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Author Topic:   Grammar
Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 76 of 105 (47880)
07-29-2003 11:15 AM
Reply to: Message 75 by John
07-29-2003 10:29 AM


"I must ask. Did you learn English?"
Well, from the fact that you ask I must conclude that it is indeed English I'm writing or else you wouldn't have understood, would you?
"I believe Bush probably dangles quite a few modifiers."
No kidding.
"Interesting that you are equating official English usage with Texas [...]"
I'd hardly call expressing things in as non-dangling a way as possible 'official English usage'.
"[...] and at the same time making fun of the state for its dialect, which is far from standard."
I got that right then, eh?
Considering the fact that English is not my native language, I think I can make myself reasonably well understood. Especially compared to some native speakers here.
Anyway John, please don't be offended. I was just fooling around a bit. I have nothing against the state of Texas or its people. Next time it'll be the French, I promise.
I'll ignore 'Brainiac'.
Cheers.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 75 by John, posted 07-29-2003 10:29 AM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 79 by John, posted 07-29-2003 7:38 PM Parasomnium has replied

  
Coragyps
Member (Idle past 735 days)
Posts: 5553
From: Snyder, Texas, USA
Joined: 11-12-2002


Message 77 of 105 (47894)
07-29-2003 12:43 PM
Reply to: Message 73 by Rrhain
07-28-2003 1:51 PM


Dammit, Rrhain, I was going to post that joke.....
I'm off to sulk.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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zephyr
Member (Idle past 4550 days)
Posts: 821
From: FOB Taji, Iraq
Joined: 04-22-2003


Message 78 of 105 (47896)
07-29-2003 12:56 PM
Reply to: Message 77 by Coragyps
07-29-2003 12:43 PM


We have a variation of that one here - just a slightly different story, and b!+ch instead of a-hole. If someone ends a sentence with "at," you just complete it by adding said word to the end. If you catch yourself, you can just kinda tack it onto the end of your own sentence and prevent someone else from doing it. =)

This message is a reply to:
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John
Inactive Member


Message 79 of 105 (47929)
07-29-2003 7:38 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Parasomnium
07-29-2003 11:15 AM


quote:
Well, from the fact that you ask I must conclude that it is indeed English I'm writing or else you wouldn't have understood, would you?
The point is, of course, that you are painfully ignorant of a major rule of English grammar.
quote:
I'd hardly call expressing things in as non-dangling a way as possible 'official English usage'.
Lol... the irony! God, the irony! I can hardly wade through it!
Formal, official, strict English grammar does indeed forbid dangling prepositions. Any grammar teacher in this country would mark a sentence wrong if it ended in 'for.' Try looking it up. Here, let me help.
OWL // Purdue Writing Lab
No webpage found at provided URL: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/rpriebe/cs_ed_sp02/links/prep.htm
The rule is violated more than followed, of course.
quote:
I got that right then, eh?
Yes, but the irony is that the grammar you have been attributing to Texas, isn't a part of the regional dialect.
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Parasomnium, posted 07-29-2003 11:15 AM Parasomnium has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 80 by Parasomnium, posted 07-30-2003 5:24 AM John has replied
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Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 80 of 105 (47981)
07-30-2003 5:24 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by John
07-29-2003 7:38 PM


John,
"The point is, of course, that you are painfully ignorant of a major rule of English grammar."
No, actually the point is that I'm (painfully or otherwise) aware of more rules of English grammar than many a native speaker.
"Formal, official, strict English grammar does indeed forbid dangling prepositions. [...] The rule is violated more than followed, of course."
Exactly. Who says I'm writing official, strict English, anyway? The style here is pretty colloquial and I see no problem adapting to it.
"[...] the irony is that the grammar you have been attributing to Texas, isn't a part of the regional dialect."
So I, a non-native speaker, don't know the ins and outs of Texan regional dialects. Big deal.
Cheers anyway.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 79 by John, posted 07-29-2003 7:38 PM John has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 83 by John, posted 07-30-2003 9:58 AM Parasomnium has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 81 of 105 (47989)
07-30-2003 6:45 AM
Reply to: Message 79 by John
07-29-2003 7:38 PM


