I was thinking of it more in terms of “last” and “almost last” being analogous to “couldn’t care less” (cares not a whit) and “could care less” (cares at least a bit, or perhaps almost doesn’t care.) Given the context in which these words/phrases are generally used – expressing something in the utmost – the misused phrases end up not expressing the utmost.
Just because something has been in use for a long time doesn’t make it right. “Try and” makes no sense whether it’s been in use for 5 years or 500 years.
Hey, guess what? There’s a whole class of such phrases. They’re called idioms.
Um, yeah, it does at least in the case of language.
Can’t get behind you on this one. “Would of” is not an idiom, it’s an orthographical error. Writing does not enjoy the same protections as spoken language. It’s a tool used to represent speech, and in this case it is not doing so.
It makes no sense if you misanalyze it. So don’t misanalyze it. You seem to be hung up over the way the word “and” is used in that phrase, which does not seem to you appropriately in line with other uses of the word “and”. But it is, after all, not only possible but even common that a word is sometimes used in one way, and at other times used in another way. So don’t worry too much about such duplicity. Analyze the phrase as doing what it actually does (i.e., look at what speakers actually use it to do, the same way as one figures out what any word, phrase, or other linguistic device does), not what some misguided sense of logical consistency tells you it must do.
For example, let’s look at some other similarly idiomatic phrases. Just for fun, let’s even look particularly at some phrases ending in “to”, in order to strengthen my point that this sort of thing is hardly particular to the decried usage “try and”:
“I don’t live in New Jersey anymore, but I used to”.
(What the hell? “Used to” makes no sense! What did you use? How did you use it? What did you use it for?)
“It’s not that I think Indian food is objectively bad. It’s just not something I’m used to.”
(Whoa, another, entirely different way in which “used to” is utter nonsense!)
“I don’t want to eat my veggies, but Mom says I have to”.
(But, “have to” is meaningless gibberish! You have something? And you have it in a particular direction? Huh?)
“I’ve got to stay awake for another five hours.”
(Aargh! “I’ve got to”? I can’t make any literal sense of this! It doesn’t look like I got anything, except sleep-deprivation…)
But actually, of course, all these phrases are perfectly legitimate and meaningful, just as “try and” is perfectly legitimate and meaningful. They just don’t decompose as compositionally as one might demand. But that’s ok; it was a silly demand, and if you really stuck to it, you’d just spin in angry circles going nowhere.
Good work! It’s excellent fun to see the half-educated morons pushing prescriptivism getting some of their own medicine.
Oh and guess what idiots … “I’m no prescriptivist but X is just wrong” is totally moronic. At least own your prescriptivism about X.
If you want to learn something, take some philosophy of language. In particular, learn about how meaning supervenes on use.
pdts
How do you think idioms usually evolve? By error, that’s how.
I believe the “try and” issue is merely a punctuation error, depending on the balance of the sentence.
“I’ll try, and see if it works.”
I’ll try (comma representing pause) and…
I don’t believe that is a tenable analysis. For one thing, in speech, the pause you refer to is usually not actually employed with this construction. The cadence of “try and” is exactly the same as that of “try to”.
The phrase makes perfect sense. You know exactly what it means.
These rules are determined by careful observation and study. They were not handed out by Moses on a stone tablet. So, yes, if a phrase has been in use in the English language for 500 years, then it is obviously a part of the English language. That is so entirely self-evident that it shouldn’t even have to be pointed out.
Yeah, but you and I both know that these people just want to judge others on the basis that they speak English differently than they do. They don’t care that it is completely illogical.
You’re not wrong, but I’d refine that point slightly. I think they mostly do care about “logic”. And “precision”, “clarity”, and whatever other unsupported justifications they’re throwing out at any given time. No one walks around thinking “Woohoo! I love being an ignorant jackass!” Even in the worst cases of unconcealed bigotry, as with the “ebonics” bullshit that periodically resurfaces, the linguistic idiocy still comes from people who consider themselves good, tolerant, reasonable, intelligent people. It’s just that they can’t see their own cultural filters. They can’t view the language objectively because they’ve never studied language objectively.
It’s not that they don’t care about being illogical. Rather, they’re mistaking their own prejudices for logic, just as they were taught to do by well-meaning but dreadfully unqualified “English” teachers in school.
The thing is, I’m trying to balance my desire to call other people bad names with the possibility that they just might listen to reason if I don’t get their backs up. That short two paragraph post of mine was after three or four drafts of using language that’s not even allowed in the Pit anymore.* I cut it down to its essence to make the leanest factual point I could. OneChance’s post was, to put it kindly, less than intelligent, but sometimes you have hit the target that’s presented and let the other things slide. I can count at least one prescriptively inclined poster who at least listens to what I have to say now because I stopped getting my hate on when he proved willing to hear me out.
It is entirely true that, more often than not, there are deeply sinister psychological underpinnings for most pushers of prescriptivism. But each situation is different, each argument unique. I don’t got a crystal ball here, or tarot cards or somesuch, that I can use to peer into their souls to prove conclusively that they’re just another bunch of arrogant posers who use their fancy make-believe rules as yet another excuse to look down on others. Maybe one of them out there is different. If their desire for knowledge truly outweighs the giddiness of unjustified superiority they feel when they bitch about dialectical variation, then they’ll listen to facts.
So I’m going to give them a chance and start with those facts. I’ll move on to the posts that might get me banned only after they demonstrate themselves to be unrepentantly attached to their retarded beliefs.
*And what a fucking mess that is.
I don’t know any idioms that evolved through orthographical error. To my knowledge, the closest thing we’ve got to that is eggcorns like “free reign”, where the mistake doesn’t really create a new idiom with a new meaning. It’s said the same way and conveys the same meaning; it’s just a writing mistake based on an accidental pun, an almost clever etymological misanalysis that happens on the fly as a writer searches for the correct little squiggly symbols to express an idea that exists clearly and unambiguously in their heads. The result is technically wrong, at least at first, but the mistake is almost admirable in its attempt to anchor onto established forms.
“Would of” doesn’t even have that sort of faux-pun going for it. It’s just a spelling mistake, a small sort of illiteracy that has just about zero chance of ever establishing itself as a standard variation.
It’s not a bug up my ass, but it’s also not the sort of empty complaint that seems to predominate in these sorts of threads.
It’s not so much a spelling mistake as a hearing mistake. Would’ve, when spoken, sounds exactly like would of.
Which is why it’s a spelling mistake. I mean, they’re not mishearing the word because there’s nothing to mishear. No need for an ear piece, because it’s not their ear that’s malfunctioning. They understand the construction perfectly, and they replicate it just fine in their own speech.
It’s when their minds seek out a written representation of the word that things go wrong.