Recent Transgressions #3

I've noticed that latkes always win the Great Latke-Hamantash Debate. Perhaps this is why:

I bet they used Spell Check on the label. Haman, yup. My spell check doesn't like that.

In another example of why reliance on Spell Check is a mistake, I just read an article about a house with "stainless steal appliances" in the kitchen.

1> and >4 lilithcat: Hilarious!

>4 lilithcat: maybe the appliances will steal your stains, making them stainless :D

>6 ScarletBea: Brilliant!

"stainless steal appliances"

Capable of perpetrating the perfect crime!

https://twitter.com/DarrenBrereton/status/1365741978567266306/photo/1

(At a so-called anti-lockdown protest in Dublin. RTE is the state broadcaster & these two claimed when interviewed that a children's hospital had murdered countless babies to extract an imaginary baby-chemical that was used to make RTE presenters look young. Wow, that darned lockdown.)

>9 bluepiano: I see the comments are also a goldmine: 'I wouldnt trust someone who bring a can of Heineken to a "peaceful protest" with spelling anything correctly.'

Either Vanity Fair doesn’t know the meaning of the word “codex”, or the author was trying for a very, very bad pun: “ A scroll through the names of past royals is a codex to Memphis’s oldest and wealthiest families . . .”

Pun? 'Code X' is all that occurs to me but what would that be? something from a cough syrup advert, maybe? In any case if it's not a pun that's using 'codex' in a way so idiotic as to seem wildly random.

What's almost as bothersome as that usage is my suspicion that Memphis + royals might not be as one would assume a reference to ancient Egypt but to a city in a democracy; if it is, what are the royal names? 'Well, Louis 'n' Isabella 'n' Hisahito 'n' Beatrix, it's sure nice to see y'all?'

>12 bluepiano:

The context is a description of an event held by extremely wealthy folks in Memphis, Tennessee, a black-tie ball where they "dress up as royalty and anoint one another “queens,” “princesses,” and “kings.” "

I think they meant rolodex.

>14 jjwilson61: Plausible, but you can't really have "a Rolodex to" something. The same goes for the pharmacologist's way of using "codex" to mean "an exhaustive catalogue". I was also wondering if the author had imagined that there was a verb "to codex" formed by analogy with "to scroll", so that "a codex" could mean a flick through the pages of something. But that hypothesis falls down on the preposition as well.

The most plausible theory is that there were at least two quite separate mistakes going on: (i) "scroll" and "codex" getting mistaken for synonyms or near-synonyms (perhaps linked by the Egyptian associations of Memphis in the author's subconscious? — both mentioned in the same lecture on the history of books, maybe?) and (ii) the reasonable but mistaken assumption that a codex must be the opposite of a code, therefore something like a key.

All of which makes the sentence much more interesting than the author could ever have hoped.

coda

Southern England has seen a lot of rock and cliff falls, and in February, the chalk cliffs that border much of Kent and Sussex experienced a rise in falls.

Seen in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/apr/15/jurassic-coast-cliff-collaps...

>17 thorold: There's so much to love in that sentence! Of course, we have the cliffs and their experiences (can analysis be far behind?) and then the almost Groucho Marxian "rise in falls."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBHLcBxQZiM

..."the chalk cliffs that border much of Kent and Sussex experienced a rise in falls."

Yes indeed-y! Those cliffs have experienced so much, have they not?

Kent's and Sussex's Cliffs experiencing such cliff-falls that surely they find it hard to bear up. Just don't look down, you know? Right? Can Dover get over it?

"Sussex cliffs to Kent at Dover, come in Dover; Over."
"This Dover, Sussex; Over."
"How're you holding up? Heard you've recently gone more to pieces, Dover. Over."
"Dover to Sussex: Are you mocking me? Better tend to your own shoreline, pal. Look at all that 'experience' down there! My experience is looking up. I seem to recall a brighter time when you fell for me."

"It could be an area which is an achilles heal."

From a BBC article on people not wearing masks on buses.

Sorry, not BBC, Islington Tribune. I had followed a link.

>20 MarthaJeanne: Thanks! A good morning laugh. And don't worry, that spear to the back of the foot is just a flesh wound.

I don’t usually share here, but couldn’t pass this one by. Was searching for the history of school backpacks.

“ 7. Jansport backpacks: In 1967, Jansport began producing backpacks. Although they were initially made from mountain climbers, Jansport bags have now found other users. They were some of the most popular 1960s school bags.”

https://backpackjoe.com/when-did-backpacks-become-popular/

>22 2wonderY: Very leathery skin those mountaineers!

>22 2wonderY: Probably not fair to laugh: that page looks as though it was put together by a ten-year-old for a school project. Moreover, someone who evidently thinks that Sekk Med Meis is a particularly fine and rare kind of Norwegian wood...

He also misuses "beg the question", a particular pet peeve of mine.

...also of mine, but I think that's a lost cause now.

My current fight is against "sneak peak".

One of my favourite peeves is television moderators who pronounce 'iron' the way it's spelled. It was in the news quite a bit a short while back.

>27 MarthaJeanne:

Pretty ironic.

>27 MarthaJeanne:

Where I come from they pronounce it 'arn'.

And within two days of me mentioning "Sneak peak" .. anybody else see this month's "State of the Thing" email?
🤦‍♂️

>30 dtw42:

Oh, dear . . .

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=sneak+peek%2Csneak+peak&year_s...

It looks as though “sneak peak” has been there since a few years after the phrase first came in, and the peek-to-peak ratio has been fairly constant, around 10:1. In the last few years, “peek” has been increasing a bit faster than “peak”.

It actually looks as though “peak” may have peaked a couple of years ago, but that could well be an artefact of the Google data.

In the eighties we all knew about PEEK and POKE, of course…

>32 thorold: That brought a few things back into my memory.

>33 pgmcc: That would be POKE, then!

>34 thorold:
That was a stack of fun.

>27 MarthaJeanne: Seem to remember an entry on that sort of thing in Fowler's English Usage where pronunciations like that were described as presseeus. I wish we still had that meaning of 'precious'.

>36 bluepiano: To be fair, why would a German speaker realize that 'iron' should be pronounced 'iorn'? But it still bothers me.

I become exercised reading about people who are pouring over documents. I sense there is a growing number of sodden archives in the world.

