The rule about question marks is true on both sides of the pond and I reckon always has been, since it’s inherently logical. The period moved inside the quotes (at least in the U.S.) for old typographical reasons which I can’t quite recall. I have heard it’s different in the U.K., but have read books made in Britain and didn’t notice that the periods were outside the quote marks.
This is just desparate maneuvering in an attempt to defend an indefensible prescription. The Pepys quote is from his diary, 1667. The Austen quote is from a personal letter she wrote in 1815. The Shelley quote is from address he gave in 1817. The Faulkner quote is from a work called Sanctuary, published in 1931. The Flannery O’Connor quote is from a personal letter she wrote in 1960.
Again I say, I personally like the distinction between hanged and hung and I observe it in my own usage. But you need to STOP telling people who don’t that they’re wrong. They’re using perfectly good, standard English as it has been used by careful, informed and admired writers for centuries.
Unquoted portions of your response go on to eloquently defend acquiring more flexibility in one’s usage, rather than limiting oneself to the language one’s absorbed by osmosis. Go thou, and do likewise.
When I am in The Americas, it is “gotten” and “sunken;” when I am in the Old World it is “got” and “sunk.” You respect my variant of the language here. I respect your old-fashioned, dusty, arcane variant there. Thanks so much.
I know just what you mean. This morning I phoned the drugstore to renew a scrip’ for my blood pressure dragged. Halfway through the call, the draggedist hanged up on me! I phoned again, and the draggedist yelled something about not being a transvestite. Then he hanged up again!
In this county, we don’t hear “fuckity fuck” often. However, Interstate 69 sweeps through, so “lickety-split” is common.
The last time I was in St. Louis, I went to Sneaked’s to get some beer. It’s plain enough to me.
First, I agree. I hate contemporary Hollywood.
Second, there’s a grammatical error in your post. It should be “the movies they seented over the weekend.” You should use the past tense of ‘seen’ when talking about last weekend, you know.
Perhaps they are talking about movies that they see on a regular basis over weekends; in this case, use of the habitual aspect would be, if not mandatory, at least stylistically preferable: “the movies they be seening over the weekend”.
Right, but it is the previous weekend, so shouldn’t it be "the movies they be seenteding over the weekend’?’
While a natural conclusion to draw, it is nowhere specified that it is the previous weekend being referred to. However, I take your point, though in my dialect, the appropriate phrasing would then be “the movies they be seening over the weekended”.
That’s so meta.
Ouch… speaking of inelegant butchering of language, WTF is the deal with “sick to my stomach”?
I feel sick = I need to barf
I feel ill = I have a general malaise
Sick to my stomach = meaningless bollocks
Lemme help you with that:
I feel sick = I feel ill = I have a general malaise
Sick to my stomach = I have to worship the porcelain god
Bollocks = Meaningless spronch
Dude, you missppelled weekented.
Aw, shit. I knew something was wrong when I couldn’t find “weekended” in the dictionary, but I just assumed it was a decision to not list regular inflections.
And the clothes would have dried more quickly if you had wringed them out first.
It’s just that “hanged” sounds clunky and awkward. As grammatically correct as it is, it feels like hearing someone say, “I drived my car today.”
Exactly. The English language is fluid, there are some rules but the meanings and usages of words are not set in concrete.
My mother’s name is Gay. She is not now nor has ever been homosexual, she was just born in a time when gay meant happy and was a perfectly sensible name for a daughter.
My child’s grandfather was hung/hanged for murder. I always say he was hung because I clearly have no respect for the English language or for him. While hanged may be ‘correct olde English’ there have been bigger more common changes then hung/hanged to the language, even recent years.
‘English’ is the native language of many countries yet it almost needs a translator to translate one accent to the next (just ask my mother…she doesn’t understand Coronation Street!). Just because hanged is CORRECT ENGLISH doesn’t mean hung doesn’t make sense and it does because the meaning is clear.
What about the ever present sentence “I’ll google it”. Those guardians of the English language who are clear that ‘hung’ is not proper English possibly ‘googled’ to check that fact. 'Google" is the perfect example of a language that adaptable to change
Hanged or hung the bugger is still bloody dead!
If I talk about gumboots while you mean wellingtons or galoshes nobody is wrong, we just speak a slightly different version of the same language and the language is always changing.
I’m coming into this thread late, but I didn’t want to let this get buried under the rest of the thread. I think this is an excellent and well thought-out sentiment.
Americans have been misreading (and mispronouncing) chaise longue as chaise lounge for so long it’s actually made it into the dictionary. How sad is that?
I see what you did there.
Thanks for the kind words!
It’s “asked” not “ARSED”!!! Fuckity, fuckity, fuckity, fuck. Fucking morons.
I used *gonna * in one thread a while ago and *kinda * this week. Where should I pay the fines to the language police? Do they take plastic?
Asked? In what way does “I can’t be asked” even vaguely make sense. “I cant be arsed” may not be polite English but it means “I can’t be bothered”.
What on Earth does “I can’t be asked” mean…even in polite terms?