QT in the Chicago Sun Times mentioned a couple common usages that are just wrong. Can you come up with more?

"The boy turned up missing."

"The girl was found to be missing."

"It is in close proximity."

Foolishness to a grand degree. The only thing wrong in this situation is that the person is employed by a newspaper writing such drivel. Sheesh.

Was there any suggestion as to why they are supposed to be wrong?

We wouldn't use "turned up missing" in that way in the UK but there's nothing wrong with "was found to be missing" or "in close proximity". I suppose the suggestion is that "turned up missing" or "found to be missing" are in some way illogical and "close proximity" is tautology but so what?

This is English not Mathematics.

I could have predicted jheem's reaction because this is exactly the kind of thing we see all too often.

Did the author by any chance go on to suggest that a "near miss" is logically a collision, "a quantum leap" is not a large change it is the smallest possible change or "dogs must be carried on the elevator" means that if you don't own a dog you must take the stairs?

You can certainly derive a lot of humour from literally interpretting the illogical things we say but that just makes them amusing, not actually wrong.

I agree with jheem and Bob. QT must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with this recycled tosh. How can phrases in common use every day be "just wrong"? Who says so? He'll be citing Funk & Wagnall next!

The implied problem with close proximity is that it's redundant. The problem with the others is that if they're found they cannot be missing.

Just say not to grammar mavens!

But surely a real grammar maven would have an understanding of the nature of phrasal verbs and colloquial structures.

Grammar maven to me implies all the bad features of the blindly and dogmatically prescriptive grammarian. A grammarian or linguist should have the understanding you mentioned. That's just me, though.

Well, I must say, those weren't the reactions I had anticipated. The first 2 situations are ironic, I suppose, considering the intent...though not wrong, I agree. "Close proximity?" Well, if something is in proximity, isn't it close? Again, I suppose it isn't wrong, per se, but not all that good, wouldn't you agree? What would the "close" add?

Sheesh...I forgot the sort of people I was dealing with (to quote a favorite comedienne of mine...I Love Lucy!)

I did provide you with some more examples though didn't I?

The trouble you run into is that this kind of thing crops up a lot.

In the first two examples the confusion is arising from a misunderstanding of phrasal verbs.

turned up is a phrasal verb with more than one meaning. It can be "arrived" or it can be "was discovered to be". There is no confusion to most people because it's obvious which is meant from context. It's like answering "The aeroplane took off..." with "What, its sweater, its pants? What did it take off."

Slightly diferent case in example two. Here the verb being used IS NOT find, it is the phrasal verb find to be which has an entirely different meaning.

English has tens of thousands of phrasal verbs and many EFL and ESOL students find them to be (sic) one of the hardest aspects of the language.
Consider the difference in meaning between take, take on, take up, take off, take in, take out, take part, take place, take over, overtake and undertake.

The last example "close proximity" is technically a tautology. If it's close of course its in proximity but here close isn't really being used as an adjective it's being used as a kind of intensifier to indicate the degree of proximity. It's rather like my other example of "near miss" which as I said is logically a collision (it nearly missed). Here though "near" is being used as a qualifier to "miss" to indicate that it didn't miss by a mile it missed by an inch.

The language is full of these little absurdities.

But in the spirit that you intended the post here are a few more.

He's a great big man.
(one from my brother.) He always sometimes does it.
Any person not putting litter in the basket may be subject to a £50 fine.
(Sharp eyed readers will notice that this is really the same example as "Dogs must be carried in the elevator.")
Weapons must be checked at the door. (Which is the same example again, of course.)
He's a very good burglar.

I'll think of more for you later.

I ran across a grammatical abomination the other day. It's in some Eurotrash play called Hamlet: "It out-Herods Herod." Quite illogical and all. Surely this guy shouldn't be allowed to put pen to paper." And don't call me Shirley.

Here's a quotation from a fine book I'm currently reading. (Very slowly because I'm enjoying it so damned much.)

"The BBC can, in its The Spoken Word, try to ban from the air There's two, everyone followed by plural verbs, data used as a singular, between you and I, and like as a conjunction, and insist on the use of less money but fewer people, while at the same time showing some tolerence for who instead of whom, different than as well as different from, the splitting of infinitives, the placement of only somewhat distant from what it modifies, and none followed by are. It can do this, and insist on doing it, because those who control the airwaves say that is how English should be used rather than how it is used. English grammar is what they say it is rather than what we might observe it to be. Those who treat grammar like this do not concern themselves with most of the rules of language; they are not even aware of them. They insist on prescribing a few arbitrary rules that we are required to follow or suffer social consequences. the few rules become the "grammar" we concern ourselves with and the great many uncontroversial rules we all follow are ignored completely. And many of us are willing participants in this controversy whose only victims are ourselves."

Ronald Wardhaugh Proper English: Myths and Misunderstandings about Language. Blackwell, 1999. (Dr Wardhaugh is professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Toronto.)

A strange construction I often hear is "near miss." Um, that's a collision, is it not?

