#i’m no grammarian

[doccywhomst]

a great example is “disaster,” from the italian word disastro, the root word aster (star); the ‘dis’ prefix implies moving the stars out of place - probably because heavenly bodies that are out of alignment are associated with misfortune.

‘dis’ seems to imply that something has always been whole, or organized in one way, then is broken. ‘mis’ seems to imply human causality. this might be why ‘dis’ words carrier a stronger implication, because they suggest that nature created something, then took it apart. large scale.

fascinated by how "dislocate" seems to be a word used almost exclusively to refer to the misalignment of bodies, or parts of the body, from their proper place. it's distinctly anatomical. you don't say "i dislocated my keys" for instance, even though that's technically a correct and coherent sentence.

[sablegear0]

It’s just “whence”, by the way.

Not “from whence.”

“Whence” means “from where”, so saying “from whence” becomes “from from where”; it’s redundant and incorrect.

Same way you wouldn’t say “came from hence” (“came from from here”) or “go to thence” (“go to to there”). But for whatever reason those words don’t trip people up as much as “whence” does.

I don’t even think this is me being unreasonably picky, it’s just incorrect. Sure you could make the “language is evolving” argument and yeah I’m for that but… it’s still incorrect and as an insufferable nerd I’m going to be mad about it. (Grammarians and editors must pick their battles, this is among mine!)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a contemporary source get this right, either. Even Dark Souls, a series you’d think would be up on its archaic mysticbabble, gets it wrong.

Now go, return whence you came.

[spanishskulduggery]

Hello!

I’m reading the book “Quién de nosotros” by Mario Benedetti, and it includes the following sentence: Alicia otorga mansamente, cuidadosamente, la atención y las caricias que le exigimos.

I’m confused by the “mansamente, cuidadosamente” part because I was taught that when listing adverbs in a row, you should only add -mente at the very end of the list. E.g., alegre-, curiosa-, y torpemente la niña corrió hacia el hormiguero. (Not sure if hyphens would be used since it was a random comment from the professor and I’ve never actually seen this rule in written form.)

Can you please explain why both words are written with -mente here? When might it be appropriate to say “mansa y cuidadosamente” instead?

I've actually never heard of that rule. In my experience, you don't alter the adverbs even if it's a string of adverbs. However, it isn't really considered good form to string a bunch of -mente adverbs together because it feels awkward and almost childish at times, and there are many ways to rework your sentence structure

I'd be curious what the native speakers think because to me it feels like a stylistic choice and not a true grammar rule. Kind of like an informal "write like this, not like that" sort of rule. The hyphen thing I'm not at all familiar with personally. If I heard it out loud I would assume you were describing the girl "happy" and "curious" and then using an adverb "awkwardly"

I think in this particular case it's worth it, as the -mente adds almost as "slowing" effect as if you can feel her trying to be gentle in what she's doing. That's one of the pushbacks against -mente adverbs, is that they slow down a sentence when used too much too close together. It's like saying "really" or "very" every other line; not grammatically wrong, but frowned upon.

More information below:

While it's not a "rule" that I know of, I can understand that multiple adverbs ending in -mente might seem redundant, and that there are many adverbs that are made up of adjectives so it is possible to use the adjectival forms instead of the adverbial forms [manso/a instead of mansamente]

...But I can't say I actually know that rule. It was never taught to me.

What I do know is that there are some people [writers, intellectuals, grammarians] who see the overuse of adverbs with -mente to be a crutch, and they go out of their way to not use them in quick succession. Given that -mente adds at least two extra syllables, it can give sentences a clunky feeling and make it not so elegant. This is more of a style choice, as far as I understand it. I suspect that's where your teacher is getting that, but it's not an established rule

...I would caution you as far as mansa though. There are times when you can use adjectives as adverbs or adverb-adjacent. To the best of my knowledge though, those adjectives must still agree with the subject. So if it were a man it would be manso. In this context it does sort of make sense, and mansa as an adjective since it's Alicia.

To me it reads like "And Alicia grants, docile/tame [docily/tamely], cautiously..." as if you're describing Alicia [an adjective] but could also interpret it as describing the action [adverb]

[miyamiwu]

Hiii ( *・ω・)ノ

15, 60 and 63 for the ask game?

Have a nice day! 💖

15. favorite book you read as a school assignment?

As a Creative Writing major, I have to read a LOT of books for class. So far, my favorite is My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola. It’s like Alice in Wonderland but darker. It has a writing style that may not appeal to most people, a linear story structure, and lots of “errors” that prescriptive grammarians would be horrified at, BUT I ABSOLUTELY ENJOYED IT.

