steepholm

The kappa likes cucumber with its squid, I believe.

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kalimac.livejournal.com

What really gets me is lines like this headline: "Serena Williams Second Highest-Paid Female Athlete Behind Sharapova" That makes me exclaim: "So who's the first highest behind Sharapova?"

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kalimac.livejournal.com

Actually, the worst use of "surprising" that I've seen was a line in a TV documentary about The Lord of the Rings:
"Aragorn's reluctance to become king is surprising." To which I exclaimed: "Yes! It's surprising to anybody who's read the book!"

Edited Date: 2015-09-14 06:46 pm (UTC)

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"'I wouldn't be king for a hundred pounds,' says Alice." Seems a very sane attitude.

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kalimac.livejournal.com

Alice is Alice. Aragorn is Aragorn. Unlike, as in the movie, he isn't.

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nightspore.livejournal.com

The polar bear example is one of those interesting cause vs. diagnosis issues that I am writing about at tedious length. The question is what "because" means in your proposed revision sentence. If their solitary nature causes surprise at their sociability, then because is right. But if the evidence that their solitary nature comprises of an antisocial tendency is tested by their surprising sociability, then their sociability comes surprisingly, despite evidence to the contrary.

In other words:

As a sentence about cause, their solitary nature would cause us to imagine they're not social.

As a sentence about diagnosis, having diagnosed their solitary nature already and thus having cooperated in spreading their reputation for being solitary, it is surprising that despite this diagnosis they sometimes present what prima facie looks like evidence for an opposite cause, as though willfully contradicting the evidence.

"Because" hooks into how their solitary nature should cause us to respond.
"Despite" hooks into the way their solitary nature should cause them to act, and cause us to diagnosis them based on their usual actions.

Maybe, though, the weakness of the sentence as DA says it ought to be repaired thus: "Polar bears can be surprisingly sociable, despite their solitary reputation." That way the surprise isn't directly linked to their reputation as though the reputation causes the surprise; no, the reputation intensifies the surprise we have already been instructed to feel.

Despite my attempt to be helpful, you may....

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I'm very grateful to you for untangling semantic warp from syntactic weft here. I do think it's quite an interesting example, in fact. I like your proposed sentence--

"Polar bears can be surprisingly sociable, despite their solitary reputation."

--but I think I'd probably rather render it simply:

"Despite their solitary reputation, polar bears can be sociable."

This way I don't refer to surprise, but rather invoke it rhetorically by providing a field of expectation against which the surprising fact can stand as starkly as a bear dropping in the Arctic tundra. I think the fundamental problem with DA's sentence is one of redundancy.

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consonantia.livejournal.com

Hi, this thread is amazing. :D

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At least they appear with but one single reputation bearing bad news on TV, not several, like socialites. Otherwise they might get all mixed up.

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If you need help, so do I. I regularly shout red-pen commentary at my TV set. Most often at poorly scripted commercials (apparently you do not need to be proficient in your target language to write ad copy), but increasingly also at newscasts and documentaries. I try to give it a break when there are interviews; if I'd get upset every time regular people open their mouths, things would get out of hand in no time ...

Lately, I have been watching a bunch of the recent American superhero TV shows (to keep up with what all the kids are talking about). Apparently young TV script writers these days are terribly anxious in regard to when to use the subjective and objective forms of pronouns. It's as if they know there is something about the "him and me"/"he and I" constructions that they should be aware of - something that people often get wrong – but they don't seem to know exactly what it is. What's interesting is that they over-correct, usually settling for subjective forms, "just in case". Especially "Between you and I, ..." makes my brain screech.

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The subjunctive always lends a show a touch of class.

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ethelmay.livejournal.com

That's why people are so apt to use "that" instead of "who" for people these days. (I used to hang out on a teachers' discussion board, and they were constantly saying "I have a student that does so and so.") If you use "who," occasionally you have to know when to use "whom," and everything comes to a screeching halt.

Me*, I use "who" even with animals a lot of the time.

*Idiom! It's an idiom!

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I hadn't thought of that, but I see what you mean. Although, many style guides and pop linguistic publications and bloggers argue that "whom" is archaic these days (which makes me sad, and I can't bring myself to stop using it).

