Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Pled versus pleaded

Anyone notice the banishment of “pled” about 5 years or so ago? The newspapers used to say “The defendant pled not guilty.” Suddenly, everything became “pleaded.” I contend that this is an improper imposition of some kind of twisted “grammar correctness,” except it is incorrect. “Pled” is a less emotional word than “pleaded”. I plead when I am begging for something. Unless the defendant is on his knees weeping, he is not pleading, he is entering a plea. In the past tense, he pled, not pleaded. What do you think?

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Many of the important (and long) avenues of Washington, D.C., are named for various states of the Union, but not all of them. For example, there are major avenues named for Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

There are also Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue, and avenues whose names are just letters of the alphabet, such as Avenue K.

I just wonder why there aren't important ones named for Delaware, either of the Carolinas, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Tennessee, and especially Virginia. This list includes a lot of the oldest states.

Back when the site of Washington, D.C., was chosen and the city was laid out (in its streets and avenues), Virginia was the most populous and wealthiest state, topping New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.
When the site was chosen, it consisted of 100 square miles of land that were donated by Maryland and Virginia -- but in 1846, the part in Virginia was given back because the Federal government was not using it. Hence ever since then, Washington, D.C., has all been on the northeastern side of the Potomac River.

(I wonder when the first bridge was built over that part of the Potomac -- because that is a big river there, and bridging it was not easy. It could be that the first bridge there was a railroad bridge.)

Dale A. Wood

D. A. Wood May-28-2012

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I have visited the Embassy of New Zealand in Washington, D.C. I went there because I want to look through a newspaper from Auckland, and the staff members there were most happy to let me do so. [I have had the same experience at the Australian Embassy when I wanted to look at newspapers from Sydney and Melbourne. This was in the time before the Internet came into use, of course.]

There is a nice plaque in the New Zealand Embassy that states that the cornerstone of this building was lain by Queen Elizabeth II during her visit to Washington in 1976. Besides her official visits, the Queen has also made unofficial visits to the U.S. She and Prince Phillip simply wanted to go to Kentucky to shop for some horses.

There was a time back in the 1930s and before when none of the Dominions, Commonwealths, etc., were allowed to have any foreign embassies or consulates. If you had diplomatic business with any of those, such as to get visas to visit those countries, you were expected to visit the British Embassy or consulate.

I was happy to read that when they were allowed to establish embassies of their own, the first Canadian Embassy was in Washington, D.C., of course. A little more surprising is that the first Australian Embassy was in Washington, too, rather than being in Wellington, Tokyo, Peking, London, Ottawa, etc.

By far the largest embassy in Washington is the Canadian Embassy, which is located on Pennsylvania Avenue between the Capitol Building and the White House. Pennsylvania Avenue is a very long and important one there, and in fact it extends a good way into Maryland, too. The only embassies on Pennsylvania Avenue are those of Canada, Mexico, and (interestingly) Spain.
The British Embassy is locted on Massachusetts Avenue in an area called "Embassy Row" because of the many Embassies there. Just to name a few, there are the embassies of Australia, Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Greece, India, Indonesia, Japan, the PRC, Peru, the Philippines, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, and the U.K.

The Embassy of New Zealand and those of several other countries are just a few blocks off Massachusetts Avenue.
DAW

D. A. Wood May-28-2012

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Re: "Everyone deserves our best." I hope they pleaded not guilty to your charge. Everyone (the audience) deserves our (the station's best), surely?

Let me be clear and confirm the fact that "our" did not refer to any TV station or any corporation at all. "Everyone deserves our best," was in a commercial that was telecast nationwide. Also, when one hears the entire commerical, the only possible antecedent for "our" is "everyone".
"Guilty, guilty, guilty," the verdict must be, no matter what the defendants pled.

The statement should have been "Everyone deserves his best," (singular!),
or by making an wide stretch of things: "Everyone deserves your best."
The salient problem here is a third-person subject with a second-person possessive pronoun in the sentence.

I have come to the conclusion that the writers of such things (incl. TV commercials) have a basket with many slips of paper in it. On each slip is a pronoun. Then when the writer needs a pronoun, he or she simply draws out a slip of paper at random and then copies the word on that. Then he or she tosses the slip back into the basket.

The same thing applies for prepositions, as I have noticed before.
Let's color code it all: a red basket for prepositions and a blue basket for pronouns.

We have a pharmaceutical company in the U.S. that uses the phrase "imagine you" several times within 30 seconds. Natually, "imagine yourself" is needed. I believe that the writers there omitted all of the reflexive pronouns from their basket(s).

{ myself, yourself, himself, yourself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves }

Oh, well, at least this eliminates the atrocity of "theirself". Or does it?

D. A. Wood May-28-2012

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Oh, there are place names here that were crafted by white people out of components from both Native American and European components. There are also some that white people created "out of thin air" just to look like Indian names. I don't know which are which, and if you would like to know, I will leave it up to you to find out. Some of the possibilities include
Ohio, Indiana, Indianapolis, Kentucky, Iowa, Iowa City, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City,

"Annapolis" is obviously European all the way -- named for some Queen Anne or Princess Anne of England. That city is located in Anne Arundel County, too, but I don't know who she was.

"Philadelphia" comes from a Greek phrase, but I think that it might refer to something in Egypt.

We have a Prince William County, Virginia. This one was named for Prince of Wales who was outlived by his father, George II, but William had already fathered a son for whom Prince George's County, Maryland, was named. Then when the British crown passed directly from grandfather to grandson, he became the bloody King George III -- never a popular one in America. He was on the throne for a long time, and he outlived his wife, too. Their son became King William IV, who didn't have any children or nephews. Hence, he was followed by his young niece, Victoria, in 1837.

There is a period of British history that is called the Georgian Era (so something similar), which created Georgian architecture, among other things. Most historians lump William IV in with the Georgian Era, anyway. Next came the Victorian Era, which ended in 1901, and then after after that, things like Edwardian architecture arose. Oddly, the name of the Prince of Wales (Victoria's oldest son) was actually Albert (born in 1841), and he was called "Bertie" by the members of his family,

For some reason, they (and he) did not want a King Albert, so he chose the name Edward VIII. There was a Prince Albert in Belgium, who became an heir apparent when his older brother died in 1891, and his father died in 1905. ("an" heir apparent because the situation was complicated, especially since King Leopold II didn't leave any legitimate children Albert became King Albert I in 1909.
Perhaps the British thought that the possibility of having two King Alberts in nearby countries would have been too confusing.

The province of Alberta in Canada is not named for any of those Alberts, nor for Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria. That province was named for a woman named Alberta who was the wife of the Governor General of Canada. Alberta and Saskatchewan both became provinces in 1905.

King Albert of Belgium, his wife, and their son had also visted the United States in 1919, a long time before any British monarch visited here (King George VI), who traveled to Washington, DC, to visit President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his family.

D. A. Wood May-28-2012

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Thank you for all that, DA Wood. Very interesting indeed. But I think perhaps that Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Annapolis and indeed all ~polis name places are from the Greek 'polis', roughly speaking a community or city, with its own customs, rulers, style of Greek dialect, etc. From which 'politics'.
Tuscaloosa, great name, great place. And with a railway, there can indeed be a Tuscaloosa choo-choo.

Brus May-28-2012

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Aha, we have places here that were named by the Native Americans, including cities and entire states where they lived.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was named for a courageous Indian chief of western Alabama. Another city with a native name is Chattanooga, Tennessee, and the popular song of the 1930s and "40s was "The Chattanooga Choo-Choo".
As for everyday railroads, Tuscaloosa has long been on a main railroad line that connects Birmingham, Ala, with Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Some of our states with Native American names include Massachussets, Connecticut, Michigan, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Utah, and Arizona.
As for cities with such names, those are a little harder to find because so many of them received their names from Europe or Africa (yes, Alexandria, Memphia, and Cairo). Let's think: Native American names for cities Cheyenne, Chattanooga, Biloxi, Miami, Tuscumbia, Minneapolis, Omaha, Topeka, Walla Walla, Tucson,

Otherwise, we have a gross number of cities and towns with European names, including Albany, Amsterdam, Athens, Augusta, Birmingham, Bristol, Boston, Champaign (spelled the American way), Charleston, Cleveland, Cumberland, Dover, Frankfort (spelled a little differently), Georgetown, Geneva, London (or New London), Manchester, New Bern, Newcastle or New Castle, New Orleans, Paris, Portland, Portsmouth, Rome, Sheffield, Stuttgart, Vienna, Washington, York and New York, and dozens more.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-27-2012

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Re: "the Atlantic's waters are deep."

Something that so many people cannot grasp -- and especially British people -- is that inanimate objects do not have any possessive case because inanimate objects are incapable of possessing anything. Wow, that requires some logic.

Hence: the cold water of the North Atlantic, the blue of the sky, the center of gravity of the beam, the carbohydrates of the corn, the boundaries of Switzerland, the warmth of the sun, the warp drive engines of the starship USS "Enterprise".

However: the cow's bell, the wolf's sharp teeth, George's lance with which he slew the dragon, the dragon's fiery breath, Achilles' heel, Homer's epic poems, the kukaburra's call, which causes him to be called the "laughing jackass", the President's power of the veto, the turtle's shell, Captain Ahab's obsession with the great white whale. Tolstoy's long and difficult novels.

D. A. Wood May-27-2012

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Tuscaloosa. Still sounds great for that song, "Pardon me, boy, is that the Tuscaloosa choo-choo?". Will check it out.

