Linguistic Pet Peeves

OK, I agree that crashfrog's post on the usefulness of evolutionary theory being the reason why it is accepted was a very good post, but I have one quibble:It isn't: "The proof is in the pudding."It's: "The proof of the pudding is in the eating.""The proof is in the pudding" makes it sound like we're going to find the bullet that can prove who the killer is. Eww.Other peeves:"I could care less." Really? How much less could you care? It's: "I could not care less.""Alot." What is this word? Did you mean "a lot"? If you wanted to make it more intensive, you'd say "a whole lot" and there needs to be a hole for the "whole."Newspaper style that drops the comma before the final "and" in a list. That comma is there in order to make sure you realize that the "and" is the terminator of the list, not a conjunction between two items that function as a single unit in a list: "Bring bread and water, salt and pepper, and fork and knife."The replacement of "fewer" with "less." "Less" is singular. "Fewer" is plural. It isn't: "Less calories." It's: "Fewer calories."The replacement of "among" with "between." "Between" is for pairs. "Among" is for more than two.Anybody else? What other anguished English (thank you, Richard Lederer) do you find? I don't mean tiny, common errors like confusing their, there, and they're or particular turns of phrase you don't like (a friend simply does not like the word "hunker.") I mean where the structure is simply wrong and yet people commonly make the error (thus giving it legitimacy and eventually turning it into accepted usage.)

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

purpledawn writes:

quote:

---

Don't forget the apostophe after acronyms (PCs should be PC's), numbers (two 4's), letters, and words discussed as words (too many and's) when showing plurality.

---

Not quite, at least according to the MLA. You do not use apostrophes for acronyms or numbers. You do use it to form plurals of lowercase letters ("p's and q's"). Capitalized letters do not need them (though some style guides say to use an apostrophe for capital letters, too).It's: "The 60s," not "The 60's."When referring to words as words, you not only use the apostrophe but also italicize it (but not the apostrophe-s) or put it in quotes (including the apostrophe-s).It's: "Too many and's" or "Too many 'and's'."On a related note, another peeve is "who's" for "whose."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

purpledawn responds to me:

quote:

---

What year is the MLA?

---

I don't have it in front of me, but I remember the style guide for my thesis being pointed about it. My Turabian from 1969, 1982 states that the plurals of numerals is without an apostrophe. While it says to use an apostrophe-s for acronyms with periods ("B.A.'s") and for those capital letters that would be confusing if not ("As" as a plural might be confused for the word "As"), it doesn't directly state what to do with acronyms that don't have them.My Handbook of Technical Writing from 1993 can't seem to make up its mind: But it then goes on to state a rule which renders the example they gave wrong: So which is it? Do you say "7's" or "7s"?Regarding words as words, it goes the "apostrophe-s and italicize" route: I note that it does not mention italicizing the apostrophe-s, but it does it in the text. In fact, one could say that the state rule as written indicates that you only italicize the word, not the apostrophe-s.I'm willing to state that this is one of those dichotomy of style guides.

quote:

---

How about your for you're.

---

Well, that's on the level of confusing their, there, and they're. It's a problem, but it isn't usually a question of the person just not knowing any better. Even I find my fingers have gotten away from my brain and I look back and see that I've mixed them up. I'm usually happy enough to let it go.Now a big question is, it it "ones" or "one's"? The general rule is that possessive pronouns do not take an apostrophe: "Hers" not "her's." That's why "its" doesn't have an apostrophe.Personally, I say the possessive of "one" is "one's" because "ones" looks too much like a plural: "Make up one's mind," not "Make up ones mind." It seems to me that the clarification I keep seeing with regard to using apostrophes is "unless it would be confusing not to use it."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

quote:

---

You can do that in English - retask words just by shuffling them around in sentences. Heck, I did it just now.

---

Yes, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.Business-speak where "task" is a transitive verb is simply disgusting. No, I am not "tasked" to a project. I am "assigned" to it.Along those lines, "orientate" (*shudder*). "Orient" is a perfectly good verb all on its own. It doesn't need to be made a verb again by sticking "-ate" on the end. That's why we put "-ation" on the end when making it a noun: It's already a verb.The only "but English lets you do that" monstrosity I tolerate is "neatize"...a verb meaning "to make neat." Most of you know it as "neaten." The only reason I tolerate it at all was because it was a bit of a joke where we were trying to verbalize the adjective but do it in a nonstandard way. I only use it around a few, specific people because we're the only ones who get the joke.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lam writes:

quote:

---

Which one of the following sentences is correct?

