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Ruth
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Nov 30, 2012 05:04PM
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Surely there must be a member from Romania.
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Sorry, No Romanian expertise here either but how about another question on English grammar rules? Can someone point me to something that explains the reason why it's undesirable to split an infinitive?
Perhaps it's just from familiarity at this point but "To Boldly Go" sounds better to me and closer to the intent of the speaker than "to go boldly"
This question arose when I was writing " this request ... has clearly been disregarded." which, to me sounds better than " this request ... has been disregarded clearly." or some other variant.
Newengland wrote: "Except for 7 of us, no one checks in regularly."Because y'all have been so helpful to me recently, I'm checking in now. I just haven't had anything useful to add.
I read recently that it is no longer "illegal" to split an infinitive so I'm not sure it's even not desirable. I believe the reason is that the infinitive acts as one word, one tense of the verb in essence. So adding an adverb in the middle is like saying goboldlying.
I also wanted to say that just because something is accepted in a certain region or subculture doesn't make it grammatically correct. It's local lingo.
The reason for the outright ban on splitting infinitives is spurious, being based on the grammar of a different language: in Latin, the infinitive is a single word, so can't be split. As Stephen Pinker points out, the prohibition "makes about as much sense as forcing modern residents of England to wear laurels and togas.” For me, splitting (or not) is not the primary issue - comprehension is, and that often depends on word order, regardless of whether infinitives are involved.
For example, “He completely failed to understand” and “He failed to completely understand” mean different things.
My default is not to split them, but I happily and confidently do so where splitting will better express the meaning I want or make the sentence flow better.
I often wonder if the popularity of this erroneous rule, and others, is because they are so easy to teach and test, even to pupils with relatively little knowledge of grammar or feel for language.
New English is kingTo dead went Latin spake we
Kiss his grammar's ring
Stephen wrote: "...split an infinitive? ... this question arose when I was writing " this request ... has clearly been disregarded." which, to me sounds better than " this request ... has been disregarded clearly." or some other variant. "I somehow missed the last bit when replying earlier, but for the record, neither phrase uses the infinitive; you're just comparing word order.
The infinitive is the basic form of a verb (not past or future tense etc), i.e. the one that is usually preceded by "to": (to) disregard, (to) eat, (to) sing etc.
I agree with your preference, but it's to do with meaning, not infinitives. Changing the example slightly makes it clearer:
"This task... has happily been done." = The speaker/writer is happy the task has been done.
"This task... has been done happily." = The person doing it did so happily.
Newengland wrote: "Except for 7 of us, no one checks in regularly."Just 'checking in' in case it is thought that I've 'checked out'!
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Continues roll call...
Doug wrote: "Try Wikipedia "Romanian Language". You will find references to other languages and the academies and listing for "Case" under some of them like Slavic."Thank you, I appriciate it.
I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told.
Cecily wrote: ... neither phrase uses the infinitive; "I know that infinitive is generally considered as "to" and a verb. But is there such a thing as a past tense infinitive? e.g. "has been"
has clearly been vs clearly has been?
What she said. (Just showing you I'm here and reading. ;) )
Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told."The German language has four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive.
@Kelly - huh! Fancy seeing you here :)
English is unusual among western European languages in that it is possible to split an infinitive verb. Traditional grammarians frowned on the practice because it was not possible to do so in Latin (the superior language). Clearly, there is no rational reason to not split infinitive verbs in English. The ability to do so makes English the superior language.
Scribble wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told."The German language has four cases: nominative, accusative, dative and..."
Could be worse. Russian has six (the four above, plus the prepositional and the instrumental), and Finnish has about 15 (and don't even get me started on the abessive, the inessive and the adessive). Hyvää yötä, y'all.
S. wrote: "Newengland wrote: "I'm omniscient --Who are You? --
Are you Omniscient,
Too?"
Hi, Omnisicient,
How are you?"
I am a jolly solipsist.
I don't believe that you exist.
(Actually, if I were a solipsistic Skinnerian, I wouldn't believe that I existed, either, which would beg the question of who's writing this, and for whose consumption, and for that matter, of who's asking that meta-question in the first place. Since I don't exist, I don't know, and since you don't exist, you don't care.)
