There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life.
Christian Weisgerber
"It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
The quote is attributed to a presumably native speaker of AmE.
("... the 33-year-old Sturbridge, Mass., native... spent seven years
in the Navy and also served as a post-9/11 federal air marshal.")
The final relative clause is certainly ungrammatical in Standard
English. Is this a singular malapropism? Regional dialect usage?
...?
--
Christian "naddy" Weisgerber na...@mips.inka.de
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I can't answer your question.
I've met a similar ungrammatical but comprehensible construction from a
few of my relatives on my late wife's side of the family and a few of
their friends. They include a complete sentence within another sentence
without converting it into clause form.
For instance:
I was talking to a woman who I don't know who she was.
This was in southeast England and possibly elsewhere.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Marius Hancu
> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>
> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
The speaker/writer might have meant:
[I think that] there are a lot of people, that it just destroys their
life.
[I think that] is many times ellipted.
The comma becomes important.
Marius Hancu
Skitt
> (Christian Weisgerber) wrote:
>> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>>
>> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
>> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
>> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
>
> The speaker/writer might have meant:
>
> [I think that] there are a lot of people, that it just destroys their
> life.
>
> [I think that] is many times ellipted.
Hmm. Ellipted? I'd use "left out". And I'd use "often" in place of
"many times".
>
> The comma becomes important.
It's a sentence that is beyond repair. I'd rewrite it as "It destroys
the lives of many people."
--
Skitt (SF Bay Area)
http://come.to/skitt
Don Phillipson
news:ie0a63$e2n$1...@lorvorc.mips.inka.de...
The writings of S.J. Perelman suggest this construction was frequent
in spoken American English, although known faulty by English norms.
Between the lines, Perelman suggests it migrated into US English
from Yiddish (especially show business.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Donna Richoux
Or if the speaker already said "There are a lot of people," he could
finish with "whose lives are destroyed by it."
Maybe "whose" is too fancy for some people.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Joe Fineman
It also shows up from time to time in Ogden Nash's poems. I think of
it as colloquial US.
I used to think the name for this construction was "parataxis", but it
seems not. It deserves a name. In Hebrew it is standard. In English
it can be rendered standard (tho in this example rather clunky) by
inserting "such" before "that".
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: I'll scratch your back if the person whose back you scratch :||
||: scratches mine. :||
Fred
"Joe Fineman" <jo...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:u39q45...@verizon.net...
Doen't that change the meaning? I would interpret 'such that' as so.
Mark Brader
> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>
> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
> English. Is this a singular malapropism? Regional dialect usage?
> ...?
It's a common informal usage, which comes up because we don't really
have a conjunction in English that allows the subordinate clause to
be constructed in that way. In this case a simple correction is
available: "There are a lot of people whose life it just destroys."
But once you've spoken the sentence as far as "that it", you're stuck.
Now consider some related constructs. If you start with "a disease"
and "we can treat it with steroids", then it's simple to make the
clause
a disease that we can treat with steroids.
Notice that the "it" has disappeared; the "that" replaced it. As John
Lawler said here in 2005 when a similar sentence came up:
# The rule is that, in English, the relativized noun (the noun that
# the relative clause modifies, which shows up either as a wh-word
# or as 'that' at the beginning of the clause) is MOVED (not copied)
# to the front of the clause (if it's not already there, as the
# subject). You don't EVER put in a pronoun where it was moved from
# in English; you leave a blank instead.
But what if you start with "a disease" and you want to say "if you
treat it with steroids, there can be side effects"? Then you're stuck!
People who start speaking such a sentence are likely to finish it with
a disease that, if you treat it with steroids, there can be
side effects
and you see how this is similar to the original example. But the "it"
it wrong, because it's duplicating the "that" (see the rule above);
and yet omitting it would also be wrong.
In formal writing we would replace this with some longer construction
("a disease with the property that", say) or recast the sentence.
--
Mark Brader "You can do this in a number of ways.
Toronto IBM chose to do all of them...
m...@vex.net why do you find that funny?" --D. Taylor
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Alan Curry
Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
>Christian Weisgerber:
>> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>>
>> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
>> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
>> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
>
>> The final relative clause is certainly ungrammatical in Standard
>> English. Is this a singular malapropism? Regional dialect usage?
>> ...?
>
>It's a common informal usage, which comes up because we don't really
>have a conjunction in English that allows the subordinate clause to
>be constructed in that way. In this case a simple correction is
>available: "There are a lot of people whose life it just destroys."
>But once you've spoken the sentence as far as "that it", you're stuck.
It's been called a gapless relative clause at Language Log, for example
at http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005019.html
Here's one from Futurama... Bender says to Robot 1X: "I can use you as a
tool to save my friends, and I'll still be the hero who everyone says
how great he was!"
