Grammar day

[cosmolinguist]

I seriously if briefly considered defriending someone on Facebook because of their snobbishness.

They said they were going to get Mexican food from a street stall and then didn't because it said "taco's" and "burrito's." They went somewhere else just because of apostrophes. It just seems such a sad thing to be smug about. And I'm sure the comments will soon be full of people telling them how right they are.

I'm just a bleeding-heart descriptivist over here. The point of language is to convey meaning, something that's not harmed at all by the greengrocer's apostrophe. To demand perfect standard written English on all occasions is unnecessarily exclusionary (of not just speakers of other Englishes but also of, for instance, dyslexic people), not to mention churlish.

But then what do I know. Andrew just told me about a grammar question andrewducker's asking ("is it 'there have been a wealth of studies' or 'there has been a wealth of studies'?"), hoping that I could explain why he holds the opinion he does on this better than he can. Turns out I have the wrong opinion -- and even this is secondary to my "I'm sure they're both fine, barring a house style, because both are perfectly comprehensible" because I know not-taking-sides is never a satisfactory answer -- and he doesn't like my reason for it at all.

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[needled_ink_1975]

Fwiw, the 'wealth of studies' one goes like this:

"a wealth" is a singular collective. Therefore, "There has been a wealth of studies" is correct.

"There have been a wealth of studies" is incorrect, and is an error I see commonly in ESL writing (also hear it when ESL folks speak).

And yeah, it's typical screwball English! I mean, "a wealth" points logically to "many studies." Thing is, whenever a singular collective is used, a singular auxiliary verb must accompany it. Vice versa for for plurals: "There have been many studies."

Basically the answer is, never mix'n'match, or the grammar's wrong.

–N

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[cosmolinguist]

"a wealth" is a singular collective

This was what I said. But the Andrews were arguing by analogy to "a lot" and "a plethora" where they said "has" would sound wrong. I said (to the Andrew I'm married to, refusing to get involved in the online argument the other was having) that they were looking for logic and consistency in a language that has none.

But it seems that there's a US/UK divide on this, which would also help explain why I (an American) disappointed my (British) husband on this. :)

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[needled_ink_1975]

But, but, but!

"A plethora" ...*makes crabby noise*. There I'd say that "have a plethora" is about as WRONG as "has a plethora" because there are some Latin and Greek words ('pletura': Latin; 'plethore': Greek) that actually don't work in English at all. Why? They're INCORRECTLY translated. In both instances, the word means "to fill"; in purist essence, "a plethora" is something that's filled up.

"Something" is one, yes? That's singular, so strictly, "The library has a plethora of books" is absolutely correct. "plethora" should not be used thus, at all, at all: "There have been a plethora of studies." No. "There HAS been a plethora of studies" is the correct usage.

Umm, maybe if we'd stuck with Anglo-Saxon, and hadn't borrowed from Latin, Greek, and Romance languages, this convo wouldn't be happening. On the whole, I prefer Hebrew!

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[cosmolinguist]

I find adherence to Greek and Latin (and any other language, but prescriptivism tends to correlate with a 'classical' or 'good' education, so...) rules to be an absolute fool's game. It seems to bring nothing but frustration. Whatever "plethora" meant in Latin or Greek, it's English definition is clearly different. Language is like a democracy where we vote with our usage, so I always feel bad for the prescriptivists because there are always too few of them to keep the sands from shifting beneath them.

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[needled_ink_1975]

Umm, if I came across as a prescriptivist, I'm really not. "Plethora" is one of several words I use very seldom, and try if possible to substitute with something else, because it's a confuzzled little word.

If I'm a prescriptivist at all, it manifests in my insistence that a word like "ain't" is perfectly good usage. Why? Many people use it, which = "voting with our usage".

Do I like correct grammar? Yeah. But I think many people do, and I wouldn't say any of us are prescriptivists.

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[cosmolinguist]

I never said you were a precriptivist, but wanting loanwords to retain th meanings they had in the languages they were originally from sounds similarly frustrating.

