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

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jayles

Member Since

August 12, 2010

Total number of comments

748

Total number of votes received

225

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Latest Comments

“it’s the put-er-on-er-er”

  • April 18, 2014, 10:09pm

More at:
literalminded.wordpress.com/2010/03/02/picker-uppers-and-putter-upper-withers/

google "putter-upper"
"by-stander" and "passer-by" lack the -er on the adverb.

stl.recherche.univ-lille3.fr/sitespersonnels/cappelle/Pdf%20versions%20of%20papers/Doubler-upper%20nouns.pdf

OED has “picker-upper” (1913), “fixer-upper” (1932), “pepper-upper” (1934), “maker-upper” (1936), “builder-upper” (1936), “opener-upper” (1941), “mucker-upper” (1942), and “looker-upper” (1951). But “Ver-up” is actually more frequently attested than “Ver-upper” in the forms collected by the OED.

ablauttime.blogspot.co.nz/2004/09/passers-by-be-damned.html

Which sound “normal” to you?

  • April 16, 2014, 9:13pm

@WW No sweat. I guess, were it not for "The Few", we'd both be German subjunctives.

Which sound “normal” to you?

  • April 16, 2014, 6:31am

@WW my view is greatly influenced by German where "could you please" is most definitely subjunctive:
http://www.linguee.de/deutsch-englisch/uebersetzung/k%C3%B6nnten+sie+mir+bitte+sagen.html

But then again I could be wrong.

in "The Lexical Approach" there is a section which debunks the "conditional" in English I think. It certainly does not exist as a mood in German.

Have diphthongs gone for good?

  • April 15, 2014, 11:20pm

Is this a question of spelling or ligatures?
Ligatures like æ are tricky to get for the uninitiated from a standard keyboard so maybe that is a downer for them. (How do people in Europe get the euro € ?)
I would suggest, as far as spelling goes, the trend is to follow whatever is in the spell-checker.

Which sound “normal” to you?

  • April 15, 2014, 7:56pm

@WW German closely follows the English patterns:
german.stackexchange.com/questions/2512/does-sollen-imply-an-external-agent

Which sound “normal” to you?

  • April 15, 2014, 1:52pm

@WW Sorry I didn't mean to suggest that 'would','could', 'might' etc were always subjunctive; just in polite phrases like:
"Would you like to.."
"Could you please..."
"Might I ask..."
Whether or not is of course wide open, but some explanation as to why these seem to be past forms with a present meaning might be helpful.
I do agree that "will you..." maps to "Voulez vous.." and "Would you .." to "Voudiriez vous..", although that's about the limit of my French.

One approach I like with modals to rewrite sentences with modal substitutes:
"Would you like a coffee?" becomes "May I invite you for a coffee?" (in Hungarian)
"You must turn it on first.." -> "It is essential to turn it on first.." and so on.

Secondly, as I understand it, in the "Advanced Learner" dictionaries, the most frequent meaning is put first in the list. "Will" has between nine and twenty seven usages depending on the dictionary. The challenge is to guess which usages are the commonest for each modal without looking first! "Must" always surprises me.

Which sound “normal” to you?

  • April 14, 2014, 6:20pm

@WW At present my understanding of the history/background here (and I may be wrong) is as follows:
in the beginning 'will','can', 'mote', 'shall', 'may' were past forms of prehistoric verbs (thats why there is no 3rd person 's') which acquired a present meaning.
Some time later a back-formed past tense was made-up, giving us 'would','could','must','should','might'. We still use this past (subjunctive) for politeness with present meaning.
In the case of 'must', 'mote' fell into disuse, so the past/present distinction was lost, so people started using 'have to', to cover the gaps; likewise 'be able to'.
The end result today is (well, a mess) overlapping meanings and usages. I think much of the meaning here in terms of annoyance/lament would come from context, intonatiion and emphasis, and not necessarily be rooted in choice of modal/auxiliary

Mentee?

  • April 14, 2014, 5:57pm

@HS Sounds like you had fun! My first computer game was on a PDP8 in 1970.
The oddest thing about programming languages today is one would have thought after fifty years they'd have business/financial math sorted, but pick up any modern language and it just gives you "drowning-point" math, and "dinnae-fash-y'sel" no-types, which makes adding-up a lottery for the unwary.

Mentee?

  • April 14, 2014, 3:12pm

@HS Strictly speaking, the -ee add-on should only be used on French loan-words as it comes from the French past participle. However it seems to have taken on a life of its own in English and become one of the building-blocks for making up new words, so one may do whatever one will unless the meaning is beclouded.

It truly has its uses: in writing software I use the label "pointee" to indicate the data or function a "pointer" is poinitng at - what else would I call it?

I think this is what drives the rise of new words, the sudden need for a label; much the same happens with "ize" appended to a word; once we can find a label for a complex idea it simplifies our thinking. For instance, "bastardization" is very much a shorthand label for a manifolded idea.

"Rupee" has of course other roots.

Mentee?

  • April 14, 2014, 7:06am

glenjplayer.com/2011/01/mentee-mentoree-meant-what/