September 03, 2008, 14:38
BobHale:rolleyes:
Following on from the "fewer/less/up to" debate sparked by Tesco the BBC news magazine has
this list of submitted "errors" that annoy people. There are twenty in the list and most of them are the kind of common grumbles and grouses that we hear every day.
The trouble is that by my count at least 14 of the 20 listed are either not errors at all or are, at best differences of opinion about style and unrelated to grammar.
I'll leave it to others to work out which six I think may have a point, though not necessarilly a grammatical one.
September 03, 2008, 15:27
zmježdHow about incorrect subject-verb concordance?
It's like shooting fish in a toilet bowl.
Me thinks these pervy presciptos'll be the end of the language as wot she's known.
September 03, 2008, 15:35
arniequote:
in these days of 24-hour days
I love that particular phrase!
September 03, 2008, 15:44
jerry thomasIncreasing the ambient temperature to 212°F (100°C) literally makes his blood boil.
September 03, 2008, 17:19
goofyIt's nice that an editor has quoted Fowler debunking some of the "errors".
September 03, 2008, 18:45
Valentinequote:
NOTE: The BBC News website style guide says "due to" means "caused by" and needs a noun, but "owing to" means "because of" and relates to a verb. Hence, "the visit was cancelled [cancelled is the verb] owing to flooding" is correct. So too is "the flooding [flooding is the noun] was due to weeks of heavy rain".
I don't ever recall hearing this distinction in US English. Due to is constantly used, owing to, never.
But there is a parallel phenomenon here. In most cases where "owing to" would be used in the UK, "because of" is used here. Recently, though, I've noticed that it is increasingly common to hear "due to" in constructions in which "because of" used to be universal: The game was called due to rain.
September 04, 2008, 00:34
BobHalequote:
Originally posted by Valentine:
quote:
"due to" means "caused by" and needs a noun, but "owing to" means "because of" and relates to a verb.
I don't ever recall hearing this distinction in US English. Due to is constantly used, owing to, never.
I don't ever recall hearing it in UK English apart from in places like this where someone is trying to tell me there is a difference. There may be slightly varying levels of formality but both forms are common enough in standard English with either nouns or verbs following.
September 07, 2008, 20:00
KallehI thought this comment from Fowler's was priceless:
quote:
Fowler's Modern English Usage says that "none" is not short for "not one" and although using a singular verb is more common, using a plural verb has also been an acceptable option since the reign of King Alfred.
Since the reign of King Alfred?
September 08, 2008, 00:21
tinmanquote:
People assume that none is a condensed form of no one or not one. As both always take a singular verb, the argument goes, so must none. However, the amateur etymologisers have got it slightly but seriously wrong. Our modern form none comes from the Old English nan. Though this is indeed a contraction of ne an, no one, it was inflected in Old English and had different forms in singular and plural, showing that it was commonly used both ways — King Alfred used it in the plural as far back as the year 888.
September 08, 2008, 16:06
goofyThere are many Old English examples of
none inflected for the plural, for instance
King Ælfred, Boethius de consolatione philosophiæ. XIV, 2
⁊ þa ungesceadƿisan neotena ne ƿilniaþ nanes oðres feos.
"while the irrational cattle are desirous of no other wealth"
But I couldn't find an Old English instance of
none as the subject of a plural verb. I found an example from 1300:
South English Legendary: Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury 1182: His limes al-so he bi-heold, hou faire heo weren and freo, Þe hondene faire and longe fingres, fairore ne miȝten none beo.
"He also beheld his limbs, how fair and free they were, the fair hands and long fingers, none could be fairer."