"It's also pretty much agreed on that the bombings in Japan were mainly for the benefit of showing our then allies the Soviets that we had working atomic weapons."

Agreed by whom? I am still hearing the argument that thousands of lives were saved by dropping the bomb, including Japanese lives! High school children are still taught, when they are taught anything at all about WWII, that the Japanese were amassing a huge ground army, ready to march upon any allied troups that set foot on their land. And even though their air force and navy had been pretty much decimated, the American government and educational establishment still manages to convince a fair number of people that the Japanese would have brought this army (maybe by teleportation?) to the very shores of American and ravaged our country like starving locusts.

I don't even want to know how many people these days in the US would answer affirmatively if asked if we were right to have dropped the bomb.

Our fire-bombing of Tokyo killed more people and was much more horrific in my mind than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I think folks focus on those later bombings becomes of some technological fascination and horror of the after effects of radioactivity. General Lemay told his aide, Robert MacNamara, at the time of the Tokyo bombings, that the US had to win the war otherwise they'd be on trial for war crimes.

The US government entertained nuking the USSR immediately after the war but their major hurdle was a lack of plutonium and therefore of working ordnance.

I overstated my position above and have edited the offending line.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: jheem,

quote:

Write, like give, is a ditransitive verb. One can say or write, perfectly grammatically:

(1) I wrote a letter to Mr Lear.

(2) I wrote Mr Lear a letter.

Quite so. But I submit that one cannot say "I will write Mr Lear" when one means that one will write a letter and send it to him. One could mean, of course, that one will write, on a piece of paper, the words "Mr Lear".

But I have frequently seen Americans say, "I will write Mr Lear" when they mean they will write TO him.

Richard Rhodes' The Making of the Atomic Bomb contains a comprehensive analysis of the decision to drop the bomb. On the strategic side, the invasion of tiny Okinawa had been horrendous, and, unlike German resistance, Japanese defense had become more furious and suicidal. On August 1 the Soviets had entered the war against Japan and marched across Manchuria in one of the quickest and successful invasions in history (that's how they ended up with North Korea) and allied politicians were afraid of a divided Japan. Morale among American soldiers who expected to be transferred to the invasion of Japan was dismal: having survived Europe, they were certain to die in Japan. I'm not arguing it was right or wrong to drop the bombs, but the probable alternative would have been a combined Soviet-Allied invasion and division of Japan. Americans tend to see the atomic bomb as the decisive factor, but the spectre of a Soviet invasion was probably more frightening.
There were more craven reasons as well. They had spent two billion dollars on it; they weren't not going to use it. The strategy of dropping two in three days was a bluff: they only had three, and they set one off in the desert. Hanford could churn out something like one bomb a month. They wanted the Japanese to think they could drop them at will.

The top ten nations are ranked as follows on the question "are you very proud of your nationality":

Richard, the problem of course could be how the question was asked. If you asked 10 Americans if they were proud of their "nationality," I think 8 would consider it to be their ethnicity. I surely would have. We are a melting pot here. My other point goes back to what I had originally said. Americans, I agree, are more overtly patriotic than other countries. Yet, the most patriotic person I have ever met is probably Richard.

[Edited to remove some of my more inflammatory comments. See apology below.]

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Kalleh, the full title of the survey was: ...Percentage responding in 1990s surveys that they were very proud of their nationality..."

I doubt that many would confuse that with ethnicity and I don't really think that is an issue. The ethnic groupings in the USA are: white 77.1%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1.5%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.3%, other 4%. I can't see any correlation between that grouping and the "pride" finding that would make any sense to me.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English: The item about US versus other's patriotism is not a matter of opinion. The statistics are there and they don't lie.

Yes, but they are subject to interpretation, are they not?

You listed responses to the questions "are you very proud of your nationality" and "are you NOT proud?" Oddly, the cited statistics total far less than 100%.¹ Doubtless there's more to be said than you've extracted, but I'd be reluctant to draw conclusions before knowing how these large "unknown" groups split.

For example, if we found that "proud" people represented the vast majority of those who were neither "very proud" nor "not proud", the statistics would seem very different, wouldn't they?

This apart from other questions, such as precise nuances of how the question was phrased in various tongues.

quote:

This proves, to my satisfaction, that the Americans and the Irish are far more patriotic ... Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing I do not want to judge.