Bob, that was a such a cogent discussion that I sent a copy of it to QT. Thank you!

jheem, I can understand why you like the book you're reading because its philosophy seems to be very similar to yours, and others, here. I have put it on my list of books to read (which is bursting right now!). For me, it is hard to quit thinking about grammar rules. For example, it dusts my doilies to hear, "less people." I just read a research report from a major university that kept saying, "less nurses," and it felt like fingernails on the chalkboard!

Asa, we talk about "near misses" in medicine all the time now. It is when the nurse or physician nearly make a fatal error.

BTW, I almost hate to mention this, but QT had another today..."same exact."

quote:

Asa, we talk about "near misses" in medicine all the time now. It is when the nurse or physician nearly make a fatal error.

If one comes close to missing, one HAS STRUCK something! The meaning is opposite to the words. Unless, of course, you mean "near Miss," a propinquitous maiden.

Everybody, including Asa, knows what a near miss is. It is a miss that came quite close. If one is to use logic as the basis for constructing sentences rather than grammar then it's going to get awfully quiet [sic] around here [sic sic]. &c. Grammar is grammar and logic is logic, and you fill in the rest of the aphorism ...

For me, it is hard to quit thinking about grammar rules.

Kalleh, you've missed the point of my post. Once one starts to really look [sic] at grammar rules (i.e., all the grammatical and syntactic rules that go in to generating sentences in a language), one realizes that what the grammar mavens fret over is a tiny subset of the rules that are controversial between dialects (or social registers). One reason for that is, even though any English speaker has these rules within themselves [sic], nobody has been able to ennumerate all of [sic] the rules of English to date. (See any modern book on language written by a linguist, e.g., Pinkers, McWhorter.)

Many of these grammatically correct "rules" came from linguistic cranks of the 18th and 19th centuries. Why would anybody listen to the ravings of Robert Lowth, even if he was [sic] a Bishop? Many of his contemproraies criticized [sic] his English in his published sermons. Why not follow his critics' fiats and dictats?

The one that I always try to avoid is calling something either 'nearly' or 'almost' unique. It has always seemed to me that 'unique' is an absolute and therefore something is unique or it isn't, there can be no 'nearly' about it.

That's actually always been a pet peeve of mine, Doad (really unique). I do have a tendancy to add "really" to things when it's not needed. Like "really fabulous" and "really terrific" and so one. Sigh. But at least I will generally not do that with unique.

quote:

Grammar is grammar and logic is logic, and you fill in the rest of the aphorism ...

You're asking me to quote Kipling? "...and never the twain shall meet/Till Earth and Sky stand prsently/At god's great judgement seat." Thus the union of logic and grammar will require an apocalypse? OHHHH, DEAR!!!

quote:

Grammar is grammar and logic is logic

Jheem's totally right [sic], of course. What's interesting (to me at least) about phrases like near miss isn't that they are ungrammatical, or even illogical, but that that they are artifacts of a culture that chose to express a particular idea in a particular way. Near miss, I believe, comes from aviation, and it was a euphemism for the more obvious near collision, because the airlines didn't like using the c-word unless they had to. Euphemisms aren't all bad: some of us remember when MRI was called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, but the word 'nuclear' scared people so they got rid of it. Probably saved hundreds of thousand of hours of futile explanations.

quote:

The one that I always try to avoid is calling something either 'nearly' or 'almost' unique. It has always seemed to me that 'unique' is an absolute and therefore something is unique or it isn't, there can be no 'nearly' about it.

There's nothing illogical about 'nearly unique'. It means a small number. Very unique doesn't make a lot of sense, but nearly unique is fine.

Actually, even 'very unique' could mean not only unique, but differing in many respects from other similar objects.

"Unique" really means "the only one". So, if only two of something existed, they could be described as "nearly" or "almost" unique. However, I wouldn't describe something as "more unique" or "most unique".

quote:

Originally posted by arnie:
"Unique" really means "the only one". So, if only two of something existed, they could be described as "nearly" or "almost" unique. However, I wouldn't describe something as "more unique" or "most unique".

This is the traditional explanation of why something cannot be more unique or very unique.
It is of course contradicted by almost all modern dictionaries which accept that unique has more than one meaning.

Merriam-Webster

Compact Oxford

Encarta World English

There's also another common usage that always comes to my mind which is when describing species.

The lesser crested polka-dot toad is unique to North America while its cousin the greater crested polka-dot toad is unique to the Chicago environs. The greater crested is therefore more unique than the lesser crested.

True there are other words that could be substituted but modern dictionaries seem to all agree that "unusual" is now a legitimate use of "unique".

Now then, my US friends, what's all this about a more perfect Union.

I posted on unique a while back on the old blog.

As they say in French, "hic est unique."

Because very originally meant truly and unique means the only one, ergo it is very unique means it is truly the only one. QED.

I get what you are saying about near miss, Asa, and of course, logically speaking, you are right. Yet, were one to be really literal, it could mean that the original error, such as giving a double dose of something, was considered a miss That is, it wasn't correct patient management, but in fact it was a mismanagement; then, of course, near miss would work. I know, I am pushing the envelop here!

