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Discussion Groups / ESL Teaching / December 2006re: the untouchebles
Hello, some three years ago I posted an inquiry regarding the letter 's' attached to the word 'untouchable' in the title of the movie 'The Untouchables'. I thought the 's' superfluous and couldn't understand its presence. I got some responses but I found them vague and evasive. Suddenly, not long ago, I was struck by an idea which seems to have clarified the issue. My idea is that this 's' attached to "the untouchable" and thus forming "the untouchables" results from applying two language rules at one go. The first one is forming a collective noun that is made up by 'the' plus an adjective, like in "the sick", "the poor" etc. The other is adding an 's' to a surname (preceded by 'the') to form the name of a whole family. Now if we want to refer to a group of people in terms of family or fraternity we come up with names like "the Untouchables" or "the Invincibles" (which is the title of another film). What do you think? Regards, mike mike morgan schrieb: > Hello, some three years ago I posted an inquiry regarding the letter 's' > attached to the word 'untouchable' in the title of the movie 'The [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > come up with names like "the Untouchables" or "the Invincibles" (which is > the title of another film). What do you think? The name of the film doesn't refer to the collective of all untouchable people as is the case with "the poor" or "the sick". It refers to a small group of people, US Treasury agents, who were regarde as incorruptible. As such it doesn't follow the "rule" about general collectives. I should point out that grammatical "rules" arise out of studies of what people actually say when speaking or write when writing. Only non-native speakers of a language actually have to apply rules when deciding what to say. Of course, within each language community there then arise conventions about what is proper grammar, but that's a different question. The Untouchables is also one or the English designations of the Dalits, a Hindu caste - or rather non-caste - in India and Nepal, also known as "outcastes". Regards, Einde O'Callaghan |
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