Originally posted by vinteuil
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No harm at all, I agree. But there are differences between the usages we have before us, if one wants to be picky [sic]. -
... then you will agree it's the same grammatical form? Your post #2833 seemed to demur - "I don't think so"Originally posted by jean View Post
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They're both participles, used adjectivally. To that extent, they appear to be grammatically the same.
The objection of the hidebound costive grammaticopedant to this is that to head is intransitive; we know this because the form he is heading cannot be followed by a direct object (any more than the form he is sitting can).
But (so the argument goes) the verb to be + past participle forms the passive. And intransitive verbs, having no direct object, can't be passive. That's why people throw up their hands in horror at the form he was sat.
Bound is different from headed because the rest of the verb it comes from withered away a long time ago, leaving only this single adjectival form used descriptively.
(I'm just explaining Scotty's objection rather better than he's managed himself - I wouldn't want anyone to think I agreed with it!)Comment
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... but why ca'n't past participles be used adjectivally, regardless of their origins in a transitive or intransitive verb?
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And why is(')n't all this in the Pedantry thread when any question of incisors, premolars, canines, molars and wisdoms being set on edge seems long since to have disappeared from the discussion?(!)...Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... but why ca'n't past participles be used adjectivally, regardless of their origins in a transitive or intransitive verb?Comment
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They can, and they are. And the further they move from their verbal function, the less anyone minds.Originally posted by vinteuil View Post... but why ca'n't past participles be used adjectivally, regardless of their origins in a transitive or intransitive verb?
This one, though, hasn't moved very far, and the active form exists alongside it. So some people mind a lot.
What is your opinion of he was sat, may I ask?Comment
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... don't mind it at all.Originally posted by jean View Post
A question of register, I s'pose : I can imagine some of the denizens of the Athenæum raising a worried eyebrow, but as for the rest of us?Comment
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If I were asked :-) I'd say I don't have a judgement, as such, but I imagine that as a (now) dialectal form it probably is a vestige of a largely obsolete usage that was once more widespread. It may even gradually become more generalised again.Originally posted by jean View Post
OED quote from Ramsbotham's Lancashire Rhymes: At th' eend o' th' day..aw'm sat at whoam.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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That's what I'd say.
It used to turn up regularly on the old Beeb Word of Mouth board, and cause terrible consternation for the reasons I've tried to outline here, for the beneft of anyone who needs them.Comment
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..which would raise the additional complication as to whether the action of sitting had been active or passive on the sitter's part, i.e. did the sitter seat him/herself voluntarily or did some else ensure that he/she adopted the sitting position?Originally posted by cloughie View Post
If this isn't taking the discussion ever closer to losing will to live territory, it must be driving it towards Pedantry thread territory as I suggested previously; what do you think, FF? The putting of teeth on edge seems some time ago to have vanished into thin air, to be replaced by esoteric dicussions of certain finer points of English grammar and aspects of its history...Comment
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The problem, Mr Hinton, is that there is an apparent overlap, with Pedants regularly having their teeth set on edge, or sat on hedge, by incorrect, perceived incorrect, non-standard English-as-she-is-spoke-where-I-live-and-how-I-speak-it, patently wrong, possibly wrong, sporadically-and-here-and-there wrong, peculiar, particular and downright laughable usages.Originally posted by ahinton View PostIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Yes, that's what I was talking about above when I said people found the transitive/intransitive thing an insuperable obstacle to accepting these uses of the past participle.Originally posted by cloughie View Post
Odd perhaps, because on the Pedantry thread a poster recently thought that people had problems with lie/lay because
Originally posted by gurnemanz View PostComment
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But any discussion of
is no fun at all withoutOriginally posted by ahinton View Post
...esoteric dicussions of certain finer points of English grammar and aspects of its history...Comment
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Yes, I can understand that in terms of how it might make it difficult to transfer particular posts to this thread to the Pedantry one, so I wonder whether you might consider there to be sufficient commonality in principle between the two - i.e. between one about phrases and words that bother people and another dealing with pedantry of which at least a fair proportion seems to centre around spoken and written issues (including idioms and grammatical niceties); what say you about the possibility of a wholesale merger (which would presumably be easier than picking of posts one at a time to move elsehere)?Originally posted by french frank View Post
On a related topic, mightn't your "English-as-she-is-spoke..." and P. G.'s "mother country" (and perhaps "mother tongue") risk being considered less than politically correct? Whilst they don't exactly set my teeth on edge, I do not seek to espouse pedantry by asking...Comment
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