PS: it's pleaded, not pled.

Brus May-26-2012

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It seems Toosaloosa is a kind of garment or clothing, and not a place at all. Sorry.
Will check your earlier remarks about where you all got your college education and all those degrees.

Brus May-26-2012

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DA Wood: you have today written this in your lengthy and multiple harangues about singular and plural in our mutual language:

"A great ways to compose sentences are:" followed by two rather odd ways to do so.

I suggest a break. Perhaps a sentimental trip to Toosaloosa? It sound nice and quiet.

A propos of nothing, but the name rings a bell: a cartoon in the UK during the time when the late Mr Gaddhafi was on the run and presence unknown to US and UK forces;

a figure with the unmistakable haircut and wearing shades, carrying a bag at a dusty, deserted railway station in the mid-Sahara asking a youth sitting idly in the sun by the tracks:

"Pardon me boy, is that the Ouagadougou choo-choo?"

Memory of this, to me, classic prompted by the name Toosaloosa. Must Google it. Is it on the railway network, as we in the UK call it?

Brus May-26-2012

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"IBM are...", "The Parliament are...", even "The corporation are..."

No! These solecisms are unknown upon these islands on the eastern side of the herring pond. Dreadful.

The British have enough horrors to put up, Americanisms mostly. For example "he was tasked to source his (probably 'their, rather, owing to the naughtiness of the sexist term 'his') key materials from ... "

Fingernails scratching down an old-style blackboard sound sweeter.

Brus May-26-2012

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"Everyone deserves our best." I hope they pleaded not guilty to your charge. Everyone (the audience) deserves our (the station's best), surely? Everyone (else) and 'we' are not the same person, so the number (singular/plural) need not match.

Brus May-26-2012

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Note that I wrote "North America" for a reason because anything that is broadcast across the United States automatically arrives in Canada, too, and especilly in the big Canadian cities such as Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, Winnipeg, and Vancouver.

The cities of northern Mexico are covered by broadcasts from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California -- both in English and in Spanish. I have read of Mexican children who learned English from watching American TV from San Diego, Laredo, etc.

I have read that DBS satellites have made broadcasts, especially from Miami, quite popular in Cuba -- despite the fact that DBS receivers are illegal in Cuba.Cubans hide their DBS antennas in attics, barns, thickets, and so forth.
In the Bahamas, satellite TV receivers are all quite legal, and the language there is generally the same.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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A new TV commercial, written by the uneducated and the lazy, has just been telecast in North America. One of its sentences says, "Everyone deserves our best."

Our? Our? Our? That is not only wrong in "number", but it is wrong in "person".

"Everyone" is third person singular, but "our" is first person plural.

In an earlier TV commercial, the writers wrote "we" (first person) when "they" (third person) was what was needed to agree with the antecedent.

I hope that those writers pled guilty and threw themselves before the mercy of the court.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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"The waters of the Atlantic Ocean became his final resting place..." illustrates nothing ???
Well, nothing but a sentence with singular nouns all the way through from beginning to end.
As for your hearing singular subjects used with plural nouns, there is the distinct probability that you have been listening to undereducated and lazy people. Those people should plead guilty as charged. "But Your Honor, I thought that one plus two equaled four.")

Don't argue about collective nouns. The VERY DEFINITION of collective nouns includes the fact that they are all singular. Hence, if you don't want a noun to be singular, then it cannot be a collective noun.

If the noun is plural, then call it something else.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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Brus, I haven't spent as much time as you in the UK, but numerous sources confirm that collective nouns, specifically in the UK, are often treated as plural, even when their construction is obviously singular. "IBM are...", "The Parliament are...", even "The corporation are..." This applies when an organization can be thought of as a group of individuals. I have also heard it frequently in the UK media. And DA wood, "The waters of the Atlantic Ocean became his final resting place..." illustrates nothing. "Became" is the same for singular and plural cases. In your example, "waters" is plural. You would never say "the waters of the Altantic is deep"; it's "the waters of the Atlantic are deep". Even clearer, "the Atlantic's waters are deep."

porsche May-26-2012

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Oh, I ought to mention: the response that I got from that TV station was words to the effect of "fiddle-dee-dee".

I did point out that Birmingham is the location of a major state university, an important private university, and two junior colleges. College courses in English and journalism are readily available in Birmingham for anyone who wants to improve his or her abilities. If one is working in Birmingham, all it takes is the will to do so.

In Birmingham, one can also study mathematics, chemistry, biology, psychology, economics, engineering, business, and many other subjects if one only has the gumption to do so. I never took any courses in Birmingham, but where I live is about half-way between Birmingham and Huntsville. I liked the course offerings in mathematics at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville better, so I took a lot of graduate courses there, and I earned my master's degree there.
(The University of Alabama actually has three campuses in three different cities. It is a bit funny: My daugher and I studied in Huntsville, my sister studied medicine in Birmingham, and our father earned his doctorate in education in Tuscaloosa. Our uncle also earned his M.S. in engineering in Huntsville. Hence, we have a lot of ties to the Univ. of Alabama - though I also earned a master's degree in Atlanta, Georgia.)

One time on the JEOPARDY TV quiz show here, they said, "This university has campuses in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, and Huntsville," and the contestant was supposed to name the university. I said, "Give me a break! That one is too easy!"

We have some public universities in the U.S. that have 10 or more campuses in different cities and towns. Check these out: New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and California.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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I have written to a TV station in Birmingham, Alabama, that has made a commercial that "toots on a big horn" about the supposed abilities of its people who appear in its broadcasts (news, weather reporting, etc.) This one has been broadcast ad infinitum!

That commercial has the wretched sentence, "... your team, whoever it is...."
This short span of words has multiple, glaring problems in it.
1. A team is not a "who", but rather, an "it", and that statement concedes this fact with "it is". (The word "whoever" is really grating here.)
2. The writer of that commercial could have lapsed all the way into British English wiith "your team, whoever they are." Instead, what we got was a hodgepodge of different varieties of English -- a hodgepodge that is grating on our ears.

Finally, I will correct everything with "... your team, whichever one it is...."

Wow! This version has clearly singular nouns, pronouns, and subordinating conjunctions all the way through, and it treats "team" as a collective noun, as it should be in the American Language.

We also need this, "The manager of the TV station has PLED guilty to multiple misdemeanors, and he has resigned from his position."
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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"The headquarters of the British Commonwealth is in London, England."
Of course, the subject of this sentence is "headquarters", but I am pleased to read that even in Great Britain, "the Commonwealth is".
I suppose that the United Nations, Parliament, NATO, the European Union, the U.S. Congress, SHAPE, and SHADO are all singular there, just as they are in North America.

However, I have read or heard these in British publications: "the RAF are", "Rolls Royce were", "the Royal Family are", and (EGAD!) "the United States are".

As for "waters": "The waters of the Atlantic Ocean became his final resting place after his ship sank," where each of the nouns in this sentence is singular.

A great ways to compose sentences are:
1. Make all of the nouns and pronouns singular in the main clauses.
2. Make all of the nouns and pronouns plural in the main clauses.

We have a big problem in the USA about the following, especially among people who are on TV or on the radio. (They are professionals,mind you, who are being paid for their work. I am not picking on laymen.)
In the midst of their sentences that otherwise had all singular nouns and pronouns, suddenly there appears one of these words { they, them, their } -- which are plural pronouns. We listeners are left to guess what is the antecedent of the pronoun.

I have written e-mail to some TV stations in Alabama about this, and the response that I got (if any) was "fiddle-dee-dee", or words to that effect.

I wrote the person back to tell him / her, "Well, then, you will never get a better and higher-paying job in a big city like Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, St. Louis, Tampa, or Washington, D.C."
Furthermore, "Reach for the stars. You might not get there, but you will go a long way." I think that there are millions and millions of people who do not have any ambition.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-26-2012

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Porsche, I agree with you entirely, until the last few lines. The Commonwealth is an entity, one singular entity, and you would not use or hear "the Commonwealth are" in the UK. I have lived here for some decades, and never heard companies or organisations thought of as plural. "BP is putting up its prices again." If you do hear it used as plural "Shell are putting their prices again" it would make you suppose that it is the people who run Shell who did that. 'The House of Commons has voted'... even though it involves several hundred members. I cannot think I have ever heard of it being thought plural. If it were, it would be by elipsis, as "(members of ) the House of Commons have debated ..." but I have never heard it used this way.

Brus May-26-2012

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D A Wood, "headquarters" is considered to be a plural noun with both plural and singular construction considered correct; but the plural construction is more common. I wouldn't say it's a collective noun (compare water and waters. both may seem "collective" but clearly waters is plural). Rather, I'd say it's more like pants or scissors, a singular entity today, whose etymology indicates an item originally conceived of as plural. Usually, as mentioned in several sources, the singular is reserved for cases when headquarters refers to authority rather than physical location, as in "Headquarters is sending us to the front lines". While not necessarily wrong, may I suggest that some of your examples use "is" by mismatching the verb case to the adjectival clause? "The headquarters of the British Commonwealth is in London, England." may sound correct because "is" is incorrectly associated with the adjacent "British Commonwealth" instead of "headquarters". Just a thought. Of course, in the UK (but not in the USA) one would more likely hear "The British Commonwealth are..." In the UK, entities like comanies, organizations, etc., are treated as plural even when they seem singular grammatically .

porsche May-25-2012

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Most German words that are moden creations have been given "natural" grammatical gender. Hence there are lots of modern words like these:
das Auto, das Bakterium, das Benzin (gasoline or petrol), das Fahrrad, das Fernrohr (telescope), das Flugzeug, das Foto, das Gebaude (building), das Geschütz, das Golf (the sport), das Problem, das Mikroskop, das Radio, das Radar, das Steuer (steering wheel), das Tennis, and das U-boot. .