It’s just sooo creative??? Like, I don’t think I could ever imagine all the wild ideas in that story. And the descriptions on the different creatures are just so specific that it’s FASCINATING

60. if you were a character in an anime, what kind of anime would you want it to be?

A zombie anime!!! But of course, I’m not going there without superpowers. I wanna have spatial abilities so that I can hoard supplies during the apocalypse and finally satisfy my urge to raid grocery stores

63. five songs that would play in your club?

I’m not in any club, but definitely the entire Link Click OST. For five specifically, in no particular order, it would be:

Dive Back in Time

Vortex

The Tides

Until it Dies

Mastermind

ASK GAME

[dumbfinntales]

It’s fascinating just how many people seem to detest classical pronunciation of Latin. I watched a video where someone pronounced “veni, vidi, vici” the classical way and there were many comments mocking and laughing at the pronunciation. And that’s not the first time I’ve seen it. I’ve even seen some negative opinions on it on the official Latin subreddit. The most common opinion is that it sounds ugly. Well unfortunately for you Caesar himself most likely pronounced it like “weni, widi, wiki”. And our favorite orator was actually called “kikeroo”. The final O is long, fun fact.

But how do we know this for sure? Did anyone go back in time and record the Romans speaking? Not exactly. The youtuber Luke Ranieri of PolyMathy has some great and detailed videos on the subject, with sources to back it up. Basically it boils down to how languages naturally evolved, what ancient grammarians themselves had to say about pronunciation and loan words. For example the letter C was always a hard K sound in Latin. It turning into a softer “che” sound is an Italian thing that ecclesiastical Latin adopted. One example was the ancient Greeks writing Latin names with C in them, and they used the Greek equivalent of K. Kaisar, Markus cet...

The funny thing is that most people refuse to accept classical pronunciation because of aesthetic reasons and even get a little hostile if you suggest otherwise. I heard that Italians especially are super proud and stubborn about this. Look, you can prefer ecclesiastical, okay? Ecclesiastical pronunciation is as valid as classical, I’m no pronunciation snob, many modern languages have dialects that have differing pronunciations. That’s just the nature of languages. I personally prefer the classical way for two reason: I’m a bit of a Romaboo, o cara Roma caput orbis terrarum. And the classical pronunciation of Latin is very similar to my native tongue of Finnish. Of course we don’t have the English W sound and some other stuff, but everything else is nigh identical.

I think it also boils down to just ignorance. Of not knowing. I have a friend from Bulgaria who was taught with ecclesiastical pronunciation in mind and he’d correct my classical pronunciation from time to time. Not out of animosity, he most likely just wasn’t aware of classical pronunciation. And I am still learning myself so there are obvious gaps in my knowledge that are gradually filled out. But yeah, that’s my little ramble. Use whichever pronunciation you like, just don’t be a dick about it.

[leonsmain]

as a writer and a grammarian, absolutely why do we need to differentiate helping from linking verbs? i was given the example “looks” which is a linking verb as opposed to “was” which is a helping verb, and while trying to help my friend’s little sister with her english hw i have confused myself. because at the end of the day, “looks” is ultimately an action, it describes that someone/thing was looking or had looked. however, ultimately, the definition for a linking verb is that it shows a state of being and does not help express nor convey any action (such as a helping verb) given the context, “looks” is not helping and, yes, it could be categorized as a linking verb - as i said earlier -, though “was” is meant to help make sense of the sentence (comes before the action -or “actual”- verb) and does (not?) describes a state of being. though, given the wording of her problem, the lines were blurred. i am still ranting about this because i’m miffed and i think we should just get rid of linking verbs for the sake of me not liking them.

[monsterquill]

You can safely relax your grip! No modern style guide or grammarian that I’m aware of prohibits starting a sentence with a conjunction. It is a perfectly normal, correct, and grammatical way to begin a sentence and has been for centuries. You’re fine.

you can pry starting sentences with 'and' or 'but' out of my cold, dead hands

[amitapaul]

32/22

#24GloPoNaPoWriMo #amitasinfinity

22/4/24

Dispute between Chalk and Cheese

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

Chalk to Cheese

Chalk and Cheese ! Chalk and Cheese !

Nothing as different as these !

Ok, so we look the same

And Ch sound begins each name

But I Chalk am sick You Cheese

Of comparisons like these

Cheese to Chalk

Did I start this stupid talk ?

Tell me this, you loutish Chalk !

Why have you come here to fight ?

