Frank Apisa
 
  2  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 02:06 pm
@JTT,
Quote:
I can tell why in the case of language issues, Frank. For far too long, people, ignorant people, have been allowed to present complete nonsense about language as if it has merit.

There is much to discuss, reasonably, about language. When crap like this is presented, the crap must be addressed. Just because this is old crap remembered fondly because it may have come from your favorite teacher doesn't change the fact that it is crap.

That you can't address the facts on these issues ought to tell you something.


JTT...a guy asked a question about grammar. Several people gave opinions...citing accepted grammatical constructs.

Now you are making it seem that some terrible offense has occurred…and you seem intent on castigating people trying to respond reasonably to a reasonable request. I think we all realize that grammar rules are not inviolate…and that plenty of deviation can be considered acceptable.

But why the extreme nature of your remarks…why the anger and damn-near hatred involved? Why the unnecessarily derogatory wording of your comments...why the insults?

What is that all about?
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 02:23 pm
@spendius,
I agreed with you until you went and got all egregious.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 03:00 pm
@Frank Apisa,
You must be joking Frank!! Ever the man for the easy answer aren't you. If I would just spell it out indeed.

Increasing angst, ennui, alienation, incomprehension, inarticulateness and general mixed up confusion. Is that short enough? If you want the causes of that you need to read a lot more books, and of a different sort, to what you are used to. But in a word "television". And particularly where television is open to the blasts of pure commercialism and, of necessity, pandering to the Seven Deadly Sins.

The Trivia threads can be played as a form of discussion. On there we fans have none of the faults you mention.

But people who promote a certain idea with no reference to its consequences if the promotion is successful and the idea adopted are stupid and should be so labelled. When they refuse to take the consequences into account when it is pointed out that they should do they are ignorant. And should be called so.

I think also that we have a few younger members coming on recently who are full of it and think they know all the answers and wish to strut their stuff gleaned from some course in an 'ology using the brilliantine words they have learned how to spell.

I'm all for a bit of argy bargy though.
0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 03:07 pm
@ossobuco,
It was only egregious osso if Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" is impolite to ask. Which, of course, it is. But you can't blame the scientific male spirit, to which you owe so much, being interested in the answer. And knowing the answer should facilitate My Lovely getting there more often.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 03:29 pm
Spell checker gave "inarticulateness" as incorrect.

What do you make of the blank page in Tristram Shandy. How ungrammatical is that? But what meaning. It is impossible to find a better way of conveying that meaning than the genius of Laurence Sterne found with that blank page.
0 Replies
 
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 03:31 pm
@spendius,
fuckwit!!
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:21 pm
@Frank Apisa,
Quote:
JTT...a guy asked a question about grammar. Several people gave opinions...citing accepted grammatical constructs.


No, that's not true, Frank. Two people, maybe more, but Roberta and then you advanced an old canard about language, a fictitious rule stating that 'everyone/their' constructions are incorrect. They are not. The fictitious rule is incorrect.

Quote:
Now you are making it seem that some terrible offense has occurred…and you seem intent on castigating people trying to respond reasonably to a reasonable request. I think we all realize that grammar rules are not inviolate…and that plenty of deviation can be considered acceptable


Spreading lies about language seems pretty offensive to me. Suggesting that people who use perfectly natural language structures are poorly educated or ignorant in some fashion is damn offensive when the ignorance comes from those spreading the lies.

Quote:
But why the extreme nature of your remarks…why the anger and damn-near hatred involved? Why the unnecessarily derogatory wording of your comments...why the insults?

What is that all about?


If you'll point to a specific item, I can address that.

But overall, it seems now that the very people who have long made fun of those who made these "grammatical errors" now ask for civility. Remember, Frank, that it was you not too long ago who was calling out, I believe it was H2oMan, for his egregious grammar errors.

JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:30 pm
@Frank Apisa,
Quote:
JTT...a guy asked a question about grammar. Several people gave opinions...citing accepted grammatical constructs.


The guy asked no question about grammar, Frank. He asked about punctuation.

No, that's not true, Frank. Two people, maybe more, but Roberta and then you advanced an old canard about language, a fictitious rule stating that 'everyone/their' constructions are incorrect. They are not. The fictitious rule is incorrect.

