Pedants' Paradise

[Serial_Apologist]

Hardly anyone in the North speaks of going "up" to London. It's down south, and that settles the matter.

There speaks a true Yorkshireman!

(Now, when I were a lad...)

[vinteuil]

If travelling by rail, the "up" direction is usually towards a large town. In Britain, this often means taking the "up" train to London and the "down" train to get away from it as quickly as possible.

... yes, it was awf'lly baffling in my youth.

I took the 'up' train from Wiltshire to London, and the 'down' train going back home.

But when it came to university days: well, clearly one went 'up' to Oxford (and might possibly be sent 'down' therefrom).

So I took the 'up' train to Didcot - easy.

But from Didcot? Well, clearly a 'down' train was required to take me 'up' to university.

I think the resulting trauma had a large part to play in the nondescript degree I finally attained....




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[Serial_Apologist]

... yes, it was awf'lly baffling in my youth. I took the 'up' train from Wiltshire to London, and the 'down' train going back home.

But when it came to university days: well, clearly one went 'up' to Oxford (and might possibly be sent 'down' therefrom).

So I took the 'up' train to Didcot - easy.



But from Didcot? Well, clearly a 'down' train was required to take me 'up' to university.

I think the resulting trauma had a large part to play in the nondescript degree I finally attained....




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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There speaks a true Yorkshireman!

(Now, when I were a lad...)

Don't insult a displaced Lancastrian.

[Don Petter]

This might be of interest:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/steven-pinker-10-grammar-rules-break

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Very interesting. I love the G.W.Bush reference.

[Pabmusic]

This might be of interest:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...ar-rules-break

Wonderful! I'll order the book right away. But the interesting thing is that Steve Pinker isn't saying anything new - all his examples and arguments have been around for years - it's rather that we all tend to have a default regression to whatever an authority figure once told us (and, come to think of it, it was often a teacher).

He uses some terminology I'm unfamiliar with, such as restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, instead of defining and non-defining ones, but that's no great problem.

Incidentally, Pinker argues that music is not an evolutionary adaptation, but a spandrel - a pleasurable by-product of another adaptation, namely language. Reading is also a spandrel, a by-product of language that simply couldn’t have been the direct object of selection. Music is therefore "auditory cheesecake".

[ardcarp]

Great article Don. As Pinker says, much of the pedantry peddled by schoolmasters we all remember arises from a confusion of Latin grammar with English grammar.
There are a few things which Pimker allows that still rankle with me though. Using 'very unique' or quite unique' is a logical nonsense. And one thing (not mentioned, I think) that [not which] really gets my goat is using the word 'them' instead of 'those' for the emphatic; e.g. child pointing to assorted cakes saying, "I'll have one of them." Or worse still, "I'll have one of them cakes." Why does it matter, even though the meaning is perfectly clear? 'Cos I'm an unreconstructed pedant, obviously.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Changing the subject a little, the term "nasal" for certain vowel sounds, especially in French (e.g. un, on, fin) strikes me as wrong and misleading. These are the only vowel sounds that are not nasal, for in order to produce them the nose is blocked off temporarily. For all other vowel sounds, the nose is free and helps to deliver the sound. Perhaps the correct term would be 'unnasal".

Incidentally, a significant percentage of people in the Scarborough/Bridlington area speak in this "unnasal" way indiscriminately, and is quite wearing to listen to.

[french frank]

Changing the subject a little, the term "nasal" for certain vowel sounds, especially in French (e.g. un, on, fin) strikes me as wrong and misleading. These are the only vowel sounds that are not nasal, for in order to produce them the nose is blocked off temporarily. For all other vowel sounds, the nose is free and helps to deliver the sound. Perhaps the correct term would be 'unnasal".

N and m are 'nasal' consonants (try saying the 'nnn' sound, rather than en) because the place where the sound is made involves the nose. The point about whether the air passes freely or is stopped isn't what constitutes a nasal consonant.

PS I would talk about a 'nasalised vowel' rather than a nasal vowel.

[Bryn]

... PS I would talk about a 'nasalised vowel' rather than a nasal vowel.

Well you would, wouldn't you, being such a Gallophile. However, "nasalized appears to be accepted as the preferred spelling.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

N and m are 'nasal' consonants (try saying the 'nnn' sound, rather than en) because the place where the sound is made involves the nose. The point about whether the air passes freely or is stopped isn't what constitutes a nasal consonant.

PS I would talk about a 'nasalised vowel' rather than a nasal vowel.

I bow to your vastly superior linguistic knowledge.

[french frank]

Well you would, wouldn't you, being such a Gallophile. However, "nasalized appears to be accepted as the preferred spelling.

In speech I don't insist on either spelling. In writing I prefer 'nasalised'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Well you would, wouldn't you, being such a Gallophile. However, "nasalized appears to be accepted as the preferred spelling.

By the Greek-obsessed OED maybe, but that pre-dates even Latin (which shuns the letter "Z").

[french frank]

By the Greek-obsessed OED maybe, but that pre-dates even Latin (which shuns the letter "Z").

Apart from which, nasalis is a Late Latin formation from Latin nasum. The OED's earliest example of 'nasalize' - 1841 - is in fact nasalise.

1841 E. Rigby Resid. Shores Baltic I. xii. 254 Unter Offizier, a name adapted and nasalised in the Russian service.

The earliest example of 'nasalize' is 1887.

Ooh, and earliest example of 'nasalized' is

1817 Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc. (1818) 1 257 In a Phonological Alphabet, a sign or mark under each nasalised vowel, will be sufficient to represent these modifications of sound.

Still, we don't split infinitives, either, do we? Or put prepositions at the end of the sentence?