Pedants' Paradise

[Pabmusic]

So often "an idiom" is used as an excuse for bad English.

[Pabmusic]

I think it is a different and simpler confusion, between the (usually incorrect, but possible) If it wouldn't have rained, we wouldn't have got wet and If it hadn't rained, we wouldn't have got wet. I hear it a lot.

I agree with you that "I'd have liked to have been there, but..." has more 'haves' than are strictly necessary, but I don't agree about which one is the interloper. It is perfectly possibe to write "I'd have liked to be there, but..." when you're thinking about your feelings then about what you did or didn't do at the time.

Complicated, isn't it? No wonder people get confused.

[Serial_Apologist]

Complicated, isn't it? No wonder people get confused.

Yes, and, back in the 1950s, my English language teacher always insisted, "Never use the words 'get', 'got', 'nice' and 'thing' in your writings".

One thing (ahem) he never made clear was when the possessive use of apostrophe s was permitted, following noun or name endings with "s". I'd be grateful indeed for some guidance on this. E.g. "Bernard Stevens' Mass was composed while he was still a student"; or, "Bernard Stevens's Mass was.. " etc.

S-A

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Complicated, isn't it? No wonder people get confused.

There are those who like it to be complicated, so that they can show their superior linguistic knowledge. Language is a primary form of communication. It should be clear and concise.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

One thing (ahem) he never made clear was when the possessive use of apostrophe s was permitted, following noun or name endings with "s". I'd be grateful indeed for some guidance on this. E.g. "Bernard Stevens' Mass was composed while he was still a student"; or, "Bernard Stevens's Mass was.. " etc.
S-A

I think either is acceptable, S_A; I prefer "Sibelius' Symphonies" to "Sibelius's Symphonies" because the latter looks to me somewhat Gollumish ("Sibeliuseses Esymphonieses, nasty little hobitses!").

[Pabmusic]

Yes, and, back in the 1950s, my English language teacher always insisted, "Never use the words 'get', 'got', 'nice' and 'thing' in your writings".

One thing (ahem) he never made clear was when the possessive use of apostrophe s was permitted, following noun or name endings with "s". I'd be grateful indeed for some guidance on this. E.g. "Bernard Stevens' Mass was composed while he was still a student"; or, "Bernard Stevens's Mass was.. " etc.

S-A

Well, here's my twopenny's worth. It all depends on how you expect it to be pronounced. 'Bernard Stevens's Mass' would be 'Ste-ven-ses'. 'Bernard Stevens' Mass' would be 'Ste-vens'. It's best noticed with constructions like The Princess of Wales's Own Royal Regiment - definitely 'Wales-es'. Wales' would be jumped upon.

[Did Bernard Stevens set the Mass? I've heard his cello concerto, which (I think) was enjoyable.]

[jean]

... "I'd have liked to have been there, but..." and "I'd have been happy to have done it yesterday"...

The double perfect in your examples here has a very long history, and was excoriated by Fowler in The King's English (1908):

THE PERFECT INFINITIVE

THIS has its right and its wrong uses. The right are obvious, and can be left alone. Even of the wrong some are serviceable, if not strictly logical. I hoped to have succeeded, for instance, means I hoped to succeed, but I did not succeed, and has the advantage of it in brevity; it is an idiom that it would be a pity to sacrifice on the altar of Reason. So:


Philosophy began to congratulate herself upon such a proselyte from the world of business, and hoped to have extended her power under the auspices of such a leader.—Burke.

And here he cannot forbear observing, that it was the duty of that publisher to have rebutted a statement which he knew to be a calumny.—Borrow.

I was going to have asked, when...—Sladen.


But other perfects, while they are still more illogical than these, differ as little in meaning from the present as the deposuisse, dear to the hearts of elegiac writers ancient and modern, differs from deponere. And whereas there is at least metre, and very useful metre, in deposuisse, there is in our corresponding perfect infinitive neither rhyme nor reason. Thus,

With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfield.—Thackeray.

To have taken means simply to take; the implication of nonfulfilment that justified the perfects above is here needless, being already given in I should have liked; and the doubled have is ugly in sound. Similar are


If my point had not been this, I should not have endeavoured to have shown the connexion.—Times.

The author can only wish it had been her province to have raised plants of nobler growth.—S. Ferrier.

Had you given your advice in any determined or positive manner, I had been ready to have been concluded by it.—Richardson.

Jim Scudamore would have been the first man to have acknowledged the anomaly.—Crockett.

Though certainly before she commenced her mystic charms she would have liked to have known who he was.—Beaconsfield.

Peggy would have liked to have shown her turban and bird of paradise at the ball.—Thackeray.

