed it down to 5MB at: http://www.meticula.plus.com/Sounds/Spinetti.mp3 for a few days only, and highly recommend it. His timing is superb. Matti >>>>>"Oy" is better translated as a simple exclamation equivalent to >>>>>"oops" or "Oh, boy." [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Oofff. This thread is going from bad to worse. Yesterday the Wurzels; > today Max Boyce. It's certainly gone West. (At the risk of incurring the wrath of Mike Powell -- > and perhaps Simon, if his surname is any marker of family origin -- I > must ask whether, top-notch acktaws and singers notwithstanding, Wales > has ever produced a single comedian who has been, even a bit on a > really good day, funny?) I can't think of any. Having spent my formative years among the expatriate Welsh who left the valleys to build cars in Oxford, I have always thought that the Welsh are a serious lot and not given to humour, although wizards with words, written, spoken and sung. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm > > > certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Did he have something to do with starting the "Oy" thing? I > almost never read anything he posts. All I know is that I stole the "Oy!" usage from Skitt and generalized it a bit. It seems to have taken off from there. I don't know if Skitt in turn stole it from Garry Vass. > Anyway, what if it was a shot at Garry? I'm entitled to > lots of shots at him after the despicable things he said > about me. > > (I'm assuming we're talking about Vass, not Kasparov.) Or Marshall. > > > > No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm > > > > certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > Or Marshall. For me, the spelling "Garry" brings to mind Garry Moore: See http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/mooregarry/mooregarry.htm SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com >> (Murray Arnow) said: >>>> No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", but I'm >>>> certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > it a bit. It seems to have taken off from there. I don't know if > Skitt in turn stole it from Garry Vass. I don't think I did, as I just happened to use it to be funny. I think that it had been used before by someone other than Garry (P*l*r comes to mind). In my mind's eye the "Oy!" is something an elderly Jewish person might say when unpleasantly startled and shrinking back from what he is seeing. I have known the various "Oy" expressions from my childhood in Latvia. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > I don't think I did, as I just happened to use it to be funny. I think that > it had been used before by someone other than Garry (P*l*r comes to mind). > In my mind's eye the "Oy!" is something an elderly Jewish person might say > when unpleasantly startled and shrinking back from what he is seeing. I > have known the various "Oy" expressions from my childhood in Latvia. Nicely PC, Alec. But I've heard "Oy" used by college professors startled by their own errors. They didn't shrink back, however. This article is being crossposted to rec.games.chess.misc. (Crossposting is good, McKay.) > > [in a discussion in which the name "Garry" was mentioned > > in a non-chess context] > > (I'm assuming we're talking about [...], not Kasparov.) > Or Marshall. All of this "Garry" talk brings to mind a 1994 thread in rec.games.chess in which I suggested the possibility that Garry Kasparov's first name should be transliterated into English as "Harry." I based that speculation on the facts that Garry's father was said to be a foreigner who may have had some association with a Western name like Caspar, that the collocation of two "r"s is not usual in Russian, and that words starting with "h" in English commonly get transliterated with starting "g" in Russian. All of this suggested to me that Kasparov's parents may have wanted to call him "Harry," but could come no closer than "Garry" in Russian. Although I advanced the suggestion as an intriguing thought, I was lambasted by a series of scholars who seemed to assume wrongly that I was adamantly demanding that Kasparov forthwith be called "Harry" in English. I merely advanced the possibility and expressed the opinion that "Harry" would be a better transliteration of "Garry" into English than "Garry." I was quite surprised and a little dismayed by the amount of heat generated by what I had hoped would be accepted as an interesting possibility. Anyone who's interested in that discussion can read a thread of 13 articles starting with Message-ID: <A8CE8FD7@mogur.com>. There's another thread of two articles -- that somehow became disconnected from the main thread -- starting with Message-ID: <9E5BC1F6@mogur.com>. In fact, when you Google on the string (all of) "Garry Kasparov Harry group:rec.games.chess author:Cunningham," you get several small threads. In one posting I gave a long list of examples of Russian words that are close transliterations of English words except that the Russian word starts with "g," the English word with "h." I haven't been through all of the threads I've mentioned above, but I would expect that posting to be in one of them. In one of the postings I find at Google Groups, there's a reference to someone -- who probably knew what he was talking about -- saying that Kasparov's name would have been "Harry Weinstein" if it had not been changed to "Garry Kasparov" to get away from the Jewish-sounding name. This leaves me wondering how the name "Caspar" fits into the picture. Mother's maiden name maybe? > This article is being crossposted to rec.games.chess.misc. > (Crossposting is good, McKay.) [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > leaves me wondering how the name "Caspar" fits into the > picture. Mother's maiden name maybe? Correct: Klara Kasparova. m. F'ups to sci.lang, where it belongs. > All of this "Garry" talk brings to mind a 1994 thread in > rec.games.chess in which I suggested the possibility that > Garry Kasparov's first name should be transliterated into > English as "Harry." I based that speculation on the facts > that <snip>, and that words starting with "h" in English > commonly get transliterated with starting "g" in Russian. I've seen English h transliterated into Russian as the letter in Cyrillic that looks like a gamma; the same letter, but with a tilde; a Latin letter h (amid a sea of Cyrillic); nothing at all (the h was omitted from the transliteration); and the letter in Cyrillic that looks like a chi. My mother, a librarian, was first bemused, later amused, when a Russian came and asked her for O. Genry. Michael Hamm Since mid-September of 2003, AM, Math, Wash. U. St. Louis I've been erasing too much UBE. msh210@math.wustl.edu Of a reply, then, if you have been cheated, http://math.wustl.edu/~msh210/ Likely your mail's by mistake been deleted. I don't know why Michael's response was posted to sci.lang only, or to sci.lang at all. It should have been in alt.usage.englsh. I inadvertently replied without noticing I was posting to sci.lang. I usually avoid posting to sci.lang, because postings there tend to produce annoying and useless responses from the muddle-headed Peter T Daniels. I'm now crossposting my reply to AUE. > My mother, a librarian, was first bemused, later amused, > when a Russian came and asked her for O. Genry. A Russian could have asked her for stories about Gollywood. Or about Gomer's Iliad. Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote in rec.games.chess.misc: > In one of the postings I find at Google Groups, there's a > reference to someone -- who probably knew what he was [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > leaves me wondering how the name "Caspar" fits into the > picture. Mother's maiden name maybe? I barge into the thread without knowing if you're quoting here of if this is your original text, so forgive me if I'm providing you with redundant information. Probably under pressure of the USSR Ministry of Sports his name was changed from Harri Weinstein to Harri Kasparov, after his father Kim Weinstein was killed in a car crash. His mother is Klara Kasparov(a). Kasparova is the "female" version of the name Kasparov. I have an older book from the seventies in German by Kotov and Judovich (translated from Russian) with a picture of a very young "Harri Kasparow" in it. SignatureCeeBee "I am not a crook" Google CeeBee @ www.geocities.com/ceebee_2 > Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote in rec.games.chess.misc: > > In one of the postings I find at Google Groups, there's a > > reference to someone -- who probably knew what he was [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > leaves me wondering how the name "Caspar" fits into the > > picture. Mother's maiden name maybe? > I barge into the thread without knowing if you're quoting here of if this > is your original text, so forgive me if I'm providing you with redundant > information. Those were my words, but I greatly appreciate your input. > Probably under pressure of the USSR Ministry of Sports his name was > changed from Harri Weinstein to Harri Kasparov, after his father Kim > Weinstein was killed in a car crash. His mother is Klara Kasparov(a). > Kasparova is the "female" version of the name Kasparov. > I have an older book from the seventies in German by Kotov and Judovich > (translated from Russian) with a picture of a very young "Harri Kasparow" > in it. Thanks ever so much. But where were you in 1994 when I really needed you, when indignant rec.games.chess posters were standing in line to get the next whack at me? By the way, some newcomers may wonder why I'm referring to rec.games.chess, which no longer exists. In the mid nineties, it existed, but it was soon split into the various groups that now exist, like rec.games.chess.misc, rec.games.chess.analysis, and so forth. > I have an older book from the seventies in German by Kotov and Judovich > (translated from Russian) with a picture of a very young "Harri Kasparow" > in it. Modern Chess Theory (British, sadly only ran for a couple of years) had an article in the May/June 1981 issue by Harry Kasparov on "Contemporary Theory in the Grunfeld Defence". The article was in Russian, translated by Eric Schiller. > > I have an older book from the seventies in German by Kotov and Judovich > > (translated from Russian) with a picture of a very young "Harri Kasparow" [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Theory in the Grunfeld Defence". The article was in Russian, translated > by Eric Schiller. He was also referred to as "Harry Kasparov" in some of Goeorge Koltanowski;s chess columms from the late 70's. > [in a discussion of Garry Kasparov's name history.] <some material omitted> > Probably under pressure of the USSR Ministry of Sports his name was > changed from Harri Weinstein to Harri Kasparov, after his father Kim > Weinstein was killed in a car crash. His mother is Klara Kasparov(a). > Kasparova is the "female" version of the name Kasparov. And the "-ov" suffix looks like way back it could have been a genitive declension of "Kaspar". "Kasparov" could have meant something like "belonging to Caspar". > > [in a discussion of Garry Kasparov's name history.] > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > a genitive declension of "Kaspar". "Kasparov" could have > meant something like "belonging to Caspar". So, in other words, Kasparov is actually either a spy, placed in the former USSR by Caspar Weinberger, or he's being controlled by a friendly ghost. --Harold Buck "I used to rock and roll all night, and party every day. Then it was every other day. . . ." -Homer J. Simpson >> CeeBee said: >>> [in a discussion of Garry Kasparov's name history.] >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > former USSR by Caspar Weinberger, or he's being controlled by a > friendly ghost. I can't help but recall Opus, as he begins to recite some poetry: How I love to watch the morn with golden sun that shines, up above to nicely warm these frosty toes of mine. The wind doth taste of bittersweet, Like jasper wine and sugar. I bet it's blown through others' feet, like those of... (Struggles to think of a rhyme...) Caspar Weinberger. At which point Milo, who was enjoying the verse, shouts, "Start over!" SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> So, in other words, Kasparov is actually either a spy, placed in the >> former USSR by Caspar Weinberger, or he's being controlled by a [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > > At which point Milo, who was enjoying the verse, shouts, "Start over!" Oh, I forgot -- here's the original: http://home.comcast.net/~skitt99/weinber.gif SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> [in a discussion of Garry Kasparov's name history.] > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > genitive declension of "Kaspar". "Kasparov" could have meant > something like "belonging to Caspar". It is. That is why it is just about the most common suffix for Russian surnames. The 'ski' suffix is a way of making adjectives out of nouns and is another fairly common surname ending. SignatureRob Bannister > Bob Cunningham <exw6sxq@earthlink.net> wrote in rec.games.chess.misc: > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Weinstein was killed in a car crash. His mother is Klara Kasparov(a). > Kasparova is the "female" version of the name Kasparov. ... I heard, from a Ukrainian Jewish emigre around 1984, that the name change resulted from Botvinnik's friendly suggestion that Kasparov would go farther in Soviet chess with a Russian surname than with a Jewish one. Only a rumor. SignatureJerry Friedman [in a discussion of Garry Kasparov's name] [ . . . ] > > Probably under pressure of the USSR Ministry of Sports his name was > > changed from Harri Weinstein to Harri Kasparov, after his father Kim > > Weinstein was killed in a car crash. His mother is Klara Kasparov(a). > > Kasparova is the "female" version of the name Kasparov. > I heard, from a Ukrainian Jewish emigre around 1984, that the name > change resulted from Botvinnik's friendly suggestion that Kasparov > would go farther in Soviet chess with a Russian surname than with a > Jewish one. Only a rumor. I don't doubt that that's a good rumor, but, still, David Bronstein got as far as drawing a match for the World Championship with Botvinnik in 1951. (The rules for that particular match said the title stayed with Botvinnik if there was a drawn match.) ObAUE: Newspaper reporters who don't know much often use the word "match" to refer to a single game of chess. A match in chess is a set of games. For example, in 1927 Alekhine and Capablanca played a match for the championship in which Alekhine won six games, Capablanca won three, and there were 25 drawn games. (That was apparently a record for number of draws in a WC match until 1984 when Karpov won five, Kasparov won 3, and there were 40 draws.) > Newspaper reporters who don't know much often use the > word "match" to refer to a single game of chess. Oh, and there are a LOT of them. I think they all need to take a remedial math class while we're on the subject. --Harold Buck "I used to rock and roll all night, and party every day. Then it was every other day. . . ." -Homer J. Simpson } On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 17:58:31 -0600, Mike Oliver } <moliver@unt.edu> said: } }> R F wrote: }> > On Sat, 29 Nov 2003, Mike Oliver wrote: } }> >>Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's }> >>suggestions.... } }> > Oy! } }> Eh? One referee, multiple suggestions. Problem? } } No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", Big problem here. The way to say it with a single referee is to say, "Guess I better get back to incorporating the [or "that" or "my"] referee's suggestions." The "the referee's" is already plenty determinative enough, and any more runs over the top and gets attached to the nearest noun. Some linguist will be along in a minute to pretty this up, but Prof. F was correct in Oy!ing this. } but I'm } certainly getting tired of seeing "Oy!". How did that } silliness get started? Silliness? It goes to the very heart of English usage -- far more than reproducing book-learning (or its reincarnation as "google-learning") ever could. It is flagging a topic of discussion without hogging the whole thing to oneself. What are you, new here? SignatureR. J. Valentine <mailto:rj@smart.net> > } No problem here with "those referee's suggestions", > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > the nearest noun. Some linguist will be along in a minute to pretty this > up, but Prof. F was correct in Oy!ing this. There is no doubt that a formulation such as "those suggestions from the referee" would have presented lesser computational difficulty to the reader, and thereby been "better writing" in some wimpy, Mac-user sort of way. I like to challenge my readers, make them better than they are. [ ... ] > I like to challenge my readers, make them better than they are. How frustrated you must be! [ . . . ] > There is no doubt that a formulation such as "those suggestions > from the referee" would have presented lesser computational > difficulty to the reader, and thereby been "better writing" in > some wimpy, Mac-user sort of way. I like to challenge my > readers, make them better than they are. Your noblesse oblige is truly admirable. [...] > There is no doubt that a formulation such as "those suggestions > from the referee" would have presented lesser computational > difficulty to the reader, and thereby been "better writing" > in some wimpy, Mac-user sort of way. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Watch yo' mouf, boy! SignatureReinhold (Rey) Aman Proud Mac User > There is no doubt that a formulation such as "those suggestions > from the referee" would have presented lesser computational > difficulty to the reader, and thereby been "better writing" in > some wimpy, Mac-user sort of way. In some arenas, them would be fightin' words... SignatureDena Jo PC user Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. On 11/30/03 3:58 PM, in article bqe073$1uk2fi$1@ID-136402.news.uni-berlin.de, "Mike Oliver" <moliver@unt.edu> wrote: >>> Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's >>> suggestions.... >> >> Oy! > > Eh? One referee, multiple suggestions. Problem? It should be "that referee's suggestions" if it's one referee with multiple suggestions. A determiner preceding an <'s> genitive noun phrase is part of the genitive noun phrase in Standard English because the <'s> genitive cannot be embedded within the noun phrase it governs, it must be entirely precede it. "The Queen of England's golden crown", never "The golden, Queen of England's crown". "Dave's sleek, luxurious automobile", not "the sleek, luxurious, Dave's automobile". "That sleek, luxurious automobile of Dave's" is OK, but require the prep. "Those suggestions of the referee", similarly. > It should be "that referee's suggestions" if it's one referee with multiple > suggestions. A determiner preceding an <'s> genitive noun phrase is part of > the genitive noun phrase in Standard English because the <'s> genitive > cannot be embedded within the noun phrase it governs, it must be entirely > precede it. I think it can, when the possessive is indicating a *type* of the thing it modifies. "There are penalties for violating a judge's order." "But those judge's orders are wrong." Here "judge's" binds tighter to "order" than it does to "a" or "those". >>>> Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's >>>> suggestions.... [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > because the <'s> genitive cannot be embedded within the noun phrase > it governs, it must be entirely precede it. I read the "those" in this case as referring to the suggestions, not the referee. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > >>Guess I better get back to incorporating those referee's > >>suggestions.... > > > > Oy! > > Eh? One referee, multiple suggestions. Problem? Oh. I figured there'd be more than one referee that's given you suggestions, so I interpreted the sentence accordingly. >>> No linguist alive can compare to an average baby for coming up >>> with rules and using them. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > If you don't publish, you don't deserve credit. Everybody knows > that. You can do as professors do with their underlings: publish the baby's theories yourself and take the credit. SignatureRob Bannister << [Skitt] (responding to R J Valentine) (Damn the editing of the attribution symbols, but hey, it's you, and you need all the help I can give. Anyway, were it anyone other than you, I'd let it stay messed up, but you are the only one I assist because I'm kind to the handicapped. Oh, there's another weirdo, Richard Maurer, doing his own little trip to be different, but he's in my immediate area, so I may have to scoot over to educate him.) [end quote] >> I like the attributions right in front of the text being attributed. The motivation came after reading text with 8 levels of "<<< < << <", making it impractical to tell who was saying what. After years of practice, I can get through two levels, but with four I have to go search out the original articles. Even with one level of "<" I still prefer to read the original article without the constant interruption of "<" on every line. I have no particular desire to be idiosyncratic in this matter, I do find it difficult to write in a style that I would not want to read. The benefits are: Attribution is close to the text. Quoted material is identified and can be easily skipped The attribution can be skipped along with the quoted material. Line breaks are kept as is. Here are some other styles that have merit -- do you like them? I will present them with original indentation The first is by Mark Brader The second by Warren J. Dew +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++= Last week, "David" wrote: > > You need another "as" in the second sentence: "... all of which were > > as dirt-poor as China ..." And Bob Lieblich corrected: > It's not mandatory. The introductory "as" in such comparisons can > be elided. "He's honest as the day is long." "I'm corny as Kansas > in August." It's informal, but I think that's the worst that can be > said about it. In this context I'd just like to repeat something that R.H. Draney and I posted some details of in this newsgroup in 2001. There is a famous scene in the movie Network (1976) where Peter Finch as Howard Beale tells people to open a window and shout out, "I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!" He says this about 5 times in the scene, identically worded each time. [...] