I could find some useful books in the library.

@JTT,

Another personal attack, but as yet no substantive answer.
This is becoming the norm.

@McTag,

McTag: Yes, of course.

jtt: Your reply must be deep tongue in cheek.

How can that be when you've exhibited a not at all inquisitive nature on all those peeves you've personally defended [eg. can/may] and all the peeves of so many others that you greenlighted?

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

It wasn't then deep tongue in cheek? Unbelievable!

Quote:

Another personal attack, but as yet no substantive answer.
This is becoming the norm.

Not at all a personal attack, McTag. Just an accurate description of you over the course of many years in discussions on language. Most often you take, have taken the prescriptive position.

You were one of the prescriptivist leaders in the Pet Peeves threads. Last time we discussed 'may/can', you held to and supported the ignorance that defines the prescriptive view on those two modals.

1 Reply

@JTT,

More boring shite from JTT, and

Quote:

as yet no substantive answer.

Your personal criticisms are rejected, and your smokescreen is not working.

2 Replies

@McTag,

Do you deny that you were front and center in the Peeves threads defending all the prescriptions?

Quote:

as yet no substantive answer.

But yet you believe you provided one. Laughing

1 Reply

@JTT,

Noted: obfuscation, smoke and mirrors, avoiding the issue...

and continuing ad hominem claptrap.

Very Happy

1 Reply

@McTag,

Do you deny that you were front and center in the Peeves threads defending all the prescriptions?

1 Reply

@JTT,

I think that's putting it a bit strong.
I defend and support things which are right.
I disparage things which are wrong.
Simples.

By the way, I think you misunderstand the meaning of "peeves" and the basic idea behind that thread. It's supposed to be a bit of fun. You manage to remove all that.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

I think that's putting it a bit strong.

the diversion, the excuse, ...

Quote:

I defend and support things which are right.
I disparage things which are wrong.

followed by an admission that you were front and center in the peeves threads defending all the prescriptions.

Quote:

I defend and support things which are right.

That's a ludicrous notion, McTag. You never 'defend' anything. You and your fellow prescriptivists were devoid of anything remotely connected to proof and reality.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but your defense for 'may/can for permission' was that your parents had taught you this idea.

Quote:

I disparage things which are wrong.

That's certainly right, the part about 'disparage'. Despite all your recent claims about the innocent nature of your posts, you admit that disparaging is your sole intent.

And that's the only way you ever 'defend' your prescriptions, by disparaging folks completely natural use of language. Never by providing any reasoned arguments, never by pointing to actual language use or the history of language.

You avoid those, probably, for two reasons; your ignorance of them [tho' you can no longer claim that] and the fact that you will find no support for your "arguments".

Quote:

Simples.

Is 'simples' idiomatic BrE?

Not 'simples', McTag, simplistic - simplistic to the point of idiotic. That's your take on language whenever you run with your prescriptive nonsense. When you actually think, you, on the odd occasion, make sense.

Quote:

By the way, I think you misunderstand the meaning of "peeves" and the basic idea behind that thread. It's supposed to be a bit of fun.

Still front and center defending all the prescriptions and those that advanced them.

I didn't misunderstand it at all. I, from the outset, pointed up that it was, SIMPLY, abysmal ignorance masquerading as erudition and knowledge.

It was not at all "a bit of fun".

It was simply people who know little to nothing about language and how it works, repeating nonsense from older groups of people who knew little to nothing about language and how it works, repeating nonsense from older groups of people who knew little to nothing about language and how it works, ..., right on back to the original people [who started all this insanity] who knew little to nothing about language and how it works.

Quote:

You manage to remove all that.

And why would you consider that to be a bad thing?

And JPB and others say my posts have no affect.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Do you deny that the last time we discussed 'may/can', you held to and supported the ignorance that defines the prescriptive view on those two modals?

Do you deny that you still hold to and supported the ignorance that defines the prescriptive view on 'may/can for permission'?

1 Reply

@JTT,

Quote:

affect.

effect.

I'll come back on the rest, if I get bored.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

I'll come back on the rest,

That`d be a first.

0 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

Do you deny that you still hold to and supported the ignorance that defines the prescriptive view on 'may/can for permission'?

