Thread: Got .. poor English..?

I offer this as peace offering :

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

^ you're not making many (any?) friends, Can321! I have several American friends, a black friend, 2 Australian friends and a lesbian friend. I'm thinking about getting a Canadian and a Tasmanian friend, but am worried this might be going to far.

Where's far?

^ A long long way to run.

Originally Posted by can123

My experience is that people who wear baseball caps, while not playing baseball, are total dickheads. I doubt that there is any really satisfactory explanation for why this is so. It just happens to be true. It's not an anti-American thing as we have lots of dickheads in the UK who wear these things. Those who wear them while driving are invariably poor at driving. Such people are best ignored even though they give reds to more informed people on this forum. I wouldn't sit next to such a person on a bus. I wouldn't even shit in his best hat ( cap ? ).

I wouldn't sit next to anyone on a bus. Buses are just so common!

Originally Posted by Jimmu

Where's far?

Quite right, 'too far'.

"Ivor the Engine" wasn't a peace offering, can123, it was unconditional surrender.

Unless you're planning to bore the enemy into submission.

^^^^^^Introducing the movie screen idol Withnallstoke, at 5:24 as the general. An Oscar nomination if I ever saw one.

Neo, save yourself the embarassment of these posts. Every English book you could ever want is on torrent. Do yourself a favor and spare yourself the misery and download a few. If you are wasting this much time to help a Thai girl with English, something is really wrong in your life

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

People quoting grammar rules without any understanding of language is one of my pet hates,

Mine two.

"But" is not compound conjuction, it's a coordinating conjunction.
A compound conjuction (by implication) involved more than one component word acting together a bit like a single word, such as:
+ As if
+ So that
+ As well as
+ In order that
+ Even if
+ On the condition that
+ As soon as

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

Originally Posted by robuzo

^You might want to brush up on your etymologies before you go a-mavening and harassing people about "got" and "gotten."

I was going to same the same, then realized it was Can321, so couldn't be bothered...

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

It's wrong (morally), because "but" is a conjunction - to join two thoughts.

You are on a slippery slope unless your linguistics is very strong. I hear lots of people using this example, wrongly; basically, you need to have an understanding of genre, style and grammar to explain this area.

Disagree; nor do I believe in slippery slopes (because they are a type of logical fallacy). First of all, let's just establish what I mean by "correct": what do not mean some standard set by some kind of subjective preference for style; what I do mean, is language that is logically valid.

The context of when you do or don't use logically correct English is relevant in terms of whether it matters: it doesn't follow that it's incorrect to use incorrect English (because the purpose of language is to communicate); but, just because you use incorrect grammar, that it suddenly becomes correct.
This is the core of it all really. People confuse correctness with usage; but correctness is independent of usage, and is about meaning (i.e. Semantics). You can establish a new idea where a particular way of using grammar becomes correct, but then you have to adjust the logic of other structures to be logically consistent.
Reminds me of that episode of the Twilight Zone, where the kid comes down and asks his mum for some dinosaur... she looks confused... (he means breakfast, but the word breakfast no longer means breakfast, it's meaning has been re-assigned to something else)... it goes on through the day as she walks around twn with every word in the language being reassigned to a new meaning, and nobody can understand why she can't understand.

Unfortunately, many folks prescriptively detail 'grammar rules' alone, which offers zero power of explication of human beings and how they communicate with one another ('correctly, as native speakers').

Not prescriptive; precise. I don't care about what you say; I care about what you mean. I am a polyglot, and used to interpreting what people mean.

There area lot of people, especially English professionals, who really don't understand the logic and reasoning behind the structure of language, and give up and adopt or advocate an "anything goes" approach.
This is fine, and friendly etc., but it's not really correct; though, as mentioned, the use and teaching of incorrect English is not necessarily incorrect, because the objective is producing people who can communicate; not people who understand linguistics and logic.

I dunno what they teach in English and Linguistics degrees, but they don't seem to spend enough time on set theory and formal logic.

With regard to your use of 'anapodoton', which is an awful term..., your link clearly states a 'subordinate clause', so why are you talking about 'but' which is a coordinating conjunction? Ignoring that significant point, you still use the word incorrectly

I disagree. There's nothing either awful or lovely about it, it's just a name to assign something. There's no need to be afraid of Greek words.
I know that the link does not express precisely what I said, but that's not really a refutation of what I said. It's just a very brief glance at the idea.

