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Discussion Groups / English Usage / July 2008Hopefully, someone can settle this family argument!
Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this post, for example! My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk & White condemn it. ??? On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree > about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > ??? "Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly", and "seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of a sentence since at least the 17th century. The usage has, however, increased greatly in the past 30 or 40 years. Regardless of the historical precedents, though, it's futile to argue the point with people like your cousin: you'll never win an argument on the "correctness" of the usage with someone who's convinced it's a modern, barbaric solecism. So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in my view, displaying historical illiteracy. (But I'll put money on you never being able to change your coussin's mind on the issue.)  SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: HVS> On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote >> Two members of my family both teach college English and >> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence HVS> "Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly", HVS> and "seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of HVS> a sentence since at least the 17th century. The usage has, HVS> however, increased greatly in the past 30 or 40 years. HVS> So your husband's right and your cousin and S&W are, in my HVS> view, displaying historical illiteracy. I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have sometimes been used in the past determines whether something is good usage *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language create its own rules to some extent? If the people who care about language and use it well don't like a construction, there's probably something wrong with it. Or so it seems to me. On a much less theoretical point, it seems to me that "hopefully" is a bit different from "frankly" and "seriously." The latter suggest a break and intensification in the discussion. So they're useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it annoys people who don't like slush. jk SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 >On a much less theoretical point, it seems to me that "hopefully" >is a bit different from "frankly" and "seriously." The latter >suggest a break and intensification in the discussion. So they're >useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it annoys >people who don't like slush. The objection is that "hopeful" means "full of hope", "Frankly" doesn't mean thaty you are full of frank, and seriously doesn't mean that you are full of serious. There is a similar problem with "purposefully", which some people use when they mean "purposely". While it's not a perfect synonym, you could try substituting "optimistically" for "hopefully" in the subject line to see the effect. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk <snip> >While it's not a perfect synonym, you could try substituting "optimistically" >for "hopefully" in the subject line to see the effect. That doesn't sound forced and unnatural to you? It does to me. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland ><snip> > >>While it's not a perfect synonym, you could try substituting "optimistically" >>for "hopefully" in the subject line to see the effect. > >That doesn't sound forced and unnatural to you? It does to me. That's the point. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk >><snip> >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >That's the point. Gotcha. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland On 21 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > useful markers. "Hopefully" suggests continued slush. So it annoys > people who don't like slush. Lots of us who have no problem with "hopefully" don't like slush; we just don't see "hopefully" as slush. That's a subjective rather than clear-cut judgement, and I'd say that your statement really amounts to nothing more than "people who don't like "hopefully" don't like it". And some of us don't like tautological reasoning even more than we don't like slush. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed [ ... ] > I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have sometimes > been used in the past determines whether something is good usage > *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language create its own rules > to some extent? If the people who care about language and use it > well don't like a construction, there's probably something wrong > with it. Or so it seems to me. It's one thing to object to something as old-fashioned and another to scorn it as new-fangled. The objection to sentence modifying "hopefully" is that it's newly arrived, and the objectors don't want it admittted to the language. Show them that it's of long standing and they'll object that it was never any good and should now be ushered out. Heads I win and all that. At any rate, there is no "the people who use the language" in the sense you mean. There are many people who speak many Englishes, and usage is by consensus. Few native speakers of English under, say, 40 years of age have any idea that there's an objection to "hopefully" until they read about it in a "usage" book or hear it from a usage snob. And even when the great majority of contemporary usage books describe the objection as a superstition lacking any grounding in actual usage, the snobs scorn the usage books as "too descriptive" and carry on as before. My own opinion is that "hopefully" as sentence adverb serves a useful purpose and is solidly lodged in the language. The battle has been lost, but the snobs haven't yet heard the news. If necessary, they'll cover their ears rather than change their minds. Their loss. SignatureBob Lieblich Where am I, and how did I get here? On 22 Jul 2008, Robert Lieblich wrote -snip- > Few native speakers of > English under, say, 40 years of age have any idea that there's [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > usage, the snobs scorn the usage books as "too descriptive" and > carry on as before. Precisely. This is one of those usage markers that has more in common with cats marking their territory than it does with any real concern for the language -- like lavatory/toilet/loo, or napkin/serviette. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>>>> "rl" == Robert Lieblich <r_s_lieblich@yahoo.com> writes: >> I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have >> sometimes been used in the past determines whether something >> is good usage *now*. Doesn't the present state of a language >> create its own rules to some extent? If the people who care >> about language and use it well don't like a construction, >> there's probably something wrong with it. Or so it seems to >> me. rl> It's one thing to object to something as old-fashioned and rl> another to scorn it as new-fangled. The objection to rl> sentence modifying "hopefully" is that it's newly arrived, rl> and the objectors don't want it admittted to the language. rl> Show them that it's of long standing and they'll object rl> that it was never any good and should now be ushered out. rl> Heads I win and all that. You've demonstrated that people who object to it often don't articulate the basis of their objection at all well. That's no surprise of course. It's difficult to explain evaluations persuasively to those who reject them, so much so that most people never learn how to present a coherent argument on such matters. rl> At any rate, there is no "the people who use the language" rl> in the sense you mean. There are many people who speak many rl> Englishes, and usage is by consensus. "Many Englishes" is irrelevant, since discussions of usage apply within particular Englishes. And if usage is simply consensus, what is the consensus about? Is it consensus about consensus? Or is it consensus about good usage? If the latter, then "good usage" can't simply mean "consensus." rl> And even when the great majority of contemporary usage rl> books describe the objection as a superstition lacking any rl> grounding in actual usage, the snobs scorn the usage books rl> as "too descriptive" and carry on as before. If usage books say that, how do they distinguish linguistic superstitions from actual features of usage? And why use a derogatory word like "snob"? Are some features of linguistic behavior--for example, rejection of particular constructions--somehow unscientific and immoral? I've asked a lot of questions, so I'll state my own view: language is an enormously complex system that we will never understand completely. We use it and live by it, which means we try to use it well in order to live well, so our understanding of it essentially involves evaluations. Those evaluations are normally as complex and subtle as language itself. That being the case, if there's something that bothers many intelligent people about a particular usage, it makes more sense to try to understand what's going on than to abuse them as snobs on the basis of some theory about how usage becomes good usage. As to "hopefully," I don't like it. "Frankly" or "seriously" or "honestly" add punch to a discussion. "Hopefully" just seems weak. I find that my response aligns with the response of many other people. So I conclude there's probably something to it. After all, not all adverbs that could function as sentence adverbs are used as such. So people do seem to feel that some are more fit to be used that way than others. That being so, why shouldn't disagreements as to particular cases be legitimate? And if there really is something beyond consensus to the notion of good usage, why shouldn't those who are at present in the minority sometimes be right? SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote > As to "hopefully," I don't like it. "Frankly" or "seriously" or > "honestly" add punch to a discussion. "Hopefully" just seems [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > are more fit to be used that way than others. That being so, why > shouldn't disagreements as to particular cases be legitimate? Nobody has any argument with "I and others don't like it; it seems weak to us; therefore we refuse to use it". But when that preference is elevated to a universal rule -- "I and others don't like it; it seems weak to us; therefore no-one should be allowed to use it" -- it's no more than a group marker masquerading as an authoritative standard. In other words, no-one is forcing anyone to accept or use "hopefully"; but equally, the view that this particuluar sentence adverb "just seems weak" doesn't present any sort of legitimate reason for others to accept that it's wrong. > And if there really is something > beyond consensus to the notion of good usage, Many of us don't accept that there is. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed HVS wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:16:56 +0100: > In other words, no-one is forcing anyone to accept or use > "hopefully"; but equally, the view that this particuluar > sentence adverb "just seems weak" doesn't present any sort of > legitimate reason for others to accept that it's wrong. >> And if there really is something >> beyond consensus to the notion of good usage, > Many of us don't accept that there is. And eventually, you become correct even if a usage is not "good". SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not >>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: HVS> Nobody has any argument with "I and others don't like it; HVS> it seems weak to us; therefore we refuse to use it". HVS> But when that preference is elevated to a universal rule HVS> -- "I and others don't like it; it seems weak to us; HVS> therefore no-one should be allowed to use it" -- it's no HVS> more than a group marker masquerading as an authoritative HVS> standard. HVS> In other words, no-one is forcing anyone to accept or use HVS> "hopefully"; but equally, the view that this particuluar HVS> sentence adverb "just seems weak" doesn't present any sort HVS> of legitimate reason for others to accept that it's wrong. But language is social. It exists through public rules that people can get right or wrong. Those rules include rules regarding proper usage. In doubtful cases the definition and application of those rules becomes hard to distinguish from personal style or taste. You seem to be saying that it's improper for someone to make a claim about what the rule is or should be in a disputed case. That seems odd. On another point: suppose A says "'Hopefully' is bad" and B says "Saying 'hopefully' is bad is bad." You believe that A is overreaching and B is not. Why? >> And if there really is something beyond consensus to the >> notion of good usage, HVS> Many of us don't accept that there is. But if good usage is simply consensus, what is the consensus about? SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: >> Nobody has any argument with "I and others don't like >> it; it seems weak to us; therefore we refuse to use it". >> But when that preference is elevated to a universalrule -- "I >> and others don't like it; it seems weak to us; therefore no-one [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > But language is social. We agree on this. > It exists through public rules that people can get right or > wrong. Those rules include rules regarding proper usage. And we agree on this. > In doubtful cases the definition and application of those > rules becomes hard to distinguish from personal style or taste. Here we disagree: the rule is only a rule if there's consensus; if it's in dispute it is -- by definition for me -- not a rule but merely a preference. > You seem to be saying that it's improper for someone to make a > claim about what the rule is or should be in a disputed case. > That seems odd. I do indeed think it's iimproper for someone to make an absolute decree about what the "rule" is in a disputed area: if it's in dispute, it's not a rule (or it's a rule in the process of being abandoned or rewritten). > On another point: suppose A says "'Hopefully' is bad" and B says > "Saying 'hopefully' is bad is bad." You believe that A is > overreaching and B is not. Why? I don't accept that anyone is saying what you've put in B's mouth -- it's a straw man. B isn't saying "A shouldn't condemn the use of hopefully" - what A wishes to condemn is A's business. B *is* saying "Trying to impose a general prohibition on the use of "hopefully" is bad". That's a different thing. >>> And if there really is something beyond consensus to the >>> notion of good usage, > >> Many of us don't accept that there is. > > But if good usage is simply consensus, what is the consensus about? About what is acceptable, and therefore what is "correct" and "good". I don't accept that "good" has some sort of independent existence: if a usage is accepted by a large number of native speakers and users of the language it is, by definition, "good usage". SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: >> In doubtful cases the definition and application of those >> rules becomes hard to distinguish from personal style or >> taste. HVS> Here we disagree: the rule is only a rule if there's HVS> consensus; if it's in dispute it is -- by definition for HVS> me -- not a rule but merely a preference. But if rules are only rules as long as everybody accepts them, I don't see how they are rules--how they provide guidance for what to do. They're just statements of general practice. That may be OK for an outside observer, at least for some purposes, but not for a participant. A participant needs to be able to think about what he's doing and how to do it well. If you want to do things well, though, you have to be able to say that the common practice is wrong. HVS> B isn't saying "A shouldn't condemn the use of hopefully" HVS> - what A wishes to condemn is A's business. HVS> B *is* saying "Trying to impose a general prohibition on HVS> the use of "hopefully" is bad". That's a different thing. It seems to me that people who denounce "hopefully" are doing the former. They don't propose criminal penalties. >> But if good usage is simply consensus, what is the consensus HVS> about? HVS> About what is acceptable, and therefore what is "correct" HVS> and "good". HVS> I don't accept that "good" has some sort of independent HVS> existence: if a usage is accepted by a large number of HVS> native speakers and users of the language it is, by HVS> definition, "good usage". So "acceptable," "correct," and "good" just mean "actually accepted by large numbers of people." If that's so, why use such strong evaluative terms? Do you think people actually think about language that way? SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > don't see how they are rules--how they provide guidance for what > to do. They're just statements of general practice. Why on earth can't one take guidance on what to do from a statement of general practice? We do that all the time: general practice decided that "awful" would lose its meanings of "inspiring awe" or "filled with reverence", and it now means "nasty or ugly". That meaning is now a "rule" of usage -- break it, and your meaning will be misconstrued -- and it's entirely dependent upon a statement of general practice. > That may be OK for an outside observer, at least for some > purposes, but not for a participant. A participant needs to be > able to think about what he's doing and how to do it well. If > you want to do things well, though, you have to be able to say > that the common practice is wrong. I don't accept that there's some sort of independently-existing, normative "well" -- "doing it well" is "doing what usage and consensus has deemed to be OK". Saying that "the common practice is wrong" embodies, for me, the old joke about "the whole army's marching out of step except for my boy". > HVS> B isn't saying "A shouldn't condemn the use of > hopefully" HVS> - what A wishes to condemn is A's business. [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > accepted by large numbers of people." If that's so, why use such > strong evaluative terms? Well, I don't apply "correct" and "good" to usage in the normal course of events: that's precisely why I put those words in inverted commas. I *do* use "acceptable", since -- as you rightly point out -- all that means is "actually accepted by large numbers of people". > Do you think people actually think about language > that way? No, I don't: that's really the point. Acceptable usage is what large numbers of people do -- without thinking about language at all. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have sometimes > been used in the past determines whether something is good usage > *now*. I think you may misunderstand why people turn to historic evidence. it's not to prove that a usage is good now; it's to prove it was good then. That's particularly useful when confronted with grumbles like "I can't believe those Americans invented that ugly word 'gotten'" when actually it's old enough to be in the King James Bible. We merely continued using it; the British happened to drop it from their active vocabulary. I can't tell you how many times someone has complained about some new-fangled and possibly American word or construction and I have easily been able to show, often with the use of Mastertexts.com, that it was used by Oscar Wilde. Arthur Conan Doyle, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, the Brontes, Jane Austen, etc. Good luck with your philosophical query on "What is the nature of 'good'?" SignatureBest wishes -- Donna Richoux An American living in the Netherlands >>>>> "dr" == Donna Richoux <trio@euronet.nl> writes: dr> Jim Kalb <jimkalb@gmail.com.INVALID> wrote: >> I'm not sure why the fact that similar constructions have >> sometimes been used in the past determines whether something >> is good usage *now*. dr> Good luck with your philosophical query on "What is the dr> nature of 'good'?" Actually, it's a bit more pointed than that. Many people try to speak and write well. The effort involves thinking about how to use particular words and constructions. People claiming special knowledge and authority sometimes tell them that "well" in such a context simply means "what lots of people do, especially if people have been doing it for a long time." That seems clearly inadequate. A moderately reflective person will ask himself why it's inadequate, why people seem convinced it's so, and what would go into a better account of good usage. SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote >>>>>> "dr" == Donna Richoux <trio@euronet.nl> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > That seems clearly inadequate. How so? What you've just admirably summarised is *precisely* the basis for style and usage guides -- the references that you want people to use when they want to be guided on good usage. > A moderately reflective person will ask himself why it's > inadequate, why people seem convinced it's so, and what would go > into a better account of good usage. There it is again: you appear to view "good usage" as existing in some sort of independently-positioned vacuum -- aloof and untainted by common usage or consensus. But authoritative usage guides base themselves on those commonly- accepted usages, accepted and adopted by the great unwashed over the years. It's not the other way around, no matter how much you might feel it should be. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: HVS> There it is again: you appear to view "good usage" as HVS> existing in some sort of independently-positioned vacuum HVS> -- aloof and untainted by common usage or consensus. Not at all. For a language to exist at all people have to speak it, so good usage obviously depends on actual practice. The point is that actual practice is not all that's involved. Otherwise there would be no point in thinking about how best to say something. If you're a normally intelligent person brought up among native speakers whatever comes out of your mouth will be within the range of what people say. So why bother thinking about it? SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > Otherwise there would be no point in thinking about how best to > say something. I don't really follow the logic of that statement. I'd say it's self-evident that if there's only a point in thinking about how best to say something if one cares about precision. Anyone who bothers to read this group obviously does care about that. But I don't think that's what we're differing on: the issues here revolve around "What authorities does one consult when disputes arise?", and "What is the foundation of those sources' authority?" I think we'd probably agree that the answer to the first is "Style and usage guides written by those who have studied such things". You might not agree with my answer to the second: "Their authority is based on their knowledge of actual practice -- how users use the language -- and not on linguistic or logical analyses of what is right and what is wrong in some absolute sense of those terms". > If you're a normally intelligent person brought up among native > speakers whatever comes out of your mouth will be within the > range of what people say. So why bother thinking about it? An excellent point. I'd say that there isn't any point at all in bothering with it, unless (a) it is central to your job, or (b) you happen to be interested in usage issues. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 22 Jul 2008, Jim Kalb wrote > [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > unless (a) it is central to your job, or (b) you happen to be > interested in usage issues. I think part of why you are talking past one another is that you haven't agreed on what constitutes writing or speaking "well". This depends on context. A well-written legal document has different requirements from an essay, which has different requirements from lyric poetry. A contract requires unambiguity, while caring less about clarity and not at all about euphony. The priorities are different for an essay and different yet again for a lyric poem. If, for example, someone condemns ambiguity as bad writing without qualification, one can point to volumes of poetry where ambiguity is a carefully nurtured feature. So where does stuff like sentence-adverb "hopefully" come in? There certainly are some sorts of writing where I would avoid it. The obvious example is a report written for a supervisor whom I know considers it an error. A good usage manual should note that such people exist, so that the manual reader can be prepared. But this has nothing to do with the construction being bad in any absolute sense. Richard R. Hershberger Richard R. Hershberger wrote, in small part: > So where does stuff like sentence-adverb "hopefully" come in? There > certainly are some sorts of writing where I would avoid it. The > obvious example is a report written for a supervisor whom I know > considers it an error. Oy! SignatureSkitt (AmE) Vey, even. > Richard R. Hershberger wrote, in small part: > >> So where does stuff like sentence-adverb "hopefully" come in? There >> certainly are some sorts of writing where I would avoid it. The >> obvious example is a report written for a supervisor whom I know >> considers it an error. Typical hyperurbanism, if you don't mind me pointing it out (the objective case used for the subjective case of "who"). The rule is simple; just recast the sentnece or rephrase it: Who considers it an error? HE (not HIM) considers it an erro; ergo, "for a supervisor who I know considers it an error." But this is quite a common mistake when another subject-verb form interposes between "who" and the rest of the clause. > Richard R. Hershberger wrote, in small part: > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Oy! The sad thing is that as I wrote it I briefly paused to consider the question. Obviously I should have paused longer. On the plus side, what are the chances of this hypothetical supervisor knowing any better? >> Richard R. Hershberger wrote, in small part: >> [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > what are the chances of this hypothetical supervisor knowing any > better? I think both "who" and "whom" are wasteful, he said owlishly. SignatureFrank ess > >>>>> "dr" == Donna Richoux <trio@euronet.nl> writes: > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > context simply means "what lots of people do, especially if people > have been doing it for a long time." Oh, I'm definintely of the other camp, believing that good writing is not imposed by a mass consensus nor by heavy authority, but results from individual action. A healthy writing society is formed by many individuals who are all doing their best to communicate (to readers who are doing their best to understand them.) Individual judgement, individual preference is the way -- guided by family, friends, teachers, and those who have gone before. You choose your guides, and you choose when to ignore their advice and go your own way. > That seems clearly inadequate. A moderately reflective person will > ask himself why it's inadequate, why people seem convinced it's so, > and what would go into a better account of good usage. "Why" is a really tough question when it comes to language change, rarely answered. I don't know what you mean by "a better account of good usage" unless you are trying to compile an up-to-date usage manual or textbook. When individual freedom becomes really tricky is when we are responsible for others, usually children, students, employees. Editors and instructors are forced to wrestle with the ambiguous edges of language where changes have happened but the old way is not forgotten. I'm not sure if you are one of those mentioned who teaches college English. If so, my sympathies. I can just imagine some student complaining, "Professor Brown marks me down if I split an infinitive, and Professor Jones markes me down if I *don't*. If the professors just get to do whatever they want to, why can't I?" I suppose the answer is, "When you're on your own, you will. Meanwhile, you're here to learn how to do things other people's ways. School is an artificial situation." If I've read you right, and I may not have, you seem to be seeking some Grail of uniform, agreed-upon standards, ones that are even logical and rational. You would like to be able to point to some overwhelming authority that pronounces one way or the other (preferably your way) on "hopefully" and explains why, to boot, very nicely and readably. Language isn't that logical and rational. It's not engineering. It's just noises and scribbles and people's memories, and it changes all the time, as people change. There's no overwhelming authority, there's no perfect set of standards out there waiting to be found. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >>>>> "dr" == Donna Richoux <trio@euronet.nl> writes: dr> Oh, I'm definintely of the other camp, believing that good dr> writing is not imposed by a mass consensus nor by heavy dr> authority, but results from individual action. A healthy dr> writing society is formed by many individuals who are all dr> doing their best to communicate (to readers who are doing dr> their best to understand them.) Individual judgement, dr> individual preference is the way -- guided by family, dr> friends, teachers, and those who have gone before. You dr> choose your guides, and you choose when to ignore their dr> advice and go your own way. Language is social, and it connects us to the world, so we as individuals don't make up what's good and bad within it. Also, to try to do something well is to pursue a goal that can't be reduced to the personal taste of any individual. We choose guides because we think they're on to something that could benefit us, and we go our own way when we think they're wrong. In both cases we recognize a standard beyond the preferences of this and that person. dr> I don't know what you mean by "a better account of good dr> usage" unless you are trying to compile an up-to-date usage dr> manual or textbook. Many people seem convinced that "good usage" can only mean "common usage." It seems to me to the contrary that "good usage" ought to mean something like "linguistic habits that make language work better as a system." dr> If I've read you right, and I may not have, you seem to be dr> seeking some Grail of uniform, agreed-upon standards, ones dr> that are even logical and rational. No. dr> Language isn't that logical and rational. It's not dr> engineering. It's just noises and scribbles and people's dr> memories, and it changes all the time, as people change. dr> There's no overwhelming authority, there's no perfect set dr> of standards out there waiting to be found. It's not engineering and it's not noises and scribbles. it's a basic human activity and as such can be carried on better or worse. To say it can be carried on better or worse is not to say that it's a simple matter of following definite rules. Nor is it a matter of free to be you and me. Like good sense, it's somewhere in between and above those things. SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 [ ... ] > Language is social, You keep saying this, but you don't seem to understand its implications. Language is behavior, and it is of an ultimately arbitrary natrure. When you behave so as to avoid ingesting arsenic, there's more behind your behavior than an arbitrary "rule" with no basis beyond "accepted practice." But when you use "glory" to mean what you think everyone else uses it to mean, you are adhering to an arbitrary practice. If I were multiligual I could give you a long list of other words meaning the same thing as "glory," along, perhaps, with some "glory"s from other languages that mean other things. Not to mention Humpty Dumpty's particular usage. Oh, sure, there's some onomatopoeia at the edges of the language, but mostly there's no explaining how a given collocation of sounds got associated with a given meaning. You can trace the "how" of an etymology, but the "why" will almost always elude you. It follows that, as Pope said, "Whatever is, is right." Okay, not literally. but precisely because language is a social construct, all you can do is adhere to it. Consider that there was a time in the US when many fathers felt it necessary to wear suit and tie to the dinner table at home, when men wore hats in public, when bathing costumes covered almost the entire body, when no man but a pirate would wear an earring, when no woman would smoke in public. Styles change in costume and behavior. The do so in language as well. There is no abstract "correct" in language -- and the reason for that is precisely that language is social. > and it connects us to the world, so we as > individuals don't make up what's good and bad within it. Well, not ordinarly as individuals. As aggregates we do. Consider slang, pidgins, creoles. And sometimes one person saying the right word at the right time can place a neologism into the language instantly. Harding's "normalcy" (yes, a few examples antedated Harding, but he gave it currency); "strateegery"; "fantabulous" (you may have to look that one up). > Also, to > try to do something well is to pursue a goal that can't be reduced > to the personal taste of any individual. We choose guides because > we think they're on to something that could benefit us, and we go > our own way when we think they're wrong. In both cases we recognize > a standard beyond the preferences of this and that person. Mostly true. But ultimately you *are* pursuing a goal that is indeed reduced to the personal taste of one person -- that person being yourself. The ultimate arbiter of correctness for the educated self-aware native speaker of English is him- or herself. We makes our choices and we takes our chances. We may decide to change as the result of reading or experience, and most of the time we do our best to conform to standard. But there are limits. I too feel free to disagree with usage books (and even dictionaries on occasion). But I also try to stay within the bounds of Standard English (mostly American variety) as I understand it to be. You can get a good a prior definition of "Standard English" from many a dictionary, but ultimately it comes down to the individual styles of the individual users, aggregated into the common language. [Donna Richoux:] > dr> I don't know what you mean by "a better account of good > dr> usage" unless you are trying to compile an up-to-date usage [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > mean something like "linguistic habits that make language work > better as a system." Next stop: Utopia. Boy, could English use a singular epicene pronoun. Everything has been tried from "he or she" to "s/he" to "they," and nothing attracts a consensus. Many years ago some of us here tried to use the Finnish prnoun, which I think was "se" "ses" or something like that. It died out quickly. A good singular epicene pronoun will "make language work better as a system," but most usage books approach the subject on tiptoe, because we're a long way from consensus on that one. ("They" seems to have the lead in the stretch, but it's a long, long race.) The "rules" of usage we follow are distilled from practice. Practice is not uniform, but most people agree on the correctness _vel non_ of most of what we say and write. It's not so long since doctors tried to cure fevers by bleeding the patient. They can do better now in an absolute way. But it's no improvement of that sort on the English language to use "nice" to mean "pleasant" instead of "wanton, dissolute." (Check <http://www.merriam-webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=nice>.) It's just the produce of change in the consensus. > dr> If I've read you right, and I may not have, you seem to be > dr> seeking some Grail of uniform, agreed-upon standards, ones > dr> that are even logical and rational. \ > It's not engineering and it's not noises and scribbles. it's a > basic human activity and as such can be carried on better or worse. But not by any absolute standard. [ ... ] > To say it can be carried on better or worse is not to say that it's > a simple matter of following definite rules. Nor is it a matter of > free to be you and me. Like good sense, it's somewhere in between > and above those things. Well, okay, but I think you're contradicting at least some of what you said earlier. (And maybe I've done the same thing, thoough I don't think so.) SignatureBob Lieblich, AmEclectic Packing up his soapbox >> [Donna Richoux:] >> I don't know what you mean by "a better account of good >> usage" unless you are trying to compile an up-to-date usage >> manual or textbook. >Many people seem convinced that "good usage" can only mean "common >usage." It seems to me to the contrary that "good usage" ought to >mean something like "linguistic habits that make language work >better as a system." Many people would not go so far as to say that. I've freqently read one or more of the Language Loggers describing "good usage" not as "common usage" but rather as the usage of those language users whose prose is widely regarded as excellent. (This is seen particularly in their not-infrequent attacks on /The Elements of Style/, which often involve pointing out how E.B. White didn't actually follow his own rules.) -GAWollman SignatureGarrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are wollman@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness HVS filted: >On 21 Jul 2008, Martha G. Smith wrote > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says >> Strunk & White condemn it. Strunk died in 1946, White in 1985...you and your husband are still here...you win...QED.... >"Sentence adverbs" -- words like "hopefully", "frankly", and >"seriously" -- have been used to qualify the whole of a sentence [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >displaying historical illiteracy. (But I'll put money on you never >being able to change your coussin's mind on the issue.) We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow first claimed it was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted with illustrations tracing it to the 16th century, claimed the references were obsolete and therefore irrelevant.... You can't win with those people....