How about the English?

@MontereyJack,

It was MORE fun to work out on the gunnery range,
or on the desert; we don't do much singing.

We had no fascists. Most of us at the gunnery range
inclined toward libertarianism.

David

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Actually, I guess I have to thank church camp for showing me the light. We had role-playing games--I got the role of the atheist, and they had to convince me why I should be a good Presbyterian. They couldn't do it. And it was all downhill from there.

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Geez, four people out of 360,000,000 Americans who never learned "I'm a Little Teapot" and I get stuck with two of them.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

Geez, four people out of 360,000,000 Americans who never learned "I'm a Little Teapot"
and I get stuck with two of them.

There r NOT "360,000,000" Americans.

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

I believe that Dave has offered us a good case to mull over.

The whole world speaks "This is good, isn't it." We grin and wear it, in a sense of good will, not on the ground of logic.

Logic isn't anything. Sometimes language stands more on the hill of sense, and poetry is its summit, the concentration of human soul and good will.

But logic means more to law practice. It is a sword for David lot. To disarm logic is to disarm Dave - the veteran would forever protest and defend.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

I'm unclear why you want to change it. It's the actual words of an important historical figure, Some of the word choices are not necessarily what a native speaker would use. It is, however, intelligible as it stands and those are the historical words used. Why do you want to alter them?

Contrex does not overreact about context. All too often, when you were giving us just a sentence or two and no context, it was flatly impossible to tell whether it was right or wrong and what it meant because it was impossible to get an idea even of what the subject matter was. We try to help, but you have to give us enough surrounding matter that we can tell what they're talking about.

If I were to ask you the meaning of "When I get all steamed up, I will shout, 'tip me over and pour me out' ". You'd probably have absolutely no idea what it meant, but probably 90% of English speakers (Americans anyway, I'm not sure whether Brits could or not, whether it's in their tradition too, or indeed whether or not it came from them to us) could tell you instantaneously. It all depends on the context.

Please do not mix up two different concepts, MJ.
The historical record will stand intact as is-- Concept One;
Whether the language of the record stands in accordance with standard English - -Concept Two.

It is intelligible, which is above suspicion. Yes.
Is it without linguistic flaw? Not really. "Will lost" is obviously a grammatical mistake and you deny it Jack. That is not a good way of an English teacher does.

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I don't deny it. I'm still unclear why you want to change it. Your last sentence is ungrammatical.

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David says:

.

Quote:

There r NOT "360,000,000" Americans.

My error. Four out of an estimated 313,3444,095 Americans as of 11:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time and I get stuck with two of them.

It is unclear why inconsistent David did not say "Ther r..."

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@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

Is it without linguistic flaw? Not really.
"Will lost" is obviously a grammatical mistake and you deny it Jack.

That is not a good way of an English teacher does.

That 'd be better rendered as:
such is not a good practice for an English teacher
or
that is not a good thing for an English teacher to do.

David

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@MontereyJack,

David says:

DAVID wrote:

There r NOT "360,000,000" Americans.

MontereyJack wrote:

My error. Four out of an estimated 313,3444,095 Americans as of 11:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time and I get stuck with two of them.

It is unclear why inconsistent David did not say "Ther r..."

I did not think of it,
but what is MORE important:
I need to be careful not to over-do fonetic spelling,
or I 'll drive everyone nuts, as if I were posting
in an alien language. The forum is supposed to be fun.

OK, so NOW, correcting his error, Jack woud have us believe
that there r 3 Billion, One Hundred and Thirty Three Million,
Four Hundred and Forty Four Thousand and Ninty Five Americans; excuse my skepticism.

David

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Got that direct from the US Census web site (note the "estimated").

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David says:

Quote:

I need to be careful not to over-do fonetic spelling,
or I 'll drive everyone nuts,

Underdo it. You're achieving your predicted end.

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Oh, I see what David is talking about. Bad typing, bad Jack.

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@McTag,

Quote:

OmSig: Defendant was convicted
of murder on the basis of testimony from a witness
who said "yes" when asked whether it was NOT a fact
that he saw defendant shoot decedent.

Quote:

McTag replied: That seems silly to me. Only in America.....

"It is a fact, is it not, that......"

The expected/correct answer is "yes". The judge did not understand the English language. The defence counsel should have been shot.

=============

"It is a fact, is it not, that you saw [the] defendant shoot [the] decedent?"

I think this stands as a grand example, McTag, of the speciousness of using "correct" in remarking on these issues. When English speakers use a negative question like this, they do expect agreement with their idea, which would, as you say, be a 'yes'.

So the 'expected' answer is 'yes'.

The question,

"It is a fact, is it not, that you saw [the] defendant shoot [the] decedent?"

holds the same meaning [to sane English speakers] as,

"It is a fact that you saw [the] defendant shoot [the] decedent?"

You, of course, as a sane English speaker, already know this.

'correct' doesn't enter the picture because, just as it is in all language situations, context will determine what the answer is. If the respondent doesn't agree with the IDEA found within the question, the answer will be 'no'.

OmSig is so out to lunch with his crazy ideas of logic as regards language. The notion that some New York lawyers or judges decide the logic of language is as ludicrous a notion as a bunch of prescriptivists doing the same.

