Sancho's Splendiferous Subliterate Vent Thread

[Sancho]

This is the place to rant about English and Englishisms.

For instance, suppose you are a native English speaker and made-up words like Englishisms drives you nuts, then this is the thread for you.

Or suppose you are a trying to learn English as a second or third language and you're trying to come to grips with why English has such an obsession with the progressive tense, well then, welcome to Sancho's vent thread.

To absolutely hate split infinitives seems odd to me, but if that's your pet peeve, then this is the place for you.

Okay I'll start. We seem to be verbing a lot of nouns lately. This last Christmas my cousin regifted me a hunk-o-junk that his sister had gifted him the year before. I'm thinking of unfriending him on Facebook.

[miyako73]

Nice thread, Sancho. I'll contribute.

To know you actually is really to make you my friend.

vs.

To actually know you is to really make you my friend.


To my ears, split infinitive wins 2-0.

[Sancho]

^I agree 110%. Número dos is better.

Here's another vent: don't you just hate it when people use nonsensical percentage values for emphasis. I mean, really, is 110% more than 100%? How about 1000%? Where does that fit in?

[qimissung]

Also, it is really OK to end a sentence with a preposition. As in: What planet are you from? When talking to somebody who doesn't agree with you. :D

[Sancho]

Hey, Yo, Qimi, where Y'at?

Where are you at?

It's a common greeting in New Orleans, or more specifically in Metairie, that place just west of New Orleans.

Jes, dat l'il place out by der by de airport. Aiyee!

So then, the greeting (where Y'at?) in Metairie is so common that people from Metairie have become known as Yats. In other words, they've nouned a verb, which must be ten times worse than verbing a noun. Or perhaps they've pronouned a verb. Scary!

[JBI]

Nice thread, Sancho. I'll contribute.

To know you actually is really to make you my friend.

vs.

To actually know you is to really make you my friend.


To my ears, split infinitive wins 2-0.

Yes, except the use of really is wrong grammatically. How can befriending be done fakely? Or do you mean to say, to make you my real friend, as to suggest a genuine friendship, if so, why the need for an adverb.

There are better examples that don't violate other word category rules. Using really as an adverb is iffy, and based on the colloquial understanding of "really?" to show disbelief or wonder at the genuine nature of an action. Adverbs are a disease anyway that mediocre writers use for emphasis and for making the implicit explicit.

The main verb in that sentence is not make, but is. If you must insist on the really, "truly/really is to make you my friend" is far better.

[miyako73]

Go to Facebook, you will find a lot of fake friends. That sentence was constructed to demonstrate split infinitives. Don't think of it as a work of a poetic endeavor.

[JBI]

Also, it is really OK to end a sentence with a preposition. As in: What planet are you from? When talking to somebody who doesn't agree with you. :D

I believe you wish to say, from which planet are you? But even then. The verb are is colloquially used, when the preposition from pairs better with come, not is. Is generally goes with the word what, as in, nationality. Where are you from is a colloquial expression for "from where have you come" which is the same as the older "from whence you came". From in your instance has stopped functioning as a preposition.

In formal writing it looks tacky to have the preposition at the end of the sentence. But then again, questions that are not rhetorical are also not quite recommended.

[AuntShecky]

Also, it is really OK to end a sentence with a preposition.

I love the Winston Churchill anecdote in which some snobby woman criticized the PM about ending one of his sentences with a preposition. "Madame, " he replied, "this is one pedantry up with which I will not put."

I could also mention in passing a certain American public official who couldn't speak to a female without ending his sentence with a "proposition."

[Nick Capozzoli]

There is a gold mine of made-up words in Finnegan's Wake, some of which, like "quark" have gotten into regular usage.

Churchill (who was half-American) was a great verbaliste and quipster. My favorite is his alleged response to a dame who
told him something like "You, sir, are disgustingly drunk!" Response went something like this: "Yes, I am drunk.
But you, madam, are ugly! And tomorrow morning I will be sober!"

Got to admire the guy.

[cacian]

there is a word I came across interneting. that is turning a noun into a verb. not bad.

[cacian]

There is a gold mine of made-up words in Finnegan's Wake, some of which, like "quark" have gotten into regular usage.

