'The word pedants' top 10 | It's specific, not Pacific...' blog discussion.

BNT

Having said that, I think people need to get better at differentiating between incorrect English and different English. Dialects and national variations on the language are not incorrect. Bear in mind that there are far more foreigners learning English as a second language than there are native speakers and that will change the language. There's no point pretending that the English are the people who will determine the future of the English language.

John_Pierpoint

There are fewer people studying for their secondary school qualification in English in USA than in China.
As Chinese is a strange language, where it is not what you say but the way that you say it, that gives meaning to the words - then we must be in for some very special changes to the English language.
[First they end up with all our money and now they will be nicking our language. We will be struggling to keep up with our own little jokes, such as "The king who Rained".]

Chop chop 左丽芳

Hit back, make sure your kids all learn Mandarin.

Patr100

I once read that BBC Newsnight Presenter Emily Maltis can speak Mandarin.
I can eat an orange , but I can't speak Mandarin.

Throbbe

"The real problem with pedants of language is that their analysis is invariably wrong or misguided.

On top of which their analysis pales with insignificance compared with the actual complications of language. Things like 'two negatives make a positive' are mind-blowingly trivial - linguistics for 8-year olds - and wrong (given than a 'negative' like 'nothing' is not a negative at all, but a zero quantity).

It's like a person with a passing knowledge in knitting criticizing an aircraft design because they feel the stitching is wrong on the seat covers."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/oct/24/5



I veer from one extreme to the other, getting annoyed at "5 items or less" signs at tills then deliberately mispronouncing things to annoy colleagues, such as Picturesque as picture-skew.

Patr100

Throbbe wrote: »

I veer from one extreme to the other, getting annoyed at "5 items or less" signs at tills then deliberately mispronouncing things to annoy colleagues, such as Picturesque as picture-skew.

Why have you spelt picturesque with a capital P ?
Are you just trying to annoy us?

cabdy

What do people think about supermarkets saying "Better than half price" ? Surely it should be "less than half price"?

Throbbe

Patr100 wrote: »

Why have you spelt picturesque with a capital P ?
Are you just trying to annoy us?

That was just good old fashioned ham fistedness!

Another good reason for not getting involved in grammar debates. Unless your (;)) really sure you are perfect, there's always the chance that you're going to look silly.

Eco_Miser

cabdy wrote: »

What do people think about supermarkets saying "Better than half price"? Surely it should be "less than half price"?

Neither is incorrect, but "better than" also works for "better than half off".

fatal1955

When I was young (OK, that was a long time ago ) the phrase "to beg a question" meant to avoid answering it, whereas nowadays everyone seems to use it as a synonym for "invite a question". When and how did this phrase's meaning get completely inverted?

quoia

fatal1955 wrote: »

When I was young (OK, that was a long time ago ) the phrase "to beg a question" meant to avoid answering it, whereas nowadays everyone seems to use it as a synonym for "invite a question". When and how did this phrase's meaning get completely inverted?

Ah ...Aristotle's PETITIO PRINCIPII

a poor translation into "begs the question"

would have been better translated as "laying claim to the principle"