However, "Fahrrad" (bicycle) is a compound word, and its last piece (meaning wheel) was neuter to begin with. Likewise, the word for television set is neuter, but it is a compound word, and its last part is a word that is always neuter. Compound words get their genders from their last parts, and not from their first parts.

On the other hand, there are words whose spelling demands a different gender, such as der Laser, der Transistor, and der Motor, and some seem to have been given a different gender through just stubbornness, sucn as der Microchip amd die Kamera.

When the verb "senden" means "to transmit", it is a regular verb.Otherwise, it is an irregular verb. There are some other verbs in German like this with an old meaning and a new meaning.

The names of most chemical elements are neuter. See: das Eisen.
However, der Stahl (steel) is maculine. .
The names of most countries are neuter, but some of the Middle Eastern countries are masculine, it could be argued that "die Schweiz" is plural, and "die Vereinigte Staaten" is definitely plural (even though it is singular in English).

The German word for "banana" is feminine, no matter how much it looks like it ought to be masculine! The words for "pear" and "cucumber" are feminine, and the words for peach and apple are masculine, so there is no rhyme or reason for these.

DAW

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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Well, which is it ??

A news announcer on the CBS station in Birmingham, Alabama, said,

"The headquarters are..."

I tend to disagree. "Headquarters" is a collective noun, and hence it is singular even though it ends in "s".

I would be a lot more likely to say,

"The headquarters of NATO is in Brussels, Belgium," or
"The NATO headquarters is in Brussels, Belgium."

"The fictional Supreme Headquarters, Alien Defence Organisation (SHADO) is in London, England."

The above name seems to have been modeled directly on the Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe (SHAPE), which is in the area of Brussels, too. Fortunately for us, SHAPE does not have too much to do anymore.

(Back during the mid-1960s, the Belgian government asked that SHAPE be built at least 30 kilometers outside of Brussels. On the other hand, from the pictures that I have seen, SHADO seems to have been built right in the middle of London.)

"The headquarters of the Department of State is in Foggy Bottom in Washington, D.C."

"The headquarters of the British Commonwealth is in London, England."

Here are a couple of double ones for you:
"The headquarters of the United Nations is in New York City."
"The headquarters of General Motors is in Detroit, Michigan."

"The headquarters of the American Department of Defense is in the Pentagon Building in Northern Virginia."

"The headquarters of the British Ministry of Defence is in London."

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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D.A. Wood makes a most interesting point about the gender of nouns which do not relate to male or female 'things' in English as being not so much neuter as of no gender at all. When compared with all other Indo-European languages this would be a novel concept indeed.

By the way, 'das Madchen' (sorry about the missing umlaut, I know it should be there, but I don't know how to do it on my computer at this minute) is neuter in German because it is a diminutive: all -chen and -lein words are neuter. I don't know why, they just are. Even though it means "girl". So neuter in German is not a third gender, not non-masculine or non-feminine, just no gender at all, maybe? Same as what I thought about neuter (linguistic) gender in the first place? Excuse me while I go for an ice-bag to stick on my head while I think about this. Or not.

Brus May-24-2012

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'In North American English, "that" is a perfectly-good subordinating conjunction.' So be it.

My argument is that it isn't perfectly good over on the eastern side of the Atlantic and it is hugely to be regretted that it is making its appearance everywhere now in the English-speaking world. I concede that it is everywhere to be found in the writings of PG Wodehouse even as far back as the 1910s and 1920s, and if he could do it, we can ...

So we can take the view, yeah, yeah, whatever, so long as we all understand each other and most folk get the drift of what we're saying, yeah, life goes on, know what I mean, gotta be honestand so on. But what is this site for, if note to grumble about "Pain" in the English?

Brus May-24-2012

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Brus - only the French would give a Gallic shrug; the Spanish would give a Castilian shrug and the Italians a Roman shrug.

Mark Champney May-24-2012

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Oh, dear. You mean "I love driving my Jaguar. She is a car which comes from England."
I don't see any point in using "which" instead of "that'. In North American English, "that" is a perfectly-good subordinating conjunction. In reading recent publications from England, it is apparent that a large of writers there have been innoculated agsainst the word "that". They just begin subordinate clauses w/o any subordinating conjunctions OR subordinating pronouns there.The independent clause just runs into the dependent clause with no kind of a connector at all.

Let me let you in or something. We Americans and Canadians have you outnumbered by a great majority. You might as well yield on some points.

Back during World War II, there was a big push by some over there to make a Briton the Supreme Commander in the West. However, President Roosevelt would not hear of it - not at all. That is how General Eisenhower of the U.S. Army became the Supreme Commander in the West. The U.S. Army provided twice as many troops and aircraft as all of the others put together.
Then Field Marshal Alexander in Italy was sent to Burma, and the American General Mark Clark took over as the Supreme Commander in Italy.
There are just lots of things that Americans have done the best.

"I love driving my Ford Mustang. She is a car that comes from Detroit."
No more British, French, Italian, or Japanese cars.
"I also fly everywhere in a Boeing 767."

DAW

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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I said: "Most words in English that have a gender"
Most nouns in English do not have any grammatical gender at at all.

That is something that was disposed of during the couple of centuries following the Norman Conquest, when the common people of England were left to their own devices concerning their language, while the Normans spoke archaic French with each other.

Hence in English, we don't have any gender (besides "it') for those common things in German that do, else we use the natural gender, such as for apple, boy, chair, dog, door, egg, eye, floor, foot, girl (neuter in German), hammer, hat, knife, leg, nose, peach, plate, road, slave, street, table, tooth, train, wall, wagon, ball-point pen (der Kugelschreiber).
Grammatical gender must be good for something, but for those of us who grew up on English, it all seems like a terrible mess of complication for nothing.

As an engineer, I was highly amused to read that the French were having deep discussions about whether it should be "la microchip" or "le microchip". Very tough, since French does not have neuter.

The French Academy finally decided to accept "bulldozer", but they decided that the pronunciation should be a lot different than in English -- with four syllables instead of just three, to start with.

In English, there is a big difference between having no gender at all and having neuter gender. For example, my computer doesn't have any gender at all.
In contrast, "Der Computer" in German is masculine.

Maybe computers ought to be feminine because of the many times and many ways that they simply act CONTRARY !
I often want to put mine in the dunking stool. If you have never hear about one of those, you have to read about them in the history of Colonial New England - LOL !
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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That criticism of spell-checker is well made. These tools are discouraging folk from using proper language, marking good practice as wrong. I think I am coming to the conclusion that this is the reason for the sloppy language we read and hear now, such as people using "that" to replace "who", "whom", "whose" and "which".

Pleasingly it does not seem to mind the use of "he" and "she", or "him" and "her" when referring to singular people, so I suspect that when folk say "they" when they mean "he" or "she" etc it is not so much laziness as a misplaced belief that political correctness is somehow a good thing, and that it dictates that references to gender are somehow very naughty and must be avoided at all costs.

How are the French, Spanish, Italians ... supposed to deal with such a daft view (other than, wisely, to ignore it, possibly with a Gallic shrug) when they have no choice but to use masculine and feminine? Resorting to a neutral plural (they) does not help, as eg in French it is "ils" or "elles" depending on masc. & fem., and so neuter is not an option.

Masculine and feminine are facts and it is a fine thing when language reflects this. Indo-European languages have used it for thousands of years. In ancient India the Buddhist language Pali has it. They sing songs about it. As the Frenchman said, "vive la difference". So far spell-check has left it in peace.

Oh, and "pleaded" is the correct term when applied in the court-room sense. I know this; I used to ask criminals in the court house how they pleaded, and if they said "not guilty" my job was to try to prove otherwise. Not a lot of fun, but it was a living.

Brus May-24-2012

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Most words in English that have a gender use the gender that comes from French and Latin.
"I love driving my Jaguar. She is a car that comes from England."

Oh dear. You mean "I love driving my Jaguar. She is a car which comes from England."

Does the fact that the French for a boat (un bateau) is masculine, mainly because of its sound (ends with -eau) bother you? Ship=navire is feminine because it sounds feminine (ends in -silent -e). If we followed your suggestion that the French & Latin dictate the gender of nouns we would have hardly any neuter nouns at all in English. In Latin they are a small minority and in French non-existent. In English about 99% are neuter.

Brus May-24-2012

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I noticed this morning that I was using a spell-checker that does not recognize the word "catsup". It flags this as a misspelled word -- and most users jump to the conclusion that it really IS misspelled. ("Ketchup" is in there.)

Also, missing in the same spell-checker are the words "gauge", "venusian", "jovian", "saturnian", and many other scientific and technological words. Also, Yahoo steadfastly refuses to add any words whatsoever to its spell-checking dictionary, including "Las", "Los", "Angeles". Hence, if you are writing to someone about your trip from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, you run into a slew of supposedly misspelled words.

