Pedants' Paradise

[gurnemanz]

The future is by its very nature uncertain and can involve a subtle mixture of intention, desire, planning and inevitability. I taught English as a foreign language to advanced students for quite a few years and I remember it not being easy to explain the difference between the various ways of expressing the future.

We don't have a future tense, as in an inflected verb form like the French: Je partirai (I will leave) and we can choose either the present tense, modal verbs: will, shall, or going to.

All of these four options have corresponding present continuous partners to give at least eight variants:

I leave tomorrow
I'm leaving tomorrow

I shall leave tomorrow
I shall be leaving tomorrow

I will leave tomorrow
I will be leaving tomorrow

I'm going to leave tomorrow
I'm going to be leaving tomorrow

[Pulcinella]

But will you be leaving on purpose (because you can't bear the place any longer) or purposefully (by striding out with giant steps), or both?

I think I prefer the construction 'with a particular purpose in mind' to 'on purpose'. But that might be subtly different, I guess.

[AuntDaisy]

Gurnemanz, what do you think of the mellifluous "I will have been leaving tomorrow"?

[french frank]

It may be tautological but it adds emphasis to an action which may well not be a positive one - yah boo sucks, dares (familiar in the world of children), or in the context of something done out of spite or similar sentiment.

I didn't say it was impossible or incorrect or ungrammatical. I said it would be "very odd". The example you give does, in my view, indeed suggest it would be "very odd". Someone may act in exactly the way you describe but it would be "very odd" for them to pronounce it in public in advance, wouldn't it?.

[french frank]

Gurnemanz, what do you think of the mellifluous "I will have been leaving tomorrow"?

Hmm. How does that fit with 'tomorrow'? The 'I will have been -ing' has a use: e.g. 'By the time I get to Phoenix I will have been travelling for 72 hours'. I suppose it would also as 'By tomorrow I will have been travelling &c &c ..'. I'm not sure about "I will have been leaving tomorrow"

[Serial_Apologist]

"Brand has offered no admittance of guilt" - heard on TV yesterday. Surely that should have been "no admission of guilt"? Then I thought, admission or admittance? - both words stem from admit. But both are indicative of that which can be admitted, so can either one be right in this particular instance?

[french frank]

"Brand has offered no admittance of guilt" - heard on TV yesterday. Surely that should have been "no admission of guilt"? Then I thought, admission or admittance? - both words stem from admit. But both are indicative of that which can be admitted, so can either one be right in this particular instance?

But I think the verb admit has two distinct meanings: to admit to a crime is a different usage from to admit someone to membership, to a meeting or in the phrase No Admittance. Is the first always intransitive, the second transitive? I'm not sure. I feel though that admission can be used in both senses but admittance only in the second.

[Serial_Apologist]

But I think the verb admit has two distinct meanings: to admit to a crime is a different usage from to admit someone to membership, to a meeting or in the phrase No Admittance. Is the first always intransitive, the second transitive? I'm not sure. I feel though that admission can be used in both senses but admittance only in the second.

Yes, that makes sense.

[smittims]

I was perturbed by the phrase 'has offered no admittance of guilt'. That sounds to me like a bending of the situation. It suggests to me that guilt exists but that he refuses to accept it. I know that is what some people think, but in fact he emphatically denied the allegations, which to me is a different matter.

It's a bit like 'answer me yes or no, have you stopped beating your wife?'

[Pulcinella]

Thought for the day number 1.

I'm increasingly seeing an unnecessary duplication of the word 'that' in sentences such as this, from a letter in today's Times:

It is vital that, at a time when we regularly read of schools and other postwar public buildings being closed owing to the use of untested building materials, that the traditional skills and crafts that have been handed down over the centuries should be exploited, not just for today but for the benefit of future generations.

[Pulcinella]

Thought for the day number 2.

If you lived in York, not Trowbridge, you'd know the difference between a gargoyle and a grotesque:

Face off in planning row as builder erects gargoyle councillor (headline in today's Times).

PS: The Indy also calls it a gargoyle, but the Guardian gets it right:

The grotesque – a carving of monstrous features with no functional architectural purpose, as opposed to a gargoyle, which is a statue with a spout to convey water away from the sides of a building – went up about three weeks ago after nearly three years of dispute between Thomas and planning authorities.

[smittims]

Quite right. And in your previous post, the first 'that' is the redundant one, surely.

I expect these people have to write too quickly to allow corrections.

[Pulcinella]

Quite right. And in your previous post, the first 'that' is the redundant one, surely.

I expect these people have to write too quickly to allow corrections.

You'd expect the Letters Editor to do a better job, though.

[french frank]

You'd expect the Letters Editor to do a better job, though.

Yes, if it was a letter sent in by a reader they could have added [sic] after one or the other of the thats.

[oddoneout]

You'd expect the Letters Editor to do a better job, though.

The job's primary purpose these days is, I suspect, to ensure no legal fallout, but I don't believe the letter quoted would ever have been subject to the kind of style micro-editing being suggested here.In any case, a great many of those reading it won't have seen a problem - possibly because they are only skim reading, or because they speak/write in the same way.

I would have omitted the first "that" and also the later "that have been".