Pedants' Paradise

[Lat-Literal]

To be fair, I suppose the difficult ones for me would be - cliche which I have used as an adjective, disinterested and enervate but they aren't words I ever use, the first because I don't like it and the second because I just don't, enormity which was a surprise and flounder, hone and proscribe which have always raised questions in my mind so I avoid them.

[jean]

Surely - "I didn't mean literally for you to run over here" or "I didn't mean for you literally to run over here?"

No. The proscription of the 'split infinitive' was based on the fact that Latin infinitives can't be split. There's no place for it in English.

Even Fowler agrees.

[Lat-Literal]

No. The proscription of the 'split infinitive' was based on the fact that Latin infinitives can't be split. There's no place for it in English.

Even Fowler agrees.

That addresses the split infinitive, then, but should "literally" be attached to the action or the intention in the meaning?

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not sure this is the ideal place for this list

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12026653/The-51-most-commonly-misused-words-and-phrases-do-you-get-these-wrong.html

as it's not really a question of pedantry, but rather of just using words correctly.

However, I can't think of a better thread for it.

I don't think I have a problem with any of the list, save that it had never really dawned on me that 'torturous' is a word in its own right (I'd always assumed it was created by people who can't say 'tortuous' properly...)

Must admit, I was caught out on some of those listed.

For instance, I daren't count the number of times I've bestowed "fulsome praise" on someone's effort - which is described as being wrong.

But are the words instanced all wrongly applied as Prof Pinker alleges? The homogeneous/homogenous question was considered on this forum some while back, and, iirc, unlike Prof. Pinker our pedants considered both to be correct as alternatives for the same thing.

When dealing with ironic and ironical, the main problem for me consists in not knowing when paradoxical would be a more appropriate word.

[Lat-Literal]

Must admit, I was caught out on some of those listed.

For instance, I daren't count the number of times I've bestowed "fulsome praise" on someone's effort - which is described as being wrong.

But are the words instanced all wrongly applied as Prof Pinker alleges? The homogeneous/homogenous question was considered on this forum some while back, and, iirc, unlike Prof. Pinker our pedants considered both to be correct as alternatives for the same thing.

When dealing with ironic and ironical, the main problem for me consists in not knowing when paradoxical would be a more appropriate word.

Ironical and paradoxical are interesting because they show me how, rightly or wrongly, I have a mixture of precision and feeling in sound. Paradox - yes, I know that one.
Irony has more feeling to it and is less scientifically concrete, however sharply it might be defined. It is surely a stance or a circumstance with an element of theatricality.
My bigger problem would be on where to use ironic and where to use ironical. Other words are similar - if in doubt I don't use "al" and I am probably wrong not doing so.
Actually it is "al" - categorical, stoical, etc but "ironical" feels a bit odd - clumsy or outmoded or something - and I am not sure why. "Categorical" can feel like that too.

[oddoneout]

My old Chambers has staunch and stanch as interchangeable, and I think if I saw the without 'u' version I would assume it was a mistake.
How many of you use the 'correct' version of #45? I didn't even know about torturous so haven't ever used it - it evidently didn't arise during my grammar school time 50 years ago.
I see that at the bottom of that Torygraph link the Oxford Dictionary has 'Their(singular)' as a candidate for Word of the Year.....

[gurnemanz]

I'm not sure this is the ideal place for this list

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/12026653/The-51-most-commonly-misused-words-and-phrases-do-you-get-these-wrong.html

as it's not really a question of pedantry, but rather of just using words correctly.

However, I can't think of a better thread for it.

I don't think I have a problem with any of the list, save that it had never really dawned on me that 'torturous' is a word in its own right (I'd always assumed it was created by people who can't say 'tortuous' properly...)

Also no problem with the list, but re verbal: "Verbal means in linguistic form and does not mean oral, spoken. Correct: Visual memories last longer than verbal ones." I agree with this and don't use it meaning "oral" but dictionaries do seem to list this as an acceptable definition, eg SOED: "4. Expressed or conveyed by speech rather than writing; oral.
B. T. Washington A written or a verbal request from their parents."

