"Grammar" and "Punctuation" nit's unite! You're "head" will literally explode! - Page 87 - Other Topics Forum - Discuss Pop Culture, Arts and Entertainment

However, a thorn in the side of conjunctionists is the phrase than whom; both sides of the debate agree than who just sounds wrong and recommend than whom in all cases

Wat. Does everyone really think (incorrectly) that it is "than whom?' I only ever hear "than who."

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07-13-2011 , 06:54 AM

#2152

styx2000

adept

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 902

from another thread:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rat Fink w redraws

....Chino didnt do no time in Chino...

English is not my first language, i have a question regarding these double negations. It might very well be intended in this instance (i don't know), but i think a single negation is the intended meaning (i.e. Chino didn't to time in Chino).

I see and hear these from time to time and keep wondering, is is some sort of ongoing joke, is it a mistake, is it slang? I believe the Italian Mafiosi in the Simpsons do it regularly.

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07-13-2011 , 09:09 AM

#2153

W0X0F

sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 5,832

Quote:

Originally Posted by styx2000

from another thread:

English is not my first language, i have a question regarding these double negations. It might very well be intended in this instance (i don't know), but i think a single negation is the intended meaning (i.e. Chino didn't to time in Chino).

I see and hear these from time to time and keep wondering, is is some sort of ongoing joke, is it a mistake, is it slang? I believe the Italian Mafiosi in the Simpsons do it regularly.

"We don't need no stinkin' badges!"
- The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (and Blazing Saddles)

You're right. This technically means "We need badges" and it's grammatically incorrect.

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07-13-2011 , 09:15 AM

#2154

quirkasaurus

old hand

Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,701

Quote:

Originally Posted by styx2000

The ongoing joke is that using a double-negative implies being uneducated or stupid. However, even knowing this, the double-negative is often used for emphasis. Another use may be:

"Ain't no way I'm eating no squid."

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07-13-2011 , 11:20 AM

#2155

styx2000

adept

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 902

Thanks guys.

I just thought of the song "I can't get no satisfaction" and looked it up on wikipedia. It says "The title line is an example of a double negative resolving to a negative, a common usage in colloquial English."

Here it's clearly used just for emphasis (as quirkasaurus said).

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07-13-2011 , 02:43 PM

#2156

atakdog

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Double negation to equal negation is very common, and acceptable, in black English; it's moderately common as a colloquialism in other forms, but not acceptable in formal or written language.

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07-13-2011 , 02:45 PM

#2157

atakdog

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And yes, black English grammar differs from that of white English. That used to be a huge barrier for some of my students when I was teaching LSAT classes.

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07-13-2011 , 03:45 PM

#2158

nuisance

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I think the blacks may have a problem with that.

I'm constantly correcting my step-son he uses double negatives all the time. The problem is his mother and most of her family uses them all the time.

I'm not a grammar nit at all but this is the one thing that gets under my skin. Probably because it was one thing my mother used to correct me on when I was a kid and not I cant stand it.

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07-13-2011 , 03:56 PM

#2159

Clare Quilty

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Quote:

Originally Posted by quirkasaurus

Isn't that a triple-negative?

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07-14-2011 , 05:39 AM

#2160

styx2000

adept

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 902

ain't no way i'm not doubting his inability to not mis-quote.

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07-14-2011 , 09:44 AM

#2161

atakdog

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American black English is either a legitimate dialect, several dialects, or none at all, depending on what scholar you ask, but it's undeniable that urban US blacks tend to use dramatically different constructions from those that are generally considered normal in formal English. My experience with it is that the syntax is much more fluid and flexible (or, viewed less charitably, sloppy), which is a SERIOUS problem in technical or legal communication wherein precision of expression and interpretation is critical.

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07-14-2011 , 11:07 AM

#2162

nuisance

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Pretty much every area in the US has their own slang/dialect. But when it boils down to it "most" people can turn it off when need be especially if they have lived outside of their said area for a decent ammt' of time.

Black English=Ebonics.

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07-14-2011 , 05:03 PM

#2163

atakdog

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I guess I'm not sure what your point is. I wasn't citing black English as something that should be taught or even condoned, but failure to recognize that millions of Americans are actually learning (informally, from their peers) a form of the language whose structures are different from what whitebread Americans consider normal is pretty shortsighted. What part of that are you taking issue with?

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07-15-2011 , 08:30 AM

#2164

styx2000

adept

Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 902

Quote:

Originally Posted by =_=

History of a typical Johnny Hughes thread -

1 - long rambling nonsensical OP

2 - handful of responses consisting of 95% people making fun and 5% fellow inbread hicks saying "goshdarnit ah love yer threads jawnny!"