I wouldn't call it ignorance.
I still hold to the view that "may" indicates permission (in one of its meanings) and "can" ability.
Americans say "Can I get..." while we say "May I have...".
I recognise of course that there is a lot of loose talk over there, and indeed it's creeping in here too, but a good dictionary should point the seeker after truth in the right direction.

2 Replies

@McTag,

Quote:

I wouldn't call it ignorance.

That's all it is. For those who haven't been exposed to the truth, it's non-pejorative ignorance, for the others highly pejorative ignorance. For this latter group, it's just foot stamping and silly appeals to tradition, when even tradition doesn't help them out of their ignorance.

Even foot stamping hasn't been all that great a ploy. Little children listen to these prescriptions and then ignore them. The same holds true for the "adults" who teach these lies. They just can't stop themselves from using 'can' for permission. Why? Because it's as natural as, what else, language.

Quote:

I still hold to the view that "may" indicates permission (in one of its meanings) and "can" ability.

You forgot, after ability, to mention "(in one of its meanings)". The central failing of prescriptivists worldwide - an inability to look at the facts that are all around them- and those that are only prescriptivists because they can read style manuals and mouth the empty assertions found there.

Quote:

Americans say "Can I get..." while we say "May I have...".

And your proof for this would be?

Quote:

I recognise of course that there is a lot of loose talk over there, and indeed it's creeping in here too,

And your proof for this would be?

Quote:

but a good dictionary should point the seeker after truth in the right direction.

Evidently that's just not you, McTag.

2 Replies

@JTT,

I have a mental image of the snivelling little git, JTT, crouching behind his malodorous bush and ever ready to pounce on the next post from anyone who in his warped opinion seems short of his advice on how language actually works.

JTT, you're making less and less sense as time goes on. And your manners are shocking.

It occurred to me that every major newspaper publication has its own style manual. I suppose that's one of the main reasons why, say, Rolling Stone magazine, The Times of London and The Washington Post differ from each other. Is that kind of guidance just more prescriptivism, to be avoided, or is there a good and worthwhile reason for it?

1 Reply

@McTag,

Stop making lame excuses for yourself and address the questions.

Quote:

And your manners are shocking.

I'm not the one "disparaging people's language" That's you, McTag. I've only been pointing up the ignorance involved in you doing so. You know, the stuff that you are falling all over yourself to avoid addressing.

0 Replies

@JTT,

Quote:

Ignorance. That's all it is

In your squinty-eyed, Pinker-lite, constipated little opinion.

In amassing all this superior knowledge about language which you keep claiming you've got, you seem to have lost whatever common sense you had.

Consequently your credibility is zilch. (A fine old British idiom.)

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

I wouldn't call it ignorance.
I still hold to the view that "may" indicates permission (in one of its meanings) and "can" ability.

Now that is ignorance in the most pejorative sense possible/that it can be. [Note the meaning of CAN that goes beyond 'ability'.

People are ignorant of many things because we aren't born knowing. But this ignorance of yours is really beyond the milk pail, McTag. Smile

You keep repeating this nonsense about 'can' in complete defiance of reality, when you actually know better because it has, numerous times, been explained to you and one only has to check even a poor dictionary to know that CAN has more meanings than 'ability'.

This is perhaps the stupidest thing that you prescriptivists do. You pick a notion that has no basis in reality, then you stick to it with a tenacity that, again, defies reality.

There's no mention ever of COULD/permission because, dishonest as you all are, that would illustrate just how vacuous your notion [not even your notion - you just repeat others idiocy] is about CAN/ability.

Quote:

Americans say "Can I get..." while we say "May I have...".

UK region pages
"may I have"
About 1,880,000 results

UK region pages
"can I have"
About 19,900,000 results

Quote:

LGSWE - pg 491
Frequency per million words of permission modals CAN COULD MAY MIGHT

CAN 850 COULD 200 MAY 70 MIGHT very low [page 491]

As you can plainly see, CAN for permission is far and away the most common modal used for permission.

