# More nitpicking: Tycho's nose
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [April 17, 2001, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217 "2001-04-17T00:08:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2001, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/1 "2001-04-17T00:08:11Z")
In the [Tycho](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980717a.html) thread, Cecil writes “Attending a dance at a professor’s house, he got into a quarrel with one Manderup Parsbjerg, like himself a member of the Danish gentry.” Seems to me that’s a rather abrupt shift in antecedent. “He” and and “himself” I assume refer to Tycho, while “a member of the Danish gentry” to Manderup Parsbjerg. But it took a while for me to digest that sentence. It’s not too important, but I thought I’d point it out as something to watch out for.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [April 17, 2001, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/2 "2001-04-17T12:14:31Z")
_Vis-a-vis_ your thread title, seems to me that there’s a rather abrupt shift in antecedent between “picking” and “nose”. 😃
Just something to watch out for…
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [April 18, 2001, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/3 "2001-04-18T22:45:13Z")
I wish Messrs. Strunk and White were here to help me. I’m not the best grammarian, and I get confused easily, but when I read the sentence in the Straight Dope column I didn’t have any problems understanding it. And no, I’m not saying this in an excessive display of Cecilophantic behaviour. Are you sure the sentence is grammatically incorrect?
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### Author:  [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2001, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/4 "2001-04-20T03:09:10Z")
I’m guessing we wouldn’t have a problem with “Attending a dance at a professor’s house, he got into a quarrel with Manderup Parsbjerg, a member of the Danish gentry.” How else would you indicate that Tycho was also a member of the Danish gentry?
Which buggers the question, was Tycho’s nose a member of the Danish gentry?
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### Author:  [@Sparteye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparteye)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2001, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/5 "2001-04-20T13:59:24Z")
I, too, was unpuzzled by the sentence as written, but I asked the erudite folks of A Word A Day what they thought. The small number responding thus far agree that the sentece was understandable and needed no editing.
Here’s my first attempt at a hyperlink on this site:
[[http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=25018](http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=25018)"]wordsmith]( [url)
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### Author:  [@Sparteye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparteye)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2001, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/6 "2001-04-20T17:04:43Z")
OK, I’ll try again.
If I get it wrong this time, I’ll be _really_ embarrassed.
[wordsmith](http://wordsmith.org/board/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=25018)
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### Author:  [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2001, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/7 "2001-04-20T23:32:46Z")
I never claimed that it was grammatically incorrect, only that it is needlessly difficult to understand. RM Mentock’s replacement would be fine, as would “Attending a dance at a professor’s house, Tycho got into a quarrel with Manderup Parsbjerg, like Tycho a member of the Danish gentry”. As for the responses at wordsmith:
> [@](#):
>
> I had no difficulty understanding the sentence. It seems to me that there is an ellipsis “…Manderup Parsbjerg, who was, like himself, a member of the Danish gentry.”
Exactly. There **is** an implied ellipsis. And if one puts the implied ellipsis in, it makes the sentence make even **less** sense. Parsbjerg was, like himself, a member of the Danish gentry? Putting in the implied “who was” only strenthens the impression that “himself” refers to Parsbjerg.
> [@](#):
>
> It’s completely unambiguous.
Simply because it is possible, by process of elimination, to determine what it **should** mean, does not mean that it is “completely unambiguous”. Furthermore, the fact that we must engage in such advanced analysis is indicative, at least to me, of an imperfection in the phrasing.
> [@](#):
>
> No, it refers to both of them, obviously. Why does the commentator have to decide who it belongs to? “B like A is X” means unambiguously that both A and B are X.
No, it refers to only one. Simply because something can be determined to apply to something else, that does not mean that, grammatically speaking, it refers to that something else. For instance, is the sentence “Austin are in Texas” grammatically correct? No, because although phrase “in Texas” can be logically extended to all the residents of Austin (which would justify the plural verb), only Austin is being referred to, so it should take a singular verb. Similarly, although one can logically extend the property of being a member of the Danish gentry to Tycho, the fact remains that as the sentence is written, the phrase “a member of the Danish gentry” does **not** refer to Tycho.
Furthermore, I would like to note that while I have attempted to keep my observations regarding Cecil’s word use as polite as possible, I do not observe the same on the part of all respondents. Such questions as “Or is the sentence fine and the critic the problem?” and what strikes me as a quite sarcastic tone in Arnold Winkelried’s post imply that there is a reluctance to discuss word use in a mature manner.