"Air gauge", "gas gauge", "pressure gauge", and gauge theories in physics cause real problems. Also, these problems are caused by sheer laziness.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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"It's true that some people will try to sound more intelligent by attempting to be verbose. This can cause quite a distraction during conversation."

During a conversation?? No, they WRITE IT ALL DOWN, and that is the big problem!

When I used the word "saying" before, I should have used "stating", which covers both written and verbal communications.

This leads us to a recenty-developed and serious problem that is especially from companies like the Associate Press: "said in a statement".
WHO decided that this one was needed -- because "stated" means exactly the same thing.

The people of the Associated Press have decided that they will do as they please, no matter how much evidence and history is to the contrary. Its writers do not want to call ships of the sea "she" and "her". I pointed out to them that this goes all the way back 2,000 or more years to the Roman Republic, where the word for "ship" in Latin is a feminine noun.

All spaceships and starships are feminine, too. All you have to do is to watch STAR TREK, in which Captain Kirk referred to the USS ENTERPRISE as "she" and "her".

The Space Shuttles COLUMBIA, CHALLENGER, ENDEAVOUR, etc., were all "she", too.

(It is true that in German, the word das Schiff is neuter, but so what? In German, the words for most modern forms of transportation are neuter, including das Auto, das Flugzeug, das Raumschiff (spaceship), das Fahrrad (bicycle), and das Boot (boat), Unfortunately, der Eisenbahnzug (train) is masculine. Most words in English that have a gender use the gender that comes from French and Latin.
"I love driving my Jaguar. She is a car that comes from England.")

DAW

D. A. Wood May-24-2012

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It's true that some people will try to sound more intelligent by attempting to be verbose. This can cause quite a distraction during conversation. I believe, by simply altering the sentence slightly, that a distraction can be avoided, and no one will then be left to argue over the usage. I think a good question would be: at what point do we slip from common sense into laziness? A few extra syllables, in a good-natured attempt to avoid confusion, argument, and distraction, couldn't be too much for anyone to handle, surely. I prefer a simple conversation also, but I don't like a lazy one. There is something to be said for grammar etiquette, and the fact remains that in my sentence, at least I will have the comfort of knowing that no one could be offended, and no one will later be debating over my usage instead of my topic.

He pleaded guilty.
He pled guilty.
He entered a guilty plea.

At least I know mine is correct, without doubt or debate.

angiesgirl May-23-2012

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That onethat you wrote, Angie's, is quite wordy and full of syllables. You must have missed out on everything about communicating efficiently.

That is just like the current craze for saying "correctional facility" instead of "jail" or "prison"; "high-level health care facility" instead of "hospital", "governmental headquarters" instead of "capitol" or "capital city"; "educational facility" instead of "school", "weapons testing facility" instead of "firing range" or "proving ground".

Give us a break, You want to make every paragraph twice as long as it needs to be.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood May-23-2012

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I am one of those people who tries to find another way to say something in lieu of sounding offensive or ignorant. This is especially true if I am unsure of the audience.

Therefore, I give you: HE ENTERED A GUILTY PLEA.

'nough said??

angiesgirl May-23-2012

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Great news on cable TV news in the U.S. this afternoon:

"Three indicted co-conspirators have PLED guilty..."

This was concerning a plot to commit an act of large-scale terrorism in New York City. The cretins had plotted to set off a large explosion in a subway tunnel there.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Apr-16-2012

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Agent 99 never had another name besides "Agent 99".
Also, I don't think that The Chief had another name besides "The Chief".

On their first meeting, Agent 99 and Agent 86 were supposed to meet in an airline terminal in New York City. Their contact code was supposed to be "The New York Mets have defeated the Yankees in the World Series." Well, it turned out that in an amazing event, the Mets really had defeated the Yankees in the World Series, and nearly everyone in the terminal was excited by this.

So, when Agent 99 said that to Agent 86, he replied, "Yeah, yeah..."
Then Agent 99 added this, "But the score was 99 to 86."
So, she finally got through to Maxwell Smart.

In a baseball game, a score of 99 to 86 would be absolutely incredible. In fact, it never happens. 99 to 86 is a possible score of a basketball game.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Apr-11-2012

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Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, said to a group of agents of KAOS:

1. In one hour, this island will be invaded by General Ridgeway and 50 crack paratroopers.
2. Would you believe by J. Edgar Hoover and ten G-men?
3. Would you believe by Tarzan and some of his apes?

The agents of KAOS didn't believe any of these. They just walked away with skeptical looks on their faces.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Apr-11-2012

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"pleaded"... in both AmE and BrE and always the best choice...

Whoever considers that to be true does not known anything about Information Theory.

Of course, the British have a great deal against Information Theory since this science was founded and developed by an Irish - American, Claude Shannon. Shannon was with the Bell Telephone Laboratories when he started, and then he moved on to become a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Irish and American! Holy cow. Is that anything like being Cockney and Australian, or French and Canadian? I don't think that upper-class British like any of these...

Information Theory is the science of efficient communication.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Apr-11-2012

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Quoting from Garner's Modern American Usage:

pleaded; pled; plead. Traditionally speaking, "pleaded" is the best past-tense and past-participal form. Commentators on usage of long said so, pouring drops of vitrol onto "has pled" and "has plead":
"Plead, sometimes wrongly used as the pret. of plead. The correct form is 'pleaded.'" John F. Genung, Outlines of Rhetoric 324 (1893)
[Seven other cites spanning the years 1905 to 1943]

The problem with these strong pronouncements, of course, is that "pled" and "plead" have gained some standing in AmE, as the Evanses noted in the 1950s (although they mentioned only "pled"): "In the United States 'pleaded' and 'pled' are both acceptable for the past tense and for the past participle. In Great Britain only the form 'pleaded' is used and "pled" is considered an Americanism." (DCAU at 372)

. . .

Still, "pleaded" is the predominant form in both AmE and BrE and always the best choice. . . .

Anon? Apr-11-2012

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I wasn't putting out "cruise" to bestead (or instead as a verb) "surf" or "browse". Surf and browse are both good words as well.

Link is also a good short word. In your case, it was indeed a physical link problem. I too hav link problems. In my case, they say the tower ... and thus the antenna ... needs to be raised to get a better signal. Altho it only became bad after the swapped their antenna. (Alignment?) The link to net started working again during a recent storm. It's still weak but better than nothing! Maybe the wind nudged their (or my) antenna a bit.

AnWulf Apr-08-2012

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The words "surf" and "browse" are just as short as is "cruise" (in syllables), so there is no efficiency in using "cruise".

I also "link" to the Internet, so one cannot do any better than this in words.

I have had a very long, ongoing dispute with my Internet company (AT&T), which was clearly in the wrong. Finally, someone conceded that there was a "network" problem. I told them, "No, not network, and you listen to me - a heck of an engineer from Georgia Tech. What you have is a LINK problem, and that is in the LINK between my apartment and the rest of the Internet system." I do not give one iota about the "network" of AT&T - you just get my LINK working, and things will be fine. After many months of this, a technician from AT&T started looking at this link, and he found a circuit box that birds or small mammal had broken into. That let rainwater into the box, and that rainwater was spoiling a splice between two cables.

The whole purpose of that box was supposed to be to keep that splice dry. If the administrators of AT&T had merely listened to me -- many months ago -- then they could have sent a technician over to examine everything in my LINK to the network. The whole problem would have been repaired long ago.
Get the chewing tobacco out of your ears, I say to them!

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Apr-07-2012

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It was always fun to think about Agent 86.

If you're looking to save a syllable or two then note folk or folks instead of people.
You can bind to the internet rather than connect if your binding (connection) is good then you can swiftly cruise the net!

AnWulf Apr-07-2012

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Wow,

A reporter for NBC - TV news in the U.S.A. said this morning:

"He has pled not guilty to charges of ..."

The sweet sound of good, concise English, well spoken, entered my ears!
This was a reporter who is based in Los Agneles, but he was reporting on events in Washington State.

There is no need to use two or three-syllable words when one-syllable words work just as well in their places.

This reminds me of people -- whom I brand as attempted CHROME DOMES -- who say and write "individuals" (five syllables) now, when "people" (two syllables) works just as well, if not significantly better.

Likewise, they say and write "individual" (five syllables) when "person" (two syllables) significantly better.

Then, there are those people in law enforcement, etc., who say "gentleman" when "jackass", "cretin", or "slopehead" are a lot more appropriate to the situation.
"Neanderthal" would also fit, but that is a four-syllable word.

There was the man who was very rude to Taylor Swift, and then - away from microphones - President Obama was overheard calling him a "jackass". That word was so appropriate to the situation that nobody could complain, except for the five percent of people who will complain about anything.

Dale

D. A. Wood Apr-07-2012

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I am a son of American TV from the 1960s, especially.

When it comes to programs like these, if it happened, I usually remember it:

Emergency!, Get Smart, Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, The Invaders, The Outer Limits, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Star Trek, The Time Tunnel, and Voyage ot the Bottom of the Sea.

I also remember a lot about some fine British TV series, such as The Avengers and The Prisoner, that were broadcast here. Later on. Danger: UXB was a fascinating British series. I remember the main character, Lieutenant Brian Ash, very well, too. This was a series of the 1980s.

Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-25-2012

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Now, I am reminded of a comedy routine in the "Get Smart" TV series when someone was giving Agent 86 directions on how to drive somewhere. These included:

"Go over the underpass and then under the overpass...", but someone interrupted to argue, that it was actually:
"Go under the overpass and then over the underpass..."

