GRAMMAR FIENDS

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (131 of them)

View Previous Page...

Chassises.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 19:58 (seventeen years ago) link

there are no "anyways" in that post to remove.

― stet (stet), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:14 (seventeen years ago) link

"anyway"s

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:18 (seventeen years ago) link

dude. it's someone's name. the pertuises in question might disagree with me here, but i think you, as the writer, owe it to your reader to ensure that, with this non-lexical item, the plural is clearly indicated. "chassis" is a stupid piece of irregular nonsense but most readers of english will recognise it as such and use context to decide number. personally, i'm not sure i'd even have known to pronounce "pertuis" as "pertwee" until you'd said; either way, there's no fucking way i'd recognise "pertuis" as a plural form, just as i wouldn't recognise "adams" as a plural form (but would "adamses") ... or any of the other thousands of surnames ending in "s".

for no reason i can see, you're plucking obscure grammatical exceptions out of thin air ("ooh, 'chassis' doesn't change in the plural ... right, i bet this doesn't either") and trying to apply them to someone's surname. this is daft.

also: the pronunciation of "chassis" doesn't change. the pronunciation of "pertuises" does ("pertwee" v "pertwees").

ultimately, nobody's going to be able to make a definitive call on this except the pertuis family themselves; like i say, their name isn't a lexical item so it's pointless trying to apply rules of grammar to it. however, i'm making a sensible case based on several years of academic study of the english language; basic concepts of readability; and the fact i do this kind of shit for a living every day. you're arguing with ailsa and saying "chassis" and "chassises" a lot. i know who i'd trust ;p

xpost: stet, a) don't be a gigantic chopping-action chop; b) why aren't you in the pub? i thought i was coming out to meet you in half an hour?

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:20 (seventeen years ago) link

i mean, i'm sitting here tanking sloe gin, trying to catch up!

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

They've gone off for big meal, so I have come home to get changed and wrap present. L coming over here shortly.

― stet (stet), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

o! will call.

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

(are you going to party that I was meant to be going to but am ridonkulously skint and tired and partied out? Say hello to relevant people if you are)

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but the name is French, obviously, as was 'chassis' originally, and that is how the French do it! That is why 'chassis' is not 'chassises' (not the only reason, actually: see below). The French forms are retained because there is no other, sensible, option.

You would recognise that 'Adams' (or if you like 'Adames') was the plural of 'Adam' rather than a singular 'Adams' because it would be followed by, e.g., 'are' rather than 'is'.

Also, there are no instances in English (I say this hoping to be proved wrong on this, by means of jokes if necessary) where an 'e' is introduced in the plural form where that 'e' is not pronounced.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I think I would want to make it Pertuix, actually, but there is no real correct grammatical reason for this, I just like it because it looks suitably wanky.

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Okay, apart from words ending in 'f'.

xpost. Yes, Pertuix is the prettiest.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:47 (seventeen years ago) link

And 'o'!

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 20:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but the name is French, obviously, as was 'chassis' originally, and that is how the French do it!

mais nous ne sommes pas francais, donc ... meh :)

The French forms are retained because there is no other, sensible, option.

yes. english orthography is noted for "sense", isn't it?

You would recognise that 'Adams' (or if you like 'Adames') was the plural of 'Adam' rather than a singular 'Adams' because it would be followed by, e.g., 'are' rather than 'is'.

eh? i'm talking about the surname "adams", not "the adams" as a plural of "the family whose surname is adams". but you're obviously determined to plough this singular furrow, and to be quite brutally frank i couldn't give less of a fuck as there's a whole city's worth of beer out there for me to drink (just as soon as mrs fiendish is ready, chiz).

ailsa: not sure. if i do, i will, but i've no idea what form the night is going to take :/

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:08 (seventeen years ago) link

oh fuck. i meant "the family whose surname is adam". i'm approaching too-drunk-to-argue-about-grammar territory fast.

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Fair dos. Fair does? (ha!) I am being pressured by text message to party, but I am knackered and have too many other drinking commitments from now until the end of time. Have fun!

xpost, ha, right, that'll be the day that you're too drunk to argue about grammar...