>38 librorumamans: lol

>36 bluepiano: I remember something like that too, but it doesn’t seem to be in his article on “pronunciation” — he tells us there that the aim should be to pronounce as our neighbours do, and not try to improve upon them.

“Iron” with an “r” seems to have disappeared in London English around the end of the 18th century, but I don’t think it ever quite went away in Scottish and north-eastern English. Growing up in Lancashire, I remember quite a few people using it: also some people who illogically used “ion” for the metal and “irn” for the pressing tool. That was probably just hypercorrection.

And of course “irn” had a revival recently thanks to marketing for the Scottish national soft-drink.

>26 dtw42: >30 dtw42: >32 thorold:

Not to ignore sentences like, "The odours from the kitchen peaked his appetite." Is this perhaps a passive-aggressive way of saying that once again Tinder had torched an evening and, with an improbable excuse, he had headed off to a sports bar for wings and a sorrowful brew?

>40 thorold:
I love the slogan: “Irn Brew, brewed in Scotland from girders.”

>40 thorold: It warms my heart to learn that an internet person 1) remembers reading that too; 2) apparently has Fowler to hand; and 3) looked it up.

After posting that I remembered, or seemed to remember, that it was 'tissyew' for 'tissue' author considered presseus. Suppose it could have been Follett US version. Wasn't Bierce, anyway; he was interested in cane-handling & how to avoid puddles, not Kleenex.

>43 bluepiano: (1) is probably self-deception, (3) follows directly from (2), and (2) is probably strongly correlated with membership of this group…

My copy of the 1926 edition seems to have been bought in May 1981, so I must have found it in Oxford — it was probably a ridiculous bargain from the basement of the Oxfam shop. It must have been one of the first reference books I acquired after moving out from under the parental roof — not a particularly useful one, but one I’ve always enjoyed dipping into.

Fowler deprecates “tish-ue”, but doesn’t make any jokes about it in my edition. On the same page he castigates the British for using the etymologically unsound and unnecessary “tyre” rather than “tire” —

Ah, Fowler — my bible decades ago as a newly hatched high school English teacher. Mine is the Gowers revision from the eary '70's.

...and FWIW, mine is the Burchfield 2004 reissue of the 1998 edition.
Burchfield appears to have expunged any commentary around t(i|y)re.

>46 dtw42:
One tires of a discussion about tyres. They just keep going round.

Treading old ground, are they?

Saw a real estate listing today that showed the floor plan of the house. It had a "laundry shoot".

>49 lilithcat: I'm imagining a giant slingshot

>49 lilithcat: I'm wondering when it is that laundry is in season, I do I need a hunting license?

>49 lilithcat: I am picturing my shirts and trousers hanging on a clothesline and riddled with bullet holes.

>49 lilithcat: It had a "laundry shoot".

Would that be in order to make amends?

>53 librorumamans:

Second amend{ment}s

>55 lilithcat:

I think that might be amiss.

Headline in The Washington Post:

Virtually all emperor penguins doomed for extinction by 2100, study finds

>57 jjwilson61: Maybe they were thinking of the Ghost in Hamlet, "Doomed for a certain time to walk the night..."?

Apart from the obvious confusion about what they mean by "extinction", I've never noticed "doomed for extinction" before. It sounds very odd. Google finds about one example for every eleven "doomed to extinction", so apparently it does exist.

Do newspapers really still tack "...study finds" on the end of headlines? I thought that went out years ago. Nearly as bad as "scientists say".

>59 thorold: I guess the idea is to put the drama first, then say where it comes from. That might hook more people into reading the article, although, being a scientist, I would be hooked by "study finds".

In another context this would have been a forgiveable slip of the pen but it's from one of those potted author bios in a book: 'Born in 1896 on Inishmore, Liam O'Flaherty grew up in a world of awesome beauty, echoes from his descendants and the ancient pagan past.' Not only are the Irish drunken mystics, they are so drunk or so mystical that they can make time double over on itself.

>61 bluepiano: Do you think they really meant "ancestors" instead of "descendants"? What a weird mistake!

A promo from Strand Bookstore, no less:

We're in the throws of preparing the Fall Book HookUp, and we want to make sure you are a part of it!

Trying to see what sticks? But books aren't like pasta!

>63 librorumamans: that's so funny! Poor books, being thrown around..

From a real estate blurb: " All hardware and every knob, window screen and curtain rod is original (for the most part)."

>65 lilithcat:

Do the knobs include the knob-and-tube wiring (for the most part)?

>65 lilithcat: Reminds me of the old song, "All or Nothing at All (For the Most Part)."

There is an alderman in my city who has recently been accused of retaliating against critics by withholding city services, sending inspectors to their businesses, not to mention the usual sexist and homophobic language.

Our mayor has just announced that she wants the city's Inspector General to do a "fulsome investigation" of the allegations. Sheesh.

(This is a woman who graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and has a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.)

I know! I'm seeing fulsome misused in this way more and more. I fear the word is doomed and will go the way of plethora.

This house has a "Butler's Panty": https://www.bhsusa.com/manhattan/upper-east-side/54-east-64th-street/townhouse/2...

>70 lilithcat:

Gee, I wish I'd been invited to that party!

That house was built before color was invented.

>72 2wonderY:

I expect it had plenty of color when it was built. But it has been "re-muddled".

>72 2wonderY: >73 lilithcat:

Conrad's whited sepulchre?

What struck me is that for $48 million you get a master bedroom (sensibly) at the back of the building, but almost 100' feet separated from the loo, which is at the front. Not what I would call a convenience.

>74 librorumamans: There is a toilet closer. However the staff bedroom only has a toilet and no bath or shower. Take it back. Maybe there is a shower. Good.

I suspect that “Butler’s panty” is a deliberate attempt to distract us from the real horror of using “facilities” as a verb in that sentence.

>76 thorold: I think they mean facilitates.

Anyway, a great house if you can afford it (and its upkeep) and want to impress people. I wouldn't want to live there, but that's a different matter.

>75 MarthaJeanne:

So there is; I missed that.

Imagine, though, clack-clack-clacking on those tile floors back and forth from the front kitchen to the dining room in the rear balancing the soup. Or getting the hors d'oeuvres up to the sixth-floor terrace still hot. Definitely it's the cook who's living on the first floor.

