English Language Usage

[96701]

"I was sat in my kitchen" means that somebody or something sat you there. "I was sitting in my kitchen" implies that free will was involved.

[Fenman]

"I was sat in my kitchen" means that somebody or something sat you there. "I was sitting in my kitchen" implies that free will was involved.

 

No: the original complaint was "I am sat in my kitchen", and I don't think any dialect would give that a meaning of "somebody has sat me in my kitchen" (it would need to be the (mis-)quote you stated, of "I was sat" or "I have been sat" to introduce that ambiguity).

 

Your forceful use of the word "means" (as if there could only possibly be one meaning) flies in the face of centuries of the playful joy of English, where even before Shakespeare people were delighting in the multiple meanings that could be assigned to words or phrases. Context is usually all.

 

Paul

[Ozexpatriate]

Americanism grate, too. 'Have a nice day' has been replaced locally in retail outlets with 'You enjoy the rest of your day....',what a specious, condescending remark to a customer who has just bought a 45p custard tart...

"Americanisms" surely?

 

I have on many occasions, late in the day, at the end of speaking with colleagues two times zones east of me, wished them to "enjoy what remains of your evening" before concluding the 'phone call.  It was genuinely meant, implicitly acknowledging that they spent time outside 'normal' hours conversing with me.

 

It's hard to imagine why someone wishing an interlocutor well would create such umbrage; other than unfamiliar usage. It's literally accurate, more so than "have a nice day" since even if someone hard a horrid morning, they might yet have a nice afternoon.

Edited April 20, 2017 by Ozexpatriate

[meil]

"Americanisms" surely?

 

I have on many occasions, late in the day, at the end of speaking with colleagues two times zones east of me, wished them to "enjoy what remains of your evening" before concluding the 'phone call.  It was genuinely meant, implicitly acknowledging that they spent time outside 'normal' hours conversing with me.

 

It's hard to imagine why someone wishing an interlocutor well would create such umbrage; other than unfamiliar usage. It's literally accurate, more so than "have a nice day" since even if someone hard a horrid morning, they might yet have a nice afternoon.

I agree the "have a nice day" grates with me as it's an insincere platitude. However, as someone said to me, better to have someone say "have a nice day" who doesn't mean it than to f***** off by someone who does.

[raymw]

Punctuate this -

 

John where jack had had had had had had had had had had had the teachers approval

[Ozexpatriate]

... "have a nice day" grates with me as it's an insincere platitude ...

It makes me think of me of this:

 

“Good Morning!" said Bilbo, and he meant it. The sun was shining, and the grass was very green. But Gandalf looked at him from under long bushy eyebrows that stuck out further than the brim of his shady hat.

 

"What do you mean?" he said. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

 

"All of them at once," said Bilbo. "And a very fine morning for a pipe of tobacco out of doors, into the bargain."

...

"Good morning!" he said at last. "We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water." By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

"What a lot of things you do use Good morning for!" said Gandalf. "Now you mean that you want to get rid of me, and that it won't be good till I move off.”

My emphasis.

 

All being said, politeness is rarely out of place.

[njee20]

Punctuate this -

 

John where jack had had had had had had had had had had had the teachers approval

We had this written on a whiteboard at work for a few days and challenged folk to punctuate it! I work in IT for a finance company, but one of them did get it when we provided the list of the required punctuation!

[phil_sutters]

Is it too late to mention Easter Saturday (currently due in 6 days time, the Saturday after Easter Sunday)?

I am afraid that the religious significance of Easter is lost on most people. It is now that odd Bank Holiday weekend, that keeps moving about. It is the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. One doesn't often hear Good Friday being called Easter Friday, but I have heard it called that. Easter Saturday is now the Saturday of the Easter weekend. The Church of England doesn't really help, in some churches, by having 'The First Communion of Easter' on the Saturday evening, in part so that they can have the ceremony of the New Light and the lighting of the Pascal Candle starting in the darkness.

[phil_sutters]

Don't worry, those of you who, like me, were not taught grammar. They now teach grammar in schools. The trouble is that the syllabus has apparently been set by people who are ideologically opposed to good grammar; the syllabus is so complicated as to be nigh on incomprehensible and teaching focusses on getting kids to include as many different types of clause or expression as to render writing a good paragraph almost impossible. "Fronted adverbials", anyone? We didn't have those when I was a lad! 

It is funny how goats have taken over the world. Wasn't the devil supposed to have a goat's head?

