Comments on: Grammar quiz http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/ Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:41:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.1 By: Brinestone http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-175 Brinestone Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:59:04 +0000 http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-175 I did come across the George W Bush quote after writing this post and found it funny that something I thought no native speaker would say had actually been uttered by our nation's president. Ah, well; everyone makes mistakes when speaking sometimes (though he makes a few more than most people do, I think). I'm pretty sure the Hagrid one is not in the novels. I would guess the rest are a combination of real quotes and made-up sentences. I did come across the George W Bush quote after writing this post and found it funny that something I thought no native speaker would say had actually been uttered by our nation’s president. Ah, well; everyone makes mistakes when speaking sometimes (though he makes a few more than most people do, I think). I’m pretty sure the Hagrid one is not in the novels. I would guess the rest are a combination of real quotes and made-up sentences.

]]> By: JD http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-151 JD Fri, 18 Jan 2008 11:40:21 +0000 http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-151 Woah. Great post, but far too much to comment on! 'Enjoying reading would be difficult for you' if you were, say, in prison, and the selection of books available was poor. This is different either to enjoying or not enjoying reading generally. But I suppose that it would be more usual to say 'it is difficult for you to enjoy reading' or a similar construction. I don't know whether the original sentence, about Hagrid, was lifted from an actual Harry Potter novel - but it would be interesting to find out. Oh and question 6 is (apparently) a George W Bush quotation, so I don't know whether all of the test sentences are taken from one source or another rather than being made up. Woah. Great post, but far too much to comment on!

‘Enjoying reading would be difficult for you’ if you were, say, in prison, and the selection of books available was poor. This is different either to enjoying or not enjoying reading generally.

But I suppose that it would be more usual to say ‘it is difficult for you to enjoy reading’ or a similar construction.

I don’t know whether the original sentence, about Hagrid, was lifted from an actual Harry Potter novel - but it would be interesting to find out.

Oh and question 6 is (apparently) a George W Bush quotation, so I don’t know whether all of the test sentences are taken from one source or another rather than being made up.

]]> By: TootsNY http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-145 TootsNY Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:37:21 +0000 http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-145 You wrote: "...sometimes it’s the grammarians who make mistakes. There, doesn’t that make you feel better about the time your third-grade teacher wrote all over your report with red pen?" Every now and then my daughter would be greatly troubled bcs her teacher was telling her to take out a comma around a restrictive appositive, or edit a sentence to create a dangling modifier. It's been an important lesson for her: that the experts aren't always expert. You wrote: “…sometimes it’s the grammarians who make mistakes. There, doesn’t that make you feel better about the time your third-grade teacher wrote all over your report with red pen?”

Every now and then my daughter would be greatly troubled bcs her teacher was telling her to take out a comma around a restrictive appositive, or edit a sentence to create a dangling modifier.

It’s been an important lesson for her: that the experts aren’t always expert.

]]> By: goofy http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-61 goofy Fri, 28 Sep 2007 18:24:54 +0000 http://www.arrantpedantry.com/2007/08/05/errant-pedantry/#comment-61 I think the conjoined pronoun thing, as in question 9, is very interesting. For speakers who say things like "taught John and I", conjunction has an effect on case assignment - the case of the pronoun might change when it's conjoined. Whereas in standard written English, conjunction has no effect on case - we use "me" as an object whether or not it is conjoined. I think the conjoined pronoun thing, as in question 9, is very interesting. For speakers who say things like “taught John and I”, conjunction has an effect on case assignment - the case of the pronoun might change when it’s conjoined. Whereas in standard written English, conjunction has no effect on case - we use “me” as an object whether or not it is conjoined.

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