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ J. Verkuilen posts, in part: I (and everyone else I guess) has an "inner monologue" and a set of explanations for our actions. I do on occasion, generally corresponding to when I'm thinking in language. For most activities I don't, though, and indeed I think it's distinctly weird for anyone to claim that they always have such an "inner monologue". I've seen enough people claim it, though, and in sufficiently similar ways, that I have to suppose that some people can have a mindset so alien to my own. I would hazard a guess that I *meant* #3: "The plot of a narrative or dramatic work" back in my original post and George is focusing on #1: "An account or recital of an event or series of events." From previous discussions with George, I'm pretty certain he meant your #3, the same as you seem to have. Roleplaying games needn't have plots and needn't be narratives or dramatic works; some people like plots in their roleplaying games, and some people hate them. The former type of people often seem to want to deny that the latter type of people exist, which is why arguments like this arise. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ These are much better than the majority of presentations. The reasons I do not use them are that Mark Brader's still have the ">" interruptions and Warren Dew's change the line breaks. Also they both are switching voices to announce the attributions in the foreground. Skitt--now I feel as if I can ask you a question. Sometimes you complain that too much is snipped in an article so that you can't see how something was phrased upthread. Why not keep all the current articles on your local machine so that with a few clicks you can get the original post? Machines nowadays have gobs of memory and speed (mine is old and can nearly handle it). Failing that, isn't there a "reconstruct thread" button that will do the job in two seconds, and you can still read them in order received? Just wondering. I suppose that many people here use the colored newsreaders. I have used them occasionally, and it was still not immediately clear who was speaking, to know that still involved scrolling up, and the name was not in the right color anyway. Maybe when I get the new machine I will get a colored newsreader. Does anybody here turn off that feature if it is available? In the next post I will show some attributions that are impractical to read. I will say that this newsgroup is pretty good about keeping the indents to one or two levels. -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- << [Skitt] (responding to R J Valentine) (Damn the editing of the attribution symbols, but hey, it's you, and you need all the help I can give. Anyway, were it anyone other than you, I'd let it stay messed up, but you are the only one I assist because I'm kind to the handicapped. Oh, there's another weirdo, Richard Maurer, doing his own little trip to be different, but he's in my immediate area, so I may have to scoot over to educate him.) [end quote] >> Here are some examples of impractical to read indented posts presented with original indentation +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote in message news:<1g5c60f.itc8z71macr0gN%trio@euronet.nl>... > > J. J. Lodder <nospam@de-ster.demon.nl> wrote: > > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > > > > > > > > >On the other hand, the crazy looking example that I used earlier is my > > > > >attempt at simplifying spelling rules so that the spelling of a word > > > > >becomes perfectly predictable based on it's pronunciation. A long "e" > > > > >for instance could always be represented as "ee" and a short "e" just > > > > >as "e". If we're going to reform, why not really reform? > > > > What you mean "we," paleface? > > Paleface? I for one, would vote that word out all together! I find > it extremely politically incorrect. :0 Are you by some chance unfamiliar with the fact that "What do you mean 'we,' paleface?" is the punchline to a Lone Ranger and Tonto joke? Part of the humor of the joke depends upon the fact that while a speaker may include the audience in his use of "we," the audience may object to being so included. [...] +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ jerry_friedman@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) wrote in message news:<96efe132.0312071228.56cd463a@posting.google.com>... > berko60@hotmail.com (David Berkeley) wrote in message news:<535f1884.0312051818.56730819@posting.google.com>... > > jerry_friedman@yahoo.com (Jerry Friedman) wrote in message news:<96efe132.0312041420.395297ca@posting.google.com>... > > <snip> > > > > > > > > > > > > > > And, for completeness, he follows it with: > > > > > > > > > "Ah well, they say it's not as bad as they say it is." > > > > > > > > > -- Southern Irish woman on the situation in Ulster. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > So what form of statement would we call that last one? Obviously it's > > > > > > > > paradoxical, but is there a precise linguistic term? > > > > > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > Sorry about my misplaced suspicion. No worries ... +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Here are some examples of impractical to read indented posts > presented with original indentation [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > > [...] I snipped the rest. Yeah, I know the problems with the untrimmed attributions, and I have registered my dismay of them. I reduce the atttributions to something like "xxx wrote:" for all the replies I submit. Unfortunately, there are many who don't do that and who even throw in some extra comments. There are also those, who, knowing full well the limitations of some software in handling attribution markers other than the basic ">", take a perverse pleasure in causing extra work for those trying to tidy up the resulting mess. Then again, there'll always be that "special" someone. Richard, I apologize for being unnecessarily gruff in my original remarks to you. I can cope with the format of your posts, but it does differ vastly from the way I'm used to seeing *all* the other contributions. Same with RJV's stuff -- no one else does what he does, but I make allowances for him too. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > Skitt--now I feel as if I can ask you a question. > Sometimes you complain that too much is snipped in an article [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Machines nowadays have gobs of memory and speed > (mine is old and can nearly handle it). Oh, I have the articles -- almost all of them (I appear to have lost a chunk around a particular month). It's just too much trouble to pull up "all messages", have them re-sorted by subject (I read messages sorted chronologically, displaying only the headers of unread messages; I also use the "refresh" function often) and then search for the particular one in a long thread. I have done that at times, but more often than not I have given up and decided not to respond instead. > Failing that, isn't there a "reconstruct thread" button > that will do the job in two seconds, and you can still read them in order received? > Just wondering. The thread can be reconstructed, but searching for the appropriate antecedent takes much longer than a few seconds. There are other ways to search for a particular posting more directly, but that involves remembering some accurate and unique text from it. I try to snip judiciously, and when that can't be done because of the pertinent offerings of too many contributors, I take the attitude that, possibly, my two cents worth might not be important to the thread. If I intend to answer only a particular isolated point or two, I'll snip accordingly. That is what I have done this time. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ [...] > > The very first sentence of my post: "Everyone uses rules when > > speaking any language." [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > <three paragraphs of succeeding wiggle snipped for being irrelevant and > tedious> There was no "wiggle" there, Skitt. What I wrote is entirely consistent with what I have believed since the time when I was first exposed to the idea that nonstandard dialects are as rule-based as are standard dialects. I learned about language taboos later, about pidgins and creoles still later, and finally about the controversy over whether American Sign Language is a true language or not. All of these subjects are relevant to the phenomenon in question. Furthermore, what I have written in posts to alt.usage.english since 1999, available via Google Groups ( www.deja.com ), will demonstrate that I have been consistent on this subject. Yes, people use rules which they are unaware of. If you want, you can say that it is people's minds which use these rules, but that is a distinction without a difference, because we *are* our minds. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com Raymond S. Wise escribió : > There was no "wiggle" there, Skitt. What I wrote is entirely > consistent with what I have believed since the time when I was first [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > 1999, available via Google Groups ( www.deja.com ), will demonstrate > that I have been consistent on this subject. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Ralph Waldo Emerson (I know, Sir W. Churchill plagiarized this, changing "hobgobling" for "bugbear".) > Yes, people use rules which they are unaware of. If you want, you can > say that it is people's minds which use these rules, but that is a > distinction without a difference, because we *are* our minds. Speak for yourself only, please. SignatureSaludos cordiales Javi Mood conjugation: I am an artist You are a Bohemian He forgot to shave this morning (Craig Brown) > Raymond S. Wise escribió : > > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > (I know, Sir W. Churchill plagiarized this, changing "hobgobling" for > "bugbear".) Have you read the thread? Skitt was making a rather serious charge. I was pointing out that that charge could be proven false by examining the record of my posts to Usenet. In such a case, consistency is highly desirable. It isn't always. Isaac Asimov once wrote an article in which he described the process of writing a textbook on biochemistry with two co-authors. They came to the conclusion that they were worrying *too* much about consistency, to a point where it served no purpose. They referred to the Emerson quote, and it got to the point where they were saying "Emerson!" whenever they concluded that worrying about a certain point of consistency was pointless. > > Yes, people use rules which they are unaware of. If you want, you can > > say that it is people's minds which use these rules, but that is a > > distinction without a difference, because we *are* our minds. > > Speak for yourself only, please. Sorry, it would not be right for me to do so, since I believe that we *are* our minds, you no less than me. For me to say that "I am my mind but your results may vary" would simply be an absurdity from my point of view, so I'm not going to say it. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com On January 2, 2004, "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@my-deja.com> wrote in message news:47dd044c.0401020150.6ff932e8@posting.google.com... [Concerning Emerson's quote on "a foolish consistency"] > [...] Isaac Asimov once wrote an article in which he > described the process of writing a textbook on biochemistry with two [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > saying "Emerson!" whenever they concluded that worrying about a > certain point of consistency was pointless. I just remembered that today, January 2nd, is the Good Doctor's birthday! SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com Raymond S. Wise filted: >On January 2, 2004, "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@my-deja.com> wrote in message >news:47dd044c.0401020150.6ff932e8@posting.google.com... [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > >I just remembered that today, January 2nd, is the Good Doctor's birthday! As far as anyone knows....r [...] >> It follows from "Everyone uses rules when speaking any >> language" that nonstandard dialects are also rule-based. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >and for which someone had documented some rules, but they are >not actively applying any rule. . . . They may also mistakenly follow a misunderstood fragment of a pattern that they have heard before. We must take care not to get caught in circularity: to assert that nonstandard dialects are rule-based is perfectly sound, but we cannot from that deduce that a given speech pattern is a nonstandard dialect just because some uses found in it are nonstandard. We first need to demonstrate that those uses conform to some definite rule. Typing--or speaking--monkeys do not a true dialect make. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ > Skitt wrote: >>> It follows from "Everyone uses rules when speaking any >>> language" that nonstandard dialects are also rule-based. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > They may also mistakenly follow a misunderstood fragment of a > pattern that they have heard before. Of course. > We must take care not to > get caught in circularity: to assert that nonstandard dialects [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > need to demonstrate that those uses conform to some definite > rule. Typing--or speaking--monkeys do not a true dialect make. Whatever you are proposing with that sounds good. Whatever. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > >> I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > >> and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > thing when they are not talking about the 34 on Shaq's jersey, for > instance). There's something else, though. When descriptivists talk about rules, they don't mean that anyone has handed these rules to the speakers who then consciously study them and haul them out of their memories to "apply" them. There are patterns in language that all of us, particularly as children, notice and apply *unconsciously*. Thank goodness, or else we would never acquire all these words and patterns. You can spot this when the system breaks down, at least temporarily. Have you ever heard a child say "bited" or "cutted"? I have. It's not because someone told that child to make all the past tenses by adding "ed." The child notices that pattern on his or her own, and formed what should have been irregular past tense forms in a regular way. Usually that works, as new words come along -- nobody tells or teaches child to say "created" or "exhausted" or "remained" -- most verbs *are* regular and so the technique the child unthinkingly acquired on their own works -- most of the time. So it's a straw man to claim that descriptivists or anybody else say that there are bunch a rules we all mysteriously run around "applying." The rules exist in the same way that any patterns exist, and we don't think about them much harder than we think about how to convey food on a fork to our mouths, or how to walk down a flight of stairs. *If* it's our mother tongue, or one acquired at a young enough age. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. >> My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are [quoted text clipped - 40 lines] > stairs. *If* it's our mother tongue, or one acquired at a young > enough age. Exactly. All that was included in my "picked up the language as I went along", even though for me it happened in my middle to late teens. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. >>> My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when they are [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > went along", even though for me it happened in my middle to late > teens. You weren't taughted it earlier? -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply >> All that was included in my "picked up the language as I >> went along", even though for me it happened in my middle to late >> teens. > > You weren't taughted it earlier? Nope. I came to the USA when I was sixteen. I had had a year of English before that, that's all. I put in a year and a half in high school (the first year I was not required to do any oral work in class, as I couldnt really speak the language), got a scholarship, and went on to college. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > You weren't taughted it earlier? If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. > If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. Damn. Beat me to the punch. SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. > > If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. > > Damn. Beat me to the punch. But I only thought of saying "he might have getted it" when it was too late. > > > If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. > > > > Damn. Beat me to the punch. > > But I only thought of saying "he might have getted it" when it was too > late Don't worry about it, Donna. You doed all right. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com . > > > > If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. > > > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Don't worry about it, Donna. You doed all right. Yup. You folks has learned me quite a bit. SignatureBob Lieblich Or is that "ayup"? >>> If you'd said "teached," he might have gotten it. >> >> Damn. Beat me to the punch. > > But I only thought of saying "he might have getted it" when it was too > late. That's OK Donna. 'gotten' is sufficiently outlandish and ungrammatical for your purpose ... :-} -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply > You weren't taughted it earlier? Get with the program, John. It's "You weren't teached it earlier?" SignatureDena Jo Delete "delete.this.for.email" for email. >>You weren't taughted it earlier? > > Get with the program, John. It's "You weren't teached it earlier?" "You weren't learned it earlier?", shirley? SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) >>> You weren't taughted it earlier? >> >> Get with the program, John. It's "You weren't teached it earlier?" > > "You weren't learned it earlier?", shirley? I'm not sure about this one. There are real English dialects that use 'learn' for 'teach'. SignatureRob Bannister >>>> You weren't taughted it earlier? >>> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >I'm not sure about this one. There are real English dialects that use >'learn' for 'teach'. You think English has problems? Finnish has the same word for both "borrow" and "lend". S& >>>>> You weren't taughted it earlier? >>>> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > You think English has problems? Finnish has the same word for both > "borrow" and "lend". So do my children. -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply >> You think English has problems? Finnish has the same word for both >> "borrow" and "lend". > >So do my children. I "Borrow me a dollar." (substitute term, item, and amount) used over there? >>> You think English has problems? Finnish has the same word for both >>> "borrow" and "lend". [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >I "Borrow me a dollar." (substitute term, item, and amount) used over >there? I think so, but my Finnish is still quite primative. I'm still at the stage where I try to make it logical inspite of my familiarity with the insanity of English. S& [...] >I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" >stuff. My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when >they are speaking. People just speak the way they have heard >others speak. Rules are the furthest thing from their minds. That is something I have said again and again, and it is true within its scope of application, the moment-to-moment process of producing speech or writing. Save in the most demanding instances--when a question has arisen in one's mind about the propriety of a particular casting--one goes by one's "ear" for the tongue. (And in fact I don't think anyone, on either side of the issue, spoke of anyone "applying rules as they speak", but that's not crucial here.) But there is a larger scope. Usage in the end _is_ regulated; written work that does not conform to standard patterns will, in many instances, be edited to so conform. An author will often do revision for conformity even absent a superior who will edit. We cannot reasonably speak of a given usage conforming not to standard grammar but to some other variant grammar if there is not somewhere a set of rules--that very "variant grammar"--that mandates the outcome in a generalized sense extending beyond the particular words involved. Outcomes that are particular to the exact words involved are not grammar at all, they are idiom, a large part of which is exactly odd, random deviations from rule that have become acceptable forms. If much or most or all of a given speech pattern is "idiom" in that sense, then that speech has no grammar at all, standard or variant: it is a collection of vagaries, and cannot justify the name dialect or variant English or whatever its defenders dream up. We cannot know whether the soul who says "That will be pleasing to my wife and I" is repeating a form he has heard many times before or whether he is plugging in only a fraction--the "my wife and I"--of something he has heard many times before. In either case, though, how can one question the assertion that he is in error with his speech? One cannot, unless one can come up with some known regular alternate grammar in which some rule mandates that form in that casting. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ >> I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" >> stuff. My opinion is that no one thinks about any rules when [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > But there is a larger scope. OK, this is where I stop. The rest is wiggle-waggle, not to be undestood, nor followed by anyone, therefore it is snipped. Sorry. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > We cannot know whether the soul who says "That will be pleasing > to my wife and I" is repeating a form he has heard many times > before or whether he is plugging in only a fraction--the "my > wife and I"--of something he has heard many times before. In > either case, though, how can one question the assertion that he > is in error with his speech? In fact, it is most likely that the speaker was taught at an early age that it is "more polite" to say "my wife and I" than "I and my wife", and this bit of teaching is the only part that stuck in his head. SignatureRob Bannister << [Eric Walker] I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my wife and I" nor the folk who say "me and my wife are" are applying any _rule_. [end quote] >> Yes, we can apply the rules. But for these examples, what ambiguities would result if we did not? Indeed, is there ever any practical need to have both "I" and "me"? Would we be understood (once we got used to it) just as well with only "me" and no "I"? -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ><< [Eric Walker] >I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >"me"? Would we be understood (once we got used to it) just as >well with only "me" and no "I"? Yes; no. The proof is left as an exercise for the student. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ > I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my wife and [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > things every time, which implies a known rule being consulted, which > is a false implication. I agree with you, and I think this is where Raymond Wise is totally wrong when he wants to ascribe anything like this to 'dialect'. SignatureRob Bannister On 11/29/03 3:59 PM, in article 3FC932D2.7090404@it.net.au, "Robert Bannister" <robban@it.net.au> wrote: >> I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- >> and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my wife and [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > I agree with you, and I think this is where Raymond Wise is totally > wrong when he wants to ascribe anything like this to 'dialect'. Whether they're "dialect" is one thing; but that they are rule-driven is beyond doubt. They're not grammatical in the standard, but they do follow a rule. The pronouns need to be in coordination in order to use the "wrong" case-form. The very fact that native speakers do _not_ say "me am..." or "for I" shows that they _are_ following a rule when they do say "me and my wife are..." or "for my wife and I". If "me and my wife are" and "for my wife and I" were simply the result an inability to apply grammatical rules, then we'd certainly hear "me am..." and "for I" just as frequently. As it is, the rule for using "me and my wife are...", at least, is similar to the rule for personal pronoun usage in French. And _of course_ these rules are picked up by hearing others use them, that's how a native language is learned! No one learns their native language from a book. (Though they might learn to refine it to the standard form, from a book). That many speakers who use nonstandard forms will also use the correct standard forms simply means that they are able to switch from one set of rules to another. >That many speakers who use nonstandard forms will also use the correct >standard forms simply means that they are able to switch from one set of >rules to another. Which is very common. I wouldn't dream of saying 'My wife and I are going out tonight' in conversation - it would be considered extremely affected in most of the circles I frequent. On the other hand, I wouldn't dream of writing 'Me and Clark are in agreement here' in an academic journal. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 paulrooney@aol.com spake thus: > >That many speakers who use nonstandard forms will also use the correct > >standard forms simply means that they are able to switch from one set of [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > going out tonight' in conversation - it would be considered extremely > affected in most of the circles I frequent. So what would you say? All of the alternatives jar with me. And (guessing your wife's name to be Paula), would you not say "Paula and I are going to the cinema", "Paula and I don't eat reindeer"? > On the other hand, I > wouldn't dream of writing 'Me and Clark are in agreement here' in an > academic journal. SignatureDavid ===== >paulrooney@aol.com spake thus: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >(guessing your wife's name to be Paula), would you not say "Paula and >I are going to the cinema", "Paula and I don't eat reindeer"? Speaking normally, I'd say 'Me and Paula are..'. I'd only use 'Paula and I are..' among a very narrow set of people/circumstances - the kind of circumstance where I'd also drop my Scouse accent, and use 'one' instead of 'you'. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 paulrooney@aol.com spake thus: > >paulrooney@aol.com spake thus: > > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > kind of circumstance where I'd also drop my Scouse accent, and use > 'one' instead of 'you'. I almost never use "one" in place of "I", except in jest or when mocking the Queen's Speech. Lacking, as I do, a Scouse accent, "Me and Paula are going out" just feels wrong to me. SignatureDavid ===== >I almost never use "one" in place of "I", except in jest or when >mocking the Queen's Speech. I never use it instead of 'I' - that sounds daft. I'd normally say 'you' if I were [ha ha - note that 'were'!] talking generally. > Lacking, as I do, a Scouse accent, "Me >and Paula are going out" just feels wrong to me. I reckon it's the most usual form - and I think it sounds better with the 'me' coming first rather than being immediately before the verb. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 David wrote: >Lacking, as I do, a Scouse accent, "Me and >Paula are going out" just feels wrong to me. Over here in America, it sounds not so much "wrong" as childish (or humorous). >David wrote: > >>Lacking, as I do, a Scouse accent, "Me and >>Paula are going out" just feels wrong to me. > >Over here in America, it sounds not so much "wrong" as childish (or humorous). In my (limited) experience of Americans I have noticed that their language is what we were taught at school as correct - but it would be a minority thing over here. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 > On 11/29/03 3:59 PM, in article 3FC932D2.7090404@it.net.au, "Robert > Bannister" <robban@it.net.au> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > standard forms simply means that they are able to switch from one set of > rules to another. I agree with most of what you say, and I know that when I was little I used the 'me and X are' construction most of the time. Then I was taught it was wrong, so I changed. Despite the French analogy, I still do not follow your argument that the 'me and' speakers are following a rule*, and, in particular, I would not classify it as being part of a true dialect. The same thing with 'for my wife and I', only even more so. * If it is a rule, what is the rule? It only seems to occur in very particular situations and, if it were a rule, would be an unnecessary complication in the language. SignatureRob Bannister [ ... ] > Despite the French analogy, I still do not follow your argument that the > 'me and' speakers are following a rule*, and, in particular, I would not [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > particular situations and, if it were a rule, would be an unnecessary > complication in the language. Hang around some blue-collar American workers for a while. Me and my wife have a friend who is a whizbang HVAC installer and repairman, but he's no scholar and was raised in a home where the father would rather drink than work. I've never heard him say anything but "Me and <whatever>" for a dual grammatical subject of which he is one member. That's the rule he follows. I don't change the way I speak when I'm around him, and I'm sure he's noticed that educated people tend to say "<whatever> and I" where he says "me and <whatever>." But he talks as he talks, and he's quite consistent about it. There's no need to ask how he writes. He only writes when he has to, and he either keeps it very short or asks someone better educated for help. My point is that this gentleman is not at all atypical. Many millions of Americans speak as he does. It may be a dialect that's sorted for by class, but it's a dialect nonetheless. And the particular instance I have discussed follows a rule of that dialect. SignatureBob Lieblich Me and my shadow [ . . . ] > My point is that this gentleman is not at all atypical. Many > millions of Americans speak as he does. It may be a dialect that's > sorted for by class, but it's a dialect nonetheless. And the > particular instance I have discussed follows a rule of that dialect. I think that dialect is known to some people as the American Vulgate. > [ ... ] > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > sorted for by class, but it's a dialect nonetheless. And the > particular instance I have discussed follows a rule of that dialect. As I said somewhere else, I too use 'me and X' almost always in informal conversation. Most people I know switch freely between the two forms, but some of them struggle with the 'X and I' when they're trying to be formal, which is presumably why they sometimes come up with 'between X and I'. SignatureRob Bannister > > On 11/29/03 3:59 PM, in article 3FC932D2.7090404@it.net.au, "Robert > > Bannister" <robban@it.net.au> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] > particular situations and, if it were a rule, would be an unnecessary > complication in the language. First, languages are chock-full of unnecessary complications. Linguist John McWhorter discusses such things in his book *The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language.* He gives Fula (also known as "Fulani") as an example: It has 16 genders (also known as "noun classes"), which "correspond only occasionally and broadly to classes of meaning."[1] That this is an unnecessary complication can be seen, among other things, from the fact that there is a lingua franca version of Fula--a complete language, not a pidgin--which is vastly more regular than the original version. A more familiar example to us would be the genders assigned to German and French words. Such stuff he calls "uselessly baroque elaborations," but there is no language which is completely free of them, including the relatively young creole and sign languages.[2] Second, whatever rule is at play in "for my wife and I" it is unlikely that it is as complicated as, for example, the assignment of gender to German nouns or the form of the plural of English nouns. I would predict that a lot of people who use "for my wife and I" are simply following the rule of "'I' in coordination," which is that "If the first person pronoun is in coordination with another noun (or nouns) or pronouns (or pronouns), the form 'I' is used when the noun phrase is the object of a preposition. If it is not in coordination, the form 'me' is used for the first person pronoun when it is the object of a preposition." Note: [1] Actually, it's even more complicated than that, involving complicated rules for transforming the forms of nouns and adjectives depending upon what gender the noun is in. [2] I have read Usenet messages by linguists who, discussing McWhorter's book, expressed the opinion that Fula was not a particularly strong example of such baroque complications! SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com I see I need to add something to my response. > > > On 11/29/03 3:59 PM, in article 3FC932D2.7090404@it.net.au, "Robert > > > Bannister" <robban@it.net.au> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 55 lines] > > classify it as being part of a true dialect. The same thing with 'for my > > wife and I', only even more so. In my reply I addressed the question of the rule-based nature of "for my wife and I." I didn't deal with "me and X," which I will do so below. > > * If it is a rule, what is the rule? It only seems to occur in very > > particular situations and, if it were a rule, would be an unnecessary > > complication in the language. [snip comments about "uselessly baroque elaborations" in language] > Second, whatever rule is at play in "for my wife and I" it is unlikely that > it is as complicated as, for example, the assignment of gender to German [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > is not in coordination, the form 'me' is used for the first person pronoun > when it is the object of a preposition." As for "me and X" used as a subjective construction, it is part of an even stronger rule than "for my wife and I." While I would not be surprised if a speaker of "for my wife and I" were to say "for John and him," I would indeed be surprised if a speaker of "Me and John spoke this morning" were to say "He and John spoke this morning" or if he were to say "Me and he spoke this morning" instead of "Me and him spoke this morning." My experience with the people who would say "me and X" as the subject of a sentence is that they follow a rule which might be called the "objective form of a personal pronoun used in coordination." In this rule, if a pronoun has both a subjective form and an objective form, then it is the objective form which is used in coordination with another noun or pronoun: the pronouns involved are "I/me," "we/us," "he/him," "she/her," and "they/them." It should also be noted that the people who follow this rule inevitably are lacking the pronouns "whom" and "whomever" in their dialect. I'm surprised that the variety of speech which uses this rule fails whatever is the test you require for something to be a true dialectal usage. I would expect that there are regional dialects today which use the rule in question, and I take it that you include all regional dialects in what you think of as "true dialects." Certainly, at one time there was such a dialect, because Mark Twain has Huck Finn using this rule in *The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn* and I don't suppose you would deny that Huck spoke a regional dialect. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com > As for "me and X" used as a subjective construction, it is part of an even > stronger rule than "for my wife and I." While I would not be surprised if a > speaker of "for my wife and I" were to say "for John and him," I would > indeed be surprised if a speaker of "Me and John spoke this morning" were to > say "He and John spoke this morning" or if he were to say "Me and he spoke > this morning" instead of "Me and him spoke this morning." A very interesting point. I feel uncomfortable with 'he and I', 'I and he', 'me and him' - all of them. In fact, I think I would stop and rephrase if I found myself trying to say any of those and try to change to 'we'. Well, I suppose 'he and I' isn't that bad, but it sounds rather posh to me and I think I would try to avoid it. 'We and they' sounds even weirder. SignatureRob Bannister >> As for "me and X" used as a subjective construction, it is part of >> an even stronger rule than "for my wife and I." While I would not be [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > sounds rather posh to me and I think I would try to avoid it. 'We and > they' sounds even weirder. Here's what bothers me -- expressions that used to be correct (and still are) are now thought by many to be weird or posh, heaven forbid. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>>As for "me and X" used as a subjective construction, it is part of >>>an even stronger rule than "for my wife and I." While I would not be [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Here's what bothers me -- expressions that used to be correct (and still > are) are now thought by many to be weird or posh, heaven forbid. I suspect it's simply because 'he and I', 'you and we', 'we and they', etc. are rarely used; it's mostly 'noun and I' or 'you and I'. When we haven't said something in speech for decades, it feels uncomfortable when we need to come out with it. I think I'm going back on the 'he and I' one: the more I say it aloud, the better it feels. SignatureRob Bannister > "Robert Bannister" <robban@it.net.au> wrote in message >>* If it is a rule, what is the rule? It only seems to occur in very >>particular situations and, if it were a rule, would be an unnecessary >>complication in the language. > First, languages are chock-full of unnecessary complications. [example snipped] Good point. I retract. SignatureRob Bannister > > I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > > and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my wife and [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > I agree with you, and I think this is where Raymond Wise is totally > wrong when he wants to ascribe anything like this to 'dialect'. You appear to be missing an important point: A given usage is a dialectal usage only if at least two people use it, and one of them learned it from the other. Otherwise, it is a question of idiolect rather than dialect. From Joseph F Foster, Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati, Ohio, at http://www.linguistlist.org/~ask-ling/archive-most-recent/msg10790.html "A dialect is simply a consistent way of speaking a given language shared by two or more people." Of course, idiolects themselves are all rule-based. If an American were to consistently say "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital," even though his speech otherwise resembled Standard American English, he would be following a rule of his idiolect. SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com > Of course, idiolects themselves are all rule-based. If an American were to > consistently say "in hospital" instead of "in the hospital," even though his > speech otherwise resembled Standard American English, he would be following > a rule of his idiolect. This is hardly a hypothetical case; our own Tony Cooper has an idiolect with such a rule. > You appear to be missing an important point: A given usage is a > dialectal usage only if at least two people use it, and one of them [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > "A dialect is simply a consistent way of speaking a given language > shared by two or more people." This is where you and I have always differed. I consider a dialect to be a language spoken by a much larger group of people within either a restricted geographical area (eg a village at least) or a particular social or cultural group (eg a priestly class, a military group, a work-related group). By bringing it down to 2 people, you would accept that the language used in families* are dialects, and I don't believe they are. * Many families, including my own, have their own words and constructions, often modelled on what X said as a baby or what Y said one night as a joke. My family also uses a few Leicestershire words, that I would say come from a true dialect, but since we only use them amongst ourselves, lest we receive blank looks from others, they are just part of our 'family language', not a dialect. SignatureRob Bannister > I think one thing that emerges clearly from all of these back- > and-forth comments is that neither the folk who say "for my > wife and I" nor the folk who say "me and my wife are" are > applying any _rule_. There ain't no rules that speakers consult, m'kay? People do not speak in the same manner in all the English-speaking areas. People do not read Curme or Fowler, or anyone else someone might quote to disparage them. People speak emulating those they believe to be "educated and speakers of 'proper' English" -- hence the hypercorrections. > In both situations, the speakers are relying on vague memories > of what they think they have heard in what they perceive as > parallel situations--in short, on their "ear" for the tongue, > which misleads them because the raw material they have absorbed (Comma before "because" is missing, but never mind -- it's a nit.) > to form that "ear" was too often defective (or, in some cases, > sad to say, because they simply cannot distinguish what is and > what is not a "parallel" situation). I doubt that anyone is examining their speech for "parallel" situations. It's more like a "copying someone they feel is more knowledgeable than they are" situation. (Ooh -- singular "they", damn it!) > To repeatedly speak of grammar as being whatever the people (to > whom all power be) say is to presume that the people reliably > say the same things every time, which implies a known rule > being consulted, which is a false implication. True enough, but where does that get us? I'll propose an answer -- nowhere! So, to cut to the chase, people will say whatever they feel is "proper", "right" or not, and it is up to the pedants to rail against them or to explain it away as a dialectal usage. This group has "qualified" members to do one or the other, it seems, but does that change anything? Far be it from me to try to denigrate (ooh, now I've had it) this group, but it is really funny -- somewhat educating even -- to see the righteous indignation of those thinking that they "know it all", as far as "proper" English is concerned. Nothing personal, Eric, but you do serve as a prime example of what I'm talking about. On the other hand, were it not for people like you, this group would be discussing questions only from foreigners and undereducted persons. Unfortunately, there are very few of those who find, or care to find, this group. Myself, ashamed as I am to admit it, I'm here to trade stories (in "proper" English, of course) with people of reasonable intelligence and passable wit. That's all. OK, my secret's out. Am I banished now? SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>> Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with >>> some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > Not there. (That sort of "for" is known in US English but it is a > little bit rare.) For my wife and I to agree with your conclusions, we would have to see more examples of usage. I get 6,900 hits on 'for my wife and I'. Out of the first page of 20 hits, 8 are obviously correct usage. If that proportion remains throughout the remaining hits, it makes a mess of your figures. Here are the eight: << I settled for my wife and I tried to make myself believe I really was in love with her >> << So will it be possible for my father and I to participate in the lapping and share my car, and also for my wife and I to AutoX ALSO sharing my car ...? >> << After we bought the games the favorite thing for my wife and I to do was invite other couples over for dinner and play a game of Settlers >> << I asked the same man if they had an order for my wife and I told him my wife's name. ... >> << This might be a good time to explain what I am looking for. My wife and I prefer the more performance type of AB's ... >> << After service has been almost non existent and when rendered workmen left a mess for my wife and I to clean up >> << our new F350 is single wheel, it is much easer for my wife and I to get ... >> << I was considering the purchase of some dainties as a Christmas present for my wife. And I'll admit it: I'm always uncomfortable in that part of the store >> 'for my wife and me' = 3,360 Three of those were different pages retailing the same 'joke' - 'I told the hotel clerk that I wanted a room for my wife and me, and a special room for Sex' - apparently ''the work of 'humorist' Morty Storm'' (my quotes rounf humorist). I wonder how many pages of *that* there are online? Oh, wait, I'm in Google. [ "room for my wife and