Have these words been deleted?
UpNorthBob
NUMBER were deleted from standard usage? It's getting
increasingly frustrating to hear professional (supposedly)
speakers utter sentences such as, "He's a person THAT will
work LESS hours for a smaller AMOUNT of dollars." Also has
the term "stricter" always been used rather than "more
strict?" I hear that on the radio quite often.
M. Jakeman
wrote:
Some body ought too learn 'em too get much moor gooder at grammer. ;-)
MJ
"If this is scrumpy, bring me some pig swill"
~ Peasmold Gruntfuttock
Mark Wallace
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 04:12:34 -0400, UpNorthBob <rbel...@charter.net>
> wrote:
>
>>> Could somebody please tell me when the words WHO, FEWER, and
>>> NUMBER were deleted from standard usage? It's getting
>>> increasingly frustrating to hear professional (supposedly)
>>> speakers utter sentences such as, "He's a person THAT will
>>> work LESS hours for a smaller AMOUNT of dollars." Also has
>>> the term "stricter" always been used rather than "more
>>> strict?" I hear that on the radio quite often.
>>>
>
> Some body ought too learn 'em too get much moor gooder at grammer. ;-)
ITYM "s'mantix".
--
Mark Wallace
-----------------------------------------------------
For the intelligent approach to nasty humour, visit:
The Anglo-American Humour (humor) Site
http://humorpages.virtualave.net/
-----------------------------------------------------
Thomas Hardy
"Mark Wallace" <mwal...@dse.nl> wrote in message
news:bckagd$jv75l$1...@ID-51325.news.dfncis.de...
Quote:
'AEU is the place where friendly native speakers of English are ready to
help you...
Mark Wallace, 3education.english (December 17,2002)
Harvey Van Sickle
> M. Jakeman wrote:
-snip-
>> Some body ought too learn 'em too get much moor gooder at
>> grammer. ;-)
>
> ITYM "s'mantix".
What do anti-virus products have to do with it?
--
Cheers, Harvey
Ottawa/Toronto/Edmonton for 30 years;
Southern England for the past 20 years.
(for e-mail, change harvey to whhvs)
UpNorthBob
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 11:37:10 GMT, Mark Wallace wrote
>
>>M. Jakeman wrote:
>>
>
> -snip-
>
>
>>>Some body ought too learn 'em too get much moor gooder at
>>>grammer. ;-)
>>>
>>ITYM "s'mantix".
>>
>
> What do anti-virus products have to do with it?
>
>
Well I'm sorry to say that this will most likely be my
second (and last) post to this news group. This group is
like most of the other ones in which I have tried to
participate - patronized by a few regulars who banter back
and forth. As soon as a new person comes in with some
question or observation, we get nothing but smart-ass
comments. Sorry to invade your personal domain.
Thomas Hardy
"UpNorthBob" <rbel...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:3EED9C7F...@charter.net...
Voila, the crown on the work of Mark the Magnificent, c.s.
T.H.
Harvey Van Sickle
Sorry you feel that way. Your original post displayed what can often
ben seen in this group: a new person comes in and, by means of a
loaded question, displays a hackneyed and under-researched view of
English usage.
So let's return to your original post.
Could somebody please tell me when the words WHO, FEWER, and
NUMBER were deleted from standard usage?
A fairly fatuous comment. In what way have they been "deleted"?
One can use any of those words and they'll be immediately and entirely
understsood by any speaker of any of the various forms of "standard"
English. You can feel free to use them, as no "deletion" has taken
place.
It's getting increasingly frustrating to hear professional
(supposedly) speakers utter sentences such as, "He's a
person THAT will work LESS hours for a smaller AMOUNT of
dollars."
Ah: I think that can probably be taken to imply that you feel that
these are "incorrect" usages, whilst the words you prefer are the
"correct" ones. That's more like parading an ill-informed prejudice
rather than asking a question or offering an observation.
