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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004bad English
Hi all, I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the paragraph under from a post by Sebastian Hew. "I really fail to see the point. Are the examples of 'phoque English' you post really so egregious? One meets with solecistic usage of English, from native and non-native speakers alike, at every turn. Were we all to post the examples of poor English we came across, as you seem to be so fond of doing, this newsgroup would be so overwhelmed by them that there would be room for little else." I think it is very bad English, so I want to ameliorate it. Can anyone help me? E.g., "fail" should be followed by a noun, like "fail an exam", so "fail the point"? Should the third sentence be "One meeting with solecistic usage...?" And "solecistic" is not a word. I can't find it in my dictionary. Also the last sentence is completely incomprehensible to me. Shouldn't it be "We were all..."? And "them that would be room for little else" is not a good relative clause at all, which should be "they that would be room", right? (What does "for little else" mean?) Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not correct other people's English, I think. Victor > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not > correct other people's English, I think. All of your suggested 'improvements' are incorrect, Victor.  SignatureChristopher (Change 3032 to 3232 to reply by private e-mail) CJ: >All of your suggested 'improvements' are incorrect, Victor. I think he's a foreigner. Victor, like CJ said, you mis-corrected everything. Though, I do see your point about a person who writes like that not being the best person to correct others' English, at least not without sufficient explanation. Victor, the person whose message you quoted writes in a *very* formal, rigid manner, in which most Americans don't write. People at groups like these are not your best bet when it comes to wanting to learn "standard" (meaning the most common version that people generally use to communicate appropriately and concisely when speaking informally) English. > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > E.g., "fail" should be followed by a noun, like "fail an exam", so "fail the > point"? That is simply absurd. "Fail to <infinitive>" is perfectly normal English, and has been common since the 14th century. Perhaps you have some language other than English in mind. Since the entry for "fail" takes up four full columns in OED1, I will not post the gamut of examples from it. But we have, for example, Hall (1548) "Kyng James would make no aunswere..knowing that his power now fayled..to performe the request demanded." > Should the third sentence be "One meeting with solecistic usage...?" > And "solecistic" is not a word. I can't find it in my dictionary. Buy a better dictionary. The OED1 definition (omitting the pronunciation, etymology, and six quotations) is /adj./ also soloecistic(k) Of the nature of or involving solecism: (a) In speech or diction. (b) In thought or conduct. The much smaller SOED5 has simply "/adjective/ of the nature of or involving solecism." The word, dating from the early 19th century, has been with us for 2 centuries. Once again, you may be thinking of some language other than English, because you are completely wrong with regard to English. By the way, "solecistical" is also a word. > Also the > last sentence is completely incomprehensible to me. Shouldn't it be "We were > all..."? And "them that would be room for little else" is not a good > relative clause at all, which should be "they that would be room", right? > (What does "for little else" mean?) "Them" is the object of "by", and the sentence is perfectly understandable by anyone knowing how to read English. Are you serious or just a troll? > Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not > correct other people's English, I think. Someone who posts such obvious bullshit as yours has no business correcting anyone's English. SignatureMartin Ambuhl > By the way, "solecistical" is also a word. Now that's just plain silly. Did some poetaster need an extra syllable? SignaturePeter T. Daniels grammatim@att.net > > By the way, "solecistical" is also a word. > > Now that's just plain silly. Did some poetaster need an extra syllable? That's nonsensic. SignatureRon Hardin rhhardin@mindspring.com On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk. > > > By the way, "solecistical" is also a word. > > > > Now that's just plain silly. Did some poetaster need an extra syllable? > > That's nonsensic. Hmmm. I think this has been nonsensicalismisticalized just a bit too far. --gary > -- > Ron Hardin > rhhardin@mindspring.com > > On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk. > > By the way, "solecistical" is also a word. > > Now that's just plain silly. Did some poetaster need an extra syllable? Well, the cites given in the following dictionary entries indicate that it's been used by at least _two_ prose writers: From The Century Dictionary at www.century-dictionary.com [quote] solecistical [...], _a._ [<_solecistic_ + _-al._] Same as _solecistic._ The use of these combinations, with respect to the pro- nouns, is almost always _solecistical._ _Tyrwhitt,_ Gloss. to Chaucer, under _self._ [end quote] From the 1913 Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary at http://machaut.