John responds to Parasomnium:
quote:
Formal, official, strict English grammar does indeed forbid dangling prepositions. Any grammar teacher in this country would mark a sentence wrong if it ended in 'for.'
Not quite. It is, indeed, true that many people who consider themselves "teachers of English grammar" drill into their pupils' heads that they should never, ever end a sentence with a preposition.
The problem is that nobody follows this rule every single time. More important is non-stilted speech. The statement supposedly by Churchill regarding "up with which I will not put" is exactly right. To avoid dangling the preposition is so obnoxious to the resulting utterance that it is by far better to dangle the preposition (and, on top of that, to use a contraction): "I won't put up with."
By the way...your first link had nothing to say about dangling prepositions. It concerned itself with dangling modifiers. There's a difference. The reason not to use dangling modifiers is that it leads to confusion: "Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg address while riding to Washington on the back of an envelope." Really? Lincoln was riding on the back of an envelope? And, indeed, dangling prepositions can sometimes lead to confusion, but they very rarely do. Nobody says, "About what are you talking?" They say, "What are you talking about?"
And let's not forget that prepositions can dangle in the middle of a sentence, too: "The number I'm thinking of is between 1 and 100." That "of" is dangling. The supposedly "correct" way of saying it is, "The number of which I'm thinking is between 1 and 100," but very few people will say the latter.
And if that isn't good enough, from Bartleby.com:
But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. In fact, English syntax not only allows but sometimes even requires final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or That depends on what you believe in.
Of course, I could recast those sentences: "We have much for which to be thankful," but that doesn't sound right. Similarly, the "in" in "That depends on what you believe in" is superfluous and you could just as easily say, "That depends on what you believe," but it also sounds wrong, especially when you are making a point about a belief in something.
That last is why we have the superfluous "at" in the joke: "Where's the library at?" That "at" is superfluous as you could just as easily say, "Where's the library?" By putting in the "at," you are making a point about discerning a location.
Bartleby's comment is quite accurate: So many venerated speakers and writers such as Shakespeare and Churchill have used dangling participles that to decry their usage every single time is to ignore reality: The language works better when they are allowed to dangle. A better rule would be to be careful about how you dangle them.
Similarly, there is no rule that says you can't split infinitives, either. Many grammarians will throw a hissy fit over that, but if you look at the way the language actually gets used, it is clear that native speakers don't have a problem with it.
[edited to correct a statement of fact...the claim about the first link was originally that it didn't say anything about dangling "participles" when I meant to say "prepositions."]
[edited to correct a typo...apparently, my fingers wanted to spell it "Lincon" instead of "Lincoln."]
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
[This message has been edited by Rrhain, 07-30-2003]
[This message has been edited by Rrhain, 07-30-2003]

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Replies to this message:
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Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 82 of 105 (47990)
07-30-2003 6:53 AM


So there.
(Thanks Rrhain.)
[This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 07-30-2003]

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John
Inactive Member


Message 83 of 105 (48013)
07-30-2003 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 80 by Parasomnium
07-30-2003 5:24 AM


quote:
No, actually the point is that I'm (painfully or otherwise) aware of more rules of English grammar than many a native speaker.
Probably. You kids are missing the irony. You corrected Mike's sentence and offered a really bad one as an alternative.
quote:
Exactly. Who says I'm writing official, strict English, anyway? The style here is pretty colloquial and I see no problem adapting to it.
Lol... yet you bothered to 'correct' Mike? A bit hypocritical, eh? And then argued that your version was indeed 'correct' English.
How much more clear can that be?
quote:
So I, a non-native speaker, don't know the ins and outs of Texan regional dialects. Big deal.
Read your own posts, bud. You sure pretended to have such knowledge.
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

This message is a reply to:
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John
Inactive Member


Message 84 of 105 (48016)
07-30-2003 10:13 AM
Reply to: Message 82 by Parasomnium
07-30-2003 6:53 AM


Yes, so there.
Rh points out that most people don't follow the rules. I stated as much. Most people don't follow the rules.
People have been arguing over dangling prepositions for a long time. Rh has given the other side's version. And really, I pretty much agree with Rh. But you are missing the reason I posted on the topic in the first place-- It is incredibly funny that you corrected someone's grammar and offered such a stereotypically bad sentence as an alternative.
BTW, Rh, the first site I referenced does contain an example of a dangling preposition, despite the subject being 'dangling modifiers.'
------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com
[This message has been edited by John, 07-30-2003]

