People getting words wrong
Sun, 2003-11-16 15:36
#1
People getting words wrong
My best mate's reading this ace book at the mo (apologies if this has already been mentioned) by a real stickler, a fanatical campaigner for correct use of pronunciation and language. I can't wait to lend it (I mean BORROW it...ha ha - that sort of thing...)
Sam got himself into trouble over the weekend with his new belle, by correcting her. He can't help it. They had a blazing row about "aitch" (pronounced by wrong people as "haitch"). His other beefs include "disinterested" being used as "uninterested" (as opposed to its real meaning: "impartial") , the borrow/lend thing, and (like Liana and me) he abhors the widespread incorrect, seemingly arbitrary use of the apostrophe.
What really winds me up is when people smugly correct you, imagining themselves a cut above, but are actually wrong. For example, there are those who would say "like Liana and me" should be "like Liana and I" when it BLOODY SHOULDN'T. (Liana and I is only correct in the nominative case, ie. if "Liana and I" is the subject of the sentence: "Liana and I also abhor incorrect pronunciation."
Anyway, pedant as I am sometimes, I can't help feeling I shouldn't worry about the meanings of words changing over time. Who cares if disinterested now means uninterested? If most use it that way, don't the majority rule? (Rather than a handful of stiffs, writing snotty articles about how everyone else is wrong?) If meanings didn't change, we'd all be talking like King Lear still.
Finally, a challenge. What's the difference between "jealous" and "envious"? And what's the difference between "may" and "might"?
janeymack
may is just a bit more archaic i think but basically they're the same. I think jealous has more of a negative meaning than envious.
and there's nothing worse than people saying "pacific" instead of specific. grrrr
Liana
Its not iNflammable is it? I think its iMflammable?
Buddha
Well, as I'm sure you're all dying to know (ahem) : "Might" is the past tense of "may" and can change the meaning of a sentence significantly. The example used in this book is something like...
The Nazi party may have gained extra support.
This means, here, in the present, the writer is unsure as to whether the Nazi party gained any extra support or not.
The Nazi party might have gained extra support.
This means that, at the time, the possibility existed of extra support. There were ways - options, choices - leading to possible extra support.
"Jealous" means feeling protective and possessive of something you HAVE. Whereas "envious" is the bitterness felt about something you DON'T HAVE. "Jealous", due to incorrect usage over time, has come to mean the latter also (note that the OED now accepts this as a third meaning, especially when followed by "of"). But shouldn't we encourage people to be CLEARER about meaning - I think this is this author's main point. If meanings of words start to overlap too much, we can't be pacific, I mean, specific, about what we mean.
andrew pack
When I used to do contract law, one of the first jobs with any draft contract is to to take out any part where the other side "Will " do such and such and change it to "Shall" and then to try to change as many of the shall's that were putting the onus on my client to will. I must say, I've sat down with dictionary and grammar books and can't quite grasp it, but in a law sense, "Shall" means that you have to do it, no matter what, whereas "will" pretty much means, yeah, we'll try but if it doesn't quite come off, we won't worry about it too much.
(You get a similar thing with ordinary language "could you take out the rubbish?" and "Will you take out the rubbish?" are questions to which the answer "Yes" actually mean two different things. )
George W Bush actually went up in my estimation last night when he said "A historic event" rather than "an" . That is my biggest gripe. That and "reckoned"
Disinterested is sloppy English, but given that English is an evolving and growing language, if it keeps getting misused that way, won't it just end up with a subsidiary meaning. A shame in this particular case as disinterested is a useful word and there are already several good words for bored.
Vicky
no it's inflammable liana (tho i confess i had to check;)
Liana
lol
ok :o)
Vicky
you wanna talk about words making no sense?
Okay will someone PLEASE tell me why both flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?
No wonder people have trouble learning our language...
andrew pack
And why cleave means both to join together and to separate...
andrew pack
There are only four 'h' words that go properly with 'an'. They are words where the 'h' sound is correctly not pronounced - heir, (damn, I can't remember the other one!), hour and honour.
Contrary to what the BBC seem to believe 'historic' ought not to be treated as thought it begins with a vowel. I think if you can't put an 'h' sound in the word without it sounding ridiculous, then 'an' is appropriate. You would never actually say 'hour' as 'how-er"
My dictionary says that the word flammable ought to be used in preference to inflammable, for the reason that people are inclined to believe that 'in' means the same as 'un' and mistake in this particular word could have pretty nasty consequences. If you say something inflamatory, it provokes and raises the metaphorical temperature, so it does make a kind of sense.
Oh, back on ugly words, I read the word "Squiny" recently, which means to peer, and that is a particularly ugly word.
Vicky
and why do you raise things to the ground?