Then perhaps you'll rethink your judgement that US views are attributable not to reasoned thought but to "propaganda". (You'd said, "Clearly it [propaganda] is one reason why Americans are so patriotic.") At best your statistics show a difference in attitudes; they do not reveal the cause of any such difference.

Give us some credit for having the same good sense as you do, accompanied by a diverse press quite prepared to criticize.

---

¹For Australia over ¼ of the people are not noted for either answer; for the UK and Canada over ⅓ are missing, and for a five-country-group (Scandanavia plus Austria), fully 42% of the folks are missing.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: shufitz,

Richard sez:

quote:

The ethnic groupings in the USA are: white 77.1%, black 12.9%, Asian 4.2%, Amerindian and Alaska native 1.5%, native Hawaiian and other Pacific islander 0.3%, other 4%.

To me, it seeems strange to see such a list with no mention of "Hispanic*."

The official Government lists that I have seen list White (Caucasian), Black, Hispanic*, Asian, and so on ..... and beside Hispanic there is always an asterisk leading to a footnote that says "*Hispanic can be either Black or White," which leaves me wondering what it takes to be Hispanic*.

If it's language, then I'm Hispanic*. I could be either black or white.

If someone asks me my nationality, I say, "English, Scotch, Irish, Dutch, Norwegian, and German."

Now, it would be hard, I agree, to be proud of all of those countries. So, I might ask the question of the survey writers and therefore find out their intent.

If they asked if I was proud of the country I lived in or proud of being an American, yes, then I'd answer it correctly.

Then again, remember I am a literalist.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kalleh,

Quote "...Oddly, the cited statistics total far less than 100%...."

Some points.

The statistics were from two different surveys; they were not two separate questions in the same survey and there is no reason why they should total 100%. Furthermore, I only quoted the results from the top few countries to show the pattern; there are much more data available.

It is my belief that the extreme patriotism revealed by these surveys, and which I myself have observed, is due to propaganda. Others might have a different view. But I have seen and read about many things which make me draw this conclusion, and one of the most recent was in a Toastmasters manual which I have been working on as I am to deliver a training evening. Remember, Toastmasters is a 100% American organisation and eveything it does, from its spelling to its paper size, is American. In the introduction to the programme it mentions the way the evening should be opened and the context makes it clear that this would be a normal start for a Toastmasters evening. It reads thus:

"The president opens the meeting according to Club custom - call to order, INVOCATION, FLAG SALUTE, introduction of guests, etc." (My Caps.)

Were the president of a UK Toastmasters suggest that we salute our Union Flag before we start our meeting, you would hear the scathing comments and derisory merriment two miles away. But I am told that the salute to the US flag is still common in US schools.

Right or wrong that is a propaganda device and it can't help but have an effect on those who are subjected to it.

Hispanic.

I didn't put the note into my original posting but the report stated : "a separate listing for Hispanic is not included because the US Census Bureau considers Hispanic to mean a person of Latin American descent (including persons of Cuban, Mexican, or Puerto Rican origin) living in the US who may be of any race or ethnic group (white, black, Asian, etc.)"

Richard says, "The statistics were from two different surveys; they were not two separate questions in the same survey and there is no reason why they should total 100%."

And surely you'd agree with my point that you cannot reach a judgement about national populations, based upon statistics that omit the responses of large percentages of the populations.

There is much else said that I find rather off-putting, but perhaps it's better to mention that to Richard by PM, and thus avoid political friction on the board. Politics can be divisive, and this is after all a board about words, not politics.

jheem: "a lack of plutonium and therefore of working ordinance.

'ordinance'?

quote:

There is much else said that I find rather off-putting, but perhaps it's better to mention that to Richard by PM, and thus avoid political friction on the board. Politics can be divisive, and this is after all a board about words, not politics.

I would hate for this to become a matter for upset. I enjoy spirited debate as much as I hate personal attack and this particular debate I find especially interesting. However, I will not add fuel to any fire that might have been lit by continuing to quote and discuss the various statistics since that could be a long process.

I would say, though, that the statistics I have quoted have been exemplar. The full statistics, for all major countries, run into several pages and I felt that it would be unnecessary, as well and inappropriate, to post them all. Suffice it to say that that the full statisics are not incomplete even though my extracts necessarily were. Even so, I think it is quite reasonable to infer, that with a "pride" percentage of 77%, that the Americans and Irish demonstrate, according to this survey, that they are more proud of their nationality than are, say, the British at only 58%. That is a large enough difference to be statistically viable and to try to prove otherwise by suggesting that the survey itself is not comprehensive cannot, I suggest, be a valid argument.

