The English Language: A Thread by Dale Wisely

Post by **Nanohedron** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:15 am

Thank you, semicolon mavens; I like and use them too. Semicolons are very useful. What people might forget is that punctuation serves not only as an indicator of how phrases connect and the rhythm of it, but to a small extent, tone, too, in speech. The naysayers are poor and cowardly and mingey excuses for champions of English orthography. Most likely their discouraging the semicolon is because they have knuckled under to the nasty lie that people are too dumb to learn to know how to use it, and so subtlety is rendered merely an archaic appendage best left to wither and fall away from the body. Pish-tosh, say I.

Punctuation is like anything else: not everyone will have a knack for it. So what? Let those that do make use of their semicolons in peace and without persecution. Fie on the teachers that begrudge semicolons because it is the passing fashion of the shallow day: they stand to be suspected of not knowing how to use them, themselves.

(editde bcause I cnat speel)

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 11:15 am

mutepointe wrote:
WyoBadger wrote:I am very fond of semicolons; they are sort of like periods, only slightly less intrusive. Very pleasant, agreeable little punctuations; they join together what periods cleave asunder.

Tom
the microsoft word grammar check sure has a thing about semicolons.

The Microsoft grammar-check is demented, irritating and useable only by those trying to write User manuals in the Microsoft Style.

Try typing a passage of literature into Word and grammar-check it. See how far Jane Austen gets. And MICROSOFT are criticizing HER grammar?

As Charles Dickens used to say (he really did!) "There are two words to that."

djm · Post by **djm** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 12:50 pm

Better the semi-colon (with a hyphen) than a fractured sentence.

djm

KatieBell · Post by **KatieBell** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 1:26 pm

djm wrote:Better the semi-colon (with a hyphen) than a fractured sentence.

djm

AOL has the Fractured Fairy Tales online for free:
http://video.aol.com/video-category/fra ... tales/2796

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 6:56 pm

djm wrote:
IB wrote:In the U.S. are they booeeed up?
No, they are more likely to be "bo-eed" up. Interestingly, while buoy may be "boo-ee", a life buoy is more likely to be a life "bo-ee". Go figure.

On the Chesapeake Bay they're pretty much boo-eed.
If you sometimes go by the name Ziggy Stardust you might be bo-eed though.

KatieBell · Post by **KatieBell** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:15 pm

I've never heard someone say bo-eed or coo-pon.

Boo-ees and cue-pons all around here.

Walden · Post by **Walden** » Sun Sep 23, 2007 7:19 pm

KatieBell wrote:I've never heard someone say bo-eed or coo-pon.

Boo-ees and cue-pons all around here.

I've heard coo-pon on television.

falkbeer · Post by **falkbeer** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:19 pm

Here is an example of a reformed spelling system for english called SoundSpel.

You can read more about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundSpel
To mi it looks more like pidgin English!

Oed to a Nietingael
Mi hart aeks, and a drouzy numnes paens Mi sens, as tho of hemlok I had drunk, Or emptyd sum dul oepiaet to the draens Wun minit past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not thru envy of thi hapy lot, But beeing too hapy in thien hapynes, That thow, liet-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In sum meloedius plot Of beechen green, and shadoes numberles Singest of sumer in fuul-throeted eez. – John Keats

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:11 pm

KatieBell wrote:...from http://etymonline.com/?term=cleave.....

....From http://www.takeourword.com/TOW197/page2.html.....

KatieBell, thank you for going to the trouble to find those excellent explanations about the word "cleave" (I am sure my quotation marks are misused)---I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread. I will bookmark these two websites and then maybe you won't have to do my homework for me!

Walden wrote:
KatieBell wrote:I've never heard someone say bo-eed or coo-pon.

Boo-ees and cue-pons all around here.
I've heard coo-pon on television.

I've always said cue-pon. I guess it must be how my parents said it. I always thought coo-pon was said by sort of high class people on the East Coast or something. I asked my husband how he says it and he says coo-pon

. I had never noticed. Anyway, that shoots that theory down.

That word "buoy" I have never figured out how to say. I guess I say boo-ee, but in general I try to avoid having to say it at all.

falkbeer wrote:Here is an example of a reformed spelling system for english called SoundSpel.

