Strange Word…

[Dr. MC BlackParticipant @dr-mcblack73214]

I'm afraid I used the phrase "now words" in a possibly misleading sense but I was writing what I was told by former colleagues.

The context was "new words for that child" rather than "inventing new words"

The suggestion was that one should NOT correct "dose" (meaning "does&quot or "gose" (meaning "goes&quot

I'm sure that Physicists could do a better job of running the world that the Politicians !!

(Your view may differ)

MC

[pgk pgkParticipant @pgkpgk17461]

Physicists would merely theorise. Politicians have actually managed to create a black hole (in our finances).

pgk

[GeorgineerParticipant @georgineer]

Posted by Nigel Graham 2 on 16/11/2020 08:38:21:

… I do wonder what if any English Language is now taught in schools. …

Don't worry, Nigel, the answer is lots. I volunteer as a small-group literacy mentor with disadvantaged ten-year-olds, and their knowledge of English grammar is impressive.

It compares very well indeed with the situation when I took up secondary-school teaching in the early nineties. If I said to a class "Acid is the noun; acidic is the adjective" I was faced with blank incomprehension. By the time I retired from teaching a few years ago, I could say the same thing and be met with understanding. Now my disadvantaged ten-year-olds can tell me about adverbs and ellipsis. You've no need to worry.

Pet peeves? I shout at the television when people talk about carnage when there's no blood, and also when apparently intelligent and well-educated people talk of die-section rather than diss-section. By-section is fine; it 's all in the prefixes. Or pre-fixes.

Hobby horse rubbed down and returned to stable…

George B.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by pgk pgk on 16/11/2020 11:05:57:

Physicists would merely theorise. Politicians have actually managed to create a black hole (in our finances).

pgk

Yes, but they usually manage a personal escape from it, even though none of them approach the speed of light…

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

Posted by pgk pgk on 16/11/2020 11:05:57:

Physicists would merely theorise. Politicians have actually managed to create a black hole (in our finances).

pgk

The pollies are like quantum physicists: The budget is both in surplus and in deficit at the same time, until somebody looks at it.

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by MC Black on 16/11/2020 09:32:34:

Sadly, I fear that the OED reflects usage rather that setting a standard.

…

No need for fear or sadness because English exists to enable communication and living languages shouldn't be nailed down!

Just one example from a complex history. Mother's pre-war OED favours -ize rather than -ise spellings. Organize, humanize etc. My modern OED has shifted to the -ise form.

The move happened because -ize spellings are apparently inconsistent with the many -ise words in English with no connection to Greek, or to imported Latin and French words imitating the Greek form. Chastise has always been spelt with an 's', and size was never spelt with one. Whilst the root of many -ize words is Greek, British English shifted over the last century to the French -ise form. It's easier!

If English were written to a fixed standard, we should all have learned the rules that decide whether -ize or -ise is correct. We don't because there's no value in it. There are two 'mistakes' in baptise, baptize, civilize and civilise, but few would know the reason. In practise it makes no difference, so British English adopted -ise spellings throughout. No-one decided, the population just did it.

'Correctness' changes over time. Before WW2 the move away from -ize spellings was condemned as a decline in standards. Today many well-read persons believe -ise to be correct English whilst -ize spellings are vulgar Americanisms. They're wrong!

English is a mongrel language. Frisian German overlaid on Celtic and the British variant of Latin, plus a dose of Norse. After 1066 heavily influenced by Norman French, and during the Renaissance by an injection of Classical Greek and Latin. Trade and empire led to the adoption of many words from European and non-european languages. Engineering, the Sea, and Science all contributed. Then the independent development of English in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and many other countries, all respectable. Nothing wrong with Tattoo, Bungalow, Pom, Blitz, or Id. English is a multi-national hybrid, continually evolving to meet user needs. There's no consistent set of rules covering English grammar, phonology, syntax, composition, semantics, etymology, orthoepy or morphology.

What we're taught at school are guidelines to assist communication, and a good thing too. Consistent spelling, punctuation and grammar are helpful, but aren't the whole story. Most schooling is a simplification rather than a rock solid truth. British readers will see many defects in Strunk and White's 'The Elements of Style', which is insisted on by many US Colleges. Mostly sensible, except many of the 'Rules' are author prejudices. More obviously flawed this side of the Atlantic because our reading heritage is diverse, and Brits trust Jane Austin and Thackaray more than William Strunk Jr.

Dave

[Rod RenshawParticipant @rodrenshaw28584]

Interesting thread.

My understanding is that language is always evolving and that dictionary publishers have always understood this and actually aim to reflect usage rather than try to set some unchanging standards or rules, so regrettably some contributors to the forum will have to remain sad.

The French, of course, are different and have a State body, whose name I can't remember, which does try to fix French language usage, and the French do love their language. But I understand even the French are having difficulty in modern times as technical terms and English (American?) words are creeping into the language, as used on the street, rather than as the State body thinks it "should" be used.