This message is a reply to:
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Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 85 of 105 (48050)
07-30-2003 1:12 PM
Reply to: Message 84 by John
07-30-2003 10:13 AM


John writes:
quote:
Rh points out that most people don't follow the rules. I stated as much. Most people don't follow the rules.
Um, if so many people don't follow it, including those who are considered the best composers of English, it's hardly a rule, now is it?
quote:
BTW, Rh, the first site I referenced does contain an example of a dangling preposition, despite the subject being 'dangling modifiers.'
Really? Where? There is, indeed, a sentence that is ended with a preposition and the site does say that it is poor grammar, but the reason why is not because of the ending preposition but rather because of the misplaced modifier:
"Having finished the assignment, the TV was turned on."
The problem with this statement, as the site says, is that "Having finished the assignment" seemingly applies to "the TV" rather than to some unspoken person who did the turning on. Of course, the "on" in that sentence is not a preposition but an adverb, so that's probably why they don't mention it.
In fact, the word "preposition" appears absolutely nowhere in the first site listed. The second site talks about them, yes, but not the first.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 84 by John, posted 07-30-2003 10:13 AM John has not replied

  
Rrhain
Member
Posts: 6351
From: San Diego, CA, USA
Joined: 05-03-2003


Message 86 of 105 (48052)
07-30-2003 1:23 PM
Reply to: Message 83 by John
07-30-2003 9:58 AM


John responds to Parasomnium:
quote:
You corrected Mike's sentence and offered a really bad one as an alternative.
No, that isn't what happened. Instead, IrishRockHound said the following:
Would a little grammar be too much to ask for too?
In response, mike the wiz said:
There are too many 'too' in this sentence.
Parasomnium pointed out that no, there aren't. Instead, there is "too" functioning as an intensifier ("too much") and "too" functioning as another word for "also." The only error in the sentence is the need of a comma in front of the final "too." While some people might complain about the dangling preposition and say that it should read, "Would a little grammar be too much for which to ask, too?" there is nothing truly wrong with dangling the preposition. Yes, many people claim that you should never, ever end a sentence with a preposition. They're wrong. There is no such rule in English.
Parasomnium is correct: There are just as many "toos" in that sentence as needed.
------------------
Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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compmage
Member (Idle past 5153 days)
Posts: 601
From: South Africa
Joined: 08-04-2005


Message 87 of 105 (48128)
07-31-2003 3:45 AM
Reply to: Message 81 by Rrhain
07-30-2003 6:45 AM


Rrhain writes:
Of course, I could recast those sentences: "We have much for which to be thankful," but that doesn't sound right. Similarly, the "in" in "That depends on what you believe in" is superfluous and you could just as easily say, "That depends on what you believe," but it also sounds wrong, especially when you are making a point about a belief in something.
Perhaps it relates to where I come from but all of those sentences sound perfectly fine to me.
------------------
He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This message is a reply to:
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Parasomnium
Member
Posts: 2224
Joined: 07-15-2003


Message 88 of 105 (48131)
07-31-2003 3:57 AM
Reply to: Message 86 by Rrhain
07-30-2003 1:23 PM


John, what is it for which you are waiting?
(Rrhain, 'kid', you'd better dive for cover now.)

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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IrishRockhound
Member (Idle past 4436 days)
Posts: 569
From: Ireland
Joined: 05-19-2003


Message 89 of 105 (48161)
07-31-2003 8:49 AM
Reply to: Message 67 by mike the wiz
07-26-2003 8:48 PM


Wow, this thread has wandered off topic...
Sorry I couldn't get back sooner, mike. Anyway, back to "millions of years"...
You've opened a new topic on this, so I'm going to post there instead. Hope that's ok.
The Rock Hound

This message is a reply to:
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joshua221 
Inactive Member


Message 90 of 105 (49809)
08-10-2003 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by NosyNed
07-21-2003 6:32 PM


?
I don't think you will be able to site a single case of a species lasting more than a few million years.
Obviously, millions of years don't exist.

This message is a reply to:
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