William Safire, who writes the weekly column "On Language" for the New York Times Magazine, calls himself a "language maven," from the Yiddish word meaning expert, and this gives us a convenient label for the entire group.
To whom I say: Maven, shmaven! Kibbitzers and nudniks is more like it.
Turning to the Democrats, Safire gets on Bill Clinton's case, as he puts it, for asking voters to "give Al Gore and I a chance to bring America back." No one would say give I a break, because the indirect object of give must have objective case. So it should be give Al Gore and me a chance.
Probably no "grammatical error" has received as much scorn as "misuse" of pronoun case inside conjunctions (phrases with two parts joined by and or or). What teenager has not been corrected for saying Me and Jennifer are going to the mall? The standard story is that the object pronoun me does not belong in subject position -- no one would say Me is going to the mall -- so it should be Jennifer and I. People tend to misremember the advice as "When in doubt, say 'so-and-so and I', not 'so-and-so and me'," so they unthinkingly overapply it, resulting in hyper-corrected solecisms like give Al Gore and I a chance and the even more despised between you and I.
But if the person on the street is so good at avoiding Me is going and Give I a break, and even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can't seem to avoid Me and Jennifer are going and Give Al and I a chance, might it not be the mavens that misunderstand English grammar, not the speakers? The mavens' case about case rests on one assumption: if an entire conjunction phrase has a grammatical feature like subject case, every word inside that phrase has to have that grammatical feature, too. But that is just false.
Jennifer is singular; you say Jennifer is, not Jennifer are. The pronoun She is singular; you say She is, not She are. But the conjunction She and Jennifer is not singular, it's plural; you say She and Jennifer are, not She and Jennifer is. So a conjunction can have a different grammatical number from the pronouns inside it. Why, then, must it have the same grammatical case as the pronouns inside it? The answer is that it need not. A conjunction is just not grammatically equivalent to any of its parts. If John and Marsha met, it does not mean that John met and that Marsha met. If voters give Clinton and Gore a chance, they are not giving Gore his own chance, added on to the chance they are giving Clinton; they are giving the entire ticket a chance. So just because Al Gore and I is an object that requires object case, it does not mean that I is an object that requires object case. By the logic of grammar, the pronoun is free to have any case it wants
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
even former Rhodes Scholars and Ivy League professors can't seem to avoid Me and Jennifer are going and Give Al and I a chance
People tend to misremember the advice as "When in doubt, say 'so-and-so and I', not 'so-and-so and me'," so they unthinkingly overapply it, resulting in hyper-corrected solecisms like give Al Gore and I a chance and the even more despised between you and I.
"I'm not back." - Bill Harding, Twister
Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
I'm going to venture into territory where no linguist has ever dared to set foot -- until now. I'm going to praise William Safire.
I believe the worst nightmare for any linguist would come in these three parts:
(1) being cited by William Safire in the NY Times
(2) being cited approvingly by William Safire in the NY Times
(3) being cited approvingly as claiming the OPPOSITE OF WHAT ONE HAS CLAIMED by William Safire in the NY Times
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/%7Emyl/languagelog/archives/001142.html
He's referring to Churchill's legendary attempt at a reductio ad absurdum of the stupid prescriptivist prohibition against preposition-stranding: "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put".
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001082.html
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
"I'm not back." - Bill Harding, Twister
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
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most modern grammars of English agree that English does not have a future tense (or a future perfect).
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Tense
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
If someone said to me "Joe and me went to the store" I would want to ask them two things:
Would you say "I went to the store?"
Would you say "Me went to the store?"
If the answers to those two questions were not the same, I would regard that person as confused, probably misled by some simplistic prescriptive rules
Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
If someone said to me "Joe and me went to the store" I would want to ask them two things:
Would you say "I went to the store?"
Would you say "Me went to the store?"
If the answers to those two questions were not the same, I would regard that person as confused, probably misled by some simplistic prescriptive rules
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Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
Originally posted by Max Habibi:
I don't know if ungrammatical is really used correctly here: but it's just weird looking.
Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
42
Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
Does one split infinity make 2 whole infinities?
Originally posted by Max Habibi:
Saw that too: it still seems wrong: not that I'm trying to dis on Merriam Webster.
Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
The qestion would be: "who the heck is Me?"
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of the idea. John Ciardi
"I'm not back." - Bill Harding, Twister
Placement a modifier after infinitival to is not uncommon in either speech or writing (including works of many of the most prestigious authors). Among the adverbs that particularly lend themselves to placement in this position are those marking degree (such as really and utterly, actually, even, further, and so on.
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Le Cafe Mouse - Helen's musings on the web - Java Skills and Thrills
"God who creates and is nature is very difficult to understand, but he is not arbitrary or malicious." OR "God does not play dice." - Einstein
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Associate Instructor - Hofstra University
Amazon Top 750 reviewer - Blog - Unresolved References - Book Review Blog
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
The verb is "forbid". What is forbidden must be the subject of the sentence.
A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of the idea. John Ciardi
Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
that formal semantics fails to output sensible interpretation out of sets of words and syntax rules, because it ignores context?
Uncontrolled vocabularies
"I try my best to make *all* my posts nice, even when I feel upset" -- Philippe Maquet
Originally posted by Warren Dew:
How boring! English, though, often offers a choice of several words for the same meaning
"Thanks to Indian media who has over the period of time swiped out intellectual taste from mass Indian population." - Chetan Parekh
Originally posted by R K Singh:
Uncle, Aunty, niece, nephew, XXX-in-Law, cousin does not tell what is the actual relation.
If it is a maternal or paternal uncle ??
Originally posted by Jim Yingst:
I agree with Map here. Mostly.Even though I'm someone who would regard "Joe and me went to the store" as evidence of simple ignorance, and "the grocer saw Joe and I at the store" as evidence of pretentious ignorance.
I don't always agree with Safire politically, but linguistically he is a god.
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[ July 11, 2004: Message edited by: Jim Yingst ]
Originally posted by Ernest Friedman-Hill:
Now, I'm guessing from your post that for you, this doesn't hold. A maternal uncle and a paternal uncle are different things altogether.
"Thanks to Indian media who has over the period of time swiped out intellectual taste from mass Indian population." - Chetan Parekh
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