If -- prior to jumping in with both feet -- you'd cared to spend a
little time perusing the archive of this group and the FAQ pages of
alt.usage.english, you'd find that many posters here do not consider
such changes to be indicative of a decline in either linguistic or
general educational standards.
Also has the term "stricter" always been used rather than
"more strict?"
Probably. It's certainly the single most common method of forming a
comparative; if it gets used often enough it will qualify as becomes
standard" English.
Alan Jones
"Harvey Van Sickle" <harve...@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
news:Xns939C981...@62.253.162.114...
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 10:31:27 GMT, UpNorthBob wrote
> > This group is
> > like most of the other ones in which I have tried to
> > participate - patronized by a few regulars who banter back
> > and forth. As soon as a new person comes in with some
> > question or observation, we get nothing but smart-ass
> > comments. Sorry to invade your personal domain.
> Sorry you feel that way. Your original post displayed what can often
> ben seen in this group: a new person comes in and, by means of a
> loaded question, displays a hackneyed and under-researched view of
> English usage.
>
> So let's return to your original post.
[...]
> It's getting increasingly frustrating to hear professional
> (supposedly) speakers utter sentences such as, "He's a
> person THAT will work LESS hours for a smaller AMOUNT of
> dollars."
> Ah: I think that can probably be taken to imply that you feel that
> these are "incorrect" usages, whilst the words you prefer are the
> "correct" ones. That's more like parading an ill-informed prejudice
> rather than asking a question or offering an observation.
>
> If -- prior to jumping in with both feet -- you'd cared to spend a
> little time perusing the archive of this group and the FAQ pages of
> alt.usage.english, you'd find that many posters here do not consider
> such changes to be indicative of a decline in either linguistic or
> general educational standards.
>
> Also has the term "stricter" always been used rather than
> "more strict?"
>
> Probably. It's certainly the single most common method of forming a
> comparative; if it gets used often enough it will qualify as becomes
> standard" English.
Two further notes:
In BrE, "that" is, and as far as I know always has been, fully acceptable as
an alternative to "who" and "whom" when introducing a defining/restrictive
adjectival clause. I don't know why or when the superstition arose that it
is somehow wrong.
The use of the suffixes -er and -est is certainly standard in BrE for
"strict", as for most one- and two- syllable adjectives. The "more strict"
form has become commoner [sic] in my lifetime (some 65 years of reading and
writing English, almost 40 of them teaching it) but seems to me generally
awkward and ugly.
Alan Jones
Richard R. Hershberger
> > Well I'm sorry to say that this will most likely be my
To add to Harvey's comments, Bob seems to believe that the relative
pronoun "that" ought not be applied to humans, and that its use in
this way is a recent and undesirable innovation. This is pretty much
backwards. "That" has always been applied to humans. The innovation
is the 20th century idea that this is incorrect. The feeling against
it seems to be coming from the bottom up, unlike typical proscriptive
usage manual rules: we may may be seeing an actual change in the
language even as it occurs. But this rule certainly has not been
universally adopted, and it wildly overstates the case to claim that
using "that" for humans is wrong.
Of course Bob is neither the first nor the last to not know this.
Ignorance is both forgivable and curable. But it is only forgivable
to the extant that its owner wants it to be cured. The combination
with arrogance shown in Bob's post is unfortunate, as it suggests
rather too much comfort with the ignorance. Does this justify the
unresponsive posts it received? Probably not. But it does explain
them.
Richard R. Hershberger
M. Jakeman
Hershberger) wrote:
If Bob had asked a serious question, I think he would have received
serious answers from the start. The question he asked (has this or
that word been deleted from the language?) could not be enterpreted as
a serious one (one has to assume he doesn't realy suspect that words
have been deleted from the language). It seemed more of a cynical or
sarcastic comment to me, making it seem (to me, at least) more of a
statement than an appeal for our opinions.
Personally, I actually concur with his criticism of the passage he
quoted (not through sematic dogmatism, but as a matter of taste).
