The grammarian your mother warned you about

I have to say that I scanned a lot of the previous posts and so may be repeating others. Apologies, I have a limited time this morning and may not get back to lit before Monday.

I think the education system in the US has suffered a lot, and in addition TV and games have replaced reading for relaxation in young people. They don't get the examples of good usage that my generation had.

That problem gets worse as publishing is easier for E-books and publishing houses seem to have done away with editors - so now there are writers who don't use proper spelling meaning that those who do read get poor examples of spelling and grammar.

I think the worse examples - and I am not without blame - are words that sound alike or sound similar to other words with different meanings, such as:

To, too, two, sight site, there they're their, your you're, light lite, brake break, etc. My personal cross to bear is lose and loose. They sound differently but sadly my fingers have been known to add the extra 'o' when it shouldn't be there.

And I too am peeved by the 's used incorrectly, or the word 'like' used so much in speech.

But English is a living language and historically has changed faster than most other languages, I'm sure that there were many scholars in Elizabethan times who hated the 'eth' being replaced by 's' as in 'he runeth' changed to 'he runs'. (Or was it he doth run?) I think the 's' was a Danish influence that moved south and west from the former Danegeld areas. At least that's what I remember from school.

If you mean the Winstonian "like," I prefer that, although it is technically wrong. "As" sounds too pedantic. "Like" used as an interjection is alright in dialogue if it fits the character of the speaker. It should never be used in narration. :eek:
 
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I have to say that I scanned a lot of the previous posts and so may be repeating others. Apologies, I have a limited time this morning and may not get back to lit before Monday.

I think the education system in the US has suffered a lot, and in addition TV and games have replaced reading for relaxation in young people. They don't get the examples of good usage that my generation had.

That problem gets worse as publishing is easier for E-books and publishing houses seem to have done away with editors - so now there are writers who don't use proper spelling meaning that those who do read get poor examples of spelling and grammar.

I think the worse examples - and I am not without blame - are words that sound alike or sound similar to other words with different meanings, such as:

To, too, two, sight site, there they're their, your you're, light lite, brake break, etc. My personal cross to bear is lose and loose. They sound differently but sadly my fingers have been known to add the extra 'o' when it shouldn't be there.

And I too am peeved by the 's used incorrectly, or the word 'like' used so much in speech.

But English is a living language and historically has changed faster than most other languages, I'm sure that there were many scholars in Elizabethan times who hated the 'eth' being replaced by 's' as in 'he runeth' changed to 'he runs'. (Or was it he doth run?) I think the 's' was a Danish influence that moved south and west from the former Danegeld areas. At least that's what I remember from school.

The growth of printing had a lot to do with the changes in English, for instance "runeth" to "runs". Uses fewer letters when typesetting and less paper when printing.

Very similar to the impact of texting on modern forms of communication.
 
Not mainstream publishing houses. I are one. :D (and not the e-book publishers I use either.)
yes it is true that Englidsh is a gloriously living language, However, with out grammarians and others who care, our beloved language will soon be reduced to a small number of interchangeable words. Have any of you visited a high school recently? You would hear fucking language that would be that fucking surprisng how fucking much that fucking awesome fucking language has changed that fucking awesome much in that fucking awesomely short a time. You would be fucking surprised how fucking awesome our fucking awesome lanuage has like fucking become in the last awesome fucking few awesome fucking years.
 
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I wonder if it's possible to conduct a serious discussion here. That's what this thread is intended to be: a discussion about grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage - those things that make English what it is. There are actually some of us who still care about such things, so please spare us your snarky, semi-literate, uneducated comments like "who cares, so long as I'm understood," and "what difference does it make?" It makes a great deal of difference, actually, whether you realize it or not.

Let's begin with a few questions. When, for example, did the noun "loan" become a verb? We now "loan" things. What was wrong with lending them?

Another: when did "persons" replace "people" in usage? Does "persons" mean something different?

Speaking of replacements, it seems we're no longer allowed to have problems, only "issues." When did that happen? And why?

And when did "dollars" take the place of "money"? Apparently, we no longer attempt to accumulate money, we save dollars. Is the meaning different?

I recall about 15 years or so ago, reading one of Lord Kilpatrick's columns (James Kilpatrick, presidential speechwriter and essayist) in which he said that it is now acceptable to split infinitives. Sorry, but I don't buy that. It may be common, but splitting infinitives is still wrong in my book. (Of course, I recognize that I may not have the only book on the subject, which, really, is the reason for this thread.)

I look forward to your thoughts.

Taking your points one by one:

Loan became a transitive verb in the 15thC. The confusion between 'to loan' and 'to lend' is your beef, I think. You 'loan' money but 'lend' your lawnmower (or your better half).

Persons is the natural plural of person. 'The police are searching for 'persons unknown' - specific. 'People' is general. The people of Mauritius are. . .