Quote:

LGSWE
Despite a well known prescription favoring may rather than can for expressing permission, may is especially rare in the sense of permission. Interestingly, many of the instances of may marking permission in the LSWE Corpus are produced by caregivers in conversations with children: [page 493]

0 Replies

@McTag,

McTag:

Quote:

In your squinty-eyed, Pinker-lite, constipated little opinion.

In amassing all this superior knowledge about language which you keep claiming you've got, you seem to have lost whatever common sense you had.

Consequently your credibility is zilch. (A fine old British idiom.)

McTag: [just a few posts before]

Quote:

Noted: obfuscation, smoke and mirrors, avoiding the issue...

and continuing ad hominem claptrap.

Note who it is that has been avoiding the issue, injecting all manner of obfuscation, smoke and mirrors, McTag. You are shameless, not to mention blatant, in your dishonesty.

Also note your ad hominem claptrap. You really are shameless, and blatantly dishonest.

I've repeated the material from another post here, because it bears repeating

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

Now that [the silly notion of mistakenly and poorly analyzing the CAN of 'permission' as a CAN of 'ability'] is ignorance in the most pejorative sense possible/that it can be. [Note the meaning of CAN that goes beyond 'ability'.

People are ignorant of many things because we aren't born knowing. But this ignorance of yours is really beyond the milk pail, McTag. Smile

You keep repeating this nonsense about 'can' in complete defiance of reality, when you actually know better because it has, numerous times, been explained to you and one only has to check even a poor dictionary to know that CAN has more meanings than 'ability'.

This is perhaps the stupidest thing that you prescriptivists do. You pick a notion that has no basis in reality, then you stick to it with a tenacity that, again, defies reality.

There's no mention ever of COULD/permission because, dishonest as you all are, that would illustrate just how vacuous your notion [not even your notion - you just repeat others idiocy] is about CAN/ability.

Quote:

Americans say "Can I get..." while we say "May I have...".

UK region pages
"may I have"
About 1,880,000 results

UK region pages
"can I have"
About 19,900,000 results

Quote:

LGSWE - pg 491
Frequency per million words of permission modals CAN COULD MAY MIGHT

CAN 850 COULD 200 MAY 70 MIGHT very low [page 491]

As you can plainly see, CAN for permission is far and away the most common modal used for permission.

Quote:

LGSWE
Despite a well known prescription favoring may rather than can for expressing permission, may is especially rare in the sense of permission. Interestingly, many of the instances of may marking permission in the LSWE Corpus are produced by caregivers in conversations with children: [page 493]

1 Reply

@JTT,

Full of sound and fury, (and repetition) and signifying nothing.

Is there anything more boring than a self-professed and self-regarding "expert" who has been invited to f*** off, but doesn't? I don't think so.

I think if we are going to make grammar rules based on what legions of numbskulls write on the internet, then we really are headed for hell in a handbasket.

1 Reply

@McTag,

Quote:

Full of sound and fury, (and repetition) and signifying nothing.

What an idiot you are, McTag. You've described yourself. Yours is the nonsense signifying nothing. It so signifies nothing that all you can do is offer these lame responses.

McTag:

Quote:

I wouldn't call it ignorance.
I still hold to the view that "may" indicates permission (in one of its meanings) and "can" ability.

How many times has this goofy nonsense been repeated? Who did you steal this from and why would you keep repeating (and repetition) this lie of deliberate omission, something you know to be a lie?

Of course "may indicates permission (in one of its meanings)"! That's not the issue, never has been an issue.

Quote:

Is there anything more boring than a self-professed and self-regarding "expert" who has been invited to f*** off, but doesn't? I don't think so.

Another lie, McTag. These are becoming quite the habit for you. You described your simpleton position on 'can/may', ensuring a response.

Quote:

I think if we are going to make grammar rules based on what legions of numbskulls write on the internet, then we really are headed for hell in a handbasket.

That's a numbskull notion right there. Indicative of how poor is your grasp of the workings of the English language.

But yet you advance grammar "rules" based on what generations of numbskulls repeated from the original numbskulls who made up these phony rules. You've described your own parents as part of that group. And despite knowing better you seem proud to carry on that tradition of numbskullery.

The emptiness of your responses to the facts mark you as a copycat prescriptivist unable to defend "your" positions on language.

1 Reply

I could find some useful books in the library.

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