This one's for all you people who think you know a grammar pedant. John Dryden takes the cake. Atlas Obscura takes the stranded preposition out. Of good grammar.
This one's for all you people who think you know a grammar pedant. John Dryden takes the cake. Atlas Obscura takes the stranded preposition out. Of good grammar.
As Winston Churchill famously said, "This is the sort of rubbish up with which I will not put." :) I've read this before: that preposition stranding, like other so-called rules of English grammar,...
As Winston Churchill famously said, "This is the sort of rubbish up with which I will not put." :)
Dryden’s ideas about what English should be were heavily motivated by Latin and Latinate ideas. It’s believed this is where his preposition thing comes from; in Latin, the preposition, as indicated by the first three letters of the word “preposition,” always comes before the noun. It is assumed that this is what motivated Dryden to make this case.
I've read this before: that preposition stranding, like other so-called rules of English grammar, came from writers and grammarians who applied Latin rules to English. For example, this is supposedly how the rule against splitting infinitives came to us: infinitives are not split in Latin, so they should not be split in English. Of course, this overlooks the fact that Latin infinitives are a single word which can't be split, while English infinitives are two words which can be split. This is how the USS Enterprise's mission can be "to boldly go where no one has gone before".
See also: the mess that is the pluralisation of words ending in -us In English that is done by adding "-es", but the idea still persists in some places that it's virii not viruses, cacti not...
See also: the mess that is the pluralisation of words ending in -us
In English that is done by adding "-es", but the idea still persists in some places that it's virii not viruses, cacti not cactuses and worst of all octopi not octopuses (octopus isn't even a bloody Latin word, so if anything it should pluralise in the Greek style - octopodes).
Dreadful. But who am I to complain. It's just what English does. Someone makes up some new way of doing things and enough people go with it and then that's it, that's how it works now..
I believe that "cacti" has a wide enough usage to be considered a valid English word, even though it is based on Latin rules. Same with "radii" and "gladioli". As you say, it's just about what...
I believe that "cacti" has a wide enough usage to be considered a valid English word, even though it is based on Latin rules. Same with "radii" and "gladioli". As you say, it's just about what people do, rather than about rules.
That one drives me nuts. Once upon a time, there were two words that described related but opposing concepts. One described matters that related to the real world, the other tended matters of a...
That one drives me nuts.
Once upon a time, there were two words that described related but opposing concepts. One described matters that related to the real world, the other tended matters of a more metaphorical nature. (Okay okay, there's a bit more to it than that.) These terms coexisted peacefully and managed to pull off some great stunts of language. They shed light on ambiguous contexts, even cracked occasional jokes.
Them some dumb shit famous people who didn't actually understand the concepts began mangling their usage, and made it popular for everyone else to do so. In a parade of fashionable ignorance, literally became figuritively, figuritively was disowned, and literally eventually had to start whoring itself out as emphasis for situations that had absolutely no need for it. Finally, it's former glory days of quirky wordplay ended for good when the master of words, Dictionary, assigned it the role of filler language. Stripped of its title, gawping morons enjoy its usage frequently, while "totally" lies discarded in a ditch somewhere.
This one's for all you people who think you know a grammar pedant. John Dryden takes the cake. Atlas Obscura takes the stranded preposition out. Of good grammar.
As Winston Churchill famously said, "This is the sort of rubbish up with which I will not put." :)
I've read this before: that preposition stranding, like other so-called rules of English grammar, came from writers and grammarians who applied Latin rules to English. For example, this is supposedly how the rule against splitting infinitives came to us: infinitives are not split in Latin, so they should not be split in English. Of course, this overlooks the fact that Latin infinitives are a single word which can't be split, while English infinitives are two words which can be split. This is how the USS Enterprise's mission can be "to boldly go where no one has gone before".
See also: the mess that is the pluralisation of words ending in -us
In English that is done by adding "-es", but the idea still persists in some places that it's virii not viruses, cacti not cactuses and worst of all octopi not octopuses (octopus isn't even a bloody Latin word, so if anything it should pluralise in the Greek style - octopodes).
Dreadful. But who am I to complain. It's just what English does. Someone makes up some new way of doing things and enough people go with it and then that's it, that's how it works now..
I believe that "cacti" has a wide enough usage to be considered a valid English word, even though it is based on Latin rules. Same with "radii" and "gladioli". As you say, it's just about what people do, rather than about rules.
And literally now somehow means figuratively. I may be a descriptivist but I don't always have to like it.
That one drives me nuts.
Once upon a time, there were two words that described related but opposing concepts. One described matters that related to the real world, the other tended matters of a more metaphorical nature. (Okay okay, there's a bit more to it than that.) These terms coexisted peacefully and managed to pull off some great stunts of language. They shed light on ambiguous contexts, even cracked occasional jokes.
Them some dumb shit famous people who didn't actually understand the concepts began mangling their usage, and made it popular for everyone else to do so. In a parade of fashionable ignorance, literally became figuritively, figuritively was disowned, and literally eventually had to start whoring itself out as emphasis for situations that had absolutely no need for it. Finally, it's former glory days of quirky wordplay ended for good when the master of words, Dictionary, assigned it the role of filler language. Stripped of its title, gawping morons enjoy its usage frequently, while "totally" lies discarded in a ditch somewhere.