Maybe you English teachers and grouchy grammar grinches can help me. I was taught that you could go anyway but not anyways. I see and hear people use the word anyways as a conjunction often. It bugs me. Is it correct.
Jones
Printable View
Maybe you English teachers and grouchy grammar grinches can help me. I was taught that you could go anyway but not anyways. I see and hear people use the word anyways as a conjunction often. It bugs me. Is it correct.
Jones
Another good excuse for "the calories don't count when . . . " thread. The calories don't count when it is to solve a grammar question.Quote:
Originally Posted by maillotpois
Good one, MP.
But thank you for supplying the validation.Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
Alas, it is a neon sign.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dianyla
It would seem that proper grammar is not everyone's forte.
Even the FRENCH pronounce it "fort." Where do people get the idea that it's for-tay?
The French don't care what they do actually, as long as they pronounce it properly.
Professor Higgins (My Fair Lady)
I have musicals on the brain today.
Quote:
Originally Posted by withm
From the dictionary :D - according to Webster's it should have a long a or a long e sound at the end.
V.
You are so right! My first degree was in Anthro also! (Alas, propbably my only degree, unless I win the lottery and can pursue degrees for fun in comparative linguistics, Spanish lit, medical anthropology ... oh, so many things are interesting!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lise
My favorite is "reduplicate", which I know is a real word, but seems like it shouldn't be. Worse, "reduplicate again". I have a client who says this all the time. And another client says "flustrated" - maybe a cross between "flustered" and "frustrated".
I am totally loving this thread - I feel like you all are my long lost, three-fingered typing, language-freak family!
I've come to view grammar as mere guidelines in my maturing years.:D Sometimes you want to follow the rules, sometimes what you want to communicate works better if you break the rules. (Sometimes I can't be bothered.)
Kinda like composing music in the key of C major, and tossing in a couple of accidentals. Those accidentals can say a lot.
I was a librarian in one of my former lives, and am the product of a fine lineage of librarians. I get far more disturbed by library books shelved out of call-number order than by grammar-as-creative-enterprise. If I can understand what someone is trying to say, then they have communicated successfully.
I read dictionaries for fun. Ain't kidding.
If you want an exercise in medium vs. message, read "Push" by Sapphire.
Then read some Mary Oliver. You'll need to.
Do both communicate successfully? Compare and contrast, using the conventions of Strunk and White, single-sided and double-spaced, and return to me by next week. Yes, you in the back row with the headphones? No, you may not email your paper to me. You may deliver it to the department office or bring it to class. I must have it by Friday for you to recieve full credit.
P.S. Strunk and White cohabitate beautifully with Rhyme's Reason on my bookshelf. All they need is a complete OED for company. Hardbound, not CD. If I ever meet someone with a complete OED, I might just have to sleep with them. (the OED)
Probably the same reason we pronounce "crêpe" as if it were "crape," while the French word actually rhymes with English "step." It's a word that's been borrowed from French, and its pronunciation has been adapted/changed.Quote:
Originally Posted by withm
(note the use of "it's" and "its" ;) )
In fact, the French word is "fort," pronounced like "four" (with a French R, of course, but no T). It's the masculine form of the adjective that can be used as a noun (to mean the opposite of a weakness). The T of the feminine adjective "forte" is pronounced, but the E is not. We (speakers of English) just made that up.
I am sure you were all losing sleep over this one.
Whew, I only have the compact edition and haven't gotten any updates. I'm safe or maybe it's safe. :confused: :p :DQuote:
Originally Posted by KnottedYet
Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
I've got the compact, too. My father in law has the complete (2 volume, tiny print, comes with magnifying glass....) I have envy.
Mine says compact but is 2 volume, tiny print, etc. Did they change format? Better not tell Knotted about your FIL.;)
This might be the only place this is safe to admit, but I have ALWAYS wanted the full 20 volume set of the OED, on its own little stand! (unfortunately, current price: $1500 :eek:)
(But sorry Knotted - if I had it (them?) I'm not sure I'd let it out for sleep-overs!)
You know what, I was confused. I have the Concise OED. My father in law has the Compact - that I covet. And I guess now I covet yours, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
I always pronounced forte "for-tay" after the Italian word forte, commonly used in sheetmusic instructions. :)
When the latest edition of the complete OED came out, Village Books had an old one for sale for only $800. Cuz it was like totally out of date dontcha know.
Man, if I'd had the money I'd've nabbed it.
Then I could've slept with my own.;)
20 volumes of the OED on their own stand. I don't think it would be little.
I have an old dictionary that my Grandma gave me for my 20th bday, 26 years ago. It's on a wonderful, slightly spindley dictionary stand that I found in an antiques store. The other day, when double checking the spelling of Thucydides :cool: I thought, "I really should get a new dictionary." I have a bit of a problem with anthropomorphizing, though, and getting rid of the dictionary from Grandma feels kind of like disrespecting the ancestors. On the other hand, she was a librarian and English teacher, so she'd WANT me to have an up-to-date dictionary! Yes! Thank you, TE grammar grinches, for helping me resolve this thorny dilemma! I'll ask my sibs to give me a new dictionary for my b-day! Problem solved! :D
Don't get rid of the old one. For sentimental reasons but also the references to countries that no longer exist and all kinds of stuff from ages past.
Ah, I'd never get rid of it. My sister bought a globe once at a garage sale because it has the Soviet Union on it. That's something I'd like. A globe from 1960, the year I was born. The world as it was when I came in. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by SadieKate
I go off surfing for a dog trainer, come back and TE gals are sleeping with the OED. You gals are kinky :eek: this is a family forum.
