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Silvance5
Groupie
United States
Joined 5495 days ago
86 posts - 118 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, French
| Message 17 of 61 06 May 2010 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
There's one thing that annoys me greatly: when a speaker starts a sentence with a hanging adverb. For example:
"Hopefully, he'll go to the store."
"Hopefully" is an adverb and MUST modify something. The literal equivalent to this sentence is:
"He will go to the store full of hope."
Which makes little sense unless he's hoping they have a particular item.
The correct way to write this sentence is:
"I am hopeful that he will go to the store."
I cannot recall the last time I heard this used however...
Another thing that annoys me, and is simply mistaken vocabulary, is when a teacher, or anyone for that matter, calls the brown wooden thing you give speeches at a "podium." You stand on a podium, you don't stand at a podium. The correct term is a "lectern," and it annoys me to no end when it's called a "podium." Those are just pet peeves I guess.
Also, I think someone already pointed this out, but comparisons are often spoken or written incorrectly as well.
"He plays baseball better than me."
It should of course be:
"He plays baseball better than I(do)"
3 persons have voted this message useful
| tracker465
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5353 days ago
355 posts - 496 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch
| Message 18 of 61 07 May 2010 at 7:21am | IP Logged |
Chung wrote:
robsolete wrote:
I'm reticent to call a lot of these "mistakes." They're really just natural changes to the language over time, and most of them rather sensible changes.
1) "I'm good" vs. "I'm well." The implied word that makes "I'm well" correct is *doing*, as in "I'm doing well," thus making the adverb necessary. But since we use "I'm good" to describe ourselves (ourself being a noun) and not necessarily our doings, I think it's more intuitive to use the adjective form. Thus the shift.
2) "quickly" is definitely correct here. But, well, people are lazy in common speech so it gets shortened.
3) "grey" and "gray" is really just a matter of a person's habit and opinion--basically you'll use whatever your first grade teacher taught you.
4) "who" vs "whom" is a really needless complication of a simple concept, and I hope I live to see the day that the MLA banishes "whom" for good. |
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Not I! I still make an active distinction between who and whom.
robsolete wrote:
| 5) Yay civil rights movement! If you read older literature, the male pronoun is usually assumed unless the task at hand is decidedly "women's work." The increasing use of "their" is just a further, if clunky, development of English towards gender neutrality. It would be nice if we could come up with another word as to avoid confusion with the plural possessive, but it's stuck as it is, so we'll have to make do. But "his or her" is just too bulky (and what about the transfolk?), and the assumed masculine gender just sounds outdated. You could say "one's" but that's kind of awkward and stuffy. So "their"! |
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I've actually never found "his or her", "(s)he" to be bulky. Using "they" and "their" (or even forms such as "themself") as gender neutral singular pronouns seems even more odd to me. Although I am quite accustomed to what is done in Estonian or Hungarian where one pronoun is used for "he/she/it" and another for "they". |
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I second both of these.
When I am writing, I usually use "one" such as "blah blah, one notices that..." I realize that others do not like this sort of construction, though to me it seems a bit more natural, just like I can use "man" in German for a gender neutral.
1 person has voted this message useful
| abr
Groupie
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5481 days ago
40 posts - 62 votes
Speaks: Russian*
Studies: English, Spanish
| Message 19 of 61 07 May 2010 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
There is a very interesting book on that topic - "Literally, the best language book ever" by Paul Yeager
Edited by abr on 07 May 2010 at 8:48am
1 person has voted this message useful
| egill
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5697 days ago
418 posts - 791 votes
Speaks: Mandarin, English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch
| Message 20 of 61 07 May 2010 at 9:48am | IP Logged |
Silvance5 wrote:
There's one thing that annoys me greatly: when a speaker starts a
sentence with a hanging adverb. For example:
"Hopefully, he'll go to the store."
"Hopefully" is an adverb and MUST modify something. The literal equivalent to this
sentence is:
"He will go to the store full of hope."
Which makes little sense unless he's hoping they have a particular item.
The correct way to write this sentence is:
"I am hopeful that he will go to the store."
I cannot recall the last time I heard this used however...
Another thing that annoys me, and is simply mistaken vocabulary, is when a teacher, or
anyone for that matter, calls the brown wooden thing you give speeches at a "podium."
You stand on a podium, you don't stand at a podium. The correct term is a "lectern,"
and it annoys me to no end when it's called a "podium." Those are just pet peeves I
guess.
Also, I think someone already pointed this out, but comparisons are often spoken or
written incorrectly as well.
"He plays baseball better than me."
It should of course be:
"He plays baseball better than I(do)" |
|
|
Are you against all hanging adverbs? Or just sentential ones like hopefully? I
think there are two issues at hand here and I'm curious as to which one you actually
object to.
1. If it's just the former, then you would disallow something like:
Joyously, he exclaimed: "I can't believe it's not butter!"
Which makes perfect sense rephrased as "He exclaimed full of joy (or joyously): ..."
2. If it's the latter, you object to those adverbs that modify the whole sentence like:
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
or
Clearly, we need more sporks.
