English language: bet you don't know this!

[agilis]

Tonka, I think you do protest o'ermuch. The "train wreck" sentence was actually taken directly from the 1913 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and can be found under "Wend, Ignorant Misuses of (Zero Mostel exemplar)" The fact that the musical score for Fiddler on the Roof had not yet been written is a mere trifle. The stream of repetitive and reflexive new posts hammered out each time another thought drifts across your tiny cognitive lens is moot.

"Pretty simple" is not always an indicator of accuracy. 'I go' and 'I went' may have been drilled into your operational vocabulary during your probably traumatic and possibly unsuccessful toilet training, but the present tense of 'went' is still 'wend', however much it clashes with your taste for the simple.

Do you think we can compromise, and instead of 'back to grade school" with me, you might agree that I need only return to secondary school? Junior High?

 

[randini]

Did you mean grade school? You may be a grammatical genius, but my grade school did not spend a lot of time on the subjunctive mood. I enjoyed being reminded by the linked information.

Your assumption that foreigners must speak better English than Americans is deeply flawed and without merit.

but dem Brits talk purty good english

 

[tonka97]

Tonka, I think you do protest o'ermuch. The "train wreck" sentence was actually taken directly from the 1913 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and can be found under "Wend, Ignorant Misuses of (Zero Mostel exemplar)" The fact that the musical score for Fiddler on the Roof had not yet been written is a mere trifle. The stream of repetitive and reflexive new posts hammered out each time another thought drifts across your tiny cognitive lens is moot.

1913??? Yes, there were many 'train wreck' sentences and paragraphs in the post Victorian era. I avoid double negatives in my composition. It reads much easier and is more concise. Look at the difference between these two sentences.

"I don't want to not go to the store" vs "I want to go to the store".

"Pretty simple" is not always an indicator of accuracy. 'I go' and 'I went' may have been drilled into your operational vocabulary during your probably traumatic and possibly unsuccessful toilet training, but the present tense of 'went' is still 'wend', however much it clashes with your taste for the simple.

OK, you say "wend" and demonstrate an anachronism. You may have a good conversation starter following the laughter and raised eyebrows!

Do you think we can compromise, and instead of 'back to grade school" with me, you might agree that I need only return to secondary school? Junior High?

Agreed...we ALL should continue to learn!

 

[tonka97]

but dem Brits talk purty good english

Some do! Some don't!

 

[tonka97]

The stream of repetitive and reflexive new posts hammered out each time another thought drifts across your tiny cognitive lens is moot.

Your sentence is a trifle awkward but IS a pretty good insult! I like the "tiny cognitive lens".

 

[The Kraken]

And please do remember, one doesn't "graduate" from an instution of learning, one is "graduated" from the institution of learning. One cannot confer a degree upon one's self, unless, of course, one is Idi Amin.

the K

 

[agilis]

The 1913 E.B. is widely regarded as among the finest works in the English language. The list of contributors, the depth of analysis, and the brilliance of the writing represent a high water mark, emblematic of Western Civilization's pinnacle, reached in those distant pre-WWI days.

Simplicity and reduction of a statement to fewer words often has a downside: the loss of nuance and/or precision. Language is not Algebra; removing a negative in a first clause, balanced by a similar deletion in a following clause, does not always result in unchanged meaning and a cleaner statement.

The two example sentences you gave have subtle but significantly different meanings. In the first sentence the speaker indicates that not going to the store is undesirable. This is not quite the same thing as stating that the speaker wants to go to the store. This second example is a much simpler statement, free from possible complexities of autonomy and choice (or lack thereof), implicit in the first example.

The date 1913 is not really post-Victorian, unless you regard all time subsequent to the Queen-Empress' death as such. Victoria died in 1901. Edward VII followed, and except for the first few years of his reign, the first decade of the 20th Century and the few years immediately prior to World War I are usually regarded as Edwardian. Generally speaking, English usage had become, by the end of the 19th century, quite precise and clear, free from most of the intertwined complexities and tortuous syntax in fashion a century earlier. Compare Hardy to Swift or Pope.

One small point: when using 'post' as a prefix, it must always be followed by a connective dash. Thus, post-Victorian; post-war; mid-Victorian; post-Reconstruction; etc.

Thanks for the advice about Google. In any case, I stopped using it when it became both venal and censoriously political. I try not to use the words of other people without attribution, and am unaware that I'd done so in this series of comments.

 

[tonka97]

The past tense of go is usually either 'go' or 'gone', depending on precise meaning and voice.

Agilis,

I am unable to take you seriously. You demonstrated grammatical incompetence in your quote above. Your desperate googling and citations from an obsolete 100 year old encyclopedia fail to salvage your credibility.

Unlike you, I refuse to impugn diving credentials based on grammatical banter.

Now, go have a nice day.

 

[agilis]

There were no citations from a 100 year old encyclopedia. That reference, along with the diving credentials comment, was meant to be completely absurd, so clearly a spoof as to be obvious even to a blockhead literalist. It was meant as humor, as satire. (I do have a full 29 volume 1913 EB, but it is my private treasure; its language presumes an advanced education and some knowledge of Classical languages, so I'd hesitate to quote it among this distinguished company.

I'm not sure where this lunatic "googling" obsession of yours is coming from, but it is far off the mark. I seldom use google. I have not, in connection with this discussion. I feel no sense of desperation in replying to your coments. It's really quite easy. The hardest part is trying to guess which devils and humiliations have created your warped need to appear to be more learned than you are.

I did my academic work the hard way, with things called books, monographs, and dissertations, long before the internet existed. I learned to write for professional critics. Comic book level critics have no importance to me, except for the humor they provide.

 

[pipedope]

Few Americans speak english, most speak some variation of american.

England and America, two nations separated by a common language.