Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

So at what point do you throw out the grammar rule book entirely?

There's no grammar rule book in the sense that you seem to think.

The rules of grammar are no more than a codification of how the language is actually used.

The rule you've just invented, which proscribes two unrelated verbs with no punctuation mark or noun between them, was never obeyed by the verbs come and go, as in the examples above. It's quite possible that the American examplepreserves an older BE usage, as is so often the case.

[MrGongGong]

My daughter, who is now at University, was in the first tranche of students who did lituracy (sic) at primery skool
the thing she sometimes struggles with as an undergraduate is writing , knowing the grammar etc isn't a problem
but the whole learning English like this has been for her and her peers a bit of a disaster
the same goes for "ICT" ........

[jean]

That's because what she needs is a course in Rhetoric, which was been missing from education about language for far too long in favour of a sterile clause analysis whose palpable uselessness led to its being thrown out without anything useful being brought in to replace it.

Academic linguists have been exploring what they call Discourse Analysis for twwenty years at least now, and it's about time it filtered through to schools.

If my generation of students coped so much better with writing, I'm convinced it was because we read so much more than anyone does now, and absorbed good practice without so much need for explicit teaching.

[french frank]

It seems we may both be wrong. I've tried three sources, and all give Ralph as Old Norse, from Raðulfr, or Old English from Rædwulf, both meaning 'wolf counsel'!

Yes, the original source is Old Norse, but I think the modern forms are from the Latinised version via French. It would be interesting to check the history of 'Radolphus' and 'Ralph', and the dates at which those forms first appeared. The 'ph' spelling clearly doesn't come from Old Norse.

Many Germanic (and Celtic) names were Latinised (probably when they came to be written down in Latin documents) and were then adopted in the Latin form. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the Germanic/Norse influences took over from the Roman, but Latin continued to be the main written language. Carolus > Charles, Henricus > Henry, Ricardus > Richard, Ludovicus > Louis, Lewis - all Latinised German names, where the Latin form is not found among Romans.

[Pabmusic]

...The rules of grammar are no more than a codification of how the language is actually used...

Although my sympathies are firmly with your main point, there are rules of grammar, without which English doesn't work well. They are not the 'rules' that most people quote - most of those are artificial - but they do exist. Most are to do with syntax, because English is so very reliant on correct positioning of words, as we have abandoned different word endings almost entirely (look what fuss 'whom' can cause!). "The boy hits the girl" means something very different from "the girl hits the boy" and the only way you can make the meaning clear is to have subject and verb (the boy hits) before the object (the girl). This is more than a codification of a convention - the language has to be used that way if it is to make sense. There are quite a few rules like this, but native English speakers don't usually think of them as rules, because they seem so natural.

[Pabmusic]

Yes, the original source is Old Norse, but I think the modern forms are from the Latinised version via French. It would be interesting to check the history of 'Radolphus' and 'Ralph', and the dates at which those forms first appeared. The 'ph' spelling clearly doesn't come from Old Norse.

Many Germanic (and Celtic) names were Latinised (probably when they came to be written down in Latin documents) and were then adopted in the Latin form. In the earlier part of the Middle Ages, the Germanic/Norse influences took over from the Roman, but Latin continued to be the main written language. Carolus > Charles, Henricus > Henry, Ricardus > Richard - all Latinised German names, where the Latin form is not found among Romans.

Yes, I agree; very interesting. Of course, variant pronunciations like RVW's 'Rafe' will often be out of personal taste or family tradition, anyway.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I've never been in tune with grammar anarchists.

But seriously, Jean, your own written English is impeccable.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

All the Ralphs I know or have known (and that's quite a few) sound the "l". Could this be a north-south divide?

Or is it generational? The changeover sometime in the thirty years between Vaughan Williams and Richardson?

[amateur51]

Or is it generational? The changeover sometime in the thirty years between Vaughan Williams and Richardson?

But what about Ralph Fiennes and Ralph Little?

http://api.ning.com/files/jS20hb5V3T...es_6182671.jpg ===> Rafe

http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/t...lph_rf_150.jpg ===> Ralph

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Good point, ammie: biggered if I know!

[Pabmusic]

Good point, ammie: biggered if I know!

[sings]

You say eether and I say eyether,
You say neether and I say nyther,
Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let's call the whole thing off!
You like potato and I like potahto,
You like tomato and I like tomahto,
Potato, potahto, tomato, tomahto!
Let's call the whole thing off!
But oh! If we call the whole thing off,
Then we must part.
And oh! If we ever part,
Then that might break my heart!

[oh! it's all getting too intense for me!]

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

[oh! it's all getting too intense for me!]

[amateur51]

Good point, ammie: biggered if I know!

S'ok fhg last time I saw french frank's Redacting Tuk-Tuk it was up on bricks and three lads were bowling the wheels downhill (Bristol's full of 'em!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

S'ok fhg last time I saw french frank's Redacting Tuk-Tuk it was up on bricks and three lads were bowling the wheels downhill (Bristol's full of 'em!)

Do we have an emoticon for "I didn't understand a word of that?" (The "doh" one was removed some time ago.)

[vinteuil]

All the Ralphs I know or have known (and that's quite a few) sound the "l". Could this be a north-south divide?

i think it's a clarss thing rather than a regional divide...