 

Has anyone mentioned split infinitives, or have we given up on them, at this moment in time?

Edited April 20, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Ozexpatriate]

Easter Saturday is now the Saturday of the Easter weekend.

I grew up with the long weekend being Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter (Sunday), Easter Monday.

 

I've never heard the term Easter Saturday applied to the following weekend.

[Fenman]

...

Has anyone mentioned split infinitives, or have we given up on them ... ?

 

We adore them (in the right place).

 

"To boldly go" is vastly more poetic than "to go boldly".

 

Though they are a useful reminder that many language pedants know very little about the subjects of their rants, what with this "rule" having been invented by Latin-obsessed Victorians and having little basis in "proper" English.

 

There's maybe a reason why England has produced few world-class painters, almost no world-class composers, yet oodles of world-class writers; the playful and flexible nature of English lends itself to creative writing, while more consistent/ hard-and-fast rule-based languages require much more skill to use similarly. We should be joyfully celebrating the flexibility of our language, not reading every text, po-faced, in a search for what we believe to be transgressions of (often) made-up "rules".

 

Paul

[chaz]

We adore them (in the right place).

 

"To boldly go" is vastly more poetic than "to go boldly".

 

Though they are a useful reminder that many language pedants know very little about the subjects of their rants, what with this "rule" having been invented by Latin-obsessed Victorians and having little basis in "proper" English.

 

There's maybe a reason why England has produced few world-class painters, almost no world-class composers, yet oodles of world-class writers; the playful and flexible nature of English lends itself to creative writing, while more consistent/ hard-and-fast rule-based languages require much more skill to use similarly. We should be joyfully celebrating the flexibility of our language, not reading every text, po-faced, in a search for what we believe to be transgressions of (often) made-up "rules".

 

Paul

 

no world-class composers?

 

Elgar? Vaughan Williams?

 

I do agree with your sentiments about our language although I do wince when I hear some mis-uses.

 

(Standards don't slip, they are just not met!)

 

Chaz

[62613]

no world-class composers?

 

Elgar? Vaughan Williams?

 

I do agree with your sentiments about our language although I do wince when I hear some mis-uses.

 

(Standards don't slip, they are just not met!)

 

Chaz

To be fair, Fenman did say 'almost'; I'd add Purcell, Walton, Britten and Parry to that list, by the way.

[dhjgreen]

I am afraid that the religious significance of Easter is lost on most people. It is now that odd Bank Holiday weekend, that keeps moving about. It is the Easter Bank Holiday weekend. One doesn't often hear Good Friday being called Easter Friday, but I have heard it called that. Easter Saturday is now the Saturday of the Easter weekend. The Church of England doesn't really help, in some churches, by having 'The First Communion of Easter' on the Saturday evening, in part so that they can have the ceremony of the New Light and the lighting of the Pascal Candle starting in the darkness.

 

 

I grew up with the long weekend being Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Saturday, Easter (Sunday), Easter Monday.

 

I've never heard the term Easter Saturday applied to the following weekend.

From Palm Sunday to Easter day is Holy week.  From Easter Day to the following Saturday is Easter week, hence Easter Saturday.  Our name for Holy Saturday is Easter Eve.  Easter day (Sunday) starts at dusk on Holy Saturday as we follow the Jewish tradition of the day running from dusk to dusk.

 

Just thought I would clear that up

Edited April 21, 2017 by dhjgreen

[Fenman]

To be fair, Fenman did say 'almost'; I'd add Purcell, Walton, Britten and Parry to that list, by the way.

If you ask the man (or woman) in any European street to name the world's best composers, my guess is they'd pretty much all say Mozart, Beethoven, Bach. The number that would cite, say, Walton, Britten or Parry would be, in comparison, very modest, and it's probably only a tiny handful that would even know of them.

 

That suggests to me that there's an argument that classical music has not been something at which the English have been pre-eminent - more good 2nd division players.

 

Personally I'd include Purcell in any list of world greats, while also recognising that that would just be an example of my nerdy specialist enthusiasms.

 

Paul

[Zomboid]

To be fair, Fenman did say 'almost'; I'd add Purcell, Walton, Britten and Parry to that list, by the way.

And loads more if you include the various types of popular music since about 1950.

Certainly from where i sit, the likes of Steve Harris, Ginger and Lennon/McCartney are every bit the equal of the likes of Mozart & the various Bach's.