You can read more about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundSpel
To mi it looks more like pidgin English!

Oed to a Nietingael
Mi hart aeks, and a drouzy numnes paens Mi sens, as tho of hemlok I had drunk, Or emptyd sum dul oepiaet to the draens Wun minit past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not thru envy of thi hapy lot, But beeing too hapy in thien hapynes, That thow, liet-wingèd Dryad of the trees, In sum meloedius plot Of beechen green, and shadoes numberles Singest of sumer in fuul-throeted eez. – John Keats

Well, I feel like I'm too old to trouble with changing the entire spelling of my native language

. Actually, I encounter quite a number of people who are not familiar with my name and they spell it Sinthia instead of Cynthea---and who can blame them? So maybe we are already there. The one misspelling of my name I just love is Snythia---it's actually happened several times. What a dreadful sounding word!

Caroluna · Post by **Caroluna** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:27 pm

Conjugated nouns:

I steal the keel
I stole the coal
I have stolen the colon

-----------------------------------
Little kid to his dad, who has just brought a book up from the basement:

"Why did you bring the book I didn't want to be read out of to up for?"

KatieBell · Post by **KatieBell** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:32 pm

Cynth wrote: KatieBell, thank you for going to the trouble to find those excellent explanations about the word "cleave" (I am sure my quotation marks are misused)---I'm sorry it took me so long to get back to this thread. I will bookmark these two websites and then maybe you won't have to do my homework for me!

I enjoy etymology (the study of the history of words) and looked it up for fun. Since I had it there, I thought I'd share it with others as well. I'm glad you enjoyed it as well.

And I hope you didn't apologize about the quote marks for my sake. I never can figure out when to use the single quote, the double quote, or italics. I just switch between them all!

djm · Post by **djm** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 8:55 pm

Don't sweat the solar ellipses. That's what sun spots are for.

djm

Post by **Nanohedron** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:24 pm

emmline wrote:
djm wrote:
IB wrote:In the U.S. are they booeeed up?
No, they are more likely to be "bo-eed" up. Interestingly, while buoy may be "boo-ee", a life buoy is more likely to be a life "bo-ee". Go figure.

On the Chesapeake Bay they're pretty much boo-eed.
If you sometimes go by the name Ziggy Stardust you might be bo-eed though.

Huh. I just realised that I pronounce "buoy" according to what I mean: "boo-ey" for the object, and "boy" for the verb. If I said something was boo-ey-ant, I would mean it was rather like a nautically intended floating thingum.

buddhu · Post by **buddhu** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 3:30 am

In England the following cause some confusion or distress to certain subsets of the population. People know that some rules have exceptions, but they seem unable to work out which, so they either ignore rules altogether or they apply exceptions to every case.

A few contentious points, or points of disappointingly widespread ignorance:

Bought/brought

its/it's

The casual avoidance, where appropriate, of ending sentences with prepositions. (But not to the Churchillian point of "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put.")

The insertion of apostrophes into non-possessive plurals taking an "s".

Affect/affect/effect/effect

Commas before "and" or "but"

who/whom (Americans actually tend to get that right more often than the average Brit).

My own preferred source of guidance, rather than the OED (which is, inexplicably, regarded as the gospel) is Fowler's Modern English Usage. An entertaining book in its own right.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:37 am

Nanohedron wrote:
emmline wrote:
djm wrote: No, they are more likely to be "bo-eed" up. Interestingly, while buoy may be "boo-ee", a life buoy is more likely to be a life "bo-ee". Go figure.

On the Chesapeake Bay they're pretty much boo-eed.
If you sometimes go by the name Ziggy Stardust you might be bo-eed though.
Huh. I just realised that I pronounce "buoy" according to what I mean: "boo-ey" for the object, and "boy" for the verb. If I said something was boo-ey-ant, I would mean it was rather like a nautically intended floating thingum.

I definitely always say boy-ant. I just think boo-ey-ant would be too much trouble and it sounds sort of awful too. My favorite, and only one I know actually

, sentence using "buoyant":

Dickens' [i]Hard Times[/i] wrote:'Sir,' rejoined Mrs. Sparsit, 'there was wont to be an elasticity in you which I sadly miss. Be buoyant, sir!'