Hence my jokey response which was meant to express agreement with his
views. However, one way or the other, he didn't get the kind of
responses he wanted, so he employed manipulation tactics (the kind
that spoiled babies use to control the behaviour of their mothers) -
funny thing was that it worked! I never thought I'd see that on the
usenet! (-:
MJ
UpNorthBob
In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It does
seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to be
for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll shut up
for a while.
PS - Composing posts for this newsgroup feels like writing for my Senior
English instructor back in high school.
david56
> In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time
Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
really ceceded from the group.
--
David
I say what it occurs to me to say.
=====
The address is valid today, but I change it periodically.
david56
> rbel...@charter.net spake thus:
>
> > In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time
>
> Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
> worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
> really ceceded from the group.
I know, I know, but I thought I was pressing CANCEL to stop the
sending, but it seems I was pressing CANCEL to stop the spell check,
but post anyway. I haven't quite got the hang of Gravity yet.
M. Jakeman
<bass.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>>I haven't quite got the hang of Gravity yet.
It's all to do with 'the angle of the dangle' (or so they used to say
on building sites)...
MJ
Martin Ambuhl
news:MPG.19584e248...@news.cis.dfn.de / alt.english.usage:
> Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
> worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
> really ceceded from the group.
O(h, m)y!
--
Martin Ambuhl
now exiled to
Hurricane Bait, Texas
Richard R. Hershberger
> In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
> admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
> while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
> one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
> question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It does
> seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to be
> for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll shut up
> for a while.
I'm happy to see signs of interest in grammar. Keep in mind, though,
that not everything you think is poor grammar necessarily actually is.
As I pointed out in my previous post, using "that" for a human is
perfectly correct Standard English. This may not be true in a hundred
years, but then again it may: predicting language changes is a mug's
game.
Taking your other examples, you object to the use of "less hours"
where you would prefer "fewer hours". You are on somewhat firmer
ground, as there are any number of usage guides which will tell you
that "less" is only used with mass nouns and "fewer" with count nouns.
This rule is, however, at best simplistic and at worst complete
fiction. The simplified description of actual usage is that "fewer"
is almost exclusive applied to count nouns but "less" is used with
both count as mass nouns. But, I hear you thinking, that doesn't make
it right to use "less" with count nouns. Where, I reply does the rule
against it come from? To put it bluntly, 'sez who?' The earliest
recorded use of "less" with a count noun is by none other than Alfred
the Great c. 888, and it has been going strong ever since. The
earliest known statement of the rule against it is by one Robert Baker
in 1770. Baker at least couched it as his personal opinion: "This
Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should
think 'Fewer' would do better. 'No Fewer than a Hundred' appears to
me not only more elegant than 'No less than a Hundred', but more
strictly proper." From this modest beginning it has been repeated to
the point of being regarded as Revealed Trvth, with Baker himself
quite forgotten. But the fact remains that "less" has been applied to
count nouns for the entire history of the English language, while the
'rule' against it is a mere opinion, and a comparatively recent one at
that. The only reason I know of to heed this opinion is so as to
avoid criticism from those who don't know better.
Finally, we get to "a smaller amount of dollars" where you prefer "a
smaller number of dollars". Frankly, both are awkward. Sure "less
money" says the same thing clearly and more concisely. But I don't
think either is wrong. "A smaller amount of dollars" is not idiomatic
to my ear. I would suspect a native speaker who used this of strively
unsuccessfully for elegant language, but I don't see a grammatical
problem.
If you decide to stick around you can learn a lot. But be prepared to
learn that almost everything you learned in school was wrong. It will
be rather a shock to the system, but an interesting one.
