What are your pet peeves re English usage?

@McTag,

Language would be in dire straits if it was limited by the silly pretensions of peevists, McTag.

Thankfully, it is not.

Quote:

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/surround
2. Surroundings; environment: "It was the country, the flat agricultural surround, that so ravished me" (Listener).
A method of hunting wild animals by surrounding them and driving them to a place from which they cannot escape.

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@McTag,

You can't argue with JTT Mac. JTT makes declarations which are specifically designed to show that JTT's position is unassailable.

Assertivitis is not a peeve of mine because it is a good thing that people show themselves up as not having experienced a disciplined education and have simply extended the rigors of the play-pen into their adult life.

It's the intellectual weather hereabouts.

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@spendius,

Notice how "silly" is used in the post you responded to. If the "peevists" are silly then the conclusion is automatic. If they are not then it isn't.

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@McTag,

Sounds good to me. Who else's tracks would they have been stopped in?

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@McTag,

It's how anti-peevists introduced NFL and baseball instead of football and cricket. And *********ization rather than *********isation.

"Silly" to mean "you haven't got a leg to stand on and you should seek professional remedies" is just a variant.

Silly, to mean, somebody who uses "silly" in that way is rational enough; with the exception of it's use as a simple rhetorical device when addressing an audience of gumps. Then it's only silly if it doesn't make money.

I think assertivitis is a natural condition exacerbated by the internet. It becomes a habit in a small, obviously gumpy, social circle, along the lines Evelyn Waugh and Aldous Huxley described, and then it is brought forth on an international debate forum as if such a zone has nothing better to offer than what the neighbourhood of the victim has.

A pip expanding to a mountain with a flick of the wrist. The nouveau riche are particularly susceptible to the condition.

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@spendius,

You rarely see a JTT post without an insult or ad hominem attack, combined with de haut en bas snide carp.

Yet his latest post proves **** all, except to underline the fact that he cannot substantiate his odd assertion.

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@roger,

Quote:

Sounds good to me.

The kiss of death - Roger the dodger's approval.

Quote:

Who else's tracks would they have been stopped in?

You really are this dumb, aren't you, Rog?

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@McTag,

Quote:

except to underline the fact that he cannot substantiate his odd assertion.

Speaking of odd assertions, what has caused this latest flurry of prescriptive nonsensical babble?

As always, it's usage that proves these cockamamie notions to be, what else, cockamamie notions.

"surrounded on two"
About 2,840,000 results

"surrounded on three"
About 6,110,000 results

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@JTT,

Which serves to suggest just how many semi-literate people write on this medium.

And as Bill Clinton might have said, that all depends on what "sides" means.

Surround: to come or be all round; encircle, enclose.
Consider the root word "round". That will help.

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@roger,

Quote:

Sounds good to me. Who else's tracks would they have been stopped in?

You're not lying in your teeth.

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@McTag,

McTag wrote:

Which serves to suggest just how many semi-literate people write on this medium.

Thay r particularly bad with run-on sentences.

David

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@McTag,

Quote:

Which serves to suggest just how many semi-literate people write on this medium.

Rather, the peeves thread has long proven just how many ignorant people there are when it comes to how language actually works.

What has caused this latest spate of ignorant style manual readers to surface?

Quote:

Surround: to come or be all round; encircle, enclose.
Consider the root word "round". That will help.

Why not consider reality? It's the lack of which that gets you junior prescriptivists into so much trouble.

Quote:

a. to stand on all sides of a place, in order to stop someone from escaping
Armed police quickly surrounded the building.
You are surrounded! Put down your weapons!

Only an idiot or a group of idiots that had read a style manual would believe that the police would have to stand at every degree of the compass in order to surround

2 to be closely connected with a situation or an event
Uncertainty surrounds the future of the industry.
The book was surrounded by controversy.

3 to be near someone all the time
She grew up surrounded by older children.
surround yourself with something: Maureen loved to surround herself with art.

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@JTT,

Quote:

It's the lack of which that gets you junior prescriptivists into so much trouble.

"Junior" being used in the same way "silly" was earlier. Obviously my post about your use of "silly" has either gone over your head or is on ignore.

If you neither rebut it nor take any notice of it then there is no point in you reading anybody's post.

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@JTT,

The figures in the computer count could well include phrases like

The house was surrounded on two sides by a small wood, and on the other sides by the street.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Run-on sentences are common in literature.

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@McTag,

Does it seem odd to anyone but myself that some will use the number of Google hits in support of an argument?

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@McTag,

Which would skew the figures greatly.

Anyhow, I'm not convinced by these arguments. Whether we say surrounded by doubts and fears, or by children, or police, the meaning is always encirclement.

Turn on your surround-sound and chill out.

1 Reply

@McTag,

And going back to the original poster's remark, "surrounded on all sides" is just "surrounded", unless you want to further split it down. Which requires a much longer sentence.

Such as

Surrounded by gloomy thoughts, and by the beach behind and the ocean in front, he concluded it would be easy to yield to the temptation to drown himself. Or his wife. But which?

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@roger,

Quote:

Does it seem odd to anyone but myself that some will use the number of Google hits in support of an argument?

Odd and JTT go together like a horse and carriage.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

"Junior"

By your own admission you know nothing about how language works, Spendi. Roger is at least as junior as you, possibly more so. McTag shows flashes of brilliance but he is so bedeviled by his prescriptive upbringing that it all too often badly clouds his judgment.

OmSig needs no comment whatsoever beyond "needs no comment whatsoever".

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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