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Now this is surreal! Bob Godfrey, animator and creator of the cartoons "Roobarb and Custard", "Henry's Cat" (who the hell was Henry anyway?), and "Noah and Nelly in the Skylark" died yesterday, 2 (or so) days after Richard Briers, the voice of "Noah and Nelly" and "Roobarb and Custard"!
"We all have imaginary friends. I've just grown out of mine". Jimmy Carr.
Nick wrote:In reference to "none", my mum recently did an English course and quizzed me on the word "staff". She said that her tutor said that "the staff was reliable" and asked me whether that was correct. It's an awkward one as words like "none", "staff" and "group" refer to more than one but are collective nouns and treated as singular.
If "staff was" is OK can we say something like, "The staff is not happy with the principals decision"?
Anyway, if it is the present members of the faculty who are being described should it not have been, "The staff are reliable"?
English tutors are not always reliable, mine insisted that an apostrophe was required as "teacher's" in the sentence, "The boys ran fast but their teachers ran faster." She also marked "freer" (used as "more free") as wrong in an essay!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015
Nick wrote:In reference to "none", my mum recently did an English course and quizzed me on the word "staff". She said that her tutor said that "the staff was reliable" and asked me whether that was correct. It's an awkward one as words like "none", "staff" and "group" refer to more than one but are collective nouns and treated as singular.
If "staff was" is OK can we say something like, "The staff is not happy with the principals decision"?
Anyway, if it is the present members of the faculty who are being described should it not have been, "The staff are reliable"?
English tutors are not always reliable, mine insisted that an apostrophe was required as "teacher's" in the sentence, "The boys ran fast but their teachers ran faster." She also marked "freer" (used as "more free") as wrong in an essay!
English tutorial staff is not always reliable "Staff" should surely be used as a plural despite sounding like a singular - we often say "most of the staff" and would surely make this plural? "Government" is another awkward one, but it hangs together a bit more than do the staff, I think
Dave B wrote:She also marked "freer" (used as "more free") as wrong in an essay!
Well, if you add the "-er" suffix to "free", you get "freeer". Obvious, innit?
As for the "staff" issues, my English teacher drummed into us that the rules of grammar, etc, were there to aid understanding and that they should be broken if doing so made the meaning clearer or if not doing so made the sentence so stylistically ugly that it jarred.
Steve
Quantum Theory:The branch of science with which people who know absolutely sod all about quantum theory can explain anything.
I like your English teacher's approach! I was told once that a sentence was any collection of words that imparted meaning of some kind. And this business of not starting with "and" or "but" was just fussy, the usual alternatives, "also" and "however," do not always impart the required mood, especially in speech. If you can say it and it makes sense you can write it as well!
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015
Dave B wrote:So, TT, should "zoology" be "zooology" then
As this is pedants corner, the answer to that is no, Dave.
The word zoology came before zoo. It comes from zo and ology, not from zoo-ology. the two 'o's in zoology should, in theory, be pronounced separately.
you're right, Nick - I went to a quiz recently where a question concerned the meaning of "oology" (the answer is the study of eggs) and the MC pronounced the word to sound a bit like "eulogy". Dave could be right about the study of zoos, though!
Dave B wrote:So, TT, should "zoology" be "zooology" then
As this is pedants corner, the answer to that is no, Dave.
The word zoology came before zoo. It comes from zo and ology, not from zoo-ology. the two 'o's in zoology should, in theory, be pronounced separately.
Zoölogy.
I had an English teacher who insisted that it was for words such as this that the diaeresis mark existed. He may have been the last such teacher in the UK, but I have heard a rumour that diaereses are still marked in The New Yorker...
What we can't say, we can't say and we can't whistle it either. — Frank Ramsey
Dave B wrote:So, TT, should "zoology" be "zooology" then
As this is pedants corner, the answer to that is no, Dave.
The word zoology came before zoo. It comes from zo and ology, not from zoo-ology. the two 'o's in zoology should, in theory, be pronounced separately.
I know, "zoo" is a contraction of "zoological garden" in its meaning as somewhere that animals are kept. But, I suppose, it can be claimed that this is the way language develops and expands, contraction do become words in the own right after decades of usage, "tin" for "tin(ned) can" as opposed to the metal etc.
"Look forward; yesterday was a lesson, if you did not learn from it you wasted it."
Me, 2015
Can't we just say plebiscite?
"Staff" should surely be used as a plural despite sounding like a singular - we often say "most of the staff" and would surely make this plural? "Government" is another awkward one, but it hangs together a bit more than do the staff, I think
An Ode to English Plurals.doc
