A dumb question from someone that is basically ignorant in this area:
Concerning the split infinitive, whether it is correct or not, whether its use is merely discouraged, or its disuse prescribed.... Suppose it were decided that its use were to be strictly forbidden, what legislating body would have the authority to make that decision?
Who makes the rules of English that bind us all?
Concerning the split infinitive, whether it is correct or not, whether its use is merely discouraged, or its disuse prescribed.... Suppose it were decided that its use were to be strictly forbidden, what legislating body would have the authority to make that decision?
Who makes the rules of English that bind us all?
We ought to have an official academy like the French do which legislates these matters. Let's keep out all of those foreign words and constructions that might improve communication and make the language more versatile and colorful!
At the moment, it's a matter of consensus among academic authorities, which is not a system that leads to any clarity. It does, however, have the advantage of allowing English to grow and change in an organic way not possible with languages beholden to an academy.
At the moment, it's a matter of consensus among academic authorities, which is not a system that leads to any clarity. It does, however, have the advantage of allowing English to grow and change in an organic way not possible with languages beholden to an academy.
Re: Re: Boldly going where angels fear to tread...
Ha! That's a good. After an early life of cheesy North American electrical practices, the French electrical system looked pretty good to me. Byzantine, but good.
England, however, was a bit of a psychedelic trip. Ring mains? They are a clever idea, but classic British circular thinking. And ring mains are the good part.
Now back to the subject at hand, being the offspring of two English majors, I love strange grammar and tortured spelling. I have no respect for English spelling, none at all.
Lead
Dove
Read
Though
Thought
Tough
Through
Two
To
Two
And so on.
Then there is sneak, sneaked, snuck. Anyone here know about that evolution? (hint: hard vs soft).
7N7 said:
Ha! That's a good. After an early life of cheesy North American electrical practices, the French electrical system looked pretty good to me. Byzantine, but good.
England, however, was a bit of a psychedelic trip. Ring mains? They are a clever idea, but classic British circular thinking. And ring mains are the good part.
Now back to the subject at hand, being the offspring of two English majors, I love strange grammar and tortured spelling. I have no respect for English spelling, none at all.
Lead
Dove
Read
Though
Thought
Tough
Through
Two
To
Two
And so on.
Then there is sneak, sneaked, snuck. Anyone here know about that evolution? (hint: hard vs soft).
barretter said:
Barretter, you have a) a far better memory than me and b) a far better knowledge of Latin.
It's funny that I should remember "vivum", but this arose, because I suggested the name for a band I was involved in in 1969. We wanted to be sure what "Sempervivum" meant so we looked it up in my girlfriend's Latin book!
I must bow our gracefully I think!
7N7
Re: Re: Re: Boldly going where angels fear to tread...
Well in North America you have 117v - much less of a risk compared with the 230v here in France and indeed throughout Europe.
I have a suspicion that once upon a time, the French system ran at a lower voltage (can anyone confirm?) and I imagine that the flimsy, Mickey Mouse fittings have evolved from then. To me it is strange that it is possible to plug a 2-pin plug into a 3-pin socket with a 50/50 chance of correct polarity. No fused plugs either.
I spoke to a woman for whom I was doing a little electrical repair work and warned her about the dreadful earth arrangements in her house. She replied "But it's only alternating current". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
As for "Snuck" that one is strictly USA!
7N7
panomaniac said:
Ha! That's a good. After an early life of cheesy North American electrical practices, the French electrical system looked pretty good to me. Byzantine, but good.
England, however, was a bit of a psychedelic trip. Ring mains? They are a clever idea, but classic British circular thinking. And ring mains are the good part.
Now back to the subject at hand, being the offspring of two English majors, I love strange grammar and tortured spelling. I have no respect for English spelling, none at all.
Lead
Dove
Read
Though
Thought
Tough
Through
Two
To
Two
And so on.
Then there is sneak, sneaked, snuck. Anyone here know about that evolution? (hint: hard vs soft).
Well in North America you have 117v - much less of a risk compared with the 230v here in France and indeed throughout Europe.
I have a suspicion that once upon a time, the French system ran at a lower voltage (can anyone confirm?) and I imagine that the flimsy, Mickey Mouse fittings have evolved from then. To me it is strange that it is possible to plug a 2-pin plug into a 3-pin socket with a 50/50 chance of correct polarity. No fused plugs either.
I spoke to a woman for whom I was doing a little electrical repair work and warned her about the dreadful earth arrangements in her house. She replied "But it's only alternating current". I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
As for "Snuck" that one is strictly USA!