I thought that this one was hilarious, and then a couple of decades later I found out that this one was a spoof of the difficulties of driving around in Washington, D.C.
I know, I know! That is hard!

I once took a taxi to the National Airport just south of Washington, and I swear that the driver drove a figure-8 to get to the right part of the airline terminal to drop me off. There was a place in the middle where one road went on a bridge over the other. So, I really have been "over the underpass and then under the overpass," or was it the other way around?
I must PLEAD ignorance on this one because I don't remember. I was thinking about "Get Smart" and Agent 86 at the time.

Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-25-2012

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Here is some good news about language from this morning:

Nora O'Donnell on the "Face the Nation" TV program said: "Let's listen." - which is a very fine phrase that has stood the test of time.
Too many others say the completely awful "Take a listen."

For strong historical reasons, when it comes to the five senses, one can say or write:
1. "Take a look," or
2. "Take a taste."

But not
3. "Take a listen,"
4. "Take a feel," (Wow, this one sounds "off-color".), or
5. "Take a smell."

Things have been this way for a long, long time, and I cannot see any good reason to change now. I believe in changing things when there are positive benefits to this.

On the other hand, "Take a sniff" and "Take a whiff" have been in use for a long, long time.
Also have been, "Take a leap of faith," "Take a shot at it," "Take a seat," and "Take a nap."

On a different subject, in American slang English "Take a p***" and "Take a c***" have been in use for a long time. Do people say these things in other places? As for Canada, the answer is probably "Yes".

"Take a jump off the top of the Empire State Building" is not very nice, either.

I once had a date who objected when I told her to "Take a 270-degree turn at the next interchange," but I am an engineer, anyway.
Within an hour or so, I decided that she and I didn't have much in common, and I never saw her again.

"Take a 270-degree turn is just the way that I think," and it is the way that a good number of other people think. Lots of other people don't mind "90-degree turns", "270-degree turns", etc.
Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-25-2012

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So many people are so passive nowadays, and they accept this w/o any complaint:

To CBS TV:

On the SUNDAY MORNING program today,

NOT "more risky" as your man said, but rather "riskier".

This is basic elementary school English, and it has been in use for at least 500 years.

Dale A. Wood

-----------------------------------------

Note that I have also heard these on broadcast TV this year and last year:

"more free" rather than "freer"
"more safe" rather than "safer"
"more happy" rather than "happier"
"more grave" rather than "graver"
"more hungry" rather than "hungrier"
"more clean" rather than "cleaner"
"more pure" rather than "purer"
"more rare" rather than "rarer"
(If a $2.00 bill is rare, then a $3.00 bill is even rarer. If an American $2.00 bill is rare, then a Canadian $1.00 bill is even rarer. They do not print these in Canada anymore.)

The next thing that we know, they will say "more corny" rather than "cornier", "more bad" rather than "worse", "more ugly" rather than "uglier", because their language on TV in the United States is getting worse, uglier, and cornier.

Alas, the phrases "more unique" and "most unique" just "gag me with a spoon" (to use some slang English). Nothing can be "more unique" than "unique".
(The experimental airplane "Voyager" made a unique flight around the world. That is true.)
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-25-2012

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PLED, PLED, PLED! Four letters rather than seven, and one syllable rather than two -- much more efficient on both counts.

Also, here in the U.S.A., we have two famous and scenic Carlsbads:
Carlsbad, California, in the far south, and Carlsbad, New Mexico, Come on over, see them, and enjoy them. Take your choice, and then buy airline tickets either to San Diego. Albuquerque, or to El Paso, Texas (immediately south of New Mexico).
If you go to southeastern New Mexico, you can also visit Roswell, the home of weird tales about flying saucers in the 1940s and 50s.

Carlsbad, N.M,, has a spectacular National Park, and Carlsbad, Calif., has spectacular views of the coast and the Pacific Ocean.

Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-25-2012

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Hi there, D A Wood.

Now, I think you need a wee rest and a holiday. One can tell: you wrote 'pled' again, when you meant 'pleaded'. Carlsbad is nice at this time of year.

Brus Mar-25-2012

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OUCH:
A typical date for Brus:
He spent a lot of his money on much-younger women; took her for a ride in his expensive sports car; took her out to dinner at an expensive restaurant where he ate way too much and told false tales about his younger days; spent a lot of money on expensive alcoholic beverages and got drunk; and continued by catching VD. Then while driving her home, he got arrested by the highway police.

Finally, he PLED guilty to driving while intoxicated -- and then he got sent to jail for four months and fined 5,000 pounds sterling. [Was that enough? I am unfamiliar with British criminal law, except that they do not whip or hang convicts anymore.]

That sounds like an "old fuel" -- an "old fool" -- to me. Just do not let it happen again!

LOL, Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-24-2012

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Yes, DAW.
That's what she was implying, was it?
Oh dear.

Brus Mar-24-2012

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So, are you an "old fool" or not? LOL

You remind me of a happening in "The Incredible Hulk" TV series.
David Banner had hitched a ride with a man on a motorcycle.
Then, they went to a pub near a college campus.

In that pub, they met a young woman who said, "When I went to college, my Daddy told me don't smoke, don't drink, don't mess around with men, and don't ride on any motorcycles."

Then, in a really saucy tone of voice, she added, "I've never ridden on a motorcycle" -- implying that she had already done all of the other three!"
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-24-2012

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Is that right, D A Wood?

Well, at least I have never tried to grab too much power.

Brus Mar-24-2012

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It occurred to me last night that some people do not know the humor behind
"There's no fuel like an old fuel."

This is a twist on a saying that has been around for centuries:
"There's no fool like an old fool."

Old fools do things like these: spending a lot of their money on much-younger women; telling false tales about their younger days; trying to grab too much power; spending a lot of their money on alcoholic beverages; spending a lot of their money on fast sports cars; eating too much; going out and catching VD; et cetera.
I think that you should get the picture.

I have known a good number of old fools in my life!
I just don't want to become one!
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-24-2012

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"Presumably, the Air Force has lots of jet packs."

In reality -- and on "Gilligan's Island" -- the jet pack was completely experimental and those were never widely produced.
Also in reality, I don't think that the Air Force ever experimented with jet packs. Those were items that the U.S. Army experimented with, so a jet pack belonging to the Air Force was a piece of fiction on "Gilligan's Island".

The idea for the Army was that some soldiers could conceivably use jet packs to fly over the battlefield** and then land in the rear of the enemy lines, either for sabotage or for scouting. This turned out NOT to be practical.

**For many decades, the two places that the Army worried about and made big plans for defending were West Germany and South Korea. Thus, the Army's high commanders and their staffs were continually planning on
1) Fighting the Soviets, the East Germans, and the Czechs in West Germany.
2) Fighting the North Koreans and maybe the Red Chinese in South Korea.

Almost any small advantage that they could think of in the Army was worth considering. Large advantages, too, including cannons and rockets that could carry nuclear weapons and chemical weapons. We are very, very fortunate that a war like that never broke out.

I have read that the U.S. has not had any nuclear weapons in South Korea since 1992. However, the Air Force has them on Okinawa and Guam, and the Navy has them on aircraft carriers and submarines in the Western Pacific -- not too far from Korea.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-24-2012

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"Aye, D.A., ye're fair going your dinger the nicht, as we say in Scotland. Are you on the malt too?"

LOL, LOL, LOL !

D. A. Wood Mar-23-2012

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I don't guarantee that I got all of the endings on the German adjectives right.
Sorry, but in German the usage of nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, and verbs are all a lot more complicated than they are in English.
On the other hand, adverbs, conjunctions, and predicate adjective are all easy.

Also watch out for those notorious German compound nouns.
My favorite one is "Farbfernsehgeraet" = "color television set", but I am an electronics engineer, after all.
For many years, Germany had three different systems for color TV.
West Germany used the PAL system, which came from Britain.
East Germany used the SECAM system, a French one that had been adopted by the USSR and its satellite states.
Also, there were American Army and Air Force bases in West Germany that had their own TV stations, and those used NTSC - the American system, of course.

Years ago, some of the American stations started showing HOGAN'S HEROES, but within a month, the local governments said, "Please don't broadcast that one anymore!" No matter what kind of a TV set you had, you could still pick up HOGAN'S HEROES in black & white, and the German governmentss didn't want all of those Nazis (and idiots, too) on TV.

DAW

D. A. Wood Mar-23-2012

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Hello,
I had realized that there was something awkward about what I wrote before:

"I recently saw an episode of 'Gilligan's Island' from a DVD that I bought. In that episode, the castaways found a jet pack washed up on the beach that the Air Force had lost."

However, I did not expect this to spark off a discussion of relative pronouns and subordinating conjunctions (that, which, although, because, since, so that, such that, though, unless, until, when, where, while -- and a good many more). Do not be confused that many of these can also be used as other parts of speech.

Now, I have thought of some ways to modify my sentence somewhat for clarity:

1. "In that episode, the castaways found a jet pack -- washed up on the beach -- that the Air Force had lost."

2. "In that episode, the castaways found a jet pack, washed up on the beach, that the Air Force had lost." (simply inserting two commas).

3. "In that episode, the castaways found a jet pack that the Air Force had lost and that had washed up on the beach." (Aha! Parallel construction, and what a fine thing it is!)

There are doubtless other ways to rephrase this sentence for clarity.
I do not think that using "which" helps, but it could be used.