Churchill (who was half-American) was a great verbaliste and quipster. My favorite is his alleged response to a dame who
told him something like "You, sir, are disgustingly drunk!" Response went something like this: "Yes, I am drunk.
But you, madam, are ugly! And tomorrow morning I will be sober!"

Got to admire the guy.

oh dear how ungentleman like this is coming from a man like him. very odd. I would neo believe everything I read.
from a drunk to notice anything is great but notice one is handsome or not is a big jump.

[Sancho]

We could do a whole thread on the always quotable Winston Churchill. Here's one of my fav's:

"I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

So then, back to the vent:

How do you do?

A few years ago I read a beautiful little book about the English language:

Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English, by John McWhorter

The author spends quite a bit of time discussing the "do" fetish we have in English. Why do we have so many dos? Why do we do so many things. Did you walk here? Why not: Walk you here? The ladder sounds like a pidgin, like something Tonto might say. But why do we need the do? Other European languages don't use it the way English does.

I read somewhere a while back about a language that had only four verbs. So of course to do was one of them, also probably to be. The people there didn't just walk, they did a walk. They did a talk. They did an eat.

[hypatia_]

I think English's propensity to use the word "do" stems from a psychological construct in the US "to be." Other cultures that lack the verbs don't have a need for them because they don't look at people as objects. Do implies an object (person) doing something. Eastern cultures don't believe in that so much.

[Frostball]

There's a few things I can think of that bug me, but they are mainly regional and dialect differences. I'm not sure they fit in with the rest of the thread, because it's not like regional differences are exclusive to the english language, but either way, here they are.

I can never decide if I want to use the word toward, or towards. Towards seems to be more common in most of the books I read, however, I believe that toward is the accepted and more correct way of saying it in American English.

Another one is proved vs proven. Proven seems to be, again, an American thing, but it's not universal. In some regions of the US proved seems to be the one that is used. The thing with proven is that you can't use it in situations like "I proven you wrong", it has to be used like "It has been proven" or "It's a proven success". But if you opt to just use the word proved, it seems you can use proved in all of these cases. For this reason I have moved away from using proven (like I always used to) and have begun to say proved.

Last thing is the way us Americans like to say things like "more proud" or "more curious" instead of "prouder" and "curiouser". There are many examples besides these two in which us Americans tend to opt for "more blank" instead of "blanker" for some reason. There are definitely situations where you have to do it the former way, like earlier in this post I said "more correct" which can't be made to be "correcter". But I notice that people from the US use "more blank" in many cases where it isn't required.

There might be good reasons for these little quirks and differences. If there are, I don't know what they are. Perhaps it's just the way languages gradually evolve.

[AuntShecky]

If there's one thing that drives me nuts re: grammar, it's hypercorrection. (http://grammar.about.com/b/2013/07/12/hypercorrection-just-i-and-the-chickings.htm)

I don't know what it is about Americans. Not one in a hundred of us knows how to use the apostrophe appropriately, and at the same time we're insecure about grammar, so much so that we overcorrect words and phrases that are fine to begin with. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

For instance, a well-known family of industrial titans and public servants has the surnane "Rockefeller." That's how it's spelled. Yet some folks think it doesn't sound classy enough, so they insist on saying "Rockerfeller."

Another irritating mistake is the fear of using the word "me". Decades of having one's parents drum into our heads -- [so-and-so and I"] have led to such ungrammatical constructions as: "Between you and I, that's wrong" or "The manager spoke to him and I." The objective case for the first person singular is me.

It seems as if some speakers shy away from "I" and "me" completely, substituting the pronoun, "myself." "Myself" can be an intensive--"On second thought, I'll do it myself" or a reflexive-- "I hurt myself on the ski trail." It isn't designed to be used as a substitute for "I" or "me." Still, we hear people say things like "The manager gave a raise to myself" and the other day I was shocked--shocked!-- to hear a Congressman on tv use the word as part of the subject of a sentence: "Myself and my colleagues are investigating the matter."

One of my pet peeves is hearing the "t" pronounced in "often." It's silent in "often," just as it is in "listen" and "hasten." I believe people voice the "t" because they mistakenly think it sounds correct. Maybe it comes from the fear of being thought less-than-genteel, as dropping the "g" in progressive verbs: "feudin', fightin' and a-cussin'" --"offin'"--?