A BBC report on WHO:

"A WHO team visited Turkmenistan in July 2020 - the only Covid-19 mission that has been allowed so far. There were some positive signs in the country, Dr Smallwood said - face masks and social distancing requirements had replaced a previous system of fines against those wearing masks, who were accused of "sewing panic". And earlier this year the country became the first to make vaccination mandatory for all adults."

I have been known to sew COVID masks, but not COVID panic.

>79 MarthaJeanne: Who knows, maybe there is a specific provision against nervous needlework in the Turkmen criminal code?

And my current fiction has the main character worried because, "The redundancy money wasn't finite, sadly." If I had quit my job in return for a redundancy payment, I would be happy if it weren't finite.

Some people at my work really don't understand that saying an item is "over forecast" is the opposite of "we overforecasted" (which is what they actually want to say).
I've tried to explain, but no one cares and I'm losing the will to live every time I see that in a presentation....

>82 ScarletBea:

And I die a little inwardly each time I see 'forecasted' or 'broadcasted'.

Came upon a fatal malapropism today: 'My uncle died from psoriasis of the liver'. (Saving grace I suppose is that the poster actually said 'died', not 'passed'. I loathe the latter usage, partly because it always raises an inappropriate smile. Passed what-- a kidney stone? a test? muster? Oh, he casted off this mortal coil, did he?)

Cirrhosis, psoriasis. Close enough!

>83 librorumamans: is this a case of British vs. American english?
I've always heard/read the past tense of forecast being forecasted

>86 ScarletBea: No, the dictionaries give both forms for both UK and US, but in both cases forecast is preferred. The weatherman forecast light snow for today, but we got 20 cm.

>87 MarthaJeanne:

Plus I've never seen "The angler casted a line into the quiet eddy." And I hope I never do.

I cringe every time I hear dived but that seems to be the standard form these days.

>88 librorumamans: As every reader of Robert Burns knows, the past tense of "cast" should be "coost".

According to the OED, "casted" was fairly current until about the 16th century. So it was probably extinct before the rise of recreational angling. According to Google it does still seem to be used occasionally in the context of metal casting — "casted in bronze", "casted in pieces", etc. But that could just be propagation of one original error by non-native speakers.

>89 jjwilson61: "Dived" is the standard modern form — insofar as there is such a thing as a standard form in English. "Dove" seems to exist only in American English from about the early 19th century, and in informal British use (probably borrowed from America). The OED also records déaf, deæf, def, dýfde, defde and div'd as earlier past tense forms.

Headline: "Glioblastomas, the aggressive brain tumors, might benefit from immunotherapy in some patients, Northwestern research suggests."

Uh, no. I think they mean the patients might benefit, not the tumors!

>91 lilithcat: I certainly hope so!

"You reap what you sew."

Interesting thought.

>93 krazy4katz:

You reapare what you sew?

>94 librorumamans: Even better!

>91 lilithcat: Reminding me of the street collectors for cancer research who invariably ask, 'Will you give something for cancer?'

Oh, dear:

https://twitter.com/parkerpoling/status/1492890420887568384

>97 lilithcat:

I'm too dumb to even get the point of the promotion. Is it something weird related to Valentine's Day targeting illiterates?

>98 librorumamans: Agree. And what about the boys? Don't they eat chocolate?

>99 krazy4katz:

Oh no, that's gay! Boys only buy chocolate for birds, chicks, sheilas, babes, or sometimes for the little lady.

>100 librorumamans: And the 90% chocolate bars that find their way into my shopping cart? Oh, forgot, HE isn't buying them, because I pay the groceries.

And I should add: if my boyfriend's Valentine gift was cheap corner-store chocolate like that, I'd conclude that the relationship was likely over.

>101 MarthaJeanne:

Good one! I like that!

>103 librorumamans: I agree!!

>100 librorumamans: Hmmm… then I wonder why all the chocolate keeps disappearing at my house...

From ABC: 'including waving sanctions against Russia'. I think some sanctions may have been waived.

>106 MarthaJeanne:, you never know, they can be waving them from the western side ;)
(I know, it doesn't work like that, grammatically)

Another one of the usual:

On opting out of some specific mails, I got the message "Thanks, we'll bare this in mind in the future!" :)

>108 ScarletBea:

At least it wasn't retaliatory: "We'll bare you in mind"!

>109 librorumamans:: I don't want to be bared by them, thanks a lot, in mind or otherwise hehe

One of the restaurants at Chicago's Lyric Opera has a "Prefix Menu".

>111 lilithcat: I think I'll have the "un-", please :)

What exactly did they mean???

Are they implying that opera is an addictive drug, perhaps?

>112 ScarletBea: Presuming that they meant “prix fixe“ menu.

>113 thorold:

And it is.

>114 ghr4: ah of course haha

In a World News link on MSN, a headlined story tells us that King Charles III "immediately took over the reigns of the British monarchy."

I suppose that means he has free reign.

Now that he's no longer Prince of Whales, he has to take over the reigns!

But a report in today's Times (London) says he is starting to sell the old Queen's horses so goodbye reins.

How about this one?

On the BBC (radio) this week I heard--not for the first time--a reporter or the person being interviewed (but IIRC, it was the BBC's reporter) use it's impossible to _under_estimate the harm(s) done" etc. (Sic) something which, clearly, made no sense except as "overestimate"

This confusion now threatens to become close-to-standard.

Oh, hey, BBC? It's impossible to overestimate your abuse of, misuse of and ignorance of not just correct English but even just plain sense-conveying English.

>120 proximity1: I hear that one all the time, and not just in casual conversation. It even appears in newspapers known for high standards, where it had to be written, reread, and possibly even edited. It's come to be one of those usages that make (not "makes") me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly.

>121 Meredy: It seems that the intention is to use an imperative statement, such as “Do not underestimate the harm…” or “You cannot underestimate the harm…” - and the slightly altered leading verbiage throws off the meaning completely.

>120 proximity1: - >122 ghr4: This is definitely a confusion that goes back a long way: I can remember a primary-school teacher warning us against it fifty years ago. As >122 ghr4: says, it must happen when you start to use one idiom but have another one that works the opposite way in your mind. And of course the speaker will be upset if you point it out to them, and convinced that they actually did say “overestimate”.

