Thread: Grammatical Anomaly

It does not matter how I am asking a question or answering a question.
So long as I have my pipe with a nice aromatic, give it a little puff and look quizically skyward before asking or answering, nine times out of ten people will believe what I say. I call It the Einstien factor.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

When you say, "I'm going over Joe's house". What are you really saying?

Don't you know I'm saying Joe owes me $20 from the poker game we had over at Sam's place last weekend and I'm going to make him pay up

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Don't you know I'm saying Joe owes me $20 from the poker game we had over at Sam's place last weekend and I'm going to make him pay up

No, I didn't know any such thing.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

But the question is not "is it Monday, yes or no?" the question remains "is not it Monday? Yes or no"

I know in common parlance it is the same thing, as you describe, but when you break it down to what is actually being said, it is not so clear.

Y'know I wonder how different ESL speakers would see this issue based on their mother tongues. I bet the root of understanding this syntax lies in understanding whichever root language(s?) are responsible for the makeup.

Originally Posted by Navaja

ANOMOLY ???

I didn't even notice. I must be dozing. Maybe I'm wrong all over.

Originally Posted by leadduck

Another example is, "I could care less." This really means,"I do care."

Well, maybe there is something for which "I could care less" (but would be hard pressed to come up with an example). Or "I *could* care less" (under the right circumstances but the present situation is not one of those circumstances). Or there is *theoretically* something else about which I *could* care less, but in actuality there is nothing.

Some variation of the above is pretty much how I hear it, and how I mean it when I occasionally say it.

Some people are pedantic about calling "I could care less" a mistake of the lazy or inattentive, but to be fully pedantic one must take into account the fact that "could" is less emphatic than "do" and leaves room for (and even implies) "don't."

I *could* win the lottery, but ... didn't buy a ticket!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Or how about one of the most famous nonexistent words out there-irregardless. What's with that word? Why do people use it all the time?

"Irregardless" is a word that drives me nuts. Same thing with people saying, "it's a mute point"

Originally Posted by leadduck

The expected response is not the grammatically corrent one. True, most people would answer, "It is Monday, is it not?" with a "Yes" if it were Monday, technically meaning, "True, it is not Monday." But since everyone understands what's meant by it, I would call it an idiom. We have many of these phrase which we all understand and yet they defy grammatical analysis. Another example is, "I could care less." This really means,"I do care."

It's all in the delivery of "I could care less". If you say it with an obviously sarcastic emphasis on "could" it makes sense.

The thing about 'I could care less' is that it's so commonly used that people think it has the same or relatively equal meaning to 'I couldn't care less' and that it's fine, but it's not. It's wrong and so is their interpretation if they're reading it the same.

Which brings me to, 'the thing is is that ...' which people use all the time now and it's wrong too. Nobody ever writes it that way .. yet.

'Orientated' is my personal pet peeve. It's not a word. 'Oriented' is the word, but people are mistakenly building on 'orientate' which lamentably is a word, but with a redundant syllable.

"how come" and "what for" instead of "why" is overused where I live

The word "at" is also overused eg. "Where's it at?"

I humbly submit "agreeance" instead of agreement...

Yes, I know it's a word, but I hate it... I'm using the word HATE

Originally Posted by richmondesi

I humbly submit "agreeance" instead of agreement...

Yes, I know it's a word, but I hate it... I'm using the word HATE

You and I are in agreeance about the agrement.