​

Does god has free will?

​

Does god have free will?

​

I've always thought that "has" is the right one to use. "God" is a third person so shouldn't it be "has"? However, "have" sounds better for some reason which I can't quite put my fingers on yet.

​

So, which one is it?

---

Surely you can figure this out for yourself: Substitute an actual, third-person pronoun in the place of "god" and see what you would say. Do you say, "Does he has free will?" or do you say, "Does he have free will"?The word "does" in that sentence alters the grammatical mood of the statement and thus, you use the subjunctive. Similarly, the emphatic mood also uses the infinitive form. You don't say, "God does has free will." Instead, you say, "God does have free will."Therefore, since "god" is third-person, you use the third-person format of the subjunctive: "Does god have free will?"

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

quote:

---

The only time you use "an" is to avoid glottal stops. Since there would be no glottal stops in the h-words you've chosen, a is the proper use.

---

Acutally, I believe "an" is an acceptable article for "hypothesis" and "historical." It has to do with the weak first syllable that vocally reduces the "h" at the beginning of the word.Compare this to "history." Since the first syllable receives the accent, the "h" is a bit more prominent and you say, "a history."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog responds to Lam:

quote:

---

quote:

---

Well, I said that it sounded better with "have" as oppose to "has". What I was asking for is why.

---

​

Verb tense. Actually, we're looking at two different main verbs in these phrases. The main verb in the first is "has"; in the second, the main verb is "does."

​

You can see that, in fact, they're in the same tense, and the plurality rule does hold. You're just getting hung up on the fact that a verb form of "have" is in both sentences; it's not, however, the main verb in both sentences.

​

But that is a tricky point. That one bugged me all night until I figured it out in the shower.

---

Incorrect in pretty much every respect. The answer is right and the important words are correctly chosen, but the reasoning is completely wrong. It has nothing to do with plurality and "does" is not the main verb in either statement. It has to do with the fact that we're in the subjunctive mood through the use of the word "does." We are stating a qualified, non-definite question. English doesn't use the subjunctive nearly as much as other languages, but it does use it."The boss has asked that I be here.""I be"? Yes. Subjunctive mood in English is that, except for the past of "to be," you use the infinitive. That's why we say, "If I were you." It is incorrect to say, "If I was you," because the use of "if" signals a conditional context which puts us in the subjunctive.You say, "The boss has asked that she work late," and not "The boss has asked that she works late." Subjunctive...use the infinitive form.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mr Jack writes:

quote:

---

In natural English grammar a double negative, like a double positive is an affirmation or strengthening of the statement.

---

Yeah, yeah....

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Arachnophilia responds to me:

quote:

---

quote:

---

The replacement of "fewer" with "less." "Less" is singular. "Fewer" is plural. It isn't: "Less calories." It's: "Fewer calories."

---

​

ahem.

​

fewer is quantitative, less is not. if you can count it, you use fewer. if you cannot, you use less.

---

As I said: "Fewer" is plural. "Calories" is plural. Therefore, you use "fewer." "Fat" is singular, therefore you use "less."The fact that a sandpile is made up of a bunch of grains of sand doesn't change the fact that it is a singular sandpile. The fact that "fat" is made up of individual fat cells doesn't change the fact that it is considered a singular object.Thus, you'd say "less fat" and "fewer fat cells."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Arachnophilia responds to me:

quote:

---

has no one mentioned "your" for "you're" and vice-versa?

---

I put that on the same level as confusing their, there, and they're. It's an error, yes, but most people know that there is a distinction among the variant spellings. It isn't like they think "you're" really does mean the second-person possessive. They're just being clumsy in their spelling.In other words, I'm looking for linguistic peeves where the person doing the utterance is making a mistake while thinking it is absolutely correct. Your/you're, their/there/they're, to/too/two, etc....those are annoying but not what I'm after.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Dan Carroll writes:

quote:

---

ATM machine.

​

See also: PIN number, SAT test, and so on.