me" "special room for Sex" ] produces 337 hits. We're going to need a bigger boat ... -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply >For my wife and I to agree with your conclusions, we would have to see more >examples of usage. >I get 6,900 hits on 'for my wife and I'. Out of the first page of 20 hits, 8 >are obviously correct usage. If that proportion remains throughout the >remaining hits, it makes a mess of your figures. Here are the eight: ><< So will it be possible for my father and I to participate in the lapping >and share my car, and also for my wife and I to AutoX ALSO sharing my car >...? >> ><< After we bought the games the favorite thing for my wife and I to do was >invite other couples over for dinner and play a game of Settlers >> ><< After service has been almost non existent and when rendered workmen left >a mess >for my wife and I to clean up >> ><< our new F350 is single wheel, it is much easer for my wife and I to get >... >> In what sense are these "obviously correct usage"? Or am I missing something? They all fail the traditional remove-"my wife and" test, and sound horribly wrong to my ear. David >>>> Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with >>>> some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] ><< After we bought the games the favorite thing for my wife and I to do was >invite other couples over for dinner and play a game of Settlers >> That one seems wrong to me - compare it with ...the favorite thing for I to do was... ><< I asked the same man if they had an order for my wife and I told him my >wife's name. ... >> [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >a mess >for my wife and I to clean up >> Same as the other? ><< our new F350 is single wheel, it is much easer for my wife and I to get >... >> Same? -- john > >>> Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with > >>> some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > << I settled for my wife and I tried to make myself believe I really was in > love with her >> I agree, that is correct. Two separate clauses. > << So will it be possible for my father and I to participate in the lapping > and share my car, and also for my wife and I to AutoX ALSO sharing my car > ...? >> I disagree. Even if "AutoX ALSO" some strange contaminant, it should run "possible for my father and me to participate... and also for my wife and me..." But we can discard this one as corrupted. > << After we bought the games the favorite thing for my wife and I to do was > invite other couples over for dinner and play a game of Settlers >> But-- without "wife," it would be "The favorite thing for me to do". > << I asked the same man if they had an order for my wife and I told him my > wife's name. ... >> Agreed. > << This might be a good time to explain what I am looking for. My wife and I > prefer the more performance type of AB's ... >> Agreed. > << After service has been almost non existent and when rendered workmen left > a mess > for my wife and I to clean up >> Disagree. "Left a mess for me to clean up," so it's "for my wife and me to clean up." > << our new F350 is single wheel, it is much easer for my wife and I to get > ... >> "It is easier for me to get..." > << I was considering the purchase of some dainties as a Christmas present > for my wife. And I'll admit it: I'm always uncomfortable in that part of the > store >> Agreed. So I get 4 out of 20, not 8 out of 20. I'm surprised at how many of these you and I disagree on, John. Is there any other way to explain the above? Have you already crossed to the Dark Side? SignaturePuzzled -- Donna Richoux [..] > So I get 4 out of 20, not 8 out of 20. I'm surprised at how many of > these you and I disagree on, John. Is there any other way to explain the > above? Have you already crossed to the Dark Side? Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side must start at Margaret Road... SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > [..] > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side > must start at Margaret Road... Heaven's to Murgatroyd, hell's beyond. SignatureRegards John >> [..] >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > >Heaven's to Murgatroyd, hell's beyond. Hah! But where did that strange word come from, anyhow? -- john > >Heaven's to Murgatroyd, hell's beyond. > > Hah! But where did that strange word come from, anyhow? Murgatroyd? It's an English surname. This article covers a lot of ground, from Snagglepuss to Gilbert and Sullivan: http://8thman.com/srm.htm SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >> >Heaven's to Murgatroyd, hell's beyond. >> [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >ground, from Snagglepuss to Gilbert and Sullivan: > http://8thman.com/srm.htm That explains it. Thanks. -- john >>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side >>> must start at Margaret Road... >> >> Heaven's to Murgatroyd, hell's beyond. > > Hah! But where did that strange word come from, anyhow? Do you mean Murgatroyd? It's a surname based on old Yorkshire dialect for Margaret Road (which was probably the road to St Margaret's). There are a few similar names, such as Oldroyd (= old road). -- Regards John >>>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side >>>> must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > for Margaret Road (which was probably the road to St Margaret's). > There are a few similar names, such as Oldroyd (= old road). Heavens to Betsy! Not 'royd' (which Brewer says is Yorkshire for 'clearing')? -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply >>>>>Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side >>>>>must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Heavens to Betsy! Not 'royd' (which Brewer says is Yorkshire for > 'clearing')? Looks very like the German 'Rode', which mainly occurs only in place names. SignatureRob Bannister >>>>>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark >>>>>> Side must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Looks very like the German 'Rode', which mainly occurs only in place > names. Hmm. Any possible connection with Friedrichroda, the town my dad worked in for the German governmental survey and mapping organization? (Shh, don't mention the war.) SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >>>Heavens to Betsy! Not 'royd' (which Brewer says is Yorkshire for >>>'clearing')? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > for the German governmental survey and mapping organization? (Shh, don't > mention the war.) I imagine it is just a variant. The verb 'roden' means to pull out roots or convert woodland into arable land. It is related to 'reuten' and ultimately has a similar root to 'Raub'. Most of the '-rode, -roda, -rodung' places are in North Eastern Germany, where, I imagine, the forest was not cleared until much later than in the West. SignatureRob Bannister >>>>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side >>>>> must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Heavens to Betsy! Not 'royd' (which Brewer says is Yorkshire for > 'clearing')? I've seen it glossed as either 'road' or 'roadway' in a few books on surname origins, but I don't have a reference handy. Maybe the meanings of 'clearing' and 'roadway' had some overlap in former times. The root etymology of 'road' seems to be based on the idea of 'place where one can ride'. What does the OED say? -- Regards John >>>>>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark >>>>>> Side must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > former times. The root etymology of 'road' seems to be based on the > idea of 'place where one can ride'. What does the OED say? It doesn't. It is Brewer that claims 'royd' is dialect for clearing. -- John Dean Oxford De-frag to reply [about the name Murgatroyd] > I've seen it glossed as either 'road' or 'roadway' in a few books on > surname origins, but I don't have a reference handy. > > Maybe the meanings of 'clearing' and 'roadway' had some overlap in > former times. The root etymology of 'road' seems to be based on the > idea of 'place where one can ride'. What does the OED say? To add to that, it looks as though I was even further from the mark: googling turns up a genealogy page that gives the origin as moor-gate-royd (clearing by a moor gate). http://users.actrix.co.nz/roddem/genlgy.htm -- Regards John >>>> Note to Mr Dean: I agree with Donna in every case so the Dark Side >>>> must start at Margaret Road... [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >for Margaret Road (which was probably the road to St Margaret's). There >are a few similar names, such as Oldroyd (= old road). Now I'm confused. Were you making a new play on Laura's comment, or just expanding it? Where did the phrase ' heavens to murgatroyd', which I've heard before, come from or mean? -- john [...] >Where did the phrase ' heavens to murgatroyd', which I've >heard before, come from or mean? Betsy got tired. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ >>>>> Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with >>>>> some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, [quoted text clipped - 73 lines] > these you and I disagree on, John. Is there any other way to explain > the above? Have you already crossed to the Dark Side? Zer brain - she farts and holy blue! she fart again. I've been picking up other people recently in various places with such nonchalant ease that I was due to embarrass myself in some spectacular fashion somewhere. Where better than amongst the kind, forgiving denizens of aue? -- John 'Awfully sorry to have incommoded anyone. Still, 4 out of 20 is 20 per cent. Isn't it?' Dean Oxford De-frag to reply > >I'd appreciate it if one or two other people would double-check at least > >some of these results (set search to English only), since we have found [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > Some of them may not have been incorrect, for my wife and I often go > out together. I just tested this and read the first 30 hits carefully. Indeed, five of them are correct English: | This has been a particularly busy and stressful summer for my wife, | and I know with another harsh Minnesota winter around the corner I | really needed to ... | I settled for my wife and I tried to make | myself believe I really was in love with her. | I asked the same man if they had an order for my wife and I told him | my wife's name. | This might be a good time to explain what I am looking for. | My wife and I prefer the more performance type of AB's. | Fairly soon after our marriage (a year or so), any sexual attraction | I had for my wife and I think my wife had for me started to disappear. So, extrapolating this small sample, the ratio seems to be a little better than Donna feared. Best regards Steffen > > >I'd appreciate it if one or two other people would double-check at least > > >some of these results (set search to English only), since we have found [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > | and I know with another harsh Minnesota winter around the corner I > | really needed to ... > | I settled for my wife and I tried to make > | myself believe I really was in love with her. > | I asked the same man if they had an order for my wife and I told him > | my wife's name. > | This might be a good time to explain what I am looking for. > | My wife and I prefer the more performance type of AB's. > | Fairly soon after our marriage (a year or so), any sexual attraction > | I had for my wife and I think my wife had for me started to disappear. > > So, extrapolating this small sample, the ratio seems to be a little better > than Donna feared. Thanks for checking, Steffen. I just compared your items to what Google gives me here -- I've got them in a different order than you put them here, but we do have all the same ones. I believe I counted all these in my check of the first hundred -- I think I got 11 out of 100, or, as I said in my first post, about 10%. But suppose you and I both underestimated and, say, *20%* of the "and I" pages were actually OK. That would reduce the 6890 hits to 5512 hits, which would still outnumber the "and me" constructions (whether or not those "and me" include some false results, as well). I still think this measures something that is truly happening. I hate to say this, because there are so many Clinton-bashers anyway, but I heard Hillary Clinton say some years ago, "It's an honor for my husband and I to be here." I think some of this may depend on sentence constructions -- it may "sound better" to the speaker when a verb follows, as opposed to its being exposed at the end of a sentence. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > I still think this measures something that is truly happening. I hate to > say this, because there are so many Clinton-bashers anyway, but I heard > Hillary Clinton say some years ago, "It's an honor for my husband and I > to be here." She also says "innerduce" for "introduce" (I say [IntSr@dus], thank you), and has fairly advanced Northern Cities Vowel Shift. So, you know. (Hillary C. also has a weird tendency to do a southern-ish monophthongized /aI/, which I figure she picked up in Little Rock.) << [Donna Richoux] Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare to find a "mistake" outnumbering the "standard" usage on the Web -- contrary to what some grinches assume. Yet this formula seems to do it. I'd appreciate it if one or two other people would double-check at least some of these results (set search to English only), since we have found that unfortunate problem of Google's erratic estimates. "for my wife and I" 6890 "for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 "for my husband and I" 5670 "for my husband and me" 2340 1:2 A check of the first hits shows that about 10% of these can be accounted for by other punctuation, such as: ...a problem for my husband (and I agree) I have lost my love for my wife, and I want to get... That still leaves plenty of hits remaining, though. Is it tied to the particular, frequently-used phrase with "husband" and "wife"? Apparently not. There is, for example: "for my boss and I" 84 "for my boss and me" 8 l:10 "for my sister and I" 1580 "for my sister and me" 1170 2:3 "for my brother and I" 1480 "for my brother and me" 1140 2:3 "for my friend and I" 1050 "for my friend and me" 192 1:5 No wonder this construction is starting to sound more normal to me -- it truly is being used a lot. [end quote] >> "for my wife and I" 10300 "for my wife and me" 5020 1:2 "for my husband and I" 8450 "for my husband and me" 3380 1:2 "for my boss and I" 123 "for my boss and me" 11 1:11 "for my sister and I" 2360 "for my sister and me" 1740 4:5 "for my brother and I" 2200 "for my brother and me" 1690 4:5 "for my friend and I" 1590 "for my friend and me" 288 1:5 But -- I checked the first section of the "for my boss and I" results and 70% to 80% of them were "other constructions". -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [snip] > But -- I checked the first section of the "for my boss and I" > results and 70% to 80% of them were "other constructions". Oh, good. I'm glad you could account for those numbers -- they were awfully high. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > "for my wife and I" 6890 > "for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 [...] This has been an interesting item to follow up on (upon?). I used "of my x and I/me" just for grins, and I found similar results. Some percentage in each case were accidental juxtapositions of the words, of the sort that Donna pointed out ("This is a photo of my wife, and I believe that ... " ). I did not examine every page, but subjectively it seems to me that the conjoint form (where the intent is to include the self and other person) occupies a higher percentage in family cases (wife,husband) than in non-family cases (boss, friend). of my wife and I - 3980 [1] me - 1100 of my husband and I - 1890 me - 583 of my boss and I - 77 (most are not a conjoint form, but are similar to: "I am tired of my boss and I won't take his crap any more.") me - 6 of my sister and I - 1660 me - 785 of my brother and I - 2060 me - 797 of my friend and I - 2970 [2] me - 161 of my neighbor and I - 45 me - 16 [1] Including this interesting construction, found on http://www.childcustodyattorney.com/florida/_disc28/00000140.htm "Late July 99, She began calling us, and asked for photo's of my wife and I's newborn son." [2] One puzzling hit was "...one of my friend's and i wanted...". Even disregarding the gree'n apostrophe (Google seems to ignore punctuation in its searches), the 's' seems to have been ignored as well. -- rzed While it was 27/11/03 10:16 am throughout the UK, Donna Richoux sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus: > Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare > to find a "mistake" outnumbering the "standard" usage on the Web <snip> Define "standard". Just thinking about it, maybe it is standard broken English. After all, someone or other did suggest that broken English is the nearest we have to a universal language on the WWW. And as for evidence that mistakes (if that's the right way to put it) in a slightly different field are outnumbering correct usage, see http://domains.dan.info/hall/shame.html Stewart. SignatureMy e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment. Please keep replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit. > While it was 27/11/03 10:16 am throughout the UK, Donna Richoux > sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus: [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Define "standard". You saw I had to use scare quotes, because it's not defined. It's easiest to show with spelling. If a spelling is listed in a dictionary (a "standard" big accepted dictionary, natch, any nationality) then it is considered standard, or an accepted variant. Some notes from snapshots I took at different times: accordion outnumbers accordian 4:1 atheist outnumbers athiest 14:1 friendly outnumbers freindly 198:1 mouse outnumbers muose 20,000:1 Uses that represent pondian differences and recent changes are around the range of 2:1 and under, and it gets hard to say which is standard. Ratios around 1 and 2 tend to be associated with an area of dispute. minuscule outnumbers miniscule but only by 1.4:1. "Miniscule" is now in dictionaries "ad nauseam" is outnumbered by "ad nauseum" in a ratio of 0.9:1 The question I raised today is one of grammar, not spelling, and I have not done that a great deal in the past. Grammar can be harder to search for and analyze. I just went through my list and copied out the issues that you could say were grammatical issues, not merely spelling: "I'd be" 952,000 "I'ld be" 1,070 ratio 890:1 "I'd like" 2,170,000 "I'ld like" 3,240 ratio 670:1 "thou goest" 21,700 "thou goeth" 41 ratio 529:1 sought 3,390,000 seeked 12,400 Ratio 273:1 Santa's elves 8300 Santa's elfs 63 Ratio 132:1 spun 658,000 spinned 12,100 ratio 55:1 "had not shaved" 387 "had not shaven" 22 ratio of 18:1. "whereabouts +are" 8200 (Standard disputed) "whereabouts +is" 2890. Ratio 2.8 in favor of "are" "didn't use +to" 1,672 (considering this the standard) "didn't used +to" 3,849 ratio 0.4:1 A few of these represent long and rancorous discussions, and I'm not exactly eager to let these cats out of their bags. If people want to get into discussions of specific items, maybe they would be kind enough to start new threads? There are some where people could argue about what is "standard," and there are others where it is obvious. Until I'm convinced otherwise, I'm going to continue to say that "It was a problem for my wife and me to do that" is standard, and "It was a problem for my wife and I to do that" is not standard, because that is what I and a lot of others were taught. However, it looks as if I may have to shift that, depending on where this discussion goes. >Just thinking about it, maybe it is standard broken > English. After all, someone or other did suggest that broken English is > the nearest we have to a universal language on the WWW. That's a reasonable concern; once in a while we've turned up a questionable usage that seems known mostly to foreign students. But I don't see any evidence of broken English in the discussion so far. The hits are perfectly idiomatic, fluent sentences in all other regards. > And as for evidence that mistakes (if that's the right way to put it) I know, it's hard to talk about, isn't it? >in > a slightly different field are outnumbering correct usage, see > http://domains.dan.info/hall/shame.html I looked at that. Someone is all ticked off about the way people are creating domain names. I can't get too excited about that, myself. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > "for my boss and I" 84 > "for my boss and me" 8 l:10 "for x and I" probably is as common now as "for x and me" but you need to analyse the data a little bit, rather than just copy/pasting Google's results. For example, reading down the first page of hits for "for my boss and I", only 3 out of 10 were grammatically incorrect. Adrian << [Donna Richoux] "for my wife and I" 6890 "for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 "for my husband and I" 5670 "for my husband and me" 2340 1:2 A check of the first hits shows that about 10% of these can be accounted for by other punctuation, such as: ...a problem for my husband (and I agree) I have lost my love for my wife, and I want to get... That still leaves plenty of hits remaining, though. [end quote] >> Google may order by relevance, as I remember. So checking just the first page of hits may not be enough. I checked the 10'th group of 50 for "for my sister and I" and found 14 "other constructions" -- 28%. -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare > to find a "mistake" outnumbering the "standard" usage on the Web -- > contrary to what some grinches assume. Yet this formula seems to do it. > "for my wife and I" 6890 > "for my wife and me" 3360 1:2 Radical descriptivists will take this as proof that "between you and I" is now Standard Usage. More sensible people will realize that the Standard and the majority are not the same thing. The rules of Standard English go deeper than the majority usage. One little error gone wild is not enough to change the Standard. > > Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > > surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Radical descriptivists will take this as proof that "between you and I" is > now Standard Usage. "Between" has special problems. "For" is the word under discussion. "Of, with, to" give comparable results. >More sensible people will realize that the Standard and > the majority are not the same thing. The rules of Standard English go deeper > than the majority usage. One little error gone wild is not enough to change > the Standard. I don't know what you mean by all this, really, but I think it's that you, personally, intend to go to your deathbed saying "for X and me." That's perfectly okay by I -- oops, I mean by me. I expect I'll join you in sticking to it myself. You may also, with my blessing, teach it to all your descendants, employees, and anyone you can get to stand still within earshot. If you also mean you will also, until your dying day, look down upon anyone who says "for X and I," well, I invite you to keep a slightly open mind about that one. It may sound stupid and awful and low-class and mistaken to you today, but I think things are changing fast, and you may feel differently in ten or twenty years. If you're still around. No one knows what the future holds, of course. It may be that in three decades, there are only a few of us still around saying "for X and me," and we will be just as mocked and derided as being peculiar old fogeys who talk funny as we and our forebears mocked the others. So it goes. SignatureBest wishes -- Donna Richoux > >More sensible people will realize that the Standard and > > the majority are not the same thing. The rules of Standard English go deeper [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > all your descendants, employees, and anyone you can get to stand still > within earshot. > No one knows what the future holds, of course. It may be that in three > decades, there are only a few of us still around saying "for X and me," > and we will be just as mocked and derided as being peculiar old fogeys > who talk funny as we and our forebears mocked the others. So it goes. What I mean is that "for you and I" is not replacing "for you and me". It's only a flash in the pan. There is true evolution of language, and then there are errors that become popular. "For you and I" is not a true development of English; it's merely a hypercorrection gone crazy. People only say "for you and I" because they are confusing it with the rule of "He and I went to the store". > What I mean is that "for you and I" is not replacing "for you and > me". It's only a flash in the pan. There is true evolution of > language, and then there are errors that become popular. "For you and > I" is not a true development of English; it's merely a > hypercorrection gone crazy. People only say "for you and I" because > they are confusing it with the rule of "He and I went to the store". Let's hope so, but I won't hold my breath. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > What I mean is that "for you and I" is not replacing "for you and me". It's > only a flash in the pan. There is true evolution of language, and then there > are errors that become popular. "For you and I" is not a true development of > English; it's merely a hypercorrection gone crazy. People only say "for you > and I" because they are confusing it with the rule of "He and I went to the > store". Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard English grammar. > Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in > continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard > English grammar. That's a lie. There might be a few odd examples, but on the whole, far and wide, the dative has always been "me". >> Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in >> continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard >> English grammar. > >That's a lie. There might be a few odd examples, but on the whole, far and >wide, the dative has always been "me". You remind me of a student who accused my brother-in-law (who was his lecturer) of being a liar. When the fuss had died down, and wounds had been treated, it emerged that the student had noticed an error in my brother-in-law's [love that genitive] notes. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 > > Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in > > continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard > > English grammar. > > That's a lie. There might be a few odd examples, but on the whole, far and > wide, the dative has always been "me". As an exercise for the student, consider how it is possible for a non-standard construction to be in continuous use for centuries concurrently with the standard construction. For extra credit, consider why calling an interpretation other than your own a "lie" makes you look like a jackass. Richard R. Hershberger > > > Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in > > > continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard > > > English grammar. > > > > That's a lie. There might be a few odd examples, but on the whole, far and > > wide, the dative has always been "me". <SNIP> > For extra credit, consider why calling an interpretation other than your own a "lie" > makes you look like a jackass. And that's the truth. > "andrew" <andrew@wicked.as> wrote > > > Insert the standard observation that this construction has been in > > > continuous use for centuries, predating the teaching of standard [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > consider why calling an interpretation other than your own a "lie" > makes you look like a jackass. Gentlemen, gentlemen. Could it be possible that we have lost track of what the "construction" under discussion actually is? You may be at cross purposes. I can find plenty of examples of "me" being used as a subject, such as: Miggs and me both say so (Dickens) You and me should get on well, Hawkins, (Stevenson) me and Tom was on the lookout all the time; (Twain) Anne and me are to go the latter end of January (Austen) I cannot find any examples of "I" being used as the object, in the historical literature. If Richard meant to say that that is the the use that has been "in continuous use for centuries," then I'm sure he can point us to some examples. SignatureHopefully -- Donna Richoux >>"andrew" <andrew@wicked.as> wrote > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > that has been "in continuous use for centuries," then I'm sure he can > point us to some examples. "DON'T TELL I, TELL 'EE" Adge Cutler and the Wurzels 1974. I know: not literature, and not very historical, but you can't have everything. >>> "andrew" <andrew@wicked.as> wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > I know: not literature, and not very historical, but you can't have > everything. Oy, oyoy! The Wurzels are about the worst sort of STS you can get! SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) > I can find plenty of examples of "me" being used as a subject, such as: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > that has been "in continuous use for centuries," then I'm sure he can > point us to some examples. MWDEU has multiple examples in the article "between you and I". The most famous is from "The Merchant of Venice", where Antonio tells Bassanio "all debts are cleared between you and I." There are examples up to the present day. Richard R. Hershberger > trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > Bassanio "all debts are cleared between you and I." There are > examples up to the present day. Okay, but I do tend to feel that "between" is a special case, for some reasons I said elsewhere. Do you know of any examples with more straightforward prepositions, like "for, to, of, with"? Or direct objects, with no prepositions? I'm quite willing to believe they exist; I'll enjoy seeing them. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux > > trio@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) wrote > > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > I'm quite willing to believe they exist; I'll enjoy seeing them. MWDEU's article "pronouns" has several examples, e.g. from a letter by Lady Strafford of 1734, "...invited my love and I". Richard R. Hershberger > What I mean is that "for you and I" is not replacing "for you and me". It's > only a flash in the pan. There is true evolution of language, and then there > are errors that become popular. "For you and I" is not a true development of > English; it's merely a hypercorrection gone crazy. People only say "for you > and I" because they are confusing it with the rule of "He and I went to the > store". Then my question is, how can you be so sure that a "hypercorrection gone crazy" cannot become a lasting change? What force of social change is going to make it go away? Maybe it's a change whose origin we can understand better than many myterious changes. But that doesn't say much about how fast it spreads and how firmly it takes root. Wondering how firmly it *has* taken root, I checked Google News. I didn't find anything resembling "for my wife and I" in edited text, so that's a relief. It did show up in quotations, though. "This (Huntington) mission has been a godsend to my wife and I," said Charles Zimmerman... Washington Post - 25 Nov 2003 [transcript of call-in radio show] ... Advent and Christmas is a very special time of year for my wife and I, but in a way ... Anchorage Daily News, AK - 26 Nov 2003 ... stint as head coach. "The exciting part about it for my wife and I is Anchorage was my first job out of college. ... Wyoming News, WY - 23 Nov 2003 ... ''It's created such havoc for my wife and I,'' he said. ... So it is looking firmly rooted in speech and informal writing, but not edited writing. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux [...] >. . . I think it's that you, personally, intend to go to your >deathbed saying "for X and me." The crux here is that English is not--no language is--a mere procession of vagaries. We do not pick and choose pronomial case forms, or any other regular feature of the tongue, by divination anew at every need: we apply rule, and rule in language is grammar. On occasion, an antigrammatical form will so capture the fancy of a large segment of the speakers of a tongue, and endure in their fancy for such a period, that it will manage to carve out a niche as an idiom (as with the tag question "aren't I?"). Of "my wife and I" in a placement that by rule mandates the accusative (or, ahem, dative), it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, till most or all English speakers no longer use any "objective" pronomial forms anywhere. Whether it is, or is on the way to becoming, an accepted idiom is a fit subject for debate, but my impression would be that it is wildly far from any such thing, and is just this year's linguistic hula hoop or pet rock. (I say "this year's", but widespread errors can exist for a _long_ time without anyone's taking them as "standard English", as "them Xs" demonstrates.) Aside: besides dropping "my wife" as a suitability test, one can also ask with which form one would replace "my wife and I": _we_ or _us_. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ > The crux here is that English is not--no language is--a mere > procession of vagaries. We do not pick and choose pronomial > case forms, or any other regular feature of the tongue, by > divination anew at every need: we apply rule, and rule in > language is grammar. <snip> > Of "my wife and I" in a placement that by rule mandates the > accusative (or, ahem, dative), Brief comment: English doesn't have a dative; indirect objects and direct objects alike are in the accusative. Evidence: in English we can say things like "I was given a book." In languages that have dative case, datives cannot be extracted and placed in the nominative to be subjects of passive sentences; they must remain in the dative. > it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, till most or > all English speakers no longer use any "objective" pronomial forms > anywhere. Why no middle ground? That is to say, why cannot it be possible for the distinction between nominative and accusative pronominal forms remain robust, but the grammatical rules that dictate when each is to be used change? For instance, a rule might arise that states that case cannot be assigned to noun phrases contained by coordination within other noun phrases (e.g., the noun phrase "my brother" is contained within the noun phrase "my brother and I"). This has, in my opinion, clearly not yet happened in standard English, but there's no a priori reason for such a rule to be impossible, as far as I know. > (I say "this year's", but widespread errors can exist for a _long_ time > without anyone's taking them as "standard English", as "them Xs" > demonstrates.) "Them Xs" is only an error when uttered by someone who is _trying_ to speak standard English. (Well, also when uttered by someone who is trying to speak Spanish and so forth, but you know what I mean.) There's nothing inherent about its status as an error. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom [...] >Brief comment: English doesn't have a dative . . . . You know not the ground whereon you tread. Do a usenet Google (the bulk is likely on a.e.u.). Long and often fiery threads. [...] >> it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, >> till most or all English speakers no longer use any [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >pronominal forms remain robust, but the grammatical rules that >dictate when each is to be used change? I scarcely see how. Their forms reflect their case, which reflects their use at a particular place in a particular sentence. The only "change" would be for the forms to exchange roles: "Me gave it to he." >For instance, a rule might arise that states that case cannot >be assigned to noun phrases contained by coordination within >other noun phrases (e.g., the noun phrase "my brother" is >contained within the noun phrase "my brother and I"). Case is not "assigned": it is synonomous with actual use. >This has, in my opinion, clearly not yet happened in standard >English, but there's no a priori reason for such a rule to be >impossible, as far as I know. If there is an _a priori_ reason, it is that any such thing would be a massive--nearly total--rewriting of how English actually works (and would need a correspondingly massive change in how English is actually said and written). [...] >"Them Xs" is only an error when uttered by someone who is >_trying_ to speak standard English. . . . There's nothing >inherent about its status as an error. Yes, there is. It does not follow any rule, in any set variant of English. (Of course, that statement is tautologous, because a "standard variant" is one that, by my definition, _has_ a regular grammar of its own that parallels in completeness that of "standard English".) Deviations from what the grammar of standard English mandates are errors unless they occur in the speech (or writing) of a dialect that has a *rule* that _mandates_ that usage. *_Idiom is not rule._* If there is a grammar in which "Hand me them pliers" is a form reached by the application of a _rule_, tell us what that rule is and in what grammar it occurs, and how it applies to all other usages in that grammar, and where we can discover that grammar recorded in an orderly manner. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ >>Brief comment: English doesn't have a dative . . . . > > You know not the ground whereon you tread. Do a usenet Google > (the bulk is likely on a.e.u.). Long and often fiery threads. I'm sure there have been, and I see no need to get into them now. At any rate, I see strong evidence for considering English grammar to have no more than three cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive), and some evidence for considering it to have no more than two (the genitive may or may not be a true case in English). >>> it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, >>> till most or all English speakers no longer use any [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > sentence. The only "change" would be for the forms to exchange > roles: "Me gave it to he." Not at all. The forms reflect the case, and the rules dictating which case is used when might change. Such a change has already happened in many standard dialects of English (though, for all I know, it is probably a change whose validity you reject): "be", which formerly mandated the nominative case for its complement, now mandates the accusative case. The forms have the same "roles" - "me" is still accusative and "he" is still nominative - but, on the small scale, the rules which dictate where the accusative is used and where the nominative is used have changed. An example of the kind of change you describe has also happened in many dialects of English (I'm not going to discuss whether this is standard or not): "who", which was formerly used only for nominative case, is now used for both nominative and accusative case, like "you". In this example, the rules which dictate which case is used where have not changed, but the forms associated with the cases have changed in the manner you describe (to the point of obscuring the distinction). >>For instance, a rule might arise that states that case cannot >>be assigned to noun phrases contained by coordination within >>other noun phrases (e.g., the noun phrase "my brother" is >>contained within the noun phrase "my brother and I"). > > Case is not "assigned": it is synonomous with actual use. By "assigned" I mean the following: The rules of grammar dictate, for instance, that the object of a verb be in the accusative case, while the subject of a sentence is in the nominative case. In that sense, the accusative case is "assigned" by the verb to the noun phrase that serves as its object, while the nominative case is "assigned" to the subject. In Latin, the preposition "ad" assigns accusative case to its object (i.e., requires its object to be in the accusative case) while the preposition "ab" assigns ablative case. In some dialects of English, the verb "be" assigns nominative case to its complement, while other verbs assign accusative case. That's all I mean by "assign". Note that case is _assigned_ to every noun phrase (under ordinary syntactic circumstances), since it depends only on the position of the noun phrase with respect to the entity that assigns case, but only _marked_, in English, on a noun phrase that consists of a single pronoun. The case assigned to a noun phrase that's not a pronoun is the same as the case that would be visible if the noun phrase were replaced with a pronoun. >>This has, in my opinion, clearly not yet happened in standard >>English, but there's no a priori reason for such a rule to be [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > actually works (and would need a correspondingly massive change > in how English is actually said and written). Not at all. It would require a very small change, in the grand scheme of things, as follows. In present-day standard English, the rule is that case is, to coin a term, transitive over coordination. That is to say, when case is assigned to a coordinate noun phrase ("X and Y"), the _same_ case is assigned to the two sub-noun-phrases ("X" and "Y") which compose the larger one. Note that there are three distinct noun phrases under consideration here; it is not a priori necessary that they all be assigned the same case. The change in process is the elimination of the rule that "X" and "Y" are automatically assigned the same case which is assigned to the (distinct) noun phrase "X and Y". What the rule is being replaced with I don't know; it may vary from dialect to dialect. >>"Them Xs" is only an error when uttered by someone who is >>_trying_ to speak standard English. . . . There's nothing >>inherent about its status as an error. > > Yes, there is. It does not follow any rule, in any set variant > of English. Of course it does. It follows a rule that is present in _all_ variants of English, about the distribution of determiners (which you would consider a subclass of adjectives, but which dispute is not germane to the issue at hand). The only difference is that in the dialects in which "them Xs" is used, "them" is a determiner. It is hardly unprecedented for one word to belong to different parts of speech in different dialects; in standard British English, "immediately" may be used as a subordinating conjunction as well as as an adverb, while in standard American English, only the adverbial use is possible. Similarly, in some non-standard dialects of English, "them" is used as a determiner as well as as a pronoun, while in standard dialects, only the pronoun use is possible. There's no difference in rule, only in vocabulary. > Deviations from what the grammar of standard English mandates are > errors unless they occur in the speech (or writing) of a dialect that > has a *rule* that _mandates_ that usage. There need not be a rule that _mandates_ a given usage, only a rule that _allows_ a given usage. This is one of the greatest problems with your own attitude toward grammar, if I may be so bold as to say so: you assume that anything not mandated must be banned, and if there is more than one construction possible, one of them must be wrong. This is clearly not so: for instance, in standard English, both "the thing I bought" and "the thing that I bought" are grammatical; no rule mandates either of them. But to the matter at hand: the non-standard use of "them" is not _mandated_ any more than the standard use of "those" is mandated. In standard English, we are free to say "those Xs", "these Xs", "the Xs", "my Xs", and so on. In the non-standard dialects in which "them Xs" is grammatical, it is merely another possibility in that same set of choices. > If there is a grammar in which "Hand me them pliers" is a form > reached by the application of a _rule_, tell us what that rule > is and in what grammar it occurs, and how it applies to all > other usages in that grammar, and where we can discover that > grammar recorded in an orderly manner. The rule is that certain determiners (e.g., "the", "my") must be followed by a noun (with or without some number of modifiers, &c.). The rule occurs in all grammars of English; in some variants of English "them" is such a determiner, and in other dialects, such as yours and mine, it is not. The grammar of English has been recorded in an orderly manner by Pullum and Huddleston in _The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language_, though I don't know if they deal with this particular non-standard usage; however, the usage "them Xs" does not differ in grammatical form from standard English, but only in which vocabulary items belong to which parts of speech. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >I'm sure there have been, and I see no need to get into them now. At any >rate, I see strong evidence for considering English grammar to have no more >than three cases (nominative, accusative, and genitive), and some >evidence for considering it to have no more than two (the genitive may or >may not be a true case in English). Interesting. Why might 'it is hers' be an example of the use of an 'untrue' genitive? SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>I'm sure there have been, and I see no need to get into them now. At any >>rate, I see strong evidence for considering English grammar to have no more [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Interesting. Why might 'it is hers' be an example of the use of an > 'untrue' genitive? I don't think that's what he means. I suspect he's looking at examples like "the Queen of Sheba's veil", where the genitive ending is not affixed to the (apparently) correct noun. Of course, most of us think that "Queen of Sheba" is one noun when used that way. SignatureRob Bannister >>>Brief comment: English doesn't have a dative . . . . >> [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >it to have no more than two (the genitive may or may not be a >true case in English). Dear me. Indeed we had best not go down that path. >>>> it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, >>>> till most or all English speakers no longer use any [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >Not at all. The forms reflect the case, and the rules >dictating which case is used when might change. No. You are, I think, falling into the common error (one notably common, and apparently controversial, hereabouts) of conflating inflection with case. A case, not the inflected form that in some instances marks that case, is not "used": it _is_. It is an inherent property of a given noun or pronoun in a given sentence: a noun (or pronoun) is the subject of a clause or the object of a preposition or whatever. We cannot change that fact unless we wildly revise the basic structure of English. We cannot affect "which case is used" for a noun, only what forms--what inflections--we will recognize as marking that case for that noun (or, of course, a lack of inflections). >Such a change has already happened in many standard dialects >of English (though, for all I know, it is probably a change [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >small scale, the rules which dictate where the accusative is >used and where the nominative is used have changed. If you are saying that in "Me gave it to he", "me" is not the subject of the sentence and "he" the object of the pronoun "to", and thus "me" in the nominative case and and "he" in the accusative, all further discussion is pointless. If you mean instead that the mechanical form "me" has now come to mark the nominative and the mechanical form "he" the accusative, while I could not disagree more, the claim is not logically impossible. Or, if you are claiming that "be" has ceased to necessarily be a copulative verb, so that a noun following does not need to be in the same case as the noun preceding--"It was she who did it", not "It was her who did it"--I again disagree about as ferociously as possible, but cannot rule out your claim on its face. If you instead claim that "her" is in (not "looks like" but "is _in_") the nominative case, then we again are estopped. The reason that _be_ "mandates", as you put it, the same case in the following noun as in the preceding noun is that it is copulative, as many other verbs are and as more are becoming, in some uses, almost daily. If you want to tinker with the concept of copulative verb, go ahead and try, but be aware that you are arguing against a large historical trend that is building, not ebbing. The reality is that the now-common preference for (to take the instance most distressing to its opponents) "It is me" instead of "It is I", and all the pronomial forms in like constructions, can arise from one thing only: hearing it often from others. That is, there is no logical or grammatical or other reason why "it is I" should sound awkward and "it is he" not. Claims that there is something more deeply and instinctively "natural" about "It is me" are, I submit, so much hogwash. It is simply an error that has been repeated so often that it now sounds "right" to many persons. When that class of persons includes most or all of the writers I read, who now manfully and womanfully use "It was she" and like forms, we can reconvene. (By the way: Would you also claim that "It was me who did it" is sound nowadays? Or should that be "It was me what done it, an' it's a fair cop"?) Meanwhile, those who laud that antilogical nonsense just dig it in deeper, and thus further corrode the language and the ever- more-tin ear of those who would as lief speak English aright. >An example of the kind of change you describe has also >happened in many dialects of English (I'm not going to discuss [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >manner you describe (to the point of obscuring the >distinction). There is no obscurity: "case" is what the noun/pronoun is doing; inflection is a mechanical form that marks a noun out as being in some case or other. I concur that case _markings_ are slowly devolving. Whether that is A Good Thing is quite another matter, but it is slowly happening, yes. In time to come, the form "whom" may quite disappear. That time, however, is [sic] not yet come. And, again: "the rules which dictate which case is used" is a content-free zone. What I suppose you to mean is "the rules that dictate which form is used for a given case". ("That" vs. "which" is yet another thread.) Note also that your flat assertion that who "is now used for both nominative and accusative case" is as silly as I reckon you know it is with no qualifiers like "sometimes" or "often". There are plenty enough people who still use "whom" whenever they feel it the correct form, and that lot includes most careful users of the tongue. Moreover, some decidedly nontrivial number of those who use "who" where "whom" is wanted also use "whom" where "who" is wanted: what do you suppose _that_ demonstrates? ("Whom are you?" said Cyril.) >>>For instance, a rule might arise that states that case >>>cannot be assigned to noun phrases contained by coordination [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >accusative case, while the subject of a sentence is in the >nominative case. No, they _define_ those things that way: the direct object of a verb is in the accusative case because that is what the accusative case _is_--the state of a noun that directly receives some action, whether from a verb or as channelled by a preposition. A Digression, or Maybe Not That goes straight to the heart of what grammar is: and one thing it is, is a pedagogical schema for helping us understand why we do what we do where we do it with our words. A form of such a schema that is more logical, and thus more readily comprehensible, even--perhaps especially--if it does not predict (or mandate or require, choose as you will) different actual forms and arrangements of our words, is preferable to a less logical, more _ad hoc_ form. Good-faith opinions can vary as to which of some number of schemas is the most logical and readily understood, but no one can rule out a given schema sheerly on the ground that it does not "predict" any results differing from those predicted by an alternative schema. To say that "there is no dative case in English", for instance, on the ground that a schema that explains English with reference to a dative case cannot be made to show any different forms in the field than one, oh, say as puerile as that found in _The Oxford English Grammar_ is to fail utterly to grasp what grammar is and is about. </digression> >In that sense, the accusative case is "assigned" by the verb >to the noun phrase that serves as its object, while the >nominative case is "assigned" to the subject. No, but let's go on. >In Latin, the preposition "ad" assigns accusative case to its >object (i.e., requires its object to be in the accusative >case) . . . I see that this conceptual error permeates the entire text. Simply take it as read here that at every such remark I have offered the correction, "No, not the case, but the inflectional form associated with the case that is set by the word's actual function". > . . . while the preposition "ab" assigns ablative case. In >some dialects of English, the verb "be" assigns nominative >case to its complement, while other verbs assign accusative >case. That's all I mean by "assign". And it's still quite wrong. "Be" does not "assign" any case. Somewhat like a preposition, "be"--as a copulative verb--well, I'll quote Curme: "the verb assuming in a mere formal way the _function_ of predication, the complement serving as the real predicate." If your grasp of grammar is firm enough that the paramount concepts of subject and predicate are clear, that says about all that needs to be said. And it is the *critics* of prescriptive grammar who piss and moan about false analogies from hallucinogenic degrees of exposure to Latin and Greek grammar . . . . [...] >>>This has, in my opinion, clearly not yet happened in >>>standard English, but there's no a priori reason for such a [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >noun phrases under consideration here; it is not a priori >necessary that they all be assigned the same case. I think that here, my general note notwithstanding, I need to yet again state that *case is not "assigned"*: it is an innate property corresponding to the function of the noun in the sentence. (I thought linguists knew all this sh.t--all the fellow-traveller descriptivists who want to eliminate all of English grammar run into a wall, painfully so for them, when they realize that linguists themselves perceive case as a "deep property" of nouns.) Any noun, or pronoun, that is *or is a part of* the subject of a sentence is perforce in the nominative case. The only thing that popular will can do is assign a variation from that basic truth to the ever-swelling pile of random illogicalities called "idiom". >The change in process is the elimination of the rule that "X" >and "Y" are automatically assigned the same case which is >assigned to the (distinct) noun phrase "X and Y". What the >rule is being replaced with I don't know; it may vary from >dialect to dialect. You don't know because it isn't being replaced by anything save a random procession of ignorant mistakes with no logic or pattern to them. >>>"Them Xs" is only an error when uttered by someone who is >>>_trying_ to speak standard English. . . . There's nothing [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >in standard dialects, only the pronoun use is possible. >There's no difference in rule, only in vocabulary. That might almost make sense, did I not harbor a lingering suspicion that those same supposedly rule-minding dialect speakers recognize "those" as a perfectly sound word with the exact meaning you claim "them" has. Do they ignore "those"? Do they not use "them" in its standard sense? Do they say or write "Give those them pliers", or what? How do they distinguish "they"? "They Bogginses be a bad lot." Mind, if someone can show that in a given well-known and documented dialect there is a rule assigning "them" to the class of demonstrative adjectives while yet making some sense of "those", I will retract the assertion, which in any even was not, as best I can now recall through this dizzying level of attributions and claims and counter-claims, anything vital. >> Deviations from what the grammar of standard English >> mandates are errors unless they occur in the speech (or [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >and "the thing that I bought" are grammatical; no rule >mandates either of them. That is a poor example with which to illustrate a sound point, though the point is not one I argue with, your supposition notwithstanding. The first statement and the second are identical save that ellipsis, one of the wonders and delights of English, allows us to omit a word that we can infallibly supply from structure and context. Better, perhaps, would be examples of shuffling conventional word order: The sun is now risen. ==> Risen now is the sun. Whence you derive the notion that I hold that allowed forms not actually mandated should be banned I cannot dream. You have commented often enough on my own variations from traditional form when I make them for subtle emphasis. Moreover, "ban" is a needlessly charged term. I hold that constructions whose form, for the idea or ideas they seek to express, does not accord with the rules of "standard English" for expressing ideas should be recognized as, and honestly called, "errors". Errors are not to be "banned", they are to be eliminated--by the operation of effort and discernment on the part of those well acquainted with the rules, and by the supplying of education--formal, in the institutions chartered for the purpose, or informal, as (sometimes) found in usenet discussion groups--for those not well acquainted with the rules. They are *not* to be eliminated by expanding the rules to include every possible form so that "error" is literally impossible by definition. >But to the matter at hand: the non-standard use of "them" is >not _mandated_ any more than the standard use of "those" is [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] >only in which vocabulary items belong to which parts of >speech. That, however, is an aspect of grammar. Citing this or that book is of no use unless we are assured that in that book some regular dialect is documented, which dialect [hah again] has some regular proposition that declares "them" a demonstrative adjective at all places where "those" might be used. SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ [...] > You are, I think, falling into the common error (one > notably common, and apparently controversial, hereabouts) of [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > only what forms--what inflections--we will recognize as marking > that case for that noun (or, of course, a lack of inflections). I knew it. Your "classical English grammar" is based on Latin or Ancient Greek and not upon English at all. I admit, that as a former German teacher, I have fallen into the trap of using terms like Dative to describe English, but it just does not exist. There is no need for such a term. "Indirect Object" will serve perfectly well. > Or, if you are claiming that "be" has ceased to necessarily be > a copulative verb, so that a noun following does not need to be [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > face. If you instead claim that "her" is in (not "looks like" > but "is _in_") the nominative case, then we again are estopped. This is because you persist with the 'case' concept for describing modern English. This made sense with Anglo-Saxon, but does not apply to modern English. > The reality is that the now-common preference for (to take the > instance most distressing to its opponents) "It is me" instead [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > other reason why "it is I" should sound awkward and "it is he" > not. ? "It is he" sounds just as awkward to me as "It is I". > (By the way: Would you also claim that "It was me who did it" > is sound nowadays? Or should that be "It was me what done it, > an' it's a fair cop"?) Personally, I prefer "It was me that did it"; ie I do agree that I feel uncomfortable with "me who". > Note also that your flat assertion that who "is now used for > both nominative and accusative case" is as silly as I reckon > you know it is with no qualifiers like "sometimes" or "often". > There are plenty enough people "Plenty.. people"? What brand of English is this? who still use "whom" whenever > they feel it the correct form, and that lot includes most > careful users of the tongue. Moreover, some decidedly > nontrivial number of those who use "who" where "whom" is wanted > also use "whom" where "who" is wanted: what do you suppose > _that_ demonstrates? ("Whom are you?" said Cyril.) Most educated people today only use 'whom' directly after a preposition, and I do agree that this use of 'whom' may well persist a long time after any other usage. The other, incorrect usage of 'whom' can be found in the works of a number of well-known, earlier writers - it mainly seems to occur, not in the way you showed it at the beginning of a sentence, but after a long preamble. Unfortunately, I cannot find an example at the moment, but it seems, that when there are too many intervening words, even good writers lose track of their cases. A typical example is when there is a parenthetical "I think": "This is the man whom, I think, came yesterday." >>. . . while the preposition "ab" assigns ablative case. In >>some dialects of English, the verb "be" assigns nominative [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > paramount concepts of subject and predicate are clear, that > says about all that needs to be said. If the paramount of concept of your grammar is subject and predicate, I despair of your understanding of language. "Predicate" means nothing more than "the rest of the sentence" and has no practical use whatsoever. > And it is the *critics* of prescriptive grammar who piss and > moan about false analogies from hallucinogenic degrees of > exposure to Latin and Greek grammar . . . . I'm afraid your own insistence on a Latin/Greek case system proves there is no hallucination involved. SignatureRob Bannister >>On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 18:19:47 -0800 (PST), Eric Walker ><ewalker@owlcroft.com> wrote: [Eric wrote:] >>>>> it is either a gross solecism or it is an accepted idiom, >>>>> till most or all English speakers no longer use any [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > notably common, and apparently controversial, hereabouts) of > conflating inflection with case. Not at all. I said that the forms reflect the case, not that the forms constitute the case. Any noun-phrase position in a sentence (just about) has a case associated with it; a noun phrase whose form can be inflected to be marked for case will inflect to correspond to the case of the position it inhabits. Yes? When I say that a position in a sentence (e.g., subject of clause, object of preposition) is a certain case, I mean that that case is the one associated with that position; when I say that a noun phrase is in a certain case, I mean that it is in a position associated with that case. > A case, not the inflected form that in some instances marks that case, > is not "used": it _is_. I think this may be a distinction without a difference. > It is an inherent property of a given noun or pronoun in a given > sentence: a noun (or pronoun) is the subject of a clause or the object > of a preposition or whatever. I agree, modulo trivial and irrelevant details. > We cannot change that fact unless we wildly revise the basic structure > of English. Indeed, of all human language. (Or so it has been argued.) > We cannot affect "which case is used" for a noun, only what > forms--what inflections--we will recognize as marking that case for > that noun (or, of course, a lack of inflections). Not quite. "We" - that is to say, the speakers of the language, acting unconsciously over generations - can also affect which case is associated with a particular position in the sentence. I don't mean to say that we can change basic positions, for instance, that the nominative case is associated with the position "subject of finite clause", or that the accusative case is associated with the position "direct object of {insert some normal transitive verb here}". But for some sentence positions, it is comparatively easy to change the case associated with it - for instance, the position "object of {some preposition}". For example: in the German ancestor of Yiddish (and in modern German), the object of the preposition "fuer" ('for') was accusative case. In Yiddish, the case associated with that position is dative. >>Such a change has already happened in many standard dialects >>of English (though, for all I know, it is probably a change [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > "to", and thus "me" in the nominative case and and "he" in the > accusative, all further discussion is pointless. "Me gave it to he" is not an English sentence at all, and so I don't quite see the point of discussing it in any case. > If you mean instead that the mechanical form "me" has now come to mark the > nominative and the mechanical form "he" the accusative, while I > could not disagree more, the claim is not logically impossible. If "Me gave it to he" were a grammatical sentence of English, I would have no choice but to reach that conclusion. Why would you disagree with it? If "Me gave it to he" were a grammatical sentence of English, that is. > Or, if you are claiming that "be" has ceased to necessarily be > a copulative verb, so that a noun following does not need to be > in the same case as the noun preceding--"It was she who did > it", not "It was her who did it"--I again disagree about as > ferociously as possible, but cannot rule out your claim on its > face. I don't think "be" has ceased to be a copulative verb. It can still take adjectives as complements, for one thing, which, as you are wont to note, is one of the hallmarks of copulative verbs. Also, it doesn't have a passive. What I do think is that one of the rules has shifted slightly - that the case associated with the _position_ "complement of copulative verb" has shifted, in [certain standard variants of] English, from nominative to accusative. That's no larger a change than shifting the case of the object of some individual preposition. > If you instead claim that "her" is in (not "looks like" but "is _in_") > the nominative case, then we again are estopped. No - it both looks like and is in the accusative case. > The reason that _be_ "mandates", as you put it, the same case > in the following noun as in the preceding noun is that it is > copulative, as many other verbs are and as more are becoming, > in some uses, almost daily. That was the reason that "be" mandated the same case in the following noun as in the preceding noun, and in it still is in the dialects in which it still does. However, it is not a law of nature that copulative verbs' complements should be the same case as their subjects; only a rule of grammar, and rules of grammar are subject to change. > The reality is that the now-common preference for (to take the > instance most distressing to its opponents) "It is me" instead > of "It is I", and all the pronomial forms in like > constructions, can arise from one thing only: hearing it often > from others. This is no different from any other rule of grammar. > That is, there is no logical or grammatical or other reason why "it is > I" should sound awkward and "it is he" not. Um. Did you mean "it is me" where you wrote "it is he"? If so, then my response is: And vice versa. > Claims that there is something more deeply and instinctively "natural" > about "It is me" are, I submit, so much hogwash. Of course, except insofar as the grammar of one's native language is more "natural" to