Fifty years ago I was in high school. I can't recall any high school teacher of mine ever making this gaffe--and not all were stellar teachers--a fact more apparent to me today.

Meredy, thanks for your >121 Meredy:

But "we need to talk" about ('Kevin') --or, rather, this:

"It's come to be one of those usages that make (not 'makes') me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly."

Please reconsider: in your
..."It's come to be one of those usages that make (not 'makes') me do a double-take"

the referent of "one of those usages" is the "it's"--a singular, not plural, antecedent. That's apparent when one drops the intervening phrase, "come to be one of those usages that" and puts (revised, corrected to the plural!, "puts") the resulting sentence together, producing

"it's* (it is) make me do a double-take" ...

So, on the contrary, and, especially (?) in a forum such as this thread, the proper construction goes,

... "It's (i.e. it has) come to be one of those usages that makes me do a double-take"

or, shorter still, "it makes me do a double-take".
----------------------

* Note, too, that only as part of "come to be" does "it's" represent the contraction of "it has"...

on its own, without the parenthetical phrase, "it's" becomes "it is" ...

>124 proximity1:

I side with >121 Meredy:. I parse that make me do a double-take as a defining relative clause modifying usages, making that noun the subject of make.

>125 librorumamans: I agree. Usages make me do a double-take.

>125 librorumamans:, >126 MarthaJeanne:

I know. It does "sound right", doesn't it? But I think that this is a great part of what has made--and makes-- this such a confused matter. Even now I am so inured to hearing things spoken and written incorrectly that I can easily inadvertently write or say the usual rubbish grammar that's commonly heard.

Just today, in a newspaper supplement, I came upon a completely similar case--but one in which the singular/plural booby-trap was correctly navigated; here is the example:

"And warnings can spoil the show--what is disseminated is a list of themes we're likely to see,* which can scupper the surprise factor in advance."

(edited: actually, the example is not as clear as I'd thought at first since both "a list can scupper the surprise factor" and "themes we are likely to see can scupper the surprise factor" are valid constructions. But, once we've introduced the relative clause with "of", the controlling antecedent is "list", not "themes."

I suppose that it's going to take some old and authoritative grammar text to illustrate this point convincingly here.
See Point #5 at this link:
https://www.esc.edu/online-writing-support/resources/grammar/nouns-verbs/basic-n...

"Verbs do not have to agree with words that come between (interrupt) the noun and the verb. An example of this is, 'The highest percentage of voters is in favor'; where the verb, 'is' agrees with the noun 'percentage', the subject of the sentence, not with 'voters'."

(* Even this example carries its own grammar flaw: the comma splice between "see" (,) and "which". There's no call for or for any comma there. But editing is a dead art and even editors who read this prior to its publication--if any--were hardly more likely to have spotted it than was its author, Dominic Cavendish (writing in the Features supplement (at page three) of today's (London) Daily Telegraph )

Here, the referents are "list" and "themes". It is "list" which determines the case, singular or plural--not where in the sentence these appear. It makes no difference whether the sentence is written,

"And warnings can spoil the show--what is disseminated is a list of themes we're likely to see, which can scupper the surprise factor in advance."

or

"And warnings can spoil the show--a list of themes which can scupper the surprise factor in advance is what is disseminated."

that is, "a list is disseminated" and it, i.e. that list "can scupper the show's surprise factor."

"Mother's Milk" to future "Recent Transgressions"

... "Not a single state saw an increase in scores for either subject, although a handful of states saw no change in their results. In all, 51 out of 53 states or territories saw declines in eighth grade math scores, with Delaware, West Virginia, and Oklahoma registering the largest declines. Only Utah and the Department of Defense Education Activity, which provides public schooling to military families, did not register declines in eighth grade math scores.

"For eighth grade reading, scores declined in 33 states and territories, remained even with previous results in 18, and rose within DOD schools by 2 points. Maine, Delaware, Oklahoma, and Oregon saw the largest declines in reading scores, with scores dropping by 8 points in Maine, and 7 points in the other three states.

"The abysmal state of student proficiency in math and reading was largely expected due to the prolonged school closures brought on by pandemic policies. But Monday's results are the most comprehensive measurement of student achievement since the beginning of the pandemic more than two years ago. "...

... "since the beginning of the pandemic more than two years ago."

Never mind that. The scores have been deplorable--and excused by the same idiotic rationalizations--for over forty years.

To be fair, in these times of a Technopoly's world-wide drive of a relentless moral, political and intellectual infantilization, the withering work of grammar's grim-reaper spares no one completely. At Cambridge and Oxford Universities the quality of spoken and written English among(st) native-born and raised British students and faculty is now of such a state that the students and dons of the early 20th century would be scandalized to behold it.

In their conceit, the universities' administrators, of course, believe and contend that, for students of foreign mother-tongues, their universities are the best places to come and learn the best English.

There are plenty of such students naive enough to actually believe that.

>128 proximity1:: A little OT perhaps but today and yesterday there have been critical reports in the Times (London) of the teaching of German at Cambridge. Apparently to do with the neutralization of gender and I have seen comments to the effect that if students try out their new language "skills" on holiday in Germany they are likely to laughed at.

>129 PossMan:

RE: ..."comments to the effect that if students try out their new language "skills" on holiday in Germany they are likely to laughed at."

Well, I know I "LOL"' 'd to read that. So I should not be at all surprised if they got this reaction from the native Germans. German is such a challenging language to learn at school that I quickly dismissed any idea of trying to learn it.

Not at all "Off-topic" by my reckoning--FWTW.

This same matter, of course, is no less an "issue" in the gender-specific nouns of French. That, too, if I'm not mistaken, is already under criticism (i.e. attack) by these gender-"neutral" (language) fanatics.

Personally, and from my personal experience living in France and knowing a bit about French people's sensibilities--as that's discernible from in and around Paris, at any rate--I don't see such a program going down at all well with the French people--be they young or old. The French, if anything, are even more touchy about their language and how it's used or abused than, say, whatever a (typical German /non-very-academically-minded, that is ) is reputed to be.