You must understand 'business speak'.

I was a bit of a grammar Nazi but time moves on. Spitting infinitives is not a crime these days.
 
yes it is true that Englidsh is a gloriously living language, However, with out grammarians and others who care, our beloved language will soon be reduced to a small number of interchangeable words. Have any of you visited a high school recently? You would hear fucking language that would be that fucking surprisng how fucking much that fucking awesome fucking language has changed that fucking awesome much in that fucking awesomely short a time. You would be fucking surprised how fucking awesome our fucking awesome lanuage has like fucking become in the last awesome fucking few awesome fucking years.

I love grammarians, real grammarians, the ones who want to study the weirdness of our language and chronicle its infinite variety. The ones who get excited about usages like "abso-fucking-lutely" because it's a very rare example of an interfix in the English language, and that although not a "respectable" usage, it follows strict grammatical rules of its own: you will never hear "absolute-fucking-ly", and if I give you another word like "California" we all instinctively know where the interfix would go.

Problem is that the internet is full of self-professed grammarians who see it as a game of memorising the rules that were in vogue at some specific time period, and then arguing against any change to those rules. Those people aren't protectors of the language, they've set themselves up in opposition to the very processes that make it and keep it such a rich language.

Shakespeare coined about 1700 new words that are now part of the English language. If he'd done that today, he would've been mobbed by pedants insisting "you can't turn that into a verb!" African-American Vernacular English has some beautiful and useful grammatical nuances but it gets stomped on by people who assume any deviance from Standard English is an error. One of the things I love in Australian English is that "bastard" can be anything from an insult to a term of respect to an endearment, all depending on context.

It gets especially infuriating when "grammarians" object to "new" words that have been around since before they were born. My favourite is "cis", which goes back two thousand years to Latin ("Cisalpine Gaul") and has a long history of technical usage in chemistry, but which suddenly became an Evil Bad Neologism when it showed up in gender politics.
 
The growth of printing had a lot to do with the changes in English, for instance "runeth" to "runs". Uses fewer letters when typesetting and less paper when printing.

Very similar to the impact of texting on modern forms of communication.

Just think what we might have had if Caxton had been practising in, say, York.
If that was Newcastle upon Tyne, it would have been different again!
 
yes it is true that Englidsh is a gloriously living language, However, with out grammarians and others who care, our beloved language will soon be reduced to a small number of interchangeable words. Have any of you visited a high school recently? You would hear fucking language that would be that fucking surprisng how fucking much that fucking awesome fucking language has changed that fucking awesome much in that fucking awesomely short a time. You would be fucking surprised how fucking awesome our fucking awesome lanuage has like fucking become in the last awesome fucking few awesome fucking years.

Like this is a new thing?

In Shakespeare's time, hardly anybody talked like Shakespeare. The English most people used every day was pretty much the same basic English we use today, with an equally limited vocabulary, although the grammar and syntax has changed a lot. Of course, their vocabulary was different from ours, because they needed names for things we don't have, and we need names for things they didn't have, but I'll bet that few of them used more than a couple of thousand words in their speech, and a couple of thousand words are what most people use today.

That English continues to be good enough for 90% of the uses it's put to. But the remaining 10% of us like to use a more elegant English with a wider vocabulary and even some rhyme and alliteration thrown in once in a while, because it pleases us to do so, and it pleases our readers to read it.
 
I wonder if it's possible to conduct a serious discussion here. That's what this thread is intended to be: a discussion about grammar, punctuation, spelling and usage - those things that make English what it is. There are actually some of us who still care about such things, so please spare us your snarky, semi-literate, uneducated comments like "who cares, so long as I'm understood," and "what difference does it make?" It makes a great deal of difference, actually, whether you realize it or not.

Let's begin with a few questions. When, for example, did the noun "loan" become a verb? We now "loan" things. What was wrong with lending them?

Another: when did "persons" replace "people" in usage? Does "persons" mean something different?

Speaking of replacements, it seems we're no longer allowed to have problems, only "issues." When did that happen? And why?

And when did "dollars" take the place of "money"? Apparently, we no longer attempt to accumulate money, we save dollars. Is the meaning different?

I recall about 15 years or so ago, reading one of Lord Kilpatrick's columns (James Kilpatrick, presidential speechwriter and essayist) in which he said that it is now acceptable to split infinitives. Sorry, but I don't buy that. It may be common, but splitting infinitives is still wrong in my book. (Of course, I recognize that I may not have the only book on the subject, which, really, is the reason for this thread.)

I look forward to your thoughts.

When did 'gifting' replace giving - and why?
 
When did 'gifting' replace giving - and why?

That can be looked up, now can't it?

OED says that 'gift' as a verb dates to the middle 15th century.

