Discussion Groups / British English / May 2007

Hardly. I wrote as is spoken: the "s-less" genetive. How could it be
written more clearly? And what language is not open to
misinterpretation? Certainly standard English is misinterpreted by
almost all folk almost all the time. Witness Ben Shimmin who apparently
could not tell the difference in meaning between "by then" and "back
then" (or he was simply trolling, and requirement that I be witty in my
replies to him seems to bear out that supposition).

It is perfectly comprehensible to folk who use the unmodified genitive.
As the genitive is not modified, and as it is precisely the form of
language folk use, pray tell me how it could be differently written?

Not enough time to write it all - and a complete waste of bandwidth
doing so.

I said it was dialect; by saying that it may well be an example of
idiolect, and not accepting what I said in good faith, you effectively
called me a liar.

and you know so much that you know you know so little yet still have a
mind completely closed to the possibility that there exists English
genitives not ending in "'s".

Really? It's you who hasn't accepted the concept of the "s-less"
genitive in Yorkshire dialect; you who won't accept the written version
of the spoken sentence but demands it be rewritten in a way that you
understand; you who try to put down folk who wish to discuss the
culture of the English language in the UK rather than treat the
newsgroup merely as a less than helpful resource for ESL folk.

Any perverse opinion in this current discussion must necessarily be
yours as you are the one who doesn't seem to accept facts when
presented with them. As to any lies within your posts, well there may
be a very fine example quoted in a paragraph not too far above this.

I really am sorry for you, not being so privileged!

Anyhow, I find your first question totally incomprehensible. Who on
Earth is "Toms"? And what does the word "teh" mean? (I see you using it
quite often.)

But, I think you're just playing silly beggars because it's (now) a
Yorkshire thing and, as anyone knows, one is duty bound to ridicule
anything Yorkshire in order to demonstrate our knowledge and
intelligence.

However I'm sure that if you sift it enough, you'll eventually find the
correct meaning amongst all the totally unlikely and downright
impossible ones you prefer to suggest you think it might mean.

Oh well, at least we're in good company with Mr Chaucer.

[Big Snip]

Had I been interested in some aspect being discussed but puzzled by it,
I would probably have gone up-thread to try and see the start and
development of the discussion.

The "s-less" genitive string or chain is not unlike the compound noun
which can get just as long and complex, perhaps longer. My example,
"kitchen cupboard door handle" links four things to identify: the
handle of the door of the cupboard in (of) the kitchen. You wouldn't
expect, e.g., "kitchen garage door handle" which doesn't make sense to
anyone (except perhaps someone who lives in a house with several
garages, one of which is habitually referred to as the "kitchen
garage").

"My wife sister husband has gout" seems pretty straightforward to me as
a chain of linked relationships: the husband of the sister of my wife.
At least it's as comprehensible as "kitchen cupboard door handle" which
I don't think you would claim to have problems with.

"Was that our Tom Henry cat the dog just ate?" would be as
comprehensible as "kitchen garage door handle" if you can't get beyond
the idea that Tom and Henry are the names of different men. And, of
course, they can't be: there's no relationship given. "Tom lad, Henry"
would be Tom's son; "Tom father, Henry", "Tom brother, Henry", "Tom
mate, Henry" are similarly quite explicit. That really leaves the only
possibility as "Tom Henry" being the two names of a single individual
(and folk being referred to by both forenames was very common until
recent times, and not unknown today). Once you realise this simple
aspect of English (and it and similar pitfalls occur in standard
English), "Tom Henry cat" is no more difficult than "car window"
("car's window" is always possible but not usual; "car windscreen",
"car's windscreen", or just "windscreen", are all quite common and
no-one gets up a song and dance about not understand one form because
they're used to the other).

In the end, I suppose it's about familiarity with the language - as it
is with many other aspects of English which when seen without that
familiarity of use can seem even more nonsensical.

Hope that gives some clarification.

Sorry if the exchange between myself and 'David' has in anyway spoiled your
enjoyment of the group.  I have no idea why he was so unpleasant with me and
some other contributors.
I have 'killed' him now, thus avoiding any temptation to engage in a similar
exchange in future.

True, but if I were to say that in Yorkshire there was a form of
genitive which differed from the standard English genitive, and that
"wife's sister's husband" and "Tom Henry's cat" illustrated it, you
might well wonder just how it differed.

Were I to say that it was an "s-less" genitive which in Yorkshire
dialect produced examples like, "our Jack's lad", you might well say,
"but that's not an "s-less" genitive, it's just the standard English
(Saxon) genitive.

should I reply to that saying that I thought it best not to write what
was actually said, lest it produce great misunderstanding, argument,
rancour, and trolling, but to make distinction between the spoken and
written phrase, you might well ask what bloody use it was me writing
anything in the first place?

One further thing. Were I just to mention the fact of the "s-less"
genitive, I might well be asked to give an example (after being totally
disbelieved for a start by those whose minds are too small to think any
current English other than "standard" English is at all possible), at
which point I'd be no better off than where I started in the first
place.

That's fair enough but attempting to prove by such an example that I
must translate dialect English into standard English in order to
provide an illustration of dialect is just plain ludicrous.

Or maybe it's not? If you've been following the thread, you ought to
know by now how the Yorkshire genitive is used. Perhaps you could shew
me how you would take that 'spoken' English and recast it into
'written' English so that all these trolls and Einde would understand
the meaning whilst at the same time understand the "s-less" genitive.