Just how out to lunch Dave is, is shown in his analysis. Reporting accurately the speech/question that the lawyer asked would not yield,

Defendant was convicted
of murder on the basis of testimony from a witness
who said "yes" when asked whether it was NOT a fact
that he saw defendant shoot decedent.

That wasn't what was asked in the original question. The negative is glossed by sane English users as a negation of whether it ideas was a fact or not. The negation is a form of grammatical structure which we use to seek agreement with a statement.

An accurate report of that speech, again from a sane human being, would be,

Defendant was convicted
of murder on the basis of testimony from a witness
who said "yes" when asked whether it was a fact
that he saw defendant shoot decedent.

The reason that this is an accurate report is because that was what was asked in both forms of the question above, in red.

"It is a fact, is it not, that you saw [the] defendant shoot [the] decedent?"

is not grammatically different from the simple question,

It's a fact, is it not, that apples grow on trees?

which is no different in meaning than,

Apples grow on trees, don't they?

A speaker will choose negative tags because that speaker seeks to elicit a 'yes'.

Apples don't grow directly in the soil, do they?

A speaker will choose positive tags because that speaker seeks to elicit a 'no'.

You were right, at least partially when you jokingly said, "Only in America". These types of silly ideas have long been propagated by US sources by dint of its huge size and overbearing influence.

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@JTT,

The structure of English grammar is not 1OO% perfectly logical, but it is close to perfect.
JTT's mental processes r so badly disorganized, so chaotic,
that I will not take the time to address them with specificity, at length,
beyond what I have already said,
but I will add this thought:
meticulous parsing of the spoken language in courts of law,
in order to determine the rights of parties to litigation,
is not limited to accusations of homicide.

It can be ( and it IS ) applied to the analysis of the rights
of parties to contracts. Accordingly, if a man be so foolish
as to express himself in multiple negatives
in negotiating his rights under a contract,
he might well get an unhappy surprize after litigation,
when the court enforces what was actually agreed,
judged by the criterion of what was said or written
in that negotiation. In some cases, professional grammarians
have testified as expert witnesses, presenting explicit diagrams
that show what a sentence says.

A recent example thereof (2008) was the case in the USSC
of D.C. v. HELLER 554 US 290 wherein a brief was submitted
by professional grammarians parsing the 2nd Amendment
of the US Constitution (whose results were in perfect harmony
with the known Constitutional history and the extraneous writings of the Founders).
That brief was recognized and it was directly cited by the Court, being among
the component elements that formed the foundation of that Constitutional decision.

Q.E.D.: We shud say what we MEAN,
(with meticulous care) and we shud mean what we say
and don 't fool around, JTT's confusions to the contrary notwithstanding.

David

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@JTT,

It is amusing that in J's mind (as expressed in his posts, hereinabove)
sanity is defined as being in accord
with his odd ideas, anti-logical ideas, of grammar.

Humorous.

David

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I don't think I wish to add much more to this, apart from apologising for my loose use of the word "correct". I'll evidently never make a lawyer.

Do you not think we should try harder?
Do you think we should try harder?

Slightly different in meaning, to be sure, but both positives and begging the answer "yes".

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David, professional grammarians submitted amicus briefs in Hiller which said that as language was used in the 18th century, the 2nd amendment absolutely tied the second clause to the first, i.e. arms were specifically connected to their use in militias, and that for the first century plus of the republic, that was the way the amendment was interpreted. That it applied to a supposed individual right was a 20th century reinterpretation, generations aafter the founders. And further they said that as "bear arms" was used from the 14th century on it was NOT talking about any individual right but specifically about use in military situations, and that was the context the founders leanred language and were educated in . Professional grammarians, mind you.

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@MontereyJack,

MontereyJack wrote:

David, professional grammarians submitted amicus briefs in Hiller which said that as language was used in the 18th century, the 2nd amendment absolutely tied the second clause to the first, i.e. arms were specifically connected to their use in militias, and that for the first century plus of the republic, that was the way the amendment was interpreted. That it applied to a supposed individual right was a 20th century reinterpretation, generations aafter the founders. And further they said that as "bear arms" was used from the 14th century on it was NOT talking about any individual right but specifically about use in military situations, and that was the context the founders leanred language and were educated in . Professional grammarians, mind you.

I CHALLENGE U on that, Jack.
Please prove your assertions.

In the event of a counter-challenge from u,
I 'll be more than glad to directly quote the HELLER decision's references to the professional grammarians.
Justice Scalia is a textualist who relied heavily and frequently upon the professional grammarians.
Thay supported the pro-freedom of the Individual position.
The Founders were far more pro-freedom than the NRA is,
e.g., Thomas Jefferson wrote to his 12 year old nephew
counselling him always to take his gun with him when he goes out for a walk
and he advises him to become proficient with it.

I am rather taken aback that GRAMMARIANS woud be explaining
Constitutional HISTORY during the first century of the Republic, as u allege. Sounds fishy to me.
That is like a dentist doing psychiatry. We get history from the HISTORIANS.

I 'll be very interested to see
how u support your claim. Have u READ the HELLER case?? I have.

David

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@oristarA,

Quote:

That was overturned on appeal
when the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York
found that the witness, had testified on the record
that he did not see the event,
because of the question that had been addressed to him.

Stress may affect language skills, cf. Sun Yat-sen.

Meanwhile the wheels of the bus are in danger of falling off:

1 Reply

How about the English?

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