[TimG]

phil_20686, on 2012-September-05, 11:03, said:

Sadly only Harvard students are smart enough to figure out that this is really what their examiners are saying...

barmar is, I believe, a graduate of an institute of higher learning just down the Charles from Harvard.

[semeai]

TimG, on 2012-September-05, 11:37, said:

barmar is, I believe, a graduate of an institute of higher learning just down the Charles from Harvard.

However, a google search for "[that institution] cheating scandal" turns up no real results.

[gwnn]

Everything is different (other than indistinguishable quantum particles and so on), so everything is unique. If you establish a finite set of attributes based on which you classify stuff, no two of them will have the same attributes (provided that you chose enough relevant attributes). They will all be unique, but some more unique than others (some will differ from the rest in more attributes or to a larger extent than the rest).

[mycroft]

"almost" unique?

Yeah, I agree with you too. But as in bridge, "never"'s never never.

[Vampyr]

TimG, on 2012-September-05, 07:53, said:

Before long, "alot" will be a word and "could of" will be an acceptable variation of "could have".

And "If I would have [eg known]" will become an acceptable variation of "If I had". This one is one of the worst, in my opinion. But if I could eliminate just one emerging usage, I think it would be "begging the question" to mean raising or leading to the question.

[Vampyr]

kenberg, on 2012-September-05, 09:23, said:

"My name is Sue, how do you do?"

Since "How are you?" is not a question that is intended to elicit a detailed, or accurate, or even thoughtful response, I suppose the grammatical details are pretty much irrelevant.

I feel that while "how do you do" is not ever answered and in fact barely considered a question, "how are you" does get some response. When I first came to live in England, I was stymied by the greeting "All right?" I had no idea whether I was supposed to answer, respond in kind, respond with "hello" etc.

[squealydan]

Vampyr, on 2012-September-05, 15:48, said:

And "If I would have [eg known]" will become an acceptable variation of "If I had". This one is one of the worst, in my opinion.

This seems pretty much accepted usage in North America from what I can see on television, and is spreading fast to my neck of the woods.

It's not only an ugly sounding way of talking with the repeated "would have"s, it adds a lot of unnecessary syllables : "if I'd taken the finesse, I'd have made my contract" vs "if I would have taken the finesse, I would have made my contract".

Worse, of course, is the fact that many times I have to hear "would of" twice in quick succession.

[gwnn]

Vampyr, on 2012-September-05, 15:48, said:

And "If I would have [eg known]" will become an acceptable variation of "If I had". This one is one of the worst, in my opinion.

This form is used by the the majority of foreigners I would say. It always irritates me but I admit to doing it sometimes too (and then I become doubly irritated).

[barmar]

The one that gets me is a written transgression: "prolly" for "probably".

[Vampyr]

gwnn, on 2012-September-06, 06:57, said:

This form is used by the the majority of foreigners I would say. It always irritates me but I admit to doing it sometimes too (and then I become doubly irritated).

I have heard this from a lot of native speakers too, I am afraid. Sometimes it is my partner, and I say something like "sorry, I didn't understand that, could you repeat it in English", and then he does, but I find it unfortunate that I can't use this technique on everyone.

[barmar]

I wish people would lighten up. There's an enormous difference between spoken language and written language. Unless you're reading a prepared speech, spoken language is very informal, produced on the fly without much time to review the precise words. Whether "and" should be followed by "me" or "I" in a particular context is a relatively complex rule -- if you're speaking quickly it's easy to slip up, and some people just have a simple default for everything.

In addition, most of these "rules" are pretty arbitrary. The rule about not splitting infinitives is one of the most notorious. It supposedly comes from the Latin origin of English, in which infinitives were single words, and hence unsplittable. Some grammar nazis decided that even though English doesn't share this form of the infinitive, the sentence structure it implies should still be enforced. Never mind that practically everyone finds "to boldly go" more mellifluous than "to go boldly" or "boldly to go". That's because it's consistent with another rule: adjectives and adverbs normally immediately precede the word they're modifying, so putting it after or inserting "to" between them makes it more awkward sounding.

I'm about 2/3 through a very good book: "Thinking Fast and Slow". It's mostly about how we make decisions, but the psychological and neurological underpinnings also explain why on-the-fly utterances are not likely to obey strict rules and why it generally doesn't cause communication problems.

