Ask Our Grammar "Experts" II, the Sequel

[Doug]

Oh, the intricate mysteries of English. Consider the addition a- with several words like woke vs. awoke, waked vs. awaked, sleep vs. asleep, way vs away, etc. etc. There is much more to them than mere tense which can be hard to handle. It may be depending on the context or depend on whether it was actual or intangible like a dream. Also could allude to near or far not to mention by yourself or the action of someone else or a condition. I will say no more while you flee to or from your textbooks.

[[deleted user]]

I should be able to find an answer on google but I didn't.

I've read 'scene' used as a verb: They scened at the club all night.

If you accept use as a verb, then is it 'sceneing' or 'scening'?

[[deleted user]]

While I'm playing Inquiring Minds Want To Know, I was asked to correct the follow bit of dialog. (Remember I'm using the no 'ue' form.) The writer wants the speaker to ask a series of questions relatively quickly, without responses.

"Did you sleep well in my bed ?.... I bet you did. Are you dressed and ready to go to church with Nana?.... What are you wearing?"

My thought is to fix the ellipses and omit all but the last question mark.

[Cecily]

Ellipses is the opposite of "relatively quickly", surely? It implies pause, or hesitation.

Why would you omit all but the final question mark?

I'm not sure there is a way to indicate rapidity with standard punctuation, so why not do it with words, saying the person "rattled off questions" or some such phrase.

[Stephen]

Jonmontanavega wrote: "I should be able to find an answer on google but I didn't.

I've read 'scene' used as a verb: They scened at the club all night.

If you accept use as a verb, then is it 'sceneing' or 'scening'?"

I kind of abhor coined verbs unless they are more evocative than their alternatives so I may be "phoning" it in but I'd guess scening would be the preferred form.

[[deleted user]]

Good point Cecily - ellipses do imply a pause. The lack of responses between questions could imply lack of time to respond (relatively quickly) or a delay / unwillingness to respond.

Either way, is the use of a question mark followed by an ellipsis acceptable?

I'll send this back to the author. Thanks.

By the way, I'm helping her as a friend. I have no professional proofing credentials.

[Stephen]

Jonmontanavega wrote: "...Either way, is the use of a question mark followed by an ellipsis acceptable?"

My theory of punctuation certainly permits it. Punctuation is meant to make text more readable, to add clarity and to better convey the writer's intent. If it does that, it's acceptable.

Check the first post in this thread https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

There's no better, more concise argument against too little punctuation than that.

As to a superfluity of punctuation check Eats, Shoots & Leaves: Why, Commas Really Do Make a Difference!

[[deleted user]]

Eats is excellent.

[Stephen]

Just watched a you-tube post with Brian Cranston reciting one of my favorite poems, Ozymandias

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3dpg...

On the pedestal these words appear "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look upon my works ye mighty and despair!" nothing beside remains round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare. alone and level sands stretch far away.

I've always thought of this as a GREAT example of irony. But one commenter called it double entendre I've always thought of double entendre as being a funny secondary interpretation. Is this example also a double entendre?

[Doug]

Jonmontanavega wrote: "Good point Cecily - ellipses do imply a pause. The lack of responses between questions could imply lack of time to respond (relatively quickly) or a delay / unwillingness to respond.

Either way, i..."

Just a question:
What is a professional proofer? (aside from the money paid)

[Stephen]

Doug wrote: "...Just a question:
What is a professional proofer? (aside from the money paid)"

Not sure that you can be a professional anything apart from the money paid. But I'm assuming that a number of publishers have some frequently used editors that might be considered professional proofers. I recently read a post from a guy who's a professional proofer of audio-books.Derrick McClain he also narrates a number of them so he's listed as a GoodReads author.

I am continually peeved by the frequency of typos in published works these days and have even taken to setting up discussion topics linked to the books where I list them. If only the authors would bother to check them.

And yes, I've even found them in audio-books. Charlie David read a book that i recently listened to and he pronounced dachshund as dash-hound several times (and for some bizarre reason read chicken as kitchen twice)

When my word processor and my web pages both highlight spelling mistakes and after 20+ years writing computer code where EVERY typo may cause unintended results, I guess I've become more than usually sensitized to such things. Or I could just be becoming the curmudgeon I've always expected to be.

