Comments for Arrant Pedantry

Comment on Here’s You a Benefactive Dative by AnWulf

AnWulf — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:21:02 +0000

It’s not only pronouns. One can note nouns … “Here’s the dog a bone.”

I may shopping with Mary and know that John wants an apple, so I say to Mary, “Here’s John an apple.”

This is not mainly found on the Gulf Coast. You link to a woman who heard it in Kentucky. I’v livd from one end of Tennessee to the other and it’s there.

Comment on The Reason Why This Is Correct by Jonathon Owen

Jonathon Owen — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:18:51 +0000

John: That’s odd. Why would they use a completely different analysis in a different book? Either way, though, the key point is that why is filling a grammatical role and is not redundant.

webdan76: Thanks!

Comment on My Thesis by Warsaw Will

Warsaw Will — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:47:26 +0000

When it comes to ‘toward/towards’ I think you need to narrow it down even further to ‘American Standard Edited English’. This Ngram graph suggests that while there has been a steady move from ‘towards’ to ‘toward’ in American books over the last two hundred years, ‘towards’ has remained dominant in British books, albeit with a slight increase in the use of ‘toward’.

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=toward%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ctowards%3Aeng_us_2012%2Ctoward%3Aeng_gb_2012%2Ctowards%3Aeng_gb_2012%2C&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=

Comment on My Thesis by Jonathon Owen

Jonathon Owen — Mon, 20 May 2013 19:35:03 +0000

Catterel: I'm glad you liked it, but my goal wasn't necessarily to debunk bad editing. I do raise the question of whether such edits are worth it. After all, editing costs money, and we edit under the assumption that we are adding value by improving the quality of the text. I think specific usage rules should be shown to have some benefit before we adopt them and try to enforce them everywhere in print. Braden and Stan: You're very welcome. I think circularity is to some extent inescapable, because our expectations are shaped by our experiences. But I think it's worth acknowledging the circularity and being conscious of the expectations that we're creating. I'm not convinced that readers are clamoring for toward and the that/which rule or that they're bothered when those rules aren't followed, but we need more evidence. Erin: I was perhaps overgeneralizing there, but it's true that there's a lot of animosity. I think there are a lot of moderates on both sides, though, who see the value in the other's field. And I definitely agree that there's value in editors studying linguistics and linguists studying editing.

Comment on My Thesis by Martyn Cornell

Martyn Cornell — Sat, 18 May 2013 20:20:31 +0000

per cent … OK …

(mind, I’m writing from a BrE perspective, so your usage will differ)

Comment on My Thesis by Erin

Erin — Sat, 18 May 2013 18:06:34 +0000

“Usage writers, editors, and others see linguists as the enemies of Standard (Edited) English”

Okay, as a former student of sociolinguistics (specifically discourse analysis) and current editor, I have to object here. There are actually a decent number of editors who are also linguists (or at least have studied linguistics), and I hate to see the two fields pitted against each other. They are somewhat overlapping yet quite distinct fields. More editors could benefit from studying linguistics, and more linguists should be studying editing and its effects on language, the way you are here. When will this pointless war between prescriptivism and descriptivism end?

And with that, I’m off to read the thesis. Thank you!

Comment on My Thesis by Stan

Stan — Sat, 18 May 2013 10:10:01 +0000

This is very interesting, Jonathon, and thanks for making your thesis available. I look forward to read it later. Editing text for a US audience recently, I changed towards to toward several times, simply because it's the norm in that context; whereas the s-form, though it's what I use myself as an Irish English speaker, is dispreferred and even considered erroneous by many US readers. If the writer or publisher in question said, "Actually, I'm happy with towards – you can leave it alone", I'd have no problem with that. I'm not surprised the reasoning behind these attitudes and conventions is circular, at least to some extent.

Comment on My Thesis by Braden

Braden — Sat, 18 May 2013 02:34:22 +0000

Very interesting. Thanks for taking the time to summarize.

Comment on My Thesis by Catterel

Catterel — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:52:47 +0000

Thank you, Jonathan! This is my cri de coeur – I have just linked to you from my blog post http://catterel.wordpress.com/2013/05/17/twin-towers-of-pedantry/ – let’s fly the flag for our beautiful language!

Comment on My Thesis by Twin Towers Of Pedantry | catterel

Twin Towers Of Pedantry | catterel — Fri, 17 May 2013 10:49:55 +0000

[...] Owen, who shouts from the rooftops what I am muttering about in my chamber. He has a blog called Arrant Pedantry and has just finished a Master’s thesis on the subject of how far narrow-minded editors are [...]