[gwnn]

I've been wondering about these constructions BTW. Suppose someone asks you:

"If you found a wallet on the street, would you return it?"
The simple way of answering this is:
"Yes, I would return it." or "No, I wouldn't return it."
But what if you want to be cute and say:
"I would be proud of myself if I would return it* but honestly I would just take the money and wouldn't bother helping society."

*=with the sense of "I would be proud of myself (now) if I was a person who would return it," and not "I would feel proud of myself in the hypothetical situation that I found the wallet and returned it."

Does this make any sense?

[gwnn]

Also, is it too obvious to name lose/loose? It's an epidemic.

[Vampyr]

gwnn, on 2012-September-06, 09:05, said:

Also, is it too obvious to name lose/loose? It's an epidemic.

Often paired with led/lead.

[barmar]

The real epidemic is "it's" meaning "its". However, it's also understandable -- it's an overuse of the default rule "to make a possessive, add 's to the word" -- the exception for pronouns doesn't come to mind easily, because several of them are irregular (e.g. "his", "my", and "their"). Irregular forms are learned early in life by rote, but because "its" sounds like a regular form, it's easy to fall into the default rule rather than realize that all pronouns are exceptions (for no good reason, of course -- it's another arbitrary rule).

[semeai]

gwnn, on 2012-September-06, 08:59, said:

I've been wondering about these constructions BTW. Suppose someone asks you:

"If you found a wallet on the street, would you return it?"
The simple way of answering this is:
"Yes, I would return it." or "No, I wouldn't return it."
But what if you want to be cute and say:
"I would be proud of myself if I would return it* but honestly I would just take the money and wouldn't bother helping society."

*=with the sense of "I would be proud of myself (now) if I was a person who would return it," and not "I would feel proud of myself in the hypothetical situation that I found the wallet and returned it."

Does this make any sense?

It doesn't sound so nice, but I suppose it's okay. I suppose here "it" is supposed to stand for for "a wallet, if I found it on the street," as in "I would be proud of myself if I would return a wallet if I found it on the street."

Both "if I were the sort of person who would return it" and "if I returned it" (this last one with not exactly the same meaning) seem cleaner. (Note the subjunctive case of the verb to be while we're at it. )

[Vampyr]

barmar, on 2012-September-06, 08:59, said:

Whether "and" should be followed by "me" or "I" in a particular context is a relatively complex rule -- if you're speaking quickly it's easy to slip up, and some people just have a simple default for everything.

It's actually very easy if you have developed good habits. The problem really might be that English has an almost complete lack of cases, so rules like the correct use of pronouns are a bit of an anomaly; in eg Russian or Latin, all adjectives and nouns change case too, so correct usage becomes internalised more readily.

Quote

Never mind that practically everyone finds "to boldly go" more mellifluous than "to go boldly" or "boldly to go". That's because it's consistent with another rule: adjectives and adverbs normally immediately precede the word they're modifying, so putting it after or inserting "to" between them makes it more awkward sounding.

The meaning often changes when an adverb is removed from or inserted into an infinitive and in fact can make a sentence ambiguous; This link has an example.

[blackshoe]

barmar, on 2012-September-06, 09:12, said:

The real epidemic is "it's" meaning "its". However, it's also understandable -- it's an overuse of the default rule "to make a possessive, add 's to the word" -- the exception for pronouns doesn't come to mind easily, because several of them are irregular (e.g. "his", "my", and "their"). Irregular forms are learned early in life by rote, but because "its" sounds like a regular form, it's easy to fall into the default rule rather than realize that all pronouns are exceptions (for no good reason, of course -- it's another arbitrary rule).

Not that arbitrary. If "it's" is both the contracted form of "it is" and the possessive form, the only way to tell the difference is from context. Granted one can usually do that, the rule obviates the need. Aside from that, for those of us who learned the proper way seeing "it's" when the possessive is meant is really annoying.

[mycroft]

gwnn, on 2012-September-06, 09:05, said:

Also, is it too obvious to name lose/loose? It's an epidemic.

Vampyr, on 2012-September-06, 09:09, said:

Often paired with led/lead.

Or in the case of my other hobby (wargaming), paired with moral/morale.

[Vampyr]

blackshoe, on 2012-September-06, 09:46, said:

Aside from that, for those of us who learned the proper way seeing "it's" when the possessive is meant is really annoying.

I agree that it is really annoying. "Your" and "you're" is going the same way.