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Pedants' corner

For discussions related to education and educational institutions.
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Dave B
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Joined: May 17th, 2010, 9:15 pm

Re: Pedants' corner

#41 Post by Dave B » February 9th, 2013, 10:21 am

Latest post of the previous page:

How did I miss :yahbooh: ?

'Sno good, I am getting past my use-by date :sad2:
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#42 Post by Alan H » February 9th, 2013, 10:33 am

Dave B wrote:How did I miss :yahbooh: ?

'Sno good, I am getting past my use-by date :sad2:
[-X
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
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Re: Pedants' corner

#43 Post by animist » February 9th, 2013, 5:39 pm

imaginaryfriend wrote:This has been annoying me for years and I often think that I'm the only one, but does anyone else get irritated by the use of "there's" instead of "there are"? It seems to be very common these days and seemingly has become so acceptable that when I recently watched a news report on ITV a respected news reporter who was live from that tragic helicopter crash in London was relating the number of deaths (only 2 fortunately) ended his report: "it's remarkable that there's no more deaths".

It makes me really frustrated and borderline violent that verb conjugation has been abandoned so wantonly. I hear it constantly, "there's more than five...", "there's loads of them..." etc.

Am I overreacting? And what's with "I was/we were sat" rather than "sitting"? I've even seen that one in The Guardian.

OK, rant over! :angry:
not worth anger. It is probably quite hard to say "there're" intelligibly, and since spoken language always tends to shorten written forms, it is not surprising that this has happened. The other element in this change is the, I think annoying, loss of the conceptual distinction between amount and number.

Re "sitting" and "sat" - "sit" is a very irregular verb and I am not surprised at this. "Sit" means usually the action of sitting down, and after that, are you sitting or are you sat?

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#44 Post by Dave B » February 9th, 2013, 6:08 pm

I'll support you, IF! I think:

"... "it's remarkable that there's no more deaths." should be, "... "it's remarkable that there are no more deaths." or, possibly better, ".... it's remarkable that there were no more deaths".

:D
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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jaywhat
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Re: Pedants' corner

#45 Post by jaywhat » February 10th, 2013, 8:23 am

animist wrote: Re "sitting" and "sat" - "sit" is a very irregular verb and I am not surprised at this. "Sit" means usually the action of sitting down, and after that, are you sitting or are you sat?

Depends whether you are sitting in East Grinstead or sat in Huddersfield ! :smile:

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#46 Post by Alan H » February 10th, 2013, 9:39 am

jaywhat wrote:
animist wrote: Re "sitting" and "sat" - "sit" is a very irregular verb and I am not surprised at this. "Sit" means usually the action of sitting down, and after that, are you sitting or are you sat?

Depends whether you are sitting in East Grinstead or sat in Huddersfield ! :smile:
But what if you're sat sitting in Leeds?
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#47 Post by Dave B » February 10th, 2013, 9:41 am

And the seat of government must be very wide to accommodate all those people!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
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Tetenterre
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Re: Pedants' corner

#48 Post by Tetenterre » February 10th, 2013, 10:42 am

Alan H wrote:But what if you're sat sitting in Leeds?
Ot using a sat-link to sit your SATs in Satterthwaite?


I'll get my coat.....
Steve

Quantum Theory: The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.

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Tetenterre
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Re: Pedants' corner

#49 Post by Tetenterre » February 16th, 2013, 1:06 pm

I keep hearing on the Today programme: "The data is...", "The data tells us...", etc. Please may we have either "The data are..." and "The data tell us..." or "The datum is..." and "The datum tells us...".
Steve

Quantum Theory: The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#50 Post by Alan H » February 16th, 2013, 1:34 pm

Tetenterre wrote:I keep hearing on the Today programme: "The data is...", "The data tells us...", etc. Please may we have either "The data are..." and "The data tell us..." or "The datum is..." and "The datum tells us...".
Seconded!
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
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Re: Pedants' corner

