Re: The Seven Deadly Sins of Grammar

Drewauerbach — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 20:08:48 GMT

Alienvoord, I appreciate you're constructive criticism. Allow me to rebute:

1) Comprehensible, yes. But many expressions are comprehensible even without being gramatically sound. The nuances I try to reveal in this post are to help you write better gramatically, not to sound or to write comprehensible.

2) I cannot refute this well supported argument. In fact, there is a sliver of the article that directly weakens my point. I quote:
-------BEGIN EXCERPT FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive -----------

Problems caused by trying to avoid the split infinitive

Stylistically, the careful placement of another word between to and the bare infinitive sometimes avoids ambiguity or ugliness. The old prohibition on split infinitives is particularly surprising when one observes that there are a number of expressions in English that are weakened considerably by avoiding the split infinitive.

[edit]

An example

R.L. Trask uses this example:

She decided to gradually get rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

Clearly, what is implied here is she took a decision to get rid of her teddy bears, and the disposal would happen over time. 'Gradually' splits the infinitive 'to get'. But if we were to move it, where would it go?. Consider the following:

She decided gradually to get rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

This implies that the decision was gradual.

She decided to get rid of the teddy bears she had collected gradually.

This implies that the collecting process was gradual.

She decided to get gradually rid of the teddy bears she had collected.

This sounds awkward to most native speakers of English.

She decided to get rid gradually of the teddy bears she had collected.

This is almost as awkward as its immediate predecessor.

Not only does the original example sound right to a native speaker, it is also the only semantically sound possibility.

The best way to avoid using split infinitives is usually via a change in lexical choices. However, in spoken language, phonetic stresses and timing is usually all that is needed for a sentence's actual implications to be understood.

In other instances, use of a split infinitive is for many people the most natural way to add certain kinds of emphasis in conversation:

Student A: "I'm going to do better next year."Student B: "I'm going to really do better next year."

On a historical level, it is possible that years of attacks against split infinitives by prescriptive grammarians have cowed some people into needless reluctance to split other compound verb forms. For example, people will contort sentences to avoid placing an adverb in its usual position between the auxiliary verb and the participle, leading to constructions such as, "The argument originally had been usedâ¦" instead of "The argument had originally been used", which is more natural for most speakers.

It is probably not possible to disentangle this argument from the modality of English grammar. Typically, in a phrase such as "I am going to", the verbal construct "to be going to" acts as a modal verb, analogous to other standard modal verbs "will", "could", "can" etc. In this sense, it becomes apparent that the preposition 'to' does not belong to the infinitive verb, but rather to the modal verb. In this case, it becomes impossible to split an infinitive.

-------END EXCERPT FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_infinitive --------

3) By saying, "I only <want to go to the movies>," you do NOT imply that you also <do not want to breathe.> Again, you got to pay attention to what "only" is modifying, the verb. By placing the limiting modifier before the first verb in this sentence, you imply limitations to what you can do, including breathing (although the idea sounds exagerrated initially, it really is correct). Now, you say that the sentence implies that the speaker <does not want to breathe>. Not so! In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he CANNOT breathe, regardless of desire. In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he is capable of only desiring to go to the movies. In my last sentence, I would have been correct to say, "In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he is only capable of desiring to go to the movies," or, "In fact, the speaker implies that (s)he only is capable of desiring to go to the movies."

4) The point I'm trying to make here is that using "it" as a dummy subject is gramatically incorrect; therefore, we should reject its use as a dummy subject (think prescriptivist rather than descriptivist).

5) I do not understand your argument here; therefore, I cannot refute it.

6) Your "counterargument" seems to be more like a historical basis that I would use to set up my argument. Which side are you on: yours or mine?

7) You're correct; I have not. Here is my evidence: Passive voice is boring. End of discussion.

Re: Uncountable noun that is preceded by "a"

Mister Micawber — Tue, 31 May 2005 00:31:52 GMT

In most cases, Paco--as in many other structural/lexical choices we have looked at here-- it is the speaker's concept at the moment.

'There was poor attendence at the meeting' -- the speaker is thinking of a visual mass of empty seats, the lack of enthusiasm, the disinterest people had: uncountable qualities.

'There was a poor attendence at the meeting' -- the speaker is thinking of the few attendees, the number of empty seats, the comparison with the full house last week: countable images.

The reality-- though I probably need the help of a psychologist here-- is that many or all of these images and ideas are passing through the speaker's mind as he instantaneously formulates his utterance and almost unconsciously chooses his words. What balance is required to choose the article or discard it seems to me to be impossible to pinpoint.

Search results for 'tag:Numbers tag:Lexical choices' matching tags 'Numbers' and 'Lexical choices'

Re: The Seven Deadly Sins of Grammar

Problems caused by trying to avoid the split infinitive

An example

Re: Uncountable noun that is preceded by "a"