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/WEBSTER.sh?WORD=solecistical [quote] Sol`e*cis"tic*al (?), a. Pertaining to, or involving, a solecism; incorrect. He thought it made the language _solecistical_ and absurd." _Blackwall._ [end quote] SignatureRaymond S. Wise Minneapolis, Minnesota USA E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com Martin: >Buy a better dictionary. Because everyone here is made of money, right? Victor, "solecistic" *is* a word I've seen before. But, even as a native English speaker, it's not one I've ever used or one whose meaning I could recall off the top of my head. While the adjective "solecistic" is probably not in most dictionaries, its noun form, "solecism", is. Here's how AOL's dictionary defines it: "1 : an ungrammatical combination of words in a sentence; also : a minor blunder in speech 2 : something deviating from the proper, normal, or accepted order 3 : a breach of etiquette or decorum" So, in a way, your claim that "solecism" isn't a word is itself a "solecism". Isn't that ironic? Don't you think? >Are you serious or just a troll? What an a.shole! Do Asians who don't speak English from birth not live in your world, Abdul? >Someone who posts such obvious bullshit as yours has no business correcting >anyone's English. Ignore the f.ckers, Victor. Not all of us Americans are a.sholes--just the ones who frequent this board. > Martin: >>Are you serious or just a troll? > > What an a.shole! Do Asians who don't speak English from birth not live in your > world, Abdul? They don't pass off their ignorance as knowledge, nor do they preach from their ignorance to others using English correctly. Nor do they insert what I know to have been racism on the part of another poster, but what may be a simple error on your part, spelling "Ambuhl" as "Abdul." The earlier poster that did that also inserted references to camel jockies. I have yet to find those camels in the Berner Oberland. >>Someone who posts such obvious bullshit as yours has no business correcting >>anyone's English. > Ignore the f.ckers, Victor. Not all of us Americans are a.sholes--just the > ones who frequent this board. No, making three "corrections" to perfectly good English, and being wrong in every case is something one brand of a.shole does. Criticizing those that don't like this vandalism is what another kind of a.shole does. SignatureMartin Ambuhl Martin: >> What an a.shole! Do Asians who don't speak English from birth not live in >your >> world, Abdul? > >They don't pass off their ignorance as knowledge, nor do they preach from >their ignorance to others using English correctly. He was *questioning*. You people all tend to think that unless something is explicity phrased as a question, then it's a statement of truth and fact. If he had *NO DOUBT* in his mind that the original poster was wrong, he wouldn't have posted anything at all. He obviously came here looking for an explanation. And I'm sorry if people in China don't speak English in the "correct" way. >Nor do they insert what > I know to have been racism on the part of another poster, but what may be >a simple error on your part, spelling "Ambuhl" as "Abdul." Sorry. I've always thought of you as "Martin ABDUL". How is it racism to call you "Abdul"? Are you black? >The earlier >poster that did that also inserted references to camel jockies. I have yet >to find those camels in the Berner Oberland. Huh? >No, making three "corrections" to perfectly good English, and being wrong >in every case is something one brand of a.shole does. But he's a *foreigner*. He's from Asia. It goes without saying that Asians have difficulty speaking perfect English. He does it better than most I've ever heard. >Criticizing those >that don't like this vandalism is what another kind of a.shole does. And criticizng an innocent mistake before even knowing whether it's a mistake or not is what another brand of a.shole does--the AUE brand. >Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >E.g., "fail" should be followed by a noun, like "fail an exam", so "fail the >point"? Following "fail" with an infinitive is entirely correct. > Should the third sentence be "One meeting with solecistic usage...?" >And "solecistic" is not a word. I can't find it in my dictionary. "It is not in my dictionary, therefore it is not a word" is an invalid deduction. It is a word, and Merriam-Webster on-line carries it as a derived form of "solecism". > Also the >last sentence is completely incomprehensible to me. Shouldn't it be "We were >all..."? It's fine. It's not the same as "We were all". It could have been written "If we were all". >And "them that would be room for little else" is not a good >relative clause at all, It's not *a* relative clause at all. Here are simpler sentences that illustrate this use "so" with "that": He ate so much that his stomach hurt. (His stomach hurt because he ate so much.) This phone is so small that it can fit in my shirt pocket. (This phone can fit in my shirt pocket because it is so small.) >which should be "they that would be room", right? >(What does "for little else" mean?) > >Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not >correct other people's English, I think. Someone who is largely unfamiliar with proper English usage should not correct other people's English! SignatureHarlan Messinger Remove the first dot from my e-mail address. Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel. > >Hi all, > > [quoted text clipped - 50 lines] > Someone who is largely unfamiliar with proper English usage should not > correct other people's English! It's worth pointing out that most of the usages that tripped up the OP are slightly literary and wouldn't be used in newspaper English or technical writing. Gary >> >Hi all, >> > [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] >are slightly literary and wouldn't be used in newspaper English or >technical writing. "Fail" + infinitive is literary? "This newsgroup would be so overwhelmed by them that ..." wouldn't be used in newspaper English? And even if "solecistic" isn't heard much at the corner pub, the OP had no basis for declaring it a non-word. He was simply wrong on all counts. Reasonable as it might be for him to be simply wrong, it's not reasonable for him to assert his own misconceptions as "corrections". SignatureHarlan Messinger Remove the first dot from my e-mail address. Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel. > It's worth pointing out that most of the usages that tripped up the OP > are slightly literary and wouldn't be used in newspaper English or > technical writing. How so? Of all the things he complains about only 'solecistic' is 'literary' (as in Letters). >"It is not in my dictionary, therefore it is not a word" is an invalid >deduction. It is a word, and Merriam-Webster on-line carries it as a >derived form of "solecism". That's the AUE's rude and arrogant way of saying, Victor, that dictionaries exist just to give you an idea of the most *common* words and word meanings in a language, especially in English. You have to remember, we have tens of thousands--if not hundreds of thousands--of different words in the English language, when you count slang, obscenities, obsoletions, and various forms and conjugations and plurals and parts of speech of one root word. This is the case with "solecism", which has "solecistic" as its adjective form. Really, any word can be made into a different part of speech in the English language. If I were to say "solecize", for example, I've just made the noun "solecism" into a verb. Many new English words are created as such; e.g. "finalize", when Harry Truman verbalized the noun "finality" during one of his speeches. So, my point is, there will always be too many words in any language, especially English, for the dictionaries to include them all. This is even more apparent in foreign language dictionaries. For example, when I was into my fourth and fifth years of studying Spanish as a second language in high school, we were reading articles from authentic Spanish-language newspapers. Several everyday Spanish words that I encountered in those articles were not listed in my Spanish-English dictionary, and my dictionary was enormous. You have to remember that since a foreign language dictionary works two ways, it's really only half as comprehensive as it looks, making most foreign language dictionaries far less thorough than a standard one-language dictionary. You seem to be proficient enough with the English language that you should have no problem using English-only dictionaries to look up more advanced words, such as "solecism". >It could have been >written "If we were all". "Were we all..." is an antiquated form of English known as the subjunctive mood. I know the Romance Languages have subjunctive verb conjugations, but I'm not sure that your mother language, whatever it is, does. >Someone who is largely unfamiliar with proper English usage should not >correct other people's English! Why do you all say the same things, yet you all think you're so funny and original? > Hi all, > > I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the paragraph > under from a post by Sebastian Hew. If this post isn't a joke, than I'm a struggling actor. SignatureCommander Venus+ "Let's dance." (circa 2003) commandervenus@rogers.com >> Hi all, >> >> I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the paragraph >> under from a post by Sebastian Hew. > >If this post isn't a joke, than I'm a struggling actor. To the OP it probably wasn't, so have you had a talking part in something we might have seen? Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England Robin: >To the OP it probably wasn't, so have you had a talking part in something >we might have seen? Ha! Leave it to Robin to be the only fair one around here! It's no wonder he's hated! >Robin: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >Ha! Leave it to Robin to be the only fair one around here! It's no wonder >he's hated! Hated? You mean I arouse negative emotions in someone who is not Ross Howard, Simon Hughes or Rey Aman? Gosh. Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England >>Robin: >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >Hated? You mean I arouse negative emotions in someone who is not Ross >Howard, Simon Hughes or Rey Aman? Gosh. You don't arouse negative emotions in me. Frequent abject boredom isn't a negative emotion -- it's the complete absence of emotion, negative or positive. If you aroused negative emotions in me, I wouldn't wish you well, and I do -- I'm glad you're so obviously on the mend. -- Ross Howard >>>Robin: >>> [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >If you aroused negative emotions in me, I wouldn't wish you well, and >I do -- I'm glad you're so obviously on the mend. Thanks, Ross, that's very welcome. I saw my name in a post by you linked to by a reply from Christopher, I think. Couldn't help a small dig. Sorry about the boredom, but you don't *have* to read my posts. There's not going to be a quiz any time real soon. Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England > >>>Robin: > >>> [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > about the boredom, but you don't *have* to read my posts. There's not going > to be a quiz any time real soon. Just an inquizition. SignatureChristopher (Change 3032 to 3232 to reply by private e-mail) >>Robin: >> [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Hated? You mean I arouse negative emotions in someone who is not Ross > Howard, Simon Hughes or Rey Aman? Gosh. I have previously said that I have nothing against you, just against your predilection to bore the living sh.t out of everything that lives. But I am not surprised you distort what has gone before; you think C**per erudite. SignatureSimon R. Hughes Hughes: >But I am not surprised you distort what has gone before; you >think C**per erudite. Cooper might not be the sharpest tool in this thread (*that* time I used it on purpose), but at least he doesn't resort to calling someone "***". Robin: >Hated? You mean I arouse negative emotions in someone who is not Ross >Howard, Simon Hughes or Rey Aman? Gosh. Don't forget Chinky, and all the other people who tell you off for accepting CJ at face value. >Robin: > >>Hated? You mean I arouse negative emotions in someone who is not Ross >>Howard, Simon Hughes or Rey Aman? Gosh. > >Don't forget Chinky, Franke's okay, most of the time. I don't always agree with him, but most of his posts are interesting. >and all the other people who tell you off for accepting CJ >at face value. I've seen many people question his authenticity as a person who was 14 when he joined, and who is now 15. Quite a few of them are people who I like and/or respect, and one is someone I've met. They are entitled to their opinions, but I don't remember anyone telling me off. That doesn't mean that it didn't happen, merely that I have a memory that forgets things I don't want to remember. Signaturewrmst rgrds Robin Bignall Quiet part of Hertfordshire England Robin: >Franke's okay, most of the time. I don't always agree with him, but most of >his posts are interesting. Interesting or not, there's no excuse to be a miserable person. >I've seen many people question his authenticity as a person who was 14 when >he joined, and who is now 15. Quite a few of them are people who I like >and/or respect, and one is someone I've met. They are entitled to their >opinions, Yes, they are entitled to their opinions. But it's pretty ridiculous when *every* newcomer who doesn't fit their cookie-cutter definition of humanity is automatically proclaimed a "troll" (whatever that means). >That doesn't mean >that it didn't happen, merely that I have a memory that forgets things I >don't want to remember. Maybe it didn't happen. But people do seem to consider anyone who accepts CJ for what he is to be moronic. On 1/18/04 10:22 PM, "Commander Venus+" <commandervenusspam@rogers.com> wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the paragraph >> under from a post by Sebastian Hew. > > If this post isn't a joke, than I'm a struggling actor. I'm with you on this one...it's too much to be serious... F. Fred: >> If this post isn't a joke, than I'm a struggling actor. > >I'm with you on this one...it's too much to be serious... Except that neither of you noticed that "than" was spelt wrong. Are we to conclude youse two aren't serious either "than"? You have failed to master the subjunctive. The subjunctive is used for indignation and hauteur (``Be that as it may,'' ``Far be it from me''), moral posturing (``Would God I were,'' ``If there be justice'') and sparring for time when caught with another woman (``What if she were?''). ``Were we all'' is posturative. SignatureRon Hardin rhhardin@mindspring.com On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk. > Hi all, > > I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the paragraph > under from a post by Sebastian Hew. Actually, Sebastian Hew writes very good English. Dyl. > Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not > correct other people's English, I think. This part says it all really. -- Skræðer > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > I think it is very bad English, so I want to ameliorate it. Can anyone help > me? Is this a joke? Like "I'm going to do the opposite of what he says while pretending not to understand"? > E.g., "fail" should be followed by a noun, like "fail an exam", so "fail the > point"? Should the third sentence be "One meeting with solecistic usage...?" [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > relative clause at all, which should be "they that would be room", right? > (What does "for little else" mean?) No, no, no, no, no, and "for few things other than that". > Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not > correct other people's English, I think. Ah. It *is* a satire. Very subtle! SignatureTom Breton, calm-eyed visionary Oh, and by the way: >I'm quite good at English, [snip] >Someone who writes so bad English that cannot be understood should not >correct other people's English, I think. As long as you think people's English ought to be corrected, your sentence above is poorly written. You should be using the same construction that I explained to you, using "so" and "that": "Someone who writes English so badly that it cannot be understood should not correct other people's English." A variation: "Someone who writes such bad English that it cannot be understood ...." SignatureHarlan Messinger Remove the first dot from my e-mail address. Veuillez ôter le premier point de mon adresse de courriel. Dear Victor, You fail to recognize excellent English when you read it! Try reading more widely. > Hi all, > [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > Victor > I'm quite good at English, but I cannot understand at all the > paragraph under from a post by Sebastian Hew. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > you seem to be so fond of doing, this newsgroup would be so > overwhelmed by them that there would be room for little else." Hmm... it seems I should defend myself here, but as others have done such a good job, I leave it in their capable hands. Sebastian. |
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