Author Topic: Grammar that makes you cringe  (Read 834882 times)

Cudzoziemiec

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Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5350 on: 27 July, 2019, 08:05:53 pm »
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?

Oh, a single, so that people can argue over whether it's pronounced -ussed or -yoozed.
None. "After 32 years on the faculty, he emerited." Or should that be "emeritted"?
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5351 on: 27 July, 2019, 08:09:12 pm »
I suppose that now I've written that, google is going to find it and it'll appear in the next edition of Merriam-Webster. Sorry!
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5352 on: 27 July, 2019, 09:21:54 pm »
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus

 :sick:

When did it become a noun?


Since Tacitus, Suetonius and Lacanus used it as a noun, I'd say it was about 2000 years ago.
And in English since 1701, which is almost a century before people started using it as an adjective.
Quote
First Known Use of emeritus
Noun

circa 1701, in the meaning defined above

Adjective

1794, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5353 on: 28 July, 2019, 10:18:29 am »
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?

Oh, a single, so that people can argue over whether it's pronounced -ussed or -yoozed.
None. "After 32 years on the faculty, he emerited." Or should that be "emeritted"?

One T in the US, two in the UK, but if we're going that way, my money would be on "emeritated".
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Mr Larrington

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Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5354 on: 28 July, 2019, 11:07:56 am »
Emeritatorized.
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citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5355 on: 28 July, 2019, 04:42:16 pm »
And in English since 1701, which is almost a century before people started using it as an adjective.

You can sod off, with your inconvenient facts.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5356 on: 06 August, 2019, 08:43:15 am »
Aargh! German:

https://www.korrekturen.de/wortliste/im_voraus.shtml

Vee haff vays off makink you feel bevildert.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5357 on: 14 August, 2019, 11:07:43 am »
Where does the jury stand on 'themself' as a singular gender-neutral reflexive pronoun?

For example:

The Principal Contractor must satisfy themself that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5358 on: 14 August, 2019, 12:45:52 pm »
Gender neutrality mandate use of they/them/their for the singular.
I personally dislike this but see where they are coming from..

So it's acceptable

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5359 on: 14 August, 2019, 01:02:15 pm »
Seems fine to me, what else would you use?  'Itself' would only work if the principle contractor is an abstract entity rather than a person.

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.

ian

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5360 on: 14 August, 2019, 01:08:23 pm »
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.

Kim

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Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5361 on: 14 August, 2019, 01:10:31 pm »
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.

Actually, yes, agreed.

ian

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5362 on: 14 August, 2019, 01:26:03 pm »
Or just avoid the clunky wording with [t]he Principal Contractor must be satisfied that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works or similar.

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5363 on: 14 August, 2019, 01:40:43 pm »
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.

Actually, yes, agreed.

Yebbut then it would have to be contractors would it not? And generally there will only be one Principal Contractor.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5364 on: 14 August, 2019, 02:00:37 pm »
That was my quandary.  I think ian's suggestion of getting rid of the clunky reflexive altogether is probably the best.

ian

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5365 on: 14 August, 2019, 02:39:11 pm »
I would, I mean who else is the Principal Contractor satisfying? You could go a step further and simply state they should [have] check[ed] for cables in the area.

In situations like this, I think best just to sidestep. Themself isn't widely used in standard English (so says my dictionary) and looks like an awkward attempt to solve a problem that doesn't need to exist. Themselves can be applied to the singular, in the same way as gender-neutral they etc.

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5366 on: 14 August, 2019, 02:57:51 pm »
I don't really have a problem with gender-neutral they-singular (better that he/she/it or (s)he, or another other such abomination), but it makes me cringe to see themselves-singular.

Thank you (plural) for your (plural) contributions.

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5367 on: 14 August, 2019, 04:46:17 pm »
What pisses me off is seeing a pic of what is manifestly a bloke over an article in which he is referred to as Bill or some such but given the personal pronouns they, their and them.  If it looks like a bloke, smells like a bloke and answers to a blokish name then why in hell not acknowledge the fact that it is a bloke?

T'other one is they used of a child.  Children are it until gender is known.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5368 on: 14 August, 2019, 04:53:17 pm »

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.

I've got a post somewhere upthread on exactly this.  It really winds me up, along with all the similar ones such as "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself".

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5369 on: 14 August, 2019, 08:38:10 pm »
On the match commentary tonight:
“Kante, swarming around like a wasp...”

Surely “swarming around like a large number of wasps”?
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

T42

  • Apprentice geezer
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5370 on: 15 August, 2019, 10:31:11 am »

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.

I've got a post somewhere upthread on exactly this.  It really winds me up, along with all the similar ones such as "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself".

Sure and I'd love to contact himself's arse with me right DM.
I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5371 on: 15 August, 2019, 10:55:21 am »
Or just avoid the clunky wording with [t]he Principal Contractor must be satisfied that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works or similar.
I think so. A lot of the problems with gender neutrality do seem to be capable of resolution in this way - i.e. avoid backing yourself into the corner of needing to use a gender-sensitive pronoun, rather than using a clunky way out of it.

Whilst I can see the point behind gender neutrality, I do wish we'd managed to introduce proper gender-neutral pronouns, rather than damaging the language by removing a useful singular/plural distinction. Has something similar happened in most (Western) languages, does anyone know?

It's also slightly perverse, of course, that it's not that long since the truly gender-neutral "one" passed out of common usage. "When acting as Principal Contractor, one must be satisfied that there are no major cables in the vicinity of the works" is entirely gender neutral, but somehow seen as a rather snobbish way of writing.

ian

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5372 on: 15 August, 2019, 11:04:27 am »
Reflexive pronouns are usually unnecessary, I'm not really sure why people torture themselves and their sentences by their inclusion (ok, why they persist in the tortuous inclusion of reflexive pronouns), the result is either clumsy (heaven spare us from he/she said to him/her constructions). I have no issues with they/their used for the singular, but again, it's usually easy to write them out of a sentence.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5373 on: 17 August, 2019, 06:11:52 pm »
Remember latinx? It seems it's becoming common Tex-Mex grammar:
Quote
Each day brings new policies to block or detain asylum seekers and migrants from legal entry, adding new challenges and terror imposed on the fronterizx—people from both El Paso and Juárez—who have always crossed and made a life on both sides.
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/08/rio-grande-map-us-mexico-border-history-el-paso-rio-bravo/596227/
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #5374 on: 01 September, 2019, 01:10:02 pm »
So
The current trend (in the last year I suppose) of starting every internet forum post with "so".

So, does anybody know--
So, I got my bike out --
So, I have a new frame --

So, it does so get up my nose!