You can figure out what he meant. Can you say it less awkwardly?
--
Alan Curry
Peter Moylan
is. (Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy.)
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
aquachimp
I had the same instinct on this one, though I would have put it "whose
lives it (just) destroys"
What i wonder though is might the sentence have been deliberately
constructed to avoid issues with the use of "who" "whose" and/or
"whom"?
Roland Hutchinson
> Christian Weisgerber:
>> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>>
>> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all these
>> different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease. There are
>> a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
>
>> The final relative clause is certainly ungrammatical in Standard
>> English. Is this a singular malapropism? Regional dialect usage? ...?
>
> It's a common informal usage, which comes up because we don't really
> have a conjunction in English that allows the subordinate clause to be
> constructed in that way. In this case a simple correction is available:
> "There are a lot of people whose life it just destroys." But once you've
> spoken the sentence as far as "that it", you're stuck.
Not quite stuck: "There are a lot of people that it just destroys the
life of."
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Jerry Friedman
> In article <eqGdneRVw5HXCZnQnZ2dnUVZ_qqdn...@vex.net>,
>
>
>
> Mark Brader <m...@vex.net> wrote:
> >Christian Weisgerber:
> >>http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>
> >> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
> >> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
> >> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
>
> >> The final relative clause is certainly ungrammatical in Standard
> >> English. Is this a singular malapropism? Regional dialect usage?
> >> ...?
>
> >It's a common informal usage, which comes up because we don't really
> >have a conjunction in English that allows the subordinate clause to
> >be constructed in that way. In this case a simple correction is
> >available: "There are a lot of people whose life it just destroys."
> >But once you've spoken the sentence as far as "that it", you're stuck.
>
> It's been called a gapless relative clause at Language Log, for example
> at
> http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005019.html
Took the phrase right off my fingers.
> Here's one from Futurama... Bender says to Robot 1X: "I can use you as a
> tool to save my friends, and I'll still be the hero who everyone says
> how great he was!"
>
> You can figure out what he meant. Can you say it less awkwardly?
"I'll still be the hero who everyone says was so great!"
--
Jerry Friedman
Joe Fineman
> "Joe Fineman" <jo...@verizon.net> wrote in message
> news:u39q45...@verizon.net...
>> "Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> writes:
>>
>>> "Christian Weisgerber" <na...@mips.inka.de> wrote in message
>>> news:ie0a63$e2n$1...@lorvorc.mips.inka.de...
>>>
>>>> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>>>>
>>>> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all
>>>> these different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease.
>>>> There are a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
>> I used to think the name for this construction was "parataxis", but
>> it seems not. It deserves a name. In Hebrew it is standard. In
>> English it can be rendered standard (tho in this example rather
>> clunky) by inserting "such" before "that". --
>
> Doen't that change the meaning? I would interpret 'such that' as so.
Evidently a lot of people would, but no, in standard English a "such
that" clause is adjectival only; in the example given it would have to
modify "people". I do not mean that I would actually say "people such
that it just destroys their life"; with the colloquial "a lot" & "just
destroys their life", "such that" creates a jarring mixture of
registers. But I might say, or anyway write, "There are many people
such that the removal of this exemption would place an intolerable
burden on their capacity for saving".
The natural habitat of "such that" clauses is in mathematics: "For
every epsilon greater than zero there exists a delta greater than zero
such that for all integers greater than N we have..." & all that
jazz. "Such that"s sometimes get stacked two or three deep.
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: Language always says too little or too much. :||
R H Draney
>
>The natural habitat of "such that" clauses is in mathematics: "For
>every epsilon greater than zero there exists a delta greater than zero
>such that for all integers greater than N we have..." & all that
>jazz. "Such that"s sometimes get stacked two or three deep.
By first-year students, maybe...in serious mathematics six or seven deep is not
unusual....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Mark Brader
>>> http://www.sherdog.com/news/articles/Grappling-with-Fate-27900
>>>
>>> "It causes inflammation, and that inflammation can lead to all these
>>> different symptoms," he says. "It's a very painful disease. There are
>>> a lot of people that it just destroys their life."
Mark Brader:
>> It's a common informal usage, which comes up because we don't really
>> have a conjunction in English that allows the subordinate clause to be
>> constructed in that way. In this case a simple correction is available:
>> "There are a lot of people whose life it just destroys." But once you've
>> spoken the sentence as far as "that it", you're stuck.
Roland Hutchinson:
> Not quite stuck: "There are a lot of people that it just destroys the
> life of."
Oops, good point. Still, that version does stick you with "that... of"
rather than a single word.
--
Mark Brader "It's simply a matter of style, and while there
Toronto are many wrong styles, there really isn't any
m...@vex.net one right style." -- Ray Butterworth