Clif wrote: "English is unusual among western European languages in that it is possible to split an infinitive verb. Traditional grammarians frowned on the practice because it was not possible to do so in Lati..."It is a tenet of modern linguistics (and hence intrinsically suspect, but withal, a tenet) that no language is inherently "superior" to any other, that rules are wholly arbitrary and change inevitably over time, and that prescriptivism is an evil attitude probably spawned in Mordor. Just sayin'... :) :) so duznt actually it how I right this sentence matter remotely all at, nor what lexemes I use, 'cause all the syntagms be fungible, grok y'all?
Mark wrote: "Scribble wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told."The German language has four cases: nominative, accus..."
It's Russian I'm looking for, yet I am just beginning in the case system so a bit of history and and easy, simplistic process would be very much helpful to me.
The few sites I have found have little or no words on those systems, the books I have are as such as well or very detailed but not easy on human ears.
Not a grammar question so much as a vocabulary question... I recall hearing of the "sans-culottes" – literally, "without culottes" in reading about the French Revolution but am unsure. Are they actually mentioned in A Tale of Two Cities or did I encounter it in side readings.
I'm developing a quiz entitled "Drink It Eat It or Wear It?" and I'd like to include a question about culottes but I can't seem to find it in the copy of A Tale of Two Cities that I'm looking at.
Stephen wrote: "...I recall hearing of the "sans-culottes" – literally, "without culottes" in reading about the French Revolution but am unsure. Are they ..."I went to Amazon and searched text of "A Tale of Two Cities" and got the following results:
3 results for sans-culottes
Page 429 …who, for Dumas, embodies the very worst of sans-culotte anger and …
Page 471 …sympathies, and were closely identified with the sans- culottes (i. ...
Page 480 ... As a wood-sawyer, a sans-culotte under the power of the …
Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "Mark wrote: "Scribble wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told."The German language has four cases: nomi..."
BB&M - I think I can help you with some recommendations, but I need to know:
1) Are you just interested primarily in the comparative linguistic syntactic characteristics of the language -- the origin of the system of cases and declensions, for example, from Old Church Slavonic, or...
2) Are you interested iin acquiring actual spoken or reading competence in the language? Russian isn't particularly hard (for English speakers) to pronounce, but of course, there's the Cyrillic alphabet as a sort of reading impediment. Nevertheless, it's immeasurably easier to acquire a rudimentary command for reading than to learn actually to speak and understand the language in real time.
Clif wrote: "I went to Amazon and searched text of "A Tale of Two Cities"..."Thanks for that Clif! I THOUGHT that that's where I'd seen it but my searches on the copy in GoodReads wasn't turning anything up. I was looking in the wrong parts.
Mark wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "Mark wrote: "Scribble wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told."The German..."
Both really. I can read Cyrillic without faulter. My vocabulairy however is very poor (this is a French school with the option of learning Spanish, nothing more, nothing less, unfourtunately). In order (key word because order doesnt always apply in this system) to grasp sentences, to conjugate verbs and begin a whole trip like none I've ever before in a shiny, vast world of grammical tyranny. I could not bring myself to understand just how far the case system stretched its roots (or tentacles if you prefer). Now it seems like it's just a subject to be memorized along with its many exceptions.
I think I was having a panic attack when I called for help.
Understanding the language in real time, eh? Hmm, I see, that will have to go on my disorganized list.
... You know where to find the history? Books or other?
Thank you for this, thank you so much.
Yet another vocabulary question... I'm finally getting around to reading the original version of Little Women and in the third chapter The Laurence Boy, Meg and Jo are at a holiday party and "They had a merry time over the bonbons and mottoes
I looked up mottoes and the only definitions that I found dealt with sayings (motto) I did see one entry that mentioned "a printed saying etc, often found inside a Christmas cracker." I'm guessing that this might be what Ms. Alcott was referring to but am unsatisfied.
Is there another, perhaps antiquated, definition of mottoes that I'm missing?
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New grammar question... Is there a term for names where the first name of a person and his last name have similar or identical meanings, just in different languages? I came across the "tautological place names" list today on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautolog...
And it reminded me of a woman I once worked with named Jade Ngyun. She told me that Ngyun meant jade in her native language.
I tried to do a google search on Tautological people names and came up kinda empty which leads me to think that there's a better term for such things.
Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "Mark wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "Mark wrote: "Scribble wrote: "Blood Bone and Muscle wrote: "I'm pretty sure the German language has a part of the case system. That's what I've been told...."Sorry to be so dilatory replying. Goodreads notifications have gone agley altogether (I doubt I get one out of three), and I'd forgotten my activity in this thread entirely, so I only just noticed your post.
Since you can read Cyrillic and have no problem with the rudiments, I'm assuming you need some lucid clarification of the grammar. I'd suggest Brian Kemple's Essential Russian grammar. Penguin has a good bilingual edition of Russian short stories, from which it might be useful to practice reading.
Insofar as the evolution and interrelationship of the Slavic languages is concerned, there is a very good book (albeit possibly out of print) by Bernard Comrie, "The Slavonic Languages," and I think there's a more recent one by Sussex, probably "The Slavic Languages."
Удачи! (Good luck!)
Stephen wrote: "New grammar question... Is there a term for names where the first name of a person and his last name have similar or identical meanings, just in different languages? I came across the "tautologic..."
I'm not familiar with any such term in the realm of onomastics, but I imagine it must be a topic of interest among the Hoi Polloi in the La Brea Tar Pits. :) Seriously, I think "redundant" or "tautological" names is probably the best you're going to do. The whole concept seems somehow vaguely related to (or reminds me of) "inverse mondegreens" (e.g., "mots d'heures gousses rames"), but it's not really the same thing.
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Off to look for it....
Debbie wrote: "Reduplicants or tautonyms....,http://english.stackexchange.com/ques..."
Very impressed! Had never heard "tautonyms" used before, and "reduplicants" only to describe words in languages that signal pluralization by repetition. "Tautonym" should have been obvious, though, and I should have tauto it. :)
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Newengland wrote: "I was never taught tautonyms, but I work with one. So close, yet so far away!"So close in temperature, yet so far in height!
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Debbie wrote: "Groooooan! Pun thread!"Sorry about the lame effort. I hope I won't be sent a grade of "F" or "C." (Ok... stopping now.)
On a subject vaguely related to "tautonyms," I once had a student (this was in the eighties, but I wasn't) whose actual name was "Russell Whitehead." He was baffled when I alluded to his parents' interest in logic. He had somehow managed to live for 23 years, and *no one* had ever commented on this before!
I'd be grateful if you could tell me how would you write the past tense of woo (as in 'courting'). I am tempted to write woo'd, or even woo-d. Wood just looks too much like trees.
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Caroline wrote: "I'd be grateful if you could tell me how would you write the past tense of woo (as in 'courting'). I am tempted to write woo'd, or even woo-d. Wood just looks too much like trees."Debbie is right, and woo betide you if you spell it otherwise. (Because "he otherwised her" just doesn't make any sense.)
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Another query I'm afraid. (I cannot believe the luxury of having grammar/language experts to hand!)Would you say "Rembrandt was a great artist, or Rembrandt is a great artist." I suspect the latter. His art continues to be great even though he is dead. But I'm not sure....
Caroline wrote: "Another query I'm afraid. (I cannot believe the luxury of having grammar/language experts to hand!)Would you say "Rembrandt was a great artist, or Rembrandt is a great artist." I suspect the ..."
You'd probably say the latter, unless you were discussing him biographically or historically, e.g.:
"Rembrandt was a great artist until someone cut off his arm." (it didn't happen, but just sayin'...).
Mark wrote: "Caroline wrote: "Another query I'm afraid. (I cannot believe the luxury of having grammar/language experts to hand!)Would you say "Rembrandt was a great artist, or Rembrandt is a great artist."..."
That is fantastically helpful. Thank you!
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Debbie wrote: "I beg to differ.....I believe that he was a great artist because he no longer alive. His art is still great, but he is definitely past tense. To say that he is a great artist implies that he is sti..."I believe it's a matter of context, Debbie. If we're using "Rembrandt" to represent the current concept of the man and his work (e.g., "There are several great masters in that school. Rembrandt is one of them."), then I think I'd use the present tense. Really depends on whether you're talking about a historical person and what he did (and what he was) in the past, or whether you're using his name as a sort of synecdochic token to discuss the totality of his work as viewed in the present. But again, I do think it critically depends on the context, and might have to be resolved on a case-by-case basis. If I say "Bach is great, Schubert not so good," I'm referring to their music from my current perspective.
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