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Language nuances

NWRatCon

NWRatCon

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I tend to be stickler when it comes to language nuance. Sometimes idiosyncratically so. It comes, I think, of loving the etymology of words and their usage. Many people, for example, have no idea how many words written by Shakespeare are ones he simply made up ("take that, Lewis Carroll", he chortled.) Words change so much over time that their meanings become inverted, and antonyms can become synonyms. I use a lot of archaic formulations, too (although far fewer than my son accuses me of - yes, phones used to have dials.). I'm also aware of the development of grammar and how it is misused and abused. I recently had to explicate the difference between "on" behalf and "in" behalf of someone; I sometimes could care less, but usually couldn't.

I thought it would be fun to start a thread where people can bring their favorite foibles and peeves, pet and otherwise. We can discuss them, dissect them, and dismiss them, as is our wont. Lay on, MacDuff!
 
Tragedy - not merely a synonym for sad. There's a whole system behind the word. It posits, first of all, a great person, who is destroyed by some seemingly unavoidable act - as in Shakespeare's tragedies..

Decimate - not annihilate nor destroy. It meant specifically one tenth, just like it says.
 
After living in Spain and learning Spanish I now always spell words that in UK end -ise with the more US -ize, e.g. realize, much to the gf's annoyance. And left to my own devices I'd go for color and humor, since 'humorous' gives the game away.

I don't get why 'different to' is wrong compared to 'different from' or 'different than'.

Writers who put 'blah blah blah, said John' on one page and then 'blah blah blah, John said' on the next really grind my gears. Lots of famous novelists I've skipped on account of that.
 
NWRatCon said:
I tend to be stickler when it comes to language nuance. Sometimes idiosyncratically so. It comes, I think, of loving the etymology of words and their usage. Many people, for example, have no idea how many words written by Shakespeare are ones he simply made up ("take that, Lewis Carroll", he chortled.) Words change so much over time that their meanings become inverted, and antonyms can become synonyms. I use a lot of archaic formulations, too (although far fewer than my son accuses me of - yes, phones used to have dials.). I'm also aware of the development of grammar and how it is misused and abused. I recently had to explicate the difference between "on" behalf and "in" behalf of someone; I sometimes could care less, but usually couldn't.

I thought it would be fun to start a thread where people can bring their favorite foibles and peeves, pet and otherwise. We can discuss them, dissect them, and dismiss them, as is our wont. Lay on, MacDuff!
Click to expand...

I'm no prescriptivist, but I do find it curious how frequently folks forget how plurals work when it comes to the words 'less' and 'fewer.'
 
"The both of you."
Makes me grit my teeth.

"Reached out to..."
It just lazy. How did you reach out? Did you call, write, email, smoke signals? Be specific you lazy so-and-so's.
 
I notice that the spelling of loose and lose often get confused here. I realize that misspelling is easy to do, as I often get embarrassed by spelling errors in posts too late to fix them. But in this case, I am not sure it is due to autofill or other computer generated nonsense. I like spell check but I hate when words are automatically inserted by the computer program that make no sense. I would rather be left to make my own mistakes and be embarrassed by that, but not by what a program inserts for me. That just aggravates me.

So, I wonder, how many know the difference between lose and loose?
 
AConcernedCitizen said:
I'm no prescriptivist, but I do find it curious how frequently folks forget how plurals work when it comes to the words 'less' and 'fewer.'
Click to expand...
Except with drug ads. Then it's sneaky. 'Less nasal polyps', for example, will be heard as 'fewer nasal polyps' but what it means is something like a vaguely lessened polyp, that will still occur.
 
Why is 'bra' singular and 'panties' plural?

Also, why do singular nouns have plural verbs and vice-versa?
He walks. They walk.
Dick runs. Jane runs. Dick and Jane run?

Also, why is wrong, W-r-o-n-g, not the opposite of write, W-r-i-t-e?
 
"I'd say................"

Well, why the heck don't you then?

And if you're using the conditional, what the heck is the condition that would make you say (whatever).
 
southwest88 said:
Tragedy - not merely a synonym for sad. There's a whole system behind the word. It posits, first of all, a great person, who is destroyed by some seemingly unavoidable act - as in Shakespeare's tragedies..

Decimate - not annihilate nor destroy. It meant specifically one tenth, just like it says.
Click to expand...
Yeah, "decimated to the last man" has me grating my teeth.

Even if you take out a tenth of whatever is left with each step, you'll never eliminate "last".
 
Chagos said:
"I'd say................"

Well, why the heck don't you?