It might have been thought to be a question of bare alternatives, and to have been susceptible of no compromise.—Bagehot.


The less excusable that Bagehot has started with the correct to be...



It has a particular resonance with me as I had an argument stretching over months on another board with someone who disagreed with Fowler that the perfect infinitive was unnecessary in cases such as these, but claimed that, on the contrary, if Thackeray had written With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to take a stroll in the hayfield he would have meant something substantially and identifiably different from what he meant when he actually wrote With whom on those golden summer evenings I should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfield.

But he could never explain what the difference was.

Do any of the uberpedants here have any ideas?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

There are those who like it to be complicated, so that they can show their superior linguistic knowledge. Language is a primary form of communication. It should be clear and concise.

Well, yes; but "clear and concise" to whom? If I'm talking to an eight-year old about why I like Beethoven's Music, I will use different language from that with which I would talk to a forty-year old. And how I spoke to the forty-year old would depend on whether they had any knowledge of Schenkerian analysis. Some "complicated" language is essential to discuss some ideas adequately; it is unreasonable to expect specialist experts to discuss these ideas in any other way - their "complicated" language is "clear and concise" - to them!

[Pabmusic]

There are those who like it to be complicated, so that they can show their superior linguistic knowledge. Language is a primary form of communication. It should be clear and concise.

The fist rule of all writing is clarity. As to conciseness - of course I agree, but many imitators of Henry James, James Joyce or William Faulkner might disagree.

[vinteuil]

The first rule of all writing is clarity. As to conciseness - of course I agree, but many imitators of Henry James, James Joyce or William Faulkner might disagree.

... well, I'm not even sure about your first 'rule'. One of the reasons Heidegger's prose is so impenetrable is precisely (precisely! ) because he wants to draw attention to the difficulty of language as a means of communication - language is not a transparent fluid; it contains its own clots and turbidities which are part of our thinking processes as well as an element in the means by which we communicate.

And the opacities of the prose of a Carlyle - Meredith - Ruskin - Henry James are part of the experience of reading and comprehending: as is the evanescent shimmering of a Mallarmé - the serpentine coils of Proust - the occluded violence of Bloy or Céline...

[Pabmusic]

... well, I'm not even sure about your first 'rule'. One of the reasons Heidegger's prose is so impenetrable is precisely (precisely! ) because he wants to draw attention to the difficulty of language as a means of communication...

I don't deny any of this, and I admit I am guilty of assuming we were talking about our own - and other people's - ephemeral prose. Nevertheless, conciseness and clarity must be the aim for everyday written communication, as communication, surely?

[Serial_Apologist]

... well, I'm not even sure about your first 'rule'. One of the reasons Heidegger's prose is so impenetrable is precisely (precisely! ) because he wants to draw attention to the difficulty of language as a means of communication - language is not a transparent fluid; it contains its own clots and turbidities which are part of our thinking processes as well as an element in the means by which we communicate.

And the opacities of the prose of a Carlyle - Meredith - Ruskin - Henry James are part of the experience of reading and comprehending: as is the evanescent shimmering of a Mallarmé - the serpentine coils of Proust - the occluded violence of Bloy or Céline...

And yet, the Christian fundamentalists go on insisting that, "In the beginning was the word". If God does exist, as Alan Watts pointed out in "The Way of Zen" and other books, it is doubtful whether he, she or it would proceed in such a cumbersome fashion. But maybe this is for another topic...

[Segilla]

I have just had to cancel a proposed deal. In my letter I wrote:-

'I apologise for the inconvenience ... .' as it would not seem to me to be a proper apology had I said
'... any inconvenience ...'
or
'... if I have caused any ... '

These ifs and anys are commonplace in newspaper apologies accompanying recalls for faulty equipment, for example, and have become widespread. If an apology is owed, don't qualify it!

However, in these blame and claim days it may be that caution is necessary.

How do others feel about this?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

And yet, the Christian fundamentalists go on insisting that, "In the beginning was the word". If God does exist, as Alan Watts pointed out in "The Way of Zen" and other books, it is doubtful whether he, she or it would proceed in such a cumbersome fashion. But maybe this is for another topic...

Christian fundamentalism as we know it is a relatively modern phenomenon. In the middle ages, writers like St Augustine did not not take many of the Old Testament stories literally. The human race seems to have unmatured since then.

[vinteuil]

Christian fundamentalism as we know it is a relatively modern phenomenon. In the middle ages, writers like St Augustine did not not take many of the Old Testament stories literally. The human race seems to have unmatured since then.

While I agree with Alpensinfonie here - as this is the Pedants' Corner - I wd point out that St Augustine [born 13 November 354; died 28 August 430] was not writing in "the middle ages"...