Richard R. Hershberger
Odysseus
>
> To add to Harvey's comments, Bob seems to believe that the relative
> pronoun "that" ought not be applied to humans, and that its use in
> this way is a recent and undesirable innovation. This is pretty much
> backwards. "That" has always been applied to humans. The innovation
> is the 20th century idea that this is incorrect. The feeling against
> it seems to be coming from the bottom up, unlike typical proscriptive
> usage manual rules: we may may be seeing an actual change in the
> language even as it occurs. But this rule certainly has not been
> universally adopted, and it wildly overstates the case to claim that
> using "that" for humans is wrong.
>
against "which" instead of "who(m)" being used to stand for a person
in a non-defining relative clause. Such a conflation would be less
likely were the that/which distinction (as advocated by Fowler) less
sporadically observed.
--Odysseus
Mark Wallace
>
> Well I'm sorry to say that this will most likely be my
> second (and last) post to this news group. This group is
> like most of the other ones in which I have tried to
> participate - patronized by a few regulars who banter back
> and forth. As soon as a new person comes in with some
> question or observation, we get nothing but smart-ass
> comments. Sorry to invade your personal domain.
I'm afraid that if you expect a serious answer to such a silly question then
you're not going to get one.
Usage drift, the changes in the usages of the words of a language, is as
unstoppable as the tide, and it is a *Good Thing*.
If you wish to talk like a serf from the Middle Ages, you go right on ahead,
but the rest of us will stick with English, thanks -- a *living* language.
Mark Wallace
> In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
> admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
> while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
> one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
> question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It
> does
> seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to be
> for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll shut
> up for a while.
There's no need to shut up, and there's no reason you shouldn't vent
frustration at changes you don't like.
We all have our pet hates (one of mine is the addition of an 's' at the ent
of "toward", "upward", etc.), and it's nice to have a rant about them, from
time to time.
Don't expect everyone to agree with your personal preferences, though. I
see no harm in using "less" for "fewer", for example. I'm in favour of
eradicating plural nouns from the language altogether, and the
"countable/uncountable" tripe would have to be a necessary casualty of that.
> PS - Composing posts for this newsgroup feels like writing for my
> Senior English instructor back in high school.
It's worse than that. Most people here know English far, far better than he
did,
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
>In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
>admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
>while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
>one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
>question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It does
>seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to be
>for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll shut up
>for a while.
Persevere, Bob. It's well worth the effort...
>PS - Composing posts for this newsgroup feels like writing for my Senior
>English instructor back in high school.
... and writing English like that will soon become second nature.
--
wrmst rgrds
Robin Bignall
Remote Hertfordshire
England
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
>bass.b...@ntlworld.com spake thus:
>> rbel...@charter.net spake thus:
>>
>> > In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time
>>
>> Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
>> worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
>> really ceceded from the group.
>
>I know, I know, but I thought I was pressing CANCEL to stop the
>sending, but it seems I was pressing CANCEL to stop the spell check,
>but post anyway. I haven't quite got the hang of Gravity yet.
It's the stuff that stops you floating up out of bed. Do you often find
yourself on the ceiling in the morning? If so, NASA needs you in Area 51.
M. J. Powell
<rbel...@charter.net> writes
snip
>
>In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
>admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
>while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
>one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
>question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It
>does seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to
>be for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll
>shut up for a while.
>PS - Composing posts for this newsgroup feels like writing for my
>Senior English instructor back in high school.
A very good analogy!
Mike
--
M.J.Powell
Mason Barge
Only if they bore the unfortunate name "Dick" or "Peter".
--
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea. If this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
- Abraham Lincoln
Mason Barge
> It's getting
>increasingly frustrating to hear professional (supposedly)
>speakers utter sentences such as, "He's a person THAT will
>work LESS hours for a smaller AMOUNT of dollars." Also has
>the term "stricter" always been used rather than "more
>strict?" I hear that on the radio quite often.
AFAIK there is absolutely nothing wrong with "a person that".
The second one is closer. While "hours" is formally a count word, an "hour" is
an artificial measure of time. Time is better understood as a gross quantity
than as a number, and "less" is therefore correct. Let me put this as a
question: Is 90 minutes "fewer hours"? How about 30 minutes? The speaker
apparently intends to include these amounts of time in his statement.