And if you're using the conditional, what the heck is the condition that would make you say (whatever).
Click to expand...

Were I to be consulted on the matter, I'd say that the implied conditional is the hypothetical, "were I to to be consulted on the matter."
 
Chagos said:
Yeah, "decimated to the last man" has me grating my teeth.

Even if you take out a tenth of whatever is left with each step, you'll never eliminate "last".
Click to expand...

But "decimated to the last man" does not claim to eliminate the last man. The last man is merely the termination point of decimation. For example, if you have 100 men, and you decimate them once, you are left with 90 men. Then decimate them again, and you are left with 81 men, then 72.9 men, etc. Once you there is only one man remaining, the decimation ceases.
 
AConcernedCitizen said:
But "decimated to the last man" does not claim to eliminate the last man. The last man is merely the termination point of decimation. For example, if you have 100 men, and you decimate them once, you are left with 90 men. Then decimate them again, and you are left with 81 men, then 72.9 men, etc. Once you there is only one man remaining, the decimation ceases.
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I think it ends when you have fewer than 10 remaining. To decimate is to remove every 10th person and if there are fewer than that there is no 10th.
 
eman623 said:
I think it ends when you have fewer than 10 remaining. To decimate is to remove every 10th person and if there are fewer than that there is no 10th.
Click to expand...

If you run out of people before you get to ten, you can always just cycle back around again and keep counting until you get there.
 
southwest88 said:
Tragedy - not merely a synonym for sad. There's a whole system behind the word. It posits, first of all, a great person, who is destroyed by some seemingly unavoidable act - as in Shakespeare's tragedies..

Decimate - not annihilate nor destroy. It meant specifically one tenth, just like it says.
Click to expand...
Tragedy (the classical play form) broadened with time. From its classical roots and the predestined act of antiquity, then the unavoidable act , to a character flaw and choice. Finally in the 2oth century and the beginning of modern playrighting, the protagonist no longer needed to be a 'great person', a king, a war hero etc. Now a salesman will do or a woman addicted to morphine.
 
AConcernedCitizen said:
But "decimated to the last man" does not claim to eliminate the last man. The last man is merely the termination point of decimation. For example, if you have 100 men, and you decimate them once, you are left with 90 men. Then decimate them again, and you are left with 81 men, then 72.9 men, etc. Once you there is only one man remaining, the decimation ceases.
Click to expand...
I have no idea what you'd need to cut off him to make him 0.9 pct, but I reckon there'd be something.
 
devildavid said:
I notice that the spelling of loose and lose often get confused here. I realize that misspelling is easy to do, as I often get embarrassed by spelling errors in posts too late to fix them. But in this case, I am not sure it is due to autofill or other computer generated nonsense. I like spell check but I hate when words are automatically inserted by the computer program that make no sense. I would rather be left to make my own mistakes and be embarrassed by that, but not by what a program inserts for me. That just aggravates me.

So, I wonder, how many know the difference between lose and loose?
Click to expand...
Lead and led are different words. As are plead and pled. I go crazy seeing them misused. I note, however, that usage manuals are dropping them. I have also been frustrated that my journalism and legal writing style manuals diverge. I'm particular about where one puts punctuation and quotation marks. One says "statement", and the other, "statement." I use one or the other specifically, so some sentences are different.
 
NWRatCon said:
Lead and led are different words. As are plead and pled. I go crazy seeing them misused. I note, however, that usage manuals are dropping them. I have also been frustrated that my journalism and legal writing style manuals diverge. I'm particular about where one puts punctuation and quotation marks. One says "statement", and the other, "statement." I use one or the other specifically, so some sentences are different.
Click to expand...
I don't think "pled" is a word. It's pleaded.
 
Loulit01 said:
"The both of you."
Makes me grit my teeth.

"Reached out to..."
It just lazy. How did you reach out? Did you call, write, email, smoke signals? Be specific you lazy so-and-so's.
Click to expand...
"The pair of ya" lol.

In parts of the UK, pronouns used confuse me. Me v us, I.e. " give us a hug" when only you and another person are in the room.
Where did that originate?
 
The joke about Newfoundland is that Canada has two official languages; Newfoundlanders speak neither of them.

You'll routinely hear phrases like "I needs to go to the store" and "he doesn't got no...".

Newfoundland was settled by two English speaking groups - the British and Irish.

I wanted to scream out that historic fact followed by the question "how could you possibly **** up English after speaking it for more than 300 years!?!".

But then I reminded myself that Happy Hour at someone else's house wasn't the right time.
 
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