Pedants' Paradise

[vinteuil]

Having only arrived at being married via a civil partnership ceremony whose wording I cannot now remember, I don't know the answers to your questions - except that I've often heard it said that we think the wording of the marriage service is 'I do' when actually it isn't.

I'll see if I can find some evidence for that as a common misapprehension.

... mine was a civil wedding; I cannot recall the exact words. From this I think that neither "I will" nor "I do" was used -

https://www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/cms/content/vows-and-promises-your-wedding

[subcontrabass]

There seem to be currently several slightly different options available for civil marriage:

Contracting words

Traditional

I call upon these persons, here present, to witness that I (your full name) do take thee (your partner's full name) to be my lawful wedded wife/husband.

Modern

I (your full name), take you (your partner's full name) to be my wedded wife/husband.

Simplified

I (your full name) take thee (your partner's full name) to be my wedded wife/husband.

[Pulcinella]

From a letter in today's Times:

.....there was no need of computers to tell them what had been tried before;

Now, the human race is in need of a cure for cancer, but I would have written 'need for' rather than 'need of' in the extract above.

Any thoughts?

[jean]

I had never thought about the alternatives there, so I looked it up:

The use of prepositions after need seems to have changed greatly over the last 200 years...Before 1800, the noun need took the preposition of, over half of its uses occurred in the expression in need of, and it did not take an article. When it then started being more widely used as a noun in the mid-1800s, it started taking an article, but at first it still took the preposition of. In the early 1900s, for started replacing of. Nowadays, need usually takes for except in the expression in need of. So I would say that, except for in need of, current usage is to use the preposition for with need. I don't think I can call need of incorrect when used in the need of, since this was the usage 100 years ago, though. The construction "We have need of ..." still sounds better than "We have need for ..." but these are both becoming obsolete; current usage would be "We have a need for ...".

The difficulty I remember from teaching EFL was with need as a verb, which sometimes behaves like a modal and sometimes not - you need not vs you don't need to.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks, jean.
I nearly added a 'rider' to my posting, saying that the construction I preferred was really 'in need of', the 'in' making a difference, as your extract points out.

Interesting, as ever, to see (learn) how use/usage changes.

[gurnemanz]

The difficulty I remember from teaching EFL was with need as a verb, which sometimes behaves like a modal and sometimes not - you need not vs you don't need to.

A similar case I remember from teaching EFL is "dare" - sometimes modal, sometimes not. ( I dare say. They didn't dare to contradict their teacher). Link.
The difference between the two is that "need" was not originally modal but started to behave like one, presumably by analogy with "must", whereas "dare" was originally modal and has started to behave in a non-modal way. There was a cognate in mediaeval German, "tar", which was a modal. It has completely died out in modern German.

[oddoneout]

From a letter in today's Times:

.....there was no need of computers to tell them what had been tried before;

Now, the human race is in need of a cure for cancer, but I would have written 'need for' rather than 'need of' in the extract above.

Any thoughts?

My initial reaction was 'they had no need of' rather than changing 'of' to 'for', since for me it fitted better with the rest of the sentence.
Regarding jean's post(haven't got the number in this reply mode) about current modern usage has 'we have a need for' become 'we need' in most circumstances?

[Pulcinella]

My initial reaction was 'they had no need of' rather than changing 'of' to 'for', since for me it fitted better with the rest of the sentence.
Regarding jean's post(haven't got the number in this reply mode) about current modern usage has 'we have a need for' become 'we need' in most circumstances?

Yes, 'they had no need of computers' works fine, doesn't it?
It's the implicit requirement put on the computers that made the original jar (for me); the computers would probably say 'no'!

[ardcarp]

A woman being interviewed on The Today programme used the word 'precarity. She meant it as the noun from 'precarious'. I wonder if the word exists, or whether she had 'back-formed' it from the adjectival form. Personally I would have used 'precariousness'.
(I'm not being Mr Grumpy about it. Just interested.)

[subcontrabass]

A woman being interviewed on The Today programme used the word 'precarity. She meant it as the noun from 'precarious'. I wonder if the word exists, or whether she had 'back-formed' it from the adjectival form. Personally I would have used 'precariousness'.
(I'm not being Mr Grumpy about it. Just interested.)

The word seems to have some currency. Wikipedia gives the earliest use as 1952. Other references give it as a technical term in sociology, where it is distinguished from "precariousness" (although I have difficulty in seeing the difference). OED does not list "precarity".

[vinteuil]

A woman being interviewed on The Today programme used the word 'precarity. She meant it as the noun from 'precarious'. I wonder if the word exists, or whether she had 'back-formed' it from the adjectival form. Personally I would have used 'precariousness'.
(I'm not being Mr Grumpy about it. Just interested.)

.

... as in 'the precariat'

http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/recomposing-precarity-notes-laboured-politics-class-composition

.

http://amzn.eu/2UZ2odp

[jean]

It would be nice if it was a word, as the -ity ending so nicely represents Latin abstract nouns in -itas.

There's the adjective carus, which gives the abstract noun caritas, which ends up in English as charity.

However the adjective precarius, from which we get precarious, isn't related. It's applied to something obtained by begging, entreaty or prayer and though Latin allows you a concrete noun precarium, a thing obtained by entreaty, there's no corresponding abstract noun.

But since we have tweaked the meaning of precarious somewhat, why shouldn't we have an abstract noun from it if we want? And why shouldn't we make it on the pattern of a Latin one, if it pleases us to do so?

[ardcarp]

Other references give it as a technical term in sociology

I did wonder if it was a new-speak word. The woman in question dealt in 'conversations', 'engagement' and the like. However, I'm glad Jean welcomes it as a worthy addition to our lexicon. I couldn't help thinking of 'ubi caritas et amor'.

[gurnemanz]

Of adjectives ending "-arious" only "hilarity" seems to follow the same pattern, though "gregarity" and "multifarity" would work OK for me.

[french frank]

But since we have tweaked the meaning of precarious somewhat, why shouldn't we have an abstract noun from it if we want? And why shouldn't we make it on the pattern of a Latin one, if it pleases us to do so?

But was it used because it pleased someone to use it? Or because, given that other similar models exist, it was used analogously? From the linguistic point of view we can say that it was and is used, and that it was invented to fill a perceived lack in the language.

I imagine that it isn't formed on the analogy of hilaritas and caritas, since there was no word precaritas. It seems to share the formation of later inventions like secretariat < secretariatus and commissariat < commissariatus which denoted particular classes of people.

On precarius, according to my dictionary, Ovid and Tacitus did use it to mean 'uncertain' or 'precarious'.