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link

heh. there's arguing about grammar, and there's arguing about grammar properly. and i find gin tends to blur the lines between the two.

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:16 (seventeen years ago) link

shift yr arse dude, we're nearly there

― stet (stet), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:20 (seventeen years ago) link

tell mrs fiendish :(

― grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Fair dos. Fair does? (ha!)

The COD has it as either dos or - haha - do's.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:25 (seventeen years ago) link

Really? OMG!

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.bbcprograms.com/pbs/catalog/drwho/images/john_pertwee.jpg

― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 21:26 (seventeen years ago) link

It's appropriate that you posted that - very lovely - picture. The reason I asked the question was that I am working on a book about Jon Pertwee and his family. (Pertwee changed the spelling presumably to avoid threads like this.)

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Saturday, 2 December 2006 22:49 (seventeen years ago) link

At a Belle and Sebastian concert, the ratio of striped sweaters to non-striped sweaters is generally set at one sweater Pertwee individual.

― remy bean (bean), Saturday, 2 December 2006 23:42 (seventeen years ago) link

I fall into the one pertuis/two pertuis camp, but would write la famille Pertuis to avoid confusion.

― Madchen (Madchen), Sunday, 3 December 2006 12:32 (seventeen years ago) link

i would love pertuix to be the answer. it's obviously pertuises though :(

i went to school with a girl whose surname was proudfoot. i can't remember whether it was her or someone else who insisted that the plural was proudfeet, but...whoever it was should have been right.

― lexpretend (lexpretend), Sunday, 3 December 2006 13:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Ugh, can someone help me with this?

How can I fix:

"My students seemed to be more impressed by my car, which my family and I were standing in front of in the photo."

The comma doesn't work there, I know, but then it doesn't work without it either. I could fix the whole thing by replacing "My car" with "the car", but then that wouldn't indicate that it was my own vehicle.

― Zachary Scott (Zachary S), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Hmm. I just changed it to:

"My studnets seemed to be much more captivated by the object that my family and I were standing in front of: my car."

Sigh.

― Zachary Scott (Zachary S), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Studnets=students.

Although studnet should probably be a word meaning someone who always catches "hot studs".

― Zachary Scott (Zachary S), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:12 (seventeen years ago) link

The comma doesn't work there

why not?

― grimly fiendish (simon), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:28 (seventeen years ago) link

other than maybe changing it to "... my car, in front of which ... were standing", i wouldn't fuck with that sentence at all. what do you feel is the problem with it?

― grimly fiendish (simon), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, the original sounds fine to me -- only questionable part is "in front of in the photo," which is technically correct but a little awkward with all those prepositions.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:33 (seventeen years ago) link

The second one is better and more direct. There is nothing much wrong, technically, with the first one, other than that it is boring and squanders the joke.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:42 (seventeen years ago) link

the "joke"? right, i'm really missing something here.

― grimly fiendish (simon), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:56 (seventeen years ago) link

The joke: they are more interested in the car than us hoho.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 4 December 2006 02:25 (seventeen years ago) link

By second one you mean "My students seemed to be much more captivated by the object that my family and I were standing by: my car." ? I ended up going for that one. There is no "joke" to it, but I do like how it (hopefully) keeps the reader's interest all the way through the sentence.

This is for a letter of intention for grad school, by the way. I'm trying to connect a story about my student's interest in my car while I was teaching in China to a broader point about future geopolitical conflict between China and the US.

― Zachary Scott (Zachary S), Monday, 4 December 2006 02:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, that one. The other one was boring. The second one's structured as a joke even though it's not (even supposed to be) funny.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 4 December 2006 02:45 (seventeen years ago) link

It would produce a wry smile, I think.

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 4 December 2006 11:22 (seventeen years ago) link

if you'd been half as interested in that car as your students were you might not be in hospital now

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 4 December 2006 11:28 (seventeen years ago) link

ah, right, i see. yes, in that case the second one is better. although "object" is a bit unusual, no?. "my students seemed more interested in what my family and i were standing by: my car"?

