Cato's Grammar Grumble

[DaveF]

If I have a beef with Cato, then I have a beef with Cato. But if I have two of them, why don't I have two beeves with Cato?

You do!: "Ye shall offer at your own will a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats." (Leviticus 22:19, KJV)

Thief - thieves, reef - reefs.     Why is English so messed up?

Not at all; I have a Welsh grammar that lists all the different ways in which Welsh nouns form plurals.  The authors claim there are 7 ways, but with subdivisions I make the final count 13, of which method 13 is "by means other than the above".

[Ken B]

You do!: "Ye shall offer at your own will a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats." (Leviticus 22:19, KJV)

Beeves is indeed the correct plural of beef referring to cattle.  But not beef as in gripe, grudge, complaint.
This is like that year/years thing, with count nouns and mass nouns. Five hundred cows is 500 beeves but 500 head of beef. For some reason the odd "head of beef" has become the standard and beeves fallen into desuetude.

How big is the string section? 30 head of violin, 10 head of viola ...

[Ken B]

Speaking of odd plurals, and Shaw's ghoti, consider the two plurals of fish

Fish, referring to more than one creature. I caught two fish.
Fishes, referring to multiple kinds of fish. I caught red fish, blue fish, Brown fish, all kinds of fishes.

[Cato]

Speaking of odd plurals, and Shaw's ghoti, consider the two plurals of fish

Fish, referring to more than one creature. I caught two fish.
Fishes, referring to multiple kinds of fish. I caught red fish, blue fish, Brown fish, all kinds of fishes.

Sounds ghoti-y to me!   

I am not making up the following grumble.  0:)

I have often commented about assorted monstrosities of language unleashed by a local television news crew.

On November 11, once known as "Armistice Day," and now called "Veterans Day" (without an apostrophe     ), local news anchorwoman Blondie Bubblehead read a story about the "100th anniversary of the... Ar - MIST - ice ending World War I."           

Yes, she placed the accent on the middle syllable, put the the "-t" with the "-s," and yes, she pronounced the "ice" as "ice," rhyming with "mice."

To paraphrase Cicero:

O tempora, o genus dicendi !

[Ken B]

O tempora, o genus dicendi !

Sounds like a Salvation Army sermon against gambling:
Dice'n'di(e)

[Florestan]

Sounds like a Salvation Army sermon against gambling:
Dice'n'di(e)

[Wendell_E]

I want one, not only because I work in a library where my colleagues routinely make all of these errors, but because, apart from writing, I do nearly everything else left-handed, so in my sinister grip all these merry grammatical hints would be displayed to the world rather than being shared only with my shirt-front.  Unless the same text appears on the other side of the mug, of course.

I had to order one (a set of two, actually) after seeing it posted. It arrived yesterday, and the text is on both sides.

[bwv 1080]

Quite a few common English phrases came from Cantonese pidgin where English words were used in Chinese grammar structures such as 'to make do'; 'long time no see'; 'no sabee' (don't understand from Portuguese 'saber'); 'how come?'; 'look see'; 'no can do' ; 'where to?'; 'no-go'; 'chop-chop' (hasten); 'chow' (food); 'no pain, no gain' and 'chicken fried rice'.


http://www.chinasage.info/langpidgin.htm

[André]

[Cato]

Sigh!  The Genitive is the current quixotic quest for the English teacher and me: I dread going back to school on Monday, since extraterrestrials usually during such vacations blast my students' brains with rays of Alzheimerium: gone will be the Genitive and many other things! 

[Ken B]

Could be worse

Soldiers'
Soldiers's
Soldier's's
Soldier's'

Although I suppose the first could in some circumstances be possible.

At least it wasn't a soldier of the Hundred Years' War ...

[JBS]

The Britons of a century ago could mangle English as well as any now alive.

Consider

Among the nations nobliest chartered

She fights the fraud that feeds desire on
Lies, in a lust to enslave or kill,
The barren creed of blood and iron,
Vampire of Europe's wasted will

While not grammatically incorrect, these lines are certainly lousy poetry. They come from The Fourth of August by Laurence Binyon, as set to music by none other than Elgar (the first of the three poems which he used for The Spirit of England.

[Ken B]

The Britons of a century ago could mangle English as well as any now alive.

Consider

While not grammatically incorrect, these lines are certainly lousy poetry. They come from The Fourth of August by Laurence Binyon, as set to music by none other than Elgar (the first of the three poems which he used for The Spirit of England.

A little reformatting and punctuation makes it clearer:

She fights the fraud
that feeds desire on lies, in a lust to enslave or kill —
The barren creed of blood and iron,
Vampire of Europe's wasted will

[JBS]

A little reformatting and punctuation makes it clearer:

She fights the fraud
that feeds desire on lies, in a lust to enslave or kill —
The barren creed of blood and iron,
Vampire of Europe's wasted will

Yes but it's a quatrain, with desire on as the rhyme for and iron

[Ken B]

Yes but it's a quatrain, with desire on as the rhyme for and iron

Ahhh.

[Cato]

Could be worse

Soldiers'
Soldiers's
Soldier's's
Soldier's'

Although I suppose the first could in some circumstances be possible.

At least it wasn't a soldier of the Hundred Years' War ...

You should see how too many of my students spell "soldier."   

(I am not making these up!)

Solider, Soilder, Soljer, Soliger, and my favorite Souliger.

Our Latin book often focuses on stories about Roman soldiers, which is why I see these terrible spellings.  I tell my students that soldiers might die as a result of their service. So, unless they see the word "die" in their spelling of the word, they have made a mistake!

[André]

Good trick, Cato! Hopefully your students know how to write die. imagine if they thought soldiers can dye?

[Cato]

Good trick, Cato! Hopefully your students know how to write die. Imagine if they thought soldiers can dye?

Well, they are too often confused enough!  I blame the Internet and Lawnmower parents, who stunt their child's thinking abilities by "mowing down" every obstacle facing the child!

On a different topic...

My favorite (i.e. appalling) local television station had the following headline this morning:

"BUCKEYE FANS CELEBRATE VICTORY OVER TTUN."

Mrs. Cato wondered what or who "TTUN" could be!  Possibly some Samoan football team? 

No, because yesterday Ohio State University's football team defeated Michigan (62-39, I think: we did NOT watch the game).

"TTUN" I pondered for a long second. 

Then I recalled that among the many eccentrics born in Ohio (like a man who thought he could create light from electricity, or two brothers who thought they could build a machine that flies using bicycle technology and some aerodynamics    ) was a character named Woody Hayes.

"General" Woody Hayes was the football coach for Ohio State from the early 1950's to 1978: he spurned throwing the football, saying that when you throw the football, three things can happen, and two of them are bad.   

In the 1950's some bad blood began to boil between Michigan and Ohio State, mainly because of a personal rivalry between Woody and the Michigan coach Bo Schembechler.

Woody began banning the use of the word "Michigan" in his presence.  And when he had to refer to Michigan, he used the phrase...

"That Team Up North" !!!

And that explains "TTUN" which should have had periods, but...

A footnote: during the week before the Michigan game, Ohio State students go around with red tape and mask any signs bearing the letter "M" on the campus!

Apparently the professors do not give enough homework! 

[Jo498]

Souliger, the soul-bearer. Someone mixed English and Latin here. Wasn't the "solidus" a Roman coin the soldiers were paid with?

[André]

Souliger, the soul-bearer. Someone mixed English and Latin here. Wasn't the "solidus" a Roman coin the soldiers were paid with?

One of the uses of the word solde in French means a soldier's pay.