(which clearly doesn't mean "We need full of clarity more sporks")
3. Or do you simply just dislike hopefully because it hasn't been used in this
way as long as other sentence modifying adverbs? e.g. certainly, assuredly,
indubitably, etc.
Personally, as you may have guessed I don't have a problem with any of those usages.
The examples, and others like it, sound perfectly natural to my ear and serve a
practical communicative purpose. To say that these sentences are incorrect is a little
strong. If it's just hopefully that annoys you, then that's fine—but know that
at best it's a purely lexical objection and has nothing to do with grammar, syntax, and
the like.
7 persons have voted this message useful
| Silvance5
Groupie
United States
Joined 5495 days ago
86 posts - 118 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, French
| Message 21 of 61 07 May 2010 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
egill wrote:
Silvance5 wrote:
There's one thing that annoys me greatly: when a speaker starts a
sentence with a hanging adverb. For example:
"Hopefully, he'll go to the store."
"Hopefully" is an adverb and MUST modify something. The literal equivalent to this
sentence is:
"He will go to the store full of hope."
Which makes little sense unless he's hoping they have a particular item.
The correct way to write this sentence is:
"I am hopeful that he will go to the store."
I cannot recall the last time I heard this used however...
Another thing that annoys me, and is simply mistaken vocabulary, is when a teacher, or
anyone for that matter, calls the brown wooden thing you give speeches at a "podium."
You stand on a podium, you don't stand at a podium. The correct term is a "lectern,"
and it annoys me to no end when it's called a "podium." Those are just pet peeves I
guess.
Also, I think someone already pointed this out, but comparisons are often spoken or
written incorrectly as well.
"He plays baseball better than me."
It should of course be:
"He plays baseball better than I(do)" |
|
|
Are you against all hanging adverbs? Or just sentential ones like hopefully? I
think there are two issues at hand here and I'm curious as to which one you actually
object to.
1. If it's just the former, then you would disallow something like:
Joyously, he exclaimed: "I can't believe it's not butter!"
Which makes perfect sense rephrased as "He exclaimed full of joy (or joyously): ..."
2. If it's the latter, you object to those adverbs that modify the whole sentence like:
Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
or
Clearly, we need more sporks.
(which clearly doesn't mean "We need full of clarity more sporks")
3. Or do you simply just dislike hopefully because it hasn't been used in this
way as long as other sentence modifying adverbs? e.g. certainly, assuredly,
indubitably, etc.
Personally, as you may have guessed I don't have a problem with any of those usages.
The examples, and others like it, sound perfectly natural to my ear and serve a
practical communicative purpose. To say that these sentences are incorrect is a little
strong. If it's just hopefully that annoys you, then that's fine—but know that
at best it's a purely lexical objection and has nothing to do with grammar, syntax, and
the like. |
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I don't have a problem with hanging adverbs that make sense. I.E. "Carefully, he opened the door." It's just the ones like my example that are obviously incorrect.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Declan1991
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 6440 days ago
233 posts - 359 votes
Speaks: English*, German, Irish, French
| Message 22 of 61 07 May 2010 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
Silvance5 wrote:
The correct way to write this sentence is:
It should of course be: |
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It comes down to the same question always, whether grammar describes the language spoken (descriptive linguistics) or says how it should be spoken (prescriptive linguistics). I believe the former, at least for informal communication. For formal writing especially, I normally adhere to the common prescriptions, but I must say complaints about disjunctive adverbs annoy me. They are attested for over 80 years as I recall!
6 persons have voted this message useful
| Silvance5
Groupie
United States
Joined 5495 days ago
86 posts - 118 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, French
| Message 23 of 61 07 May 2010 at 7:42pm | IP Logged |
Declan1991 wrote:
Silvance5 wrote:
The correct way to write this sentence is:
It should of course be: |
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It comes down to the same question always, whether grammar describes the language spoken (descriptive linguistics) or says how it should be spoken (prescriptive linguistics). I believe the former, at least for informal communication. For formal writing especially, I normally adhere to the common prescriptions, but I must say complaints about disjunctive adverbs annoy me. They are attested for over 80 years as I recall! |
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The entire argument may be archaic, but I was taught in all my classes to not use hanging adverbs. Some of my teachers were incredibly anal about it, counting off entire letter grades from assignments if you used a hanging adverb.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Splog
Diglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
anthonylauder.c
Joined 5670 days ago
1062 posts - 3263 votes
Speaks: English*, Czech
Studies: Mandarin
| Message 24 of 61 07 May 2010 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
Declan1991 wrote:
| It comes down to the same question always, whether grammar describes the language spoken (descriptive linguistics) or says how it should be spoken (prescriptive linguistics). I believe the former, at least for informal communication. For formal writing especially, I normally adhere to the common prescriptions, but I must say complaints about disjunctive adverbs annoy me. They are attested for over 80 years as I recall! |
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In recent years, many children (and some adults) in the UK have added the word "Innit" to a sentence as (I believe) a spoken form of exclamation mark. How many people would have to do this, and for how long, for you to accept it as grammatically correct? For me, accepting all loose slang as "valid" leads to the spread of blunders such as "could care less" which is now prevalent in the US. That spread would have been halted if people had been chastised and corrected.
1 person has voted this message useful
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