And, incidentally, nowhere have I suggested that there is anything essentially wrong in being proud of one's country; I have said only that it is a fact about Americans and have suggested why I think it is.

'ordinance'?

I was surprised to see what the addition of an i can do.

But I submit that one cannot say "I will write Mr Lear" when one means that one will write a letter and send it to him. One could mean, of course, that one will write, on a piece of paper, the words "Mr Lear".

We all know parts of speech (e.g., noun, adjective, verb). But how do words get classified? Linguists call parts of speech syntactic categories, because they classify the words in a speaker's lexicon (i.e., vocabulary) by how those words can be used in generating sentences (according to the grammar of a language). For example, because verbs in English are not as extensively conjugated as in some other languages, and because the syntax of English is mainly based on word order, linguists identify words by what slots they can fill in grammatically formed sentences (or constituent phrases which make up sentences). For example, take the word work; it can be either a noun or a verb:

1. Work is hard.
2. I work the swing shift.

In S1, work is a noun, and can be replaced by other words which have been classified as nouns, e.g., school, life, but in S2 work is a verb, and can be replaced by other verbs, e.g., eat, drive. But not all verbs can be used in S2. For example, sleep.

3. *I sleep the swing shift.
4. I sleep on/during the swing shift.

(By convention, linguists use an asterisk in front of a sentence to indicate its ungrammaticality and sometimes one or more question marks to indicate lesser degrees of ungrammaticality.) Why is S3 OK but not S4? People can cite semantic, logically, and grammatical reasons for this. For example, you could say that sleep is an intransitive verb, and by definition cannot take a direct object, but may take a prepositional (adverbial) phrase. But ,then how do you handle sentences like:

5. I sleep the sleep of the damned.

Looks like a direct object to me. You could modify your definition of sleep as an intransitive verb, or say that it belongs to a sub-class of intransitive verbs that can optionally take a direct object as long as the noun therein is the nominal form of the word.

6. I dreamed the dream.
7. I danced the dance.

Also, many verbs don't belong to just one verb class, e.g.,

8. Elephants forget.
9. Jane forgot my birthday.

We could say that forget can be used transitively as well as intransitively, and this is what many dictionaries do.

OK, what about ditransitive verbs? (Verbs that take two direct objects, or maybe a single object and a prepositional phrase:

10. I told Bill a lie.
11. I told a lie to Bill.
12. I gave Sue the gift.
13. I gave the gift to Sue.

Linguists say that Bill and Sue are the indirect objects in S10 and S12, but that the verbs tell and give are monotransitive in S11 and S13, because there is only a direct object (lie and gift) and the prepositional phrases ('to Bill' and 'to Sue'). Not all ditransitive verbs use the preposition 'to' when used in a sentence like S11 and S13 e.g.:

14. I baked John a cake.
15. I baked a cake for John.

But if we look at more ditransitive verbs, we find other anomalies. For example, compare give and explain:

16. I gave John the DVD.
17. I gave the DVD to John.
18. *I explained Mary the problem.
19. I explained the problem to Mary.
20. I spared her the trouble.
21. *I spared the trouble to/for her.

Huddleston and Pullum in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language separate ditransitive verbs into five classes:

a. indirect object and 'to N' (e.g., award, give, read, write
b. 'to N' only (e.g., deliver, donate, say)
c. indirect object and 'for N' (e.g., bake, buy, rent)
d. 'for N' only (e.g., acquire, collect, withdraw)
e. indirect object only (e.g., allow, forgive, permit)

Just as some verbs can be used intransitively and transitively, some ditransitive verbs can be used monotransitively with or without a 'to/for N' phrase (S22, S23, and S24).

22. I wrote a letter to President Bush.
23. I wrote a letter.
24. I wrote President Bush a letter
25. I wrote President Bush.
26. *I wrote a letter President Bush.

