GalacticCactus Forum
Forums => English & Linguistics => Topic started by: kojabu on August 18, 2005, 10:29:29 PM
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It really bothers me when people don't use less and fewer in the right circumstances.
That's all.
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Agreed! Just remember: fewer donuts, less coffee.
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I have no idea when to use lie and when to use lay.
But at least I know that I don't know, and that puts me ahead of 99% of the population.
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Their they're, kojabu. Its alright.
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Their they're, kojabu. Its alright.
>.< HOW can you stand to do that?!
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:lol:
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I hate it when people confuse "lose" and "loose".
Tooken. :angst:
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"Funner".
Drives me up a freaking wall.
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Why? It's a perfectly cromulent word.
<—dead serious
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Why? It's a perfectly cromulent word.
<—dead serious
Funner is? Why isn't it on dictionary.com?
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Because Dictionary.com is ghetto. Try Merriam-Webster.
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Because Dictionary.com is ghetto. Try Merriam-Webster.
Didn't you used to reprimand me for using "funner" instead of "more fun?"
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Probably. Older brothers do lots of horrible things to their younger brothers. But now I'm grown up, and I've changed.
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Probably. Older brothers do lots of horrible things to their younger brothers. But now I'm grown up, and I've changed.
And paid for schooling to teach you that "funner" is indeed an acceptable word.
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It's one of the great many perks of a university education in the liberal arts.
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JB is the Tresopax of linguistics.
:P
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I'm not quite sure how to take that. Does it help if I saw a few minutes of Starship Troopers and thought it was pure garbage?
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[/QUOTE]What little things, is bad for the environment?
This was a title of a thread on another forum I'm on. Some people never, ever proofread.
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Your tags are backwards.
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Nah, it's just her shirt that's on backwards.
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Really? "Funner" is okay? Not in my idiolect.
How about "funnerist", or better yet "more funnerist"?
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The prefered usage is "mostest funnerest".
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Jon Boy
Why? ["funner's"] a perfectly cromulent word.
Mr. Anderson
Funner is? Why isn't it on dictionary.com?
Jon Boy
Because Dictionary.com is ghetto. Try Merriam-Webster.
cromulent (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=cromulent) cromulent (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=cromulent)
I'm not quite sure why I find that so funny, but I do.
And as an aside, Jon Boy, do you know the etymology for "cromulent"? As you can see from the links above, neither of those two sites has it.
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The stigma against funner stems from the idea that fun was a noun, not an adjective. But it's used as an adjective all the time now, so there's no need for the stigma. It's just one of those language bugbears that won't go away.
And by the way, cromulent comes from The Simpsons. There's some quote from Jebediah Springfield saying that a noble heart embiggens even the smallest man. Someone criticizes the word embiggen, and Mrs. Krabappel says that it's a perfectly cromulent word.
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>.<
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There were two people in my meeting this morning who kept saying processes as if it were a Latin plural (PRAH-sess-EEZ). I have no idea why they were doing it, but it bugged the heck out of me. Why are people so obsessed with Latin plurals, even when we have perfectly acceptable English ones?
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I've heard that plural before.
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There were two people in my meeting this morning who kept saying processes as if it were a Latin plural (PRAH-sess-EEZ). I have no idea why they were doing it, but it bugged the heck out of me. Why are people so obsessed with Latin plurals, even when we have perfectly acceptable English ones?
Because we're taught all our lives that Latin is the best language.
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Well, is it?
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Very few people know what constitutes a "latin" plural.
I sure don't.
But not realizing that they come from Latin doesn't keep people from thinking that polysylabic latinate words are somehow better than monosylabic germanic words, so there may be some truth to what you say.
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If it was, wouldn't it still be alive?
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There are plenty of really great people and really great nations that have gone kaput.
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Dude, don't answer my joke with facts.
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The plural of syllabus is syllabus right?
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Syllabuses or syllabi.
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In their defence, I like the sound of processEEZ better than processes -- the almost repeated syllable in the second one makes it more difficult to say.
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Huh. Then my prof is wrong. She said it was the fifth Latin plural conjugation. I had no idea what she was talking about because it was an Italian language and lit class.
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Dude, I'm not a dude. :pirate:
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Whatever, man.
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It could be that English speakers, not knowing Latin, have incorrectly formed the plural. I don't know enough Latin to say.
Dude, it's an interjection, not a vocative noun.
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Ah ok, she's not a native English speaker I don't think. Oh well.
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I hate "me either"
*claws out ears*
"funner" shouldn't be allowed to exist. I don't care if it's right.
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Fascist.
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Fascister. :P
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More funner makes me twinge.
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Most facistist.
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Here's one that I just noticed recently: "opposite tact". It's "tack", guys.
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I know it's correct, but it still grates me when people talk about something filling a nEEsh instead of a nich.
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Erik: I have a niche?
Mr. Feeny: niece
Erik: Ahh... *drinking motions*
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???
:huh:
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brownie points for the first one to get the reference...
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Boy meets world!!!!
(The episode when Feeny's neice comes to visit him and asks Eric to take her out)
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close, but not quite.
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Oh man. Wait, is it the one when they're in Boston?
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It's the one where they are in the future celebrating Feeny's retirement.
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Did someone just reverse the polarity in here?
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FEEnay! Fee-hee-he*coughgag* woah, I can't do this anymore...
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I love it when Eric does the FEEnay! Fee-hee-hee-NAY.
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Getting back to Processes, Latin nouns come in declensions not conjugations. But there are five declensions. I was only really familiar with the first three, which were basically Fminine ending in a, masculine ending in us, and Neuter ending in um.