― grimly fiendish (simon), Monday, 4 December 2006 12:11 (seventeen years ago) link

why WERE they so interested in that car?

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 4 December 2006 12:15 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't think they were necessarily that interested. It was just that the family were so boring.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 4 December 2006 12:42 (seventeen years ago) link

The plural of Pertuis is not Pertuises, because that would totally confuse people as to how it was pronounced. You wouldn't say "the Descarteses" would you?

― G. Samsa (G. Samsa), Monday, 4 December 2006 12:51 (seventeen years ago) link

no. i refer you to everything i said upthread about pronunciation and orthography, and then to the gesture i'm making with my extended middle finger, which sadly you can't see. but i'm sure you get the message :)

― grimly fiendish (simon), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:18 (seventeen years ago) link

I do hope so :)

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

[cutting, aggressive remark] ;)

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm now quite sure why you'd have the "e" at all if you're not bothered about misdirecting pronunciation. Let's go pertuiss!

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Raised middle fingers notwithstanding, I stick by what I say. Grimly, you make no logical sense. If it's true that the relationship between orthography and pronunciation isn't absolute, then it's also true that the relationship is by no means arbitrary, and that changed pronunciation over the centuries has often led to changed spellings. Spelling conventions in English are often messy and sometimes contradictory, but that are still there. One of them is that in plurals of words that end in an 's', we add an 'e' between the two ss, to ensure pronuciation of both. That's clearly redundant in this case, since the first 's' isn't pronounced. The most elegant solution, and one used for all other French-derived words ending in a silent 's' (chassis etc.), is for the plural to be unchanged.

― G. Samsa (G. Samsa), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:50 (seventeen years ago) link

What's more, if you put
plurals "silent s"
into Google, you'll come up with several hits confirming my position, and none confirming yours. For example from sparknotes.com:

Silent S
If a word ends in an unpronounced s, make it plural by ignoring it—don’t add an s, an apostrophe, or anything else.

― G. Samsa (G. Samsa), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:52 (seventeen years ago) link

New idea: les Pertuis.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 4 December 2006 13:58 (seventeen years ago) link

Les Pertuises indicates that it's only the laydeez in da house.

― Madchen (Madchen), Monday, 4 December 2006 15:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Skipping 31 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I think they're cunts

xpost

― nu_onimo (nu_onimo), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 13:13 (seventeen years ago) link

i considered trying to find a pertuis family to e-mail and ask. but, worryingly, the top hit when you google "pertuis family" is, er, me wittering on this thread. fuck.

GRIMLY VERSUS EVERYBODE:

http://sparky.thehold.net/pix/061205pertuises.jpg

― grimly fiendish (simon), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 13:15 (seventeen years ago) link

Average lifr expectancy of the Pertuis family

(in 1975, they were attacked in the grammar pogroms. Cries of "But we're a non-lexical item!" went unheeded)

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Average life expectancy of the Pertuis family

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Average life expectancy of the Pertuis family

― Alba (Alba), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:57 (seventeen years ago) link

What happened in 1976? Did Great-Granny Pertuis serve bad vichyssoise at the family reunion?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:25 (seventeen years ago) link

One way of avoiding making a plural of "Pertuis" is to have ONLY ONE PERTUIS. More Vichyssiose!

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:26 (seventeen years ago) link

I don't trust those charts. The "General Population" line seems to always follow the median of the family in question.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link

When the Pertuises flourish, we all flourish. As they decline, we decline.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

When the Pertuis sneeze, we all catch a cold.

― stet (stet), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link

The Pertuis, you see,
is you and me.

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 23:08 (seventeen years ago) link

The whole (offending) paragraph:

During my second month teaching English in China, I decided to show the students a picture of myself taken after my college graduation. I passed the photo around, expecting them to be interested in my mother and sister’s blonde hair, my cap and gown, and the American scenery in the background. Instead, they seemed to be much more captivated by the object that my family and I were standing in front of: my car. Soon, instead of learning words like graduation, tassel, and diploma, my students were saying Ford, driver’s license, and gas station. Although the class itself didn’t go as I had planned, I did learn something firsthand about the aspirations of China’s future.