Speaking of the German language, it has subordinating conjunctions, too.
The most common one is "dass", which is commonly written with the German "ez-set", a special letter that looks like a Greek "beta". "Dass" means "that".

Also, German has something in this area that does not exist in English anymore. (It probably did in Old English.)
German has three definite articles -- because it has nouns of three different genders. These are { der, die, das } in the nominative case. However, these are also commonly used as subordinating conjunctions, too, and those usually translate into English as "that". Subordinate clauses are also ALWAYS set off by commas in German.

Here is an example: Das Flugzeug, die rote streichende Fluegel haben, gehoert Von Richthofen.
This means, The airplane that has red-painted wings belongs to Von Richthofen.
Yes, the Red Baron.

In certain cases in German, the words "das" and "dass" can mean exactly the same thing.

D. A. Wood Mar-23-2012

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Porsche, you suggest "the castaways found a jet pack that the Air Force had lost, washed up on the beach." Well I suggest that the relative pronoun "which", referring to the jet pack, should ideally follow the antecedent (the word to which it refers) as closely as possible, so if it is the castaways:"the castaways whom the air force had lost ...", if it is the jetpack then "the jetpack which the air force had lost" and if the beach, then "the beach which the air force ...".
We think the writer meant the jet pack: so your version is left with two problems, first the dangling participial phrase "washed up on the beach" which also wants to be as close as possible to "the jet pack". As the position immediately after "jet pack" is now occupied by the relative clause introduced by "which", we place it immediately before: "The castaways found washed up on the beach the jet pack which the air force had lost."
The second problem is using "that" as a relative pronoun. it is all the rage now, and is wrong. Earlier research on this site discovered that the blame may lie with Microsoft whose grammar checkers underline "who, whom and which" with wiggly green lines, tempting users to succumb and just shove in "that" instead regardless, much to the annoyance of readers and listeners who know better.
"Who, whom, whose" and "which" are relative pronouns, "That" is used to introduce indirect statements. So "The spokesman said that (about to report a statement made earlier) the police had arrested the suspect who (referring back to the suspect, so 'who' is a relative pronoun, relating to 'suspect') was hiding in the house which (referring to house, so relative pronoun) they had surrounded".
Relative from Latin "re-fero" = carry back, ... referre, retuli, relatum. 'Relate' from the 4th principal part of the same verb. The relative pronoun refers. The antecedent is the word to which it refers. In English we have a set of words "who, whom, whose" for people, "which, whose" for things. Germans have a grid of these words to sort out: wer, wie, was, wessen, wem, etc, and can cope. The French have 'qui' and 'que' and can manage it. So why can't the English learn to speak? pleaded Professor Higgins in My Fair Lady.

Ah yes, 'pleaded' ...

Brus Mar-22-2012

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Brus, if I may suggest, using "which" instead of "that" really doesn't clear up any ambiguity suggesting that the Air Force has lost a beach. Instead, I would suggest the following phrasing: "the castaways found a jet pack that the Air Force had lost, washed up on the beach."

Oh, and while we're at it, I think that in this case, "that" is preferred over "which". Traditionally, "that" is used in a restrictive sense, while "which" is used in a non-restrictive sense. Presumably, the Air Force has lots of jet packs. The one mentioned is a particular jet pack, identified restrictively, as having been lost, so "that" would be appropriate.

porsche Mar-21-2012

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Aye, D.A., ye're fair going your dinger the nicht, as we say in Scotland. Are you on the malt too?

Brus Mar-20-2012

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Horrified to read "the beach that the Air Force had lost." Surely you mean "the beach which the Air Force had lost"?

We really don't want to hear how the Air Force could lose a beach.

Brus Mar-20-2012

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LOL, when it comes to using "pleaded" instead of "pled".

I recently saw an episode of Gilligan's Island from a DVD that I bought. In that episode, the castaways found a jet pack washed up on the beach that the Air Force had lost. Before trying it out, the Professor expressed his concerns about the age of the rocket fuel in the pack.

This gave Thurston Howell III the opportunity to say, "There's no fuel like an old fuel."

Are the journalists who say and write "pleaded" old fuels ?
Likewise for "sayed" and "layed"?

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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It is well-known among linguists and child psychologists that most small children (ages two through four, or so), go through a period when they think that all verbs are regular verbs.
I noticed the same thing about my own daughter when she was two or three.
Learning about irregular verbs come a little later.

This is why small children say things like { breaked, comed, doned, eated, flyed (two syllables), gived (two syllables), growed, knowed, maked, runned, singed (two syllables), taked, telled ...}

Oddly, we have college and high school graduates nowadays who are stuck at the same level with such words as { flyed, growed, layed, pleaded, sayed,...}

I wish that I had $5.00 for every time an adult said or wrote "layed" insted of "lain" and "laying" instead of "lying".
This is despite the fact that "layed" and "laying" have "off-color" meaning.

Just think of this statement by a woman, "I was laying on the beach all morning."
Well, at least that one sounds like a lot of fun and a pleasant experience.
My question is just, "With how many men?"

LOL, D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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I once knew a man from Indonesia who had lived in the United States for years. He was earning a B.S. at the college where I taught, and he was the husband of one of the other members of the faculty.

He told me that his parents spoke Dutch at home, and of course there is a national Indonesian language, too, which is the language of schools, businesses, government, etc.

He laughingly added that he spoke three languages: Broken Dutch, Broken Indonesian, and Broken English !! Somehow, he could make himself understood here.

I also taught electronics engineering to an old, white-headed Vietnamese man. His
English was nearly incomprehensible, but I noticed that when he was speaking with students from places like Morocco and Algeria, he spoke fluent French, and so did they. So, for them, French was their lingua franca.

Oddly, after the Communists took over South Vietnam, they sent the old man to a "re-education camp". After many months there, the Communists decided that "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," so they let him go. Then, he and his children made it to the U.S. as refugees. Next, when I taught him two courses, he was very close to completing his B.S. in electronics engineering, so he wasn't such an "old dog" after all.

I was lucky in that in both of the classes that I taught him, his daughter was a student, too. Whenever the Dad asked a question in very broken English, and I stood there with a blank look on my face, his daughter would "translate" his question into her fluent English. Then I could answer it -- and he understood English well. I look at what he did as quite courageous because his English was so bad.

I had way, way too many student who refused to ask any questions even when they didn't understand something -- and I made it abundently clear that I believed that asking questions and getting answers was a GREAT way to learn. I encouraged it. I usually answered questions then and there, but occasionally I had to say either
1. We will talk about that after class, or
2. That is a great item for graduate school. (And undergraduates do not have the background for it.)

Dale

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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Hello:

"Lowbrow" has been one word for a long time, at least in North American English. www.dictionary.com says that it came into use in about 1902 in the United States.

Speaking of lowbrow, I just saw "alrite" in print on the Internet. Where I went to elementary school during the 1960s, it was emphasized in the textbook and by the teacher that the phrase is really "all right".

I have also seen another insulting word in novels and short stories: "slopehead". It means about the same thing as "lowbrow", and it refers to cavemen, and especially Neanderthals, with their sloping foreheads.

Oh, well, it is difficult to deal with all of the lowbrows and slopeheads that we have now.

Interestingly, the expression "O.K." has been traced by linguists all the way back to President Martin Van Buren, the eighth President of the United States, and a man from a Dutch-American family in New York State. Dutch was his first language, at home, and he learned English later. "O.K." was Van Buren's abbreviation of the Dutch phrase "Oll Korrekt", which meant about the same as "all right". As the President, whenever Van Buren finished reading an official document (something the President did a lot of), he marked it with "O.K." in acknowledgement -- whether he found it to be good, bad, or indifferent. It was just his way of keeping track of things. (Back then, the President had very few assistants as compared with a century later.)

The word "okay" is just a back-formation from Van Buren's "O.K."

By the way, Van Buren was the first President of the United States to have been born after the Independence of the United States from Great Britain. He was born in 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, and he died at the age of 79 in Kinderhook, too.
One theory about "O.K." that has now been discredited was that O.K. stood for "Old Kinderhook", supposedly a nickname for Van Buren.

Van Buren is the only President whose first language was not English -- though in my opinion, the same thing applied to George W. Bush, whose only language was Broken English. I used to cringe every time he made a speech.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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Note: "able to fly". I left out a word.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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Tim, you are so right about "pled".

However, when it comes to "nuclear" there are three syllables. See this Web page: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/nuclear?s=t

The pronunciation of nuclear is roughly new-clee-ar, with the accent on the second syllable. Oddly, people who know anything about the subject know how to say "nuclear physics" (five syllables in all) -- but knowledge of the sciences (and history) has been dwindling to nearly nothing in the general public.

The pronunciation of the ending of "nuclear" is roughly the same as in "la-min-ar", but this is another word from physics and engineering. The big advance in the aerodynamics of the great P - 51 Mustang fighter plane of WW II was its laminar-flow wings. Those were first put into use by the new North American Aviation Company of Los Angeles County, and laminar-flow wings cut down greatly on the turbulance generated by wings. Thus, the drag on the P - 51 was much less than on earlier figher planes, and it had much higher speeds and a much longer range.