Quote:
Now you are making it seem that some terrible offense has occurred…and you seem intent on castigating people trying to respond reasonably to a reasonable request. I think we all realize that grammar rules are not inviolate…and that plenty of deviation can be considered acceptable


Spreading lies about language seems pretty offensive to me. Suggesting that people who use perfectly natural language structures are poorly educated or ignorant in some fashion is damn offensive when the ignorance comes from those spreading the lies.

Quote:
But why the extreme nature of your remarks…why the anger and damn-near hatred involved? Why the unnecessarily derogatory wording of your comments...why the insults?

What is that all about?


If you'll point to a specific instance, I can address that.

But overall, it seems now that the very people who have long made fun of those who made these "grammatical errors" now ask for civility. Remember, Frank, that it was you not too long ago who was calling out, I believe it was H2oMan, for his egregious grammar errors.

Roberta
 
  2  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:38 pm
@JTT,
It's ok for you to call me a liar?

ossobuco
 
  0  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:40 pm
Now we will have two eternal posters, the on and on'ers, yammering at each other.

Such a delight to the rest of us. Pass the sandbags.
Roberta
 
  2  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:47 pm
@ossobuco,
I was trying to stay out of it, osso. But being called a liar upset me.
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:52 pm
@Roberta,
Nods.

Oh, look, I'm a zero.

Must have been the fk.

Pass me the banana.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:56 pm
@ossobuco,
I think you are more "eternal" than me osso.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 04:59 pm
@ossobuco,
It wasn't me osso. I never thumb except the once on an unimportant Trivia thread to see what happened. I never knock anything I have never tried except kissing blokes.
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:00 pm
@spendius,
Really? Are you feeling poorly? not entirely kidding, as I expect you to annoy me for years to come.
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:03 pm
@spendius,
Now there's a picture.



Not that I would mind.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:05 pm
@Roberta,
Some idiot has added the tag "Listen to Roberta". Yes, by all means do so in her first remarks about the punctuation issue.

After that, her comments that follow,

Quote:
You have a mistake in your opening sentence.

Quote:
Joe England wrote:

Someone's asked me to proofread their work, but they have a habit of always leading into quotes with commas. For example...


"Someone" is singular. "Their" and "they" refer to pluruals[sic].

The opening sentence should read (assuming that the someone is a male):

Someone's asked me to proofread his work, but he has a habit of always leading into quotes with commas. For example...


are highly misleading, at best, so while there is every good reason to listen to Roberta, there is no sane reason to accept what she says. Roberta is wrong on this particular aspect of language.


Quote:

Archive for singular "they"

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=27

Sometimes Strunk and White are right

July 1, 2010 @ 5:16 am · Filed by Geoffrey K. Pullum under Prescriptivist poppycock, singular "they"

« previous post | next post »

Here is Sandy Brindley, of Rape Crisis Scotland, quoted (in the Metro newspaper, 29 June 2010), talking about an advertisement her organization has published:

The advert has been designed to shake out ingrained prejudices many Scots have towards women who have been raped. Even though people believe they wouldn't judge a rape victim by what they wear, how drunk they were, or if they had been flirting, they often do.

Now, you're a Language Log reader; you've probably read about singular they and the prescriptivist prejudice against it. What do we want to say about the use of pronouns in the second sentence in this quotation?

Here's what I'm hoping those of you with your hands up were going to say.

1. Singular they is very natural for most speakers, and it is increasingly common, especially among younger people.

2. The prescriptivists who warn you off it, telling you to avoid Everyone should bring their own drinks and say Everyone should bring his own drinks instead, are dopey old coots and you shouldn't listen to them.

3. That doesn't mean Sandy Brindley made a good decision about using it above. She has two noun phrases to keep apart semantically here, both with anaphoric pronouns depending on them: people and a rape victim. She is focusing here on rape of women, as the first sentence in the quotation shows. Her use of singular they for the references back to a rape victim ("judge a rape victim by what they wear, how drunk they were", etc.), though grammatical, is extremely and unnecessarily confusing. The feminine pronoun would have been a vastly better choice:





0 Replies
 
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:06 pm
@ossobuco,
First I'm a fuckwit and now I'm feeling poorly.

Those are not arguments my dear. They are foot-stamps. Door slams.

You need to get the slates coming off the roof with those kind of things to get me to take notice.
ossobuco
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:07 pm
@spendius,
I suppose you are correct, but still, it was fun.
spendius
 
  1  
Reply Sat 30 Jun, 2012 05:11 pm
@ossobuco,
I know.
0 Replies
 
 

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