Anybody who has even been accused of Nitpicking

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:03 pm

ihc_ssii wrote:Irregardless. Although you'll now find it in the dictionary, the word isn't really a word. There's regardless and regarding, but no irregardless.

Exactly. If you check my post, I made a number of intentional gaffes.

jluckett · Post by **jluckett** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:32 pm

Nanohedron wrote:Hopefully, we will flaunt these mischievious mistakes irregardless. But that's a whole 'nother story.

Well, ihc_ssii beat me to one, but as for "mischievious"...

According the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
"A pronunciation \mis-'chE-vE-&s\ and a consequent spelling mischievious are of long standing: evidence for the spelling goes back to the 16th century. Our pronunciation files contain modern attestations ranging from dialect speakers to Herbert Hoover. But both the pronunciation and the spelling are still considered nonstandard."

So, the judges will allow it to pass. But just this one time.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 2:09 pm

OK, that's two. Any more nitpickers?

cj · Post by cj » Mon Sep 15, 2003 2:41 pm

Yes, my high school English teacher corrected us all about the "mischievous" pronunication. If you asked her where something was at, she'd tell you it was behind the at. I had her for two years, so maybe that's where some of my uptightness about grammar comes from (I hear her voice now, having ended on "from" . . . ) She had attended the University of Georgia, whose slogan is, "How 'bout them Dawgs?" But she would write, "How about those Dawgs?" on her board. She didn't put up with "ain't" either, even though she and we were all Southern.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:09 pm

That is something up with which I cannot put.

Dangling participles were used by Shakespeare, if it makes any difference. This issue was unnaturally forced upon English by those wanting to adhere to Latin forms, and thus make the language more "upstanding" or something. At least that's where I think they were coming from.

TonyHiggins · Post by **TonyHiggins** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:16 pm

thus make the language more "upstanding" or something.

I read that 'proper' English was engineered by the English aristocracy so that only those who attended the right schools where it was taught would be able to speak it properly in order to maintain class distinctions. (I don't know if they were big on run-on sentences.)
Tony

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:24 pm

I imagine that would be right, Tony.

Still no takers on the rest of my nitpickables?

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:25 pm

Nanohedron wrote:That is something up with which I cannot put.

Dangling participles were used by Shakespeare, if it makes any difference. This issue was unnaturally forced upon English by those wanting to adhere to Latin forms, and thus make the language more "upstanding" or something. At least that's where I think they were coming from.

If we are going to quote Winston Churchill, let's do the man justice. When he was reprimanded for ending a sentence with a preposition, he said: "That is the type of arrant pedantry up with which I shall not put."

I think you are right about the Latin Grammar and it's imposition on English in the 19th century... but you may be confusing prepositions at the end of sentences and dangling participles, which usually start the sentence. Dangling participles are fine where they have been accepted and no risk of confusion exists, for example: "Considering it was Monday, the traffic was light" [the traffic didn't consider what weekday it was.]

In other cases these danglers should be avoided: "Having woken from a nap, the report on grommet-spacing received her full attention." [Of course, the report didn't wake from a nap.]

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:27 pm

Thanks, Bloo. I never could stay awake during English structural terminology classes. I just speak it...

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 15, 2003 4:35 pm

Anyway, good to hear the context and full quote of which I only ever heard part. Ol' Churchy's got my vote on that one.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:08 am

ihc_ssii wrote:Irregardless. Although you'll now find it in the dictionary, the word isn't really a word. There's regardless and regarding, but no irregardless.

Credit and thanks Larry "Botox" Wilcock for enlightening to this point.

Sorry ihc_ssii (and sorry Botox). Once a word has made it into a dictionary, it has made it into the language, however direputable the means by which it got there. Languages reflect the societies in which they evolve. Even if a word enters a language by a silly mistake, once there we're stuck with it unless, collectively, we choose not to use it, in which case it will leave silently and unlamented almost as quickly as it arrived.

Reading the last page or so of this thread is quite amusing. Although all the principal contributers realise that prescriptive grammer is the product of suspect social aims and even more suspect scholarship, nobody is quite prepared to just accept all changes in language, whatever they might be, without .. er ... nitpicking. I think that the reason is that some changes in a language are progressive—they enable us to draw finer distinctions—whilst others are retrogressive—they blur distinctions or, in some other way, encourage confusion. One example that annoys me is the almost universal use of the word 'inspirational' where previously we would have used 'inspired' or 'inspiring.' Although much that is inspired is also inspiring, and vice versa, if we lose the ability to be clear about which we mean, English loses expressive power. What can start out as a healthy desire not to be stuffy can end up as a campaign encouraging stupidity.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:15 am

Nanohedron wrote:I imagine that would be right, Tony.

Still no takers on the rest of my nitpickables?

Ok, Nano, since you insist. You used 'hopefully' to mean 'it is to be hoped that' rather than to mean 'in a hopeful manner'. I'm not sure whether or not I approve of picking this particular nit, though.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:37 am

Wombat wrote: Sorry ihc_ssii (and sorry Botox). Once a word has made it into a dictionary, it has made it into the language, however direputable the means by which it got there. Languages reflect the societies in which they evolve. Even if a word enters a language by a silly mistake, once there we're stuck with it unless, collectively, we choose not to use it, in which case it will leave silently and unlamented almost as quickly as it arrived.

Sorry, Wombat, but that's nonsense, if you take it to mean we should approach language descriptively rather than prescriptively.

I won't go into this (political) debate, but let me just say that I agree with you that language reflects society, but it does so normatively. Saying "God tells us not end a sentence with a preposition" is no more convincing than saying "God tells you not to jaywalk" but that does not mean every thing that is being said or written, should be said or written.

Bloomfield · Post by **Bloomfield** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:44 am

Wombat wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:I imagine that would be right, Tony.

Still no takers on the rest of my nitpickables?
Ok, Nano, since you insist. You used 'hopefully' to mean 'it is to be hoped that' rather than to mean 'in a hopeful manner'. I'm not sure whether or not I approve of picking this particular nit, though.

I wasn't going to start, but I am weak. Delete from Wombat's last sentence the words "or not". The phrase "whether or not" is synonymous with "regardless" and not with "whether". I will take a walk, whether or not it rains is correct and sensible; I wonder whether or not you agree sound formalistic and high-brow but is rubbish. We had to suffer through a lot of that nonsense during OJ Simpson's trial. "On direct, did counsel ask you, Officer, whether or not you picked up the glove at the scene in the presence of other members of the LA police department, or not?" Ugh. Just try to answer that questions correctly.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Tue Sep 16, 2003 9:52 am

Wombat wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:I imagine that would be right, Tony.

Still no takers on the rest of my nitpickables?
Ok, Nano, since you insist. You used 'hopefully' to mean 'it is to be hoped that' rather than to mean 'in a hopeful manner'. I'm not sure whether or not I approve of picking this particular nit, though.

The thing is, the alternative sounds so constipated; still, it could be argued that "hopefully" in this context would be a contraction for something like "I hopefully expect that..."

Hopefully we can resolve this . Our world hangs by a thread.

There's only one more (and one of them doesn't count).