Go and slap grammarians tight

Those who joined your name with mine

Go abuse those dirty swine

Chalk to Cheese

I won’t touch with a barge pole

Someone like you , hole on hole

Use your brains if you have any

Things different from you are many

Tell them to use Coal instead

Which is black , or Roses, Red

Cheese to Chalk

I shall do whatever I please

Don’t forget I’m the Big Cheese

You go do something Stick Chalk

If you’re good for aught but talk

Tell the English Language Wallahs

That this simile is now khalaas

***

Christopher Robin comes out for a walk

Eats up the cheese and smashes the chalk

End of disputants however

Doesn’t mean dispute is over

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

( ASA )

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

* Khalaas in Mumbai argot is dead, finished , past its usefulness

%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^%^

[algerlitz]

there’s a quote I saw in a post here, some time ago, that went:

“English is the only interesting thing that’s left in my life,” says Brodsky. “The need to find le mot juste starts out as a concern, turns into an obsession, and ends up as a way of life. These writers excel at the art of making virtue of necessity: out of a need to understand how the new language works, they turn into linguistic maniacs; out of a concern for correctness, they become compulsive grammarians.”

writing in english, for me, is one of the parts of the inner emigration: in situation where I cannot leave physically, there are some parts of me that can. my voice, my writing; everything I am able to write about — my politics and my queerness, interconnected and inseparable from my text — cannot be written — read — in my native language. so, I turn to english. I start to plot my stories in it, I hope to write original fiction in it, not just something that has already some connections to the language — fanfiction, that is, from fandoms that dictate the culture in my head.

and, obviously, I turn to the experience of immigrants before me: both physical and in language, their stories now painfully relatable.

but there’s a difference between that experience and these of a modern immigrants: where the focus point was of a language itself, the importance of style and form too high, now in my peers I see the opposite. so we see Nabokov, a master of the prose, who studied english in his childhood; while modern immigrants give their works clumsy translations, announce the gap between them and their language deliberately, and embrace autofiction. content before form. meaning before style.

at some point, it becomes an issue about class. good education of the imperial past versus the attempts of grasping the language in the process of emigration. the story about infatuation with the language versus the story that is told despite the language.

an understandable dichotomy, but one that I’m not sure how to apply to myself: with a lack of genius or a strong enough story to tell, with being middle class, I am neither end. privileged enough for the chance to know language well enough so it’s undistinguishable but not being enamored with it enough to be perfect at it; impacted by the real life events enough to want for my writing to conduct all of it — but not having the skill, the story for it to sing.

these are just facts, not a cry for compliments or self-flagellation. still; it’s interesting how my english is the language of the internet, not perfectly studied but understood intrinsically in the process of my submersion into the world, different from my own — from my escape to the social media, friendships, communication in the spaces distanced from my reality. yet another part of inner emigration: searching for a place to be able to breathe.

and now, it shows in my words— in my writing in ways unthinkable for the past, brought by the globalization. what a thought.

[baublefobbersleuth]

The Caped Grammarian

The linguist’s mind ripples with muscle beneath his unprepossessing skull. Most days, reclusive and modest, he contemplates exotic texts in his remote book-cave. Occasionally, however, an English specimen from Digital City issues a cry for help. The linguist springs into action (spilling his tea)… In my fantasy I’m a super-editor tasked with swooping down to rescue important writing from…

[grandapplewit]

My DM gave me the Ring of Grammarian and now I’m no longer allowed to play a spellcaster

[asheskyler]

Mind, Body, Spirit

Daily writing prompt: What strategies do you use to maintain your health and well-being?

Health and well-being is a big topic that can’t really be limited to just one thing. There are several overlapping factors to it, yes, but overall health is your overall life. Self-care is a necessity, not a luxury. You are worth investing in yourself if you want to be happy and at peace.

I am a very physical person, so diet and exercise is high on my list.

An ideal week of exercise for me is four hours of karate, three hours of jiu jitsu, running a few times per week, a little bit of boxing and muay thai, and a few hours of strength training and stretching, yoga (I recommend Yoga with Adriene), t’ai chi (I recommend Terrence Dunn), or qigong. I enjoy going on nature walks, hikes, or visiting botannical gardens.

Lean meat, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, beans and grains, dairy, a sparing amount of sweets, and a low sodium diet can take care of a multitude of minor illnesses can be handled with diet, including depression and anxiety. When I’m on top of my own diet, I have oats, peanut butter, and milk in the morning. In the mid-afternoon, a large lunch of plain rice, and some mixed vegetables and skinless chicken heavily seasoned and stir fried in a tablespoon of butter. Sometimes I’ll have a tuna sandwich, and my guilty pleasure is homemade chicken or pork fajitas with guacamole. I usually drink just water throughout the day. At night I may have a small snack of peanut butter and crackers. I drink medicinal teas for minor illnesses and for general well-being.