For me, write is pretty much like tell:

27. I told a story to John.
28. I told a story.
29. I told John a story.
30. I told John.
31. *I told a story John.

While some might argue that S25 is ungrammatical (I am not one of them), they would probably admit that it is the kind of 'grammatical error' that happens all the time (and thus needs to be corrected just as often). On the other hand, I would argue that errors like S26 (or any of the other starred sentences above) don't happen with native speakers of English because they are ungrammatical in the sense that they violate a person's unconscious and rather strict set of rules for forming sentences. That is why I say that S25 is grammatical.

Once you start to investigate an actual grammar of language as it is and not how it should be, you discover that things are not as simple as you were lead to believe in grammar school or popular books on prescriptive grammar. Huddleston and Pullum is 1800 pages long, and even they would admit that it does not completely cover English grammar.

quote:

While some might argue that S25 is ungrammatical (I am not one of them), they would probably admit that it is the kind of 'grammatical error' that happens all the time (and thus needs to be corrected just as often).

I certainly don't think it is an accepted form in UK English. Equally I know it is common in US English.

One of many differences as to acceptability which we have frequently discussed on this board, and a difference which, if you recall, is what started me on this thread.

I'll just chip in in support of Richard here.
In the UK it would be extremely unusual to hear anyone say "I'll write the President" without the inclusion of a direct object. It's not uncommon to say "I'll write my aunt a letter" or "I'll write a letter to my aunt" but the version omitting both the direct object and the "to" is so uncommon that it would instantly mark the speaker as not being English and would therefore, by your test (does it "violate a person's unconscious and rather strict set of rules for forming sentences"), definitely be ungrammatical.

And isn't this thread travelling a peculiar route?

As long as you stell me that nobody in England, besides visiting Yanks, uses this construction, I would have to say that it is ungrammatical in British Standard English.

Can you say the following in British English?

1. I paid her 100 euros.
2. I paid 100 euros.
3. I paid her.

I was going to answer this with some sort of stab at an explanation, but I ended up confusing myself - I know what I want to say and why it's different, but can't seem to translate that to my fingers.

So the short answer is yes, jheem, we can say all of those, although example 2 would sound better if clarified with 'for (X)'.