[Sancho]

"If it were up to Michelle and I..."

I heard El Presidente himself say that one, and he's a well-spoken chap. But I've got to admit, objective-pronoun rules aside, it still sounds better than "Michelle and Me," or "Me and Michelle." I don't know why. I mean it's not like Barrack Obama needs to put on airs. He lives in the White House for Christ's sake.

Anyway, I went out a-drinkin' and got all liquored up and commenced a-cussin' and a-fuedin' and a-fightin' and...

I liked your example of common-speak, Auntie. Evidently that construction goes way back in English - to Beowulf times.


The verb-noun progressive pops up in Old English now and then, in sentences like Ic waes on huntunge for "I was hunting." But today other Germanic languages have their "on hunting" constructions when they want to stress "progressiveness,"...*

The "on" slowly morphed into an "a" and can still be heard in words like await. And also in words like a-cussin' up in the Appalachian Mountains, (or maybe from Yosemite Sam in a Looney Tunes cartoon)

*I plagiarized that directly from the book I mentioned earlier (Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue)

[JBI]

If there's one thing that drives me nuts re: grammar, it's hypercorrection. (http://grammar.about.com/b/2013/07/12/hypercorrection-just-i-and-the-chickings.htm)

I don't know what it is about Americans. Not one in a hundred of us knows how to use the apostrophe appropriately, and at the same time we're insecure about grammar, so much so that we overcorrect words and phrases that are fine to begin with. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

For instance, a well-known family of industrial titans and public servants has the surnane "Rockefeller." That's how it's spelled. Yet some folks think it doesn't sound classy enough, so they insist on saying "Rockerfeller."

Another irritating mistake is the fear of using the word "me". Decades of having one's parents drum into our heads -- [so-and-so and I"] have led to such ungrammatical constructions as: "Between you and I, that's wrong" or "The manager spoke to him and I." The objective case for the first person singular is me.

It seems as if some speakers shy away from "I" and "me" completely, substituting the pronoun, "myself." "Myself" can be an intensive--"On second thought, I'll do it myself" or a reflexive-- "I hurt myself on the ski trail." It isn't designed to be used as a substitute for "I" or "me." Still, we hear people say things like "The manager gave a raise to myself" and the other day I was shocked--shocked!-- to hear a Congressman on tv use the word as part of the subject of a sentence: "Myself and my colleagues are investigating the matter."

One of my pet peeves is hearing the "t" pronounced in "often." It's silent in "often," just as it is in "listen" and "hasten." I believe people voice the "t" because they mistakenly think it sounds correct. Maybe it comes from the fear of being thought less-than-genteel, as dropping the "g" in progressive verbs: "feudin', fightin' and a-cussin'" --"offin'"--?

The me and I is simple. in the subject you need to use I, in the predicate use me. This is a standard function in many Western languages, and it isn't even that confusing. I went to the store. He went to get me. Billy and me went to the store! idiot. One is a subject pronoun (I) the other is an object pronoun (me). The reason you put I after is because it flows better - He and I sounds better than I and he, which sounds uncomfortable. Me and Him is wrong twice, as would be her. She and I also flows better. The language is actually not so stupid in this regard, only the practitioners.
The problem is most grammar teachers suck at explaining something so basic.

[YesNo]

At first I thought "hypercorrection" was spending more time trying to make something better than it was worth spending on it, but I see from the link, that it meant correcting something that is already perfectly correct. If one corrects what is already correct, that should only make it worse than it was. Still the word doesn't seem right used in this context.

I wonder if there is a better word for this behavior.

[Sancho]

"Billy and me went to the store."

I think that sentence is just fine in informal English. It's meaning is clear. It sounds like something an sixth grader named Joey might say. Billy and Joey probably rode their bicycles to the store. The bikes were probably Schwinn Stingrays. They were both probably wearing baseball caps, with the bills facing backwards. I'll bet they lifted a couple of comic books at the store. In fact it sounds to me like Billy and Joey had a pretty good day.

"Aloysius and I went to the store."