I think it's reasonable to include starting a sentence with a coordinating conjuction in the definition of anapodoton because an anapodoton is about more than one kind of structure, but all doing similar things.

By implication, a coordinating conjunction is coordating two parts of a sentence: two clauses or phrases.
A clause or phrase is a logical unit of natural language: a proposition. By inference it has to possess meaning, as it's a sequence of symbols that comprise a declarative idea.

When you start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction, you are by definition, starting with the latter of two clauses (in terms of logic).
This is because the assigned meaning or behaviour of the coordinating clause (a bit like if it was a function in a computer programme), is to link two clauses. If there is no clause before it, then logically it is a syntax error, a grammar error, a meaning error, and logically invalid, because the second clause or phrase after the coordinating conjunction is by implication an inference, and you can't infer something from nothing!

It's perhaps more accurate to describe it as a syntactic malfunction, but it's probably more useful to onclude it the set of things that are classes as anapodoton.
There isn't an alternative word (that I'm aware of, and I have looked once or twice before) to express the idea of starting a sentence with a coordinating conjuction like: "and", "but", "however", etc..., so it seems to make more sense to add it to a compatible set rather than invent a new one.

You don't need to have a subordinate clause involved, never mind before or after the coordinating conjunction.

I think marking PhD thesis down for containing compound conjunctions is fine: they make a report look unprofessional, and "breezy", which is not the point of academic writing.

Originally Posted by tomta

Originally Posted by Ascotkiwi

On the other hand, Aussies love to whack a "but" on the end of sentences. For example, "Although the Blues got beaten, they played a really good game but!"

Another interesting Aussie oddity is "yeah-no". The glamorous but humble star recruit is told by the interviewer: "You played a really great game tonight." "Yeah-no, it was a great team effort and we got the four points".

or maybe "Yeah Nah - we done good but"

Handbags.

^ where, a sale? Can I come too?

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

CN, you're a good poster, but everything you wrote on that post is utter bollox, and is simply untrue. I won't bother going through it all, here are a few highlights.

I read the first sentence and, when I saw that you were unable to spell "bollocks" properly, stopped.

^ well that's a relief...

Originally Posted by Neo

I was brought up to think it was poor English and I still feel it's better English to use 'have' etc even if 'got' it's not incorrect, it sounds better at least. I'll stop correcting my gf though.

A lot of it comes down to dialect, mate; some dialects use it freely, some do not. RP, kinda BBC English, is the dialect with the highest 'status', but that doesn't make it any more 'correct' than any other, just historically more powerful and thus widely stated as 'correct' - this is, of course, total ignorance...

I speak 'Southern British English' apparently. Though I am quite lazy if I'm not concentrating on what I say... be^er instead of better wa^er instead of water etc, still at least I don't sound like a carrot cruncher or a northern monkey, what a terrible affliction that must be

^ look at the BBC nowadays, seems to be more Northern monkeys than RP or 'Estuary' English speakers; things are a changin'.

Originally Posted by can123

Your use of a dash and semicolon in close proximity is a clear indication of a most untidy mind.

Mmm, if you say so, mate... Don't read many books, do you...

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

^ look at the BBC nowadays, seems to be more Northern monkeys than RP or 'Estuary' English speakers; things are a changin'.

Originally Posted by can123

Your use of a dash and semicolon in close proximity is a clear indication of a most untidy mind.

Mmm, if you say so, mate... Don't read many books, do you...

I do not read the sort of book that you read. I like my authors to be literate. Dickens, Zola, Hardy and Conrad should suffice to show you an acceptable standard of literacy which one should strive to attain. Joseph Conrad learned his English as a second language so there really is hope for you. You just need to work harder and throw away the comics.

^ we've been down this road before, Can321, and you were made to look very silly when people started bringing real quotes and some written sections from these types of autors; some of them are leaders in language change and very far away from you and your 'theories'...

Originally Posted by Neo

I speak 'Southern British English'

Originally Posted by Neo

what a terrible affliction

Commiserations duck.

Originally Posted by Bettyboo

^ we've been down this road before, Can321, and you were made to look very silly when people started bringing real quotes and some written sections from these types of autors; some of them are leaders in language change and very far away from you and your 'theories'...

Nobody looks more silly than you do. Please learn punctuation and how to use upper case letters when they are appropriate. It's very difficult to decipher your writing.

Originally Posted by Neo

my pet hate is the Americanism of starting sentences with 'so'

Mine is that they start any sentence.