You got by cheap, jheem. She charged me 200, but maybe it's because you see her a lot more often than I do.

~~~ jerry

quote:

Originally posted by jheem:
As long as you stell me that nobody in England, besides visiting Yanks, uses this construction, I would have to say that it is ungrammatical in British Standard English.

Can you say the following in British English?

1. I paid her 100 euros.
2. I paid 100 euros.
3. I paid her.

Yes, we say all of those things but for some reason we use "write" differently. The only times that I have heard "write" used as "I'll write him" it has been by Americans or by people self-consciously copying the American way of speaking. I can't think of a circumstance where an Englishman would spontaneously use this form.

What about the imperative form? I was composing an email to a friend about Tony's law and I chose the subject line "Write your Representative!" I thought "Write to your Representative!" sounded more like a general admonition.

quote:

Originally posted by neveu:
What about the imperative form? I was composing an email to a friend about Tony's law and I chose the subject line "Write your Representative!" I thought "Write to your Representative!" sounded more like a general admonition.

Not even in the imperative.
We'd just never say it. It would be "Write to your MP!"

Our imperative has to contain the 'to' too, neveu. Anyone English would know straightaway that the e-mail with the subject line you mentioned had come from an American. 'To write sb' is just not used here. I wonder when and why the split occurred?

Our infinitives for 'write' in the sense we're discussing are as follows :

1. To write (sth) (to sb)
2. To write sb a letter

1 can be used with or without one or both of the bracketed phrases, but 2 has to be followed by 'a letter'. Something else I noticed is that it tends to be 'a letter' or 'a note', and not 'a postcard' or 'an e-mail'. For some reason, the latter two would more likely be preceded by 'send' - at least where I come from.


I can't think of a circumstance where an Englishman would spontaneously use this form.

Or a woman

Can British English speakers use write without any objects?

1. She writes.
2. He writes to make a living.

Yes. We just can't use the indirect object without including the "to".

Reviving a thread...

We have talked about patriotism here before, so I thought it only fair to post this survey , showing that of the 34 countries surveyed, the national pride was rated the highest in the U.S. Great Britain was number 11. East Germany was #34.

quote:

East Germany was #34.

Since that country ceased to exist fifteen years ago, that's not surprising.

The findings here are very similar to those of the World Values Survey which I posted about a while ago. The main difference I can see is that Ireland has been placed at number 3, whereas in the WVS it was placed at number 2.

The USA is well ahead of any other country in its pride and patriotism and I wonder how much of this is due to upbringing. The "Pledge of Allegiance" was (or maybe still is) something that US schoolchildren had to recite - a concept quite foreign to us in England. If we pledge allegiance at all it's to The Queen - and we certainly don't even do that routinely. I know that US Toastmaster (a public speaking organisation) groups routinely read out the Pledge of Allegiance before they start their meetings. UK Toastmaster groups start by welcoming members and guests - no pledge of anything to anyone.

Listen, too, to the way that US Presidents use the expression "God bless America" in their addresses - you'd never hear a British Prime Minister say anything like that.

I'm not saying that patriotism is always wrong (indeed, I think we could do with more of it in England) but I do believe it needs to be properly-considered patriotism, not blind patriotism.

School was created to give jobs to those who can't do. A layer was created above this to train those who can't teach. However, we are led to believe that this layer is also occupied by those who can't teach

quote:

Since that country ceased to exist fifteen years ago, that's not surprising.

Arnie, 50 lashes with the wet noodle for me! My rationalization? I had read a few other articles before I posted this, and one did say East Germany. I just goofed. Sorry!

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
I'm not saying that patriotism is always wrong (indeed, I think we could do with more of it in England) but I do believe it needs to be properly-considered patriotism, not blind patriotism.

I agree -- noting, however, that, historically, "properly-considered patriotism" has tended to be rather the exception than the rule, reminding me of the quotation (Mencken? Bierce?) that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Phroggye

quote:

Originally posted by Froeschlein:
[(Mencken? Bierce?)

Phroggye

Samuel Johnson

quote:

(indeed, I think we could do with more of it in England)

I don't know, Richard, England was number 11 in this survey. I was surprised, after reading all your posts about how unpatriotic England is.

Obviously it depends on the survey and the numbers of countries surveyed. One of the problems of the survey you quote is that it's a journalist's extract which misses out much information. In the World Values Survey the United Kingdom (not the same this as Great Britain nor England) came 6th overall, which seems very high.

However, if you check the full story, you'll see that 77% of the citizens of USA and Ireland are very proud of their nationality (1st equals) whereas this applies to only 53% of those of the UK. So nearly half of the UK's citizens are not proud of their nationality - which actually bears out my contention.

quote:

However, if you check the full story, you'll see that 77% of the citizens of USA are very proud ... whereas this applies to only 53% of those of the UK. So nearly half of the UK's citizens are not proud of their nationality

Uh, no. It could well be that 95% are proud, of which 53% are very proud. Your conclusion does not follow from the data you quoted.

This is the same point I made in my post March 24, 2005:

For example, if we found that "proud" people represented the vast majority of those who were neither "very proud" nor "not proud", the statistics would seem very different, wouldn't they?

That's why I'd like to see the full data. Richard, do you have the link?

quote:

Phroggye: the quotation (Mencken? Bierce?) that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Bob: Samuel Johnson

Bierce's gloss was, "With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first."

quote:

Obviously it depends on the survey and the numbers of countries surveyed.

Interesting, Richard. I remember when I brought up the same point (survey reliability and validity) on surveys you've posted about! The fact is, we are both right. Surveys need to be rigorously developed, conducted, analyzed and reported in order to mean anything.

quote:

That's why I'd like to see the full data. Richard, do you have the link?

The survey was by World Value Surveys http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/ but you can see a summary at Nationmaster http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_ver_pro_of_the_na...r-nationality#source

Ah, I see. Richard, you're looking at a different survey than Kalleh is. Here's what your summary source says as to pride in one's nationality:

77% of USns and 53% of UKrs are very proud
------ Unstated percents are "proud" ----
2% of USns and 11% of UKrs are not proud

So, taking the reciprocals of those last figures, I'd say the overwhelming majority in each country (98% US and 89% UK) is "proud or very proud" of country.

I also checked the underlying data, which are somewhat different. See below.

The underlying data (for the most recent survey period) are a bit skewed because of differing percentages of "no answer" respondents. But of those who answered,

UK. . . .US
90% . 95½% . ."proud" or "very proud" of nationality
10%. . 4½%. . ."not very proud" or "not at all proud" of nationality

I don't see a huge difference there.