The grammatically correct version is also just fine. It's meaning is clear as well. But it was probably rendered by a sixth grader named Percival. Aloysius and Percival were probably wearing blazers with crests on the pockets, short pants, knee socks, and black shoes. I'm pretty sure they both had on bow ties. I doubt either of them would have considered nicking a comic book. And I'm absolutely certain they would not have enjoyed meeting Billy and Joey on the way home from the store.

(Side note: El Sancho does not condone bullying of any stripe.)

[hypatia_]

"Billy and me went to the store."

I think that sentence is just fine in informal English. It's meaning is clear. It sounds like something an sixth grader named Joey might say. Billy and Joey probably rode their bicycles to the store. The bikes were probably Schwinn Stingrays. They were both probably wearing baseball caps, with the bills facing backwards. I'll bet they lifted a couple of comic books at the store. In fact it sounds to me like Billy and Joey had a pretty good day.

"Aloysius and I went to the store."

The grammatically correct version is also just fine. It's meaning is clear as well. But it was probably rendered by a sixth grader named Percival. Aloysius and Percival were probably wearing blazers with crests on the pockets, short pants, knee socks, and black shoes. I'm pretty sure they both had on bow ties. I doubt either of them would have considered nicking a comic book. And I'm absolutely certain they would not have enjoyed meeting Billy and Joey on the way home from the store.

(Side note: El Sancho does not condone bullying of any stripe.)

So to you, the measure of acceptable English is whether its meaning is clear. But couldn't something be clear to you and not to another person?

[Sancho]

Nope.

That sentence is just fine in informal English. It would be unacceptable on a term paper.

Second half - of course.

But that particular sentence, I think, would be clear to any English speaker.

[cacian]

"Billy and me went to the store."

I think that sentence is just fine in informal English. It's meaning is clear. It sounds like something an sixth grader named Joey might say. Billy and Joey probably rode their bicycles to the store. The bikes were probably Schwinn Stingrays. They were both probably wearing baseball caps, with the bills facing backwards. I'll bet they lifted a couple of comic books at the store. In fact it sounds to me like Billy and Joey had a pretty good day.

"Aloysius and I went to the store."

The grammatically correct version is also just fine. It's meaning is clear as well. But it was probably rendered by a sixth grader named Percival. Aloysius and Percival were probably wearing blazers with crests on the pockets, short pants, knee socks, and black shoes. I'm pretty sure they both had on bow ties. I doubt either of them would have considered nicking a comic book. And I'm absolutely certain they would not have enjoyed meeting Billy and Joey on the way home from the store.

(Side note: El Sancho does not condone bullying of any stripe.)

i'd say I is big and me is small. in other words the use of I is formal and me is informal and myself is both or neither.

Joshua and I
means that although Joshua came first in the sentence I is more important and therefore the stress is more on the I then Joshua.
Joshua and me
puts the stress on Joshua still and me is second.
me and Joshua
puts the stress on me and Joshua is second still.

[Sancho]

And that's just it, eh, cacian? I think you've hit upon some of the nuance of the language as spoken informally.

As JBI pointed out earlier, the grammatical rules for objective pronouns and subjective pronouns are relatively simple. But Billy and Joey wouldn't speak that way (unless maybe they happened to be in the principal's office). Aloysius and Percival speak that way because that's the kind of guys they are. I think the character you introduced, Joshua, would speak one way when he is with Aloysius and Percival and another when he's with Billy and Joey. Although with the second group of guys, he'd probably be known simply as Josh.

"Billy and I went to the store," sounds stilted when delivered by Joey. It's as though he's trying to elevate himself above someone. (Either that or he's 'splaining himself to the principal.) But here's the rub: when people slip up and use a subject pronoun in place of an object pronoun - "Would you like to come to the store with Joshua and I?" - Whooee, let the feeding frenzy begin. That construction drives pedants nuts. You see, the speaker is trying to sound educated and in doing so is breaking a grammatical rule, securing his spot in the subliterate community. HAHA! Gotcha. Now drop and give me twenty, dimwit!

Anyway, casual conversational English and formal written English are practically different languages altogether.

Myself. Colloquially, down in Cajun Louisiana, they have a serious fetish for the reflexive myself. "I myself, went down to the store." (Presumably in a pirogue) I'd be interested, cacian, in how Cajun French sounds to your ear.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

...
Myself. Colloquially, down in Cajun Louisiana, they have a serious fetish for the reflexive myself. "I myself, went down to the store." (Presumably in a pirogue) I'd be interested, cacian, in how Cajun French sounds to your ear.