[[deleted user]]

Dong asks: Just a question:
What is a professional proofer? (aside from the money paid)

Clearly, "professional" does not have the classic meaning any more, as in doctor, lawyer, minister. The classic definition had little to do with money.

Professional proofer: Someone who can spell. Someone who figured out grammar rules prior to leaving school. Probably someone a bit OCD. Would the description anal-retentive apply? Perhaps. A person with a deep fund of words. Anyone who works in the editorial departments of The New Yorker or, at least up to the past decade, The New York Times.

I suspect that most members of this group would be more proficient proofers than I consider myself to be.

[Doug]

Professional proofer: cart and horse

Prior to the spelling and grammar phase, though, should you have researcher(s) proofread the sequencing and technical aspects in your story?

[Andrea]

Doug wrote: "Professional proofer: cart and horse

Prior to the spelling and grammar phase, though, should you have researcher(s) proofread the sequencing and technical aspects in your story?"

Yes.

[Doug]

Would is the past tense of will
Woken is the past participle of wake

If you are describing a past tense condition, your thought process ahould start in the present or future.

If you are describing a future condition from the past, as this seems to, your thought process ahould start in the past.

---which means that the the truck will wake people In the future or if some conditional thing occurrs.
The waking is a future condition and it should remain there as wake or waken without the "have".

[Stephen]

I'm curious about the reasons behind some spellings that have been adopted. Can anyone point me to a good website on the matter or (heaven forbid!) a good book?

My curiosity was piqued (not peaked or even peeked) when I started naming units in a game I was creating after figures in Greek Mythology. I got as far as F and realized that there are no "real" F names in Greek myth because they use the Ph for the sound e.g. Phaethon, Pherousa, Phobos, etc. Even Pharaoh is a Greek version of the original Egyptian thanks to Greek/Ptolemaic rulers.

I'm guessing that the "F" we use in English today comes from the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic influences to English.

While the concept is nothing new to me I've never really read anything that was clear and concise about the whole transliteration thing.

I think my first encounter with it was when reading about Hawaii and how English speaking missionaries could find use for only about 12 to 16 of the English alphabet's 26 when creating the first dictionaries of Hawaiian.

[Ruth]

Actually, they used the Greek letter which looks like a circle with a vertical line through it. We write it as Phi, but that's not Greek. I would suppose that it's just custom that we transliterated the Greek symbol to our Ph.

[Ken, Moderator]

Pi Beta Phi?

[Stephen]

I think Ruth's is the Phi Beta Kappa answer but it still doesn't answer my curiosity about where that pesky "F" came into things.

BTW... I understand that that kitschy "ye olde" moniker is an artifact of typography as well. There was a time when a special th was typeset as a block that looked a bit like the "Y" we now see.

Another evidence of things shifting over time is the now antiquated cursive version of an "s" that was "two stories." It always looked like a drawn out lower case "f' to me.

[Ken, Moderator]

OK, grammar nuts. Let's take a look at this sample sentence I read on p. 24 of a new book called The Writing Revolution, a new book for teachers on how to teach kids to write properly.

Part of author Judith Hochman's plan is in giving kids daily grammar drills in sentence writing. She uses the following example sentence:

In April 1865, the Union Army, a well-trained and well-equipped force, won a decisive battle against the Confederates at the Battle of Appomattox Court House.

Then she writes:

"The second sentence [the one I typed above] has an appositive, is expanded to answer the questions where, when, and why, and has a subordinating conjunction introducing a dependent clause."

I think she's wrong. I see only one verb -- won -- and that's part of the independent clause. Beyond that, I'm seeing phrases only: "In April 1865," "a well-trained and well-equipped force" (the appositive phrase), "against the Confederates," and "at the Battle of Appomattox Court House."

What's left? The independent clause "the Union Army...won a decisive battle."

Am I missing something or is Judith Hochman preaching grammar with grammatical mistakes?

[Doug]

Ken wrote: "OK, grammar nuts. Let's take a look at this sample sentence I read on p. 24 of a new book called The Writing Revolution, a new book for teachers on how to teach kids to write properly.

Part of au..."