That long range was what made the P - 51 to fly all the way from England to Berlin and back, for example. They were also able to fly all the way from Iwo Jima to Tokyo and back, for example, escorting B - 29 bombers.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Mar-20-2012

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I agree fully. This is an example of the uneducated bastardization of the English language by those who would inform us of our daily issues. "Pleaded" as opposed to "pled" would be as malfunctioning as "Leaded" vs "led". Its 4th grade stuff which is about where I would put today's journalism. Its right up there with "nucular" (ph. new-que-ler) as opposed to "nuclear" (ph. new-clear). That is actually 3rd grade stuff but seems to be all the rage now. He "pleaded" that our leaders have "leaded" us to "orientate" ourselves to policies destroying the "nucular" family. Its all so low brow

Tim Cresswell Esq Mar-19-2012

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@Matthew ... editirixrex is right. Go back upthread and read my earlier post. Plead is a Latinate and the wont is for outlander verbs to be weak. The same happened with prove ... it now has a proven as a past participle. Truly folks, it's not something to get worked up about. Pleaded or pled, both are ok.

AnWulf Feb-21-2012

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@Matthew: Except that pleaded is the both the prevailing usage and older than pled. It's not so much a new hack as commenters claim in this thread but both a throwback and signs of a lesser variant starting to lose even more ground.

editirixrex Feb-21-2012

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"Pleaded" always makes me do a double take when I see it, but the switch does make sense in light of the long term trend in English to eliminate apophony and make irregular verbs regular (or strong verbs weak if you prefer). This trend started as far back as the transition into middle English; if it has sped up in recent decades then I blame literacy (I always thought of apophony as friendlier to the ear than the eye). At any rate, while I am as nostalgic as the next fellow, regularizing our verbs will aid the spread of English as a global lingua franca.

Matthew1 Feb-21-2012

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D.A. Wood,

You have made some valid points and have expressed opinions formulated from legitimate experiences. I'm not trying to attack you. I was making a comment on your statement based on statistics of English speaking populations and recognized dialects, and I was exaggerating the truth just as much as it seemed you had in that specific point.

I have met many Indians, several who speak better English as their second language than many North American born, first language English speakers, and that is neither more nor less valid than your experience.

I've seen no evidence to support the notion that the vast majority of any English speaking country's population speaks a standardized English, whether as their first language or otherwise. Communications and exposure have helped immensely in unifying dialect, but you don't have to drive very far to hear variations, and that doesn't mean the people who don't live in your state are wrong or uneducated, they've just accepted a slightly different regional standard.

We're all language lovers in this thread, I'm sure. Those who don't care probably wouldn't be here. I'm for proper English as we all are. But I recognize that absolute rigidity is not a reasonable or attainable goal. The standard must have room. English is not the same today as it was in some centuries old rule book, nor will it be, in years to come, the same as rules today. Dictionaries are revised, and language evolves. English has adopted many words from other languages, brought to it no doubt equally by speakers of broken English. Groups you may have dismissed a little too quickly brought us words like "grammar."

There is no reason for Americans to imitate British English.

Perhaps not. There are already huge differences, so why go back? But it's this room for growth and the acceptance of the regional standard that allowed this to happen in the first place. Otherwise, somewhere today, an American teacher would be adding a u in red ink to the word "color."

Why Bother Feb-18-2012

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I am really pleased to catch on to your much earlier correspondence on "sneak" and "snuck". As emigres returned Scotsmen, regularly visiting the ancestors in the Highlands, we amuse each other there on winter or rainy nights by conversing in wide-ranging variations on Standard English, telling tales maybe, for example, about how grandpa snuck grandma into the cinema without paying, using this wonderful word, picked up in 1950s Southern Africa, from what we assume is American. We also talk about torriential rain (pronounced torry-en-shul) because one of said it as a child and we thought it was funny, like "anyweny" in place of "anyway". You may shake your heads in disapproval, but in Celtic circles we do this sort of thing for fun. And drink whisky. Which may explain it.

Brus Feb-17-2012

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Synesis may not bother you too much, but I sure am pleased to learn that in America you edit it out when it isn't wanted. I have not lost that many nights' sleep over it either, but I make it a point to show it the door whenever an example comes my way and I am in a position to do so. Otherwise I just grumble about it. Syneses! Don't you just hate them!

Brus Feb-17-2012

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Synesis doesn't really bother me, but I do edit it out of American texts especially when it's inconsistently applied. The usage is not, however, an error.

editirixrex Feb-17-2012

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Also, strong dialects of English in the U.S. died out during the 1940s and 50s. The experience of World War II, the Korean War, and the advances in telecommunictation -- and especially television, killed them off.

Men and women who served in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and those who moved (often long distances) across the country to work in defense factories had to start speaking a common, unified language. Then listening to the radio and watching TV cemented down the process.Watching motion picture helped, too. Everyone learned to understand what Clark Gable, Maureen O'Sullivan, and Jimmy Stewart were saying, and to imitate them, too.

Then, there was "Me Tarzan, you Jane", but that doesn't count!
D.A.W. .

D. A. Wood Feb-17-2012

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Hello, "Why Bother",
It sounds like you never have met many Indian people in person, I have.

1. Many Indians, Pakistanis, etc., THINK that they speak English, but they do not.I have heard this with my own ears, and they are incomprehensible. BROKEN English does not count as "speaking English".

2. The vast majority of such people (as above) do not speak English as their primary language. They simply do not. Broken English is their second, third, or fourth language. Broken English does not count.

3. In Western countries like the United States, Canada, and ,maybe more, it has been necessary to create a standardized and thorough test called the TESL = Test of English as a Spoken Language to be given to all overseas students who come here for graduate school and professional schools in colleges and universities, and some of the others, too. NOT passing the TESL rules out those students from employment as assistant teachers of undergraduate students, or from professional programs in medicine, dentistry, etc. -- because they are unable to communicate clearly with their genuinely English-speaking students, patients, and colleagues. Sorry, but many of them could go to school here, but they cannot earn money by working at their schools. Many cannot afford to pay for their schooling.

4. At many different American colleges & universities, there are intensive programs in English (speaking, listening, reading, and writing) for undergraduate and graduate students who come here for education, but their proficiency in English is very low. Many of these came here from Asia, with the dominint groups being from India, China, and Southeast Asia. Those programs in English are time-consuming, taking about a year before the students can pass the TESL and go on into their chosen majors.

5. I am an American, but I know all about being a graduate student and the travails of many overseas students. I have been a graduate assistant at Georgia Tech, Tennessee Tech, and the University of Alabama myself, and after that, I have been a full-time faculty member in Maryland, Illinois, and Arizona. Hence, I have known a lot of foreign students, especially ones from India, and I have witnessed their struggles with English. What they said was often incomprehensible.

6. Personally, I knew a fellow faculty member, originally from India, who when he had arrived in the U.S. years ago was fluent in Telegu and Malayam, BUT he told me that back then his English was No Bloody Good (NBG), even though he has studied it in school back home. Nobody here could understand what he was saying. Hence, as he told me, he had to learn real English from scratch, in parallel with all of his other undergraduate courses. He could understand, but he could not speak it.
He did well because he earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in electrical engineerig in Illinois, and then he found a teaching position in Missouri. He has now been an American citizen for a number of years, and he is married, too.
It all took a lot of hard work on his part, and he has told me that now English is his favorite language -- and he has to mentlly "shift gears" to speak anything else, such as with his mother, father, and brother.

Finally, so summarize again, speaking broken or incomprehensible English does not count!

D.A.W. .

D. A. Wood Feb-17-2012

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Although I otherwise agree with much of what you've stated.

Why Bother Feb-16-2012

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"Just on a statistical basis, American English is far more important that any other kinds - which merely express minority views"

I realize you may not have tried to make that comment sound as ignorant as it does; it is true America is the country with the largest population of English speakers. The problem is that this statement presumes that America has one common dialect, a presumption which isn't even close to accurate. By that logic, one may conclude that India, the second largest population of English speakers, with about one fifth the number of dialects represented in the USA, is statistically "far more important" than "minority" US dialects.

Why Bother Feb-16-2012

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That problem with speakers and writers, especially British ones, not being able to distinguish between singular and plural is an especially ghastly one.

Here is an example that I read in a news article recently:
A group of about 10 trapped miners had already been identified as being all men. Then, a paragraph or two further down came a statement like "One of the rescued miners died on their way to the hospital." Holy hell. He died on HIS way to the hospital.

Another news article that was from the United States told of a driver who abandoned HIS passengers on an intercity bus. A couple of paragraphs down, the driver was identified as a woman. So SHE abandoned HER passengers. What happened in detail was that she parked her bus in a small town, where someone picked her up in a car and drove away, never to return. So her passengers were abandoned in a small town somewhere, rather than being taken to St. Louis, as promised when they bought their tickets.

Getting back to "pled": Shorter, one-syllable verbs are always better and more efficient than multisyllable verbs, just as long as their meanings are clear.
Hence: { pled, lit, ate, bit, dug, fought, rode, sung, and wore }

We do not need verbs like {pleaded, lighted, eated, fighted, rided, and singed}, because they are inefficiently long in syllables. This is besided the fact that "singed" has a totally different meaning. I have seen humorous copies of old ads that say, "Would you like your beard singed?"

No, thank you, I do not want any fire anywhere near my face!

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Feb-16-2012

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DAWood is right to talk about the terrible quality of English being used in Britain today. Errors involving number just for one: for example as you say, "the government are..."
The telephone will tell you "the caller did not leave their number" (whose number, who are these people with a number?). It is in every paragraph of every newspaper. The words "he, him, she and her" have all been replaced by "they" and "them". I believe the speakers' defence is that they do not wish to risk being seen as sexist. Instead, they prefer to remain incomprehensible. Even when the gender of the person is known. "The boy left their socks in the box". Whose socks? Who are the owners of these socks? Oh! the boy's! You mean "the boy left HIS socks ...".