Rod

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I remember a chat with a French software developer a couple or three decades ago, who said there was much anxiety in his country about the adoption of English/American words and phrases, and he asked me if there were French terms creeping into English.

I could think of sang froid, rendezvous, bete noire, savoir faire, cul-de-sac, fait accompli – in fact anything with a suitable raison d'etre.

[Bill PhinnParticipant @billphinn90025]

Posted by Hopper on 16/11/2020 08:19:58:

Well, if it's on the Web it must be right! Hmm,

A slightly uncharitable representation of my thinking, Hopper, and of the Web, which we all know has plenty of ore among the dross.

Also, I did recently try to indicate that seeing usage in terms of right and wrong, rather than standard and non-standard, isn't really regarded by linguists as defensible any more.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Academie Francais (accents left out).

For the record, I generally follow either instinct or the Guardian Style Guide.

Both of which are silent on cross-slides and topslides.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Académie Française according to Wikipedia … and yet

Académie française according to its own web-site

… surprising but true

**LINK** http://www.academie-francaise.fr

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 16/11/2020 16:39:17:

[…]

For the record, I generally follow either instinct or the Guardian Style Guide.

Both of which are silent on cross-slides and topslides.

.

The Grauniad was once so renowned for its typos that it might well be considered a poor arbiter.

MichaelG.

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

This link explains the capitalisation in the French language:-

Capitalisation

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 16/11/2020 17:03:42:

This link explains the capitalisation in the French language:-

Capitalisation

.

Thanks for that … I didn’t know

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 16/11/2020 17:03:17:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 16/11/2020 16:39:17:

[…]

For the record, I generally follow either instinct or the Guardian Style Guide.

Both of which are silent on cross-slides and topslides.

.

The Grauniad was once so renowned for its typos that it might well be considered a poor arbiter.

MichaelG.

Don't confuse the execution with the intent!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

MichaelG.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 17/11/2020 11:36:54:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 16/11/2020 17:03:17:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 16/11/2020 16:39:17:

[…]

For the record, I generally follow either instinct or the Guardian Style Guide.

Both of which are silent on cross-slides and topslides.

 

.

The Grauniad was once so renowned for its typos that it might well be considered a poor arbiter.

MichaelG.

Don't confuse the execution with the intent!

 

Yes, but if instinct had been silent on the subject, would you have raised it here?

Edited By Mick B1 on 17/11/2020 13:28:13

[Nick WheelerParticipant @nickwheeler]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 17/11/2020 11:36:54:

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 16/11/2020 17:03:17:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 16/11/2020 16:39:17:

[…]

For the record, I generally follow either instinct or the Guardian Style Guide.

Both of which are silent on cross-slides and topslides.

.

The Grauniad was once so renowned for its typos that it might well be considered a poor arbiter.

MichaelG.

Don't confuse the execution with the intent!

It's better mow!

[Speedy Builder5Participant @speedybuilder5]

the words loosen and un-loosen mean the same – courtesy of BBC radio 2!

[Geoff GParticipant @geoffg]

Why learn a foreign language when there are enough anomalies in English to confuse us for a whole lifetime.

Teacher: "Sugar is the only word in the English language wher the 'S' gives a 'sh' sound without the need for an 'H'.

Student from back of class: "Are you sure?"

Geoff

[Martin BryarsParticipant @martinbryars38535]

Posted by Speedy Builder5 on 16/11/2020 17:03:42:

This link explains the capitalisation in the French language:-

Capitalisation

Which was fine until I got to "differently than in English". Differently from, perhaps to, but never than.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Martin –

" Differently than… " is American, but judging by the very many Americans we hear on BBC R4 these days, not universal to them.

Someone who teaches English in a Swedish business-college once told me many non-native English speakers use US English spelling, constructions and accents because they hone their English by watching easily-available American-made films and TV shows, and of course " soshul meeja ", Wicked-feet, Goggles etc.. It does sound odd though when the Texan drawl in a current-affairs programme is that of a representative of a government that officially hates the USA.

Geoff –

I suspect virtually all long-established languages are rich in anomalies. At least English, which is a mongrel language of course, does not assign nouns genders at birth. One of the hardest things I found when taught French at school, was trying to remember le or la; the other main problem being trying to remember obscure tenses of the irregular ones that seemed the majority of verbs.

++++

A friend who is a senior-grade medical lecturer has quite a fund of " howlers " from students' essays. One she quotes is, "Mrs. A- was eliminated with a bed-pan ". I bet The Godfather never thought of that way!

One she found rather touching though, was a Nigerian student's habit of starting his with " Once upon a time…" She told me she asked him why. It transpired he had had only rudimentary English lessons at school, so sought any English literature to help him advance himself. The only problem was that for some reason, almost all the books he could find were fiction stories for young children.

Whilst one young lady I know, with a strong regional accent, moved abroad to teach English… " Aye ", said a mutual friend, "We reckon it's Lancastrian she's teaching the Italians! "

[Author]

Posts