his obsequious toady minions

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The following has a quote written by Layman. Is his expression "his obsequious toady minions" grammatical? There are four possibilities. Which one is correct?

(1) He meant "his obsequious toadies and minions."
(2) He simply meant "his obsequious minions."
(3) He simply meant "his obsequious toadies." *
(4) He meant "his toadies and obsequious minions."

layman wrote:

oralloy wrote:

You'd like that, wouldn't you, if no one ever stood up to you

He wouldn't know. He just censors (puts on "ignore") anybody and everybody who aint one of his obsequious toady minions, eh?

Source

Thanks in anticipation

*Cambridge Dictionary:
Toady: a person who praises and is artificially pleasant to people in authority, usually in order to get some advantage from them.

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Type: Question • Score: 6 • Views: 1,044 • Replies: 19

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View best answer, chosen by oristarA

@oristarA,

Is this a sincere question... or are you, a non-native speaker, criticizing Layman who is a native speaker for his use of the language? If it is a sincere question, I don't know why you wouldn't just ask him. It is clear to me that he is expressing an opinion that the subject has followers who are sucking up to him.

Layman's speech is colloquial. Whether it is grammatical or not doesn't mean nuttin'. I have no problems understanding what he meant. If you must force this informal speech into a grammatical straitjacket, consider "toady" to be an adjective in this case. I would have personally gone with "obsequious minion toadies" just because I like the way the phrase rolls off my tongue.

Language is for communication, not for a slavish adherence to the rules. A native speaker has every right to break any rules express himself as he sees fit.

3 Replies

@maxdancona,

It is an esl question.

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

I appreciate that you've pointed out that it is a form of colloquial English.

Thank you Max.

The thread is simply intended to learning English. No criticism is made.

0 Replies

What would an obsequious toady be?

Would it add anything to slap the word "minion" on the end of that?

I aint knowin, just axxin.

1 Reply

People use redundancy for effect or emphasis. A big huge enormous house. A stupid imbecilic fool.

1 Reply

@layman,

I remember that there one time when my english teacher said to me, he said: "What is it with you, layboy? You flunk every test. Are you that ignorant, or just apathetic?"

I said: I aint knowin, and I aint carin, boss.

1 Reply

@layman,

So, then, I thought a little apple-polishin brown-nosin might help, so I hauled off and said:

Learn me somethin I been puzzlin on, willya, boss? Which of these is right?

1. fat, stupid minion?
2. fat and stupid minion?
3. fat stupid minion?

He said: You really are a damn fool, aincha, layboy?

0 Replies

@oristarA,

oristarA wrote:

The following has a quote written by Layman. Is his expression "his obsequious toady minions" grammatical? There are four possibilities. Which one is correct?

(1) He meant "his obsequious toadies and minions."
(2) He simply meant "his obsequious minions."
(3) He simply meant "his obsequious toadies." *
(4) He meant "his toadies and obsequious minions."

(5) He meant "his obsequious minions who are toadies" A person or thing or group can be described or labelled with multiple adjectives and nouns. His tall red-haired policeman helper. My abject simpering executive subordinate colleagues.

0 Replies

@centrox,

centrox wrote:

People use redundancy for effect or emphasis.

I don't like redundancies because it's like you're just sayin the same damn thing twice, all over again, for a second time, and ****, and, not only that, but also, too, you're repeatin yourself again when ya done said it once already, know what I'm sayin?

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@oristarA,

He meant that certain people are both minions and toadies and are obsequious. The words are related and the sentence was intended to describe people who are in all three categories. That doesn't seem to be on your list.

2 Replies

Pleonasms are the epitome of epimone and synonomia.

1 Reply

@ekename,

ekename wrote:

Pleonasms are the epitome of epimone and synonomia.

Thank you.
Do you mean "synonymia"?

0 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

He meant that certain people are both minions and toadies and are obsequious. The words are related and the sentence was intended to describe people who are in all three categories. That doesn't seem to be on your list.

Right, Brandon, thanks for the help. You're the first person who seems to fully understand that.

0 Replies

@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

He meant that certain people are both minions and toadies and are obsequious. The words are related and the sentence was intended to describe people who are in all three categories. That doesn't seem to be on your list.

Thank you. So (1) is correct.

oristarA wrote:

(1) He meant "his obsequious toadies and minions."

0 Replies

@oristarA,

I've been playin around with this topic, Oris, but I'll play it straight for a minute and try to explain my thinking (which may be wrong, but...).

1. obsequious is basically a character trait, it's an adjective.
2. A toady is a type of person. It's basically a noun
3. minion is a relational term between two parties.

Standing alone it wouldn't make much sense for me to say something like: "He is taller." You would immediately ask "taller than what?" Same with minion--whose minion?

So basically I'm talking about an obsequious toady (which are similar, maybe, but not strictly synonymous). A toady is generally obsequious too so you could say it's redundant, but strictly speaking it isn't.

But this obsequious toady I'm talking about is also on the subservient end of a relationship that I want to disclose. So it's an obsequious toady who happens to be a minion of Blather. One of his minions, who also happens to be an obsequious toady.

To me that comes out as an obsequious toady minion (of Blather's).

0 Replies

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Layman's speech is colloquial. Whether it is grammatical or not doesn't mean nuttin'. I have no problems understanding what he meant. If you must force this informal speech into a grammatical straitjacket, consider "toady" to be an adjective in this case. I would have personally gone with "obsequious minion toadies" just because I like the way the phrase rolls off my tongue.

Language is for communication, not for a slavish adherence to the rules. A native speaker has every right to break any rules express himself as he sees fit.

Thanks for the (unexpected) "defense," eh, Max? We agree on this, but I must say that I'm kinda surprised that we do.

1 Reply

@layman,

I am glad to see that the expression "obsequious toady minion" is well understood by native English speakers.

0 Replies

Today, it is quite fashionable for us to add "ISH" as a suffix or suffixal to a stacked batch of adjectives.
So , it would be Toad "ish" when stacking them. Ya want to sound cool?, call someone an obsequious Toadish minion.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Or you could cut through the donut talk and just call em a Republican, same thing.

0 Replies

his obsequious toady minions

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