The English Language Thread

Discussion in 'Word Mechanics' started by Cacian, Nov 15, 2011.

  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I'm confused as to what you're saying here. Yes, a car can be a Chevrolet or a Ford. A vegetable can be a carrot or a potato. A fish can be a carp or a trout. A piece of music can be a symphony or a concerto. But none of those affect how you pluralize the words.

    English is full of strange exceptions; trying to find a patterns for them is generally futile. Deer is the plural of deer because it is. Dogs is the plural of dog because it is. Geese is the plural of goose because it is. They just are what they are, and that's why English is so hard to learn.

    ChickenFreak
     
  2. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    Hi ChickenFreak I meant the word CHEVROLET or FORD are PROPER nouns like John and Mary or London and Geneva.
    a carrot ,a potato, are just nouns.
     
  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Not really. Chevrolet, the _corporation_, may be a proper noun in that sense. So you might use it in a sentence like:

    Chevrolet announced quarterly earnings today, and warned of possible layoffs in the coming quarter.​

    But not when referring to an car, as in the sentence:

    Today I washed a Chevrolet, a Ford, and a Porsche.​

    You would still say:

    Today I washed three cars.​

    NOT

    Today I washed three car.​

    Edited to add:

    For that matter, you would still say:

    Today, three corporations announced quarterly earnings.​

    Even though those three corporations can be expressed by the proper nouns Chevrole, Ford, and Porsche.

    And for that matter, each of the following is correct:

    John, Mary, and Sue are in the lobby.

    Three people are in the lobby.

    Three persons are in the lobby.​

    ChickenFreak
     
  4. Prophetsnake

    Prophetsnake New Member

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    A lot of Indo-European languages have declensions. Modern German has them as well as irish, for example. Ye Olde Englishey had them as well, drug over from its German origins.
     
  5. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    how do you mean drug over from its German roots?
    couldn't German derived from English instead?
     
  6. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    it is a funny word DECLENSION because to decline usually means deny or refuse.
    but in grammar term it means it fits around some ''descritiptions'' like all words decline to the plural.
    or somw words decline/change completely as in HE and HIM change according to this example

    He saw it .
    but
    it saw him howeve it saw him means nothing because it does not make sense.
     
  7. mammamaia

    mammamaia nit-picker-in-chief Contributor

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    fyi, 'fish' is a collective noun, used both in the singular and plural... 'fishes' used for the plural of the noun 'fish' is archaic and not in common use today...
     
  8. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    Who knows what could have happened? The fact is that's not what happened. People from (what is now) Germany came to England (some came via what is now Denmark) and almost completely displaced the existing languages here (various forms of Celtic).
     
  9. Prophetsnake

    Prophetsnake New Member

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    Well on;y if you give birth to your own parents in your universe.
    English hasn't existed more than about a thousand years or so, the Germanic languages (not modern German, but Jutish, Old low Norse and the like) predate it by a significant amount. English is one of Europe's newer languages, depending on how you define the starting point for a language. Italian, for example, can be said to be a develpment of Latin, but when the italian language itself was'born' is definitely a 'how long is a piece of string?" question.
     
  10. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    well it is all relative if you prepared to believe what is written in histories and not question what is being taught and given to you.
    german is less richer then English and has less in syntax to it then English
    look at the word

    GER MAN fi you split the word it has MAN in there which is an English word.
    German in German is DEUTSCH...if you split the word it has DEU which is French for TWO then SCH that could easily be a word for SCHOOL again an English word.
    so by order of logic it leads me to believe German is English derivative.
     
  11. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    how can is that three genders?

    what do you mean by tonal?
     
  12. Prophetsnake

    Prophetsnake New Member

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    Well, anything is possible in a parallel universe. The word Deutsch is not derived from anything French. If I remember rightloy it means something like "Common language" in the ancient language.
    The word "German" is celtic in origin and again, if I remember rightly it actually means ( and I am not being funny here) "Those greedy bastards who keep coming and stealing our land" Which they have excelled at over the last few thousand years, even when they have have repackaged themselves in other lands.
     
  13. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    Or it can be a sedan, a 4x4, a convertible, a hatchback...
    English has "peoples", too. And "teas" and "breads". It's a whole class of words for which the plural indicates multiple types and the singular needs a classifier to indicate multiple instances. There are lots of irregularities in English, but neither "car" nor "people" is irregular; they just belong to different, entirely regular, classes.
    That's a mistaken analogy. "People" already refers to more than one person. "Vegetable" only refers to one carrot, one parsnip, one leek, etc.
    Very similar, although the latter idiom should just be "dressed to kill" -- no "up". I'd say that although either can be used in a positive sense (that you appreciate the effort somebody has put into dressing well) the former can also be used in a slightly disparaging sense (they haven't pulled it off, or it's over the top for the occasion.
    And why wouldn't there be if there's more than one of them? But it's an idiom, the origin of which has been lost, so it doesn't bear any grammatical analysis.
     