And, bear in mind that, because, in France, all such language usages in schools' formal education at all levels, are, just that--matters of formal dictat from the state authorities. Thus, for any such stuff to become nationally adopted should require the state's intervention--and that necessarily means taking it up publicly in the National Assembly where there'd be not just debates but much and controversial mass-media discussion.

In Trumpian parlance, this would be "Yuge!"

>130 proximity1:: Just to add a small note there was a letter in the Times (26/10/2022) by a man who said that if he was still teaching German to sixth-formers he would give them the expression wie die Pest meiden which he says translates as "avoid like the plague" and would be relevant to any application to read German at Cambridge.

>31 lilithcat:

At too many schools, colleges and universities today, students are now to be protected rather than challenged. The best of them deeply resent that smothering while the worst find it reassuring.

I spent some time as a guest in the home of a German family some years ago. They were a couple in their thirties with a young son. Well, both parents spoke English well but the father spoke an English which was superb. Few native-born Americans or British could match his command of English. I'd put his knowledge and use of good spoken English up against any Oxford or Cambridge student or professor (aged 35 years or under) of today. While, true, he'd had a good German university education and, though I was in no position to judge it, his German must have been no less superb, his practice of English reflected something now rare:

he cared very much about using his own and a second-language well--to the best of his very great abilities.

I told him that the number of people of my personal acquaintance whose command of English was on a par with his own was such as could be counted on one hand.

>125 librorumamans:, >126 MarthaJeanne: & >127 proximity1: My take:

It (subject) has come to be (verb)* one of those usages (noun phrase that agrees with "it") that make me do a double take (adjective clause defining, and therefore agreeing with, "usages," subject/verb-wise).

The noun clause (basically everything after the verb) does agree with the subject of the sentence, which broken down to its essence is "It has come to be one of those usages," via the use of "one."

"make" is the verb of the adjective clause, and so refers to the noun "usages," which that clause is modifying.

Anyway, that's how I read it. Thanks, all! I haven't diagrammed a sentence in a long time!

* When I was studying for my certificate to teach English Comp at San Francisco State, my professor referred to this as a "verb cluster." Essentially, in this case, the whole thing, "has come to be," functions together as the verb of the sentence.

>133 rocketjk:

"Anyway, that's how I read it. Thanks, all! I haven't diagrammed a sentence in a long time!"

(You): "make" is the verb of the adjective clause, and so refers to the noun "usages,"

No, it isn't. It's the verb of the sentence. Period.

You should practice more. Why not go to one of the elementary grammar books and diagram the disputed sentence above according to the text's instructions?

Why is there such resistance here to so simple a course?

How you "read it" is simply mistaken and your old elementary grammar book should indicate that if you bothered to consult it.

There aren't multiple main "subjects" in a sentence. There is one main subject and that determines all the subsequent dependent clauses' verb agreement in number.

"It has come to be one of those usages that makes me do a double take."

That is, "one of those that makes"...

Or, "It makes me do a double-take."

Your flawed reasoning gives us: "It make me do a double-take" ---the result of lifting the dependent clause and leaving subject/verb in place.

As should be obvious, the "one, referring to "it" is, like "it", a singular term.

"It is one that makes me do a double-take." is not the same as "It is one that make me do a double-take."

You know what's brought us to this pathetic confusion about subject/verb agreement? Let me help you: NO, you don't know : it's our now-damnedly-etrenched abuse of the plural pronoun "their" as a singular pronoun.

>134 proximity1: "that make me do a double take" is an adjective clause modifying "usages."

You could write the original sentence leaving it out: "It has come to be one of those usages." This is a complete, grammatically correct sentence, is it not? Not a particularly elegant sentence, but grammatically correct. What, in your reading, is the verb of that sentence?

Let's make it simpler and write it as: "It is one of those usages." Are you saying that "is" is not the verb of this sentence? Now we want to make clear which usages "it" is "one of." So we add an adjective clause: " . . . one of those usages that make me do a double-take."

Mercy's original statement is, " I hear that one all the time, and not just in casual conversation. . . . It's come to be one of those usages that make me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly."

So when we see "It's come to be one of those usages that make me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly," we know that the "it" refers to the one, specific incorrect construction that we were discussing. But "that make me do a double-take" refers to "usages."

"There is one main subject and that determines all the subsequent dependent clauses' verb agreement in number."

So then it's "He visited all the countries that has high mountains" to make the verb in the dependent clause agree with the "main subject"?

>135 rocketjk:

No.

In, "He visited all the countries that* have high mountains" the subject is "he"; the verb is "visited".

*("that": a preposition)
--------------------------------------------------

Did you diagram this sentence? I don't think so.

Tell me: why, after all your schooling, can't you correctly identify a sentence's subject, verb and dependent or independent clause(s)?

"that have high mountains" is a relative clause relating to the sentence's direct object of the verb, ("visited"): "the countries".

These relative (or dependent clauses, a.k.a. prepositional phrases--because they're introduced by a "preposition", ) are ancillary to the sentence's main subject and verb--here,

SUBJECT: "He"
VERB: "visited"
direct object of the verb: "(all) the countries"
(dependent clause (i.e. prepositional phrase) : "that have high mountains", related to "all the countries", not "he" : "that have high mountains."

WHY is this so damned difficult!?!??!!?

I suggest that you ask for a fifth-grader's English grammar test on subject/verb/object agreement from your nearest elementary school's teaching staff. Take the test home and answer its questions. Let us know how you do.

Prepositional phrases "give themselves away" by having at the beginning of the phrase ("Suprise!") a preposition:

"that" ,"which" ,"on", "by", "for, "over","with","into",

etc.

Your next hurdle: "What are all the prepositions in English?"

Do your homework!!!!
"Class dismissed."

----------------------------

For "extra points" watch "Young Sheldon"'s "Georgie" help his younger sister, "Missy", with her English grammar homework:

(link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgrKNxnyhMo

Say, can your cat "has cheeseburger"?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KlvOFW8aQg

>136 proximity1: "that have high mountains" is a relative clause"

Relative clauses are dependent clauses. Any clause that can't stand on its own as a sentence is a dependent clause.

"that have high mountains" is an adjective clause defining "countries."

"that make me do a double-take" is an adjective clause defining "usages."

The two sentences both fit in exactly the same way under your rubric that "There is one main subject and that determines all the subsequent dependent clauses' verb agreement in number."