This is what I call newspaper grammar. In the weird sentence above I think the verb is "battle". "Won" is some kind of descriptive adverb of the action. Suppose it was a heated battle. heated would not be the verb same as decisive. It is all in how you think of it.

[Ken, Moderator]

Hmn. I see both "battle" and "the Battle of Appomattox" as nouns, the first being a direct object of the verb "won": the Union Army won a decisive battle."

For me, the article "a" before "battle" flags (heh) it as a noun, just as the definite article "the" makes "Battle of Appomattox" a noun.

Well, that's my take, newspaper grammar or no.

[Doug]

Ken wrote: "Hmn. I see both "battle" and "the Battle of Appomattox" as nouns, the first being a direct object of the verb "won": the Union Army won a decisive battle."

For me, the article "a" before "battle" ..."

I see, but the kind of verb is confusing to me. Why did they not call it the "Won of Appomattox"? In that case the sentence has two subjects and two thoughts with a combined predicate. They won against the Confederates but that is a clause with a missing comma. The sentence tells us they were battling "AT" the Battle of Appomattox when this event occurred so battle or at is the verb of the the main subject. "Won" is past tense so it is a verb. (My opinion. :-) This is like the touchdown was a score or they scored a touchdown. Different kind of verbs.

[Stephen]

I'm just another old fogey but I'd agree that the woman is making a few grammar mistakes. And I can't spot any conjunctions in the sentence you cite. I also agree that won is the verb. Battle can be a verb but it's not in the sentence quoted.

[Doug]

I'm a fogey also. :-)

[Stephen]

Generally our questions deal with English terms and grammar rules but I recently encountered a Spanish phrase that I'd like to know more about...

Why does the Spanish phrase “ Cabeza de turco” mean scapegoat? I know that Cabeza translates literally as head (as in Cabeza de Vaca (Cow's Head) but why would a "Turk's head” be linked with scapegoats?

I know that there's a Turk's head knot but that seems unrelated, no? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turk%27...

[Doug]

I'm glad you brought that one up because I have long wondered the same things. This is what I have found out so far.

Leviticus Chapter 16 explains the traditional ritual that 2 goats should be brought to sacrifice for the wrongdoings of the people and straws are chosen to pick one to be burnt and one to receive a knotted (wrapped) head dressing that has received the sins of the people and forced away into the wilderness. That one is the "scapegoat". The psychology of it must be studied in the historical religious context to understand. But yes, centuries of translation in various languages can be knotty. It simply means a goat wearing a turban as near as i can understand.

So, if there is some communal wrong that someone must be blamed for then someone must be the scapegoat and go into the public to explain and apologize. They are identified and will be excoriated for it. This allows the others to be shielded even though they may still pay for it privately.

I'd like to hear other interpretations or explanations. Again, thx, Steve. It is another of language's many arcane mysteries.

[Doug]

I should have said the headtie could be metaphorical and not actual.

[Stephen]

Doug wrote: "I should have said the headtie could be metaphorical and not actual." Actually, I think that the goat's head dress may be what ties the two concepts together. And the knot does look quite a bit like a turban which is probably where the Turk comes into it.

[Doug]

My apology Stephen. I know some Stephen s who go by Steve. Sorry.

[Stephen]

Doug wrote: "My apology Stephen. I know some Stephen s who go by Steve. Sorry." I generally go by Steve in conversation. Not sure WHY I went with Stephen for this website actually.

[Doug]

Okay, Steve, Can't seem to get any interest in this thread, can we?. Back to Turk's cap lily. A beautiful usually orange lily flower that hangs it's head shyly. Resembles a surrealistic Turkish turban . It only needs a little bell on the end of each petal and has nothing to do with scapegoats.

[Doug]

Stephen wrote: "Doug wrote: "I should have said the headtie could be metaphorical and not actual." Actually, I think that the goat's head dress may be what ties the two concepts together. And the knot does look qu..."

Stephen , A movie remake just came out called, "My Cousin, Rachel" by Daphne DuMaurier. Upon research I saw she wrote another novel called "The Scapegoat". She passed away in 1989, which caught my attention. Hichcock's movie "The Birds" is based on one of her works.

[Doug]

Now I remember seeing the 1959 Movie "The Scapegoat." There is plenty of scapegoating in it to go around. A very excellent story.

