ATTN: Copyeditors and Grammar Fiends

I mean, syntactically it's identical to "this cannot be countenanced" or "this cannot be allowed to stand" or whatever

the 2 millionth person makes it right

Ha, beautifully put.

There's no formula for these things; ultimately, the team at Oxford/Chambers/wherever are the ones who'll eventually, wearily, maybe make the call that, OK, "gay" has a third meaning (for example) and include it in a dictionary.

So, here's a question to which I really don't know the answer: is a usage correct if it doesn't appear in a dictionary? (And no, I don't count Urban Dictionary. Or Roger's Profanisaurus.)

That really comes down to what "correct" means. Let's look in a dictionary!

Hello subs and pedants. The other half likes to tell me off for saying "play guitar", which he says is nasty US-speak for "play THE guitar". But on the ILM TOTP thread, what do I find? Why, it's the Times -- oh, sorry, The Times, but it's our very own Britisher Times -- with

Last month Noel Gallagher, of Oasis, advocated a revival of the chart programme, a show on which he once switched roles with his brother Liam - miming the singer's words to Roll With It while Liam pretended to play guitar.

Should heads roll at the Times? Does this entitle me to claim victory in a recurring petty squabble? Does anybody else care? And what do the Americans have to do with it anyway?

Last night I played a little air guitar after I loaded dishwasher.

Busy evening. I hope you didn't eat soup or play chess as well.

(Yeah, I'm not sure these are exact parallels either, but there's clearly some kind of older precedent at work which may or may not be relevant. I don't mind if I'm wrong, but claims like "nobody ever said that before AMERICANS started to", even though they may well be right, make my knee jerk towards the internet in the hope of British pre-war citations)

I didn't eat soup but I shot dove.

Sadly, my gun backfired and I was taken to the hospital.

After Deadline examines questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times.

It is adapted from a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the deputy news editor who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual. The goal is not to chastise, but to point out recurring problems and suggest solutions.

Since most writers are likely to encounter similar troubles, we think these observations might interest general readers, too.

This isn't quite a pet peeve so much as something I've been noticing a lot lately, something I find abandoned even by the more careful writers I admire: the loss of the conditional tense (though I find this explained as "the subjunctive mood" online):

"If I were a rich man" should not be "if I was a rich man."
"If he were going to do that" should not be "if he was going to do that"

This is one of those grammar truths that seems self-evident to me, and I don't mind the lapse in slang or conversation, but do mind it in otherwise formal writing.

There's no such thing as the conditional tense; what you're talking about is, and always has been, the subjunctive mood. But yeh, I agree wholeheartedly.

Bizarrely, I was just talking about the subjunctive on the 44 bus home. As you do. (And no, not to myself, in a ranting style.)

Track listing
All songs written by John Mellencamp, except where noted.

"Crumblin' Down" (George Green, Mellencamp) – 3:33
"Pink Houses" – 4:43
"Authority Song" – 3:49
"Warmer Place to Sleep" (Green, Mellencamp) – 3:48
"Jackie O" (Mellencamp, John Prine) – 3:04
"Play Guitar" (Larry Crane, Mellencamp, Dan Ross) – 3:25
"Serious Business" – 3:25
"Lovin' Mother fo Ya" (Will Cary, Mellencamp) – 3:06
"Golden Gates" – 4:04
"Pink Houses" (acoustic version, 2005 re-issue bonus track) – 3:47

Lovin' Mother fo Ya

An apostrophe after Lovin' but not fo'? Fo' shame.

This is one of those grammar truths that seems self-evident to me, and I don't mind the lapse in slang or conversation, but do mind it in otherwise formal writing.

In what way is it self-evident? Without wanting to sound too much like a stuck record, the use of 'was' in the second conditional is gradually taking over from the use of 'were'. It's not a 'lapse', just another example of slowly changing language. There was probably a thread on here about 400 years ago bemoaning the use of 'you' when the correct word was 'thou'.

Had no idea John Prine co-wrote Jackie O. Such a great record.

I think "play guitar" is a more conceptual act than actually playing an instrument. You can play guitar on a tennis racket.

"There's no such thing as the conditional tense"

in English

"just another example of slowly changing language"

But couldn't you say that about every common error? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that that's no argument. To my eyes, the grammar here serves clarity, and the error is really jarring to me. And I'm only 39, and not exactly speaking the king's English.

Or wedded to it in everyday life, I mean, though when other teachers ask me how I'm doing, I do say "well" rather than "good."

But sometimes I say, "I'm good." Anyway, not all changes in the language are a.) instantly universal and b.) good.

in English

Oh, I'm sorry; should we be appending that to every single post we make here, then? ;)

Conditional tense - don't we have that in French?

J'aurais = I would have.

Certainly Scholtes examples above are subjunctive mood rather than cond. tense.

Being too young to have done Latin at school, my entire understanding of much of the English languages (particularly tenses) comes from having studied French. If we don't call it the conditional tense in English, what do we refer to it as? And what the hell is a case? Ablative, Indicative... etc.

Conditional tense - don't we have that in French?

Er, yes, I think that's the point Pete was making when he posted "in English", and the point I was agreeing with, albeit snarkily, when I posted in English.

Obviously, these constructions have equivalents in English, but they're not as clearly defined grammatically. I could knock together a basic table of case-equivalents in English but it would be pointless: we usually use prepositions rather than morphed endings (usual caveats apply, esp wrt genitive).

I guess the same is true of "conditional tense" -- ie it exists but isn't grammatically formalised -- although I am now wondering: what terminology would, say, a teacher in France use to explain to a class of 16-year-olds the structure "I would have [done] ..." in English? Hmm.