Is that traditional enough for you?
 
When did 'gifting' replace giving - and why?

That can be looked up, now can't it?

OED says that 'gift' as a verb dates to the middle 15th century.

Is that traditional enough for you?

Traditional, and rather clear in meaning: it referred (refers) to a formal gift rather than something casually given. The question, then, is "when did 'gift' become restricted to the nominal form?" After all, it would seem that "giving a gift" is a bit redundant.
 
One of my pet hates is people who truncate expressions like "New Year's Day", to simply "New Year's". The correct usage is New Year, why is it so hard to use? The same goes for Valentine's Day. People insist on calling it "Valentine's". Valentine's what? Really gets my goat.
 
My pet peeve...

mispronouncing nuclear as nucular .... GW Bush did it - fucking moron!
 
One of my pet hates is people who truncate expressions like "New Year's Day", to simply "New Year's". The correct usage is New Year, why is it so hard to use? The same goes for Valentine's Day. People insist on calling it "Valentine's". Valentine's what? Really gets my goat.

It's human nature to compress language. You did it yourself in your last sentence there, when you left out the leading "It" ;-)
 
It's human nature to compress language. You did it yourself in your last sentence there, when you left out the leading "It" ;-)
And also "human nature" (if such exists -- my sociology prof insisted otherwise, and I always listened to that foxy Latina) to expand language. Think, Cockney rhyming slang, and any verbal flourishes and elaborations. Think of a Procrustean rack for words.
 
If you mean the Winstonian "like," I prefer that, although it is technically wrong. "As" sounds too pedantic. "Like" used as an interjection is alright in dialogue if it fits the character of the speaker. It should never be used in narration. :eek:

I'm thinking of things such as:

"He said, 'like I'm really hungry', youknow"

"And I said, 'Like yeah,'"

"And then we Like went to class."

"That's like so awesome."

And suchlike.
 
My wife had a boss once who kept referring to the owner of the company as "Prolific" instead of "Profound" when he made any speeches or sent memos. Although, come to think of it, the guy had three or four illegitimate kids in addition to the ones from his wife.

There was a VP in a company I worked for once that described a new process by saying: "This process must remain "Transparent" to the sales force." He meant that the sales force should NOT be aware of it.

Up to then I had always believed, and was backed up by Websters at the time, that in that context "Transparent" was taken to mean "Easily seen through" as in being easily detected.

More and more since then, the nineties, it has come to mean invisible or un-detectable, especially by IT people.

Of course given the main meaning of Transparent, I can see where it could change.
 
That can be looked up, now can't it?

OED says that 'gift' as a verb dates to the middle 15th century.

Is that traditional enough for you?

Well yes - "Gift" can be a verb, or a noun. and the past tense is "Gave". "Gifted in both my OED (the compact one in 2 volumes where you have to use the provided magnifying glass to read the small print), and my Websters, both show "Gifted" as an adjective being synonymous with Talented - "He is a gifted actor".

Certainly common speech, as I've been hearing it for the last 64 years, has only recently started using 'gifted' instead of 'gave'. Which is odd since it has more syllables.

Well, so does "given" Sheesh. It's a living language Greg. A living language Greg, don't be afraid of change Greg. Don't be an old fuddyduddy Greg, it's a living language Greg, don't keep sounding like your Grandpa. Things change Greg, go with the flowgreg,it'salivinglanguageGreggowiththeglowgregdon'tbeanoldfartGreg.....

OK, got it, disregard all above, control z.
 
I always looked at gifted like this.

I can give you a dirty look. I can give you a wrench.

But you can gift (like it was a present, a gift) someone a new TV.

The latter being special because it was like a formal gift for some occasion or reason.

Now... I don't talk like that. I get it, and would understand it if I heard it. But if I "gifted" something to someone, I'd just say "I got them X for their birthday."

And then, yes there's gifted as in talented. Which, heh, technically derives from being "given" that gift.

...Wish I was gifted.
 
So did prez Johnson back in the sixties.

I would call it a regional pronunciation rather than an incorrect one Like a female offspring being a "dotter" or H2O being "wotter" or the Midwest city being "Shicaga" or the KY city being "Louvull" or Castro's island being "Cuber."
 
I always looked at gifted like this.

I can give you a dirty look. I can give you a wrench.

But you can gift (like it was a present, a gift) someone a new TV.

The latter being special because it was like a formal gift for some occasion or reason.

Now... I don't talk like that. I get it, and would understand it if I heard it. But if I "gifted" something to someone, I'd just say "I got them X for their birthday."

And then, yes there's gifted as in talented. Which, heh, technically derives from being "given" that gift.

...Wish I was gifted.

Yes, that makes sense. Lately, around here, people are using gifted for every ordinary thing. "I was gifted this used DVD" etc.

... and I wish I was too.
 
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