Newsreaders, reporters, politicians. Written and spoken language. They don't care and tell you that you are a grumpy old pedant if you complain. Is it that bad in the USA? I doubt it. Frasier and Niles always get it right. or do they ...?

The occasional cock-up with "I" and "me", ... In England it is almost regarded as correct to say "Daphne invited Frasier and I to dinner". How about Frasier wasn't included: "Daphne invited I to dinner". I subject, me object.

It's bad, isn't it?

Brus Feb-16-2012

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Yes, those are both proper American English as well. The first has a variant (pled, the subject of this thread) that is used in the States, but less often; the second, hanged, is utterly correct on both sides of the pond.

editirixrex Feb-16-2012

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"How do you plead?" - "He pleaded not guilty". Correct English. "I sentence you to be taken ...and hanged by the neck ..."
Not pled, not hung. English law court language. Pictures are hung, convicted criminals hanged.
Your correspondent says you have to cry or weep while pleading. That must be in the US. In England you just wring your cap in your hands, and look shifty and apologetic. In 1970s South Africa you tried not to make jokes or seem frivolous, but it was hard.

Brus Feb-16-2012

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Quoting the 2009 edition of a preeminent reference called MODERN AMERICAN USAGE's entry titled PLEADED; PLED; PLEAD (which cites American sources for all those examples pronouncing it a colloquialism or slang), seems relevant to the topic at hand.

The use of "pled" in American English gained some ground circa the 1950s, but that form is both newer and lesser used in this country than the predominant "pleaded"; the claim that pleaded is either ungrammatical, newfangled, or incorrect has no basis. While pled is common enough, it is in fact the upstart and less used variant here in the States.

"Correct" and "proper" or even "prevailing American usage" are rather slim (if not false) defenses of pled. "Sounds funny," however, is a perfectly fine personal motivation.

editirixrex Feb-16-2012

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I don't believe what Editirixrex said one bit. Also, it is beside the point. The original question was raised about what is said on AMERICAN TV STATIONS, so British English is irrelevant here in this discussion. Why is it that you felt like going off on a tangent?

To top it off, the Americans and the Canadians have the British and the Irish outnumbered by a very wide margin. Just on a statistical basis, American English is far more important that any other kinds - which merely express minority views.

There is no reason for Americans to imitate British English.

From reading Australian newspapers, I have also seen that Australians are far more likely to adopt words from American English than from the others. For example, I saw the word "yuppy" in the Sydney newspaper w/o any explantation for what that means because Australians already knew.

D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Feb-16-2012

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Bryan Garner, quoted earlier, author of both Modern American Usage and editor of Black's Law Dictionary for over 20 years, is an excellent guide. Recapping somewhat, for those under the impression that pleaded is somehow newfangled when what they really mean is that the word sounds irksome to them:

"Traditionally speaking, pleaded is the best past-tense and past-participial form. Commentators on usage have long said so, pouring drops of vitriol onto 'has pled' and 'has plead':

[Then he cites usage books from 1893, 1905, 1906, 1926 "The past tense is pleaded. The use of pled or plead is colloquial", 1928, 1940, 1943. All of which fall rule pled as either wrong or slang.]

"The problem with these strong pronouncements . . . is that pled and plead have gained some standing in AmE, as noted in the 1950s: 'In the United States pleaded and pled are both acceptable. . . . In Great Britiain, only the form pleaded is used and pled is considered an Americanism.

"Indeed, pled . . . is nearly obsolete in BrE, except as a dialectical word. Nor is it considered quite standard in AmE . . . though it is a quite common variant. . . .

"Still, pleaded is the predominant form in both AmE and BrE and is always the best choice. . . ."

So, plead is a regular verb as of the 13th century, but 300 years later there was introduced the dialectical form and it was sometimes an irregular verb, which has lingered, dropped out of British English almost entirely, but gained a toehold in American English around the 1950s. Even so, it remains a lesser variant.

editirixrex Feb-16-2012

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Wow, I've been thinking it was me. I'm so happy to realize I'm not alone. It's gotten to the point that when I see the word 'pleaded' I change it to 'pled'. I've even had argument about it tonight. I just cringe at the way our language is being destroyed just to make it 'easier' for others to butcher it.

Why Cares Feb-09-2012

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I will continue to use pled. It just sound better. When I hear the media using pleaded it irritates me almost as much as hearing "who'd a thunk". I know my sixth grade teacher is rolling over in her grave over that one! She made us stand and recite any word she called out in all tenses or we had to stay after school and write them a number of times. Only when she was satisfied that we knew how to properly use tenses, did we get to go home. I am fairly positive that she would have said pled is correct. Who would have thought it would become an issue to be debated..oh yes, who'd a thunk it?

SusanE Feb-01-2012

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Pled is most certainly a word.

Pled: past participle, past tense of plead (Verb)
Verb: Make an emotional appeal. Present and argue for (a position), esp. in court or in another public context.

Direct from the dictionary. Pleaded drives me insane when I see or hear it. I will stick to pled thank you very much.

Kaelathira Jan-13-2012

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No, you enter a plea by pleading, as oppose to pleaing. Plea is the noun and plead is the verb. But it's an understandably confusing word

InFact. Jan-07-2012

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HLN is using the word plead "Joran Van Der Sloot will plead guilty... since he hasn't yet plead wouldn't it be he will plea guilty? I hate pleaded but this words is a tough cookie!!

RayAnn Jan-06-2012

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I suspect this occured because writers in the newspaper business could not remember how pled should be spelled, so they decided that it was easier to take the safe route and spell it pleaded.

Mark Spitzer Dec-24-2011

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Reply to lloyola:
"I turned off the sitcom. If, however, I turn off everything that offends me in the same manner, I will be left with nothing but the History Channel."

This year, I have become quite annoyed by numerous factual and grammatical errors in lots of programs on The History Channel. Many of the programs are clearly cheaply made, and they are cheaply made in countries like the U.K., Ireland, and South Africa. The owners of The History Channel are also too cheap to have new narrations written and produced to replace the (factually) erroneous and poorly-spoken ones that came with the cheap shows.

Hence, we in North America are also stuck with narrations that say, "The team are...", "The crew are....", and "The team decided....". Yikes. Clearly, a team cannot decide anything because a team does not have a mind or a brain. The leadership of the team does have a mind and a brain, so it can made decisions, but the producers of those programs are too lazy to have the narrator say, "The leader of the team decided," or "The leadership of the team decided."

You better watch out for that infernal, imprecise British English. They say things like "The Government are", and they call a whole ship of the navy a "who" rather than an "it" or a "she".

I reply to all of those people that "Pie are round and cornbread are square...."
If you don't recognize this punchline of a joke, do look it up on the Internet or ask some people about it -- preferably mathematicians and engineers.
D.A.W.

D. A. Wood Nov-07-2011

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@Ann ... When you gave your class the assignment to correct the "grammar errors" in sentences, did any of them redefine the assignment, i.e. to correct the "grammatical errors" in sentences? Can a noun describe another noun? Not yet. But, "the times, they are a changin'." I just had to sneak this in. The Devil made me do it.
See: http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080314221356AAAu5Nh

Harry1 Oct-21-2011

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GEE WIZ did I spell that right :)

douginyyz Oct-04-2011

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I calmly count to Ten when I hear the term "PLEADED".
I finally had the chance to ask a Lawyer what he thought about this issue.
He smiled and said that the talking head lawyers and commentators on TV are F@$KTEDED!!

douginyyz Oct-04-2011

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From OED: plead |plēd|
verb ( past pleaded or pled |pled|) ... interesting that the online "world" version of OED lists pled as North American or Scottish ... regardless, it lists the word so therefore, it exists.

From OED: pled |pled|
past and past participle of plead

So the word exists and is an acceptable past tense. As I pointed out above, plead is a Latinate and the normal is for outlander words (verbs) to be treated as a weak verb. But this one wasn't and hasn't been for many, many years.

From OED: dive |dīv|
verb ( past dived or dove |dōv|; past part. dived) [ intrans. ]

Pled and dove are acceptable past tenses.

AnWulf Oct-04-2011

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@AndyAlm ... Just because that the rules can change doesn't mean there isn't a "correct" English. Otherwise, the tongue will fall asunder into sundry tongues as happened to Latin after Rome had fallen or happened to Anglo-Saxon after the Takeover. English has a lot of room in its rules for flexibility (such as pled, pleaded) but it does have rules!

You have trouble reading stuff from 100 years ago? That's likely just a wordstock problem.

If you don't know the spelling of 500 years ago, I can see how that might be a little hard. Otherwise, it is just the wordstock that might trip you up. Many of those words are still in the wordbooks, just not used nowadays ... like anfald (one-fold ... simple), umbe (around), both as standalone preposition and a forefast (prefix) as um-, wanhope (despair) ... forefast wan- (lacking) +hope, wantrust (distrust), asf.

Going back 1,000 years takes one to the fore-Takeover (pre-Conquest) days when Latinates were few, pronunciation and grammar rules were unlike today, and there were sundry dialects tho grammar anfaldness (one-foldness - simplification) was happening albeit slowly. That takes some swoting! lol

AnWulf Oct-04-2011

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