In English language teaching for non-English speakers, they are usually referred to as the 1st conditional (If + present tense for possible condition, will + verb for outcome), 2nd conditional (If + past tense for hypothetical condition, would + verb for hypothetical outcome) etc.

There's a third (for hypothesising about the past) and 0 conditional (for laws, or general conditions) and so on, too.

Of course, you can use other words than If, and other modals than will/would, but it's still a bit inadequate, really.

However, just describing the condition clause as subjunctive in the case of the second and third conditionals and then the result clause just following the normal rules for modals, while more accurate, and more flexible, is a bit hard for learners to get their heads round, and misses the very common relationships between the patterns in the two clauses. Also, because the subjunctive is so rare and poorly understood in English anyway, it's not that useful a concept (although it's much more common in US English).

"I would have written a slightly different post if I hadn't xposted with Grimly" is a third conditional, in ELT jargon.

Coo ur and indeed gosh: I have learned something new and interesting already. Thank you, Jamie.

Teaching English to furrners for five years then editing grammar books for three helps you get such things straight, but it's also very frustrating, as much of the grammar in standard ELT books is simply wrong, hence my passion for descriptive grammar.

"much of the grammar in standard ELT books is simply wrong,"

Wow.

It's not a 'lapse', just another example of slowly changing language.

You say this as if language is an animal with its own agenda, which is a pretty poor position for a descriptivist to be in. Language changes because we use it differently, teach it differently, and hand it down differently; if someone happens to be invested in the language's clarity and flexibility, it's perfectly natural for them to take a stance on the way we use it. This is why we do things like teach small children grammar, rather than putting it down to language changing and accepting that "Mikey want ball" is just how we talk now. Similarly, we don't just say "the government is changing" -- we're aware that it's the sum of all our actions and votes, and we do things like arguing about the best direction to go in or volunteering behind the positions we hold!

HAHAHA as if language WERE an animal etc.

The Australian drinks company is correctly spelt "Foster's". So would their MD be "Foster's MD", "Fosters' MD" or "Foster's' MD"?

"The MD of Foster's"?

^ Yeh. Recasting the sentence is your only hope here.

Depending on context, you should be able to use "Foster's MD", in the same way you can say "BBC chief" or "Arsenal boss".

The full context was "Foster's MD for Australia", which was why I was awkward about using it in that context.

Chevron Ultra for driving satisfaction

Depending on context, you should be able to use "Foster's MD", in the same way you can say "BBC chief" or "Arsenal boss"

But it's not quite the same way, is it? The apostrophe confuses things -- even if just slightly; even if just for a second. Avoiding that is a more elegant solution ...

The full context was "Foster's MD for Australia", which was why I was awkward about using it in that context

... and in this case is pretty much U&K.

I hate collective nouns... does "evidence" ALWAYS take a singular verb, as with "suggests"? How about "The strongest evidence confirms flaxseed's benefits"?

I've never seen or heard 'evidence' used with a plural verb. It's uncountable. If you wanted to use a plural for some reason you'd have to say something like "these two pieces of evidence..."

The name "Foster's" comes with an object, whether it's implicit or explicit -- "Foster's beer" or "Foster's Brewing Company" or "Foster's Beverage Intl. Ltd." -- so I think it'd be correct to say "Foster's MD," which is merely substituting one object for another.

(NBS k-correct concerning evidence)

Okay, please please excuse me if these questions seem reeeeaally stupid or have been dealt with a zillion times before. My excuse is that I am in Spain trying to learn Spanish and at the same time I'm having to give hours and hours and hours of English classes in which my use of English is constantly questioned. I can barely write my own name, never mind give precise answers to grammar queries.

Anyway:

1) Got/gotten. I was trying to teach some adults about the subtle differences between should/would/could. One of my example sentences was "He would have got better marks if he'd studied." I said this totally off the cuff and my boss (who has spent maaaany years in the US and is pretty much bilingual) immediately said "no no no no wrong wrong wrong it's GOTTEN!". Felt like so much of an idiot I just shrugged and told everyone she was probably right. As you do. And now I look at my example sentence it does seem duff.

2) "On Saturday, people go to visit their families." Families rather than family, right?

3) 'to look for' is NOT the same as 'to see'. On this one I know I'm right. Stupid fricken shoddy grammar stupid book. It's like the education authority have bought it just to TEST us/we language assistants, to see if we NOTICE the mistakes and, if so, do we have the knackers to MENTION them?

I'm surrounded by odd English use at the moment (eg a language school has paid lots of money to advertise its services on the Madrid Metro. It does so with a sign that asks the potential customer if he or she is "BLOCKED WITH ENGLISH?"). I'm finding it harder and harder to discern between right/wrong/authentic/inauthentic/interesting/gibberish language use. al;sdjfoaiwenclsndlaksndcmnxfgkjwekjandfnaslwieih

Thanks for listening.

1) This is basically a US/UK split. "Got" is fine in the UK, but Americans prefer "gotten."

To my knowledge, it should ALWAYS be "has/have/had gotten", ie: "He got a C+ on the test. He has gotten better better grades in the past. Had he gotten an A, his parents would have bought him a car."

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0144.html

And yes, "families" -- multiple "people" have multiple "families," unless they're all related.

Thank you!

I will one day repay the favour by explaining to you the far-too-subtle difference between "estaba hablando" and "hablaba". That's if I can find a native Spanish speaker to explain it to me first...

Your point about "to look for" and "to see" reminded me that Spanish has a verb for "look for" (buscar) that's separate from "look" (mirar) or "see" (ver).

Is there any language that doesn't?

I don't know any others.

I just remember having to keep that in mind in high-school Spanish.

Yeah, sorry, I'm just thinking this through -- I'd assume most languages have a separate non-visual verb like "search" or "seek." But I suppose there's still space in between for things that mean "search for with your eyes."