Some editors, for some reason, tend to try to change each though I use into an although. I don’t get it — both are fully standard, both are commonplace in edited legal prose, and have been for centuries. A quick Lexis NEWS;US database search reveals that “although” and “though” are roughly equally common today; and […]
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The “Rules of English”
In response to my post defending sentences that start with “and” and “but,” commenter ptt writes, “Or they’re called conjunctions for a reason. EV should create a new tag: Rules of English I Don’t Like.” Actually, my claim in the post was that there is no rule of English against starting sentences with conjunctions. Educated […]
Starting Sentences with “And,” “But,” or (Less Often) “Or”
I occasionally run across people — including law review editors — who seem to take the view that there’s something wrong with starting a sentence with “and,” “but,” or “or.” I don’t see any basis for that view. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage notes, this doesn’t violate any established usage or grammar practices. It’s […]
It’s “the Internet.” Please.
I’m losing my battle to keep the initial capital “I” in “the Internet.” I’m starting see references to “the internet” everywhere; the latest to fall seems to be The Economist (see headline from July 30: “An internet with Chinese characteristics” – I’m quite certain that it was “the Internet” up until quite recently). It actually […]
Smelly and Tasty
Back in 2002, I asked: “Why is ‘tasty’ good but ‘smelly’ bad?” Now there’s a linguistic attempt to answer this, in a book chapter titled — I kid you not — A Note on an Asymmetry in the Hedonic Implicatures of Olfactory and Gustatory Terms. The author’s main explanation seems to be, [T]he things that […]
English V3.31
I’m generally not an early adopter of such products, but this sounds interesting. For the original report, see here.
Defeatures
My Beloved and I saw an excellent production today of the “Comedy of Errors” at the Folger Shakespeare Library in DC. Late in the play, however, I noticed the usage of a word I had not heard before, and which, had I not been sitting Amidst the Words of the Bard, I would have taken […]
“The Best Writers Say, ‘The House Is Building,’ Not ‘The House Is Being Built'”
Yes, that was apparently the view among some grammarians in the late 1800s; see here for some examples. I did not know that! Here’s an example of such a condemnation: This modern form [“is being …”] is very seldom used among writers of the highest class…. “The house is being built” does not express what […]
Effective Usage
[UPDATE: So far, the first eight commenters have all read the statement that I’m describing differently from how I read it. This suggests that my and my correspondent’s reading of the term “ingenuity” might well have been idiosyncratic, and that my misunderstanding may have been entirely my fault and not the fault of the author […]
“Standardless Vulgarization” Leading to “Surpassed Languages Go[ing] Under”?
A commenter writes, Of course language evolves. It is so ironic that the apologists for standardless vulgarization should parade this undeniable reality as though it were a justification or motivation for rushing headlond to a modern Tower of Babel. Language must serve as a medium for exchange of information, a store of data, and a […]
“[Volokh’s] Attack on Decent Speech and the Attacks His Spiritual Cousins Would Have Brought on Morals”
The Recency Illusion thread produced this comment: First, Volokh would have us believe that against all usage, usage is all that matters. Now, we hear that it is improper to lament the contemporary decline in the order of the language because, in times before that order was fully established, the order did not exist. Imagine […]
The Recency Illusion
Three comments in recent threads reminded me of what Arnold Zwicky (Language Log) calls the recency illusion, “the belief that things YOU have noticed only recently are in fact recent. This is a selective attention effect. Your impressions are simply not to be trusted; you have to check the facts. Again and again — retro […]
“When People Commit Errors of ‘Internal Structure of Logic or Order'”
A commenter on the “Internal Structure of Logic or Order” thread writes, Education is fundamentally elitist, and it ought to be. When people commit errors of “internal structure of logic or order” it’s perfectly okay for those who know better to define those as mistakes, and, within the bounds of social propriety, correct them. Social […]
“Internal Structures of Logic or Order”
A commenter wrote, apropos my “pleaded” / “pled” post, Can Volokh possibly be truthful when he says that he can see no basis for calling a use “incorrect” other than statistical usage? Can he really believe that [l]anguage has no other internal structure of logic or order except for usage? This is a silly view. […]
Strategic Ambiguity? How to Interpret This Sentence?
I have no idea how many people attended the DC rally today; could be 10 or 1,000,000 for all I know. I’m sitting outside my law school in the sunshine. I know that there is much commentary on comparisons to the Beck rally in terms of size. But I am unsure how to interpret the […]