3 - thread sails quickly into page 2 of NVG, inevitably destined for digital bolivian

4 - johnny makes random unnecessary post whose sole purpose is to bump the thread

5 - steps 2 thru 4 repeat a couple of times

6 - eventually some overzealous youngster gets so disrespectful that the thread turns into a volley of nasty personal insults in which johnny somehow manages to come off even worse than most people already picture him

7 - mod (mercifully) locks thread

fin

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07-15-2011 , 02:54 PM

#2165

ToTheInternet

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Lyttle Lytton Awards (terrible short opening sentences). I haven't stopped lol'ing.

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07-15-2011 , 03:29 PM

#2166

prohornblower

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The "other" day I saw a sign 'that' said "polo's 30% off"

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07-15-2011 , 08:46 PM

#2167

W0X0F

sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 5,832

Quote:

Originally Posted by ToTheInternet

Lyttle Lytton Awards (terrible short opening sentences). I haven't stopped lol'ing.

Gold! Thanks for posting this link.

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07-15-2011 , 10:37 PM

#2168

DDNK

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hehe, if I posted every horribly wrong sign or shirt in English that I saw, this thread would be 150 pages long... I don't know how much it costs to have a native spearker do a quick, 1 minute check of a sentence before you blow it up to size 10000 font and plaster it on your business, but apparently it's really expensive or something... I'd do it for a buck, though.

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07-15-2011 , 11:20 PM

#2169

ToTheInternet

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Quote:

Faces at lunch, oh, yes, smirking, lordly, bored or weary – here and there a flash of passion, of dreams or loving seriousness; these signs I saw, notwithstanding the sweep of a fork like a Stuka dive-bomber, stabbing down into the cringing salads, carrying them up to the death of unseen teeth between dancing wrinkled cheeks; a breadstick rose in hand, approached the purple lips in a man’s dull gray face; an oval darkness opened and shut and the breadstick was half gone! A lady in a red blazer, her face alert, patient and professionally kind like a psychoanalyst’s, stuck her fork lovingly into a tomato, smiling across the table at another woman’s face; everything she did was gentle, and it was but habit for her to hurt the tomato as little as possible; nonetheless she did not see it. Nodding and shaking her head, she ate and ate, gazing sweetly into the other woman’s face. Finally, I saw one woman in sunglasses who studied her arugula as she bit it. It disappeared by jagged inches, while across the table, in her husband’s lap, the baby watched in dark-eyed astonishment. Her husband crammed an immense collage of sandwich components into his hairy cheeks. He snatched up pommes-frites and they vanished in toto. When the dessert cart came, the starched white shoulders of businessmen continued to flex and shine; their faces glazed at one another over emptiness, much happier now that they had eaten, unthinking of what they had wrought.

(WT Vollmann)

Thoughts? (On aesthetics/diction/etc., not cold, hard grammar.)

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07-16-2011 , 01:43 PM

#2170

TorMachine

enthusiast

Join Date: Jun 2011 Posts: 57

Quote:

Originally Posted by DDNK

What is a native spearker?

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07-16-2011 , 09:29 PM

#2171

DDNK

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A person for whom the language is their first, who comes from a community of people who also have the language as their first, and who has a solid grasp on the standard usage, grammar, and vocabulary of the language that are commonly accepted in one of the main dialects of the language, if not shared among all dialects.

For instance, someone who doesn't say, "the chief at my placejob mean man." or who wouldn't write on the wall of their business "injoy the great food. it is deicious," although I do get a kick out of "deicious food." Eucharist crackers come to mind.

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07-16-2011 , 09:37 PM

#2172

coffee_monster

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Quote:

Originally Posted by DDNK

I think you defined "native speaker". That wasn't the question

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07-16-2011 , 10:32 PM

#2173

GMan42

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Join Date: Aug 2004 Posts: 5,262

Yeah, I think TorMachine was just nitting up this thread by jumping on a typo...a slippery slope down which we'd best not go. There are so many better things to pick on.

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07-16-2011 , 11:17 PM

#2174

coffee_monster

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Join Date: Feb 2011 Posts: 3,224

Quote:

Originally Posted by GMan42

Yeah, I think TorMachine was just nitting up this thread by jumping on a typo...a slippery slope down which we'd best not go. There are so many better things to pick on.

True, but it was ironic given the post in which the typo appeared.

In before someone makes fun of my use of the word "ironic".

Or the quotes, or the period outside the quotes.

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07-16-2011 , 11:29 PM

#2175

atakdog

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Join Date: Jan 2008 Posts: 50,136

Period outside the quotation marks is the preferred method according to many, probably including a majority of the regulars in this thread.

I thought post 2170 was slightly over the line, and I think things would be better if we all dropped the subject.

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