A healthy lifestyle goes a long way for my mental health, including keeping a clean and tidy environment. Or as tidy as us artists are ever able to be. I organize my clutter into specific piles!

I listen to a broad range of music including classic rock, gothic rock, alternative, grunge, metal, power metal, symphonic metal, pop, country, classical, neoclassical and instrumentals (I love “ambience” mixes), a variety of folk music (Celtic, Gaelic, bluegrass, folk metal such as The Hu or Tennger Calvary), and some ’70s R&B.

One part of my mental health I have neglected for a few years is artistic creation and expression. Life has been hectic and I’ve been unable to draw more than just commissions and work-related stuff, but soon I’ll be remedying that and getting back to illustrating and writing.

I’ve recently been getting back into reading, and the escapism feels good, as does indulging in my grammarian side by studying the writing style of what I’m reading. I’m careful about what I allow on my social media feeds as part of my mental health. I have little interest in drama or negativity.

Never stop learning. There are always interesting things to study and poke at to enrich your mind. It’s also important to maintain your cognitive abilities. I personally enjoy jigsaw puzzles, logic puzzles, and sometimes board games. Not that I’m very good at it, so if you want an easy win at chess, hit me up!

Spiritual well-being can arguably be a subcategory of mental well-being depending on how you feel about it. I am a very spiritual person, and quiet prayer, grounding, study, philosophy, and reflection helps me. When I’m indoors, I’ll meditate to something soothing, but when I’m outdoors, I like to meditate flat on my back in the grass just listening to the wind and wildlife.

Don’t underestimate the value of good people in your life. An exercise buddy, reading buddy, music buddy, prayer buddy, study buddy, whatever you’re in to, a friend or relative as passionate about the things you are can make an activity that much more fulfilling. I am very fortunate I have a good partner in my life who enjoys nearly all the same subjects as I do, so to a degree he is my one-stop-shop for a friend in art, martial arts, hiking, music, reading, food, and spirituality!

Work/life balance is not my forte and too often I’m working over 40 hours/week. Especially during tax season when I’m usually hitting 60-90 hours/week. On the bright side, I can usually keep my stress low enough my blood pressure doesn’t stay high and I don’t lose sleep from ruminating thoughts.

So that’s generally how I take care of myself. Not perfect by any means, but I’ve about gotten myself figured out!

[gingermcl]

Critic, critique, criticism, and critical. all come from critic And all bring negative ideas to mind.

The word Critic formerly critick, 1580s, "one who passes judgment, person skilled in judging merit in some particular class of things," from Latin criticus "a judge, a censor, an estimator, "grammarian who detects spurious passages in literary work," from Greek kritikos "able to make judgments," from krinein "to separate, decide" (from PIE root *krei- "to discriminate, distinguish").

See my video titled don’t judge for my views on the miss use of the word judge. Should be replaced with the word condemn. But that’s another matter.

They have crit in common. Crit - c - rit. Sea or see rit or rite. Ritual. When someone criticizes or critiques, they see something wrong with the ritual your performance. Everything in this realm is a spell or a ritual. All words are writing. Hence why I write has a silent W on the front of it. Ritual is the word right as an adjective.

Everyone is a critic. For everyone judges. To judge is to form an opinion or make decisions. We are typically our own worst critic. Criticism only matters when saying it’s coming from your boss and you might lose your job and even that criticism often doesn’t matter. As long as you are OK with your thoughts intentions and actions, it doesn’t matter what any other critic has to say..

It’s my opinion of myself that matters because there’s no person I’m going to spend more time with in this world than me so I kinda need to like me. I don’t live to please everyone else, I live to please myself and I also live to do no harm to others intentionally. I certainly have no problem sleeping at night. Have a great day.

All publicity is good publicity. Everyone’s not going to like you. The more publicity that you get, the more likely you are to attract the people that actually do. Another persons opinion of me is none of my business.

[kmp78]

The New York Times

The ‘ax’ versus ‘ask’ question

BY JOHN MCWHORTER

John McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies and Western civilization at Columbia University

JAN. 19, 2014 12 AM PM

Few things stick out more in black American speech than the pronunciation of “ask” as “ax.” And when I say that it “sticks out,” I’m being polite.

Attitudes about Ebonics have evolved somewhat as hip hop has become America’s favorite music. Even the strictest grammarian would have to agree that Kanye West’s “Gold Digger” in standard English wouldn’t be worth hearing. And Americans from Jesse Pinkman in “Breaking Bad” to Key and Peele get that it’s OK to speak “hood” when you’re among friends.