7N7
works perfectly in Germany, and I have never heard someone complaining about low german safety standards. 😉
SY said:
By consensus, I assume that a majority of authorities agree that one thing or another is correct, allowing the possibility (likelihood) that a minority disagree. Meanwhile, no strict rules are written; it's all a matter of which school of thinking you happen to belong to.
If there are no written laws, only the opinions of authorities, does that mean that the idea of strictly correct English is false?
juergenk said:
That's what my girlfriend said (she's a German citizen) when we had an argument about it...
7N7
In a Platonic sense, yes. But the Venn diagram of authoritative opinion has an overwhelming overlap.
7N7 said:
Actually, she was right. Don't know about the french but we inherited the german standard and nowadays each socket has an earth line, but it is still not polarized, so that's a 'failing'.
Having lived in the US, I am sorry to say that the electrics are shoddy. 117V might look safer but it will kill you. it's not like 230 will kill you twice over, because it's twice the value. What did shock me were the sockets and plugs (often unplated brass plugs that tend to fall out of the equally constructed sockets on their own!), wiring without counduits in wooden frames and amidst cellulose insulation, and the fact that half the mains voltage means twice the mains current, which means 4 times the heat over bad contact surfaces, and they are considerably worse in the US than in Germany or here. Also the overhead electric lines (we put ours in the ground around the time of the Austro-Ugric empire i think 🙂 ), hanghing transformers, and lack of tri-phase. At the same time, stoves and heating/cooling are mostly electric (even more amperes through cheap plugs and sockets).
Sorry for the OT 🙂 and the spelling and grammar mistakes 🙂
MJL21193 said:
"Because it is the one thing that stops women from laughing at them."
Looks like a Sentence fragment to me. Unless it's just a bad transcription in the sig.
-Nick
ilimzn said:
I don't know about you, but I've done the odd stupid thing and shocked myself off the mains several times. I'm glad I was messing with 115, not 230.
As far as the plugs go, I have to agree. They're terrible. If you ever have something like a vacuum cleaner which you move around, you'll often bend the crap out of the plug before you even notice that you're out of cord.
WRT ovens and such. They all run off of 230v (or 208v in places powered by 3 phase). Obviously 3 phase IS used, as I just stated. Heating and stoves are both often gas, but electric is common too. The plugs used on stoves and dryers are much more solidly built than the standard nema 5-15 120v plugs.
Don't get me wrong, there's a pile of stuff wrong with our electrical system, but don't exaggerate it.
-Nick
Arx said:
Full context:
"I am going to explain to you why we went to war. Why mankind always does to war. It is not social or political. It is not countries that go to war, but men. It is like salt. Once one has been to war, one has salt for the rest of one's life. Men love war because it allows them to look serious. Because it is the one thing that stops women from laughing at them. Night fell again. There was war to the south, but our sector was quiet. The battle was over. Our casualties were some thirteen thousand killed--thirteen thousand minds, memories, loves, sensations, worlds, universes--because the human mind is more a universe than the universe itself--and all for a few hundred yards of useless mud. "
- John Fowles, "The Magus"
It's taken from a novel. The author was using a writing style.
ilimzn said:
Our standard in Oz is 240V/50Hz 10A per circuit, MEN (multiple earthed neutral). My 2200W electric fan heater almost caused a fire in my study due to a worn extension cord and has melted a wall outlet in another room (really handy, with a curtain hanging over it 😱 ). I'm renovating a 30+ year old house. After the heater incident, I quickly replaced all the old, worn out power outlets.
Another down side of of having 20A circuits is all that expensive copper required. And 240V can't be that bad. I zapped myself with it at least half a dozen times as a kid playing with wires and lightbulbs and stuff
(or perhaps I just had more luck than brains). These days RCD's are mandatory.Arx said:
That it is, but you're just being picky.
Cheers,
Glen
MJL21193 said:
It does make more sense when following the preceding sentence, but still looks technically wrong.
I believe there would be a better punctuation possible. Perhaps the semicolon would be apropriate?
I could make a similar correction to my own "stylized" writing.
Arx said:
Looks like a sentence fragment to me; Unless it's just a bad transcription in the sig.
Now, if it's alright to use incorrect punctuation in this case, how is "Spelling, capitalization, and grammar.", faulted only for a debatably excessive comma, any worse?
I am still of the opinion that the serial comma is correct, and advantageous, even if there is no consensus on its necessity. Leave it out if you prefer, or add it only when you deem it necessary, but don't say it's wrong.
-Nick
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