About.com informs me that 4th declension is ending in us, but with a u root instead. Manus, hand, is such a word. The plural posessive (genitive) is mannum instead of *manorum.
5th declension ends in es. Fides, Spes, Res are all 5th declension nouns. I can't believe I forgot that.
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Oops, thats what I meant when I said conjugation.
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Although I have been informed that it is acceptable, I do not like "preventative". I much, much prefer "preventive".
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The extra syllable probably has something to do with wanting to preserve the stress pattern of prevent despite trisyllabic shortening. I'll have to think it through. No, I guess that doesn't make sense.
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Almost as bad as orientate and disorientate. GAH!
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Oh no! An extra syllable! It's the end of educated English as we know it!
*dies*
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Too many syllalables!
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Syllabybles?
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Sylylables.
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The extra syllable probably has something to do with wanting to preserve the stress pattern of prevent despite trisyllabic shortening. I'll have to think it through. No, I guess that doesn't make sense.
Actually, the extra syllable has to do with misapprehending Latin morphology. These words were coined after trisyllabic shortening had done its work. Trisyllabic shortening was an entirely different sort of process, anyway.
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I guess I've forgotten what trisyllabic shortening is. I thought it was when photograph becomes phoTAWgraphy. Psychology==>psychoLAWgical and so forth. Is that just antepenultimate stress, plain and simple?
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Yeah, that's just antepenultimate stress. It's a feature of most Latinate words.
Trisyllabic shortening is when the a syllable is shortened when a suffix was added, making that syllable the ante-antepenultimate syllable (third syllable back). So that gives word pairs like divine (unshortened and later diphthongized) and divinity (shortened). Here are a few more. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trisyllabic_shortening) I believe this phonological process happened around the 1400s.
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Can we complain about spelling here?
If I see one more person type "coersion" instead of coercion I am going to scream. :blink:
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I'm probably guilty of that, ain't I?
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I didn't notice you doing it, Porter, but I'm pretty sure your wife did. :)
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Oh, I *know* I'm guilty. And I don't feel bad in the least. :P
O'course, I'm done writing any form of the word for now.
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:lol:
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How about pluralizing with apostrophes? Can we gripe about that here?
(http://www.comics.com/comics/frazz/archive/images/frazz2005101220908.gif)
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Of course!
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:cool:
I'm contemplating having that Frazz emblazoned on my forehead.
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Agh!
No!
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:sick:
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I could care less about <insert thing here>
If you're wondering why this saying doesn't make any sense, the answer is because it's wrong. The correct saying is "I couldn't care less" which makes a whole lot more sense.
Every time I hear someone say or write "I could care less," I die a little inside.
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Every time someone says that, I wanna ask if they could care more.
My boss has one that makes me want to tear my ears off. "All is we have to do is..."
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Are you sure it's not "All's we have to do is...", because I've heard that one before.
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He says that, too.
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Or "The thing is, is that we . . ."
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Teshi, you probably don't need to explain so much to this crowd . . . ;)
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I just like to be perfectly clear.
EDIT: And you never know when that mistake is going to be made. Even here it might creep up behind you. Nowhere are you safe.
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Every time I hear someone say or write "I could care less," I die a little inside.
And I could care less. And I will.
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See?
:cry:
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My manager is always saying stuff like "Brock and myself will get that done." He uses it often, too. Several times a day, usually.
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:sick:
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I think it's an attempt to sound educated/professional. Considering the people we deal with, I bet it works, too. *disgusted*
"Blah blah blah, and so blah blah blah," is also a common one from him.
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Although I know it's wrong, it doesn't sound bad to me.
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I think it sounds like fingernails down a chalkboard.
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Maybe I need to hear it and not read it.
After all, reading "fingernails on a chalkboard" isn't painful either.
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*giggles*
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Although I know it's wrong, it doesn't sound bad to me.
Would you ever say, "Myself is going to the store?" Does it sound okay to you?
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JB, I know it's wrong. I said so earlier.
And yes, it sounds completely wrong when taken by itself.
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I wasn't asking whether you knew it was wrong. :P I just wanted to know if it sounded bad to you.
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When you said
Would you ever say, "Myself is going to the store?"
is looked like you were asking if I knew that it was wrong.
Although I guess you could have been asking if I would purposely say it wrong.
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I say things that I know are "wrong." There's a big difference between knowing the rules and following them.
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OK then.
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Oops, wrong thread. How did that happen?
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I just noticed something one of my managers does all the time. I didn't catch it until now because he did the same thing three or four times in a row.
He was leaving out "to be." The only one I remember was, "these plates need detailed." He not foreign, so I can only imagine it comes from having to abbreviate everything on drawings and cut stuff down until you have just enough to get the point across.
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Need + past participle strikes again!
I do this. Jonathon wrote a paper on it. It's supposedly from Pennsylvania, but it seems too widespread for that. Do you know where your boss is from? Is he a Utahn born and raised?
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It's originally from Pennsylvania and Ohio, but it has spread across the Midwest and West.
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Is it too late to put up a moat to keep it out? Is it related to German syntax at all?
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Need + past participle strikes again!
I do this. Jonathon wrote a paper on it. It's supposedly from Pennsylvania, but it seems too widespread for that. Do you know where your boss is from? Is he a Utahn born and raised?
He's from Oregon.
With some of the crowded drawings we end up with, I can see "to be" being one of the sacrifices.
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Was this spoken or in writing?
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Spoken, but I think I've seen it on our drawings, too.
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:o