On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 20:18:07 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 07/06/2013 6:24 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> used by the chinless wonder type.
>> :)   Yeah, it does seem to be marketingspeak mor ethan anything.
>>
>>
> It always has been. It comes from the days when the nob's word was their
> bond. Even if they did not pay their accounts for years.
> Originally it meant fiancée. She was bespoke, or spoken for. IIRC

Word history is always interesting.  :)

> 
>>> >On a recent job in America it became common to hear Americans use it
>>> >albeit self-consciously.
>> Interesting, because I don't think I've ever heard it in the US or used
>> by Americans before.
> 
> No, you wouldn't. There were about a dozen of us Brits working on the
> project in NM. Gee! we were "cute" with our funny English accents.
> I through a wobblie in Walmart.
> 
> "I'm too old to be cute. Ma'am"

LOL

JIm

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On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:51:35 +0200, andrel wrote:

>> For me, fast typing tends to cause what I've started calling
>> "typelexia"
>> - I transpose letters because of my typing speed
> 
> I do that too, and I gave originally the same reason. Until I started to
> do the same thing on the white board while teaching.

I think I call that a "brain fart". :)

Have done that a few times myself.  Or get halfway through writing a word 
on the board, and then forget what I was writing.

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:49:35 +0200, andrel wrote:

> My impression is that it is more common with native speakers. Probably
> because they learn to speak English before they learn to write. For
> those of us for whom it is a second language it is the other way around.

That's an interesting observation - I hadn't thought about that.  It 
certainly does have a certain type of logic to it, though. :)

Jim

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On Fri, 07 Jun 2013 22:45:26 +0200, andrel wrote:

> Andy has a couple of strong points, one of them is asking when he
> doesn't know (or bluntly stating what he thinks is wrong), even in those
> cases where others would be silent because they feel they should know
> better. A somewhat weak point is that that is because he is not able to
> spot those circumstances.
> All in all this is much to be preferred over those who try to maintain
> their image by never learning anything.

Absolutely - the problem is when one makes an assertion that is clearly 
(to those who know) false, but then to insist that the observation still 
must be correct, even in light of evidence to the contrary.

For example, the assertion that nobody could ever possibly earn enough 
money to own a house unless they were super rich.  Something that even 
Andy now knows through his own experience is a false statement.

Jim

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> One might argue that most rules of grammar are completely artificial.  

I wouldn't agree with that argument.

Most rules of grammar describe the actual language, as it's used by people.
Of course many people use the language in different ways (often you just
have to go to the next city to hear slight differences), and an "official"
grammar is usually an agreement on one that's most understandable by
everybody and conforms best to the normal, natural use of the language.
If you say this is "artificial", then I'm not using the word in the same
meaning as you.

When I say "artificial" I mean a made-up rule (in this case a rule invented
by one person, even!) that does not correspond to actual usage of the
language, and doesn't actually address any problem with it. A rule that's
more prescriptive than descriptive.

Rules of grammar should be more descriptive in nature: They describe how
the language works. Prescriptive rules, especially those that do not
correspond well to the actual usage of the language, are more artificial.

One could try to alleviate this "rule" and say that it's more like just
a style guide. In other words, "in general you should not put prepositions
at the end of sentences if you don't have to, but you don't have to avoid
it at all costs either." However, that's not how many people see it. They
interpret it has a hard, prescriptive rule. "It's bad grammar to put
prepositions at the end of sentences!"

> "The apple was beside." - that's a sentence fragment that ends in a 
> preposition.  It's completely unclear what the apple was beside.

But the reason for it being unclear was not that it ends in the
preposition. It's because it lacks something.

You could move the preposition somewhere else in the sentence and it
wouldn't become any clearer. That the sentence happens to end in a
preposition is irrelevant. Therefore the rule (even if we interpret it
just as a style guide) doesn't apply at all.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Thu, 06 Jun 2013 18:36:18 -0400, Warp wrote:

> > Orchid Win7 v1 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >> OK. Now explain "there" instead of "their"
> > 
> > Some people write "your" when they really mean "you're". This mistake is
> > kind of understandable.

> Not really.  If you know that "you're" is a contraction of "you are", 
> it's very easy to see when it's being misused:

> "I think your wrong."

> "I think *you are* wrong."

> The error is clear as day - you're making a contraction and not using the 
> punctuation that's necessary in a contraction.

I'm not sure if you understood what I said. I said that it's kind of
understandable that some people make this mistake (because they write
what they pronounce). I didn't say that it's hard to distinguish between
the two cases in a written sentence.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Thunderbird insists that everything must be spelt the American way,
>> which is really quite annoying...
>
> That happens when you leave it set to the default dictionary with an
> English installation.
>
> And if you go into the composition preferences, click the link that says
> "download additional dictionaries" and add the English/United Kingdom
> dictionary, it insists that you use British spellings.
>
> Funny, that. ;)

Yeah, you would think that would solve it...

Oh well, I guess I should just be thankful that I got spell-checking to 
work at all this time.

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On 07/06/2013 9:45 PM, andrel wrote:
> Andy has a couple of strong points,

More than a couple, I would say.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 07/06/2013 11:32 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Word history is always interesting.:)

http://dictionary.reference.com/etymology/

Is quite good as is my wife with her penchant for Victorian books.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Sat, 08 Jun 2013 04:22:51 -0400, Warp wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> One might argue that most rules of grammar are completely artificial.
> 
> I wouldn't agree with that argument.

Why am I not surprised? ;)

> Most rules of grammar describe the actual language, as it's used by
> people.

And the way that the English language is used by people is that they 
don't generally end sentences with prepositions, because doing so often 
makes things unclear.

Here's the thing about rules that I was taught by a music theory 
teacher:  It's OK to break them, but you have to learn them first.

> Of course many people use the language in different ways (often you just
> have to go to the next city to hear slight differences), and an
> "official" grammar is usually an agreement on one that's most
> understandable by everybody and conforms best to the normal, natural use
> of the language.
> If you say this is "artificial", then I'm not using the word in the same
> meaning as you.
> 
> When I say "artificial" I mean a made-up rule (in this case a rule
> invented by one person, even!) that does not correspond to actual usage
> of the language, and doesn't actually address any problem with it. A
> rule that's more prescriptive than descriptive.

Citation, please, for this "invented by one person" statement.

>> "The apple was beside." - that's a sentence fragment that ends in a
>> preposition.  It's completely unclear what the apple was beside.
> 
> But the reason for it being unclear was not that it ends in the
> preposition. It's because it lacks something.

Yes, it lacks the object that is referenced.  Now you tell me how to 
construct that sentence with the missing object *without* putting the 
missing object ahead of the preposition.  Oh, and it has to make sense, 
too. ;)

> You could move the preposition somewhere else in the sentence and it
> wouldn't become any clearer. That the sentence happens to end in a
> preposition is irrelevant. Therefore the rule (even if we interpret it
> just as a style guide) doesn't apply at all.

Sure it does.  It's just not a hard and fast rule.  It's a rule of thumb, 
and usually includes the condition "unless rewriting the sentence so the 
preposition at the end makes the sentence more convoluted and less clear."

Jim

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