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. On 21 Jul 2008, R H Draney wrote > HVS filted: > We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow > first claimed it was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted > with illustrations tracing it to the 16th century, claimed the > references were obsolete and therefore irrelevant.... > > You can't win with those people....r I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial". Someone took great offence, patronisingly informing me that although he wasn't sure what I *thought* the word meant, I was clearly mistaken about its meaning. When I had him take a look at a dictionary and establish that my usage was still an entirely standard and current meaning, I was informed that I shouldn't expect him to know that. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 21 Jul 2008, R H Draney wrote > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > usage was still an entirely standard and current meaning, I was > informed that I shouldn't expect him to know that. Odd. I always thought "moot" was the past tense of "moo." > On 21 Jul 2008, R H Draney wrote > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > usage was still an entirely standard and current meaning, I was > informed that I shouldn't expect him to know that. I hope you agreed with him. John Kane Kingston ON Canada On 21 Jul 2008, John Kane wrote >> On 21 Jul 2008, R H Draney wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > I hope you agreed with him. Good point: indeed I did. But I also refused point-blank to apologise for using a word with one of its established, legitimate, and current meanings. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed Harvey Van Sickle: > I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that > something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial". "Inconsequential", not "trivial". But the point is moot as regards Harvey's comment, of course. SignatureMark Brader "Could you please continue the petty bickering? Toronto I find it most intriguing." msb@vex.net -- Data ("Haven", ST:TNG, Tracy Torme) > Harvey Van Sickle: >> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that >> something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial". > > "Inconsequential", not "trivial". Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. Both have the sense of "important only in a particular kind of academic setting." ("Trivia" coming from "trivium".) I guess "academic" itself is similar. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The purpose of writing is to inflate 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and inhibit clarity. With a little |practice, writing can be an kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |intimidating and impenetrable fog! (650)857-7572 | Calvin http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> Harvey Van Sickle: >>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >("Trivia" coming from "trivium".) I guess "academic" itself is >similar. At this point I suppose someone ought to pipe up and say that "moot" has very different meanings on the two sides of the pond. We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" at all, and is likely to be widely misunderstood if so used. Katy On 23 Jul 2008, K. Edgcombe wrote >>> Harvey Van Sickle: >>>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > "trivial" at all, and is likely to be widely misunderstood if so > used. That is, as I mentioned, how I used the term "moot point" -- "a point which can be debated" -- and it led to me being taken to task by some pompous illiterate who stated I obviously had no idea what the word meant. (I don't read that group any more; the intelligence level of the posters was too dire to bother with.) SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>> Harvey Van Sickle: >>>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" at > all, and is likely to be widely misunderstood if so used. That's where we started. But both senses derive from the same academic setting: yours is "worth debating in a moot court" while ours is "*only* worth debating in a moot court". SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Voting in the House of 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Representatives is done by means of a Palo Alto, CA 94304 |little plastic card with a magnetic |strip on the back--like a VISA card, kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |but with no, that is, absolutely (650)857-7572 |*no*, spending limit. | P.J. O'Rourke http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >>>Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. Both have the >>>sense of "important only in a particular kind of academic setting." [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > academic setting: yours is "worth debating in a moot court" while ours > is "*only* worth debating in a moot court". Is that where they decide whether to make a mountain out of a moot-hill? SignatureTwo of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don't think that this is a coincidence. [anonymous] Harvey Van Sickle: >>>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that >>>> something was a moot point -- as in "debatable", not "trivial". Mark Brader: >>> "Inconsequential", not "trivial". Evan Kirshenbaum: >> Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. Both have the >> sense of "important only in a particular kind of academic setting." >> ("Trivia" coming from "trivium".) I guess "academic" itself is >> similar. Katy Edgcombe: > We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" > at all... "Inconsequential", not "trivial". If a court declines to rule in something because it is a moot point, it means precisely that the decision would have no (practical) consequences. SignatureMark Brader | "I think it's safe to say that no person can hope to Toronto | achieve basic life competence without consulting my msb@vex.net | work on a regular basis." -- Cecil Adams My text in this article is in the public domain. >> We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" >> at all... > >"Inconsequential", not "trivial". If a court declines to rule in >something because it is a moot point, it means precisely that the >decision would have no (practical) consequences. If a court *in the USA or Canada* declines.... etc. The UK meaning is quite different from any of the above (I am not sure whether you were denying the UK difference or merely clarifying the NAm meaning). Katy >In article <deWdnVSibpQsExrVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@vex.net>, >>> We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >The UK meaning is quite different from any of the above (I am not sure whether >you were denying the UK difference or merely clarifying the NAm meaning). A moot point is undecided, perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. It needs a debate and a decision before it can be made certain. If it can't be decided, or isn't decided, then it remains moot. The NAmerE understanding arises from the case where it just isn't worth the debate and the decision, because the outcome doesn't demand it: the problem stays the same whichever way the point might be decided, so the point is left moot. Tabled, one might almost say. So Mark's remarks above are unexceptionable. But of course the broader meaning of moot, as undecided, remains. SignaturePaul Paul Wolff filted: >A moot point is undecided, perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. It >needs a debate and a decision before it can be made certain. If it [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >unexceptionable. But of course the broader meaning of moot, as >undecided, remains. Ah, so it's related to the word "mu", used in certain Zen koans when an unanswerable question is asked: Q: "Does a dog have Buddha nature?" A: "Mu." Q: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" A: "Mu." Q: "Does this dress make me look fat?" A: "Mu." On further consideration, better not to use it in that last case...it might be misconstrued....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. >Paul Wolff filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > Q: "Does this dress make me look fat?" > A: "Mu." Wittgenstein had exactly the same thought. Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain mute. SignaturePaul >>In article <deWdnVSibpQsExrVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@vex.net>, >>>> We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] >unexceptionable. But of course the broader meaning of moot, as >undecided, remains. "...Tabled one might almost say..." In the North American sense of course. (For those unaware of the difference, the effect of tabling an item in a meeting has the exact opposite effect depending on which side of the pond you are on. Not sure about Australia or Sar Theffrica, but I suspect they adhere to the British semantics) Jitze > "...Tabled one might almost say..." > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > of the pond you are on. Not sure about Australia or Sar Theffrica, > but I suspect they adhere to the British semantics) Not merely the pond. My dad ran into this one in Canada. The Canadians wanted to table a point of discussion and couldn't understand why this made the Americans upset. After all, it was the most important issue facing them. He said it took several go-rounds before the two sides realized that they didn't mean the same thing by the word. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Those who would give up essential 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Liberty, to purchase a little Palo Alto, CA 94304 |temporary Safety, deserve neither |Liberty nor Safety. kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Benjamin Franklin (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:53:19 +0100, Paul Wolff [moot inglorious] >> A moot point is undecided, perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. >> It needs a debate and a decision before it can be made certain. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >> might be decided, so the point is left moot. Tabled, one might >> almost say. [...] > In the North American sense of course. > (For those unaware of the difference, the effect of > tabling an item in a meeting has the exact opposite effect > depending on which side of the pond you are on. Not sure > about Australia or Sar Theffrica, but I suspect they adhere > to the British semantics) It's not so much pondial as dependent on the form of government in place. "To table" in Canadian usage means something like "to bring officially to the notice, or to place officially in the possession, of a deliberative body"* rather than "to bring forward for immediate debate"; so it's not exactly the opposite of the American usage, but it's certainly not the same thing. *This may not always be true at the municipal level or below, where _Robert's Rules of Order_ has made inroads. >> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:53:19 +0100, Paul Wolff > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > *This may not always be true at the municipal level or below, where > _Robert's Rules of Order_ has made inroads. Don't let's forget the alarmingly ambiguous: "Mr Chairman, there is a motion lying on the table..." >On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:53:19 +0100, Paul Wolff ><bounceme@two.wolff.co.uk> wrote: >>A moot point is undecided, perhaps for good reason, perhaps not. It >>needs a debate and a decision before it can be made certain. If it [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > >In the North American sense of course. Prezackly. On the whole, I think it more fun not to unpack the whole verbal payload in public, but rather leave the punters something to discover (now there's a thread) for themselves. Not that I have any wish not to be publicly unpacked, and not that if I did it would make one jot of difference anyway. We are all targets, when all's dit and fait. >(For those unaware of the difference, the effect of >tabling an item in a meeting has the exact opposite effect >depending on which side of the pond you are on. Not sure >about Australia or Sar Theffrica, but I suspect they adhere >to the British semantics) SignaturePaul >> In article <deWdnVSibpQsExrVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@vex.net>, >>>> We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > unexceptionable. But of course the broader meaning of moot, as > undecided, remains. I would have said that "our" meaning is not "undecided", but "debatable" - ie is worth or needs arguing about, which is not quite the same. This is almost the opposite of the American meaning. SignatureRob Bannister >Paul Wolff wrote: >>> In article <deWdnVSibpQsExrVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@vex.net>, [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] >"debatable" - ie is worth or needs arguing about, which is not quite >the same. This is almost the opposite of the American meaning. Let's negotiate. I can't accept 'debatable', but I'm willing to go out on a limb and offer you 'unsettled' instead. SignaturePaul On 25 Jul 2008, Paul Wolff wrote >> Paul Wolff wrote: >>>> In article <deWdnVSibpQsExrVnZ2dnUVZ_uSdnZ2d@vex.net>, [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > Let's negotiate. I can't accept 'debatable', but I'm willing to > go out on a limb and offer you 'unsettled' instead. As the Collins definitions confirm, the primary meaning in BrE is indeed "debatable": (quote) moot adj. 1. subject or open to debate: _a moot point_. verb 2. (tr) to suggest or bring up for debate. (/quote) Only after those two do they move on to the "hypothetical point" meanings. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 25 Jul 2008, Paul Wolff wrote > [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] > Only after those two do they move on to the "hypothetical point" > meanings. In BrE conversation "That's a moot point" usually means "You have your opinion and I have mine - we shall never agree - come on, let's have a drink.". More technically, a "moot point" is some (usually imaginary) legal issue suitable for trainee lawyers to dispute as if in court, amassing whatever precedents their ingenuity and industry can unearth to win their case. A real judge, or panel of judges, then awards the laurels as appropriate. I've never come across the AmE senses discussed earlier, except in this newsgroup. (Sorry not to have trimmed the previous messages, but I couldn't see what could sensibly go.) Alan Jones On 25 Jul 2008, Alan Jones wrote >> On 25 Jul 2008, Paul Wolff wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 51 lines] > have your opinion and I have mine - we shall never agree - come > on, let's have a drink.". In conversation, perhaps. But how would you interpret this if you read it in the paper? "It is a moot point whether a simple change of leader would increase the party's standing in the polls, and the party simply can't decide whether it's worth the risk of making things worse." I wouldn't read that as "No one agrees on this so let's drop it", nor that it's a theoretical technical point of debate; I'd take it to be "It is debatable whether it would increase their ratings". SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >In conversation, perhaps. But how would you interpret this if you >read it in the paper? [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >nor that it's a theoretical technical point of debate; I'd take it >to be "It is debatable whether it would increase their ratings". I'm of the camp that says that "moot" should be avoided in any context. Use it, and someone who uses it differently will surely question your use. SignatureTony Cooper - Orlando, Florida >> In conversation, perhaps. But how would you interpret this if you >> read it in the paper? [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > context. Use it, and someone who uses it differently will surely > question your use. There was frequent use and little disagreement in the legal venues I spent time in, when one party would suggest that subsequent events "rendered moot" an earlier question, complaint, or accusation. It meant the matter(s) no longer needed consideration or resolution, because their existence was accepted, but their influence (if any) could be neglected. So, for me, "moot" means, like, "whatever", you know?. SignatureFrank ess >On 25 Jul 2008, Paul Wolff wrote > [quoted text clipped - 47 lines] >Only after those two do they move on to the "hypothetical point" >meanings. The fattest and most up-to-date dictionary I can lay hands on right now (The New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998) says: "moot > adjective subject to debate, dispute or uncertainty, and typically not admitting of a final decision: " [etc]. I still prefer 'unsettled' over 'debatable', if a single word is the target. SignaturePaul >I would have said that "our" meaning is not "undecided", but "debatable" >- ie is worth or needs arguing about, which is not quite the same. This >is almost the opposite of the American meaning. I find that I tend to use it when I mean that I don't accept what someone has just said, but that I'm not going to discuss it now. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk Katy Edgcombe: >>> We've discussed it before, but in the UK "moot" doesn't mean "trivial" >>> at all... Mark Brader: >> "Inconsequential", not "trivial". If a court declines to rule in >> something because it is a moot point, it means precisely that the >> decision would have no (practical) consequences. Katy Edgcombe: > If a court *in the USA or Canada* declines.... etc. Well, I find it hard to imagine a court anywhere declining to rule on something because it could be debated. > The UK meaning is quite different from any of the above (I am not sure whether > you were denying the UK difference or merely clarifying the NAm meaning). I said "'inconsequential', not 'trivial'", not "'inconsequential', not 'debatable'"! In other words, "the latter". SignatureMark Brader | "This is just the result of someone sitting down before Toronto | a computer and carefully removing his head first. msb@vex.net | It's a phenomenon which is becoming more and more common." | -- Leonard Wibberley >> Harvey Van Sickle: >>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said that [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > ("Trivia" coming from "trivium".) I guess "academic" itself is > similar. Or "semantics"! SignatureDo you know what they do to book thieves up at Santa Rita? http://www.shigabooks.com/indeces/bookhunter.html >>> Harvey Van Sickle: >>>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Or "semantics"! "Semantics" is (or is derived from) an academic setting? SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The skinny models whose main job is 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |to display clothes aren't hired for Palo Alto, CA 94304 |their sex appeal. They're hired |for their resemblance to a kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |coat-hanger. (650)857-7572 | Peter Moylan http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >>>> Harvey Van Sickle: >>>>> I had a somewhat similar situation a few years back when I said [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > "Semantics" is (or is derived from) an academic setting? When people say, "Now you're just talking about semantics!" for example, meaning "inconsequential differences of meaning". SignatureThe President: "Call the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon. Find out who won that game!" (Edwards 1976) >> "Semantics" is (or is derived from) an academic setting? > > When people say, "Now you're just talking about semantics!" for > example, meaning "inconsequential differences of meaning". He said: "Now you're just talking about semantics!" He meant: "Butt out, kid. I'll handle this conversation." SignatureMaria C. >>> "Semantics" is (or is derived from) an academic setting? >> [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > He meant: "Butt out, kid. I'll handle this conversation." ;-) SignatureNo right of private conversation was enumerated in the Constitution. I don't suppose it occurred to anyone at the time that it could be prevented. [Whitfield Diffie] >>>> Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. Both have >>>> the sense of "important only in a particular kind of academic [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > When people say, "Now you're just talking about semantics!" for > example, meaning "inconsequential differences of meaning". But that doesn't seem to be similar to "what's discussed in the trivium", "what's discussed in a moot court", or "what's discussed in academia". SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |To find the end of Middle English, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you discover the exact date and Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time the Great Vowel Shift took |place (the morning of May 5, 1450, kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |at some time between neenuh fiftehn (650)857-7572 |and nahyn twenty-fahyv). | Kevin Wald http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> When people say, "Now you're just talking about semantics!" for >> example, meaning "inconsequential differences of meaning". > > But that doesn't seem to be similar to "what's discussed in the > trivium", "what's discussed in a moot court", or "what's discussed in > academia". Well, not exactly. Here's a layout of the analogy that was going through my mind. YMMV! - "That's just a moot point" => "so unimportant that only a moot would bother discussing it" + "That's a *moot* point" => "important enough for a moot to discuss it" - "That's just academic" => "unimportant to anyone except academics" + "That's an academic matter" => "important to [us] academics" - "That's just semantics" => "you're just talking about inconsequential differences of meaning" + "There's a significant semantic difference" => "those statements have different meanings" or "those formulae have different true solutions" or "those bits of source code will do different things" SignatureLeila: "I don't think he knows." Agent Rogersz: "Increase the voltage." Leila: "What if he's innocent?" Agent Rogersz: "No one is innocent. Proceed" (Cox 1984) >>> When people say, "Now you're just talking about semantics!" for >>> example, meaning "inconsequential differences of meaning". [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > have different meanings" or "those formulae have different true > solutions" or "those bits of source code will do different things" Ah. I see. How do you work "trivial" in there? SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Usenet is like Tetris for people 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |who still remember how to read. Palo Alto, CA 94304 kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ Evan Kirshenbaum filted: >> - "That's just a moot point" => "so unimportant that only a moot would >> bother discussing it" [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > >Ah. I see. How do you work "trivial" in there? I'm still waiting for someone to note the ways the word "rhetoric" and its derivatives are used....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > Ah. I see. How do you work "trivial" in there? You win. I'm sorry I mentioned it. SignatureThe wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. [Grace Murray Hopper] Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. Both have the sense of "important only in a particular kind of academic setting."("Trivia" coming from "trivium".) I guess "academic" itself is similar. This is a debatable point. My AmHerI(1969) gives the same root etymology for trivia and trivium, but does not say that trivia derives from the academic trivium. For trivia: [New Latin, trivia, "that which comes from the street, " from Latin plural of trivium, place where three roads meet.] Trivial relates to trivia and elementary relates to trivium. (Unless three dictionaries cross the road and disagree.) -- --------------------------------------------- Richard Maurer To reply, remove half Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > Actually, "trivial" and "moot" are sort of similar. > Both have the sense of "important only in a particular [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Trivial relates to trivia and elementary relates to trivium. > (Unless three dictionaries cross the road and disagree.) I didn't think there was much debate. The earliest sense in the OED for "trivial", from the 15th century is "Belonging to the TRIVIUM of mediæval university studies." The modern sense is cited back to the end of the sixteenth century, with the only intervening sense being "threefold", where the only citation is from the same source as the first one for the academic sense. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The purpose of writing is to inflate 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, Palo Alto, CA 94304 |and inhibit clarity. With a little |practice, writing can be an kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |intimidating and impenetrable fog! (650)857-7572 | Calvin http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow first claimed it > was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted with illustrations tracing it to > the 16th century, claimed the references were obsolete and therefore > irrelevant.... > > You can't win with those people....r Hey (hey) you (you), don't do that. --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy > HVS filted: > We just had a set-to on eBay about "off of"...the other fellow first claimed it > was a "recent phenomenon", and when confronted with illustrations tracing it to > the 16th century, claimed the references were obsolete and therefore > irrelevant.... > > You can't win with those people....r I think that the idea these people are vaguely gesturing toward is that old usages that died out are not relevant, even in a discussion of the same usage independantly reintroduced. This is a defensible position, but it requires going to the effort of establishing the fact set. Perhaps I am giving these people too much credit, though, as I rarely see them actually follow the argument through. I have been told on one occasion that I absolutely should not use the OED to investigate word usage, because, um..., I'm not sure about the because. I suspect the truth is that it is because the OED is filled with facts, which frequently contradict the opinions being put forth. Richard R. Hershberger Richard R. Hershberger filted: >> HVS filted: > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >because. I suspect the truth is that it is because the OED is filled >with facts, which frequently contradict the opinions being put forth. The only explanation that seems to fit their reasoning is "regardless of credentials, I will only accept documentation that supports my position, but, regardless of credentials, any documentation that supports my position will be embraced with astonishing eagerness"....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. >Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about >using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > >??? The use of "hopefully" as a sentence modifier has been discussed many times. The FAQ for this newgroup says: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxhopefu.html [various things] AHD3 says: "It might have been expected that the flurry of objections to hopefully would have subsided once the usage became well established. Instead, increased currency of the usage appears only to have made the critics more adamant. In the 1969 Usage Panel survey the usage was acceptable to 44 percent of the Panel; in the most recent survey [1992] it was acceptable to only 27 percent. [...] Yet the Panel has not shown any signs of becoming generally more conservative: in the very same survey panelists were disposed to accept once-vilified usages such as the employment of contact and host as verbs." AHD3 quotes William Safire as saying: "The word 'hopefully' has become the litmus test to determine whether one is a language snob or a language slob." Discussions about "hopefully" and "thankfully" go round and round for ever without reaching a conclusion. We advise you to refrain. See also Michael Quinion's thoughts at: http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-hop2.htm .... In its favour, hopefully conforms to a type of construction that is far from new, is a useful condensation of an idea that would otherwise require a wordy circumlocution, and is widely used. It is hard to provide much in the way of a list of objections save that it has become a shibboleth of correctness among conservative grammarians and stylists, which requires today’s writer, even forty years after the great witch hunt began, to be a little circumspect in bringing it into action. As always with any sort of writing, you need to consider your audience. For myself, as you have noticed, I use it when it seems appropriate, untroubled by any potential strictures. That’s because I have a stack of modern style guides ranged at my back, chorusing that it is standard English and that it is both acceptable and accepted. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > ??? "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad, since the twelve riflemen had bet their last bullets on his poker game the evening before the execution." The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who has hope, thanks to his poker skills). COMPARE: "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade." Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my parade." However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian. More than a century ago, Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?" For purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully [I am of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians. On Jul 21, 9:46 am, angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > However, I am not a prescriptive grammarian. When you write "The latter is the correct use" and "Grammatically this is wrong," you most certainly are. How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn any other sentence adverbs? Curiously, they never do. > More than a century ago, > Mr. Emerson praised the strength of the double negative and few would > quarrel with the idiomatic rejoinder, "How do you like them apples?" For > purists, "hopefully" can be construed as an ellipsis: "Hopefully [I am > of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this > sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians. It'll intensify them? I certainly hope not. >>>>> "ptd" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@verizon.net> writes: ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn ptd> any other sentence adverbs? ptd> Curiously, they never do. An excellent question. Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of recognized experts on usage, it seems that it's a question about the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of the condemners. SignatureFree Inquiries | Let's Talk! http://inquiries.blogdns.com:8081 Thomas filted: >>>>>> "ptd" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@verizon.net> writes: > ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of >the condemners. If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > Thomas filted: > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r , he said, his tongue dripping acid... --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy Jeffrey Turner filted: >> If only we could divert their attention to "basically"....r > >, he said, his tongue dripping acid... "The pH of this solution is too high", Tom said caustically....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote >>>>>> "ptd" == Peter T Daniels <grammatim@verizon.net> writes: > ptd> How is it that the "hopefully"-condemners never condemn [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising proportion of > recognized experts on usage, Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly counterintuitive to me. The current usage works I've seen would suggest precisely the opposite: that those who condemn "hopefully" are a small and decreasing proportion of recognised (as opposed to self-proclaimed) experts. > it seems that it's a question about > the peculiarities of "hopefully" rather than the peculiarities of > the condemners. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: >> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising >> proportion of recognized experts on usage, HVS> Do you have any evidence at all for that? It's certainly HVS> counterintuitive to me. Somebody in this thread cited figures to the effect that as "hopefully" has become more common members of usage panels have turned ever more against it. SignatureFree Inquiries | Let's Talk! http://inquiries.blogdns.com:8081 On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <usenet@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: > >> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > "hopefully" has become more common members of usage panels have > turned ever more against it. Ah; fair enough. I suspect most of that, though, is advice to "avoid it so you don't upset those who get upset", rather than "avoid it because it's incorrect", though. (Like avoiding split infinitives, or not starting sentences with "and" -- that category of usage advice.) SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed [followups repaired] > On 21 Jul 2008, Thomas wrote Nothing that I saw. Apparently this "Thomas" person chose to reply directly to me, but to cut my newsgroup out of the distribution of his message. Is "Thomas" an aue-poster of less than normal intellect? > >>>>>> "HVS" == HVS <use...@REMOVETHISwhhvs.co.uk> writes: > > >> Since "hopefully"-condemners are a large and rising [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > incorrect", though. (Like avoiding split infinitives, or not > starting sentences with "and" -- that category of usage advice.) I note that my question was not answered. On 21 Jul 2008, Peter T. Daniels wrote > [followups repaired] > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Is "Thomas" an aue-poster of less than normal intellect? -snip- > I note that my question was not answered. I suspect it's not his fault, but is down to my news server and how I have to cross-post. I read Usenet through albasani.net; when something is cross-posted to certain hierarchies -- one of which is alt.* -- it *insists* that a follow-up group (and just one) is specified -- if it's not, it won't post. I set my follow-ups to AUE (as I don't read sci.lang), and Thomas has presumably replied to you on a second-level quote that has gone down the AUE follow-up rabbit-hole, since he won't realise that he needs to re-insert sci.lang. (I've set the required follow-up to sci.lang this time, which means I won't see responses to this unless AUE is added back into the cross-posts.) SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 21 Jul 2008, Peter T. Daniels wrote > [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > that a follow-up group (and just one) is specified -- if it's not, > it won't post. And people complain about those who use google groups!!! > I set my follow-ups to AUE (as I don't read sci.lang), and Thomas > has presumably replied to you on a second-level quote that has gone [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > I won't see responses to this unless AUE is added back into the > cross-posts.) Thusly. To use google groups, go to google as if you were searching something; in the upper left there's a drop-down menu from which you can select "groups." Then tell it you want to see aue, sci.lang, whatever, and you can crosspost to up to five groups (which is probably more newsgroups than anything should be posted to anyway). On 21 Jul 2008, Peter T. Daniels wrote >> (I've set the required follow-up to sci.lang this time, which >> means I won't see responses to this unless AUE is added back [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > (which is probably more newsgroups than anything should be > posted to anyway). Yup; that's why many of us use a white list to filter out posts from there. Many thanks for the instructions, but I've looked into sci.lang now and then -- not interested; weird group. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who > has hope, thanks to his poker skills). Yeah, but to put a comma after the "Hopefully" is wrong in this case. Because there was no "former", I also assumed that you meant "The above" instead of "The latter". > COMPARE: > > "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade." This is the version where a comma is required. > Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on > our parade, or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > [I am of the opinion that] it will not rain on my parade." Hopefully, this > sentence will aggravate prescriptive grammarians. Personally, I am not afraid to use "hopefully" to mean "it is hoped". From M-W Online: usage In the 1960s the second sense of hopefully, which dates to the early 18th century and had been in fairly widespread use since at least the 1930s, underwent a surge in popularity. A surge of criticism followed in reaction, but the criticism took no account of the grammar of adverbs. Hopefully in its second sense is a member of a class of adverbs known as disjuncts. Disjuncts serve as a means by which the author or speaker can comment directly to the reader or hearer usually on the content of the sentence to which they are attached. Many other adverbs (as interestingly, frankly, clearly, luckily, unfortunately) are similarly used; most are so ordinary as to excite no comment or interest whatsoever. The second sense of hopefully is entirely standard. As for Strunk and White -- yes, they condemned the usage, writing: =================== Hopefully. This once-useful adverb meaning "with hope" has been distorted and is now widely used to mean "I hope" or "it is to be hoped." Such use is not merely wrong, it is silly. To say "Hopefully I'll leave on the noon plane" is to talk nonsense. Do you mean you'll leave on the noon plane in a hopeful frame of mind? Or do you mean you hope you'll leave on the noon plane? Whichever you mean, you haven't said it clearly. Although the word in its new, free-floating capacity may be pleasurable and even useful to many, it offends the ear of many others, who do not like to see words dulled or eroded, particularly when the erosion leads to ambiguity, softness, or nonsense. =================== About that "clearly" -- without the comma it has the "leave in a hopeful frame of mind" meaning. To have the second-listed meaning, a comma is required. Strunk and White are both dead now. SignatureSkitt (AmE) No NESsie, but oh, so close ... >>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject [quoted text clipped - 71 lines] > > Strunk and White are both dead now. Regarding "latter." You're right. The problemw with computer facililty is one often changes one's text and forgets to review the changes. I'm notorious for not closing my parentheses for this reason, esp. since I'm a speed typist and am often thinking five words ahead of the word I'm typing. I had originally included the two quote together then changed my mind and decided to analyze them one at a time. As for commas, I'm using them more liberally than I am in the past. I used to overpunctuate, not I underpunctuate. The rule is negative rather than positive: unless a lack of punctuation is confusing, the less punctuation the better. (Let the reader inflect the sentence.) Just like paragraphing, the purpse of puncutation is for the reader, not the writer (the writer KNOWS the meaning of the sentence, how it should be read; the reader doesn't). I frankly think puncuation is optional in that sense, like paragraphing. As you can see in your quote from Strunk and White, the sentence that uses "hopefully" punctuates it the same way as I did. "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade." "Hopefully we'll leave on the noon train." As for "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad. . . . " punctuation here is based on style, not on grammar. It's like regulating how to speak a speech from Shakespeare, where to pause, stress, etc. Obviously those choices are made by the actor, not by the writer. The actor, if he's a true actor, is the writer in this case, not the original author (thought I wouldn't tell that to Bill's face). Compare: "The man dialed her number, hopefully." "The man dialed her number--hopefully." "The man dialed her number hopefully." We're simply talking about different stresses, ways of imagining the moment. angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com filted: >"The man dialed her number, hopefully." >"The man dialed her number--hopefully." >"The man dialed her number hopefully." > >We're simply talking about different stresses, ways of imagining the >moment. I'm having a Flanders & Swann moment here: "The man dialed her number with skill, eagerness, and the eraser end of a Sonic the Hedgehog pencil." ....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > angelgloww2000*@yahoo.com filted: > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > ....r That's called a syllepsis (a grammatically equivocal zeugma): "She dressed with dignity and a business suit." "She flaunted her sexuality and her short skirt." "Mrs. Higgins wore earrings and an scornful smile as she pulled the trigger six times, watchng her husband die slowly." > That's called a syllepsis (a grammatically equivocal zeugma): > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > "Mrs. Higgins wore earrings and an scornful smile as she pulled the > trigger six times, watchng her husband die slowly." That first example is a bit odd: "She dressed with a business suit" would not fit my brand of English. SignatureRob Bannister >> That's called a syllepsis (a grammatically equivocal zeugma): >> [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > That first example is a bit odd: "She dressed with a business suit" > would not fit my brand of English. I believe "with" would be acceptable, but not the best usage, which would be "in." "Dress with the new skirt your father bought you for your birthday." On Jul 22, 11:15 pm, angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > would be "in." "Dress with the new skirt your father bought you for your > birthday." That sounds peculiar indeed. >>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >>>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the [quoted text clipped - 92 lines] > "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade." > "Hopefully we'll leave on the noon train." Yes, and it points out the problem with that. (Please slow down your typing -- your typos are distracting.) > As for "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad. . . . " punctuation > here is based on style, not on grammar. Yes, but it suggests that it was hoped that the man would face a firing squad. Is that what you meant? > It's like regulating how to > speak a speech from Shakespeare, where to pause, stress, etc. [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > We're simply talking about different stresses, ways of imagining the > moment. I have been chided for sometimes using the Pause School of Punctuation. I try not to do that these days. SignatureSkitt (AmE) Skitt wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:48:15 -0700: > I have been chided for sometimes using the Pause School of > Punctuation. I try not to do that these days. Don't you have some historical justification? I have been told that was how John Donne punctuated. SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not >> I have been chided for sometimes using the Pause School of >> Punctuation. I try not to do that these days. > > Don't you have some historical justification? I have been told that > was how John Donne punctuated. Me? Justification? Naah. I just use the language as I see fit. I try to do it well, but that can be quite frustrating. I blame it on a late start and minimal formal instruction. I learned English, my third language, at the age of sixteen. My punctuation might be somewhat influenced by my other languages, although I am no longer proficient in those. SignatureSkitt (AmE) trying ... > Skitt wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:48:15 -0700: > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Don't you have some historical justification? I have been told that was > how John Donne punctuated. It was called the Elocutionary Method/School/Principle. A description from the Encyclopedia Britannica: Since the late 16th century the theory and practice of punctuation have varied between two main schools of thought: the elocutionary school, following late medieval practice, treated points or stops as indications of the pauses of various lengths that might be observed by a reader, particularly when he was reading aloud to an audience; the syntactical school, which had won the argument by the end of the 17th century, saw them as something less arbitrary, namely, as guides to the grammatical construction of sentences. Pauses in speech and breaks in syntax tend in any case to coincide; and although English-speaking writers are now agreed that the main purpose of punctuation is to clarify the grammar of a text, they also require it to take account of the speed and rhythm of actual speech. In his 1954 book _How to Make Sense_, Rudolf Flesch summarized: In other words, the old system of punctuation was built upon a simple series of pauses: a comma stood for one unit, a semicolon for two, a colon for three, and a period for four. The King James Bible makes more sense if you know that. SignatureBest -- Donna Richoux >> Skitt wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:48:15 -0700: >> [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > The King James Bible makes more sense if you know that. I have occasionally wondered, whether certain 19th-century writings, were perhaps not influenced by elocutionary views of punctuation, as I am (ineptly) attempting to demonstrate here. >>>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >>>>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the [quoted text clipped - 96 lines] > > (Please slow down your typing -- your typos are distracting.) You're right there. It never ceases to amaze me how many typos I find after I email someone or post. If I'm lucky, they're dittographical errors (ffind) that do not mar the sense; but I have reread my posts and seen troubling or misleading typos. >> As for "Hopefully, the man faced the firing squad. . . . " punctuation >> here is based on style, not on grammar. > > Yes, but it suggests that it was hoped that the man would face a firing > squad. Is that what you meant? No. It suggests that the man faced a firing squad with hope. Yet I think I could have left out the comma without a change in meaning (the reader would naturally pause after "hopefully"). Of course that would depend on context, but my context constrained the reading of that sentence. But another dialogue would be different: "What trash! He murdered five people in their beds. Hopefully the man faced the firing squad." Now it's I, not the man, who hopes. If I place a comma after hopefully, the meaning would be equivocal. It could be the man who hopes (he faced the firing squad with hope) or I (I hope the trash was executed). >> It's like regulating how to >> speak a speech from Shakespeare, where to pause, stress, etc. [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > I have been chided for sometimes using the Pause School of Punctuation. > I try not to do that these days. > "What trash! He murdered five people in their beds. Hopefully the man > faced the firing squad." Now it's I, not the man, who hopes. Cheerfully I suggest that you have things exactly backwards. The man is the one who is hopeful. > If I place a comma after hopefully, the meaning would be equivocal. It > could be the man who hopes (he faced the firing squad with hope) or > I (I hope the trash was executed). To me, it would be the "I hope" version. This may be helpful: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas_intro.htm SignatureSkitt (AmE) >> "What trash! He murdered five people in their beds. Hopefully the man >> faced the firing squad." Now it's I, not the man, who hopes. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > This may be helpful: > http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas_intro.htm You've just defined style: "to me." However, these are artificial sentences. I doubt if I would ever write such sentences, if not completely certain of that. Whcih is another issue that should be mentioned in this thread too: recasting sentences. I myself avoid equiovocal or problematic constructions instead of wrestling with them; when possessives, for example, may confuse, just use the genitive; when antecdents may be equivocal, recast the sentence to make sure they're not. And so forth. The analogy I like to give is, if there's a problem on one side of the street (a barking dog, crowds) cross to the other side: just direct your feet to the sunny side of the street. >>> "What trash! He murdered five people in their beds. Hopefully the >>> man faced the firing squad." Now it's I, not the man, who hopes. [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > You've just defined style: "to me." I would not call it "style'. It's just something on which people seem to differ. Because English grammar and punctuation have no set of undisputed rules, there are many such somethings. > However, these are artificial > sentences. I doubt if I would ever write such sentences, if not [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > crowds) cross to the other side: just direct your feet to the sunny > side of the street. There you go! I do pretty much the same thing. Fortunately, that scenario does not come up too often, as my language processes usually steer me in the right direction to start with. SignatureSkitt (AmE) does not know from theory -- just tries to do the right thing. >>>> "What trash! He murdered five people in their beds. Hopefully the >>>> man faced the firing squad." Now it's I, not the man, who hopes. [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > to differ. Because English grammar and punctuation have no set of > undisputed rules, there are many such somethings. And style IS difference; say, the difference between Milton and Wordsworth. I doubt if Wordsworth would use a phrase such as "adamantine chains." Of course, Chesterton used the great phrase, "adamantine tendernesses," but then G. K. was always in a class by himself. >>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > This is the version where a comma is required. I addressed this issue in a previous post; But see this item sent by another poster in this thread, citing a New York Times article: 1932 N.Y. Times Book Rev. 24 Jan. 11/4 He would create an expert commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson.............. >>>> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree >>>> about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the [quoted text clipped - 29 lines] > commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of > ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson.............. I agree with that punctuation. It is hard to explain -- maybe the best way would be to say that if the "hopefully" can be replaced by "it is hoped that", then a comma is required. Otherwise, the comma is out of place. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about >> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > The latter is the correct use of "hopefully" to modify "the man" (who > has hope, thanks to his poker skills). Some of them prescription grammarians gonna tell you that you can't modify a noun with no adverb. Bart Mathias On Jul 21, 8:46 am, angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this > > post, for example! > > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk > > & White condemn it. > "Hopefully it will not rain on our parade." > Grammatically this is wrong; it should be, "I hope it will not rain on > our parade, Let's hope it won't rain on our parade. It is hoped that it not rain on our parade. > or, as Babs Streisand put it, "Please don't rain on my parade." Oh no, don't let the rain come down. My roof's got a hole in it; I might drown. > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this > post, for example! > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk > & White condemn it. This is not exactly a newsgroup for prescriptive grammar, but anyway: I have been told it is probably a calque from the German adverb "hoffentlich". As a non-native speaker, I am in no position to condemn it, but I see why there are people who don't approve of this usage. After all, it is not quite in line with the other, more established meanings of the adjective "hopeful" and the adverb "hopefully" - it is being used in a sense that would be more accurately covered by "desirably". Personally, I would use "hopefully" when *speaking* English, but definitely not when writing anything above the level of formality of a private letter. On Jul 21, 9:46 am, Craoibhi...@gmail.com wrote: > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > This is not exactly a newsgroup for prescriptive grammar, mind the crossposts > but anyway: > I have been told it is probably a calque from the German adverb [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > definitely not when writing anything above the level of formality of a > private letter. > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this > post, for example! > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk > & White condemn it. White (who wrote all but the first part of "The Elements of Style") did come out against "hopefully" as a sentence adverb; I'm looking at page 48 the 1979 paperback; that was the decade in which the word suddenly appeared as a overworked fad. You can find what he said, and a general article on why he was on the losing side, here, so I will not quote it: http://grammar.about.com/b/2007/12/05/hopefully-indeed-sentence-adverbs. htm Hopefully Indeed: Sentence Adverbs Wednesday December 5, 2007 I don't know to what extent "The Elements of Style" has been revised since White died in 1985 (ol' Strunk was long gone, 1946). White's general advice on good writing is timeless, but particular lost causes are bound to look fussy and dated. No one is going to succeed in having all of their personal preferences carried out by succeeding generations, not even the grand and glorious E.B. White himself. I think your family members should each do as they think best, and not worry about whether they agree. SignatureBest wishes -- Donna Richoux > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > ??? What everybody else said is right, but so is what I'm going to say. (1) Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I hope", "we hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count. (2) Anybody who doesn't see that "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied. (3) Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" or "No problem!" as a response to "Thank you." Have a nice day, now. SignatureMike. On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote >> Two members of my family both teach college English and >> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > say. (1) Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I > hope", "we hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count. That glosses over the cases where the alternative forms strike an inappropriate tone. "I hope the meeting will go ahead as planned" can be too personal; "We hope..." sounds frightfully royal, doncha' know; and "It is to be hoped..." can come across as pompous as hell. > (2) Anybody > who doesn't see that "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Have a nice day, now. No problem! SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed >On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] >"We hope..." sounds frightfully royal, doncha' know; and "It is to >be hoped..." can come across as pompous as hell. And "Let's hope..." might be too informal. SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) On 21 Jul 2008, Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote >> On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >> > And "Let's hope..." might be too informal. And some of these -- "It is to be hoped..." and "Let us hope..." -- when used in informal writing, come across to me as awkward circumlocutions used solely to avoid writing "hopefully". To me, it's like reading a sentence that's been contorted to avoid splitting an infinitive; the cure's worse than the disease. But then again, I've never had any problem with the usage and -- pace Mike -- I don't find it remotely ugly or objectionable. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 21 Jul 2008, Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote > [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > But then again, I've never had any problem with the usage and -- > pace Mike -- I don't find it remotely ugly or objectionable. I think I know what the "Hopefully ... " people are trying to say, and when I want to express that, I say, "I'm hopeful that ... " But in this instance, I'm not. SignatureFrank ess >>On 21 Jul 2008, Mike Lyle wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > And "Let's hope..." might be too informal. Let us pray... Well, it's not too informal, anyway. --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy >> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about >> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > >Have a nice day, now. I've just returned from a PC World store (in Northern Ireland) where the checkout man said something I'd never heard before: "Enjoy the rest of your day". I was so startled I replied "I will". SignaturePeter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" <mike_lyle...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote: > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Anybody who thinks "hopefully" is more succinct than "I hope", "we > hope", "they hoped", etc, can't count. Who has suggested that? > (2) Anybody who doesn't see that > "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied. Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the Counter- Reformation. > (3) > Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding > hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of > "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" or "No problem!" as a response > to "Thank you." Do you prefer "cheers" or "ta"? > On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" [one more round] >> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that >> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied. > Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that > Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is living > in the wrong age. Please return to the era of, at least, the > Counter- Reformation. There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps you meant to write "German". [chin-chin] CDB (in sci.lang): >> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps you > meant to write "German". hope-, ful-, -ly don't have a Germanic origin? Joachim > > On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" > [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > > [chin-chin] Que? Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not in Latin? Peter T. Daniels (in sci.lang): > Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not > in Latin? What about Latin fortasse ('perhaps')? Is it a sentence adverb? Joachim >>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" >> [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not > in Latin? Well, they certainly occur in Romance languages. Regards, Ekkehard >>>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" >>> [one more round] [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Well, they certainly occur in Romance languages. But are very rare. The kind of adverbial thing that english expresses with initial adverb plus comma is usually expressed in romance with preposition plus object plus comma, or some equivalent. SignatureAntónio Marques -- This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** >>>>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" >>>> [one more round] [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > with initial adverb plus comma is usually expressed in romance with > preposition plus object plus comma, or some equivalent. I don't think sentence adverbs are significantly less common in Portuguese than in English. "Felizmente", "infelizmente", "provavelmente", "curiosamente", "naturalmente", "teoricamente" and "francamente", for instance, are used quite frequently. Regards, Ekkehard >>> On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" >> [one more round] >>>> (2) Anybody who doesn't see that >>>> "hopefully" used as a sentence-adverb is ugly is to be pitied. >>> Anyone who condemns a Germanic construction on the grounds that >>> Latinate constructions are "prettier" (i.e., less "ugly") is [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >> There is nothing particularly germanic about "hopefully". Perhaps >> you meant to write "German". >> [chin-chin] > Que? A kind of joke. > Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but > not in Latin? Romani sane habuerunt. "Fortasse", suggested by Joachim Pense, is another example. These are not exactly like "hopefully", but I suspect that germanic dialects contemporary with classical Latin lacked exact parallels too, if they had sentence adverbs at that stage. Et puis, franchement, comme l'a indiqué Ekkehard Dengler, ça existe aussi dans les langues latines modernes. In fact, I hadn't taken your original statement, to which I objected, to refer to sentence adverbs in general. You were replying to a specific condemnation of the use of "hopefully" as a sentence adverb: this is not particularly or specifically a "Germanic" construction, but it does appear that its English use may have been inspired by the German example. > Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not > in Latin? I'm not sure about Latin, but French has (at least) "heureusement", "malheureusement", and "franchement" as sentence adverbs. SignatureAgent Rogersz: "It happens sometimes. People just explode. Natural causes." (Cox 1984) > > Do you deny that sentence adverbs appear in Germanic languages but not > > in Latin? > > I'm not sure about Latin, but French has (at least) "heureusement", > "malheureusement", and "franchement" as sentence adverbs. Did I ask about French? >>On Jul 21, 10:37 am, "Mike Lyle" > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > [chin-chin] Neither of this is germane to the topic. >Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of >"Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family argument. What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those language changes? FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other day. Katy >> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent >> use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" > Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family > argument. > What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those > language changes? > FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the > other day. In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget. > > In article <g626vo$ii...@registered.motzarella.org>, > >> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant > to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget. Wouldn't the most expected form simply be "NP + please"? "A Number Twelve with a small soda, please" >>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed reluctant > to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down a widget. Hmm. "Reach me down", eh? Interesting, or is it just me? SignatureSkitt (AmE) >>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >>>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Hmm. "Reach me down", eh? Interesting, or is it just me? Normal construct to me. Would you prefer "fetch"? --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy >>>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >>>>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > > Normal construct to me. Would you prefer "fetch"? No. It's just the "reach me down" expression. You are reaching up to get something and to hand it down to me, innit? There's a problem with "reach me" describing a "hand me" action, to me. Who or what is up or down? SignatureSkitt (AmE) and that may be the problem >>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more >>>> rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >>> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those >>> language changes? >>> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the >>> other day. >> In my North American usage, it verges on mild rudeness. It conveys >> impatience, at least: I might use it to a clerk who seemed >> reluctant to interrupt a conversation long enough to reach me down >> a widget. > Hmm. "Reach me down", eh? Interesting, or is it just me? Now that you point it out. I used it quite naturally, so it must be part of my idiolect. It means "reach up and take down for me", in my intention. I think that for "stretch out and give to me from above', I would say "hand me down"; but now I'm thinking about it. >>>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more >>>>> rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > intention. I think that for "stretch out and give to me from above', > I would say "hand me down"; but now I'm thinking about it. I'd use "hand me" in both cases (any reaching decision is up to the clerk). I might add the "down" for the second case, but I don't see any real reason for it. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other day. I gave up on this one some years ago when I realised that this was just the way our children spoke and repeated correction just wasn't going to change it. At least they usually remember to add "please" at the end. But when out and about in their company I always have to brace myself when they are asked what they would like to eat or drink. SignatureLaura (emulate St. George for email) >>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other >> day. Hopefully this issue will disapper some day. >>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more >>>> rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the >>>> moronic recent use of "Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" >>> Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family >>> argument. >>> What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those >>> language changes? >>> FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the >>> other day. > Hopefully this issue will disapper some day. To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive. CDB wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:13 -0400: >> Hopefully this issue will disapper some day. >To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive. Did you really mean that? It seems to be a use of hopefully that the "grammarians" might object to. I had always thought the adage was "To travel hopefully, is better than to arrive" since one's hopes may be dashed on arrival. SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not > CDB wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:13 -0400: >>> Hopefully this issue will disapper some day. >> To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive. > Did you really mean that? It seems to be a use of hopefully that the > "grammarians" might object to. I had always thought the adage was > "To travel hopefully, is better than to arrive" since one's hopes > may be dashed on arrival. At my age, both versions are applicable, and the second one almost a dead cert. I was inspired, however, by Angelglow's comma-less sentence above it. I have removed Laura's name from the attribution block, since her message has been gone from the subthread for several responses now. Sorry I didn't notice that in time to do it in my preceding message. >> CDB wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:13 -0400: > [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > message has been gone from the subthread for several responses now. > Sorry I didn't notice that in time to do it in my preceding message. Hopefully, to travel hopefully is better than to arrive hopefully. IGMC SignatureLes On Jul 22, 9:53 am, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net> wrote: > CDB wrote on Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:57:13 -0400: > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > travel hopefully, is better than to arrive" since one's hopes may be > dashed on arrival. You punctuate like a Brit ... they have no compunctions against separating subject and verb with a comma, but in American, that just isn't done. (Spot the sentence adverb!) >>>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more >>>>> rewarding hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > To travel, hopefully, is better than to arrive. To travel hopefully is a good way to travel. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >>>> Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding >>>> hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] >>> >Hopefully this issue will disapper some day. Regretfully it hasn't yet. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk In alt.usage.english K. Edgcombe <ke10@cus.cam.ac.uk> wrote: } In article <g626vo$iis$1@registered.motzarella.org>, } Mike Lyle <mike_lyle_uk@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote: }>Anybody who gets worked up about the matter needs a more rewarding }>hobby, such as fighting tooth and nail against the moronic recent use of }>"Can I get..?" instead of "May I have..?" } } Right, now, this is one where we have recently had a family argument. } } What do aue-ers think of it? Moronic? Rude? Just one of those language } changes? "May I have" seems to assume, assert, or imply that you have it, that the machine that squirts it out is in working order, that it is legal and convenient for you to sell or give it to me, and that the decision is in your hands, among other things. "Can I get" leaves all that as part of the stuff you consider before deciding I mean "May I have". } FTAOD, I tend to the last view, but argument raged around me the other day. I'm on your side (and my son before me). Just as "I could care _less_" asserts the irrelevance of any level of caring to what follows, "Can I get" lets you run through the objections to the presumptuosity of a bald "May I have" before considering it. It could seem to be rude or moronic to someone who doesn't grasp the subtleties. Signaturerjv "I _said_ 'Please'." > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this > post, for example! > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk > & White condemn it. I hope you find this helpful: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hopefully Regards, Ekkehard >> Martha G. Smith wrote: >> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >> My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk >> & White condemn it. > I hope you find this helpful: > > http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hopefully > > Regards, > Ekkehard Hopefully, they'll click on that link. Let us hope they will click on that link. Take care, Heidi Take care of what? Oh, I dunno...anything! Hopefully, it'll be something good and worthwhile. <chuckle> > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > ??? Your cousin is quite right. Strunk and White *do* condemn it. They say it is "not merely wrong, it is silly." You don't say whether your cousin agrees with S & W. Remember, Strunk has been dead a long time and White is the guy who wrote stories about pigs and talking spiders. Your husband is quite right. There's nothing wrong with it. As Bob Burchfield says in his "New Fowler's Modern English Usage - " ... In the 20th century there has been a swift and immoderate increase in the currency of [such] adverbs [which] include actually, basically, frankly, hopefully, regretfully, strictly, and thankfully. Suddenly, round about the end of the 1960s, and with unprecedented venom, a dunce's cap was placed on the head of anyone who used just one of them - hopefully - as a sentence adverb.... the present widespread use of sentence adverbs is no more than an acceleration of a much older process. The OED entry for seriously (sense 1) has an example of 1644: ... 'Except here and there an officer (and seriously I saw not above three or four that looked like a gentleman).' [...] The proposition, then, can be amended as follows: since at least the seventeenth century, certain adverbs ending in -ly have acquired the ability to qualify a predication or assertion as a whole. In the last third of the twentieth century, this little-used and scarcely observed mechanism of language has broken loose. Since at least the 17th century, certain adverbs in -ly have acquired the ability to qualify a predication or assertion as a whole. Such adverbs are elliptical uses of somewhat longer phrases. ... Conservative speakers, taken unawares by the sudden expansion of an unrecognised type of construction, have exploded with resentment that is unlikely to fade away before at least the end of the 20th century." Your husband is quite wrong. It is an obscenity, a wen, a pustule on the face of our fair language. Truth is, it seems to be one of those uses that is on its way to being accepted. This may take another hundred years or so, but it will probably happen. I suspect there will come a generation of grammarians who will point out that, used in this way, the "sentence modifying adverbs" are not really being used as adverbs and are not really modifying anything. They are shorthand versions of longer phrases. So, for instance, in your subject line, "hopefully" modifies nothing that follows it. It stands for "I hope that" or even "it is to be hoped that". As is usually pointed out, this is a borrowing from the German 'hoffentlich'. Similarly - "Seriously, I hope you're happy with the range of answers here and that they help you to make your mind up." doesn't use 'seriously to modify the following sentence not any word or phrase in it. You could delete it and the sentence would mean the same. All you would lose is the idea that I am emphasising the genuineness of my wish that you resolve the matter. SignatureJohn Dean Oxford > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > construction, have exploded with resentment that is unlikely to fade away > before at least the end of the 20th century." And they let a guy who writes like that assume the mantle of one of the great stylists of the 20th century, Henry W. Fowler? Ugh. > Your husband is quite wrong. It is an obscenity, a wen, a pustule on the > face of our fair language. How do you reconcile that outburst with the following paragraph? > Truth is, it seems to be one of those uses that is on its way to being > accepted. This may take another hundred years or so, but it will probably [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > follows it. It stands for "I hope that" or even "it is to be hoped that". As > is usually pointed out, this is a borrowing from the German 'hoffentlich'. What evidence is there that it is a "borrowing," and not a perennial feature of English style? > Similarly - "Seriously, I hope you're happy with the range of answers here > and that they help you to make your mind up." doesn't use 'seriously to > modify the following sentence not any word or phrase in it. You could delete > it and the sentence would mean the same. All you would lose is the idea that > I am emphasising the genuineness of my wish that you resolve the matter. >>>>> "jd" == John Dean <john-dean@fraglineone.net> writes: jd> Since at least the 17th century, certain adverbs in -ly jd> have acquired the ability to qualify a predication or jd> assertion as a whole. Such adverbs are elliptical uses of jd> somewhat longer phrases. ... Conservative speakers, taken jd> unawares by the sudden expansion of an unrecognised type of jd> construction, have exploded with resentment that is jd> unlikely to fade away before at least the end of the 20th jd> century." Sounds quite censorious, which is odd. Objections to linguistic behavior are also linguistic behavior, so why not accept them as such? If highly competent native speakers make them, why not view them as one aspect of the language? Also, if the writer wants to be prescriptive, why does he think that (1) the standard of good usage is past use of analogous constructions, and (2) the standard is so obvious that those who reject a particular instance of the construction are evincing a sort of psychological defect? jk SignatureJim Kalb http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000 > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful manner' then I would condemn it outright. But that's a losing if not already lost battle. Derek Turner filted: >> Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about >> using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence > >If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful manner' then I >would condemn it outright. But that's a losing if not already lost battle. Maybe we could start using "inshallah" in its place....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence > > If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful manner' then I > would condemn it outright. But that's a losing if not already lost battle. On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of English style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English? Peter wrote on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:45:38 -0700 (PDT): > >> Two members of my family both teach college English and > >> disagree about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence >> >> If it means 'it is to hoped' rather than 'in a hopeful >> manner' then I would condemn it outright. But that's a losing >> if not already lost battle. >On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature > of Englishstyle and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English? "Hopefully" is a perennial topic but the usage is not totally recent. The OED has: Hopefully, adv. 1. In a hopeful manner; with a feeling of hope; with ground for hope, promisingly. a1639 WOTTON Life Dk. Buckh. in Reliq. (1672) 237 He left all his female kindred..either matched with peers of the realm actually, or hopefully with earls' sons and heirs. 1846 H. ROGERS Ess. (1860) I. 171 The limits within which the human understanding can hopefully speculate. Mod. He set to work hopefully. 2. It is hoped (that); let us hope. (Cf. G. hoffentlich it is to be hoped.) orig. U.S. (Avoided by many writers.) 1932 N.Y. Times Book Rev. 24 Jan. 11/4 He would create an expert commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson.............. Note the caution! James Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not On Jul 21, 3:09 pm, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net> wrote: > Peter wrote on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:45:38 -0700 (PDT): > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > Note the caution! Obviously, you are not consulting the original OED. It had no mng. 2 at all. FWIW, Fowler doesn't discuss it in the first edition, nor Gowers in the second, nor does Mencken in any of the three volumes. Peter wrote on Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:49:35 -0700 (PDT): > On Jul 21, 3:09 pm, "James Silverton" > <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net> wrote: [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] >> >> Note the caution! > Obviously, you are not consulting the original OED. > It had no mng. 2 at all. No, I'm not. The version I use is the online edition available from my public library. SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not On Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:49:35 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:a5ee6c20-70ec-4ab9-908f-d8cb04d1997d@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > On Jul 21, 3:09 pm, "James Silverton" <not.jim.silver...@verizon.net> > wrote: [...] >> "Hopefully" is a perennial topic but the usage is not totally recent. >> The OED has: >> Hopefully, adv. [...] >> 2. It is hoped (that); let us hope. (Cf. G. hoffentlich it is to be >> hoped.) orig. U.S. (Avoided by many writers.) >> 1932 N.Y. Times Book Rev. 24 Jan. 11/4 He would create an expert >> commission..to consist of ex-Presidents and a selected list of >> ex-Governors, hopefully not including Pa and Ma Ferguson.............. >> Note the caution! > Obviously, you are not consulting the original OED. > It had no mng. 2 at all. 2nd (1989) edition. [...] Brian > On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of English > style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of English? I believe it to be an Americanism less than a century old. On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >> On what grounds would you "condemn" a centuries-old feature of >> English style and grammar? Who made you Grand Inquisitor of >> English? > > I believe it to be an Americanism less than a century old. To what dooes "it" refer to in your response? Do you mean the use of an initial adverb to modify a sentence -- like "Frankly", and "Unfortunately"? If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the discussion. (You might as well object to it because "the Germans use that construction".) > If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too > irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the > discussion. whatever. who gives a f.ck? On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >> If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too >> irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the >> discussion. > > whatever. who gives a f.ck? [shrug] You're the one that seemed to. G'bye. > On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > [shrug] You're the one that seemed to. probably something thing to do with having won the first prize in the lottery of life and having been born an Englishman and hating what the Colonials are doing to our language. >>> HVS wrote: >>>> If it's just "Hopefully" you object to, you're really being too >>>> irrationally inconsistent to have anything useful to add to the [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > lottery of life and having been born an Englishman and hating what the > Colonials are doing to our language. It has been noted by some who do such research that it is the Colonials who, in many cases, are more conservative in preservng the language. I'll quote from one such source ( http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/america.html ), a page by a Professor of English at Washington State University. =================== It is also worth noting that in a surprising number of cases, American pronunciation and usage are more conservative than that of the British. Some instances are noted on these pages in which U.S speakers preserve older patterns abandoned by speakers in the British Isles. My goal is to defend American standard usage from the bullying of non-American critics, and to warn Americans not to be parochial in assuming that everyone speaks like they do. For obvious reasons, careful writers have to pay attention to a relatively small number of differences; but we don’t have to let those differences whip us into a frenzy of mutual denunciation. =================== SignatureSkitt (AmE) Fighting about this is bad, m'kay? On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >> On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > in the lottery of life and having been born an Englishman and > hating what the Colonials are doing to our language. Ah, yes -- those would be things like: "not inserting the 'u' in 'color'"; "using the pronunciation for 'herb' that we in England abandoned"; and "sticking with words like 'acclimate' (first recorded in the 18th century), instead of switching to 'acclimatise' (19th century)". You're absolutely correct; those colonials are heartless bastards for sticking to the older forms of our words. How dare they. > On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote > [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] >> >>whatever. who gives a f.ck? ANSWER: A charitable prostitute who donates her services to a poor john. > On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > (You might as well object to it because "the Germans use that > construction".) During WWI, Americans ate "liberty cabbage" instead of "sauerkraut." >>On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >> [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > During WWI, Americans ate "liberty cabbage" instead of "sauerkraut." I'm sure that was critical to the war effort. --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy >>>On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >>> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > I'm sure that was critical to the war effort. Insofar as it helped to prevent scurvy, it was. SignatureRoland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food. NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it. >>>>On 21 Jul 2008, Derek Turner wrote >>>> [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > Insofar as it helped to prevent scurvy, it was. You mean sauerkraut doesn't? Do "freedom fries" have any benificent health effects? --Jeff SignatureThe struggle with evil by means of violence is the same as an attempt to stop a cloud, in order that there may be no rain. -Leo Tolstoy On 2008-07-21, Martha G Smith wrote: > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this > post, for example! > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk > & White condemn it. Here's my opinion: fortunately for you, your husband is right. There are two arguments against this kind of "hopefully". 1. "Hopeful" properly means "full of hope" in the sense of optimistic, expectant, etc., and applies to people. (I've only heard this argument occasionally.) Counter-argument: the sense of "promising", "causing hope" (applied to things, usually) is *slightly older* than the other one. 2. Adverbs modify verbs (as well as adjectives and other adverbs) but not whole sentences, so "Hopefully, X will happen" would have to mean "X will happen in a hopeful manner". It doesn't, so it's wrong. (This is the more common argument.) Counter-argument: if you throw out this kind of "hopefully", you also have to throw out a lot of other useful adverbs in the same construction; I've never heard anyone complain about these; - Fortunately|Unfortunately|Luckily, Fred showed up. - Bizarrely|Sadly, ... - Eventually, Fred will show up. - Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn. - Clearly|Seriously, there are a lot of these adverbs. ... and so on. Although _The Elements of Style_ is mostly very sensible, I think Strunk & White were stepping off the dock at this point. Surprisingly, Fowler doesn't seem to mention this; nor does Gowers' revision of _Modern English Usage_, as far as I can tell. (I'd like to know the details if I'm wrong.) SignatureUnix is a user-friendly operating system. It's just very choosy about its friends. > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree > about using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject > of this post, for example! > > My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says > Strunk & White condemn it. Both family members are correct. There's nothing wrong with it and Strunk & White condemn it. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |To find the end of Middle English, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you discover the exact date and Palo Alto, CA 94304 |time the Great Vowel Shift took |place (the morning of May 5, 1450, kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |at some time between neenuh fiftehn (650)857-7572 |and nahyn twenty-fahyv). | Kevin Wald http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > ??? I don't think I have seen the simplest explanation of the origin of this construct - ellipsis: (I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever. Since it sounds illiterate, I am sure that no serious writer would use this construct except perhaps as something one of his characters might say. In article <c35bae16-593d-4c5e-ac8b-536a51ca0fe9@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > (I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever. You have seen that explanation because anyone who considered rejected it outight. When true ellipsis occurs, the elliptical element has to be recoverable from the rest of the utterance (usually from some identical overt element corresponding to the elliptical element). For example: (1) Ten sparrows landed on my fence, and three on my house. This can only mean (2), not (3) or (4): (2) .... and three sparrows landed on my house. (3) ..., and three hawks landed on my house. (4) ..., and three sparrows pooped on my house. But there is nothing overt inside (5) to allow you to reconstruct (6): (5) Hopefully, you understand this. (6) I am saying hopefully that you understand this. Furthermore, (5) and (6) don't really have exactly the same meaning, so deriving (5) from (6) wouldn't make sense. (5) really means something much more like (7): (7) I hope that you understand this. which is not related to (5) by ellipsis. The simplest explanation is that "hopefully" is just one of dozens of sentential adverbs that already exist in English (surely, probably, luckily, alternatively, notably, oddly, remarkably, firstly, surprisingly, logically, crucially, honestly, theoretically, seriously, etc.). "Hopefully", like many of these adverbs, has at least two possible meanings/usages: (8) Hopefully, John read the report. a. = I hope that he read it b. = he read it in a hopeful manner (9) Surely, John climbed the mountain. a. = I am sure that he climbed it b. = he climbed it with sure footing (10) Logically, John passed the test. a. = it is logical that he passed b. = he used logic to pass it (11) Honestly, John writes great essays. a. = I am giving an honest opinion that he writes great essays b. = he writes great essays in an honest manner (12) Theoretically, John proved water can boil. a. = it is theoretically possible that he proved it can boil b. = he proved it can boil using theoretical, not empirical, means Note how the (b) readings can be rendered nonsensical (or at least odd) with a different choice of words, leaving only the (a) readings as salient/viable: (8') Hopefully, John is in deep despair right now. (9') Surely, John faltered while climbing the mountain. (10') Logically, John failed the LSAT. (11') Honestly, John lies all the time. (12') Theoretically, John conducted an actual titration experiment. Unsurprisingly, a few grammar nuts have gotten their panties in a bunch over one particular word, completely ignoring how it fits into a larger pattern in the language. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > When true ellipsis occurs, the elliptical element has to > be recoverable from the rest of the utterance (or from a previous utterance in the discourse) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <c35bae16-593d-4c5e-ac8b-536a51ca0...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 88 lines] > Linguistics Program > Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic, while "hopefully" constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated ? On 22 Jul 2008, wrote > Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my > dear, I don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic, while > "hopefully" constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated > ? "Hopefully, Mr Feynman, you are joking" sounds entirely idiomatic to me. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed In article <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > Unsurprisingly, a few grammar nuts have gotten their panties in a > > bunch over one particular word, completely ignoring how it fits into a > > larger pattern in the language. > > Surely, "surely Mr. Feynman, you are joking" and "Frankly my dear, I > don't give a damn" sound correct and idiomatic, Why do you say "idiomatic"? The surety and the frankness are actually present, and thus, are literal; idioms are figurative. ("Surely" may sometimes be used *sarcastically*, but sarcasm is not an idiom either.) > while "hopefully" > constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated ? Sentential "hopefully" sounds perfectly unremarkable, and I would pay no more attention to it than to any other ordinary sentential adverb. And I most certainly would not be so rude and arrogant as to ignore the content of what someone is saying in order to focus on some arbitrary, artificial rule with no basis in the reality of English. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > present, and thus, are literal; idioms are figurative. ("Surely" may > sometimes be used *sarcastically*, but sarcasm is not an idiom either.) I think you're being contentious here. Clearly "idiomatic" is a common expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, whether it falls into the category of formal idiom or not. The commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence such as "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn," and that's highly unlikely to say the least. Therefore the construction is idiomatic. In other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from "idiom," the way that "criminal" is a derived meaning from "crime," and not having the same substantive sense as "crime" ("It was criminal the way he wasted his entire salary on poker last weekend." >>while "hopefully" >>constructions sound not quite cultivated or educated ? [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Nathan > > In article > > <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, > whether it falls into the category of formal idiom or not. A collocation that is acceptable to the language is called "grammatical". Unless you mean something different by "collocation" and/or "acceptable" than the usual definitions. > The > commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence > such as "Frankly, my dear I don't give a damn," and that's highly > unlikely to say the least. I don't see how the frequency of second language use has anything to do with whether a construction is idiomatic. Some idioms are easily learned and frequently used by SL learners (and in fact, some are so obviously natural that they independently occur in many languages), and some are more difficult and obscure. (By the way, "give a damn" *is* idiomatic, but it isn't the focus here; "frankly" is, and a sentence of the form "frankly, X" is not inherently idiomatic.) > Therefore the construction is idiomatic. In > other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from > "idiom," the way that "criminal" is a derived meaning from "crime," and > not having the same substantive sense as "crime" ("It was criminal the > way he wasted his entire salary on poker last weekend." Just because one word has some extended meaning, doesn't mean a completely different word has a different kind of extended meaning! "Idiomatic" means what it means, and none of its meanings correspond to a group that includes constructions of the form "frankly, X" and "surely, X". When having a focused, serious discussion about language, it's necessarily to use jargon a bit more carefully than otherwise. For example, I wouldn't say anything about an incidental occurrence of "passive tense" or "subjunctive voice" in an otherwise non-linguistic conversation with my grocer, but in more elevated discourse (such as on a discussion group dedicated to language, inhabited by professional scholars and enthusiastic, informed amateurs), I most certainly would insist on stricter standards about the use of jargon, and correct these to "passive voice" and "subjunctive mood". Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article <g64h8p$ic...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > "grammatical". Unless you mean something different by "collocation" > and/or "acceptable" than the usual definitions. You're mistaken, and angelgloww20... (good grief!) is correct. There are myriad sentences that are perfectly grammatical and utterly unidiomatic (you can find them in just about any article on syntax, at least from the era when I was required to read articles on syntax). Idiomaticness (which is far from the same as idiomaticity) is a question of style, not of grammar. > > The > > commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence [quoted text clipped - 32 lines] > insist on stricter standards about the use of jargon, and correct > these to "passive voice" and "subjunctive mood". The majority of the readership of this thread is in aue. You need to master the ordinary-language sense of "idiomatic." In article <fe61bfdb-e4fd-4021-955f-72c8c494ef77@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, > > In article <g64h8p$ic...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > > angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > are myriad sentences that are perfectly grammatical and utterly > unidiomatic Of course there are. I said nothing to imply otherwise. What I said was that "a collocation that is acceptable to the language is called 'grammatical'". > Idiomaticness (which is far from the same as idiomaticity) is a > question of style, not of grammar. Which particular style is "frankly, X" or "surely, X" indicative of? They seem perfectly ordinary to me. > > When having a focused, serious discussion about language, it's > > necessarily to use jargon a bit more carefully than otherwise. For [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > The majority of the readership of this thread is in aue. Which is a group that is inhabited by professional scholars and enthusiastic, informed amateurs. Why should I be more lax with specialized terminology with them? Just because they're in the alt.* hierarchy and not sci.*? I think better of them than that! They're a generally intelligent bunch who are fully capable of learning and using linguistic jargon correctly. > You need to master the ordinary-language sense of "idiomatic." When ordinary usage conflicts with jargon In a technical discussion, jargon usually wins out. Furthermore, I still don't see how the non-technical meaning is even relevant. I don't know of any definable "style" that is marked by "frankly, X". I would use it with friends and strangers, colleagues and students, royalty and peasants, in formal and informal settings, in speech and in writing, in prepared and extemporaneous language, etc. Now, I would find it odd to use "frankly, X" in an academic publication (since one assumes that the author is *always* being frank!). But otherwise, "frankly, X" seems to be very pan-stylistic, and not at all idiomatic of any particular style. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <fe61bfdb-e4fd-4021-955f-72c8c494e...@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, > > > In article <g64h8p$ic...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > > > angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > > > > In article<bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593c...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > > > > analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > > > >>>Unsurprisingly, a few grammar nuts have gotten their panties in a > > > > >>>bunch over one particular word, completely ignoring how it fits into a [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > Of course there are. I said nothing to imply otherwise. No, you said those sentences are unidiomatic because they don't contain idioms. > What I said was that "a collocation that is acceptable to the language > is called 'grammatical'". [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Which particular style is "frankly, X" or "surely, X" indicative of? > They seem perfectly ordinary to me. I am, frankly, astonished that you are not familiar with the linguistic and literary-studies sense of the term "style" -- and that you have never read Martin Joos's *The Five Clocks*. > > > When having a focused, serious discussion about language, it's > > > necessarily to use jargon a bit more carefully than otherwise. For [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Which is a group that is inhabited by professional scholars and > enthusiastic, informed amateurs. And not linguists. > Why should I be more lax with specialized terminology with them? Just > because they're in the alt.