Pedants' Paradise

[jean]

But I didn't say it was!

[french frank]

But I didn't say it was!

I didn't think either were 'put-downs', merely a suggestion that in different parts of the country people's linguistic usage varied.

I shall move this discussion to the Pedantorium.

[jean]

...Oddly, people don't seem to have the same problem with right, which is also both adjective and adverb.

Do you say he pronounced it rightly?

If not, why not?

[Don Petter]

I shall move this discussion to the Pedantorium.

In case you didn't know, here is a picture of ff and the Pedantorium.

http://cdn2-www.webecoist.momtastic.com/assets/uploads/2013/06/Edible-Insects-Terrarium-1.jpg

(There is currently a heated discussion about included angles.)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Do you say he pronounced it rightly?

If not, why not?

"He pronounced it right" does sound slightly wrong - hence I would say "He pronounced it correctly".

[jean]

That's cheating.

[french frank]

Do you say he pronounced it rightly?

If not, why not?

I would probably not say 'He pronounced that right' either. I would use 'correctly' or 'accurately'. I would unconsciously (I think) avoid using 'right'.

Anyway, on the other hand, I thought Quinion inclined towards the prescriptive, in talking of 'rules'. I preferred his conclusion: "To sum all this up, in the phrase “spelling his name wrong”, wrong is idiomatically correct but wrongly is acceptable, though formal and less common." NOT a 'hypercorrection', or in any way 'incorrect'.

My much maligned new Fowler has an article more to my taste, saying that, whereas in some contexts it can sound 'ponderous' (e.g. 'we guessed wrong(ly)'), 'wrongly' is appropriate in the more general meaning of 'in error' or NB 'in the wrong way'; and obligatory when it precedes the verb. I find myself in agreement with these general principles.

In the original instance, my feeling is that the inaccurate pronunciation (hapax legonmenon) had as much to do with the wish to reply quickly as inaccurate knowledge.

Quinion also wrote: "The quick and easy rule is that wrongly appears before the verb being modified (“the earlier case was wrongly decided”) and wrong after the verb (“he answered the question wrong”). Like most such rules, it’s not even half the story. Style guides and grammars for learners try to give more complete guidance, variously stating that, if the situation is formal, wrongly may be the better choice in either position'. I reserve the right to use language 'formally' without being considered 'hypercorrect'.

[Pulcinella]

Eliza Doolittle: Well, if I was doing it proper, what was you sniggering at? Have I said anything I oughtn't?

[french frank]

Eliza Doolittle: Well, if I was doing it proper, what was you sniggering at? Have I said anything I oughtn't?

She should, correctly, have said: "At what was you sniggering."

[Pabmusic]

She should, correctly, have said: "At what was you sniggering."

I know you're joking...

(aren't you?)

[Serial_Apologist]

Do you say he pronounced it rightly?

If not, why not?

My Home Counties Prep school English Language teacher would certainly not have liked rightly or wrongly; he would have insisted on correctly and incorrectly, in writing. I well remember his fountain pen markings in red ink! We're talking 1955 - 1959.

[jean]

He was cheating too then, in avoiding the non-existent problem.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . Style guides and grammars for learners try to give more complete guidance . . .

Someone's vulgar and ignorant error quoted by French Frank there! It is impossible to say "more complete". Completeness is absolute. There is no scale of completeness; it is not a gradable adjective. One may say either "complete" or "more nearly complete". If the guidance is "nearly complete" it is incomplete, not complete. INcompleteness IS gradable.

[french frank]

I know you're joking...

(aren't you?)

If I'd said, "At what was you sniggering at?" would that have helped?

[french frank]

Someone's vulgar and ignorant error quoted by French Frank there! It is impossible to say "more complete". Completeness is absolute. There is no scale of completeness; it is not a gradable adjective. One may say either "complete" or "more nearly complete". If the guidance is "nearly complete" it is incomplete, not complete. INcompleteness IS gradable.

Probably, though if one takes 'complete' in the sense of 'embracing all the requisite details' you can have further details which are not requisite, allowing for a superabundance. You can complete a task while still leaving more that could be done. There are contexts, albeit not in Logic or Mathematics, which imply that more could be added.

(Com)plere may be to fill up, yet even when the glass is 'full' we allow a little leeway so that our wine does not slop over on to the carpet.