Cato's Grammar Grumble

[zamyrabyrd]

...the "slangy" phrase of "what went down here" is not the first time I have heard '70's slang - and "cops" - used on television news.

Do innovations in language, as in science, "start as heresies but end up as dogmas"?

[Cato]

Do innovations in language, as in science, "start as heresies but end up as dogmas"?

Not in this case!     It's still '70's slang! 0:)

[Ken B]

Not in this case!     It's still '70's slang! 0:)

Can you dig it? To the max, man. Like, right on.

Catch you on the flip-side Cato!

[Cato]

Can you dig it? To the max, man. Like, right on.

Catch you on the flip-side Cato!

I can dig it dude, I ain't no jive turkey! 0:)

Peace out, 10-4, good buddy!

[Karl Henning]

Peace out, 10-4, good buddy!

"The bold and intelligent Masters of the Road with their secret language . . . ."

http://www.youtube.com/v/KiCW00seugk

[Cato]

For your consideration from The Guardian in an article on the latest dream research: anything wrong here or there? 0:)

...Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Siclari and colleagues from the US, Switzerland and Italy, reveal how they carried out a series of experiments involving 46 participants, each of whom had their brain activity recorded while they slept by electroencephalogram (EEG) – a noninvasive technique that involved placing up to 256 electrodes on the scalp and face to monitor the number and size of brainwaves of different speeds.

While the experiments probed different aspects of the puzzle, all involved participants being woken at various points throughout the night and asked to report whether they had been dreaming.

One of them I am willing to ignore! 

See:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/10/scientists-identify-parts-of-brain-involved-in-dreaming

[Cato]

So...this morning my wife was listening to a certain radio station, which has very nice traffic news, but which also too often plays "songs" with some boozy off-key chanteuse whose tendency to shout, chant, and occasionally gargle is highly grating.

Today this boom-shaka-laka-clabberer was wheezing about something that ended up...

"...under a breeedge."   This prepositional phrase was repeated again and again in that dull-minded way that supposedly makes Top 40 songs so endearing.

I have never heard "bridge" pronounced "breeedge."  Maybe it is some sort of poetic license, but if so, I would revoke their license.

And...

We have a new entry in the "different from" (Correct) vs. "different than" (INCORRECT) debate, and yes, I know that German uses "anders als" (different than). 

A T.V. commercial about a local 2-year college has a woman enthusing that the school is "different to other colleges."           

Given that an institution of "higher learning" did not notice such an anomaly in their own advertisement tells us something unpleasant about said institution of "higher learning."

Or did they think it was one of those endearing expressions that will seem attractive to the dull-minded?

[kishnevi]

I know which song you are referring to.   Her voice is a very jagged little pill to swallow.
My ears insist she's singing "under the breach"

[Cato]

So, on television my wife likes to catch the news in the morning to check on the latest Autogeddon  on the unfreeways.

An "infomercial" was concluding, and a very earnest and very Botoxed 50-something blonde pushing a miracle cream says:

"I have one more ask: pick up your phone...."

No, she did not say "task," for the "ask" was quite clear, and "task" would not seem to make sense with "pick up your phone..."

Has anyone ever heard "ask" used as a noun, as a replacement for "request" or "favor" ?

[Karl Henning]

Definitely a current buzzword in corporatespeak.

[Cato]

Definitely a current buzzword in corporatespeak.

Oy!  So let's use a 3-letter monosyllable rather than the multi-lettered bi-syllabic "request" or "favor" in an effort to do...what?!  Sound like a foreigner?

In the infomercial the word was used as a synonym for "request," but is it also being used in "corporatespeak" as "question" ?

I can see a 40-something boss leaning back in his chair and saying: "Hey Sam!  I got an ask for ya!" 

[Ken B]

Oy!  So let's use a 3-letter monosyllable rather than the multi-lettered bi-syllabic "request" or "favor" in an effort to do...what?!  Sound like a foreigner?

In the infomercial the word was used as a synonym for "request," but is it also being used in "corporatespeak" as "question" ?

I can see a 40-something boss leaning back in his chair and saying: "Hey Sam!  I got an ask for ya!" 

I've got a thank for you on this. And a like.

[Ghost Sonata]

For more on this peculiar phenomenon which gets on my pecs, too : https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/

[Cato]

For more on this peculiar phenomenon which gets on my pecs, too : https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/

Many thanks for the link!

I've got a thank for you on this. And a like.

 

[zamyrabyrd]

For more on this peculiar phenomenon which gets on my pecs, too : https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/30/those-irritating-verbs-as-nouns/

From the article, it seems like "ask" as a noun is already official.
However, I never came across it used that way, just found "ask" useful in place of as* (not a donkey).

There are other reasons for favoring nominalizations. They can have a distancing effect. "What is the ask?" is less personal than "What are they asking?" This form of words may improve our chances of eliciting a more objective response. It can also turn something amorphous into a discrete conceptual unit, of a kind that is easier to grasp or sounds more specific. Whatever I think of "what is the ask?" it focuses me on what's at stake...
"Ask" has been used as a noun for a thousand years* — though the way we most often encounter it today, with a modifier ("a big ask"), is a 1980s development.

* I find this hard to believe. ZB

[Karl Henning]

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ask.

[kishnevi]

Better they give you an ask than an asp.

[zamyrabyrd]

Oy!  So let's use a 3-letter monosyllable rather than the multi-lettered bi-syllabic "request" or "favor" in an effort to do...what?!  Sound like a foreigner?
In the infomercial the word was used as a synonym for "request," but is it also being used in "corporatespeak" as "question" ? I can see a 40-something boss leaning back in his chair and saying: "Hey Sam!  I got an ask for ya!" 

I just looked up "ask" in the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995) and found only 7 verb references.

[zamyrabyrd]

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ask.

"Ask and you shall receive."

[zamyrabyrd]

Better they give you an ask than an asp.

I like to keep them guessing as to the final letter...