I'm displaying the whole paragraph for context. Please feel free to evaluate, or reevaluate. And, thanks.

― Zachary Scott (Zachary S), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 04:03 (seventeen years ago) link

I think that's fine.

― Jesus Dan (dan perry), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 04:11 (seventeen years ago) link

~~much more~~ captivated

much more interested

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 11:20 (seventeen years ago) link

'much more interested' is a boring way of putting it though.

― Madchen (Madchen), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 11:21 (seventeen years ago) link

three weeks pass...

Is it "expressed permission" or "express permission"?

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean, obv. the former makes sense, but is the latter some old idiomatic version of it. Actually the example is "express orders", I don't really know why I asked about permission.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:47 (seventeen years ago) link

"express permission"

express [adj.]
1 a : directly, firmly, and explicitly stated b : EXACT, PRECISE
2 a : designed for or adapted to its purpose b : of a particular sort : SPECIFIC

― Joe Isuzu's Petals (Rock Hardy), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Ta. I don't really know why I didn't look in a dictionary. One meaning of express is "definitely stated, not implied". End.

― Alba (Alba), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link

I would think it was "express permission" but I have no real idea why other than that it's the way I pronounce it if saying it (which isn't often), and I tend to be of the opinion that I am right about these things.

Please note that I'm in the "another think coming" camp, and invented the word Pertuix, so am possibly not to be trusted.

(xpost, or perhaps I am!)

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:51 (seventeen years ago) link

I thought "another think coming" turned out to be right.

― Not For Use as Infant Nog (A-Ron Hubbard), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I think there was some controversy and the consensus was that both were acceptable (except that I disagree with consensus because "another thing coming" is completely fucking wrong and lots of people getting something wrong all the time doesn't make it right by default)

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Friday, 29 December 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Even if "another think coming" is technically right, it's really wrong.

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 29 December 2006 16:02 (seventeen years ago) link

LET'S NOT, OKAY!?

― Joe Isuzu's Petals (Rock Hardy), Friday, 29 December 2006 16:03 (seventeen years ago) link

OH GOD, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(xpost, heh)

― grimly fiendish (simon), Friday, 29 December 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

"Another thought coming" would be right but doesn't convey the angry-mumness of "another think coming." Tetchy verbal anger = grammar out the window.

― suzy artskooldisko (suzy artskooldisko), Friday, 29 December 2006 16:12 (seventeen years ago) link

I WILL LOCK THIS FUCKER. I MEAN IT.

― grimly fiendish (simon), Friday, 29 December 2006 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Roffle. (Maybe I would like to be an ILE mod, now that I think of it.)

― Joe Isuzu's Petals (Rock Hardy), Friday, 29 December 2006 18:10 (seventeen years ago) link

t/s: specifically vs. pacifically

― Comrades, meet Tildo Durd (Scourage), Friday, 29 December 2006 18:26 (seventeen years ago) link

My bugbear = formerly vs formally

― ailsa_xx (ailsa_xx), Friday, 29 December 2006 18:27 (seventeen years ago) link

http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=%22express+written+consent+of+Major+League+Baseball

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Friday, 29 December 2006 18:29 (seventeen years ago) link

A cricketing one: how can you describe a batsman playing carefully as a batsman playing 'circumspectly', as many commentators do? If he were playing circumspectly, he'd be looking all around as the ball was delivered, not watching it, getting out, and therefore not playing 'carefully' in the slightest. GRR!!!

― Comrades, meet Tildo Durd (Scourage), Friday, 29 December 2006 18:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Circumspect: attentive to the consequences of one's behavior.

― ledge (ledge), Saturday, 30 December 2006 11:56 (seventeen years ago) link

This I know because the Bible tells me so!

― ledge (ledge), Saturday, 30 December 2006 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.