[Stephen]

Question... How does everyone feel about "coining" words?

I've recently been critiquing a few computer games and have used the word replayability more than once. I'm using it to describe whether the game has appeal after the first play-through.

I freely admit that replayability isn't currently an acknowledged word and my spell-checker suggests replay-ability but that looks weird.

Should made-up words like this always be enclosed in quotes?

I've considered using phrases like "replay appeal" or maybe something with the term "evergreen" but that seems more than is necessary.

[Doug]

As I see it, Your latter idea is better because when adding trailers to words one must remember to maintain the integrity of the core word which in your case is a physical action but you are trying to define it as a mental preference.
You are able to replay it but you are trying to infuse some emotion into that unrelated feat. Then I ask what emotion is that, love or hate.
Example: If I say my car has drivability, I am saying it runs or runs well, not how I feel about driving it. I could more clearly say, "I like to drive my car." or "my car is driveable. (or has driveability.)" which are not the same thing.
I like coined words but not a fan of that one.

[Sally]

Good topic. I think that if you put your coined word in quotation marks the first time you use it in your article or post, with the context and/or description with it to make its meaning clear (if it isn't already obvious), then you should be able to use the word without quotation marks throughout the rest of your written piece.

I've heard that Shakespeare doubled the English language with his additions to it, but I've also heard that that was a major exaggeration. Whichever is true, it is a fact that he coined lots of new words which were subsequently added to the English lexicon. If he can do it, why can't we? (Although we don't need to be necessarily as prolific.) And people do.

Personally, I'd rather see a new word be coined and entered into common usage than an existing word hijacked for other meanings, thus rendering the word's previous meaning obsolete or politically incorrect or whatever. I bristle when others tell me I can't use "that" word anymore that way. It was perfectly fine for hundreds of years, and now it's taboo to use in the earlier sense? That just rankles me. Maybe that's just my problem, and I have to learn to deal with it and live with it. But that will always irritate me.

[Doug]

Sally wrote: "Good topic. I think that if you put your coined word in quotation marks the first time you use it in your article or post, with the context and/or description with it to make its meaning clear (if ..."

Agree. I am only expert in that I communicate a lot but i believe it is unnecessary to hijack (highjack 1920) words. (a jack is a worker and maybe a connection to stealing from trucks on the highway was familiarized with highwayman). I like that one. Then came carjack, airjack, shipjack , etc. Now you are getting very sophisyicated meanings with the use of jack, Ie: "He jacked me around on the house deal" which clearly means he cheated me on the purchase contract, doesn't it? I did not get what I wanted for the car because he jacked me down (on the price). What do you all think of that word being so sloppy in place of accurate language? It "rankles" me a little bit.

[Ken, Moderator]

If we're going to start talking sloppy language, that's just the tip of the jack berg....

[Stephen]

Doug wrote: "...because he jacked me down (on the price)"

I've never heard that.

Unfortunately I did grow up hearing " he jewed me down (on the price)" but that was just an insular rural ignorance thing.

I think that we sometimes go too far with political correctness these days but some words (and word usages) are best left OUT of the vernacular.

[Doug]

Now lets see here, If I apply a good repair that is temporary, it is "makeshift" but if it is poorly done and meant to be permanent it is "jackleg." Go figure. :-)

[Ruth]

I would never, ever put a coined words in quotations marks. If it doesn't stand with out them, it's no good. And it's not a quotation, so using quotation marks smacks of the dumb usage where people use the marks for emphasis.

[Doug]

Ruth wrote: "I would never, ever put a coined words in quotations marks. If it doesn't stand with out them, it's no good. And it's not a quotation, so using quotation marks smacks of the dumb usage where people..."

I plead guilty. I am too dumb to figure out how to use the bold letter command so I did it makeshift.

[Ruth]

Online, encase the text between those pointy parenthesis things, <>. <>. Put b between th first pair, /b between the second pair.

[Doug]

Let us see if that works. Thanks

[Doug]

Let us see if u works for underline.

[Doug]

see

[Doug]

nOw i ar a lott smarther.

[Ken, Moderator]

Use the s to put a strike through a word.

[Doug]

redacted trying an r for redacted.