* hierarchy and not sci.*? I think better > of them than that! They're a generally intelligent bunch who are > fully capable of learning and using linguistic jargon correctly. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that you mistook someone using ordinary language as using a linguistics term. > > You need to master the ordinary-language sense of "idiomatic." > > When ordinary usage conflicts with jargon In a technical discussion, > jargon usually wins out. Only when you irrelevantly introduce the "jargon" sense. > Furthermore, I still don't see how the non-technical meaning is even > relevant. I don't know of any definable "style" that is marked by > "frankly, X". I would use it with friends and strangers, colleagues > and students, royalty and peasants, in formal and informal settings, > in speech and in writing, in prepared and extemporaneous language, etc. See above on "style." Style is an esthetic thing, beyond the purview of grammar. > Now, I would find it odd to use "frankly, X" in an academic > publication (since one assumes that the author is *always* being > frank!). But otherwise, "frankly, X" seems to be very pan-stylistic, > and not at all idiomatic of any particular style. In the very first session of my very first linguistics class, at the start of the semester in October 1969, John U. Wolff noted that book reviews play a very important part in the linguistic literature, perhaps more so than in other disciplines. (Recent practice in such journals as *Language* suggests that that is no longer the case, unfortunately.) Expressions of attitude like "frankly" are certainly at home in such a milieu. In article <8e5f06f8-bd58-42cc-be78-fb0535539a54@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, > > In article > > <fe61bfdb-e4fd-4021-955f-72c8c494e...@c65g2000hsa.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 39 lines] > No, you said those sentences are unidiomatic because they don't > contain idioms. Right. I wasn't talking about their grammaticality at that point (I assumed all the un-*-ed exampled were grammatical). Grammaticality didn't become an issue until angelgloww20 defined "idiomatic" in a way that superficially looked to me no different than "grammaticality". I've since learned that by "acceptable" she meant "unstilted", not "grammatical". > > > Idiomaticness (which is far from the same as idiomaticity) is a > > > question of style, not of grammar. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > linguistic and literary-studies sense of the term "style" -- and that > you have never read Martin Joos's *The Five Clocks*. This doesn't answer my question. I have no stylistic associations with these constructions, so the idea that they are somehow stylistic marked is new to me. > > > The majority of the readership of this thread is in aue. > > > > Which is a group that is inhabited by professional scholars and > > enthusiastic, informed amateurs. > > And not linguists. There are no linguists on aue? I'd be surprised if that were true. > > Why should I be more lax with specialized terminology with them? Just > > because they're in the alt.* hierarchy and not sci.*? I think better [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > Which would be fine, if not for the fact that you mistook someone > using ordinary language as using a linguistics term. I have yet to see any definition, ordinary or otherwise, in which analyst's post makes sense. I know of know definition of "idiomatic" for which "frankly, X" is not more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". Do you? > > > You need to master the ordinary-language sense of "idiomatic." > > > > When ordinary usage conflicts with jargon In a technical discussion, > > jargon usually wins out. > > Only when you irrelevantly introduce the "jargon" sense. I assumed that, since his usage didn't match either the ordinary or the jargon definition, that he probably intended to use the jargon and just got it wrong. > > Furthermore, I still don't see how the non-technical meaning is even > > relevant. I don't know of any definable "style" that is marked by [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > See above on "style." Style is an esthetic thing, beyond the purview > of grammar. If this just boils down to mere opinion, then I have no argument. Some people find sentential "hopefully" just fine, others do not. But as we know, these kinds of issues typically go beyond mere opinion. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <8e5f06f8-bd58-42cc-be78-fb0535539...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 87 lines] > I know of know definition of "idiomatic" for which "frankly, X" is not > more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". Do you? I am surprised that you do not seem to be aware of the definition of idiom (among others) "the peculiar character or genius of a language" . I used "idiomatic" as the adjectival form of this sense of "idiom". The Feynman and the Rhett Butler quotes are idiomatic (comporting with the peculiar character and genius of English) , whereas "hopefully" users are not being idiomatic, at least as of now. And who decides what is idiomatic and what is not? Everybody, including grammarians, some of whom do not seem to be able to stomach 'hopefully". In article <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d5533a@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, > > I know of know definition of "idiomatic" for which "frankly, X" is not > > more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". Do you? [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > "the peculiar character or genius of a language" . I am quite aware of this definition. I don't see how it distinguishes "frankly, X" from "hopefully, X", something I have asked about repeatedly, and still gotten no response. It is precisely because you compared these constructions by their relative idiomaticity that I first questioned what you meant, because no definition of "idiomatic" fits. I (wrongly) assumed you must have just misused technical jargon (because that's the most likely scenario), but now I see that you were trying to use "idiomatic" in one of its non-technical senses, and none of those work either. > The Feynman and the Rhett Butler quotes are idiomatic (comporting > with the peculiar character and genius of English) , But are they idiomatic because of their structure or because of their history as famous quotes? If it's their structure, then using these specific quotes unnecessarily confuses the issue, which is why I've been referring to the more general "frankly, X" form. If it's their fame, then they are irrelevant. Plenty of quotes become famous despite (or even because of) their structure, so they do not give us any insight into the structure of sentential adverbs, which was the topic as I understood it. > And who decides what is idiomatic and what is not? Good question! You made the claim originally, so I presume you have some idea. > Everybody, > including grammarians, some of whom do not seem to be able to stomach > 'hopefully". True story: I have a friend who can't stomach the word "juice". It *literally* causes him to gag. (Needless to say, I have great fun torturing him with various forms of this word.) It would be absurd to make proclamations about the *universal* ugliness of such a word based on some people's idiosyncratic peeves (and arrogant to make such proclamations based on your own idiosyncratic peeves). Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 54 lines] > > Nathan Your own relentless (uncharecteristic) peevishness on this topic is rather surprising and obviously renders futher debate infeasible. > -- > Nathan Sanders > Linguistics Program > Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >> In article <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000h >> sb.googlegroups.com>, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: [...] >>> "the peculiar character or genius of a language" . >> I am quite aware of this definition. I don't see how it distinguishes >> "frankly, X" from "hopefully, X", something I have asked about >> repeatedly, and still gotten no response. [...] > Your own relentless (uncharecteristic) peevishness on this topic is > rather surprising and obviously renders futher debate infeasible. Since Nathan's last post is anything but peevish, this attempt to dodge his question is remarkably clumsy. > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), > <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Since Nathan's last post is anything but peevish, this > attempt to dodge his question is remarkably clumsy. I used "peevish" out of kindness - he seems to be asking what makes one construct idiomatic and another apparently similar one not - I think it displays an uncharacteristic and fundamental ignorance of how idiom comes about. On Jul 22, 9:38 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), > > <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote in <news:007ccd93- eb80-4137-8f03-70f74a42f5f2@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> > > in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > > >> In article <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000h [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > think it displays an uncharacteristic and fundamental ignorance of how > idiom comes about. Now you've misused the word "idiom"! > On Jul 22, 9:38 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:> On Jul 22, 9:29 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote: > > > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > > Now you've misused the word "idiom"!- Hide quoted text - No. did you think I wrote "idioms"? > - Show quoted text - On Jul 23, 6:46 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > On Jul 22, 9:38 pm, analys...@hotmail.com wrote:> On Jul 22, 9:29 pm, "Brian M. Scott" <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote: > > > > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > > > >> In article <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000h > > > > >> sb.googlegroups.com>, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > > > [...] > [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > > > Now you've misused the word "idiom"!- > No. did you think I wrote "idioms"? Did you not write the message bearing your name, to which I replied, which in its last two lines reads "fundamental ignorance of how idiom comes about"? > On Jul 23, 6:46 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > - Show quoted text - yes - and "idiom" here is not the singular of "idioms" but the je ne sais quoi quality pertaining to the whole language that separates idiomatic from unidiomatic usage. On Jul 23, 10:05 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > On Jul 23, 6:46 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > > > > > Now you've misused the word "idiom"!- > > > No. did you think I wrote "idioms"? > > > Did you not write the message bearing your name, to which I replied, > > which in its last two lines reads "fundamental ignorance of how idiom > > comes about"?- > yes - and "idiom" here is not the singular of "idioms" but the je ne > sais quoi quality pertaining to the whole language that separates > idiomatic from unidiomatic usage. Ah -- then you were simply choosing to write unidiomatic English. On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:38:46 -0700 (PDT), in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >> On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:10:23 -0700 (PDT), >> <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote in >> <news:007ccd93-eb80-4137-8f03-70f74a42f5f2@y21g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> >> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >>>> In article <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000h >>>> sb.googlegroups.com>, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: >> [...] >>>>> "the peculiar character or genius of a language" . >>>> I am quite aware of this definition. I don't see how it distinguishes >>>> "frankly, X" from "hopefully, X", something I have asked about >>>> repeatedly, and still gotten no response. >> [...] >>> Your own relentless (uncharecteristic) peevishness on this topic is >>> rather surprising and obviously renders futher debate infeasible. >> Since Nathan's last post is anything but peevish, this >> attempt to dodge his question is remarkably clumsy. > I used "peevish" out of kindness - To yourself, apparently, as it was certainly no kindness to him. > he seems to be asking what makes one construct idiomatic > and another apparently similar one not - I think it > displays an uncharacteristic and fundamental ignorance of > how idiom comes about. Which is another fancy way of trying to avoid having to answer the question. Obviously you are unable to do so. > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 18:38:46 -0700 (PDT), > <analys...@hotmail.com> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > > - Show quoted text - But what is there to answer? There is no compelling reason why the acceptability/idiomaticness of the "hopefully" construct should be less than that of "frankly" but there is no doubt that it is (as of now) and thats because some of its usages sound ignorant to some people. Thats English idiom at work - current English idiom hasn't full accepted the "hopefully" construct and thats the end of the story. Nathan Sanders filted: >True story: I have a friend who can't stomach the word "juice". It >*literally* causes him to gag. (Needless to say, I have great fun >torturing him with various forms of this word.) There are people afoot who have decided that certain ordinary words disgust them...one word in particular has generated its own discussion groups: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004835.html ....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > In article > <9d6e326e-ad70-4137-bab5-439255d55...@s50g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > "frankly, X" from "hopefully, X", something I have asked about > repeatedly, and still gotten no response. Only because I was out at a summer festival concert, of Satie, Dohnanyi, and Harrison. > True story: I have a friend who can't stomach the word "juice". It > *literally* causes him to gag. (Needless to say, I have great fun > torturing him with various forms of this word.) I don't like the words "lunch" and "booze." > In article > <8e5f06f8-bd58-42cc-be78-fb0535539a54@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > There are no linguists on aue? I'd be surprised if that were true. Well, I let my ACL membership lapse a few years after I left CSLI in the late '80s, so I probably only qualify as an "erstwhile linguist". But it's what one of the diplomas in my closet says, and I don't think I've forgotten everything yet. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |When you're ready to break a rule, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |you _know_ that you're ready; you Palo Alto, CA 94304 |don't need anyone else to tell |you. (If you're not that certain, kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |then you're _not_ ready.) (650)857-7572 | Tom Phoenix http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ > In article > <8e5f06f8-bd58-42cc-be78-fb0535539...@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 64 lines] > with these constructions, so the idea that they are somehow stylistic > marked is new to me. She(?) is a hopefully-denier, so to her(?), "frankly" is stylistically unremarkable and "hopefully" is not. > > > > The majority of the readership of this thread is in aue. > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > There are no linguists on aue? I'd be surprised if that were true. How do you get from "not a majority" to "no"? > > > Why should I be more lax with specialized terminology with them? Just > > > because they're in the alt.* hierarchy and not sci.*? I think better [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > I know of know definition of "idiomatic" for which "frankly, X" is not > more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". Do you? In the "idiolect," or rather the "beaten-into-them-by-Miss-Fidditch- lect," of hopefully-deniers. > > > > You need to master the ordinary-language sense of "idiomatic." > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > > But as we know, these kinds of issues typically go beyond mere opinion. Nonetheless, do read Joos's Five Clocks! >>>In article >>><bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > "grammatical". Unless you mean something different by "collocation" > and/or "acceptable" than the usual definitions. No. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. Stop being so pedantic. Or as the great Dr. Johnson said, rid your mind of cant. A collocation that is grammatical is CORRECT, not merely ACCEPTABLE; and perhaps even "correct" is too strong a term; say it's merely "standard." And don't throw around phrases like "the usual definition" when all you mean is *your* definition, or the one that suits you for this thread or even this post. >>The >>commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > obviously natural that they independently occur in many languages), > and some are more difficult and obscure. Since when do idioms occur "in many languages," unless you mean something like proverbial sense. And surely you can see the illogicality of your saying that "some idioms are easily learned" yet deny that "the frequency of second language use" has nnothing "to do with whether a construction is idiomatic"! That's precisely the definition I gave of idiomatic; namely that certain acceptable or routine connotations were used. HOW they came to be used is another matter--whether the person is native or an ESL student with a sharp feel for another language. If I say, "Please say the hour for me," that's a perfectly grammatical sentence, but it's clearly not idiomatic (there's a similar line in CASABLANCA, using "clock"). If I say, "What time do you have?" that is clearly grammatical as well as idiomatic. If you cannot see the difference then that's of concern of mine; I assume others can. > (By the way, "give a damn" *is* idiomatic, but it isn't the focus > here; "frankly" is, and a sentence of the form "frankly, X" is not > inherently idiomatic.) "Give a damn" is an idiom; I gave the distinction between "idiom" and "idiomatic" above. And the use of "frankly" is idiomatic in the sense I gave above. Depending on the rest of the sentence, the sentence may still not be perfectly idiomatic, but clearly the use of "frankly" indicates an idiomatic use of the English language. In fact, ironically, often an abuse of language may be more idiomatic than a grammatically correct use of language; as when native speakers are likely to say, "I ain't got nothing to do with the dude's death," while it's hard to imagine an ESL student speaking such a sentence, which would more likely be grammatically correct or idiomatically faulty: "I did have nothing to do with the death." >>Therefore the construction is idiomatic. In >>other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > Just because one word has some extended meaning, doesn't mean a > completely different word has a different kind of extended meaning! What in God's (or anyone else's) name are you saying in the above? > "Idiomatic" means what it means, and none of its meanings correspond > to a group that includes constructions of the form "frankly, X" and > "surely, X". Well I'm glad you're so confident of your position. That's at least some consolation for being wrong. > When having a focused, serious discussion about language, it's > necessarily to use jargon a bit more carefully than otherwise. For [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > Nathan What in God's name do you mean by "a focused, serious discussion"? I never have "focused, serious discussions" about anything; those are usually the most inane discussions to have; they incite pedantry rather than discovery. I'm sure that wizard of paradox, Mr. Chesterton must have said something like it's only when we're being playful that we can be serious. He did say, "If it's worth doing it's worth doing badly." Try to ligthen up your language a bit: "inhabited," "professional scholars," "stricter standards," and, especially, "elevated discourse." God save use from elevated discourse; give me street talk any day of the week. I ain't got no need for them kinds of pedantries. I think you should read Sojourner Truth more and Cicero less. > >>I think you're being contentious here. Clearly "idiomatic" is a common > >>expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > No. I mean what I say and I say what I mean. Then perhaps you could clarify what you meant, since I guess I misunderstood you. > Stop being so pedantic. When talking about definitions, a certain level of pedantry is necessary! > Or > as the great Dr. Johnson said, rid your mind of cant. A collocation that [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > *your* definition, or the one that suits you for this thread or even > this post. I meant exactly what I said. > >>The > >>commutation test is whether an ESL student would come up with a sentence [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Since when do idioms occur "in many languages," unless you mean > something like proverbial sense. I mean idioms like "to swim against the stream": <http://www.piirainen.homepage.t-online.de/example.html> > And surely you can see the > illogicality of your saying that "some idioms are easily learned" yet > deny that "the frequency of second language use" has nnothing "to do > with whether a construction is idiomatic"! There is no illogicality. Some are easily learned, others are not, therefore, a test based on whether an expression is easily learned is useless for determining whether it's an idiom. If there were an actual correlation (e.g., all idioms are hard to learn), then your proposed test could be valid. > If I say, "Please say the hour for me," that's a > perfectly grammatical sentence, but it's clearly not idiomatic (there's > a similar line in CASABLANCA, using "clock"). If I say, "What time do > you have?" that is clearly grammatical as well as idiomatic. Oh, you're talking about transparency of meaning. What's so untransparent about the meaning of "frankly, X"? > If you > cannot see the difference then that's of concern of mine; I assume > others can. But in fact, it does seem to be a concern of yours, as you've now replied twice to me, trying to correct what you perceive to be my misunderstanding of the difference! > > (By the way, "give a damn" *is* idiomatic, but it isn't the focus > > here; "frankly" is, and a sentence of the form "frankly, X" is not > > inherently idiomatic.) > > "Give a damn" is an idiom; I gave the distinction between "idiom" and > "idiomatic" above. The primary distinction between "idiom" and "idiomatic" is that one is a noun and the other is an adjective. Unless you're claiming that idioms aren't idiomatic. If so, then can you give me some examples of non-idiomatic idioms, and idiomatic non-idioms? (Non-idiomatic non-idioms and idiomatic idioms would also help out, to present the full picture.) > And the use of "frankly" is idiomatic in the sense I > gave above. Depending on the rest of the sentence, the sentence may [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > be grammatically correct or idiomatically faulty: "I did have nothing to > do with the death." Well, now you seem to be back on style. I still don't see "frankly, X" as being stylistically marked. Do you feel that "truthfully, X" is stylistically marked in the same way? > >>Therefore the construction is idiomatic. In > >>other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > What in God's (or anyone else's) name are you saying in the above? You made an analogy (using "the way that") of the form: idiom : idiomatic :: crime : criminal which I find to be a faulty analogy. If that isn't the analogy you intended), then what did you intend? > > When having a focused, serious discussion about language, it's > > necessarily to use jargon a bit more carefully than otherwise. For [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > What in God's name do you mean by "a focused, serious discussion"? This one: a serious discussion focused on sentential adverbs. > I never have "focused, serious discussions" about anything; Oh, my mistake. Linguistics is my job, so I do tend to take it a bit more seriously than other topics. You'll have to forgive me if I don't reply to you here with the same level of brainless giddiness as I might if we were discussing Lindsay Lohan's latest escapade. > Try to ligthen up your language a bit: "inhabited," "professional > scholars," "stricter standards," and, especially, "elevated discourse." My language is not fat; it's just big-boned. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:33:08 -0400, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-9375ED.13330822072008@news.newsguy.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [...] >> If I say, "Please say the hour for me," that's a >> perfectly grammatical sentence, but it's clearly not >> idiomatic (there's a similar line in CASABLANCA, using >> "clock"). If I say, "What time do you have?" that is >> clearly grammatical as well as idiomatic. > Oh, you're talking about transparency of meaning. I don't think so. I think that by 'X is idiomatic' he means 'X is the sort of thing that a native speaker would say'; this is perhaps the most common sense of the term. A native speaker would not normally say 'Please say the hour for me' if he wanted to know what time it was. [...] >>> (By the way, "give a damn" *is* idiomatic, but it isn't >>> the focus here; "frankly" is, and a sentence of the >>> form "frankly, X" is not inherently idiomatic.) >> "Give a damn" is an idiom; I gave the distinction between >> "idiom" and "idiomatic" above. > The primary distinction between "idiom" and "idiomatic" is > that one is a noun and the other is an adjective. > Unless you're claiming that idioms aren't idiomatic. If > so, then can you give me some examples of non-idiomatic > idioms, and idiomatic non-idioms? He's saying that a statement can be idiomatic without containing an idiom, and it can contain an idiom and still be unidiomatic; he's right. Examples, in that order: I'd never have guessed that he was only 20. I took yesterday an exam and made a right cockup of it. [...] Brian > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:33:08 -0400, Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > I don't think so. I think that by 'X is idiomatic' he means > 'X is the sort of thing that a native speaker would say'; To return to my earlier confusion, isn't that just "grammatical" (in the sense used in linguistics)? I still don't see sentential "frankly" as being *more* native-speaker-y than sentential "hopefully" is. Indeed, if anything, it's the other way around. I would expect non-natives to be less likely to use sentential "hopefully", because they have more of a tendency to adhere to prescriptive rules than natives. > He's saying that a statement can be idiomatic without > containing an idiom, and it can contain an idiom and still [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > I took yesterday an exam and made a right cockup of it. But the latter is ungrammatical, so you have given me one example that is grammatical and idiomatic, and one that is ungrammatical and unidiomatic, which doesn't help distinguish the two concepts. Now I need to see examples of that are ungrammatical plus idiomatic, and grammatical plus non-idiomatic. (They should all be non-idioms, just to make things easier on my poor addled brain.) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:35 -0400, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-78C574.14363522072008@news.newsguy.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [...] >> He's saying that a statement can be idiomatic without >> containing an idiom, and it can contain an idiom and still >> be unidiomatic; he's right. Examples, in that order: >> I'd never have guessed that he was only 20. >> I took yesterday an exam and made a right cockup of it. > But the latter is ungrammatical, I think that in the everday senses of the words it is grammatical but unidiomatic, and I think that angelgloww is using the terms in that way. (Hell, *I* wouldn't give it worse than a '?'.) I don't care about the argument, but I do think that you've been talking past each other. [...] Brian > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 14:36:35 -0400, Nathan Sanders > <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > using the terms in that way. (Hell, *I* wouldn't give it > worse than a '?'.) It's a full-blown * for me. My English doesn't allow temporal adverbials to intervene between a verb and its direct object, except with a heavy NP (especially one with it's only temporal adverbial), and then only somewhat marginally, requiring very strong pauses: *I baked yesterday a cake. *I'll bake tomorrow a cake. (?)I'll bake, tomorrow, the five chocolate cakes that my mom needs for the party on Friday. Although I would still much prefer: Tomorrow, I'll bake the five chocolate cakes that my mom needs for the party on Friday. > I don't care about the argument, but I > do think that you've been talking past each other. Seems like it. I'm trying to zero in on what meaning of "idiomatic" analyst meant originally, because none seem to be right. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:33:08 -0400, Nathan Sanders >><nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 38 lines] > > Nathan Don't you read the posts in the thread? I gave several in a previous post, but I can make more up here: "I ain't got nothing to do with that bank robbery." This is obviously non-grammatical, yet perfectly idiomatic. In fact, no ESL student could make up a sentence like that! You have to be born into the language to be both ungrammatical and natural in speaking it. As for the second category (again, check previous posts), here's another one: "It's due for us to go." That's obviously grammatical, but just as obviously not iidiomatic. Or, "See you subsequently" is obviously grammatical but just as obviously not idiomatic, unlike "See you later." "I perceived it with my own eyes" is grammatical but not idiomatic, at least if it's spoken in an exclamatory manner: "There's a ghost in the kitchen! I perceived it with my own eyes!" But I gave other examples in previous posts. On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0800, sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [...] > "I ain't got nothing to do with that bank robbery." > This is obviously non-grammatical, yet perfectly idiomatic. You also need to make an effort. As Nathan uses the term, the sentence *is* grammatical for some varieties of English. 'Grammatical' is defined by what people actually *do* say, not by what some prescriptivist says that they *ought* to say. > In fact, no ESL student could make up a sentence like > that! You have to be born into the language to be both > ungrammatical and natural in speaking it. If it's natural for a speaker, then it's grammatical for that speaker, irrespective of what Miss Thistlebottom may have told him in grade school. > As for the second category (again, check previous posts), > here's another one: > "It's due for us to go." > That's obviously grammatical, but just as obviously not > iidiomatic. I don't consider it grammatical in any sense of the word. [...] Brian > On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0800, > sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > not by what some prescriptivist says that they *ought* to > say. Oh! Is s/he using "grammatical" to mean "non-standard"? That clarifies things a bit more. > > "It's due for us to go." > > That's obviously grammatical, but just as obviously not > > iidiomatic. > > I don't consider it grammatical in any sense of the word. Glad I'm not the only one! Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > > On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0800, > > sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Oh! Is s/he using "grammatical" to mean "non-standard"? That > clarifies things a bit more. Oops, typo. Obviously, I meant: Is s/he using "ungrammatical" to mean "non-standard"? or alternatively: Is s/he using "grammatical" to mean "standard"? Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0800, > sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > not by what some prescriptivist says that they *ought* to > say. You're confusing grammatical langauge and standard language. I've never heard of "grammatical" used in the sense you claim. >>In fact, no ESL student could make up a sentence like >>that! You have to be born into the language to be both [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > that speaker, irrespective of what Miss Thistlebottom may > have told him in grade school. Leave Miss Thistle's bottom out of this. This is a respectable newsgroup. As for your other point, what can I say? I'm really through with this thread. (By the way, this seems to happen with all threads, where posts become like pods multiplying to no end. If you seriously believe that what's natural for a speaker is grammatical, then have it your way. Come to think of it, I kind of like your rules and may use them next time we have our neighborhood baseball game, when I can pass the baseball deep into centerfield and score a touchdown, based on my rules of baseball grammar. >>As for the second category (again, check previous posts), >>here's another one: [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > > Brian On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:03:10 +0800, sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >> On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 03:18:00 +0800, >> sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >> [...] >>>"I ain't got nothing to do with that bank robbery." >>>This is obviously non-grammatical, yet perfectly idiomatic. >> You also need to make an effort. As Nathan uses the term, >> the sentence *is* grammatical for some varieties of English. >> 'Grammatical' is defined by what people actually *do* say, >> not by what some prescriptivist says that they *ought* to >> say. > You're confusing grammatical langauge and standard language. I am not. You are. > I've never heard of "grammatical" used in the sense you > claim. You have: Nathan defined it in his post <nsanders-61AD49.11104522072008@news.newsguy.com> ('A collocation that is acceptable to the language is called "grammatical"'), to which you responded. In any case, it's the normal meaning in linguistics. [...] Brian > > Now I need to see examples of that are ungrammatical plus idiomatic, > > and grammatical plus non-idiomatic. (They should all be non-idioms, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > "I ain't got nothing to do with that bank robbery." > This is obviously non-grammatical, For whom? While negative concord isn't in my idiolect, "ain't" certainly is, and there are plenty of people who have both. > yet perfectly idiomatic. For whom? The same people it's ungrammatical for? Other people? Everyone? > As for the second category (again, check previous posts), here's another > one: > > "It's due for us to go." > That's obviously grammatical, Not for me it ain't! > but just as obviously not iidiomatic. Or, > "See you subsequently" is obviously grammatical but just as obviously > not idiomatic, unlike "See you later." Okay, this is a better example. Both are grammatical, and the first sounds stilted (though I can imagine contexts in which it would make sense to use it). But that sensation of stiltedness is not *at all* what I feel when I hear/use "hopefully, X". It's a perfectly natural, ordinary, euphonous construction that native speakers use quite frequently without hesitation. So this can't possibly be the meaning of "idiomatic" that analyst was talking about! Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>>>I think you're being contentious here. Clearly "idiomatic" is a common >>>>expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Then perhaps you could clarify what you meant, since I guess I > misunderstood you. Need I repeat myself? I meant a collocation that is acceptable to the speakers of a language and that is therefore idiomatic though not necessarily composing an idiom. I know of no other way to explain an idiomatic construction in a language. "Piss off" is idiomatic, while "Pee off" is not, even though "pee" and "piss" are lexical synonyms. >>Stop being so pedantic. > > When talking about definitions, a certain level of pedantry is > necessary! Not at all. I can define a novel as a fictional story that follows one or more characters and their goals, without having to define it as a substantially coherent and unified narrative structure using a linguistically complex narrative discourse that is focused on an ambivalently or equivocally motivated protagonist in conflict with an antagonist within a sociological context reflecting the ideological basis of the narrative discourse. >>Or >>as the great Dr. Johnson said, rid your mind of cant. A collocation that [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >>>I don't see how the frequency of second language use has anything to >>>do with whether a construction is idiomatic. How else would you define idiomatic usage but what is natural to a native speaker of that language, even if that speaker is functionally illiterate and writes substandard English? One takes it for granted that an ESL student with a doctorate in literature might still have trouble producing idiomatic constructions in the target language. On the other hand, a high-school dropout who was born in the country would have no trouble producing perfectly idiomatic language, even if of a substandard kind. No native American would say, "He has a strong building," but it's probable an ESL student would admire her boyfriend by saying, in English, that he has a strong building. A "strong build" is not an idiom, but a collocation of words that is idiomatic in our language and involves lexical meanings of the two words, "strong" and "build" that only a native speaker (or an exceptionally acculturated foreig speaker) would know how to combine in that idiomatic way. Some idioms are easily >>>learned and frequently used by SL learners (and in fact, some are so >>>obviously natural that they independently occur in many languages), [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > I mean idioms like "to swim against the stream": I doubt if that idiom is exactly replicated in another language. Regardless, I can train an ESL student to memorize a spate of idioms but that student will still not speak idiomatically, unless you think a string of idioms constitutes idiomatic speech. Simple proverbs can be quoted in a non-idiomatic manner: Like parent, like offspring; a rolling pebble collects little moss; no suffering, no advantage (=no pain, no gain). Just because those (what you call) idioms are quoted doesn't mean they'll sound idiomatic. On the contrary, a spy who spoke idioms like that would be a suitable candidate for the firing squad immediately after lunch, especially if he clinked glasses, saying, "Here's to your hygiene!" > <http://www.piirainen.homepage.t-online.de/example.html> > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > therefore, a test based on whether an expression is easily learned is > useless for determining whether it's an idiom. But not useless for determining idiomatic usage in a culture or language community. > If there were an actual correlation (e.g., all idioms are hard to > learn), then your proposed test could be valid. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Oh, you're talking about transparency of meaning. No, I'm contradicting your claim that grammatical correctness = idiomatic speech. > What's so untransparent about the meaning of "frankly, X"? > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > The primary distinction between "idiom" and "idiomatic" is that one is > a noun and the other is an adjective. No, the primary distinction is that one is finite and the other infinite, with an indefinite number of collocations. If all ESL students had to do were memorize a finite quantity of idioms, learning a language, or speaking it like a native, would be a far easier task than it is. > Unless you're claiming that idioms aren't idiomatic. If so, then can > you give me some examples of non-idiomatic idioms, and idiomatic [quoted text clipped - 61 lines] > > Nathan > >>>>I think you're being contentious here. Clearly "idiomatic" is a common > >>>>expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > Need I repeat myself? Well, obviously mere repetition isn't useful clarification. If all it took was seeing it again, I could just understand what you meant by re-reading it! "Clarification" usually entails some sort of paraphrase (alternate vocabulary and/or circumlocutions) and/or helpful examples. > I meant a collocation that is acceptable to the (presumably, "native"?) > speakers of a language and that is therefore idiomatic though not > necessarily composing an idiom. Defining "idiomatic" by including "idiomatic" in the definition is not very helpful. > I know of no other way to explain an > idiomatic construction in a language. Then perhaps we are at an impasse. I can't understand what you meant the first time around, and you claim inability to construct an alternate way of expressing it. > "Piss off" is idiomatic, while > "Pee off" is not, even though "pee" and "piss" are lexical synonyms. "Piss off" is an idiom (it has nothing to do with literal piss) and "pee off" is not an idiom. You aren't usefully clarifying the difference between "idiom" and "idiomatic" if you keep them in lock-step agreement in your examples! > >>Stop being so pedantic. > > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > antagonist within a sociological context reflecting the ideological > basis of the narrative discourse. I said "certain level", not "maximum level". > >>>I don't see how the frequency of second language use has anything to > >>>do with whether a construction is idiomatic. > > How else would you define idiomatic usage but what is natural to a > native speaker of that language, What is natural for a native speaker may also be natural for a non-native. It may instead be unnatural for a non-native. My point is that non-native speakers have nothing to do with this, if you're defining something in terms of what native speakers do. > > I mean idioms like "to swim against the stream": > > I doubt if that idiom is exactly replicated in another language. Apparently it is (did you miss this link the first time I posted it?): <http://www.piirainen.homepage.t-online.de/example.html> (Of course "exact" is a bit strict, given that translations are usually inexact in some way or another.) > Simple proverbs can be quoted in a non-idiomatic manner: Like parent, > like offspring; a rolling pebble collects little moss; no suffering, no > advantage (=no pain, no gain). Changing the lexemes in an idiom typically does not preserve its status as an idiom. That is one of the more useful tests for determining whether something is an idiom. I'll use it below. > >>If I say, "Please say the hour for me," that's a > >>perfectly grammatical sentence, but it's clearly not idiomatic (there's [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > No, I'm contradicting your claim that grammatical correctness = > idiomatic speech. Your example doesn't really help illustrate that, in part, because you're still continuing to conflate "idiom" with "idiomatic" (one of the very things I was trying tease apart!). "What time do you have?" is an idiom, because you lose the idiomatic meaning when you change the lexemes: Which time do you have? What time do you possess? What time do you hold? What time do you own? > >>"Give a damn" is an idiom; I gave the distinction between "idiom" and > >>"idiomatic" above. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > No, the primary distinction is that one is finite and the other > infinite, Verbs are finite or infinite, and neither "idiom" nor "idiomatic" are verbs! I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems like the safest explanation. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>>>>>I think you're being contentious here. Clearly "idiomatic" is a common >>>>>>expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > "Clarification" usually entails some sort of paraphrase (alternate > vocabulary and/or circumlocutions) and/or helpful examples. See that's your problem, really: fancy expresions, sententious style, Latinate words: "clarification," "entails," "paraphrase," "circumlocutions," redeemed only by "helpful examples." Diction (choice of words) reveals the person as much, or more so, than dress. I think Orwell's essay on the English language is one of the seminal essays in style of the last century, since it exposes the politics (whether today it be academic politics or what we ordinarily call politics) of language use. To quote Johnson again: Rid your mind of cant. If you really have something to say, you'll think more of your audience (reader/hearer) than of your own needs. The problem is, today few have anything to say. So they invent a whole galaxy of terms such as deonstruction, floating signifiers, transcendental signified, intertextuality, etc. I use these words too, if I find them useful; which means more communicative than using other words. Or, of course, in cases where one is debating these issues. The reason why Jane (or Johnny) can't read is that today methodologies have replaced learning; terminologies of teaching and learning have replaced determination to teach and learn. This is not to dismiss all big words, provided the context requires it, the reference is clear or concrete (and not merely abstract), there is a judicious balance of Latinate and Anglo-Saxon, of fancy and plain discourse (Shakespeare was master of this) and there is no other way around it. But there's no point is telling your friend that you just executed a circumferential reconnaissance of a mercantile establishment for perishable goods anticipatory of their domestic consumption" when what you mean is you shopped for groceries. You may recall in the US Congress during the Vietnam war a military officer telling a congressional committee on the war that the military was engaged in a systematic operation of preventive exfoliation, or words to that effect, and the senator responded, "What you're telling us is you're bombing the country. So why don't you just come right out and say it?" Obviously there are times when fancy words are needed. But then they're not really fancy words; they're concrete words. In music, an "ostinato" refers to something definite, as does an obligato, cadenza, etc. The fact that one poster wasn't sure whether "disadvanced" was appropriate terminology or not shows how inappropriate the terminology has become in the social sciences, and now even the humanities. People can't read (and few read primary texts anymore) but they sure can throw fancy terminologies around over the coffee table. I once talked to ESL students taking literature courses in England (out of courtesy I'll omit the name of the university). I truly felt sorry for these students. They probably had never read a complete Dickens novel or Shakepseare play in their lives and they were stumbling around trying, with negligible success, to use words they got from a lecture on Derrida or Saussure. Then there are those endless ESL textbooks, each one proclaiming the triumph of methodology over ignorance. Of course today there's no need for these methodological tomes (a misnomer, since they're not really tomes, but pamphlets of about 100 pages puffed up with cute pictures of people ordering burgers in Dalls or New York). Of course "referentiality" is admittedly a relative term. "Theology" may seem a big word to some formally untutored people, yet still refer to something (a system of beliefs about God). But even there the communication triangle should constrain the vocabulary. Presumably most people don't give a damn about theology and just care about their own belief. So what's the point of starting a sentence, "Theologically, John believes that . . ." when it's better to begin, "John believes that. . . ." As a general rule of style, I would advise all writers that, when you see a word long word see if you can replace it with a shorter words with no loss of sense. If you can, do so. True. There's a time and place for long words. A doctor finds it convenient to name a certain bone in the body, however long the name of it, than to refer to that little itty bitty thing over there behind your chest. "See on this X-ray that little bugger over there, next to that big thing that looks like my dog's treats. Well that's broken. We're going to fix the fellow up and then you'll no longer say ouch." Even so, few doctors name but a few of the bones or glands they presumably are familiar with, having taken courses in anatomy. But to return to your main point, often asking for "clarification" is contentious rather than helpful. If I tell you to stop skateboarding on my property or to lower the volume of your CD player, asking me to explain what I mean would clearly be construed in a contentious, even belligerent, way. "What do you mean lower my CD player?" "You know what I mean: put your index and middle finger on the volume control and then rotate it to the left. However, if your CD player does not have volume dial, then raise your index finger over the volume control button with the minus sign under it, press it down on that button, then maintain pressure until the volume is reduced to a neighborly level." >>I meant a collocation that is acceptable to the > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > difference between "idiom" and "idiomatic" if you keep them in > lock-step agreement in your examples! Our conversation ends at this point. You're obviously being now, as yu were before, contentious. Whether "piss off" is an idiom or not, it is idiomatic. And that's the focus of our inquiry. Whether idiomatic usage has any bearing on idioms. I must conclude thsi so-called dialogue because it's taking up too much time and it's no longer useful or helpful to me, and I suspect, to others on the newsgroup. As in the case of synonyms, I frankly don't care if someone believes that two words are synonymic or interchangeable in context or not. If that's the way they approach writing, then more power tothem; since they'll write more easily than I, who, in revisions, have to creatively seek the mot juste. Same with idiomatic usage. If you believe that idiomatic usage must be grammatically correct, in effect coflating the two terms, then that's your privilege. It takes all kinds to make a world. Let others engage themselves in this argument. The points I've made, and my examples, seem to be ingored, so I have to make them again. And then the damn thread loses focus from the main issue to peripheral issues that then are focused on, as happened with the issue of synonyms. So one feels like Mickey Mouse in *Fantasia* having to reply now, not to one stick of contention, but to an army of them. I don't want to sound dismissive, but I think we've worked over the issues already. >>>>Stop being so pedantic. >>> [quoted text clipped - 77 lines] > > Nathan > >>Need I repeat myself? > > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Latinate words: "clarification," "entails," "paraphrase," > "circumlocutions," redeemed only by "helpful examples." Wow, really? *That's* what's stuck in your craw, that I'm using too many polysyllabic words? If you don't understand something I"ve said, I will happily rephrase it in different terms and try to limit myself to Germanic vocabulary as much as possible. Just ask. Then again, I've experienced first-hand how you treat people who ask, so lord knows what you're like when you're the one doing the asking! > Diction (choice of words) reveals the person as much, or more so, than > dress. If you can see what I'm wearing, I'm calling the police. [snip a whole bunch of unnecessary anti-intellectualism that came out of nowhere] > Obviously there are times when fancy words are needed. I don't really think I've been using "fancy words". The words I'm using are mostly pretty ordinary and common in even moderately educated circles. (Okay, "circumlocution" is relatively technical, but the alternative... um, circumlocutions... are cumbersome, and I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you knew what this term meant. Again, if you don't, just ask.) [snip some weird rant about Derrida and ESL textbooks!] > But to return to your main point, often asking for "clarification" is > contentious rather than helpful. I'm not trying to help *you* --- I'm trying to help *myself* understand what you're saying. If you don't want to cooperate and help me out, that's your prerogative. But don't say I didn't give you plenty of chances to clarify your words! > >>"Piss off" is idiomatic, while > >>"Pee off" is not, even though "pee" and "piss" are lexical synonyms. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Our conversation ends at this point. And yet you continue bloviating for two more unwieldy paragraphs! > You're obviously being now, as yu > were before, contentious. I think you mistake directness (and Usenet's infamous distortion of emotion) for contentiousness. (I also get a strong sense from how quickly you've flown off the handle that you're just a little tightly wound right now, perhaps from this "synonym" discussion you keep referencing, so maybe you're just a bit hypersensative.) > Whether "piss off" is an idiom or not, it is > idiomatic. And that's the focus of our inquiry. But it's been clear from initial confusion that I'm having trouble understanding how analyst was using "idiomatic", and that some of the confusion relates to what an "idiom" is. So when you offer up X and Y as examples of idiomatic and non-idiomatic, it's not very helpful to *my particular confusion* if X and Y also happen to be examples of an idiom and a non-idiom! If you want me to understand what you/analyst mean by "idiomatic", you have to give me examples that differ as minimally as possible, hopefully *only* in being idiomatic and non-idiomatic. They certainly shouldn't also differ in being idioms (or in being grammatical, or in being standard, or in being sensical). > I must conclude thsi so-called dialogue A second conclusion already? You haven't even reached your second final paragraph yet! > If you believe that idiomatic usage must be > grammatically correct, I don't. The whole point is that I don't know what you mean by "idiomatic", and I'm trying to understand it. You offered up a definition, and it happened to superficially correspond to the definition of "grammatical" (or perhaps "standard"), and when I pointed this out (because it was furthering confusing me and making it harder to understand you), you just got all rant-y and anti-Latinate on me. > The points I've made, and my examples, seem > to be ingored, I responded to your examples, asked for clarification about them, and explained why I didn't think they were helpful. That's exactly the opposite of ignoring them! > so I have to make them again. No, you have to make them *different(ly)*, if you have any interest in helping me understand you. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>>>Need I repeat myself? >>> [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Then again, I've experienced first-hand how you treat people who ask, > so lord knows what you're like when you're the one doing the asking! Polysyllabic words are not the issue any more than four-letter words. I doubt if anyone is squeamish in today's Portersque age when anything goes writing prose. Which is why I could only respond to another poster with hilarity who tried to make an issue out of the use of vocabulary as if that could possibly be a provocative issue today. I think the only way you could shock society today is by using the word "adamantine" at a social function. All I ask is that you consider when words are necessry. I love music and have a limited technical vocabulary; even so I would not encourage someone to enjoy a piece of music by using it, unless asked or the conversation was on that level to begin with. Bernard Shaw, literate in music as well as other areas, mocked the use of musical analysis by subjecting a Hamlet's monologue to the same sort of terminological discourse. In that case, I would encourage someone to enjoy that monologue by pointing out how it begins with an infinitive, followed by a conjunction, then a negation of the infinitive, followed by a demonstrative pronoun, which predicates the main clause. That, in terminological jargon,is "To be or not to be." Think how many people are turned off from music by thinking one must recognize key signatures and changes, and what else. Obviously there's a place for that kind of disucssion too, but not anyplace. I've no idea what you mean by your final sentence in the above quote. I try to be civil. But there are times when I see so many angular brackets preceding a text that it makes me irritable. And, as I mentioned, I do blieve some posters erect straw dogs that are easier to knock down than the actual issues or the people in dialogue with them. You know how these threads proliferate, so finally there are more angular brackets (>>>>>>>>) than text. To be fair, and put things in perspective, many enjoy these long long threads, and their names are not necessarily Lucy or Desi. There's nothing wrong with that either. But, like I said, often I can't tell the difference between what the original issue was, or what I originally said and what other say I said. Maybe my browser is not as clear as yours; I don't know. >>Diction (choice of words) reveals the person as much, or more so, than >>dress. > > If you can see what I'm wearing, I'm calling the police. Don't bother; I already have. > [snip a whole bunch of unnecessary anti-intellectualism that came out > of nowhere] I think the issues are related. Where do those terminologies come from but from an academia that has pretty much lost touch. We should be concerned where our nation is headed. By nation I mean the imagination, a faculty lost sight of in our terminologically constipated humanities. We saw what happened with "disadvanced" in the social sciences; people no longer know what's correct English anymore because the language has been mangled for so long, with little sense of referentiality even. We got the word "dunce" from the same kind of thinking. We once taught Dickens so we could feel with characters, become sensitive to social issues. Now we talk about metanarratives and substitutive signifiers. That's assuming we even read primary texts anymore, which I doubt. But you can snip this too. I don't mind. I've made my point. >>Obviously there are times when fancy words are needed. > > I don't really think I've been using "fancy words". The words I'm > using are mostly pretty ordinary and common in even moderately > educated circles. But unnecessary. It takes us back to that thread on synonymy. I could throw four-letter words around with the best of them. But I also know when not to use them, out of respect for the social context. There's a time to say "he kicked the bucket" and "he passed away." Knowing the difference when is the difference between more than functional literacy. > (Okay, "circumlocution" is relatively technical, but the > alternative... um, circumlocutions... are cumbersome, and I assumed, > perhaps incorrectly, that you knew what this term meant. Again, if > you don't, just ask.) That's not the point. You don't understand, Charlie, I coulda had class, I coulda been a contenda. No, wait, Wrong dialogue. You don't understand; it's not an issue of "technical" words; it's an issue of wrong words; wrong words can be vulgar, technical, Latin derived, Anglo-Saxon derived, monolyllabic, polysyllabic, ethnocentric, or what not. They're simply wrong, especially when they clutter up a sentence. (I nearly let "clutter cup" pass; I do apologize for my sloppy typiing; and I noted some dittographical phrasing in a previous post that I had overlooked. I'll try to slow down my typing.) > [snip some weird rant about Derrida and ESL textbooks!] What's so weird about addressing the issue of how teaching has become big business? I thought you teach people how to write by teaching them how to read. >>But to return to your main point, often asking for "clarification" is >>contentious rather than helpful. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > prerogative. But don't say I didn't give you plenty of chances to > clarify your words! You mean I gave you plenty of chances. And I think others will back me up on this; moreover, I'm not the only poster who has taken exception to your concept of grammar and idiomatic usage. >>>>"Piss off" is idiomatic, while >>>>"Pee off" is not, even though "pee" and "piss" are lexical synonyms. [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > I think you mistake directness (and Usenet's infamous distortion of > emotion) for contentiousness. If I tell you to turn down the volume and you ask what I mean by volume, you're being contentious, since the request is transparent. Read Moliere's short play, "The Forced Marriage," to enjoy how to philosophers (one an Aristotelian, the othe a Skeptic) respond to a simple quest whether an elderly man should marry a younger woman or not. > (I also get a strong sense from how quickly you've flown off the > handle that you're just a little tightly wound right now, perhaps from > this "synonym" discussion you keep referencing, so maybe you're just a > bit hypersensative.) Yes. And no. You see, when the mind houses two threads, there's always a conflict. Seriously, these threads, like Wordsworth's young poet, begin in gladness and end in madness. They begin with a clearly focused issue and very shortly everyone is erecting their straw dogs that are safer antagonist than a real person on the other end of the Net. >>Whether "piss off" is an idiom or not, it is >>idiomatic. And that's the focus of our inquiry. > > But it's been clear from initial confusion that I'm having trouble > understanding how analyst was using "idiomatic", and that some of the > confusion relates to what an "idiom" is. See this is what I mean. Any reference of a dictionary will tell you that there are several definitions for "idiom." You're using a secondary or even tertiary definition (the more technical meaning of idiom as an habitual collocation of words the sum of which mean something different than their lexical units; so that "How's it going" cannot be determined simply by looking up each word in the dictionary, unlike "The cat is on the mat," which can be determined by referencing each word in the dictionary. Now (will this please be the final time?) I use the word idiomatic in another, also correct, usage, to mean a collocation that sounds natural or native to a community. That's the usage that, say, a movie script doctor would use when correcing a dialogue between two gangsters. The first thing the script doctor would be is determine the nationality or ethnicity of the two gangsters, then take it from there. How WOULD these two speak at home with their wives? How WOULD they speak to their cohorts, etc. Grammar doesn't factor. Many perfectly grammatical scripts have been thrown out of a producer's office or, if not, flopped at the box office. Of course, once one determines what's idiomatic usage, one can then deliberatley violate that rule for comic or ironic effect. We know that that wise kid on "Leave It to Beaver" used to sound funny because he altered his style of speech when speaking to "Mrs. Cleaver" but then called Beaver "squirt" when he was alone. We know that Cole Porter got comic effect by having two thugs use Shakespearean language in "Brush Up Your Shakespeare." What was perfectly idiomatic in Shakespeare's time, becomes only egregiiously ludicrous out of the mouths of thugs ("thinkest thou?"). In sum, "I don't know nothing" is ungrammatical yet perfectly idiomatic. Shall we go around in circles again? That's the main thrust of the argument as I recall many angular brackets ago. Ergo, in conclusion, it follows (contra your argument) idiomatic usage and grammar need not necessarily be conflated as criteria. And let's not leave out genre too. Clearly "so I chaffed them" would sound ridiculous if a young man today complained about a broken love affair; yet when Harbach used that word in "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" it fits perfectly within the context (including Kern's sublime melody) of that song. > So when you offer up X and Y as examples of idiomatic and > non-idiomatic, it's not very helpful to *my particular confusion* if X [quoted text clipped - 35 lines] > > Nathan > >>See that's your problem, really: fancy expresions, sententious style, > >>Latinate words: "clarification," "entails," "paraphrase," [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Then again, I've experienced first-hand how you treat people who ask, > > so lord knows what you're like when you're the one doing the asking! [snip yet another rant, this time about Hamlet!] > I've no idea what you mean by your final sentence in the above quote. I I asked. You ranted. That's what I mean. > > [snip a whole bunch of unnecessary anti-intellectualism that came out > > of nowhere] > > I think the issues are related. You think they're related only because you attribute false motivations to my use of vocabulary. If instead you would just respond to content, rather than getting bogged down in which languages my words ultimately derive from (and your off-kilter suppositions about why I chose them), things would go a lot more smoothly. > Where do those terminologies come from > but from an academia that has pretty much lost touch. And there the anti-intellectualism rears its head again! Leave your prejudices behind. Just because I use big words doesn't mean I'm out to get you. [snip a rant about Dickens] > That's assuming we even read primary texts anymore, which I doubt. I collect data from native speakers. Is that primary enough for you? > > I don't really think I've been using "fancy words". The words I'm > > using are mostly pretty ordinary and common in even moderately > > educated circles. > > But unnecessary. They are the words I chose to use. Necessity has nothing to do with it. They represent the best way my brain knew of expressing the concepts I wanted to express at the time, given a variety of constraints (how much time I was willing to spend writing, how much knowledge I could assume my audience had, how much sleep I'd had, etc.). > It takes us back to that thread on synonymy. A thread that I've already said I know nothing about, so I don't know why you keep bringing it up when you respond to me. Weren't you the one complaining about threads getting off-track? I keep trying to bring it back to the topic over and over, but you keep avoiding the central issue and derailing the conversation (intentionally?) with vast quantities of utter irrelevancies. > > (Okay, "circumlocution" is relatively technical, but the > > alternative... um, circumlocutions... are cumbersome, and I assumed, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > understand; it's not an issue of "technical" words; it's an issue of > wrong words; What's wrong with "paraphrase" and "entails"? Why do these words bother you so much that, instead of just sticking to the topic and answering my questions, you go off on meta-discursive, anti-intellectual rants having no bearing on what I actually said? > > [snip some weird rant about Derrida and ESL textbooks!] > > What's so weird about addressing the issue of how teaching has become > big business? Because your anti-intellectualism has nothing to do with whether "hopefully" is a sentential adverb or not! It is either is, or it isn't, and your inflammatory paranoia about the decline of modern society due to academia's failings is a insulting distraction. And highly hypocritical, given your stated disdain for constantly branching sub-threads. I didn't ask you to blather on about authors and texts and philosophy; I just wanted to know why analyst thinks "frankly, X" is more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". > >>You're obviously being now, as yu > >>were before, contentious. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > If I tell you to turn down the volume and you ask what I mean by volume, > you're being contentious, since the request is transparent. Not if I'm just silently reading a book! That's the point. analyst said something that made no sense in context. I questioned him on it, trying to puzzle out what he really meant. And then you butted in with your rants about Derrida and somebody named Desi (Arnaz?), conveniently letting analyst off the hook for his odd statement. And try as I might to drag this thread back to the original branch, you keep yammering on about just about everything you can possibly think of *except* the original question I asked. And then you have the audacity to complain about branching threads and too many angle brackets, as if you had absolutely nothing to do with quagmire you got us into? > Read > Moliere's short play, "The Forced Marriage," to enjoy how to > philosophers (one an Aristotelian, the othe a Skeptic) respond to a > simple quest whether an elderly man should marry a younger woman or not. I find philosophy (except formal logic) to be excrutiatingly boring. Unless there's some modus tollens or modus ponens, I think I'll pass. > >>Whether "piss off" is an idiom or not, it is > >>idiomatic. And that's the focus of our inquiry. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > that there are several definitions for "idiom." You're using a secondary > or even tertiary definition *sigh* I've already explained that *none* of the available definitions, ordinary or otherwise, match up with what he was claiming. The only reason I began with the technical definition is because I assumed that's the one he intended (because it's very common for laymen to misuse technical terminology). > Now (will this please be the final time?) I use the word > idiomatic in another, also correct, usage, to mean a collocation that > sounds natural or native to a community. Then why on earth have you been implicitly defending analyst's usage of the word "idiomatic"?! Your definition does *not* at all fit what he said (that "frankly, X" is idiomatic, while "hopefully, X" is not). [snip something odd segue into gangster films, Leave it to Beaver, and Cole Porter (this sounds like the set-up to a bad joke)] Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article <g66iep$rr...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > Then why on earth have you been implicitly defending analyst's usage > of the word "idiomatic"?! Your definition does *not* at all fit what > he said (that "frankly, X" is idiomatic, while "hopefully, X" is not). There are two issues here, I think. assertion: "hopefully" constructs have somewhat less acceptance (measured by how often they are used, who uses them and who objects to the usage) by the English speaking community than "frankly" constructs. issue 1 is whether this assertion is correct. issue 2: you are saying that what I wrote is not a correct charecterization of the difference between the status of these two usages even if the assertion above is correct. OK then. how would you say it? On 23 Jul 2008, wrote > On Jul 23, 4:05 am, Nathan Sanders <nsand...@williams.edu> > wrote: [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > two usages even if the assertion above is correct. OK then. > how would you say it? Doesn't that conflate idiomaticity and acceptability? I don't think a usage needs to be universally acceptable to qualify as idiomatic. SignatureCheers, Harvey CanEng and BrEng, indiscriminately mixed > On 23 Jul 2008, wrote > [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > I don't think a usage needs to be universally acceptable to qualify > as idiomatic. Of course not, What is idiomatic (in the sense that I observe) may depend on a small community. That's the sense of jargon or argot too. "That loud bang" may be perfectly idiomatic spoken by one's mother about the garbage truck, but sound highly unidiomatic if spoken by a lecturer during a Music 100 class on Beethoven's Eroic Symphony, regarding the E-flat major triads that begin that symphony: "Those two loud bangs you just heard were a clarion call to a musical revolution." I doubt if Lenny Bernstein would have been nearly as popular on his Omnibus programs had he spoken like that. But even that way of speaking might pass as idiomatic if they were intended in an ironic manner: "Beethoven was considered a barbarian composer by some so-called music lovers of his time. Some thought his music rude and noisy. But those two loud bangs youjust heard were a clarion call. . . . " In a previous post I gave the example of Porter's gangsters using Shakespearen diction, to the same effect. > On 23 Jul 2008, wrote > [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > I don't think a usage needs to be universally acceptable to qualify > as idiomatic. Bingo. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>That's assuming we even read primary texts anymore, which I doubt. > > I collect data from native speakers. Is that primary enough for you? So you prove my point, because evidently you don't know the meaning of a primary text as distinct from a secondary text (the distinction is not between native and foreign speakers but between literature and commentary on that literature). > I just wanted to know why analyst thinks > "frankly, X" is more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". And honestly (sincerely) I lost track of the argument or even who made it. So perhaps both of us are at fault. If you're so determined to focus on the issue, then why not simply copy the original sentence and delete all the rest of the multiply bracketed material. Let's start over. Instead of using your faux mathematical forumula ("frankly, X") copy the original sentences and address the issues again, in direct questions. At this point I'm not sure if you're quoting me or another poster whose sentences I defended (I know something like that happened at the beginning of the thread; but I've posted on several long threads and, with all the brackets, can't keep track of the original sentences or the original issues. > And then you butted in with your rants about Derrida and somebody > named Desi (Arnaz?), conveniently letting analyst off the hook for his > odd statement. I was humorously alluding to a movie called "The Long, Long Trailer," starring the couple on the "I Love Lucy" show. And I've no idea who you mean by "analyst"? Just quote the so-called "odd statement" and start over. > And try as I might to drag this thread back to the original branch, > you keep yammering on about just about everything you can possibly > think of *except* the original question I asked. Because I've lost track of the original question buried in a mound of angular brackets. >>Read >>Moliere's short play, "The Forced Marriage," to enjoy how to [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > I find philosophy (except formal logic) to be excrutiatingly boring. > Unless there's some modus tollens or modus ponens, I think I'll pass. Actually, it's a comic play and has nothing to do with philosophy except to underscore its absurdities, according to Moliere. > Then why on earth have you been implicitly defending analyst's usage > of the word "idiomatic"?! Your definition does *not* at all fit what > he said (that "frankly, X" is idiomatic, while "hopefully, X" is not). Like I said, I've really lost track. So if you're sincere about this, and to prove I'm in good faith about not evading the issue(s), just send me the disputed quote and tell me what you think about it (correct, incorrect; idiomatic or not; ungrammatical or not) and I'll respond. That's the best I can do. The issues have become so clouded and bracketed that I can't find the focus anymore. As I look at the Subject line, this thread began with someone hoping that "Hopefull, someone can settle this family argument. Somewhere along the line someone claimed a sentence was idiomatic; another person (you?) claimed it was not because it was not grammatical; I claimed that a sentence need not be grammatical to be idiomatic (that is, natural to the language). This is the only position I'm willing to defend, along with the opposite; namely that a sentence could be perfectly grammatical yet not idiomatic. I gave examples in previous posts. > Nathan > >>That's assuming we even read primary texts anymore, which I doubt. > > [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > between native and foreign speakers but between literature and > commentary on that literature). I know the difference. I'm pointing out that I do my own research (with native speakers, because I don't work on second-language acquisition). That is, I make my own primary texts. > > I just wanted to know why analyst thinks > > "frankly, X" is more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > on the issue, then why not simply copy the original sentence and delete > all the rest of the multiply bracketed material. Let's start over. Analyst helpfully summarized what he meant, and HVS helpfully replied with the essence of what I now realize I should have said. > Instead of using your faux mathematical forumula ("frankly, X") copy the Did a mathematician run over your dog? "'frankly, X'" is shorthand for "sentential 'frankly'". I used both in this thread, but eventually preferred "'frankly, X'" to avoid the overly Latinate "sentential". Damned if I do... Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ Nathan Sanders filted: >> Instead of using your faux mathematical forumula ("frankly, X") copy the > [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > >Damned if I do... sb. should really develop sth. to use when s.o. wants to discuss sentences abstractly....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:19:50 -0400, Nathan Sanders <nsanders@williams.edu> wrote in <news:nsanders-691C21.00195023072008@news.newsguy.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: [...] > (Okay, "circumlocution" is relatively technical, but the > alternative... um, circumlocutions... [...] Rorohobisms? (Round Robin Hood's barn.) Brian > I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given you > already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems like the > safest explanation. Yanking my chain, surely? as opposed to pulling my leg? I think it was in a very early NYPD Blue that one cop said to another "Are you yanking my chain or ... [some very similar idiom]," and the point was that one of them was mean and the other was joshing. Does anyone remember the line or the contrast? In article <b794b97e-5f5b-4822-8e34-5595bc74ee88@27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, > > I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given you > > already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems like the > > safest explanation. > > Yanking my chain, surely? as opposed to pulling my leg? Oops, yeah, I mixed my metaphors. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:47:51 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels" <grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in <news:b794b97e-5f5b-4822-8e34-5595bc74ee88@27g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: >> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given you >> already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems like the >> safest explanation. > Yanking my chain, surely? as opposed to pulling my leg? What's mildly interesting is that while 'pulling my chain' will probably be interpreted correctly as 'yanking my chain', 'yanking my leg' is just puzzling. [...] Brian >>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > will probably be interpreted correctly as 'yanking my > chain', 'yanking my leg' is just puzzling. "Pulling my chain" is the phrase I use (though seldom). I've heard "yanking my chain" on occasion, but I think it's not the "original." Isn't "yanking" (in this phrase) simply an exaggeration of "pulling"? Or seen to be a more emphatic version? Note: Without looking it up, I'd say that "pulling my chain" could be related somehow to toilets which have chains to pull for flushing. (I've only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what I've heard is just a myth.) SignatureMaria C. Resident of southeast Michigan, near Detroit; native of east Tennessee. >>>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > (I've only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what I've heard > is just a myth.) We had one of those back in the 'thirties in Riga. SignatureSkitt (AmE) AUE's token Latvian >>>>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>>>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 17 lines] > >We had one of those back in the 'thirties in Riga. We still have one in Ballybrack. The house, and the toilet, probably dates back to the early twenties. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland >>>>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>>> Yanking my chain, surely? as opposed to pulling my leg? >>> What's mildly interesting is that while 'pulling my chain' >> "Pulling my chain" is the phrase I use (though seldom). I've heard >> Note: Without looking it up, I'd say that "pulling my chain" could be >> related somehow to toilets which have chains to pull for flushing. >> (I've only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what I've heard >> is just a myth.) > We had one of those back in the 'thirties in Riga. Chain yanking, reminds me of yet another story. Most of you know, least in AUE, we own a lot of rental homes. This is a good source of income but a price is often paid. We have one rental we call the "Sewer Home" as a term of loving endearment. This is a home which gave us sewer line fits for a month and a half. On a Sunday morning, a phone call from the Sewer Home, "My toilet is overflowing!" Ok, ok, we know the routine, go over to Home Depot, rent an expensive and heavy rooter along with a couple pairs of throwaway leather gloves. Ever operate an industrial rooter? I would need to resort to ample cussing to best describe running a rooter snake down into a sewer line, which always sets free the ageless "Black Slime Monster" who delights in spinning off black sludge, excrement and other nasties upon your hair, face, teeth and clothes. I have never found throwaway faces at our local Home Depot. Our clothes, we can throw away. No way will I run crap and sludge laden clothes through my laundry. We fight with the Black Slime Monster and eventually clear the sewer line, about fifty feet out from our rental. Following Sunday morning, "My toilet is overflowing!" Same routine, do battle with the Black Slime Monster. Next Sunday morning, "My toilet is overflowing!" This time, a significant amount of cuss words are heard around our peaceful Sunday morning household. Nonetheless, we again defeat the Black Slime Monster. Yet again, following week, Sunday morning phone call, "My toilet is overflowing!" This time I unpack my childhood bow and arrows, check all over, ready to use and deadly as always. Slinging my quiver, my husband stumbles into me, "What are you doing?" I explain, "Sewer Home. I am going to kill that (many cuss words) tenant of ours." "Well, now, Taha, this ain't Oklahoma. We can't be killing folks out here in California." I ask, "Why not?" He sweet talks me into calling a professional plumber and to be sure this plumber has a video camera on a snake. Ok, only an extra $200 to have a plumber out on a Sunday. We have already spent that much on Home Depot rooter rent over the past several Sundays. We meet with the plumber who is unloading a rooter the size of a concrete truck. We help him unload a computer, a television screen, a radio transceiver and equipment fit for a CIA spook operation. He runs his rooter which has a snake as thick as my arm. The sewer line clears, water flows through. We are watching all this on a television screen through his video camera which is chasing along behind his cutting snake. Pretty cool, living color, high definition, even a distance reading down to the inch. Suddenly a huge gray colored mass appears, "Is that Moby Dick?" I ask. Plumber tells us he will snag it and work at retrieval. Eventually, from 75 feet 3 inches out, he pulls out this wad of whatever. Paper towels, Brawny brand paper towels which never fall apart when wet. Great brand, certainly long lasting, use them at home. My husband chases after me as I leave in a hurry, "Where yall going?" I pause, "I'm going home to fetch my bow and arrows, the boy is too big and strong for me to choke to death with my bare hands." A bit about romance. The boy is ok while his girlfriend lives with him. However, his girl has had enough of him and leaves him a couple of months back. Of course, he reverts to his instinctive Neandertal Man White Trash behaviors without the guiding hand of the fairer sex. My husband talks with this caveman while keeping himself between me and the asswipe Neandertal, "Why did you flush paper towels down the toilet?" This ignorant apeman explains, "I ran out of toilet paper so I used paper towels." I watch my husband feel of his pocket to make sure he has our truck keys so I cannot leave to fetch my bow and arrows. All works out ok. At home, we shower together, take turns scrubbing off black freckle Al Jolson makeup. I am miffed but calming down after the plumber charged us $575 to give our Sewer Home sewer lines a good cleaning and inspection. This Sunday afternoon, I fill out eviction papers. Sixty days later, no more monkey boy living in our Sewer Home. But wait! There is more. We invest a lot of work and money into our Sewer Home for equity value growth. New tile floors, paint, new bathtub, new toilet, vanity, sink, carpet, baseboards, lots and lots of hard work and money. Our Sewer Home is primo. This time, I rent to three girls, all graduates of a local Baptist college, all single and all Jesus Freaks. I figure with blessing like this, nothing can go wrong, certainly with all three having career type employment. They move in on a Sunday. I fail to recognize this ominous warning of a Sunday move-in. Sunday is sewer line day. Tuesday morning, about six, "My girlfriend is taking a shower and the bathtub and toilet are overflowing water. What should we do?" Within my empty head, there is a sudden hot fullness of an atomic bomb detonating, "Well, yall get in there and tell her to turn off the shower, right now." I listen to her through her cell phone, "Turn off the shower!" I mean, you are standing knee deep in bathtub water coming over the tub edge and the toilet is an artesian well and not enough common sense enough to turn off the water? Praise the Lord. There goes our fresh tile floor, our oak vanity, our baseboards, our carpet.... My husband catches me again dusting off my bow and arrows. He wants to know, "Well, I figure there are three girls over there. I can only choke one to death, the other two will take off running. I need my bow and arrows to be sure I can kill all three, even if on the run." Ok, ok, Home Depot, drop the credit card, load a two ton rooter, drive over to the rental and cuss. Only change this time, this is a Tuesday morning not a Sunday morning. I walk into our rental to have a look at the damage. The girls are all off to work. My God! I count them all. 10,563 knickknacks. Statues of angels, praying hands, crucifixes, candles, hand woven Biblical sayings, Bibles, paintings of the Virgin Mother, lots of candle holders which look suspiciously Jewish. Our Sewer Home has been rendered the Vatican, but Baptist style. I cover my bra-less nipples with one arm, place a hand over my big butt, figuring a bolt of lightning will strike me at any moment with my being a very sinful pagan Indian. I don't believe in this Anglican god, but you never know. Damage is minor. We spend literally all day working, sweating, cussing, trying to clear the sewer line. Something big and powerful is in there; the Black Slime Monster. Remove the toilet, snake becomes stuck, takes an hour or two to pull the snake back out. Through an outside clean-out fitting, snake tangles up on something, pulled out, cutting tips are snapped off. About the time those Jesus Freaks return home from work, we are both tugging and pulling on our snake; we caught something. Rooter is going round and round, snake is spinning, we are both pulling on this snake trying to free its head from the Black Slime Monster. Explosively, the snake head flies out of the clean-out fitting. We are spin plastered with black slime, crap and whatever. Captured by our snake head, there is a Q-tip. No, not a literal Johnson & Johnson Q-tip. This one is a foot long, six inches thick and spun wound like a wet roll of toilet paper. I see a string hanging down. This is the second time this year I enjoy an atomic bomb detonating inside my vacant head. Husband looks and looks and finally asks, "What in tarnations is that?" "Tampons, a big wad of God damn tampons." I stomp off. He hollers, "Now, Taha, don't go killing those girls." I don't plan to, not right off. This will be a slow and painful killing for them. Marching those girls outside, out back, each is shackled, hands and feet, lead rope looped around their necks, "You girls see that," I point to the wad held by our snake head, "those are God damn (cuss words) tampons from your (cuss words) bloody (cuss words, female body part) you (cuss words) flushed down our brand new (cuss words) toilet. How could you be so (cuss words) stupid, you airheaded (cuss words) bimbos. I should choke each of you to death on (cuss words) cold mash potatoes." Two of the girls cross themselves, the other asks, "Cold mash potatoes?" I am furious, "Ain't you ever choked on cold mash potatoes, you dimwit...." My husband cuts me off, "Ladies, nothing to worry and fret over. I am sure you were unaware flushing feminine hygiene products down a toilet will clog a sewer line. Please avoid doing this in the future." Oh, he is so eloquent in speech when speaking to girls, to ladies, especially three young heavenly pretty girls with high moral values who are so easily seduced by a silver tongued devil. That's my husband. Couple of hours, we have reset the toilet, scrubbed the walls, washed down the filthy sewer water from the tub, mopped up water for our brand new carpet and all that. I notice all those thousands of angels, Virgin Mothers, even Jesus, have turned red in the face with embarrassment with hearing so damn many cuss words in my native tongue, Choctaw. Never dawned on me God and His crew understand Choctaw. My husband won't allow me to vent in English but allows me to vent in Choctaw. Sometimes he winces with my words; he is fluent in Choctaw. After a Home Depot return of our rooter snake, my husband makes our communal showering much fun, delicious fun. I am settled down, in a good mood again, and take to admiring some small gifts those three Jesus Freaks gave us to take home. Right nice of them to give of themselves, for our pleasure. Some of our little treasures from the girls I brought home, http://www.purlgurl.net/aue/aue_rag.jpg SignaturePurl Gurl -- So many are stumped by what slips right off the top of my mind like a man's bad fitting hairpiece. (significantly snipped for reading ease) > Chain yanking, reminds me of yet another story. > We have one rental we call the "Sewer Home" as a term of > My husband talks with this caveman while keeping himself > between me and the asswipe Neandertal, "Why did you flush > paper towels down the toilet?" This ignorant apeman explains, > "I ran out of toilet paper so I used paper towels." But wait! There is more, but only for you AUE boys. This ignorant sexist meathead Neandertal really made me mad. Not only clogging the sewer line a bunch of times, when evicted, he left our rental home absolutely filthy; white trash, filthy white trash. Last week, we are sheathing the inside of our garage over there, sheathing with plywood which will be painted white. Adds a lot of equity value to have a clean and neat garage. Besides, we promised those Jesus Freak girls a nice laundry. Annoys me. Those Jesus Freaks will enjoy a brand new washer and dryer set. My set is two decades old. But, girls must have a laundry, this I appreciate. FedEx drops by, delivers an "overnight" large envelope, something important. This packet is address to the idiot boy we evicted. I accept the envelope, no problem, "Yeah, he lives here." Previously, before tossing in the trash, I snoop in his mail; overdue credit bills, lawyers giving legal notice of litigation, creditors trying to collect money, DMV suspending his vehicle registration for not having auto insurance. All-in-all, he is in debt close to twenty grand, with no payments made and no tags for his license plates. I like this. This FedEx packet, nah, too official to open and snoop. Might cause problems for us. What the heck, this package makes a great dustpan for cleaning up in our garage. Still, I keep his overnight for a day and next. Next day, I am in a snit mood. I make use of his packet as a dustpan then toss his packet in the trash, in a bin just outside our garage. Same day afternoon, we hear a loud Harley-Davidson come roaring down the street, radio blasting as well. This is monkey boy coming for something. Of course, he has to rev up his engine several times to draw attention to himself. I don't like this; annoys the neighbors. He struts up like he is cock-o-the-walk. I motion to my old man I will deal with him. He says hello and asks, "Did a FedEx package come for me? I was fired from my job and that is my paycheck. I don't have any money and I am starving to death." Nothing like embarrassing yourself with truth. I inquire, "Don't you have a dollar for a cheap hamburger?" "No, I am bankrupt. I don't have any money and I really need my paycheck. Do you have my FedEx package?" This is my chance to scalp this white boy white trash. "Well, FedEx did drop off an envelope two days back. Wouldn't you know it, FedEx came by here not thirty minutes back. Driver had some official looking papers he said is a 'retrieval order' for your package. He explained there was an address change and he needs the package back to deliver correctly. FedEx has your paycheck." Biker bozo asks, "Did he say where he was taking it?" I feign a ponder, "Yeah, he did. He said he would take your envelope to customer service over in Ontario where FedEx is headquartered." Ontario is about fifty miles away, down halfway into Los Angeles. This is a Friday afternoon rush hour time; traffic will be crawling and honking everywhere out there. Hook-line-and-sinker, he makes a cell phone 4-1-1 call, rings another number, is transferred, starts talking then asks me for something to write with. I always have a small notepad and pencil back of my old panel truck. This is used to make a gopher list when my husband tells me to gopher stuff at Home Depot. Asswipe writes down a tracking number and address, finishes up his telephone talk, "Damn, I have to drive all the way out to Ontario, said they would look for my paycheck when the trucks come in." I cross my fingers and hope he doesn't throw something away then spot his envelope resting atop a bunch of trash. He says his goodbyes, makes a lot of noise, heads off for a hot miserable ride pert near to Los Angeles to look for his lost paycheck. My husband asks, "What did the boy want?" "Oh nothing, something about a FedEx package. I don't know anything about that so I scalped him and sent him on his way. Said he is going to Ontario for something." My darling boy fetches some eight penny nails, has his claw hammer in his hand, "Good, that boy ain't nothing but trouble. I'm glad you sent him packing." While steadying his step ladder, I look up to him, "Yeah, trouble makers can be a real pain-in-the-a.s." SignaturePurl Gurl -- So many are stumped by what slips right off the top of my mind like a man's bad fitting hairpiece. > >>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given > >>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what I've heard is just a > myth.) How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet! The tank was mounted near the ceiling, the chain opened the valve, and the water flushed the bowl. It made efficient use of gravity. > How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... Deprived? Maybe not. I recall having to use the ever-popular "outhouse" on occasion. Now there's a rich experience. Surely the sight of tenement toilets can't compare. > ....The > tank was mounted near the ceiling, the chain opened the valve, and the > water flushed the bowl. It made efficient use of gravity. Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever fall on someone. SignatureMaria C. > > How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever fall > on someone. Perhaps that's a reason they switched to the tank-behind-the-bowl model, which needs more complicated plumbing. >> How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever fall >on someone. The things women worry about... SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland > >> How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > The things women worry about... Well, water is heavy! >> "Maria C." wrote: >>>> How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > > Well, water is heavy! Yeah, but it is not heavy water that's in the tank. SignatureSkitt (AmE) >>>> Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever >>>> fall on someone. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > Yeah, but it is not heavy water that's in the tank. Um, what sort of water is not heavy? SignatureMaria C. >>>>> Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever >>>>> fall on someone. [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > Um, what sort of water is not heavy? The sort that has relatively little deuterium in it. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |He seems to be perceptive and 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |effective because he states the Palo Alto, CA 94304 |obvious to people that don't seem |to see the obvious. kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | (650)857-7572 | Tony Cooper http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >>>>>> Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever >>>>>> fall on someone. [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > The sort that has relatively little deuterium in it. Oh, good grief! [slaps forehead] How could I have forgotten good old deuterium? Mosaic Law, innit? Deuteronomy and all that? SignatureMaria C. >>>>> Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever >>>>> fall on someone. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > Um, what sort of water is not heavy? Whoosh? (Look up "heavy water".) Deuterium cames into play, and I did a play on words, sort of. SignatureSkitt (AmE) It ain't heavy -- it's just water ... >>>>>> Actually, I've seen pictures, and I've wondered if the tanks ever >>>>>> fall on someone. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > Whoosh? (Look up "heavy water".) Deuterium cames into play, and I > did a play on words, sort of. You sure did, and it was very clever -- and I didn't catch it. (See also my reply to Evan.) SignatureMaria C. >> >> How deprived that you never saw a 19th-century tenement toilet!... >> [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > >Well, water is heavy! And I'd probably die if both wings fell off the airplane I was traveling in, but what are the chances? I'm probably safer in Boeings taking ten 1000 mile journeys than I am crossing a single busy street in Dublin or New York and I am quite certainly safer in the air than I would be crossing a street in Naples. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland >> Note: Without looking it up, I'd say that "pulling my chain" could be >> related somehow to toilets which have chains to pull for flushing. (I've [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] >tank was mounted near the ceiling, the chain opened the valve, and the >water flushed the bowl. It made efficient use of gravity. You don't have to go to a 19th century tenement, unless a Cambridge College can rightly be so described. In between reading this thread and replying to it, I have made use of just such a device, down the corridor from my office. (and when I was growing up in London they were absolutely standard in my home and those of my friends). Katy >>> Note: Without looking it up, I'd say that "pulling my chain" could be >>> related somehow to toilets which have chains to pull for flushing. (I've [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > (and when I was growing up in London they were absolutely standard in my home > and those of my friends). Much to be said for them, since the high level flush scours the bowl very effectively. They do seem to get cantankerous with age - one may need to 'surprise' a worn one. Or pull the chain repeatedly, thus announcing noisily to all and sundry what one is about. The mechanism doesn't include a valve (except on the ballcock); a bell shaped device is lifted, when one pulls the chain, creating a syphon so that water pours down the pipe. This simplicity generally ensures a long, service free, life. SignatureMike Page Google me at port.ac.uk if you need to send an email. >> In article >> <b32ffab9-4821-47bb-bfae-13bee85d32b8@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > pours down the pipe. This simplicity generally ensures a long, service > free, life. In Germany, loos are generally flushed directly from the pipe, with no intermediate storage cistern -- rather like the arrangement aboard ship, but using fresh water. This requires of course a higher water pressure than is found in the normal domestic water pipe in the UK. The lavatory bowl itself also often differs from the usual British pattern, with a wide expanse of porcelain a few inches below the rim, on which one may examine the outcome of one's efforts before consigning it (them?) to the municipal sewers. Many Germans of my acquaintance do seem rather obsessive about their bowel movements. If there's a plumber reading this I'd be interested to know why British domestic plumbing normally relies on a storage tank in the loft rather than the simpler system found in Germany. Mind you, if there is a plumber reading this I'd also like to know why she has so much time to waste when all her customers are clamouring for her services. Fred wrote on Thu, 24 Jul 2008 14:40:10 +0100: > In Germany, loos are generally flushed directly from the pipe, > with no intermediate storage cistern -- rather like the [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > acquaintance do seem rather obsessive about their bowel > movements. Judging by apartments that I have rented in Germany, Switzerland and France, tanks are still very common. The flush handle differs from US and British practice in that it is often just a pull knob on top of the tank. French plumbing still seems to suffer from inadequate gas seals such that sewer odors are often noticeable. SignatureJames Silverton Potomac, Maryland Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not > >> In article > >> <b32ffab9-4821-47bb-bfae-13bee85d3...@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > bowl itself also often differs from the usual British pattern, with a > wide expanse of porcelain a few inches below the rim, That sounds like the American model. Apartment houses these days usually have "flushometers," a device for building up pressure directly from the water supply, so there is no delay between flushes while a tank fills up. > on which one may > examine the outcome of one's efforts before consigning it (them?) to the [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > plumber reading this I'd also like to know why she has so much time to > waste when all her customers are clamouring for her services. Sounds like the Brits don't modernize their plumbing when improvements come along. >>>> In article >>>> <b32ffab9-4821-47bb-bfae-13bee85d3...