I was a language teacher and no 51 has bugged me for years: "To lie (intransitive: lies, lay, has lain) means to recline; to lay (transitive: lays, laid, has laid) means to set down; to lie (intransitive: lies, lied, has lied) means to fib.Correct: He lies on the couch all day. / He lays a book upon the table. / He lies about what he does." This is routinely abused even by educated speakers (eg B. Dylan - Lay, lady, lay"). One problem is not understanding what transitive and intransitive mean.

[french frank]

Bit wary of the prescriptive nature of the list. If people distinguish between a written agreement and a verbal agreement, who is to decree that they should be using 'oral' rather than 'verbal'?

'Staunch' looks to be like a good old Anglo-Norman version of OF estancher/étancher cf launch-lancer, vaunt-vanter, haunt-hanter, haunch-hanche and a whole host of other -aun- words where, I suspect, the -aun- was an attempt to represent (the non-native) nasalisation.

One could say that to staunch is now much less common than to stanch, but incorrect?

[jean]

Bit wary of the prescriptive nature of the list. If people distinguish between a written agreement and a verbal agreement, who is to decree that they should be using 'oral' rather than 'verbal'?

Exactly.

Pinker, who's a cognitive scientist and psychologist who has a special interest in regular and irregular phenomena in language and children's language acquisition, and had something of a role in popularising Chomsky's ideas before they rather went out of fashion, hasn't been able to resist using his high profile as a popular author to give us yet another list of bugbears. He's a prescriptivist, even as he pretends not to be.

'Staunch' looks to be like a good old Anglo-Norman version of OF estancher/étancher cf launch-lancer, vaunt-vanter, haunt-hanter, haunch-hanche and a whole host of other -aun- words...

Both spellings are found these days, and there are plenty of historical variants to choose from:

Forms: ME–15 stanche, staunche, ME stawnche, stonch, ME staunge, 15 stainch, staynche, stenche, steinch, steynch, stinch, 15–16 stench, ME– stanch, staunch

[jean]

I was a language teacher and no 51 has bugged me for years: "To lie (intransitive: lies, lay, has lain) means to recline; to lay (transitive: lays, laid, has laid) means to set down; to lie (intransitive: lies, lied, has lied) means to fib.Correct: He lies on the couch all day. / He lays a book upon the table. / He lies about what he does." This is routinely abused even by educated speakers...

And has been for a very long time!

[Lat-Literal]

Also no problem with the list, but re verbal: "Verbal means in linguistic form and does not mean oral, spoken. Correct: Visual memories last longer than verbal ones." I agree with this and don't use it meaning "oral" but dictionaries do seem to list this as an acceptable definition, eg SOED: "4. Expressed or conveyed by speech rather than writing; oral.
B. T. Washington A written or a verbal request from their parents."

I was a language teacher and no 51 has bugged me for years: "To lie (intransitive: lies, lay, has lain) means to recline; to lay (transitive: lays, laid, has laid) means to set down; to lie (intransitive: lies, lied, has lied) means to fib.Correct: He lies on the couch all day. / He lays a book upon the table. / He lies about what he does." This is routinely abused even by educated speakers (eg B. Dylan - Lay, lady, lay"). One problem is not understanding what transitive and intransitive mean.

Re Dylan, the song was written in 1969 for Sara, his first wife and it was also originally intended for the film Midnight Cowboy. Given the era, it is tempting to think of it as having a sexual connotation. Quote: "The first recorded use of the word in that context was in 1934, in U.S. slang, probably from sense of "deposit" (which was in Old English, as in lay an egg, lay a bet, etc.), perhaps reinforced by to lie with, a phrase frequently met in the Bible. The noun meaning "woman available for sexual intercourse" is attested from 1930, but there are suggestions of it in stage puns from as far back as 1767". Certainly the Everly Brothers considered the lyrics to be in that light and turned down the song on that basis.