If I'm a prescriptivist at all, it manifests in my insistence that a word like "ain't" is perfectly good usage. Why? Many people use it

This confuses me a little, as this sounds much more descriptive than prescriptive, but whatever :) I wasn't calling you anything anyway, just saying I feel sorry for them (and I said "them" not "you") because it seems like they're constantly fighting losing battles against seas of people who do not care as much as they do.

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[andrewhickey.info]

But we aren't talking about Greek, but English, a language where "a plethora" is entirely correct:

From the Oxford Dictionaries website:
"A large or excessive amount of something:
'a plethora of committees and subcommittees'
'Allen won a plethora of medals during his illustrious career'"

From Merriam-Webster Online:
"Examples of PLETHORA

A plethora of books have been written on the subject.

There has been a plethora of plays in recent years whose claim to modernity is based on indicated rather than felt emotion. —Arthur Miller, Harper's, March 1999"

(Note there that "a plethora" can go with both "has" and "have". Miller was USian, obviously, but I'd bet the first writer was British.)

Cambridge Dictionary:
"a very large amount of something, especially a larger amount than you need, want, or can deal with:
There's a plethora of books about the royal family.
The plethora of regulations is both contradictory and confusing."

Words change their meanings. ()

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[andrewhickey.info]

The rules for singular collectives are much more complex in British English than in USian English -- they take up two or three pages in the Oxford Style Guide, and depend (among other things) on whether the elements of the collective are being referred to in their capacity as individuals, and on the verb going with them.

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[needled_ink_1975]

I'm aware. South African English is only distinguishable from BE when it comes to words adopted from other local languages as common vernacular. Examples:

We don't say "farmer's sausage" we say "boerewors" (or shorten it to "wors" [the W is pronounced as the English l.d. fricative V]);
In rugby, when the ref has called for a scrum, and the guys are taking their time to bind, he'll say, "C'mon, bopa!" ("bopa" is Zulu for 'tie/bind it up').

I didn't italicise, because in this country those two examples are as 'English' as they are Afrikaans and Zulu, if you know what I mean.

But in all rules of grammar, SAE is identical to BE.

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[andrewhickey.info]

In which case, your rule ""a wealth" is a singular collective. Therefore, "There has been a wealth of studies" is correct." is false for you as well as for me.

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[needled_ink_1975]

Where did logic go? Oh, I forgot. We're talking about a language that can't make up its mind regarding which Rule Book to follow. I think you'll find here that our argument is settled nicely in German, but is up in the air in Latin (and *perhaps* French, but my French is beyond awful). And yes, we're talking about English, but if we're honest we'll acknowledge it's a mess, thanks to the many cooks and the muddle of ingredients they tossed in the pot. Sometimes all we're left with is this:

...head!desk... *waves white flag* *considers speaking Hebrew and nothing else ever again*

Which isn't helpful if one is a writer.

I think we ought to laugh it off and go the way your lady reported you and the other Andrew were (sort of) heading: what sounds right?

I respectfully submit, sir, that there HAS been a wealth of studies done on the wrong thing, dammit.

:P

[quirkytizzy]

Seriously? They missed out on awesome Mexican food for an APOSTROPHE? THat's stupid. And blind. AND MISSING OUT ON MEXICAN FOOD! What a way to assert your superiority - at the expense of great food. Oi.

[cosmolinguist]

I know, right?!

Especially because even halfway-decent Mexican food is incredibly rare here. People were excited when a Taco Bell opened in Manchester. That's how bad it is. So it seems especially crazy to miss out!

[matgb]

My answer to t'other Andrew was simple: it's bad either way, "a wealth of" is nonsense english regardless, "there've been many studies" makes more sense and is better.

Stupid prescriptivism.

[cosmolinguist]

::shrugs:: When this Andrew said wealth just means a lot of, I said (in a possibly slightly devil's-advocate-y kind of way) that I might imagine "wealth" implying value as well as quantity -- so not just that there have been many studies but that they are particularly good/useful.