That's my last comment here, other than to say that "that" and "which" are not prepositions.
http://partofspeech.org/what-part-of-speech-is-which/
http://partofspeech.org/what-part-of-speech-is-that/

> 137

I'll grant you your strict point: that "that" and "which" are formally relative pronouns rather than formal prepositions and they introduce relative clauses; but, because they so often occur with prepositions, "in that," "by..., "for ..., "after ..." "on..." "to... (which/that)... I regard them like they were prepositions .

But that concession changes nothing of the matter discussed above regarding the contending sentences,
"It's come to be one of those usages that make me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly." versus "It's come to be one of those usages that makes me do a double-take and read again when I see it used correctly." The former of these is incorrect and the latter is the grammatically correct statement.

Now, that granted, here, despite my loathing Wikipedia, I'll cite an abbreviated list from Wikipedia's page on "prepositions"; otherwise, I suggest one refer to the Hodges-Harbrace College Handbook / Author:John C. Hodges / 1977
Edition:8TH ed / N.Y. : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977

Wikipedia (in part : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_prepositions#Conjunctive_Prepositi...
------------------

(abridged list)
"Prototypical prepositions

"The following are single-word prepositions that can take a noun phrase complement following the preposition. Prepositions in this section may also take other kinds of complements in addition to noun phrase complements. Prepositions marked with an asterisk can be used transitively or intransitively; that is, they can take noun phrase complements (e.g., he was in the house) or not (e.g., he was in).


aboard*
about*
above*
abreast
absent
across*
after*
against*
along*
aloft*
alongside*
amid
amidst
midst
among
amongst
apropos*
around*
round*
as
at
bar
barring
before*
behind*
below*
beneath*
beside
besides*
between*
beyond*
but
by*
concerning
counting
despite
ere
except
excepting
excluding
following
for
from
in*
including
inside*
into
less
like
minus
notwithstanding* (also postpositional)
of
off*
on*
onto
opposite
out
outside*
over*
pace
past*
pending
per
plus
post
regarding
respecting
sans
save
saving
since
sub
than
through*
throughout*
till
times
to*
touching (archaic)
toward, towards
under*
underneath*
unlike
until
unto (poetic)
up*
upon
versus
wanting
with
within*
without

I've greatly abbreviated this list, omitting such stupid neologisms as "B4" (as a variant of "before") and omitting all which carried the notation "requires reference" and omitted numerous now little-used prepositions derived or borrowed from Latin (e.g. "pro", "qua") or other languages and, for example, these "aslant", "astride"--though I don't contest the inclusion of the last of these.

The real trouble today is that so many teachers of English in grades "K to 8" have basically surrendered before the obstacles to their getting students to learn and use their own native English properly, correctly. Mass-media have reduced them--that is, the students-- to a state of incorrigible ignorance of good grammar and, against the forces of these they--the teachers-- feel powerless. If you doubt this, ask some of them.

In general, native speakers of English (Britons and Americans (i.e. of the U.S.)) have, for generations, not given a good goddamn how poorly they know and use their own language. For they seem and I suppose are convinced that it simply does not matter.

To use any language well one must care about it. That so many of them don't care enough to do that is only too obvious.

The censorious little twits at "Discus" suppressed this; so I decided to post it here:

'Here be monsters'

Your attention, please!
Very well.
Let's begin.

This sentence ends with a full-stop or, in the U.S. American dialect, it (the sentence) ends with what's referred to as a period. This sentence ends with an exclamation-mark situated just above its full-stop or its American period! And this sentence ends with a full-stop's question-mark? The question-mark, the exclamation-point and the full-stop are what are called "punctuation-marks" because, like the commas in this sentence, they punctuate the sentences: by punct-uat-ing, they denote types of pauses which denoting different meanings.

Using only a different punctuation-mark, the same string of words may carry very different connotations.

"These are professional writers!"

"These are professional writers?"

I would like to enlist your help in what I am quite certain is a long-term project. Membership is free--or, if not completely free, it costs no more than the price of a little book of English-usage entitled "Write it Right!" by Ambrose Bierce. Bierce's book might even be freely available from the digital archive, "archive.com" (https://archive.org/details/writeitrightlitt00bierrich). Members are charged to read this little book and, using it as a guide, apply its author's percepts when reading. When--as shall invariably happen no matter what one reads-- one so enlisted in these voluntary ranks finds grammatical and syntactical gaffes in print, then he at his discretion or she at her discretion brings the gaffe to the attention of the publication's editor with an objection and a correction.

Should enough people enlist in such a project, editors may gradually begin to feel enough shame from this peer-pressure to sharpen their practice.

I offer as example our own dear periodical, The Spectator of this week at page 36 where we find the following

from Rod Liddle's (of The Spectator magazine) contribution to recommendations in "Books of the Year (part) II":

(quote)
"I was glad for Lionel Shriver to come to the rescue. Nobody creates fictional monsters quite like her, and I can't work out if I find her personal trainer 'Bambi', from the hilarious The Motion of the Body Through Space (2020) more or less wondrously appalling than the care home functionaries in last year's Should We Stay or Should We Go."
(end quote)

I suggest one dismiss as of secondary concern the facts that this long sentence has a comma-spice (..."quite like her, and I can't work out"...) as well as the fact that if "Should We Stay or Should We Go" is a question, then the cited book's title and Mr. Liddle's citation of it should both end in a question-mark--but, things being what they are today, there's no telling whether the book's title as published _did_ carry a question-mark without first checking into that.

Let us rather concern ourselves with this:

"Nobody creates fictional monsters quite like her"...

We probably know that Mr. Liddle intends, means, something other than what his words in fact say. He does not mean that, of all the fictional monsters found in today's fiction-writing, none are quite like Lionel Shriver. But such is the plain import of his words taken at face-value. Instead, of course he means that no one--that is, no other writer--creates fictional monsters quite like Lionel Shriver's fictional monsters; or, alternatively put, "quite like those of Lionel Shriver" or, that "no one creates fictional monsters quite like she does." ("she" the author, Lionel Shriver, not to be confused with the monster, Lionel Shriver.)

The trouble is that, as Ambrose Bierce would tell us if he could, "like her" and "like (or "as") she does" are not grammatically or syntactically identical in import--that is, in their meaning. They connote different things.