---

Yes! I had forgotten about those. The worst one I saw was a menu that served "French Dip with au jus sauce." A triple redundancy since "French Dip" means "roast beef on a baguette served au jus" and "au jus" means "with sauce." Thus, the phrase becomes "roast beef with sauce with with sauce sauce."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Mr Jack responds to Dan Carroll:

quote:

---

quote:

---

ATM machine.

​

See also: PIN number, SAT test, and so on.

---

​

All of which are the correct grammatical usage. Sorry.

---

No, they're not. They're common, but they're not correct. PIN is an acronym that stands for "personal identification number." It is therefore redundant to say "PIN number" since what you just said was "personal identification number number."You go to the ATM. You enter your PIN. You take the SAT.Want more proof? Make the sentences plural. "We installed five ATMs today." "I scored a 1360 on my SATs."

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog responds to me:

quote:

---

quote:

---

It has to do with the fact that we're in the subjunctive mood through the use of the word "does."

---

​

Are you sure it's subjunctive mood?

---

On more reflection, I think it's emphatic mood, but that follows the same construction: Use the infinitive form. You normally would say, "God has." But in emphasizing it, you switch to the infinitive: "God does have."

quote:

---

when you contrast "God has" and "God does have", it becomes pretty obvious that we're dealing with declarative mood in both cases

---

No, not declarative (and did you really mean "indicative"?) Declarative would simply say, "God has." The fact that you're using another word in there indicates you're shifting mood. I'm switching my claim from subjunctive to emphatic mood, but it's still a different mood from declarative.

quote:

---

After all, you could just as easily say "Has God free will?"

---

True, but you'd be changing the mood which is why I'm saying that I was wrong to say subjunctive and I really meant emphatic (which is even more silly on my part considering that I mentioned the emphatic mood in one of my posts about this and should have noticed it right then and there.)

quote:

---

quote:

---

Subjunctive...use the infinitive form.

---

​

Subjunctive, according to the Wiki, uses the continuous form, not the infinitive.

---

Um, if I recall correctly, "continuous form" is another way of saying what I was taught to call "progressive" which is "be [conjugated] + present participle."That is, the Past Progressive of "to walk" isI was walking
You were walking
He/She/It was walking
We were walking
You were walking
They were walkingEven Wikipedia says this: Grammatical tenseAnd I have to wonder which Wikipedia article you were looking at because the article I found there says that: But even so, this isn't quite right. This is, for most regular verbs, the infinitive form of the verb. However, Wiki's rule fails in the case of the verb "to be." If we follow Wiki's rule, the present subjunctive of "to be" would be "is." But it isn't. It's "be." "The boss asked that I be here."The only exception to the rule of infinitive is the past subjunctive of "to be" which uses "were."

quote:

---

The presence of the infinitive "have" in Lam's second phrase implies, to me, that it is an auxillary verb to the main verb "does."

---

No, because the action of god is having, not doing. Ah, the joys of having more than one definition to a word! The English verb "have" has multiple meanings. One is that of auxilliary and one is that of possession. When we say, "God has free will," there is only one word in that sentence that can be considered the verb: "Has." And it is being used to show possession. We could rephrase it to, "God is in possession of free will."Similarly, "do" has to functions: Auxilliary and showing action. When we say, "I did it," there is only one word in that sentence that can be considered the verb: "Did." And it is being used to show action. We could rephrase it to, "I carried out the actions required to accomplish it."In the question, "Does god have free will," we are not talking about action but possession. Thus, "have" is the primary verb and "does" is the auxilliary.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

1.61803 writes:

quote:

---

"Dressed to the nines" = Dressed to thine eyes.
"Spitn image" = Splitting image
"Egads" = Ye Gods

---

Alas, these have become the actual phrases in modern English. Lazy pronunciation over the years have changed the words we actually spell out. Look at all of the variations of "god's wounds" we have out there such as "zounds" and "gadzooks."Besides, if we get rid of "dressed to the nines," we have to rewrite Evita and one of the better lines in it:All you will see is a girl you once knew,
Although she's dressed up to the nines,
At sixes and sevens with you.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Parasomnium writes:

quote:

---

Lam's sentence has nothing to do with subjunctive mood.

---

Agreed. It was my mistake.It is, however, emphatic mood.

---

Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!