I guarantee they do...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uPzydJ7xKlo&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DuPzydJ7xKlo

Now I couldn't tell you a reflexive pronoun from a(?)an(?) adverbial conjunction, but I do recall "have got" get'n a lot folks riled up down here.
Btw is it "a" or "an" ?

[Sancho]

Haha! Perfect example, Gil.

An dat joke right der, it'a loose all it zip if'a it been tole in proper Englitch.

By the way, I'll bet Justin can speak the King's English just fine when he wants to.

[Sancho]

...Btw is it "a" or "an" ?

An.

Gil, I think the a-versus-an rule is strictly a high-speed, low-drag, sound thing. Which is to say, some word combinations just slide off the tongue better than others.

"a apple," or "an noodle" doesn't sound right and both are hard to pronounce. The second one is impossible to say after 3 beers. (I've tried it.)

But it's not necessarily true that "a" is always followed by a word that starts with a consonant and "an" is always followed by a word that starts with a vowel; rather it's that the second word starts with a consonant or a vowel sound.

So, an apple, an emu, an igloo, an oxymoron, an umbrella, but also an honorable man.

A banjo, a cat, a dung heap, a fussbudget...but also a ukulele.

Then you've got words that swing from both sides of the plate, depending on your accent and your personal orientation: hour and history. An hour, a hour, a historical event, an historical event. < You've gotta give the grammar nazis something to argue about, eh?

Mignon Fogarty does a "Grammar Girl" podcast on just this subject. Yes, I admit it: I subscribe to the Grammar Girl podcast series. They're fun and they're free. I just don't brag much about it to the guys down at the hunting lodge.

[prendrelemick]

When speaking and not sure, people tend to use the third alternative - ay - rather than a or an, particularly in front of a h.

[Sancho]

Here's one that really cheeses my grits about the English language: how come we don't have a socially acceptable second-person plural pronoun? Clearly we could use one. Just about every region of the country has come up with their own, but you can't use any of them around polite company. There's: you-guys, you-all, yous, youse. In my region it's y'all. I've even heard a plural version of the plural pronoun, y'all, which is all-y'all.

[papayahed]

hahahahahahaha. A well placed guy ( in charge of all US*) at the place I work uses "all-y'all" all the time.


* and that's all I'm going to say for fear he may see it. Even though I don't think he reads or interwebs very much.

[AuntShecky]

An author and language maven Ben Yagoda has a "listicle" (http://grammar.about.com/b/2014/02/05/ben-yagoda-on-whomever.htm?nl=1) --of words that should never be used. Yer ol' Auntie concurs, especially with "literally" (sorry, Mr. Vice President!) Recently a new edition of a dictionary added "literally" as an intensifier, like "very" or "extremely." Still I cringe when I hear somebody say, "She was literally as big as a house."

As a veteran of parent/teacher conferences, I've heard the word "share" so much I "literally" feel like throwing up. I'm also sick of "iconic."

And I agree with him on "whomever." But I'd throw "whatever" into the mix. Oh, I don't know. Whatever.




http://grammar.about.com/b/2014/02/05/ben-yagoda-on-whomever.htm?nl=1

[Sancho]

Frankly, my friends, I have adverb fear.*

"Hopefully we'll make it to Wichita by sundown."

Supposedly that sentence means that we'll make it to Wichita before dark - in a hopeful manner. So, Buck and I are riding our horses, presumably along the Chisholm Trail, wringing our hands, thinking positive thoughts, bound for territorial town of Wichita, and planning to arrive there before nightfall. Unfortunately there is an angry group of Comanches in hot pursuit.

*Does anybody else sense the ghost of Margaret Mitchell floating around in here?

[AuntShecky]

I forgot to thank you, Sancho, for giving us a venue where we can "vent."

This isn't the most pressing problem in the world today, but I don't know why I allow myself to sit through the Academy Awards® telecast year after year. On that rare occasion when it is irreverent and amusing, it's fun to watch, but most of the time I feel like the characters on MST3K being forced to watch painful movies. What bothers me the most is Hollywood's smug and superior attitude, their sickening way of congratulating themselves.