@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 49 lines] > Sounds like the Brits don't modernize their plumbing when improvements > come along. It would be hard to describe the Germanic toilet with its noxious shelf as an improvement, unless you have a particular obsession with, er, going through the motions. UK standards for domestic water are influenced by a paranoia about back flushing into the main. The system of having a tank in the loft to feed bathroom taps is, I think, partly to make sure that water doesn't get back into the main and also, probably, is a relict of the time when mains pressures could be very low so that feed into a direct system might be slow. A header tank is also needed for all but the most recent hot water systems. The syphonic flushing system has the advantage that a defective valve doesn't continually leak into the toilet. This potentially loses huge amounts of water, since customers have little incentive to get it fixed. The alternative of having an overflow from a flush system with a ball cock ensures that faults result in a flow of water down the outside of the building, which most householders notice, and get fixed, pretty quickly. SignatureMike Page Google me at port.ac.uk if you need to send an email. >>> In article >>> <b32ffab9-4821-47bb-bfae-13bee85d32b8@d1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] >plumber reading this I'd also like to know why she has so much time to >waste when all her customers are clamouring for her services. My house in France (built 1977) also has no tank and operates by direct mains pressure. I asked my plumber a year or two ago about this difference between Britain and countries to its south (I don't know what system they have in Scandinavia), and his best bet was that in the past, British houses were not particularly well heated or insulated. Pipes certainly used to freeze often WIWAL and cause flooding damage when they thawed. The purpose of the tank was to limit the amount of water that could be released after thawing. The usual practice is to have the water mains pipe run up through the middle of the house where it's more protected, whereas pipes leading to taps are usually located against outside walls and therefore more vulnerable. SignatureRobin (BrE) Herts, England [snip] > If there's a plumber reading this I'd be interested to know why > British domestic plumbing normally relies on a storage tank in the > loft rather than the simpler system found in Germany. Unless the temperature never falls below freezing or you have a heated loft, you're only asking for trouble. >> >>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >> >>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] >tank was mounted near the ceiling, the chain opened the valve, and the >water flushed the bowl. It made efficient use of gravity. Perhaps ours is older than I thought, for that fairly well describes it. It is not in a tenement house, however, but was originally in an estate house, from my father's guess. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland >>>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > flushing. (I've only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what > I've heard is just a myth.) My impression is that the chain involved is the one attached to a dog's collar, pulled or yanked to get the dog worked up. ("Jerking me around" has some of the same notion.) Both forms show up in Google Books in the early '90s (1991 for "pulling", 1992 (possibly 1991) for "yanking"). "Yanking" shows up in the _NY Times_ in 1989, "pulling" in 1981, from New York Health Commisioner David Axelrod, but not again until 1990. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |Sometimes I think the surest sign 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that intelligent life exists Palo Alto, CA 94304 |elsewhere in the universe is that |none of it has tried to contact us. kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com | Calvin (650)857-7572 http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ >> "Pulling my chain" is the phrase I use (though seldom). I've heard >> "yanking my chain" on occasion, but I think it's not the "original." [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > dog's collar, pulled or yanked to get the dog worked up. ("Jerking > me around" has some of the same notion.) [...] Ah. That makes sense, though I hadn't thought of it. When we had a dog, we had only a leash for him. No chain. That may be why that origin for "pull/yank my chain" didn't occur to me. SignatureMaria C. "Maria C." <noname@sbcglobal.net> wrote... >>>> I'm beginning to suspect you're just pulling my chain now. Given >>>> you already claimed not to have serious discussions, this seems [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > Note: Without looking it up, I'd say that "pulling my chain" could be > related somehow to toilets which have chains to pull for flushing. It could indeed. Sneaking up on someone and pulling their chain while they're sitting there contemplating a serious if not quite world-shattering matter -- so they get a cold wet bum -- is an excellent, if rather schoolboyish, way of achieving what Nathan's been experiencing. J. > "Maria C." <noname@sbcglobal.net> wrote... > >> [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > excellent, if rather schoolboyish, way of achieving what Nathan's been > experiencing. ... Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > "Pulling my chain" is the phrase I use (though seldom). I've heard > "yanking my chain" on occasion, but I think it's not the "original." [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > only heard about those toilets; ignore this if what I've heard is just a > myth.) I'm not sure if you can still buy new high-flushing toilets, but I have seen them in good working order in respectable places indoors in the UK. I think they are more efficient since the water pressure coming into the pan is greater for a given height of water in the cistern (since the pressure is proportial to the head of water, including the height of the connecting pipe), so you should be able to get an effective flush with considerably less water. SignatureAny employee here on the hill would run at high speed: 9600 or 19200 baud. Only someone calling through a modem would let their data dribble out of a 1200-baud soda straw. (Stoll 1989) > I'm not sure if you can still buy new high-flushing toilets, but I > have seen them in good working order in respectable places indoors in [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > of the connecting pipe), so you should be able to get an effective > flush with considerably less water. In a fit of remodeling a year or two ago, we got one of the new-and-improved toilets with the smaller, holds-less-water tank. (Note that the older, larger-tank types aren't for sale*, unless you buy a used toilet from a junk dealer.) Anyway, the thing actually works very well. We had doubts beforehand. *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all toilets made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't remember what the old tanks held, but it was more. SignatureMaria C. > *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all toilets > made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't remember what > the old tanks held, but it was more. I think the design principle for toilets used to be: don't worry about water consumption, just make sure everything *always* disappears! SignatureThe President: "Call the FBI, the CIA and the Pentagon. Find out who won that game!" (Edwards 1976) >> *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all >> toilets made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't >> remember what the old tanks held, but it was more. > > I think the design principle for toilets used to be: don't worry about > water consumption, just make sure everything *always* disappears! A reasonable goal -- for indoor toilets, anyway. SignatureMaria C. >>> *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all >>> toilets made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > A reasonable goal -- for indoor toilets, anyway. Yes, but these days saving water is considered a worthwhile design principle too. SignatureIs one language more powerful than another? Compare, for example, English with Yiddish. Sure, it's hard to describe a carburetor in Yiddish, but try describing a schlemiel in English. (Stoll 1995) >>>> *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all >>>> toilets made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] >Yes, but these days saving water is considered a worthwhile design >principle too. During the 1976 drought, which affected most of Europe, we were advised to put a house brick into the cistern to reduce the amount of water needed for a flush. That worked for French as well as British loos. SignatureRobin (BrE) Herts, England > advised to put a house brick into the cistern to reduce the amount of > water needed for a flush. The amount of water used, rather. If you didn't need more water after putting the brick in, you must not have needed it before, either. ¬R Glenn Knickerbocker filted: >> advised to put a house brick into the cistern to reduce the amount of >> water needed for a flush. > >The amount of water used, rather. If you didn't need more water after >putting the brick in, you must not have needed it before, either. You need less water with the low-flush toilets, but you need it three times....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. >>>> *IIRC, there was some new government mandate requiring that all >>>> toilets made from that date forward hold only 1.6 gallons. I don't [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Yes, but these days saving water is considered a worthwhile design > principle too. I'm not saying it isn't. I was just commenting that "just make sure everything *always* disappears" is reasonable for indoor toilets (as opposed to....). SignatureMaria C. Brian M. Scott filted: >On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:47:51 -0700 (PDT), "Peter T. Daniels" ><grammatim@verizon.net> wrote in [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] >will probably be interpreted correctly as 'yanking my >chain', 'yanking my leg' is just puzzling. It's used when people want to push your buttons....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. > Brian M. Scott filted: [and what of towing the line?] >> What's mildly interesting is that while 'pulling my chain' >> will probably be interpreted correctly as 'yanking my >> chain', 'yanking my leg' is just puzzling. > > It's used when people want to push your buttons....r Push buttons to get a rise, pull chain to get a flush, rattle cage to break the silence. >> Brian M. Scott filted: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > Push buttons to get a rise, pull chain to get a flush, rattle cage > to break the silence. Yank /dick-string/ to get a rise. SignatureFrank ess >>> Brian M. Scott filted: >> [and what of towing the line?] >>>> What's mildly interesting is that while 'pulling my chain' >>>> will probably be interpreted correctly as 'yanking my >>>> chain', 'yanking my leg' is just puzzling. >>> It's used when people want to push your buttons....r >> Push buttons to get a rise, pull chain to get a flush, rattle cage >> to break the silence. > Yank /dick-string/ to get a rise. I remember (accounts of) that effect from (accounts of) School of Engineering initiations many years ago. But I would hope* we could all respect the elevated tone of this subthread. *ObAUE: The question arises as 'twere an Otis, whether "I would hope" is a polite unreal conditional (I would hope, if you permitted such liberties) or a polite transfer into the past of "I will (=wish to) hope", as in "I would fain hope". I suppose the former, since the question doesn't arise for those who say "I should hope" in the first instance. "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". > >>> Brian M. Scott filted: > >> [and what of towing the line?] [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". Maybe this explains why the language is still resisting "hopefully". If it is fully accepted, by some kind of linguistic Gresham's Law it might drive out nuanced expressions such as "It is our fond hope that" , "it is our hope and prayer that" and other examples given above. In article <86b633cb-d527-4a34-b475-4bd53d2f45c7@m3g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>, > Maybe this explains why the language is still resisting "hopefully". The language isn't resisting. Some people are intentionally trying to hold it back, but the language itself long ago evolved to have sentential "hopefully". It's just like split infinitives, preposition stranding, or any other prescriptive rule that gets broken constantly in ordinary speech. The fact that grammar mavens aren't being listened to is proof that the language itself is in favor of breaking the rule. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > analyst41 wrote: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > fact that grammar mavens aren't being listened to is proof that the > language itself is in favor of breaking the rule. How does the language itself do this? I'm picturing people being struck dumb, mysteriously, when not breaking some rule. SignatureMaria C. > > analyst41 wrote: > > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > > How does the language itself do this? For the sake of discursive continuity, allow me the minimal artistic leeway necessary to preserve analyst's initial anthropomorphization of language. (I'd like to see angelgloww try to reword *that* using only Germanic roots!) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>>analyst41 wrote: >>> [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > Nathan "To keep to the topic, I remind you language is man-made." [I purposely left off the relative pronoun on my principle of parsimony.] Do I hear cries of sexism out in AUE Land? Then I'll reword it: "To keep to the topic, I remind you that language is a social tool." > > For the sake of discursive continuity, allow me the minimal artistic > > leeway necessary to preserve analyst's initial anthropomorphization of [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > "To keep to the topic, BZZT! Furthermore, "topic" isn't quite right. Something along the lines of "motif", "theme", "conceit", or "metaphor" would be more appropriate... but none of those are Germanic! > I remind you language BZZT! > is man-made." Your paraphrase completely misses the whole reason for my statement: addressing why I was treating language as a sentient entity capable of resisting change, with the reason being that analyst had already done so, establishing a motif that I felt compelled to adhere to. (I was forced to extend the motif by making it specifically anthropomorphic rather than more general, because I don't know of a good recognizable word for metaphorically describing something as alive/aware while not specifying it as specifically human-like. "Animization" doesn't seem to have widespread currency.) Here's my attempt at a purely Germanic paraphrase: For the sake of sticking to the path already laid out in this give-and-take, bestow on me the freedom needed to follow analyst's idle whim that speech is a living (man-like) thing. (I might be cheating with "whim"--- I'm not certain of it's etymology.) My Germanic paraphrase preserves the basic meaning of the original, but some of the nuances and imagery are lost. I think it's also a bit harder to parse than the original. So, I think I'll stick to my writing style. I always did prefer Faulkner to Hemingway anyway: "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." --William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway) "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" --Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > For the sake of sticking to the path already laid out in this > give-and-take, bestow on me the freedom needed to follow analyst's > idle whim that speech is a living (man-like) thing. That's not Germanic; that's Babel Fish. On Jul 24, 4:02 am, angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > In article <g6953n$84...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > > angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > That's not Germanic; that's Babel Fish. So Late 20th Century Literature is another topic outside the pretended English teacher "angelgloww20..."'s purview. > In article <g6953n$84...@ccnews.ncku.edu.tw>, > [quoted text clipped - 31 lines] > alive/aware while not specifying it as specifically human-like. > "Animization" doesn't seem to have widespread currency.) You are a making too much of a usage thats pretty common in hist/comp ling: examples (search results): start quote Handbücher zur sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft: Ein ... - Google Books Resultby G. E. Booij, Christian Lehmann, Joachim Mugdan - 2000 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 1000 pages Since they occur in contrasting surroundings, they testify to two separate cases, their distinctness preserved in Latin whereas Greek has merged it. ... end quote start quote JSTOR: Les mots a redoublement en latinA. points out that Latin has retained both forms of the pair amma/mamma, even if the first is confirmed only by a proper name like Aurelia Amma and by its ... links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0009-837X(198104)76%3A2%3C162%3ALMAREL %3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 end quote start quote BOPPof one original tongue, which, however, the Sanskrit has preserved more perfect ... to say, whilst the Sanskrit has preserved many grammatical forms, ... www.geocities.com/cabvoltaire.geo/BOPP.html end quote Nathan Sanders skreiv: >>> For the sake of discursive continuity, allow me the minimal >>> artistic leeway necessary to preserve analyst's initial >>> anthropomorphization of language. [...] > (I was forced to extend the motif by making it specifically > anthropomorphic rather than more general, because I don't know of a [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > give-and-take, bestow on me the freedom needed to follow analyst's > idle whim that speech is a living (man-like) thing. For the sake of a smooth stream of thought, allow me to follow the lead of analys and word myself as if speech were a living thing. > (I might be cheating with "whim"--- I'm not certain of it's etymology.) It feels like it's connected to a series of Scandinavian <vi>-words denoting fast and irregular movement and, by extension, an unstructured mind. The vi-part is the root of 'wind', and perhaps even of 'swim'. Is the wh- aspirated by those who do? SignatureTrond Engen - interfering with the natives > Nathan Sanders skreiv: > [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > For the sake of a smooth stream of thought, allow me to follow the lead > of analys and word myself as if speech were a living thing. Nice! That's better than mine! (Although "allow" is from French...) > > (I might be cheating with "whim"--- I'm not certain of it's etymology.) > > It feels like it's connected to a series of Scandinavian <vi>-words > denoting fast and irregular movement and, by extension, an unstructured > mind. The OED also suggests a possible link to Scandinavian, but notes that the oldest recorded form is "whim-wham", which matches a series of similar dismissive reduplications (flim-flam, etc.), so it may have just been a neologism (perhaps influenced by Scandinavian) rather than a true borrowing or inherited word. > The vi-part is the root of 'wind', and perhaps even of 'swim'. Is > the wh- aspirated by those who do? The OED says it is. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:22:19 +0200, Trond Engen <trondnet@engen.priv.no> wrote in <news:C6GdnQKROtwWCBbV4p2dnAA@telenor.com> in sci.lang,alt.usage.english: > Nathan Sanders skreiv: [...] >> (I might be cheating with "whim"--- I'm not certain of >> it's etymology.) > It feels like it's connected to a series of Scandinavian > <vi>-words denoting fast and irregular movement and, by > extension, an unstructured mind. The OED notes a possible connection with ON <hvima> 'to wander with the eyes as with the fugitive look of a frightened or silly person' and <hvimsa> 'to be taken aback or discomfited', but it also points out that in the <whim> ~ <whimsy> ~ <whim-wham> group the one that occurs earliest is the last, in the early 16th century, at about the same time as <flim-flam>, <jim-jam>, and <trim-tram>. > The vi-part is the root of 'wind', and perhaps even of > 'swim'. Is the wh- aspirated by those who do? Yes (speaking as one who does). Brian On Jul 24, 1:50 am, angelgloww20...@yahoo.com wrote: > > In article <LvThk.7220$vn7....@flpi147.ffdc.sbc.com>, > >>>analyst41 wrote: > >>>>Maybe this explains why the language is still resisting "hopefully". > [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > "To keep to the topic, I remind you language is man-made." > [I purposely left off the relative pronoun on my principle of parsimony.] What relative pronoun? This pose of yours as an English teacher has just been a pose all this time? (And what do you propose that as a paraphrase of? It certainly isn't of Nathan's statement just above.) > Do I hear cries of sexism out in AUE Land? Then I'll reword it: > > "To keep to the topic, I remind you that language is a social tool." >>> analyst41 wrote: >>> [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > (I'd like to see angelgloww try to reword *that* using only Germanic > roots!) /I/ certaintly couldn't "reword" it. Hell, I can't even understand it. SignatureMaria C. >> For the sake of discursive continuity, allow me the minimal artistic >> leeway necessary to preserve analyst's initial anthropomorphization of [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > /I/ certaintly couldn't "reword" it. Hell, I can't even understand it. As Kibo said, "Take it? I can't even parse it!" SignatureBob just used 'canonical' in the canonical way. [Guy Steele] >>>> analyst41 wrote: >>>> [quoted text clipped - 20 lines] > >/I/ certaintly couldn't "reword" it. Hell, I can't even understand it. Join the club. SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland > Maybe this explains why the language is still resisting "hopefully". I haven't noticed the language resisting it. I see some speakers lamenting the fact that other speakers use it as a matter of course, but that's not the same thing at all. As a grammatical construct, it seems to be quite well-established. SignatureEvan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------ HP Laboratories |The law of supply and demand tells us 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that when the price of something is Palo Alto, CA 94304 |artificially set below market level, |there will soon be none of that thing kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com |left--as you may have noticed the (650)857-7572 |last time you tried to buy something |for nothing. http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | P.J. O'Rourke > "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". Have "snotty" and "snooty" merged in American English? >> "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". > Have "snotty" and "snooty" merged in American English? In my Canadian version of same, at least, there's still more of a connection to snot than snout. All in the family, of course, but I think that, in my usage, it would be possible to be obsequious and snotty at the same time. Dumb insolence, like. >> "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". > > Have "snotty" and "snooty" merged in American English? Not for all of us (at least, not for me), but for many it has (according to M-W Online). SignatureSkitt (AmE) wiping his nose >> "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". > > Have "snotty" and "snooty" merged in American English? Don't know nothin' about no attributions, either, do you? SignatureFrank ess analyst41 wrote: >> "Polite", of course, could equally well be "snotty". > > Have "snotty" and "snooty" merged in American English? Not that I've heard, and I, personally, don't merge them. They have two separate meanings to me. Snotty: rude on purpose; spiteful; showing pettiness and/or nastiness Snooty: snobbish; disdainful; having an "I'm-better-than-you" attitude. Note: I rarely use "snotty." In fact, I rarely hear "snotty" being used these days. SignatureMaria C. > analyst41 wrote: >>> [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Note: I rarely use "snotty." In fact, I rarely hear "snotty" being used > these days. I only use "snotty" in the phrase "snotty nose" when talking about children with colds. SignatureRob Bannister CDB filted: >> Brian M. Scott filted: > [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] >Push buttons to get a rise, pull chain to get a flush, rattle cage to >break the silence. Turn handle to dispense product....r SignatureEvelyn Wood just looks at the pictures. >Brian M. Scott filted: >> [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > >It's used when people want to push your buttons....r Which became popular how many years after people were pulling other people's chains? Thirty? Forty, maybe? SignatureRegards, Chuck Riggs Near Dublin, Ireland > It's used when people want to push your buttons....r Old line: "Dont push my buttons unless you want to turn me on." SignatureMaria C. >> In article >> <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> > I think you're being contentious here. It just looks like he misunderstood it. > Clearly "idiomatic" is a common > expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > other words don't confuse idiom and idiomatic, a derived meaning from > "idiom," And specifically from primeval meaning of 'idiom', 'a particular language and its particular structure' (e.g. idiomatic = in accord with the language). > the way that "criminal" is a derived meaning from "crime," and > not having the same substantive sense as "crime" ("It was criminal the [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] >> >> Nathan SignatureAntónio Marques -- This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** > >> In article > >> <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > > It just looks like he misunderstood it. Who is "frankly/surely, X" idiomatic (in the laymen sense) for? Which style is it a marker of? They are both almost completely pan-stylistic for me, so I don't see what's so stylistically special about them. Unless analyst was referring *only* to the specific Feynman and GWTW quotes themselves, as whole quotes, and not to their general "frankly/surely, X" structure. But then, their idiomatic stylistic marking is simply due to their status as famous quotes. Being a famous quote isn't relevant to the discussion of sentential "hopefully", so I assumed something more was intended. If indeed, nothing more was intended, I apologize for going off on this tangent. > > Clearly "idiomatic" is a common > > expression to denote a collocation that is acceptable to the language, [quoted text clipped - 8 lines] > language and its particular structure' (e.g. idiomatic = in accord with > the language). How is that different from "grammatical"? Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>>> In article >>>> <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593ca9b@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > pan-stylistic for me, so I don't see what's so stylistically special > about them. Sorry, you've lost me. > Unless analyst was referring *only* to the specific Feynman and GWTW > quotes themselves, as whole quotes, and not to their general [quoted text clipped - 19 lines] > > How is that different from "grammatical"? Grammatical just means it doesn't violate the language's grammar. It can still be ugly, unnatural, you pick it. Idiomatic means it is the, or one of the, preferred ways of conveying the meaning intended in the relevant context. One of the meanings of 'idiom' is (1) 'something which's meaning cannot be soundly deduced from its parts'; this meaning evolved from the earlier and more general meaning, which is (2) 'one's own language'. But no one here was talking about (1). SignatureAntónio Marques -- This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** > > How is that different from "grammatical"? > > Grammatical just means it doesn't violate the language's grammar. It can > still be ugly, unnatural, you pick it. Idiomatic means it is the, or one > of the, preferred ways of conveying the meaning intended in the relevant > context. I know what the various usual meanings of "idiomatic" are, and I have no idea how any of those meanings make the following a true statement (a paraphrase of a claim made by analyst): "frankly, X" is more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". For me, this sentence is absolutely false under any definition of "idiomatic" that I'm aware of, which is why I'm trying hard to understand precisely what analyst meant when he used this word. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ >>> How is that different from "grammatical"? >> Grammatical just means it doesn't violate the language's grammar. It can [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > "frankly, X" is more idiomatic than "hopefully, X". From the moment that 'idiomatic' is nt only about syntax, but semantics also. Just as 'speech community' can be more idiomatic than 'language community'. The perceived uglyness of 'hopefully, X' along with its being apparently much more recent than other '-ly, X' stuff point the same way. Regarding my own personal preference, 'hopefully' has too many letters to be comfy in colloquial context and it's too ambiguous to fit in a literary one, but that doesn't mean I think it's not idiomatic (such things obviously change over time and sometimes overnight). > For me, this sentence is absolutely false under any definition of > "idiomatic" that I'm aware of, which is why I'm trying hard to > understand precisely what analyst meant when he used this word. That, however, was not the point you raised. You asked rather in what way was 'frankly, X' not deducible from its constituents. SignatureAntónio Marques -- This signature does not include a prefab parting phrase ** Posted from http://www.teranews.com ** > >>> How is that different from "grammatical"? > >> Grammatical just means it doesn't violate the language's grammar. It can [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > That, however, was not the point you raised. You asked rather in what > way was 'frankly, X' not deducible from its constituents. I've explained this: analyst's statement was wrong. I wrongly assumed it was wrong because I thought he intended to use the "non-compositional" meaning of "idiomatic". (All of the other meaning of "idiomatic" also made his statement wrong, but I didn't think he intended those, so it didn't occur to me to mention them.) Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <bbc63f79-e2eb-4bd9-810e-ae24a593c...@a1g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > Linguistics Program > Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ here is something I found on the web: start quote: For example, in the sentences She gave birth naturally and Naturally, she gave birth, the word naturally has different meanings (actually the first sentence could be interpreted in the same way as the second, but context makes it clear which is meant). Naturally as a sentential adverb means something like “of course” and as a verb-modifying adverb means “in a natural manner”. The “hopefully” controversy. demonstrates that the class of sentential adverbs is a closed class (there is resistance to adding new words to the class), whereas the class of adverbs that modify verbs is not. end quote. I personally find "hopefully" as a sentential adverb illiterate and ugly, whereas "irregardless" to mean "regardless" seems really cool but not "could care less" to mean "couldn't care less". Hidden laws of euphony in English maybe? In article <1ee0aebc-cb71-4180-ae19-eea2678dd34b@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com>, > here is something I found on the web: > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > resistance to adding new words to the class), whereas the class of > adverbs that modify verbs is not. All this "controversy" demonstrates is that some speakers have sentential "hopefully" in their linguistic system, and others do not (or often, have it but just don't like it). > end quote. > > I personally find "hopefully" as a sentential adverb illiterate and > ugly, whereas "irregardless" to mean "regardless" seems really cool > but not "could care less" to mean "couldn't care less". Hidden laws > of euphony in English maybe? If "euphony" means "irrational pet-peeving", sure. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > In article > <1ee0aebc-cb71-4180-ae19-eea2678dd...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 33 lines] > Linguistics Program > Williams Collegehttp://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ Would you characterize a preference for "bye-bye" (especially the version used by John Mclaughlin on his Sunday morning show) over "buh- bye" as a "pet peeve" too? In article <971fb47e-4fca-4df6-87c0-466bd8f75ed1@26g2000hsk.googlegroups.com>, > > In article > > <1ee0aebc-cb71-4180-ae19-eea2678dd...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com>, [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > version used by John Mclaughlin on his Sunday morning show) over "buh- > bye" as a "pet peeve" too? A preference for your own usage? No. Calling something "illiterate" when it is well-established in the language? Yes. Nathan SignatureNathan Sanders Linguistics Program Williams College http://wso.williams.edu/~nsanders/ > here is something I found on the web: > > start quote: > > For example, in the sentences She gave birth naturally and Naturally, > she gave birth, the word naturally has different meanings This is exactly the same difference as with "Hopefully, he faced the firing squad" and "He faced the firing squad hopefully". "Hopefully" in first place is a sentence modifier. SignatureRob Bannister On Jul 22, 3:28 am, analys...@hotmail.com wrote: > > Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about > > using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > (I/we/everybody say/says) hopefully (that) whatever. Oh, look, you've reinvented Generative Semantics. > Since it sounds illiterate, I am sure that no serious writer would use > this construct except perhaps as something one of his characters might > say. >Two members of my family both teach college English and disagree about >using "hopefully" to modify a whole sentence -- in the subject of this >post, for example! > >My husband says there's nothing wrong with it. My cousin says Strunk >& White condemn it. Frankly, it's a moot point. SignatureSteve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk |
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