Liana
You don't 'raise' them Vicky - you 'raze' them to the ground.
Haitch is my most hated thing... and when you say, correctly, 'aitch' as I always do, people look at you pityingly. Last year, I told a tutor of mine (yes really) that it wasnt Haitch it was Aitch, and she looked at me most peculiarly. It makes me really cross... this woman is teaching ENGLISH for petes sake. Grr.
Buddha
IMflammable!?
IM-FLAMMABLE???!!!
I think you need a glass of haitch two O, Liana.
Vicky
Okay I knew that Liana.... but it does sound like raise doesn't it? I still think it's bloody confusing ;)
While we're on the subject why is Abbreviated such a long word and why is Phonetically not spelt phonetically?
Liana
I admit I dont know everything Paul...
Liana
did you know we used to have 40 vowels in original english?
when the romans came, they latinized it all... this is why our language is so difficult, with just the five now.
Flash
My former work colleague used to say participate instead of anticipate.
Vicky
eenie meenie minnie mo
don't know how to spell them but they are the oldest words still in common usage know what they mean?
Liana
no.. were they druid?
I know why the Ye of Ye Olde Tea Shoppe is there though, when its patently wrong....
Vicky
cool.... why?
And they mean one, two, three, four (i think they're middle english but i could be wrong)
Andrea
Ahem...
"Eenie, meenie, minie, mo" is based on a counting system that predates the Roman occupation of Britain, that may even be pre-Celtic... It not only gives us a fragmentary image of how children were being amused at the time Stonehenge was built, but tells us something about how their elders counted and thought and ordered their speech.
Ok, ok, I Googled :-)
Vicky
lol well i was1/2 right anyway
well googled Andrea ;)
Liana
So i was right with druid?
mississippi
What were the 35 vowels the Romans dispensed with Lianasy?
Andrea
Erm...
Liana
Not sure of them all. Qwould you like me to find out Missi?
Andrea
Possibly the largest vowel inventory is that of Weert (a dialect of Dutch), which has 28 vowels: 12 long, 10 short and 6 diphthongs...
*she said brightly*
neil_the_auditor
There's new vowels being discovered...
Brummie "eow" as in "yeow" = "you"
Scouse "ew" as in "lewk at this bewk"
And the Tyke slur; "Shut that doo-er or you'll feel my boo-it!"
Not to mention that stupid received English which thinks that "butter" and "batter" are the same thing!
[%sig%]
mississippi
Yesh pleasey Liana.
Last time I was in Amsters I saw some of the locals wearing those dipthongs in the redlight Andrea.
Paul Greco
Well, the thread took a while to get going, but the posts came all at once, like British buses.
Andrea
Did you, George? Must've been that day you snuk out on your own...
pais
there are more vowels in Welsh than in English arent there... a, e, i, o, u, w, eu, ei, iw (i think)... still that only makes 9, and 3 of those are quite possibly not pure vowels.....
didnt quite understand the thing about A Hotel (andrew pack, above) because didnt words beginning with Aitch used to have to Ave the Aitch dropped for correct grammatical pronuciation and become (for instance) An Otel.. An Ermaphrodite... was it anything to do with French?
mississippi
Not all words starting with 'H' had it silenced pais, but some were and I was taught to say 'an hotel', 'an history book' etc. I still say it like that and also write it that way too. I had a lengthy discussion with my A-level English teacher about this some years back, and she said that at the time both ways were acceptable as the language was constantly developing, but that the 'old' way was slowly losing ground. Whether or not the old way is now considered unacceptable I don't know but as Magnus would say, 'I've started so I'll finish.'
janeymack
and one that really got me the other day:
my boss put up a notice saying " this afternoon there will be an extraordinary meeting. Could all staff please attend."
I was waiting for the fireworks and juggling. None came. I was mocked for my disappointment.
Ely Whitley
my simple view is that if it sounds right then it is right and 'an hotel' only sounds right if you drop the aitch which, being a Mancunian, I would never dream of doing.
Flammable and inflammable does annoy me though.
Stormy
flammable = flame able
inflammable = very easily flame able
so, whilst wood is flammable this forum is highly inflammable
mississippi
Well, strike a light!
Buddha
Well I never, a Mancunian Liverpool fan!
Ely Whitley
that's just what I mean!
IN should mean "not" inmy view..incredible, inhospitable, inactive, inaccurate etc etc. I looked it up as a prefix and the very last bit of the definition reads
"... sometimes used as an intensive or almost meaningless prefix.; (2) in words derived from L., Used to form negatives."
AND even given the state of things as they are, we've gone to all the trouble to invent a word that means highly flammable (even though it has caused much frustration with the likes of me) so why do we then say "highly inflammable"? Just how flammable do we want things to be?