As a black linguist, I have come to expect that, during question sessions after any public talk I give on language, someone will ask: “What’s with ‘ax’?”

One answer a linguist can give is to cite history, pointing out how, in Old English, the word for “ask” swung randomly between ascian and acsian, and nobody batted an eye. But that answer never satisfies the audience. That was then, this is now, they suggest, and today, “ax” sounds ignorant. So why can’t black people switch a couple of sounds around and stop saying it?

I want to try to answer that. First, it’s important to understand that, as English goes, “ax” is a perfectly normal thing to have happened to a word like “ask.” Take the word “fish.” It started as “fisk,” with the same -sk ending that “ask” has. Over time, in some places people started saying “fisk” as “fiks,” while in others they started saying “fisk” as “fish.” After a while, “fish” won out over “fiks,” and here we are today. The same thing happened with “mash.” It started as “mask.” Later some people were saying “maks” and others were saying “mash.” “Mash” won.

Going forward, “aks” was used primarily by uneducated people, including indentured servants, whom black slaves in America worked alongside and learned English from. So, “aks” is no more a “broken” form of “ask” than “fish” is a “broken” version of ye olde “fisk.” It’s just that “fisk” isn’t around anymore to remind us of how things used to be.

But even knowing that, we can’t help thinking that standard English, even if arbitrary, should be standard. Shouldn’t it be as simple to pick up the modern pronunciation of “ask” as it is to acquire a new slang word?

Here, then, is where the linguist breaks out the word “identity.” The way people talk expresses their identity, we linguists say, tending to think such a statement should end the conversation. But it doesn’t. A perfectly reasonable person might ask: Why not identify with proper language? Moreover, using the word “identity” makes the matter sound deliberate, while most black people’s embrace of “ax” is not a conscious decision.

The first thing to understand is that, for black people, “ax” has a different meaning than “ask.” Words are more than sequences of letters, and “ax” is drunk in from childhood. “Ax” is a word indelibly associated not just with asking but with black people asking. That sentiment alone is powerful enough to cut across conscious decisions about what is standard or proper.

“Ax,” then, is as integral a part of being a black American as are subtle aspects of carriage, demeanor, humor and religious practice. “Ax” is a gospel chord in the form of a word, a facet of black being — which is precisely why black people can both make fun of and also regularly use “ax,” even as college graduates.

Yet nothing can stop people from hearing “ax” as illiterate, which makes the word a small tragedy in its way. When a black speaker gets the most comfortable, the most articulate, the most herself — that is exactly when she is likely to slide in an “ax” for “ask.” Immediately she sounds ignorant to any nonblack person who hears her, not to mention to quite a few black ones.

Yet I hope that my small contribution to the pro-axive literature might help some of us hear “ax” in a different way. The simple fact is that because “ax” is blackness, it has survived and will continue to.

(Cannot send link as NYT is by subscription only and link usually does not open for readers without one) - Anon

Thanks, anon.

To me using that word implies that the person is uneducated trash.

Sorry if it's racist or whatever but there's no excuse for not speaking one's native language properly even if you are poor. 🤨

[faelynnupward]

There wasn’t a modern J sound until 1524 where an Italian grammarian made a differentiation between J and I. Iesus would be pronounced “YAY-sus” in Latin and its derivative languages. I was used as both a consonant and vowel before the sixteenth century and the consonant version would work like the similar letters in Greek or Hebrew and make a Y sound.

The use of a modern J sound to say “JEE-sus” the way we pronounce it now wouldn’t have occurred until after J as a separate sound existed. Cart before the horse and all that.

The j character was used by Germanic monks before to differentiate between consonant i and vowel i but they were considered the same letter and the consonant i still made a y sound.

I mean you’re basically saying the exact same thing I’m saying but “well, actually”ing it. Saying “but it was the same thing before except the letters and sounds were different” isn’t quite the debate tournament winner you think it is.

The ultimate point is that Jesus would have been called Yeshua, Yeshu or possibly Yehoshua by his contemporaries and his surname would have either been “Jesus son of Joseph” Yeshua bar Yosef or maybe “Jesus of Nazareth” Yeshua Nasraya (from Syrian Aramaic) or Nasrat (what modern Nazarenes call it in Hebrew). IF he even used a surname, which was super uncommon for lower class Jews in first century Judea.

The Roman prefect of Judea had something like 140 Yeshuas in tax documents in the first century. So not a lot, though it was also common to give long held family first names to Roman tax officials so more daily users of the name likely existed.

Hang on why does Jesus have a surname if surnames weren't really gonna be invented until a bit later

[whalehouse1]

Grammar Stickler: -exists-

Linguist: And I took that personally.