It's OK. The kids don't know what the OED is. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
Trek - did you find a trainer? I highly recommend Bay Area Dog Training - Mike is awesome.
new drift.....I don't like vermouth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veronica
When you are speaking of someone's strengths, "fort" is correct, however, the musical term is "for-tay."
However I admit that we continue to corrupt the English language and pronounciations evolve despite the efforts of the grammar police to lock our language in place.
From http://thesaurus.reference.com/
for·te Pronunciation Key (fôrt, fôrt, frt)
n.
Something in which a person excels.
The strong part of a sword blade, between the middle and the hilt.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[French fort, from Old French, strong, from Latin fortis. See fort.]
Synonyms: forte, métier, specialty, thing
These nouns denote something at which a person is particularly skilled: Writing fiction is her forte. The theater is his métier. The professor's specialty was the study of ancient languages. Mountain climbing is really my thing.
Usage Note: The word forte, coming from French fort, should properly be pronounced with one syllable, like the English word fort. Common usage, however, prefers the two-syllable pronunciation, (fôrt), which has been influenced possibly by the music term forte borrowed from Italian. In a recent survey a strong majority of the Usage Panel, 74 percent, preferred the two-syllable pronunciation. The result is a delicate situation; speakers who are aware of the origin of the word may wish to continue to pronounce it as one syllable but at an increasing risk of puzzling their listeners.
Thanks Snap, I've had some responses and trying to narrow it down to the right one for the fearocious beast. I googled and found several Bay Area Dog Training Groups, which one is Mike in? Can you PM me Mikes info?
Thought we only drift in Triathlons?
Words imported from other languages often change pronunciation in the process. They also often change meanings. I think that in French "forte" means strong, while in English it means strength, as in a thing that you're good at. I could be wrong in that instance, but there are plenty of other examples of the phenomenon. These kinds of shifts in meaning and pronunciation are so common that you pretty much have to accept them as correct. Some other examples:
Queen in English comes from kvinne (pron: kvinn-uh) in Norse, which simply means woman.
Husband in English comes from husbond (pron: hoos-bohnd) in Norse, which means farmer (a meaning maintained in "animal husbandry").
And what was the one I saw the other day ... Oh yeah! One of my grad students is French. In an essay in English he used the term savoir faire. He used it, I think, in the French sense, i.e. simply as knack, or know-how, or skill. But moved to English it also carries a bit of a flair, precisely because it is imported. So it has some mystique, some je-ne-sais-quois, some romance, some .... hmmm, is there an Anglo-Saxon word at all that expresses this? Or is the mysterious quality and status of an import word something we can only express with other (meaning-modified) import words? ;)
Precious little romance in the Anglo-Saxon, it seems. My ancestors: We invade you. We win. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by bikeless in WI
The name of my profession, "midwife" is from old German, and means "with woman". Although I prefer what they call us in French -- sagefemme. It looks and sounds beautiful, and means wise woman.
How do "they" know for sure that the genesis of an English word is from one language or another? It can't be an exact science. I mean, the Italian forte has the same latin root as the French forte and also means "strong" (rather than the generally held belief that it means "play as loud as you can until your music teacher covers her/his ears and begs you to stop abusing her/his precious piano so" ;)).
I often think I couldn't hack life as a mod - Id find it so veery dificilt too rezist squigeling my red teecher pen al ovr peepils' posts. :rolleyes:
There's always the fallback to the the word "whatever", in all it's various intonations. It's like the "white flag of surrender" signaling a complete failure of vocabulary. That, and the loss in some conversations of verbs to express speech. I've overheard conversations very similar to this one: "I'm all, whatever, and he goes, whatever, we're like, you know, whatever."Quote:
is there an Anglo-Saxon word at all that expresses this? Or is the mysterious quality and status of an import word something we can only express with other (meaning-modified) import words?
(I seem to be feeling particulary grinchy this morning - time for a bike ride in the cold fog! What happened to spring? We went straight from winter rain to summer gloom and fog :( )
Isn't it hard to get the red pen parks off your monitor? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by tlkiwi
whatever ;)
You know it is, z! :D
I'll track it down when I get home - the business is actually called Bay Area Dog Training - Mike Hatjes is the owner. I'm sure I've got his card at home.
I drift all over the place.....:rolleyes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Trek420
I like "whatever." But I think I use it more to say, "I think you're an idiot, b*tch or some other derogatory word and I think what you're doing is stupid, rude or just plain wrong. But it doesn't really affect me so... whatever."Quote:
Originally Posted by bikerz
V.
Remember that scene in The Wizard of Oz, early in the movie, where Margaret Hamilton (soon to be the Wicked Witch), tells Dorothy and her family that she's going to get an order to have Toto put down? Auntie Em says, "So and so (I can't remember her pre-witch name), if I weren't a good Christian woman, I'd tell you just what I think of you!" I think of that sometimes. Sort of a predecessor to V's version of "whatever".
Elmira Gulch!
I love The Wizard of Oz. It's one of my three favorite movies - the other two being Gone with the Wind. I'd swoon for Rhett Butler. :D And Aliens, which I think is funny, romantic and scary. I think after Thom and Rhett, Michael Biehn is pretty sexy.
V.
You gotta do "whatever" with the handsign - your hands forming a "W" - What-EVER!. Petitepois has customized it to combine with the "L" handsign at your forehead - "What-EVER, Loser!"Quote:
Originally Posted by Veronica
Oh man, my first major media crush after reading the book as a 5th grader (and 7th, and 9th, etc.). Last year I almost died laughing (to myself) when my 15 yo niece bought herself a DVD copy of GWTW and got her hands on a life-size cutout of Clark Gable as Rhett for her bedroom! I guess some crushes are timeless. Love Wizard of Oz, too, and your definition of WhatEVER!Quote:
Originally Posted by Veronica
From our fliends at engrish.com: Grammar Crisis :p