"Alot": Something the Internet informed me about. (1 Viewer)

[Christ Reynolds]

i also hate that. it's not like CDs looks terribly out of place. it annoys me almost as much as people placing apotsropohes where they clearly don't belong, that drives me nuts. or should i say, it drive's me nut's.

CJ

 

[Lew Crippen]

I think that SuperTed has been waiting for a ‘Whatever Happened to Ted?’ thread.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Much has been made in this thread of the mutt that is the English language. The wide number of vagaries in the language compel me to want to grab hard and fast onto any firm rules to create some basis of foundation onto which to build. That is why I have copies of Strunk & White, The Little English Handbook (a personal fave), and other language reference books at my desks at both home and work. I'm always surprised to hear institutions of higher education break from Strunk & White on some of the basic issues of style. It is what helps create the muddle.

Personally, I find the "first letter of the next word being an 's'" issue to seem specious at best. I don't find the string of three "s"s in "Barry Bonds's steroids" any more difficult than the two "s" string of Barry Bonds' steroids. Any time you can have uniformity in the language, I'm all for it!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Do you actually mean The Little-Brown Handbook, because that's the one I use. Great reference that should be in every college student's bookbag, along with Strunk and White's The Elements of Style. These two got this geeky Engineering student an easy 'A' average in his research and writing courses in college.

 

[Jack Briggs]

Meanwhile, upon making my rounds here at HTF, I came upon post after post in the hardware areas filled with -- you guessed it! -- "alot." And spelling variations on the word "definitely" (the letter "a" is popular here, even when it's not called for).

 

[James D S]

LOL, yes, yes it does.

When I wrote that, I was even thinking about going with the capital 'G', but thought against it because I wasn't sure how many would know what might've been just an inside joke between my old rhetoric professor and his class. Alas, I tried to throw the ball before I caught it...

 

[Mike Frezon]

Nope. It's The Little English Handbook (Choices & Conventions) by Edward P.J. Corbett. It's not in-depth, but it gives the basic rules in an easy-to-find and easy-to-read format and covers most situations.

But it is a distant #2 to Strunk & White.

I also use The Elements of Grammar by Margaret Shertzer. I should note that her Rule #1 under the section "apostrophes" is: To form the possessive singular of mouns, add an apostrophe and s ('s). And, one of the examples she uses is: the witness's testimony. We could change that to "the witness's secret" for the rare four consecutive "s" "golden sombrero"!

I also keep the UPI & AP Broadcast Stylebooks close at hand...but that's an occupational thing...along with at least two or three dictionaries and a Roget's.

 

[MarkHastings]

misspellinG?

 

[James D S]

I hear you about the uniformity, but I also find a certain organic beauty in our written word - oweing a lot to little exceptions to rules like this one.

What about "Philip Glass's symphony"? By the rule I favor, it would open up a can of worms. By yours, not so much.

Maybe you have something there...

("Barry Bonds's steroids" is still an eyesore. :p )

 

[Chris Lockwood]

> grammer nazis

German socialist fans of Fraser?

 

[BrettGallman]

Yes, there is a term for this. It's called redundancy. People are wrong to say "PIN number," but like you said, no one thinks twice about it. Kind of like the phrase "revert back." Also redundant. There's no other way to revert, as the word inherently means "to go back." There's lots of weird things like this. For example, "pre-record." This is also redundant or non-sensical. You really mean you're just going to "record" something, because how the heck can you record before you record (which is what "pre-record" implies)? If something is recorded, it's just recorded. By definition, what you are seeing is not happening live. Putting a "pre-" on it is just redundant.

Also, what's been said about pluralizing acronyms is dead right, and it's another thing that bothers me.

Also, when it comes to a proper noun ending in S that possesses something ending with an S ("Barry Bonds's steroids"), there's actually no clear consensus. Basically, the rule of thumb when writing a paper is to be consistent. Just choose one and stick with it. The grammar/writing book we use here at school to teach entry level English says to just use discretion. If you believe it's an eyesore to have so many Ss (now that looks weird..no wonder people want to stick an apostrophe there), then simply put an apostrophe. Just make sure you always do it. I myself don't like this concession, because I don't see what the big deal is. Sure, it looks a little weird, but it doesn't really matter in the long run. This books also says the same thing about ancient or biblical names, while some places say you should always simply put an apostrophe.

Also, it IS correct to pluralize lower case letters with an apostraphe. So, p's and q's is correct, while P's and Q's is not. This is mostly due to typographical reasons. Also, it's technically not correct to write "the 60's," but I know I've been guilty of it before just because it's so pervasive. You're really supposed to write "the 60s" when referring to the decade.