BTW, I am confused by all the sics some of you are using. Some of the time, I understand the error; other times I am just a dufus!

Kalleh, medical jargon is replete with phrases like this, e.g. "The patient failed chemotherapy" when in fact it was chemotherapy that failed the patient.

quote:

Originally posted by BobHale:
True there are other words that could be substituted but modern dictionaries seem to all agree that "unusual" is now a legitimate use of "unique"..

Alas, it's true that "unique" no longer has the meaning of "one and only," but I hadn't realized that dictionaries carry the broader definition.

One of the definitions from the OED Online is:

quote:

2. a. That is or forms the only one of its kind; having no like or equal; standing alone in comparison with others, freq. by reason of superior excellence; unequalled, unparalleled, unrivalled.

In this sense readopted from French at the end of the 18th c. and regarded as a foreign word down to the middle of the 19th, from which date it has been in very common use, with a tendency to take the wider meaning of ‘uncommon, unusual, remarkable’.

The usage in the comparative and superlative, and with advs. as absolutely, most, quite, thoroughly, totally, etc., has been objected to as tautological.

Here are a few quotes. The last one's a doozy.

quote:

1808 FOSTER Contrib. Eclectic Rev. (1844) I. 233 [Sir T. More] is a person so unique in the records of statesmen, that [etc.].

1809 R. K. PORTER Trav. Sk. Russia & Sweden (1813) I. xxv. 285 As it was thoroughly unique, I cannot forbear presenting you with so singular a curiosity.

1908 K. GRAHAME Wind in Willows viii. 168 ‘Toad Hall,’ said the Toad proudly, ‘is an eligible self-contained gentleman's residence, very unique.’

1980 Verbatim Autumn 15/2 A high-ranking state Alcoholic Beverage Commission official said Friday that Wednesday's retroactive renewal and transfer of the beverage permit of the rural Bloomington Liars' Lodge by the Monroe County Alcoholic Beverage Board was ‘unique but not uncommon’.

I don't like the broader meaning, so I generally avoid using the word.

quote:

Now then, my US friends, what's all this about a more perfect Union.

Yeah, well ...

Tinman

"The law has been laid down time and time again: unique is an absolute asjective; it cannot be modified by such adverbs of degree as more, most, somewhat, and very; a thing is either unique or it isn't. These observations are accepted as gospel by many people, and no one who adheres to them is likely to be persuaded not to, but let it be noted anyway that they are not entirely true.

"The French word unique was first borrowed into English in the early 17th century with two senses, 'being the only one; sole' and 'having no like or equal.' For a long time it was an extremely rare word. The OED indicates that it was reacquired in its second sense from the French in the late 18th century, but it was still usually regarded as a foreign word and was still rarely used. Henry Todd entered it as a foreign word in his 1818 edition of Johnson's dictionary, characterizing it as 'affected and useless.' Not until about the middle of the 19th century did unqiue come into widespread use and acceptance as a genuinely English word.

"Word that are in widespread use have a natural tendency to take on extended meanings. In the case of unique, it was natural that a word used to describe something that was unlike anything else should also come to be used more broadly to describe something that was, simply, unusual or rare. A similar extension of meaning has occurred with singular. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that unqiue began to be used more broadly at almost exactly the time that it became a common word:

"A very unqiue child, thought I. —Charlotte Brontë (in Fowler 1907)

"You will not wonder at these minute details, knowing how unique a thing an interview with Royalty is to me —Lewis Carroll, letter, 18 Dec. 1860

"... these summer guests found themselves defrauded of their uniquest recreastions —Harper's, April 1885 (OED)

"It was not long, however, before such usage began to be criticized.

"The first commentator to notice that unique was being used in new ways was Richard Grant White/ According to Bardeen 1883, White object to the use of unique to mean 'beautiful' (perhaps he understood 'very unqiue' as 'very beautiful'). Loud and persistent voices of protest were not raised until after the turn of the century. Vizetelly 1906 and Bierce 1909 were among the first to make the now familiar observation that there can be no degrees of uniqueness. Fowler 1907 also broached the subject. The Fowlers feared that unqiue might go the way of singular, that its correct meaning might be weakened and ultimately lost because of its common misuse by the careless. Variations on this theme have been repeated throughout the century. Actual usage of unique, meanwhile, seems to have changed little.

"In current English, unqiue has four principal senses, the least common of which is its original sense, 'beingthe only one; sole, single':"

[Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, 1994.]

More to come latter ...

Euphemisms aren't all bad: some of us remember when MRI was called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, but the word 'nuclear' scared people so they got rid of it. Probably saved hundreds of thousand of hours of futile explanations.[/QUOTE]
I wonder if the name was changed because some called it nucular?

What's with the television programs that are, quite suddenly, being introduced as fresh new programs?

quote:

I don't like the broader meaning, so I generally avoid using the word.

Makes me think of South Pacific . . .
"and she's broad where a broad should be broad!"

A clssmate and I got taken to the principal's office when we had a giggle-fit over a teacher's wanting to tell us about when she was abroad.