Edited April 21, 2017 by Zomboid

[Fenman]

... the likes of Steve Harris, Ginger and Lennon/McCartney are every bit the equal of the likes of Mozart & the various Bach's.

 

Hahahahahahaha!

 

But seriously - and setting aside whether or not The Beatles were the "equal" of JS Bach - do you honestly expect the jaunty, catchy tunes of Lennon and McCartney* to be being played all over the world in 300 years time?

 

The people who were global popular music superstars in the first half of the twentieth century (after recording technology became relatively widespread) are all now pretty much completely forgotten. These people were the Gods of popular music of their age. Why should our contemporaries not suffer exactly the same fate? Let's not forget that Rick Astley (God bless him) was the single biggest-selling superstar of the late 1980s/early 1990s.

 

Paul

 

* Declaration of interests: I actually rather like The Beatles, with whom I grew up, and some of their music still happily appears on my iPhone...

[Zomboid]

We won't ever know. Very few of the composers from 300 years ago are known about now. But they wrote the popular music of their time.

Some of the popular music of the last 70 years will stand the test of time, most of it won't. And the chances are that the examples I picked won't (the Beatles were more of a cultural phenomenon than a musical one). Some will, though, and the anglophone world has produced an awful lot...

I'm not seriously making that comparison. I'd much rather listen to Iron Maiden than Mozart though.

[stewartingram]

To be fair, Fenman did say 'almost'; I'd add Purcell, Walton, Britten and Parry to that list, by the way.

What about Lennon & McCartney?

 

 

Stewart

 

edit: should have read all the thread before posting!

Edited April 21, 2017 by stewartingram

[Ozexpatriate]

If you ask the man (or woman) in any European street to name the world's best composers, my guess is they'd pretty much all say Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.

April being the centenary of the entrance of the United States to the Great War, PBS televised a six hour documentary of the lead-up and involvement of the US in WW1. Of of the topics covered was the impact of the huge numbers of German immigrants and their descendants on American sentiments regarding the war before US involvement. 

 

I bring this up because, at the time, what we think of as 'Classical music' was known at the time in America as 'German music'.

[Ozexpatriate]

But seriously - and setting aside whether or not The Beatles were the "equal" of JS Bach - do you honestly expect the jaunty, catchy tunes of Lennon and McCartney* to be being played all over the world in 300 years time?

Yes, the greatest composers: Mozart, Beethoven, Bach and Bacharach.

[jjb1970]

One that irritates me (and I say this knowing that my own English is appalling) is incorrect use of collision and describing allisions as being collisions. Most stories about how a ship collided with something are incorrect as the ship had actually allided with something.

[DavidLong]

One that irritates me (and I say this knowing that my own English is appalling) is incorrect use of collision and describing allisions as being collisions. Most stories about how a ship collided with something are incorrect as the ship had actually allided with something.

I must admit that I wasn't aware of that distinction, jjb. The Oxford dictionary does describe it as 'rare' and does specify it to be used in a nautical context:

 

verb. Maritime Law. rare. no object To hit against something. Now Maritime Law: (of a vessel) to collide with another which is stationary, or with a static object or structure.

 

Thanks for the information

 

David

[Black Marlin]

I work as a copy editor. Here's the word that drives me up the wall: 'Proactive'. A word composed of bovine excrement of the very worst odour. I have excised it completely from all my company's documentation. (To those who objected, I offered this simple challenge: "Very well, you conjugate the verb." Other, better words exist to describe the concept for which 'proactive' was coined, and I insist on their use!)

The rule regarding '-ize' versus '-ise' is simple: if the word entered English from Greek, use the 'z'; if it entered from French, use 's'.

The confusion surrounding the usage of 'that' versus 'which' is irritating but understandable. 

As for 'decimate,' which I saw someone complaining about earlier: I will concede that 'decimate' means only 'reduce by one tenth' when those who would use it exclusively in that fashion concede that 'December' is the tenth month of the year...

Regards,
Gavin

P.S. The plural of 'loco' is "locos", not "loco's" 
P.P.S. If you see a display of more than one model of Wolf of Badenoch, you have multiple 'Wolf of Badenochs', not 'Wolves of Badenoch'. For the same reason that Hornby hasn't, over the years, sold many, many 'Sirs Nigel Gresley'...

[Sidecar Racer]

Another example of how confusing spoken English can be .

 

https://www.wimp.com/english-is-hard/