As for "me" in that kind of emphatic use, I always thought of that as a disjunctive, like the French use "moi". I don't have a problem with it like that. Just like "Hi, it's me" sounds perfectly idiomatic and "Hi, it is I" like Count Dracula, making a phone call for the first time. :D

Edited Date: 2015-09-14 11:43 pm (UTC)

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ethelmay.livejournal.com

Jo Walton refuses to use "whom," except possibly for period flavor. (I forget whether she took my advice to make Ethel/Maia use "whom" in the Victorian-era bit of The Just City.)

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Archaism depends on the background against which it's used. I've seen people complain that using "amongst" (as opposed to "among") is archaic and affected, but it's always been part of my habitual speech, and it would be affected for me not to use it.

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Exactly!

My mother tongue is Swedish, and our grammarians and the like love to say that the subjunctive is dead in Swedish, which always makes my father and me look at each other funny because we both use those verb forms habitually in our everyday speech. Grammatical zombies.

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öh...ni tittade pà varandra; rolig? Eller; sàg ni rolig pà varann? (Ursäkta à:na mina, har inte hittat svenska-knappen pà den häringa franska sköteshunden;)
Isn't it rather 'in a funny way' or even 'funnily' -as in: roligt in Swedish which still makes minimal sense (and which again gives reason for dispute for leaving room for discussions on whereabouts the funny itself be placed, then; is it you or is it hanging on in thin air?) while I think, you meant to say something like 'with a funny expression on our faces' (though I'd simply say '...and smile') but maybe you do express humour and otherwise funky stuff differently in Viking Land nowadays, haven't been up there for a while now. Just wandering about...

Edited Date: 2015-09-17 08:30 am (UTC)

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While formally incorrect, it's rather common in colloquial use. I guess I have just become so fully immersed in my second culture that some formal aspects of English have started to wear off.

I dare say no one else had any trouble understanding what I meant, and everyone else was polite enough not to point it out since "funny" is not the topic of discussion in this thread; but perhaps the concept of politeness is different where you live.

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Oh, dear, I had no intention whatsoever of sounding impolite. I found it...funny, rather, as I am Swedish speaking too. Don't think I've ever seen it used that way, though so there's a first time to everything. Also, being German by birth if not nature (I grew up in Stockholm) I know the feeling of an old syntax lying heavily on one's tongue and must have missed its recent renewal in English. All said in the best of moods as I enjoyed this thread but, but, it is not the first time it has occured to me (at being told) how not everyone shares my sense of humour and now I know, then, one can talk about it that way, at least! Oh, and I almost forgot to mention how much I loved your Count Dracula analogy;)

Edited Date: 2015-09-17 12:48 pm (UTC)

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houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com

Hah! I've thought that ever since I first saw the word 'moi', which was in first year French class. No one believed me when I said 'It's me' was fine, it wasn't an objective 'me', it was like the French ... er, what is that word? Anyhow it's not bad grammar, it's phonetic! When it's out there by itself you want a strong sound. Etc.

English teachers wouldn't admit it, and the French teacher said I didn't understand the disjunctive. Sigh.

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One Short Person (kid) here starts every second sentence with: Moi; je... (usually about what he wants or prefers to eat) but since I'm only an imported, wicked stepmother, I am naturally not being listened to at protesting: ...no more cake! (The Swedish expression of literally 'cake on cake' for tautology, although in elder dictionaries such as Dahlin's from 1850, it still means two similar things happening in close proximity to each other; such as 'one pleasant surprise after another' and only later did it become synonymous with tautology).

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Recent rumours about the solitary nature of Mollberg Speak notwithstanding, I feel this thread is for me. Bet you'll get your cooked squid from that tell-tale TV take-away in&on time despite having to wait er...: online in the company of polar bears and vampirical noblemen, like the surprisingly one?:three!-legged elephant leaning (heavily) on its wooden stick, phoning up the police from a phone booth in Africa (as one does; there, when suffering elephantiasis) only to exclaim: ...they made WHAT out of it?! (Copyright Gary Larson from his Drawing Instruction Manual, I think.) I eagerly await my box of commata (or is it comma box, maybe?) for Christmas! See ya at the box office, then.

Edited Date: 2015-09-15 03:27 am (UTC)

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Perhaps I should also send socks for Christmas, then your commas' toes won't succumb to hypothermia, rendering them comatose.

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