But the official version is its meaning is more straightforward - a love song in which Sara was encouraged to rest. Given that when the song was written she was in pregnancy for the fourth time, that makes a lot of sense. Additionally, Dylan knew - and knows - a lot about music history. It appears that there may have been one or more songs with the title "Lay It Down" that pre-dated it and which essentially addressed "rest" in whatever meaning. I think there was possibly the intention of a mixed meaning for audiences. Ambiguity is a Dylan trademark, it would have suited the times commercially and, of course, less than a decade later Clapton would release his own song "Lay Down Sally". There is another point which concerns a title which includes "lay"but does not include the word "down". It is that the alternative is "Lie Lady Lie" which could have a very different meaning. That sort of read across - the idea it might easily have been the opposite to an "I Believe in You" - may well be just one of his many "clever" puzzles to be perceived by the thinking listener.

[subcontrabass]

Why do we hear frequent reference to "metric tonnes"? "Tonne" is by definition a metric unit. Also, for most practical purposes, the difference in mass between a ton and a tonne is too small matter.

[jean]

Why do we hear frequent reference to "metric tonnes"?

Because we can't hear the difference between 'tonne' and 'ton'?

Has nobody looked at Sir Andrew Keeling? (#2590) Or had a go at singing it?

[subcontrabass]

Because we can't hear the difference between 'tonne' and 'ton'?

In most cases in broadcasting they are only giving an order of magnitude and not a precise value, so the 1.6% difference does not matter.

[gurnemanz]

Re Dylan, the song was written in 1969 for Sara, his first wife and it was also originally intended for the film Midnight Cowboy. Given the era, it is tempting to think of it as having a sexual connotation. Quote: "The first recorded use of the word in that context was in 1934, in U.S. slang, probably from sense of "deposit" (which was in Old English, as in lay an egg, lay a bet, etc.), perhaps reinforced by to lie with, a phrase frequently met in the Bible. The noun meaning "woman available for sexual intercourse" is attested from 1930, but there are suggestions of it in stage puns from as far back as 1767". Certainly the Everly Brothers considered the lyrics to be in that light and turned down the song on that basis.

But the official version is its meaning is more straightforward - a love song in which Sara was encouraged to rest. Given that when the song was written she was in pregnancy for the fourth time, that makes a lot of sense. Additionally, Dylan knew - and knows - a lot about music history. It appears that there may have been one or more songs with the title "Lay It Down" that pre-dated it and which essentially addressed "rest" in whatever meaning. I think there was possibly the intention of a mixed meaning for audiences. Ambiguity is a Dylan trademark, it would have suited the times commercially and, of course, less than a decade later Clapton would release his own song "Lay Down Sally". There is another point which concerns a title which includes "lay"but does not include the word "down". It is that the alternative is "Lie Lady Lie" which could have a very different meaning. That sort of read across - the idea it might easily have been the opposite to an "I Believe in You" - may well be just one of his many "clever" puzzles to be perceived by the thinking listener.

Good points and the Dylan quote, being poetry, is a bad example of the point I was trying to make - there would have been plenty of better ones. The grammatically correct "Lie" would not work at all. It would be ambiguous (tell untruths) and you would lose the "ay" assonance. It would also not rhyme with the later "stay, lady, stay" and "until the break of day". The song is also unusual for Dylan in that the music came first. He has said: "The song came out of those first four chords. I filled it up with the lyrics then, the la la la type of thing, well that turned into Lay Lady Lay, it's the same with the tongue, that's all it was really."

I've just read Christopher Ricks on the song in Dylan's Visions of Sin. He finds a parallel with John Donne:

Come, Madam, come, all rest my powers defy,
Until I labour, I in labour lie.

Ricks comments: "Donne's poem may be a source but what matters is that it is an analogue. Great minds feel and think alike."