If you want to object to "less" used with a count word, you had better find a
real count word, such as "carbuncles" or "persons named Dick".
The same argument might be made for money. Although I agree that "smaller
amount of dollars" sounds awkward, I would criticize "dollars" rather than
"amount", since the idea being conveyed is less money for less work. I think
what the speaker was doing, probably unconsciously, was to use "hours" and
"dollars" as a metonymical figure.
david56
> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 23:01:50 +0100, david56 <bass.b...@ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
>
> >bass.b...@ntlworld.com spake thus:
> >> rbel...@charter.net spake thus:
> >>
> >> > In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time
> >>
> >> Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
> >> worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
> >> really ceceded from the group.
> >
> >I know, I know, but I thought I was pressing CANCEL to stop the
> >sending, but it seems I was pressing CANCEL to stop the spell check,
> >but post anyway. I haven't quite got the hang of Gravity yet.
>
> It's the stuff that stops you floating up out of bed. Do you often find
> yourself on the ceiling in the morning? If so, NASA needs you in Area 51.
There's a BC cartoon with Wiley (?) watching an apple float up to the
branch of a tree - his thought bubble reads "Ytivarg!"
david56
> david56 <bass.b...@ntlworld.com> wrote (16 Jun 2003) in
> news:MPG.19584e248...@news.cis.dfn.de / alt.english.usage:
>
> > Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
> > worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
> > really ceceded from the group.
>
> O(h, m)y!
I apologised two minutes after making the post, and over 90 minutes
before you Oyed me.
Dr Robin Bignall
wrote:
>docr...@ntlworld.com spake thus:
>> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 23:01:50 +0100, david56 <bass.b...@ntlworld.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >bass.b...@ntlworld.com spake thus:
>> >> rbel...@charter.net spake thus:
>> >>
>> >> > In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time
>> >>
>> >> Oh, I'm so pleased you did; I would have gone to bed tonight
>> >> worrying that all those responses would be for naught if you had
>> >> really ceceded from the group.
>> >
>> >I know, I know, but I thought I was pressing CANCEL to stop the
>> >sending, but it seems I was pressing CANCEL to stop the spell check,
>> >but post anyway. I haven't quite got the hang of Gravity yet.
>>
>> It's the stuff that stops you floating up out of bed. Do you often find
>> yourself on the ceiling in the morning? If so, NASA needs you in Area 51.
>
>There's a BC cartoon with Wiley (?) watching an apple float up to the
>branch of a tree - his thought bubble reads "Ytivarg!"
Shouldn't that be "Ytivarg?"?
Or had he already discovered anti-gravity. If so, NASA needs him in Area
Dave Swindell
Hershberger <rrh...@acme.com> writes
>UpNorthBob <rbel...@charter.net> wrote in message news:<3EEE32F8.6030100@charte
>r.net>...
>
>> In violation of my previous promise, I'll post for the third time to
>> admit that, had I followed conventional wisdom and lurked here for a
>> while, I would have realized that this is indeed the "Big League." As
>> one was quick to mention, my original post was not a legitimate
>> question, but, rather, a poorly formed vent born of frustration. It does
>> seem that a lifetime of trying to use proper grammar is proving to be
>> for naught. I'm sure others have similar frustrations - now I'll shut up
>> for a while.
>
>I'm happy to see signs of interest in grammar. Keep in mind, though,
>that not everything you think is poor grammar necessarily actually is.
> As I pointed out in my previous post, using "that" for a human is
>perfectly correct Standard English.
As also is "whose" for non-human beings and inanimate objects.
--
Dave OSOS#24 dswindel...@tcp.co.uk Remove my gerbil for email replies
Yamaha XJ900S & Wessex sidecar, the sexy one
Yamaha XJ900F & Watsonian Monaco, the comfortable one