Pet word hates

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
Heh, I've had the burgle / burglarize discussion before. Apparently both terms came into use on opposite sides of the Atlantic at roughly the same time (late 1800s, about 500 years after the word Burgler itself). "Burgle" is a back formation, "burglarize" uses the -ize suffix. The more grammatically correct formation is the US one.
 

jenks

thread death
Canada J Soup said:
The more grammatically correct formation is the US one.
what does this mean? grammatical correctness is a matter of opinion and fashion, no more, no less. any attempt to erect one version of english over another is always dangerous. there is not one grammar but many grammars. after all grammar is just the word to describe patterns and sysytems of language, the only 'bad' grammar is that which impedes meaning. all other grammar is correct, whether you like the usage is another matter. that ,as freeborn, would say is a social judgement, not a linguistic judgement.
 

Melchior

Taking History Too Far
michael said:
Ahhh... "can I get" has other implications!! Now I see. Grammatically the construction is consistent with a million other phrases that I'm sure wouldn't offend anyone, so I was a bit baffled as to why this particular combo rankled.

But "can I get" is also part of "can I get a witness", and is therefore cool!
 

Canada J Soup

Monkey Man
what does this mean? grammatical correctness is a matter of opinion and fashion, no more, no less. any attempt to erect one version of english over another is always dangerous.
I should probably have qualified the statement by saying that the more grammatically correct formation is apparently the US one, because I can't remember the specifics (and don't have an OED on hand to check). I believe it's something to do with 'Burglar' being derived from a loan word (maybe French or Greek?) and the verb formation following on from that language's rules. Not my area of expertise, just something I remember seeing thrashed out on the internet before.



Still don't like the word though
Yeah, me neither. Sounds archaic and unnecessarily fancy.
 

michael

Bring out the vacuum
I did a degree in Linguistics. I wouldn't say it makes me an expert on "grammatical correctness" (nor an expert in much - insert condemnation of the lowly BA here) because as a social science it at least pretends to only describe what occurs, not say what should occur.

The argument put forward in Linguistics is that if grammar is to be useful, it must just be what the majority of native speakers within the same region consider acceptable use. Same with how dictionaries should be, really. Recording language as it is used.

There are many other ways to argue for grammatical correctness, eg. referring back to the source languages of words, the history of usage within the language in question, etc. but (as with music criticism) you're just arbitrarily setting up the criteria by which you assess what is valid and what is not. If someone else disagrees with the basic criteria then all your arguments fall down.

So here's some ways to dismantle the argument that "burglarize" is a more correct verb form than "burgle" because it follows the traditional rules for creating a verb from a noun in Greek. Not meaning to totally shit on whoever originally put forward the idea, of course. ;)

When is a loan word no longer a loan word? We could argue for days on this alone. If it is a loan word, what are the benefits of prescribing the use of the grammatical rules of the language it comes from over the use of the rules of the language in which it is being used?

Assuming we do want to adopt the grammatical rules of each language from which we borrow words, what does this mean for words that come into English via a whole bunch of different languages? A classic in Engish is where the verb form of a word came from Latin via French to English, while the noun form came directly from Latin. Would it not be more "correct" (if that's about consistency and clarity) to ditch one of these forms entirely and switch to both coming from either Latin or French?

And on and on it goes...

The other thing that becomes very clear in Linguistics is that people are naturally conservative about language change. Me starting this thread, knowing full well I have no way to justify (grammatically) anything I might rant about, is probably a good example of that. ;)
 

AshRa

Well-known member
simon silverdollar said:
'sexed up'.

at the time of the hutton inquiry, i wanted to punch the tv everytime some one said it.

I absolutely loved 'sexed up' at the time, purely because I can't think of anything less sexy than politicians talking about dossiers! :D
 
'Hail-fellow-well-met' - an attribute Gordon Brown doesn't have a lot of, according to some political reporters. It's such an annoying little phrase, but it goes round and round in my head like one of those stupid spindly pond-skating insects.

It means 'heartily friendly and congenial' by the way.
 
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