I've found the following.
And
try as I did, there was no way of destroying my heroic image. But as I learnt through the ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7183037.stm ...
groups.yahoo.com/group/beritamalaysia/message/99698 - 33k - Cached - Similar pages - Note this
I found about 50 like that, Yoong, but everybody chose to ignore them. Arrogance is a terrible thing.
Try as I did is a mere statement of fact relating to how the person tried.
Try as I might is a statement which is usually incorrect, a flasehood, unless the person tried to the uttermost limits of their capacities. It is, but not always, a self-flattering exaggeration. To be true the speaker would have to be shown to be exhausted and possibly bruised and bleeding.
spendius wrote:Try as I did is a mere statement of fact relating to how the person tried.
Try as I might is a statement which is usually incorrect, a flasehood, unless the person tried to the uttermost limits of their capacities. It is, but not always, a self-flattering exaggeration. To be true the speaker would have to be shown to be exhausted and possibly bruised and bleeding.
Spendy, despite your playing silly buggers, you are getting close to the truth.
contrex wrote:I found about 50 like that, Yoong, but everybody chose to ignore them. Arrogance is a terrible thing.
Arrogance schmarrogance. We are seekers after truth.
You'll be accusing me of bluster next, :wink: but before that, please consider the kettle and the pot.
Anybody with an arrogance problem should have a listen to Bob Dylan's beautiful song Lay Down Your Weary Tune.
Just for the record, I favour "try as I might" and I don't know whether it's just a phraseology I've learned, but it sounds more right than "try as I did". I don't think I've ever used or even heard the latter. I haven't read all the pages on this topic, but I agree with Clary's rationale. And probably McT's
Sometimes, YL, it's not a matter of being "correct" or "right", but of usage. And this may be a fine example of that.
I too, think Spendius has described what this phrase represents, [maybe others have too,; I'll leave that open as I didn't go over the thread with a fine tooth horse brush. Obviously a change from the normal idiom, but isn't that all that this is?
'try as I did' is not not the normal flavor but it's grammatical and it makes perfect sense. What else can we possibly ask of language.
Has anyone tried green tea ice cream?
Oh, I'd just like to add one thing. Educated people do not drive language and/or language change. They don't know how to use language, the structure of language, any better than an uneducated person. Every person knows the structure of their language dialect.
In a study by the linguist, William Labov, comparing the speech of a number of social groups, the largest number of grammatical errors were found in the speech of the most highly educated.
You don't actively learn a language, ie. teachers don't improve one's grammatical ability and therefore speech, by teaching them "grammar". The grammar that has been taught over the last number of centuries is an absolute joke.
The grammar of language is rocket science and while there are a good number of astronauts/space cadets out there, rocket scientists are a rarer breed.
If there really was such a thing as correct language, there wouldn't be BrE or AmE or AuE or CdE, or {___} dialects.
McTag wrote:contrex wrote:I found about 50 like that, Yoong, but everybody chose to ignore them. Arrogance is a terrible thing.
Arrogance schmarrogance. We are seekers after truth.
You'll be accusing me of bluster next, :wink: but before that, please consider the kettle and the pot.
I don't think I could have spelled 'schmarrogance'. It ain't English, but it's English, ain't it?
Do you mean the blustering kettle or the blustering pot, McTag?
I really don't think anyone here has shown arrogance. I wonder where Contrex has found it? And nobody has ignored anything, either.
Clary wrote:
One of my interlocutors has suggested it's a question of mood, that the subjunctive 'might' is more appropriate than the past.
I don't follow this person's logic. 'might' says one thing and 'did' says another. How can one choice be "more appropriate"?
JTT wrote:Clary wrote:
One of my interlocutors has suggested it's a question of mood, that the subjunctive 'might' is more appropriate than the past.
I don't follow this person's logic. 'might' says one thing and 'did' says another. How can one choice be "more appropriate"?
I do. I think the choice of "might" is the crux of the whole thing.
"Try as I did" means nothing other than "I tried"
"Try as I might" means "No matter what I tried, or might have tried, I was doomed to failure"
The latter is more useful, meaningful and resonant phrase and indeed that's why it is the old cliche Spendy complained about.
McTag wrote:JTT wrote:Clary wrote:
One of my interlocutors has suggested it's a question of mood, that the subjunctive 'might' is more appropriate than the past.
I don't follow this person's logic. 'might' says one thing and 'did' says another. How can one choice be "more appropriate"?
I do. I think the choice of "might" is the crux of the whole thing.
"Try as I did" means nothing other than "I tried"
"Try as I might" means "No matter what I tried, or might have tried, I was doomed to failure"
The latter is more useful, meaningful and resonant phrase and indeed that's why it is the old cliche Spendy complained about.
Why does 'try as I did" need to say anything more than it's capable of? And 'try as I might' can certainly point to a continuing or future effort.
I did say that what followed the phrase is an important factor.
spendius wrote:I did say that what followed the phrase is an important factor.
Indubitably, Spendius. Context, context, context and context and last but not least, context are what drives structure choice.
It's obvious Mac. Were you confused by JTT's wise post?
Maybe you should try as you might rather than as you did.
spendius wrote:It's obvious Mac. Were you confused by JTT's wise post?
Maybe you should try as you might rather than as you did.
I think JTT understood it.
I missed out the :wink:
so as to help you understand it, Spendy.