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### Author:  [@Yue\_Han](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yue_Han)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2001, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/8 "2001-04-21T14:53:40Z")
The Ryan, no one is being immature. This sentence is not ambiguous to the majority of people who have posted here. Someone who disagrees with you is not by definition immature.
And it _is_ true that the statement, [noun A], like [noun b], is [class A]
Arnold, like The Ryan, is a poster on the SDMB.
Austin, like Dallas, is a city in Texas.
The Ryan knows that Arnold, like himself, is a poster on the SDMB.
See, Arnold is not going to be like his own self. That’s gibberish. There are only two people in the sentence. You could call this unnecessary trial error, but, well, you’d be wrong. That sort of simple logical work is a normal part of reading and most people manage to parse most sentence subconsciously. This sentence gave you trouble. That doesn’t mean it should be changed; no one else seems to have had a problem.
–John
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### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [April 21, 2001, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/9 "2001-04-21T15:39:43Z")
The Ryan, let me add that while I make no aspersions to great levels of maturity, and making sarcastic remarks is one of my habits, in my post above I was not attempting to deride you or your post. Actually, re-reading what I said, I’m not sure what could have given you that impression. But this would probably not be the place to discuss it, in any case.
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2001, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/10 "2001-04-25T22:25:49Z")
Okay, who wants to diagram that sentence? And how does one diagram a sentence around here? 😉
For the record, I had no trouble understanding the sentence, however, I see The Ryan’s point. I probably would not have chosen that wording at all. Rather, I would have said “…Manderup Parsbjerg, who was also a member of the Danish gentry,” or perhaps the simpler “…Manderup Parsbjerg, also a member of the Danish gentry.” The “like himself” is a bit awkward in my opinion. I won’t go so far as to say it is incorrect (I’m not certain on that), but I have an aesthetic sense that it would be better rephrased.
Yue Han, your example does not seem a direct parallel in structure to the one The Ryan quotes. Your sentence is a subject - verb - direct object, with the DO being a noun clause.
```auto
Subject: The Ryan
verb (transitive): knows
direct object: (noun clause)
conjunction: that
subject: Arnold
verb (intransitive): is
indirect object: a poster on the SDMB.
inserted referent: like himself
Whereas the original (deleting extraneous beginning clause)
subject: he [Tycho]
verb (transitive): got
direct object: (prepositional phrase)
preposition: into
object: a quarrel
modifying additions:
prep phrase: with one Manderup Parsbjerg
modifyer: like himself a member of the Danish gentry.
```
Okay, I’m fuzzy around the edges. Back in high school I could do this with ease, but confound it, I’ve forgotten some of the elaborations. My point is that your example is not a direct corrollary to the original, so it is not a good rebuttal to The Ryan’s complaint. Just because it is correct in your sentence does not make it correct in the original.
Attempt at example (I suck at making up sentences on the spot) “Bob ran into the room with Herman Munster, like himself a scaredy cat.”
It seems to me to be a sentence with too many buried layers.
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### Author:  [@RM\_Mentock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RM_Mentock)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2001, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/11 "2001-04-26T10:48:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Irishman \*
> \*\*It seems to me to be a sentence with too many buried layers. \*\*
That’s what Cecil does. Sublime.
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### Author:  [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/12 "2001-04-29T03:50:11Z")
Can someone as Bj0rn to come clarify this?
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### Author:  [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2001, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/13 "2001-05-03T22:23:09Z")
Previously I expressed a preference for a different wording, using “also” in place of “as himself”. Subsequent consideration by myself has led me to believe that “as himself” is, in fact, a correct wording, and linguistically the two wordings are interchangable. However, I still prefer “also”.
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### Author:  [@The\_Ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Ryan)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2001, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-nitpicking-tychos-nose/62217/14 "2001-05-04T18:44:39Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Yue Han \*
> The Ryan, no one is being immature. This sentence is not ambiguous to the majority of people who have posted here. Someone who disagrees with you is not by definition immature.
Attacking strong men is rarely an effective method of convincing others of one’s maturity. And while I am quite willing to believe that I misintepreted Arnold’s tone, I can not see “Or is the sentence fine and the critic the problem?” as anything but evidence of a diffuculty criticising a person’s ideas without criticising the person.
(edited to fix vB code)
[Edited by Arnold Winkelried on 05-04-2001 at 06:04 PM]