  14. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    Now I'm convinced you are trolling. In case you are not, I suggest you get any book on the history of English out of the library and find out why linguists trace the roots of English to German. It's based on more that the coincidence of some syllables in both languages, which has about as much merit as the (spoof) argument I once heard for continental drift based on the similarity in sound between Amsterdam and 'ampstead 'eath (mock Cockney pronunciation of Hampstead Heath in London).
     
  15. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    Not true of British English. The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary is based on corpus studies of contemporary British English and shows both as being in normal use.
     
  16. Prophetsnake

    Prophetsnake New Member

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    Oops,I made a small error there. German means "Those noisy bastards who keep coming over and stealing our land.

    Peoples are often named by their neighbours rather than themselves. "Scot" for example is a an old Roman term. Quite a few countries have been named by their neighbors or by empires to distinguish them much as in the same way surnames came about.
     
  17. minstrel

    minstrel Leader of the Insquirrelgency Supporter Contributor

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    Re: fishes.

    I might say, "I caught six fish today." This could mean six fish of the same species.

    Or, I could say, "In my marine biology class, I studied the fishes of the sea." This would probably mean the various different species of fish.
     
  18. leafmould

    leafmould New Member

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    How about:

    Many people think 1989 was in interesting year, because it saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.....
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    My suspension of disbelief is also being strained here, with the "deutsch" thing. If you're going to entirely ignore all academic sources based on an incorrect derivation of a word, a derivation that is based on an incorrect application of information from academic sources...

    OK, my head has exploded. I'll be back when I reassemble it.
     
  20. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    yes but isn't that a figure of speech because it leads me think about a grammar point which I wish to bring up see below.


    a deutsch thing is just a way of exploring words to get to their bottom line
    the way I put it is that you have to remember that people/academic sources/ have gathered a word or a definition or anyhting.
    now if I want to go further with it because I wish to debate it or research further, then I would rely on linguistics for example.
    I will look at a wrod say in the way they are formated.
    that is the only way for me because that is the only option left for me.
    'it takes two to tango' meaning one person/academic or whatever decided to spell Deutsch this way.
    to make up a spelling of a word you have to have a language that you speak or you know of.
    you can't make up a spelling in a different language you do not know because that would be called insanity.
    I have looked at the word and decided that the first letters DEU is French for the number 2 and SCH is a term or a beginning of a word liek School. You cannot deny that because it is there.
    so my assumption is that the person who spelt this word speaks French and English.
    It is just a theory.
    you are entitled to ignore or just accept it or just don't.:p
     
  21. digitig

    digitig Contributor Contributor

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    If it's like German, the three genders are masculine, feminine and neuter. English has those too, of course, but whereas in English you can just use the gender of the thing itself (people might refer to a car or a ship as "she", but it you use "it" you're not wrong), in German there's no such correspondence and it's purely a linguistic distinction. For example, Mädchen (girl) is neuter.
    The meaning (not just the connotations) of a word change fundamentally with the inflexion with which it is spoken. Look up "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den", which is a Chinese poem in which every syllable is pronounced "shi" with different inflexions.
     
  22. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    Passive Versus Active in writing

    I am writing this passage and I am wondering which way to put it best.

    ''they sat down to talk about their current affairs. The press firm, The News of The Day, where they worked, was on standby, and awaiting their go ahead as everything depended on their final decisions.
    Few minutes lapsed, and after a heated debate, Orin and Genive left the room and Vadel was left alone.
    ''

    which is better?

    ''Orin and Genive stood up and left Vadel alone.'' and here we know that they have left the room.

    Or

    ''Orin and Genive stood up to leave the room and Vadel was left alone''
     
  23. Prophetsnake

    Prophetsnake New Member

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    Here is a new word for you, then. Etymology.
    when you want to find out what a word's origins are, google the word and etymology together and you will either find the origins of the word or the best guesses available.
     
  24. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    that is why I have always wondered about things being refered as a she or and it.
    but then ''baby'' is refered to as an it as well. Is that correct?
    I have heard people refering to babies as objects like this:

    where is the baby? Oh it is sleeping.
    I am guessing the reason things are refered as a she/he is because we tend to give these objects/things proper names which makes it all the more confusing and so we reach for the He or She .
    the only slight problem I cannot work out is why is all transport is refered to as Feminin?
    can you thing of an object refered as He?
     
  25. Cacian

    Cacian Banned

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    here is a thought
    is the sky's the limit?
    I study linguitics it is my field so I am very happy to research further what others have put before me.
    no harm done.
     

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