Again, I ask: These are professional writers? and I add: "This is a professionally-edited periodical?"

If you have kids, please read Bierce's Write It Right before going on to read Johann Hari's Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention (Bloomsbury Books).

where to put this? :

From the website "Literary Hub" : https://lithub.com/crypto-nerd-sam-bankman-fried-who-just-lost-16-billion-would-...

By Jonny Diamond
November 11, 2022, 10:21 a.m.
-----------------------------------------------------------

"In a September profile of brand new poor person Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, he makes it pretty clear that books are for beta losers who won’t ever know the rush of losing $16 billion in a single week. Here’s the salient exchange with writer Adam Fisher (which originally appeared at Sequoia Capital’s site, but has since been scrubbed):

'I’m addicted to reading, which explains how I ended up being a writer.'

'Oh, yeah?' says SBF. 'I would never read a book.'

'I’m not sure what to say. I’ve read a book a week for my entire adult life and have written three of my own.

"'I’m very skeptical of books. I don’t want to say no book is ever worth reading, but I actually do believe something pretty close to that,' explains SBF. 'I think, if you wrote a book, you fucked up, and it should have been a six-paragraph blog post.' ”

"I don’t know that I really have much to add here except that I’m not surprised."...

So sad that are people like that, but even worse, that these views get advertised as a good thing, for those that see SBF as a role model...

"Listen back" to our call-in program...

"Listen back"? More stupid neologisms from British abuse of English.

Once, they'd have said simply "listen to a replay of this programme in our archive".

LBC radio's Idiots.

An odd definition of “original signature”

“To those who purchased the Philosophy Of Modern Song limited edition, we want to apologize,” said a tweet from Simon & Schuster. “As it turns out, the limited edition books do contain Bob’s original signature, but in a penned replica form. We are addressing this information by providing each purchaser with an immediate refund.”

My original signature is long gone. It probably was the last in a series of tryouts that I created in Grade 8 on a scrap of paper or in the back of an exercise book. All of my subsequent signatures have been imperfect replicas of that one.

;^ )

More loss of the formerly better understood and used standard English. The distinctions between "original", "genuine" and "authentic" are a casualty of our contemporary "stupid".

signatures, diaries, most artwork --drawings, (and paintings and sculpture) are "authentic" or "inauthentic" (copies or counterfeits); other types of artworks are "original" or "copies" and substances (currency, bank checks, material, e.g leather, silk, gold, Levis Strauss jeans, medications, drugs, etc.) are "genuine" or "counterfeit".

And most American English-speakers today neither know this nor give a good goddamn about it.

I don't think I have ever posted a new find here:

"Helping others is you're calling and we're hiring."

Ad on NBC News

Just saw a floor plan that showed a master bedroom with a "walking closet".

>147 lilithcat: Well that is scary!

>147 lilithcat: Don't complain if you hear noises in the night haha

I don't think this author knows the meaning of 'deign'

"He deigned to join scientific societies, finding them clubby and old-fashioned, and chose not to attend medical school, either."

(From The Song of the Cell)

Maybe meant 'declined'?

Strangely, a paragraph further is a quote using the word correctly.

>150 MarthaJeanne: Probably a simple confusion with “disdain”.

>150 MarthaJeanne: "I don't think this author knows the meaning of 'deign'"

Nor does the book's editor, it seems.

DiLaura realized his copy of Opticks might be more significant than he'd first thought when he shined a strong light on the James Musgrave bookplate and discovered a second bookplate underneath belonging to Charles Huggins.

Jennifer Ouellette in Ars Technica

Something odd is happening to English verbs. Some regular verbs are becoming invariant (knit, fit, etc.) while irregular verbs are becoming regular, or, if you prefer, strong verbs are becoming weak. I know that this has been going on for several decades, but the reason for it is not clear to me.

MORE "IDIOT-O-ILLITERACY"

from the BBC:

Monday, 16 Jan. Radio 4:

..."it was him who decided"...

Said by a college-educated speaker (radio host or an invited guest of the programme).

from The Daily Telegraph (London):

24 Jan. 2023

... "Soaring prices and taxes has driven an exodus from the state with 352,000 people leaving California between April 2020 and January 2022, according to California’s Department of Finance."

They has?

(Headline (!) )

"Saboteur ‘Robin Hood’ strikers vow to half French bakers’ rising electricity bills "

LMFAO !!!!!!

From a CBC online news story:

The company's marquis product is Prevail . . .

Oh, come on, CBC. I wonder what the company's ducal product is.

>156 librorumamans: Might they have meant 'marquee product', do you think? It makes a bit more sense.

Yes, of course.

From the Royal Mail:

We have your item at Northampton Peak Parcel Hub and its on its way.

And no, it's not on its way. It's just sitting there as far as I can tell. I'm getting tired of seeing the bad grammar.

Not getting political here, but this sentence really bugs me:

“Lombardo is one of the only Republican governors – following Phil Scott of Vermont and the former Massachusetts governor Charlie Baker – to sign laws enshrining protections for abortion.”

>160 2wonderY: As someone who believes abortion should be available, what bothers you? Is it the fact that Republican governors are generally not protecting women's right to abortion? If so, I agree. It is difficult not to be political when the 2 parties are so different on this issue and so many other — what I would call — basic human rights.

>161 krazy4katz:

This is “Pedants’ Corner”. It’s nothing to do with the subject matter. Please don’t go there.

“Not getting political here . . .”

>161 krazy4katz:

Lombardo is one of the few Republican governors . . .

>162 lilithcat: >163 librorumamans: Ah hah! OK! I forgot where I was...

>163 librorumamans: Just to follow up: I was finishing up a grant that I have been writing at work and almost put in a sentence that said " We are one of the only laboratories…" Then I thought about it and changed "only" to "few". Thank you for the lesson. :-)

>165 krazy4katz:

You're welcome! Of course it could also be ". . . one of only a few . . ."

>166 librorumamans: Thanks! Next time...

Saw a billboard today asking the serious question: "Is World War III eminent?"

>168 lilithcat:

I agree that it is, in fact, outstanding.

>168 lilithcat: & >169 librorumamans:
The subject matter is very serious, but I could not suppress a laugh when I saw the wordplay.