#51 Post by animist » February 16th, 2013, 8:10 pm

Tetenterre wrote:I keep hearing on the Today programme: "The data is...", "The data tells us...", etc. Please may we have either "The data are..." and "The data tell us..." or "The datum is..." and "The datum tells us...".
this does not bother me - now anyway, and I guess the thing is that it is essentially a set of data that is referred to, and we have forgotten the original Latin singular "datum". It seems to be another case of this conflict between an amount of a single mass thing and a number of separate things that bothers people like ImaginaryFriend. But the phrases "a lot of" and "lots of" seem to undermine the distinction: obviously we say "lots of people think this" in the plural, but we might equally say "a lot of people" and still use the plural - no-one would say "a lot of people thinks this", would they?

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#52 Post by Alan H » February 16th, 2013, 9:21 pm

I reckon that most scientists, statisticians, etc use if as a plural: 'these data show', etc.
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#53 Post by Dave B » February 16th, 2013, 10:28 pm

I was thinking earlier that since, in English, most plurals end is "s" we should be happy not to be complaining about "datas" or "datums"!

There used to be mutterings about the correct use of "fish" and "fishes" as plurals but these are now usually accepted as being interchangeable. I can still remember primary school teachers drumming into us that there was no such word as "sheeps" - so that one has stuck for most people over the age of 6!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan C.
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Re: Pedants' corner

#54 Post by Alan C. » February 17th, 2013, 11:42 am

Dave
"fish" and "fishes"
Up here the plural used (always) for haddock is haddocks, the s isn't used for any other variety of fish/fishes.
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#55 Post by Dave B » February 17th, 2013, 11:58 am

Alan C. wrote:
Dave
"fish" and "fishes"
Up here the plural used (always) for haddock is haddocks, the s isn't used for any other variety of fish/fishes.
Come to think of it many plural fish seem to not use the "s", I would say "two haddock" or "two trout", as yesterday in a restaurant, "Two pan fried trout please," when we both decided on that choice (luverly!).
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#56 Post by Alan H » February 17th, 2013, 1:07 pm

One sardine. Two sardines. A can of sardines. :D
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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Tetenterre
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Joined: March 13th, 2011, 11:36 am

Re: Pedants' corner

#57 Post by Tetenterre » February 17th, 2013, 1:30 pm

Wasn't it once the case that "game" animals properly had the same plural as singular (deer, kudu, salmon, pheasant, etc.), but others properly had a distinct splural (cows, badgers, sharks, bluetits, etc.)? Then there's "sheep" :wink: .
Steve

Quantum Theory: The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.

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Dave B
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Re: Pedants' corner

#58 Post by Dave B » February 17th, 2013, 1:58 pm

Alan H wrote:One sardine. Two sardines. A can of sardines. :D
I did say, "Come to think of it many plural fish . . ." :D
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015

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Alan H
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Re: Pedants' corner

#59 Post by Alan H » February 17th, 2013, 2:16 pm

Dave B wrote:
Alan H wrote:One sardine. Two sardines. A can of sardines. :D
I did say, "Come to think of it many plural fish . . ." :D
But what do they say in Shetland?
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

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animist
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Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Pedants' corner

#60 Post by animist » February 17th, 2013, 2:40 pm

Dave B wrote:I was thinking earlier that since, in English, most plurals end is "s" we should be happy not to be complaining about "datas" or "datums"!
a similar one that does annoy me is "media", which is increasingly used as thought it were singular; since the true singular is "medium", a word which is widely used in its own right as the singular of "media", this seems more annoying than "data" used as a singular

TT, I accepted your reason for opting out of Henny Penny because of some deadline or other, but you appear to have time to waste on less important things like this! :wink:

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Alan C.
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Re: Pedants' corner

#61 Post by Alan C. » February 17th, 2013, 3:19 pm

A H.
But what do they say in Shetland?
They don't fish for sardines, bigger fish to fry :D
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

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