one than the gramamr of another. It's completely arbitrary, and a matter of historical accident, that "It is me" is the form now grammatical in most dialects of English. > It is simply an error that has been repeated so often that it now > sounds "right" to many persons. So is the fact that "me" is pronounced with a long "eeee" vowel instead of a long "ehhh" vowel. At some point it is no more an error, but merely the way the grammar of the language works. > By the way: Would you also claim that "It was me who did it" > is sound nowadays? I don't know what you mean by "sound", but it's certainly standard. >>An example of the kind of change you describe has also >>happened in many dialects of English (I'm not going to discuss [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > doing; inflection is a mechanical form that marks a noun out as > being in some case or other. Sure. > And, again: "the rules which dictate which case is used" is a > content-free zone. What I suppose you to mean is "the rules that > dictate which form is used for a given case". No, not a bit of it. I say above "the rules which dictate which case is used where have not changed"; but my whole point is that the rules that dictate which form is used for a given case _has_ changed. If you like, rewrite what I said as "the rules which dictate which case is associated with a particular position in the sentence have not changed". That is, in "Who did you see?", the rule that says "the object of 'see' is accusative case" has _not_ changed, but the rule that says "the accusative form of 'who' is 'whom'" _has_ changed. > Note also that your flat assertion that who "is now used for > both nominative and accusative case" is as silly as I reckon > you know it is with no qualifiers like "sometimes" or "often". Fair enough. I suppose I meant that the usage exists, not that it is universal. > There are plenty enough people who still use "whom" whenever > they feel it the correct form, and that lot includes most > careful users of the tongue. Moreover, some decidedly > nontrivial number of those who use "who" where "whom" is wanted > also use "whom" where "who" is wanted: what do you suppose > _that_ demonstrates? At a first gue s, I'd say free (grammatical) variation - that is, that such speakers have both "who" and "whom" as synonyms in their vocabularies, and neither is marked for case; and so they use both interchangeably. But that's just a guess; I haven't studied the matter. >>>>For instance, a rule might arise that states that case >>>>cannot be assigned to noun phrases contained by coordination [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > receives some action, whether from a verb or as channelled by a > preposition. Nouns do not receive actions. Things do. Nouns act as direct objects. And being a direct object is _different_ from receiving an action; indeed being a direct object is different even from _referring_ to something that receives an action. It is a very great danger in talking about grammar to suppose that the relations between words in a sentence bear a necessarily one-to-one correspondence with the relations between the things in the world that the words refer to. Furthermore: as you have said, the accusative case is no a "state of a noun", although a noun might be placed into some state to mark the presence of the accusative case; it's a feature of a particular position in a sentence. (At least, in the terminology we have been using.) >>In Latin, the preposition "ad" assigns accusative case to its >>object (i.e., requires its object to be in the accusative [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > form associated with the case that is set by the word's actual > function". I'm not sure what you mean by "the word's actual function". If an example of what you mean by "function" is "the object of the preposition 'ad'", then we are in mostly in agreement on this point, and it's only terminology (my use of the word "assign") that's bogging us down. I'll forgo it for the purposes of this discussion. The only emendation I would make to what you have said is that it's not even the "ad" that "assigns" the inflectional form of accusative to the noun phrase; it's the fact that the noun phrase is in a position which is itself accusative; and it is the presence of the preposition "ad" which makes that position accusative. >> . . . while the preposition "ab" assigns ablative case. In >>some dialects of English, the verb "be" assigns nominative [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > paramount concepts of subject and predicate are clear, that > says about all that needs to be said. I don't see how your quotation from Curme, correct though it is, has any bearing on the discussion at hand. "Be" may have a noun phrase as its complement. If it does, that noun phrase position must have some case associated with it. Exactly like a preposition. <snip> > Any noun, or pronoun, that is *or is a part of* the subject of > a sentence is perforce in the nominative case. So you mean the pronoun "me", which *is a part of* the subject of the sentence "The girl who likes me smiled at Timmy today" is in the nominative case? Of course you don't. I assume that what you mean is that any noun phrase that is *or is an element of a coordinate expression that composes* the subject of a sentence is perforce in the nominative case. However: though this is true for standard English, it is not a law of nature. It is not a logical necessity that the same case should be associated with the sentence position "element of a coordinate expression that composes the subject of a finite clause" as with the sentence position "subject of a finite clause". And in some grammars, it isn't. In other words: you have taken as an axiom that noun phrases in coordination have the same case as the supra-noun-phrase that they compose. This is not a necessary truth. >>>>"Them Xs" is only an error when uttered by someone who is >>>>_trying_ to speak standard English. . . . There's nothing [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > exact meaning you claim "them" has. Do they ignore "those"? > Do they not use "them" in its standard sense? I'm sure they use "them" in its standard sense also, but there are precedents, as I'm sure you know, for a single word having more than one sense. I don't know if they ignore "those"; I recall someone elsewhere in this thread presenting anecdotal evidence that they might, though I may be hallucinating that. But even if they don't, what of it? "Them" and "those" might have different senses (like Latin "eos" and "illos"), or they might have the same sense and speakers are free to choose between them. Just going on my gut feeling of the way languages work, I'd guess the former. >>> Deviations from what the grammar of standard English >>> mandates are errors unless they occur in the speech (or [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > of English, allows us to omit a word that we can infallibly > supply from structure and context. But within _rigidly defined grammatical circumstances_. We can infallibly supply the missing "of" in "She is very fond me" or the "the" in "I walked into room," but neither is a grammatical sentence. English has a _rule_ allowing "the thing that I bought" and a _rule_ allowing "the thing I bought". If there is no rule allowing a form, then no matter how intelligible it may be, it is unavailable in grammatical English. In other languages, as I'm sure you know, the rules are different. In Yiddish, for instance, the 'that' in 'The thing that I bought' may not be omitted, but the 'the' in 'I walked into the room' may. > Whence you derive the notion that I hold that allowed forms not > actually mandated should be banned I cannot dream. Because you say that nonstandard forms are "errors" unless they occur in a (nonstandard) grammar that _mandates_ them. This implies that you regard forms as errors even if they occur in a (nonstandard) grammar that _allows_ them, if the grammar does not _mandate_ them. > [Errors] are *not* to be eliminated by expanding the rules > to include every possible form so that "error" is literally > impossible by definition. Of course. But it is possible for dialect with a well-defined (which is not equivalent to "well-studied" or "well-recorded") grammar to allow a form that is unavailable in standard English, without mandating that form, and while still excluding other forms as errors. >>the usage "them Xs" does not differ in grammatical form from standard >>English, but only in which vocabulary items belong to which parts of >>speech. > > That, however, is an aspect of grammar. It is. That's why I said "grammatical form", not "grammar". The form is merely determiner plus noun, which is a form that is equally available in standard English. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom p34sz5.pminews@news.individual.net> <bq96jf$8s6r$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <7etgsv8ftbh7l5bsce51bkpf744dfum6pm@4ax.com> Organization: UPenn Linguistics Followup-To: > On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 04:16:47 +0000 (UTC), "Aaron J. Dinkin" ><dinkin@babel.ling.upenn.edu> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Interesting. Why might 'it is hers' be an example of the use of an > 'untrue' genitive? Well, "hers" is actually a good example of what may be untrue about it. If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case assigned to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. (I.e., in "the queen's museum", "the queen" would be genitive.) But case is not marked on noun phrases on English; to see if this is actually a verifiably different case, we need to appeal to pronouns. And there's the rub - most of the time, possessive pronouns are not followed by the "-'s" marker. (Exceptions are "its" and "whose", and arguably the "yours, hers, his, ours, theirs" family.) So we can't clearly see what form pronouns would take when followed by "-'s". There are a number of different ways to analyze the situation. One is the obvious one: that where noun phrases are followed by "-'s", pronouns appear in the (explicitly marked) genitive case, and the equivalent of "-'s" is silent. In this case the difference between "my" and "me" is of the same kind as the difference between "I" and "me" - pronouns marked for different cases. Another theoretically possible analysis is that "my", for instance, actually does contain "-'s", but there's a rule of English that transforms "me" + "-'s" into "my", instead of "me's" as would be expected. (In the same way as, you might say, there's a rule that transforms "did choose" into "chose" instead of "choosed" as would be expected.) In this case, we don't have any direct grounds for considering there to be a separate case, distinct from nominative and accusative, assigned by "-'s", since the difference between "my" and "me" can be explained as being due to one of them containing the suffix "-'s" in an irregular manner. This is a subtle distinction, but it may be reflected in the difference between people who say "his and my books" (first of the two analyses above) and people who say "him and my books" (second of the two: "him and me" + "-'s" = "him and my"). -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >p34sz5.pminews@news.individual.net> <bq96jf$8s6r$1@netnews.upenn.edu> <7etgsv8ftbh7l5bsce51bkpf744dfum6pm@4ax.com> >Organization: UPenn Linguistics [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] >-Aaron J. Dinkin >Dr. Whom I didn't follow that - how does it make it 'untrue'? And where does 'my' come into it? Shouldn't we be discussing 'mine'? SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case assigned >>to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. (I.e., in "the [quoted text clipped - 30 lines] > > I didn't follow that - how does it make it 'untrue'? If the second analysis is the correct one, then we have no direct evidence that "my" is actually an example of a different case than "me" (although we have no direct evidence that it's not, either). In other words, we don't have evidence that the genitive is a true case in English in the sense in which the accusative and nominative are cases; the genitive might just be a structure which uses some other case. > And where does 'my' come into it? Shouldn't we be discussing 'mine'? "My" and "mine" have the same internal structure, as far as I can tell. But the difference between "my" and "mine" argues at least aesthetically in favor of the second analysis, I think. If the first analysis is the correct one, then we actually must suppose there to be four cases: nominative ("I"), accusative ("me"), genitive-attributive ("my"), and genitive-absolutive ("mine"). This analysis strikes me as an unpleasant one - I'm unhappy with considering the difference between genitive-attributive and genitive-absolutive to be a difference of case. Only the second analysis is consistent with regarding "my" and "mine" as the same case. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >>>If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case assigned >>>to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. (I.e., in "the [quoted text clipped - 41 lines] > >"My" and "mine" have the same internal structure, as far as I can tell. News to me - internal structure, by Gad! >But the difference between "my" and "mine" argues at least aesthetically >in favor of the second analysis, I think. If the first analysis is the [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >-Aaron J. Dinkin >Dr. Whom What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 > What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. Of course it's a pronoun, at least in part. (It's also a determiner.) That's how the genitive case of a noun or pronoun behaves, in languages which have one. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom > Paul Rooney wrote: >> What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. > > Of course it's a pronoun, at least in part. (It's also a determiner.) > That's how the genitive case of a noun or pronoun behaves, in > languages which have one. Jes' askin' -- shouldn't the be "that have one"? SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> Paul Rooney wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Jes' askin' -- shouldn't the be "that have one"? It could be, sure; but it doesn't have to be. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >> What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. > >Of course it's a pronoun, at least in part. (It's also a determiner.) >That's how the genitive case of a noun or pronoun behaves, in languages >which have one. Really? Could you give me an example of a sentence in which it replaces a noun - possibly as the subject? SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>> What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Really? Could you give me an example of a sentence in which it > replaces a noun - possibly as the subject? Yes, and no, respectively. (Not as the subject, that is. Which proves nothing, since you can't give me an example of a sentence in which "me" replaces the subject either.) Consider the sentences "Aaron's car got wrecked" and "My car got wrecked." The pronoun "my" replaces the noun phrase "Aaron". (It also replaces the particle "-'s", in the analysis which I prefer, though an analysis in which it doesn't is possible. That's why I said it's also a determiner; but it's still a pronoun.) -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >>>> What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. >>> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] >analysis in which it doesn't is possible. That's why I said it's also a >determiner; but it's still a pronoun.) No - I can't make any sense of your analysis at all. Mine would be as follows: I can think of plenty of sentences where 'me' or 'mine' replaces a noun, but none where 'my' replaces a noun. 'Aaron's' in the sentence above isn't a noun in any grammar I'm aware of, though it can be a noun in other sentences; 'my' is a possessive adjective. 'Determiner' is not a term I'm familiar with. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >>>>> What are you on? 'My' isn't any kind of case - it's not a (pro)noun. >>>> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > sentence above isn't a noun in any grammar I'm aware of, though it can > be a noun in other sentences; I didn't say that "Aaron's" is a noun. I said that "Aaron" is a noun. "My" replaces that. (Or rather, the pronoun part of "my" does. The determiner part of "my" replaces "-'s". In the analysis I prefer, anyway; another analysis is possible.) > 'my' is a possessive adjective. 'Determiner' is not a term I'm familiar > with. "Determiner" is a class that you would probably consider to be a subclass of adjectives (though it isn't, really, when you look at determiners' grammatical properties). It's the class that includes "a" and "the" and similar words like "this" and "that", "any" and "every", "all" and "some" and "no", and others. Determiners are very closely related to pronouns, and some words move back and forth easily between the two categories. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom > If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case > assigned to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > pronouns. And there's the rub - most of the time, possessive > pronouns are not followed by the "-'s" marker. True, but what does that have to do with being in the genitive? Those languages that have a various cases modify the nouns for them in several different ways, depending on the nominative noun endings. > (Exceptions are "its" and "whose", and arguably the "yours, hers, > his, ours, theirs" family.) So we can't clearly see what form pronouns > would take when followed by "-'s". Those are not exceptions to what you stated in your last sentence -- they are the examples. I snipped the rest of your post, as that sort of analysis makes my head spin, and I'm no smarter for it, as it really does not matter much whether English is said to have cases or not. It does provide something for linguists to discuss, though, and where would we be without linguists? ;-) I had to put the smiley there, for fear that the remark might be taken as a slur. It was not intended to be one, but I could stand a little education about the purpose and products of that profession. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > I snipped the rest of your post, as that sort of analysis makes my head > spin, and I'm no smarter for it, as it really does not matter much whether [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > slur. It was not intended to be one, but I could stand a little education > about the purpose and products of that profession. An erstwhile professor of mine reckons that linguistics will render translators obsolete. After a universal grammar is defined (ahem!), and proven (ahem, ahem!), further research -- interdisciplinary, no doubt -- will give rise to a universal translator: a computer program that perfectly renders the content of one language into another. Of course, his claims were directed to the politician who keeps her hands on the research budget; and he threw in key words, such as "automatisation", "computer", "efficiency", etc. He got the money. SignatureSimon R. Hughes >> If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case >> assigned to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > languages that have a various cases modify the nouns for them in several > different ways, depending on the nominative noun endings. So, the thing is that the "-'s" suffix does not modify the noun, in the way we expect cases to do - it attaches to the end of a noun phrase, instead ("the queen of England's museum", e.g.). That suggests that the "-'s" is not, strictly speaking, a case marker in the conventional sense: that is, it appears that the rule is not (1) that the genitive form of "the queen of England" is "the queen of England's", but rather (2) that the genitive form of "the queen of England" is "the queen of England", and meanwhile that genitive noun phrases must be followed by "-'s", which is not part of the noun phrase itself. A fine distinction, yes. Now the question is - is the genitive noun phrase "the queen of England" actually in a grammatically different case? We can't tell, because cases on noun phrases aren't marked. Pronouns become a tricky case because they are noun phrases that are only one word long. So we can't tell immediately if pronoun genitives consist of (1) a case marker incorporating itself into the pronoun, as pronoun accusatives and nominatives are, or (2) something like "-'s", which is not a case marker in the sense discussed above, incorporating itself into the pronoun. My previous posting attempted to tease apart these very similar analyses. To put it another way, the question is: Is "my" (2) merely the way we pronounce "me's", or is it (1) the form of "me" we use when it precedes a silent "-'s"? >> (Exceptions are "its" and "whose", and arguably the "yours, hers, >> his, ours, theirs" family.) So we can't clearly see what form pronouns >> would take when followed by "-'s". > > Those are not exceptions to what you stated in your last sentence -- they > are the examples. They are exceptions to the generalization that pronoun genitives aren't marked with "-'s". > I snipped the rest of your post, as that sort of analysis makes my head > spin, and I'm no smarter for it, as it really does not matter much whether > English is said to have cases or not. Indeed. And I suspect this post may have obfuscated matters more. I apologize for that. > It does provide something for linguists to discuss, though, and where > would we be without linguists? ;-) Chaos, my friend. Chaos, catastrophe, and universal brouhaha. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >>> If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the case >>> assigned to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that follows it. [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > different case? We can't tell, because cases on noun phrases aren't > marked. Well, see -- you throw a bunch of linguistic details at me -- someone who speaks and writes the language as well as some, and better than most (wordy Eric included) -- but what you say has no bearing of what the genitive case really is with reference to other languages, namely, those that actually have a genitive. > Pronouns become a tricky case because they are noun phrases that are > only one word long. So we can't tell immediately if pronoun genitives [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > pronounce "me's", or is it (1) the form of "me" we use when it > precedes a silent "-'s"? In the languages that have cases, Latvian -- my native tongue -- for instance, there are no uniform modifications to nouns for the genitive case. What I'm saying is that an "'s" or any other marker does not and should not proclaim any certain case, if indeed any case exists. We're talking about the peculiarities of caseless English, fer gosh sakes! >>> (Exceptions are "its" and "whose", and arguably the "yours, hers, >>> his, ours, theirs" family.) So we can't clearly see what form [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > They are exceptions to the generalization that pronoun genitives > aren't marked with "-'s". Sure, but they do not fit your last sentence (the one you snipped). I got your meaning, but called your attention to the way you expressed it (you were assuming that we should ignore what was in the parenthetical expression, I suppose). >> I snipped the rest of your post, as that sort of analysis makes my >> head spin, and I'm no smarter for it, as it really does not matter [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Chaos, my friend. Chaos, catastrophe, and universal brouhaha. Ah, would that it were so. Life would be but a dream, shboom, shboom ... Cheers! SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ >> Pronouns become a tricky case because they are noun phrases that are >> only one word long. So we can't tell immediately if pronoun genitives [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > What I'm saying is that an "'s" or any other marker does not and should not > proclaim any certain case, if indeed any case exists. You're still not quite getting what I'm saying. (To be fair, I'm not entirely sure to what degree I'm getting what I'm saying.) Ah! I've got it. In languages that have cases, it is often the case that different prepositions require different cases for their objects, yes? Some prepositions have objects in the accusative, some have objects in the dative, and so forth. Well, what I'm trying to say is that English "-'s" _isn't_ a "marker", as you call it; it's more on the order of a postposition, whose object must be in a certain case.[1] The question is, what case is its object required to be? And the answer is different, depending on whether we regard "my" and "your" and so on as containing within themselves a postposition analogous to "-'s" or not. > We're talking about the peculiarities of caseless English, fer gosh sakes! Ah, but English isn't caseless - the difference between "me" and "I" proves that. What makes it so hard is that case is only visible on (some) personal pronouns, so it can be hard to establish what case a particular noun phrase happens to be in, unless that noun phrase is itself a pronoun. This whole branch of the discussion started with me attempting to apply my meager knowledge of syntax to answer the fairly abstruse question "Does English have a genitive case?" The answer I feel I've arrived at is a definite Maybe. [1] That is: "-'s" isn't a postposition, and the noun phrase that precedes it isn't its object; but from the point of view of this particular question, their relationship is analogous. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >>> Pronouns become a tricky case because they are noun phrases that are >>> only one word long. So we can't tell immediately if pronoun [quoted text clipped - 42 lines] > precedes it isn't its object; but from the point of view of this > particular question, their relationship is analogous. OK, I accept what you are saying. I just want to mention that in Latvian, cases are not tied to any prepositions at all -- cases are noticeable only in the declinations of the nouns and pronouns -- it's all in the word endings, and by gosh, there are many. Compared to English, it's a jungle out there. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > OK, I accept what you are saying. I just want to mention that in Latvian, > cases are not tied to any prepositions at all -- cases are noticeable only > in the declinations of the nouns and pronouns -- it's all in the word > endings, and by gosh, there are many. Sure. But don't prepositions demand that their objects be in certain cases? Like, in Latin, the preposition "apud" has an object that must be in the accusative case, and the preposition "coram" has an object that must be in the ablative. Surely Latvian grammar demands that the object of a preposition must be in a particular case (which may be dictated by the preposition), doesn't it? That is, it's not grammatical just to take the object of a preposition and put it in whatever old case you please, is it? > Compared to English, it's a jungle out there. Most Indo-European languages are. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >Sure. But don't prepositions demand that their objects be in certain >cases? Like, in Latin, the preposition "apud" has an object that must be >in the accusative case, and the preposition "coram" has an object that >must be in the ablative. Not necessarily one case only. Some prepositions can take two or more cases. SignaturePaul My Lake District walking site (updated 29th September 2003): http://paulrooney.netfirms.com Please sponsor me for the London Marathon at: http://www.justgiving.com/london2004 >> OK, I accept what you are saying. I just want to mention that in >> Latvian, cases are not tied to any prepositions at all -- cases are [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > object of a preposition must be in a particular case (which may be > dictated by the preposition), doesn't it? You are correct, sir. > That is, it's not > grammatical just to take the object of a preposition and put it in > whatever old case you please, is it? You are right -- is isn't. SignatureSkitt (in Hayward, California) www.geocities.com/opus731/ > Another theoretically possible analysis is that "my", for instance, > actually does contain "-'s", but there's a rule of English that [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > being due to one of them containing the suffix "-'s" in an irregular > manner. Something odd about this: I can't think of any grammar that classes the set 'my, your, his, her, our...' as genitive pronouns - they are always adjectives or determiners. If you had been discussing 'mine, yours, his, hers...' it would have been different, although looking at other languages, such words are rarely the same as genitive pronouns. SignatureRob Bannister > Something odd about this: I can't think of any grammar that classes the > set 'my, your, his, her, our...' as genitive pronouns - they are always > adjectives or determiners. If you had been discussing 'mine, yours, his, > hers...' _American Heritage Book of Usage_, e.g.: : In Standard English, most possessive pronouns have different forms when : used as nouns, or nominals, as in That book is yours, than when used as : adjectives, as in That is your book. Replace "nouns, or nominals" with "pronouns" and "adjectives" with "determiners", for more modern terminology; but note that they're described as "possessive pronouns". -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom >> Something odd about this: I can't think of any grammar that classes >> the set 'my, your, his, her, our...' as genitive pronouns - they [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > "determiners", for more modern terminology; but note that they're > described as "possessive pronouns". I've seen them described as 'possessive pronouns' and as 'possessive adjectives', but if you look at any inflected Indo-European language, you can see quite clearly that they are adjectives, which may or may not be capable of being used a pronouns in predicative position: German: me - mich (Accusative), mir (Dative) my - mein (+ various case, gender and number markers) mine - (I'll stick to neuter nominative singular) das meine, das meinige or meins me (Genitive - only occurs after the very few remaining verbs that still govern Gen.) meiner (eg Gedenke meiner - Remember me). The prepositions that govern Genitive either have strange forms (um meinetwillen - for my sake; meineswegen - on account of me; or they use Dative instead. The other inflected languages I know seem to use only the 'my' forms forms for 'mine' and have a proper case form for the Genitive of 'me' - eg Russian moj, moya, etc. for 'my', but 'menja' for 'of me'. From what little I can remember of Latin, I think that does the same thing. SignatureRob Bannister > >> Something odd about this: I can't think of any grammar that classes > >> the set 'my, your, his, her, our...' as genitive pronouns - they [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > you can see quite clearly that they are adjectives, which may or may not > be capable of being used a pronouns in predicative position: <snip German example> Some are and some aren't, I think is the answer. In German, it appears that they're adjectives. In Latin, they're adjectives in the first and second person ("meus, mea, meum" 'my'; "tuus, tua, tuum" 'your') and reflexive ("suus, sua, suus" 'one's own'), but genitive-case pronouns in the third person ("eius" 'his, hers'). In Yiddish, they behave exactly unlike adjectives: Adjectives are inflected when used attributively, but not when used predicatively ("a groyser nitsokhn" 'a great victory'; "Der nitsokhn is geven groys" 'The victory was great'), and possessives are vice-versa ("mayn nitsokhn"; "Der nitsokhn is geven mayner"). This suggests that in Yiddish, possessives are pronouns more or less at they are in English. Yiddish also contains a possessive marker "-s" that behaves much like the English one; I'd be surprised if these two facts are unrelated. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom Aaron wrote: [Robert wrote:] >> I've seen them described as 'possessive pronouns' >>and as 'possessive adjectives', but if you look at any >>inflected Indo-European language, you can see quite >>clearly that they are adjectives, which may or may not >>be capable of being used a pronouns in predicative >>position: >Some are and some aren't, I think is the answer. In >German, it appears that they're adjectives. In Latin, >they're adjectives in the first and second person >("meus, mea, meum" 'my'; "tuus, tua, tuum" 'your') and >reflexive ("suus, sua, suus" 'one's own'), but genitive- >case pronouns in the third person ("eius" 'his, hers'). More or less! Is this information from a linguistics textbook? Latin <suus> is the 3rd sing. possessive pronoun, having (as you say) the form of an adj. of the 1st & 2nd declensions. It refers to the _subject_ of its sentence or clause, and is somewhat emphatic (like 'his own', rather than 'his'), so, according to Bradley's Arnold, it wouldn't surface in the translation of a phrase like "he was lamenting his son's death." The genitive-case 3rd-person reflexive pronoun is <sui:> 'of himself, herself, itself, themselves>; <eius> is the genitive of the demonstrative pronoun <is> 'that, those', typically referring to something previously mentioned, usually in the 3rd person (according to my dictionary, Plautus used it in the 1st), and vaguely familiar to non-Latinists in the phrase <id est> 'that is'. > Aaron wrote: > [Robert wrote:] [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > More or less! Is this information from a linguistics textbook? No, it's from my own knowledge of Latin. > Latin <suus> is the 3rd sing. possessive pronoun, having (as you say) > the form of an adj. of the 1st & 2nd declensions. What's the difference between "having the form of an adjective" and being an adjective? It's not a pronoun. And it's not "the 3rd sing. possessive" in the way that "meus" and "tuus" are the 1st and 2d sing. possessives. You can use "meus" (or rather "meam") in 'He saw my daughter,' but you can't use "suus" in 'I saw his daughter' - it's the possessive adjective for the reflexive pronoun, not any third-person ordinary pronoun. > It refers to the _subject_ of its sentence or clause, and is somewhat > emphatic (like 'his own', rather than 'his'), so, according to [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > 3rd person (according to my dictionary, Plautus used it in the 1st), > and vaguely familiar to non-Latinists in the phrase <id est> 'that is'. I don't see how any of this is in disagreement with what I said, except that "is, ea, id" can also be translated as 'he, she, it'. -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom Aaron wrote: <You can use "meus" (or rather "meam") in 'He saw >my daughter,' but you can't use "suus" in 'I saw his >daughter' - it's the possessive adjective for the >reflexive pronoun, not any third-person ordinary >pronoun. And as such it regularly refers to the subject of its sentence or clause, though Bradley's Arnold has an exception: <Senatum ad suam severitatem revocavi> 'I recalled the senate to its strictness'. And it shows that <se> & <suus> can in the same sentence refer to different persons: <Ariovistus ad Caesarem legatos mittit uti ex suis (=Caesaris) aliquem ad se (=Ariovistum) mitteret> 'Ariovistus sent ambassadors to Caesar to ask that Caesar should send some one of his (Caesar's) men to him (Ariovistus)': here, <se> refers to the subject of the main clause, but <suis> refers to the (understood) subject of the subordinate clause. [snip] >I don't see how any of this is in disagreement with >what I said, except that "is, ea, id" can also be >translated as 'he, she, it'. Not every post has the purpose of disagreeing! >> I've seen them described as 'possessive pronouns' and as >> 'possessive adjectives', but if you look at any inflected [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > much like the English one; I'd be surprised if these two facts are > unrelated. This is almost exactly what happens in German, except that it also has genitive pronouns (meiner, deiner, seiner, ihrer, etc.) that are only used with the very few verbs that still have genitive objects. I also gave you (I think) Russian examples; they are different in that the adjectives are still inflected when used predicatively. But it does have differences between adjectival 'my' (moy, moya, moe, etc.) and 'of me' (menya). This is further complicated by the fact that the Accusative of personal pronouns is the same as the Genitive. SignatureRob Bannister [...] >If the genitive exists as a case in English, then it's the >case assigned to a noun phrase by a possessive "-'s" that >follows it. (I.e., in "the queen's museum", "the queen" would >be genitive.) You begin from one false premise and another false, or at least seriously deficient, premise. The second first: Marking of the genitive, like many things in English, nowadays has two parallel structures, an older, simpler one, and a newer, more flexible one. The newer one here is the use of the modal particle "of". (Indeed, there are many genitive forms in which the so-called s-genitive would today be bizarre.) The intimate association between the s-genitive form and the direct sense of true possession has led sentiment in the English- speaking world to a strenuous distaste for the s-genitive on words that are not persons or plausibly to be taken as personifications. (The genitive-with-gerund case is the sole exception, and--as we know--forms like "the house's settling" subliminally grate on our sensibilities.) The few exceptions ("a day's walk", "a stone's throw") are hangovers from the older days when nouns were directly inflected in most or all cases, oops, instances. Nowadays, "John's hat" and "the hat of John" both mark the noun "John" as being in the genitive case. We tend, as I said, to keep our uses of the two forms distinct, depending in good part on application. Curme, whom [sic] I shall not quote here for relative brevity, distinguishes--not rigidly, but for analytic convenience--some eight kinds of use for the genitive. Consider, as a subject for pondering, that "the dog's master" does not designate a master whom the dog owns. Nor does "Caesar's assassins" normally signify a gang of criminals owned or run by Caesar. Moreover, we simply cannot say "a bees' swarm" or "a thorns' crown", but we can say "a mother's love for her children" _or_ "the love of a mother for her children". We cannot say "printing's art", but "the art of printing" is sound. And so it goes. The first wrong premise, that "it's the case assigned to a noun phrase by" something, I have explored elsewhere: _case_ is not "assigned", it describes what a particular noun is doing at a particular place in a particular sentence. Case can be _marked_ by certain forms, inflectional or modal. >But case is not marked on noun phrases on English; to see if >this is actually a verifiably different case, we need to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >hers, his, ours, theirs" family.) So we can't clearly see what >form pronouns would take when followed by "-'s". Irrelevant. I sought for some example supplied in the original for a "noun phrase" the case of which is supposedly occult; all I could find was "his and my books", which was not in context. But let me venture anyway: He is the driver of that shiny red fire engine. The modal particle _of_ puts the noun phrase "that shiny red fire engine" into the genitive. He is that shiny red fire engine's driver. Acceptable, but poor style owing to the use of an s-genitive form on a plainly inanimate thing. But, as you see, the case is equally well marked. I reckon--though somebody clever may yet conjure some counterexample--that any noun phrase, in any context, can be put into the genitive by simple application of the modal particle. Even more complicated forms, where an s-genitive is really impossible, yield readily. She is the wife of the tall blond man with one shoe. The curiosity is that a noun--or noun phrase--in the genitive is not really a noun at all, it is an adjective. I suppose if we can accept "stone" in "a stone wall" as an adjective, which it assuredly is, we should not waver at "John's" as an adjective, as in "That is John's hat", where "John's" is an adjective modifying hat. After all, we have no problem with "his" as an adjective. And in the example sentence above, the noun phrase, with its modal (part of the genitive expression), clearly is just an adjective modifying "wife", just as "my" would be in "She is my wife." SignatureCordially, Eric Walker My opinions on English are available at http://owlcroft.com/english/ > Marking of the genitive, like many things in English, nowadays > has two parallel structures, an older, simpler one, and a > newer, more flexible one. The newer one here is the use of the > modal particle "of". "Modal"? What do you mean by "modal"? <snip> > Nowadays, "John's hat" and "the hat of John" both mark the noun > "John" as being in the genitive case. Uh, no. You're confusing form with function; or at the very least you're using the term "genitive" to refer to something other than a case. The "of"-construction is used for many of the same functions as the "-'s" genitive in English; but it's not a genitive case, it's a prepositional phrase. The noun phrase in the "of" construction is the same case as the noun phrase in all other prepositional phrases in English. You might say that "John" in "of John" has a genitive _meaning_, but not a genitive _case_. Consider German, which like English has both an "-s" genitive and a corresponding prepositional construction, but unlike English retains some active case marking on nouns and adjectives. In German the case of the object of 'of' is transparent, and it is not genitive. >>But case is not marked on noun phrases on English; to see if >>this is actually a verifiably different case, we need to [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > for a "noun phrase" the case of which is supposedly occult; all > I could find was "his and my books", which was not in context. And here is where the issue becomes abstruse. The point is that the case of (for example) the noun phrase "the king" in "the king's garden" is occult; the reason we can't immediately determine what grammatical (_not_ semantic) case it is is because only pronouns in English bear their cases on their faces, and it's impossible to get a pronoun into the exact same position as the noun phrase "the king" in that construction, so we can't test it by that comparison. (This is because we say "his garden", not "he's garden" or "him's garden" and not "his's garden".) I accept for the sake of argument the position that the case of "the king" in "the king's garden" is genitive. > But let me venture anyway: > > He is the driver of that shiny red fire engine. > > The modal particle _of_ puts the noun phrase "that shiny red > fire engine" into the genitive. Not a bit of it. The object of "of" is accusative in English. (Or "objective" if one prefers.) -Aaron J. Dinkin Dr. Whom > Still musing about this pronoun question, I ran some searches with some > surprising results. As those who've been watching will know, it is rare [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > "for my husband and I" 5670 > "for my husband and me" 2340 1:2 I have repeated the above experiment, with the following results: "for my husband and I" 8,420 "for my husband and me" 3,500 1 : 2.41 "for my wife and I" 10,200 "for my wife and me" 4,980 1 : 2.05 I then looked at the Google synopses for the first 200 "for my wife and I" pages. My count shows 178 cases where "my wife and I" was in fact being used as the object of "for" (of which 5 were copies of the "dog named Sex" joke). There were 18 with other constructions (such as "I asked ... if they had an order for my wife and I told him my wife's name"), and 3 pages where the phrase did not appear in the Google synopsis at all. And I seem to have missed one page. Anyway, I also looked at the first 100 "for my wife and me" pages. Again there were a few where the phrase did not appear in the Google synopsis, but *all* of the rest were using "my wife and me" as the object of "for" (including at least 19 copies of the "dog named Sex" joke). If these samples are representative, "my wife and I" is therefore favored over "my wife and me" as the object of "for" by a ratio of 1.86 : 1. However, in the "dog named Sex" joke, "my wife and me" seems to be favored, and a direct search confirms that it is: "my wife and me and a special room for Sex" 326 "my wife and I and a special room for Sex" 41 7.95 : 1 Draw your own conclusions. SignatureMark Brader, Toronto | "When you're up to your a.s in alligators, maybe msb@vex.net | you're in the wrong swamp." -- Bill Stewart My text in this article is in the public domain. > <...> > "for my friend and I" 1050 > <...> > > No wonder this construction is starting to sound more normal to me -- it > truly is being used a lot. Yes and there were floods last week on the U.S. east coast, and even an earthquake. Truly, this is the end of times. \\P. Shcultz |
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