Who knew the apostrophe of all things could be so complicated?

 

[MarkHastings]

 

[Yee-Ming]

If you think HTF is bad, I'm also a member of another forum that is more "local" , from my point of view. One of the bugbears is how some members ask to "audit" an SVS, or some other speaker brand.

Can't blame the guys, English isn't easy. I am reminded of a story my wife told me, when on a tour of Europe many years ago, the guide told the group that for lunch they would be served with a "nice piece of meat" -- which of course sounds horrendous, as compared to a "nice steak", but for the German (or maybe Swiss or Austrian, but certainly German-speaking) guide it was the natural translation from German where a steak is referred to as "Fleisch", literally "meat" and you can see the similarity to "flesh", which would have been an even worse translation...

Conversely, "Angst" doesn't mean the same thing in the original German, where it is simply "fear", and not the soul-searching contemplation or self-doubt suggested in English.

It doesn't help that English has so many colloquialisms as well, many of which are mutually contradictory. As a rude example, "fanny", which to Americans refers to the rear, but to the Brits refers to the front...

 

[BrettGallman]

You know, there might be a term, but I don't know it. It sure seems like there should be some kind of term to describe things like this (and the Kleenex example). So I guess I'll keep considering it redundant.

And your example about pre-recording is interesting, and it reminded me of how the prefix "pre-" has come to also mean "beforehand." For example, people say they will "prepay" at the gas pump; in the traditional sense of the prefix, this is pretty non-sensical too, as you're not doing something before you pay. You're doing it before you pump, so shouldn't you say you're going to pay pre-pumping?

But I actually looked this up, and the usage is actually correct if you go by the fact that "pre-" also means "beforehand," instead of simply "before." Therefore "prepay" doesn't have to mean "before paying", as it can mean "to pay beforehand." It's kind of weird to me, and I'd like to know how long this usage has been accepted.

 

[Dave Simpson]

Quote Mike Frezon: "The wide number of vagaries in the language compel me to want to grab hard and fast onto any firm rules to create some basis of foundation onto which to build."

I'm not aiming to start any arguments with anybody around here, 'specially those more erudite than I, but Mike man, I take great issue with this sentence you've written. Perhaps you can explain it to me, because I'm almost fully ignorant of the actual mechanics of grammar, yet I've got a pretty good idea of what sounds correct, to me at least. So educate me, my friend!
Here's the rub: if we take your sentence above and break it down to its(!) simplest form, we are left with "vagaries compel" (subjective[?] noun and verb), as your composition suggests. My beef, however, is that the subjective noun in the sentence is not 'vagaries' at all, it is 'number', in which case we are left with "number compel", which is obviously incorrect. The sentence, to my mind, ought to properly read "...number of vagaries..compels me...", wherein the word 'vagaries' modifies the subjective noun, and wherein the word 'number' is a singular and therefore demands an 's' on the end of 'compel'. Make any sense? I see and hear this sort of thing in the media every single day and it drives me nuts, even if I can't quite explain it.
On the other hand, it's kinda late here, and I may simply be musing aloud. Cheers.

DS.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The "Kleenex" thing does have a name. It's called "brand recognition", something every marketing person strives for. See "Q-tip" for an extreme example.

 

[Dave Simpson]

Here's a Wiki entry about the Kleenex/Xerox/Coke thing. Can't help with the ATM acronym, however. Cheers.

DS.

 

[MarkHastings]

ah, that does make more sense.

 

[BrettGallman]

You're right. It should be "compells," as "number" is the main noun, and it is indeed a singular noun. "Vagaries" is not a modifier, but rather a part of a prepositional phrase that happens to occur before the verb phrase.

Other examples:

That pack of barking dogs is driving me insane.

as opposed to:
Those dogs are driving me insane.

 

[Dave Simpson]

Each of these examples is grammatically correct, however the first is a perfect illustration of what I was getting at; I think many people, and media outlets, would phrase it incorrectly as, "That pack of barking dogs are driving me insane". Why, here's a bit from the web-site of my local news tonight, reporting on a small plane going down in Lake Ontario today: "...none were wearing life jackets..." (all hands survived). 'None' is singular, therefore the sentence ought to read, "...none was wearing a life jacket...", or, somewhat more clumsily, "...all were not wearing life jackets...". There was another example on tonight's news that left me shaking my head, but this goof is common enough that I can't recall it precisely. Doesn't matter; I'll hear it again the very next time I turn on the news.
Great thread. Cheers.

DS.