Esme Young yesterday on The Great British Sewing Bee:
"You did brilliant"

Just one example of something I hear all the time.
Does no one know what an adverb is any more?

No. And it's been driving my youngest son crazy since he was a teenager. His response to that was always, "ly." Which probably drove his classmates crazy.

>172 MarthaJeanne: Since last night I have this -ly flitting around madly in my head.

I have to say that his grammar is not perfect. I kept trying to convince him that you don't say "Mr. Brown, she." or Ms. Jones, he." But he could never see that it really mattered.

When did the form "He was sat at his desk" become normal???
It just appeared in a work presentation. Could it be regional - Yorkshire, UK?
It sounds very wrong...

>175 ScarletBea: The OED (sit , v. III.27.c) says “British colloquial. In the 19th and 20th centuries, regional and nonstandard, but increasingly common since the late 20th century.”

I remember it from the 60s and 70s in Lancashire as something older people used, but teachers disapproved of. Doesn’t sound wrong to me, but I wouldn’t use it in a formal document.

>175 ScarletBea:

"He was sat at his desk"

Definitely sounds wrong. It should be, "He were sat at his desk."

:-)

Thanks, both of you :)

Reporting on a cybersecurity breach, Dan Goodin of ArsTechnica wrote:

Sometime in October, UNC4841 started exploiting an unusually powerful vulnerability . . .

I'm doubtful that a vulnerability can be powerful; it sounds oxymoronic to me.

Apparently I'm missing something because other readers heavily downvoted me for saying so.

Ouch! please don't put

"The sun had shone bright every day."

into the very first paragraph of your book. Ly, please. or move bright in front of sun.

I'm going to pretend I didn't see this. After all, it is a respectable author, and a well-known publisher, but I feel as if someone had scraped fingernails across the chalkboard.

This is what happens when there are no copy editors any more:

From an article in the Chicago Tribune: "Detective Paul Schmidt declined to comment and referred all questions to the department chief and deputy chief. Neither could not be reached during multiple attempts to make contact over the phone."

Okay, this isn't "recent", but still:

This is magnificent! There are spelling mistakes in both English and French :-D

I like the "sirlion" of beef - I keep imagining a Sir Lion going to catch the beef with his own sword :)

Who's Anna?

>185 librorumamans: https://cooking.nytimes.com/guides/33-how-to-make-pommes-anna#:~:text=Pommes%20A....

Probably Anna Deslions

A meal we’re all glad we missed!

>186 MarthaJeanne:

Thanks! Not a dish I'm familiar with.

From a news article about DePaul University wanting to tear down some old buildings to erect an athletic facility:

"The biggest concern: tearing down century-old structures that will most likely never be built again in the area."

Most likely not.

I'd be scared if they were!

>190 lilithcat: " . . . that will most likely never be built again in the area."

Not in that area, no. But century-old structures are being built in other areas all the time.

A realtor describes an apartment as "a unique rarity to NYC".

(You are also invited to "take a trip down the spiral staircase . . .")

>194 lilithcat: The spiral/helix distinction is an odd one: geometry nowadays is absolutely clear about which is which, but ordinary language has been using them almost interchangeably since the words came into general use (around the 16th century in English).
Nobody ever talks about “helical staircases”, although we really ought to: a staircase that was a geometrical spiral would only work if you were M C Escher...

You might like this one
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/17/hampshire-villagers-bring-street...

>195 thorold:

A labyrinth (e.g. Chartres Cathedral) is a kind of two-dimensional spiral staircase, perhaps; no Escher required. A Staircase to Heaven?

>196 ScarletBea: I had no idea there was an Apostrophe Protection Society. Lovely.

Online news site headline: "The Healthcare System Failed Me After Getting Shot"

Now I know that many people think the healthcare system in the U.S ought to be shot, but I didn't know anyone actually did it. (Of course, that's not what they meant!)

From a university faculty webpage: "{X}'s research focuses in the relationship between material and intelectual history in the early modern period". Oh, dear.

>200 lilithcat: But spell check said it was fine.

A press release posted on X/Twitter by the US Embassy in London:

We want to ensure the good people of the UK that the unthinkable notion of adding salt to Britain’s national drink is not official United States policy. And never will be.

Context story in The Guardian.

Oh, dear: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227326215/nearly-25-000-tech-workers-laid-off-in...

Scroll down for the "correction".

>203 lilithcat: Hilarious!!

What would Dorothy Parker say?

>205 Crypto-Willobie: "What would Dorothy Parker say?"

She wouldn't be surprised. :)

>203 lilithcat:

Gotta have a new crop ripe for laying (off) in twenty years!

Another place offering "Panini's".

The Hollywood Reporter, on Jon Stewart's monday criticism of the GOP:

Stewart, who has been playing both sides with some deep criticism of President Biden in recent weeks, went for the jugular on Republicans who claim to be strict administrators of Constitutional rights but at the same time, work to elect a president with a dictator's ideology who - as one says in a supercut of statements contradicting the tenants and values within the U.S. Constitution - "could stand on the front steps of the White House and and commit murder."

A bit of background for the non-baseball fans in the crowd. Bernie Williams is a retired New York Yankees player of some renown, now back at the team's pre-season training camp as a coach. Now then, from the Major League Baseball website:

"Bernie Williams' sneakers rested in dew on a recent morning at George M. Steinbrenner Field, observing each of the Yankees' modern-day outfielders as they pursued popups."

>210 rocketjk:

But if those sneakers have laces, they also have eyes.

Spotted in a bookshop the other day:
An Almost Zero Waste Life: Learning How to Embrace Less to Live More


— who knew that hugging is so bad for the planet?

John Sterling has been the New York Yankees' radio announcer for a long time. Not everybody loves his style, but that style is iconic and unique. A few days ago he abruptly announced his retirement, just a few games into the just begun baseball season. He's in his mid-80s, so his decision wasn't really a shock. In fact, according to the online sports publication, The Athletic . . .

Speculation about Sterling’s future began before 2019, when his streak of calling 5,058 consecutive Yankees games (including the playoffs), ended at 81 years old.

Given that a Major League Baseball season is 162 games, and that the Yankees have frequently been in the post-season as well, something is off with that math. Also, I don't know what that comma after the close parenthesis is doing there.