I don't think it's nonsense, but I do think it's probably a boring phrase writers will have heard enough times that they're replicating it without really thinking about it very much, and that's always going to be suboptimal.

But yeah, in any case where it's difficult to decide how something should be worded, I always look for a way to re-word it that'll remove the problem. There almost always is one.

[barakta]

*nods* it may be irksome but I wouldn't not buy from them, not least as English may well be a second language and language snobbery is elitist and often a way of putting down people who have less privilege than oneself.

I think it is possible to want to "be as correct as you can be" and even enjoy debating that without being snobby and elitist about it, a key factor being the consent of the author in the discussion, debate and questioning of "correctness" and the willingness of other participants in the discussion to back off once the author has made their decision rather than to continue debating or sniping that the author did it wrong!

[cosmolinguist]

I wouldn't not buy from them, not least as English may well be a second language and language snobbery is elitist and often a way of putting down people who have less privilege than oneself.

Well quite. I did end up leaving a comment on this person's fb and they said "Would I want to choose a lawyer that has typographical errors on his webpage? If he can't be bothered to attend to detail in his advertising, then how could I count on him to do so in his job?" Yeah, because comparing lawyers and street food vendors in education and in skills necessary for their job is totally fair! (Also, hmph that the lawyer is expected to be a 'he'....)

[innerbrat]

has. Because 'a wealth' is singular.

[cosmolinguist]

That's what I said, and I talked for a while about mass nouns and count nouns, but the Andrews were arguing from analogy with "a lot" and "a plethora," where they said it'd be "have." I mocked them (well, this one, not wanting to get into the online argument) for expecting consistency or logic in the English language.

Turns out it's much more complicated in British than American English (he looked it up; of course he did, he's a technical writer) and that it's highly context-dependent, and that probably an argument can be made either way. Who'd've thought? :)

[innerbrat]

I agree with everything I assume you said about mass nouns and count nouns!

[cosmolinguist]

Oh, innerbrat you make my heart glad.

(I feel a bit bad for complaining about someone else's grammar snobbishness and then being smug that my answer had such technical terms in it when the Andrews' was "but if X was like Y then it'd be what we want it to be!" Yes I know not everyone was taught as well as I was (a lot of Andrew's and my arguments about language involve me saying somewhere haven't you ever diagrammed a sentence?, and no he hasn't, and neither have a lot of other people, and I have to remind myself that that is okay :) ) and I know that usually it doesn't matter that much, but I fear this isn't always as obvious from what I say as I'd like it to be.

(But it's only because Andrew's asking me which I think is correct that I get started on this kind of thing, and I love language so much, and I love the errors and discrepancies particularly, because the rules are most obvious and interesting in the places where they break down...so I get a bit carried away sometimes.)

[innerbrat]

I haven't either! But I like things that make sense and have rules and things and stuff, so even if I don't know the exact rule, I make stuff up based on what I know about the language I speak.

I actually think I had a conversation very similar with Andrew on Facebook. I literally (literally "literally") used the sentence "Because RULES."

Which is a valid sentence now. Because linguistic evolution.

[cosmolinguist]

I don't know the exact rule, I make stuff up based on what I know about the language I speak.

And this is what I think is so interesting, how people think the rules work, and how they apply the rules they have to new stuff or stuff they're not sure about.

People! People are awesome. And brains are awesome. So of course words are awesome.

Which is a valid sentence now. Because linguistic evolution.

Indeed! And every time someone goes crazy about new usages they hate, I just read stuff like this and smile. The grumpy prescriptivism of the past looks so quaint now -- no one even imagines there was ever a problem with using "function" as a verb or "urge" as a noun. And one say it will be the same thing when people say "because reasons." And I'm already happy about that.

[diffrentcolours]

Postel's law applies as much in English as it does in computer protocols.

[cosmolinguist]

Ooh I like that! I'd never come across it before. And it very much applies in my reading/writing/proofreading.