One thing the winners do --not just at the Oscars® but at other awards "ceremonies" is the way they start their speeches with "I want to thank. . ." We know you "want to"--just go ahead and thank them already!
It reminds me of FDR's famous line about public speaking: "Be sincere, be brief, and be seated."

[Sancho]

Haha. You're welcome, Auntie.

Ah-hem, 'scuse me, I want to welcome AuntShecky for thanking me for... uh...hmm...forgot what I was going to say.

By the way, I recently read an article about the origins of The Academy Awards. Evidently they were invented in order to give the fledgling movie business a sort of legitimacy on par with Broadway. I guess nobody took Hollywood seriously back at the beginning of the last century. Uh-huh. Weird but true.

Anyway I notice they do the same thing on the PA on airliners: "Ladies and Gentleman, we've begun our initial descent into New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport. At this time, we'd like to ask everyone to please return to your seats and fasten your seat belts. We'll be landing shortly."

"At this time" means now, right?

"We'd like to ask," Then just ask. And besides, they're not really asking, eh?

How about:

"Folks, we're fixin' to land. Sit down and fasten your seat belts. NOW."

I'd respect a Stew' who made an announcement like that.

[ennison]

I use the reflexive pronoun a lot in speech and in writing because I am often translating from my mother tongue into English in my head and the reflexive is used frequently there. I have no aim to change this any time soon and indeed it's myself gets fed up of Word underlining it as wrong.

[Whosis]

What boils me is the number of words I don't find in the dictionary but might possibly be in a slang dictionary. Also, there are words out there that are just waiting to be invented, but if it's not in the dictionary yet, is it credible? For example, I considered the word "unbotched," which is like the word "botched," but "unbotched" is not in the dictionary. I still try to use it because it's like "unhindered," so it must still be a good word, right?

[Sancho]

Uh-huh, I know that's right.

So if you botch something up, and then go to the trouble of unbotching it, do you run the risk of rebotching it in the future?

I've heard soldiers use a similar version of that idea, only with a different verb (starts with an F). They've got a salty language in the army.

Seems to me that most slang words have such a fleeting existence in the language that it's a fool's errand to put them in a regular dictionary. That would be ungroovy. What sounds hep and cool today, will come out as tragically dated in about two-weeks time, like the school guidance counselor trying to chat up the high-school heads. (Do they still use head to describe a down-and-out, druggy, high-school loser?) Anyway I do find myself consulting The Urban Dictionary from time to time - just to figure out what those crazy kids around the 'hood are talking about.

Unbotched though, now that's got staying power, I think.

[Whosis]

That's probably correct as a definition. Most words have more than one. The word I was thinking of to compare was "untouched" because I was using "unbotched"--past tense. So in that sense, it's "not touched, not botched." You make a good point though. I'm just surprised about how many words aren't in the dictionary, like "oopsy." Shouldn't that be standard by now? Even words from famous poems like "dickory"--not in the dictionary.

And if you're paying me any complement, then thank you. It was in my poem. I don't know if this is as acceptable, but I used "dim" as a noun because so many words like "swim" had a noun form. It felt left out. I try not to go all out, although really, inventing words could be fun. :)

[Sancho]

Ah-hah! So I botched that definition, eh?

Hey, that reminds me of joke. An oldie but a goodie:

Q: What's the difference between a woman and a lightbulb?
A: You can unscrew a lightbulb.

Bah-hahahaha, Whooee, I'm killing myself.

So who gets to decide what goes in the dictionary anyway? And which dictionary is the ultimate authority on the language? The OED? Webster's? Or better yet, is there, or can there be an ultimate authority on the English language?

Those are the kinds of questions that really frost my fritters.

[Whosis]

Hehe, good one.

I've heard there were people who got together in the olden days to determine what got into the dictionary. Samuel Johnson, who apparently published a dictionary, is another of these names besides Webster. Probably the OED has more to do with a British English, whereas Webster's and American Heritage involve the American English. Definitions are stacked differently in each dictionary, I've heard. I think the OED goes by oldest definition first. If that's true, it would give you a sense of the evolution of words, as it may be possible to add new definitions in addition to new words. The only true authority on the English language, I believe, is that a word first is invented (of course) and then especially that people use it.