Cato's Grammar Grumble

Started by Cato, February 08, 2009, 05:00:18 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

karlhenning




Benji

Quote from: Mn Dave on April 10, 2009, 10:00:34 AM
I can't stand it when cats ask, "I can has cheeseburger?" God, it drive me nuts.

"I can haz cheezeburger?"

Don't clean it up on behalf of the thread! It is now an accepted meme and must be respected accordingly.  8)

Dr. Dread

Quote from: Benji on April 10, 2009, 10:04:32 AM
"I can haz cheezeburger?"

Don't clean it up on behalf of the thread! It is now an accepted meme and must be respected accordingly.  8)

:D

Cato

Intrepid reporter Joe Queenan from the East Coast has filed an Orwellian Language update: apparently the new Administration's refusal to refer to the War On Terror as the "War On Terror" has had some effects"

An excerpt:

Quote"A Taliban spokesman reached in Pakistan said that the new phrasing was being implemented as a way of eliminating the negative associations triggered by more graphic terminology. "The term 'beheading' has a quasi-medieval undertone that we're trying to get away from," he explained. "The term 'cephalic attrition' brings the Taliban into the 21st century. It's not that we disapprove of beheadings; it's just that the word no longer meshes with the zeitgeist of the era. This is the same reason we have replaced the term 'jihad' with 'booka-bonga-bippo,' which has a more zesty, urban, youthful, 'now' feel. When you're recruiting teenagers to your movement, you don't want them to feel that going on jihad won't leave any time for youthful hijinks."

And this:
QuoteCentral Asia is not the only place where the coarse terminology of the past is being phased out. In Darfur, the words "ethnic cleansing" are no longer in use, either by rebels nor by the government itself. Instead, the practice of targeting a particular tribe or sect or ethnic group for extinction is being called "unconditional demographic redeployment." In much the same spirit, the archaic term "genocide" -- so broad and vague as to be meaningless -- has now been supplanted by "maximum-intensity racial profiling."

"We've got problems here, sure, just like any other society," explains a high-ranking Sudanese official. "But we're not talking about Armenia 1915. We're not talking about the Holocaust. The Eurocentric term 'genocide' gives people the wrong idea. And it really hurts tourism."

:o  or  :D

See:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123958305263912309.html



"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

bwv 1080

Quote from: Cato on April 13, 2009, 11:05:31 AM
Intrepid reporter Joe Queenan from the East Coast has filed an Orwellian Language update: apparently the new Administration's refusal to refer to the War On Terror as the "War On Terror" has had some effects"


Nothing orwellian, it just was a stupid name and a stupid idea that started with the "war on poverty" and "war on drugs".  Wars ought to be something that are actually wars - with a defined enemy and goals for victory.  Realistically, terror (or terrorism to be more precise) is not going away.  Moreover, the war on terror is a conflict with only certain terror groups, last I checked we never engaged the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists

Cato

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 13, 2009, 02:22:42 PM
Nothing orwellian, it just was a stupid name and a stupid idea that started with the "war on poverty" and "war on drugs".  Wars ought to be something that are actually wars - with a defined enemy and goals for victory.  Realistically, terror (or terrorism to be more precise) is not going away.  Moreover, the war on terror is a conflict with only certain terror groups, last I checked we never engaged the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists

An excerpt from a recent hearing in Congress concerning bureaucratese:

QuoteMR. MORRELL:  I've never received such a directive.  I think the White House and OMB for that matter have been very clear about this as well, that they have never issued such a directive.   

                I think they've explained that perhaps somebody within OMB may have been a little overexuberant and done so.  But I can just tell you, I'm the one who speaks publicly about these matters.  And I have never been told which words to use or not to use.  So I don't think there's anything to the story.   

                Q     You still use the phrase.   

                MR. MORRELL:  I think I have used it.  I think I have.  I don't avoid it.  I don't seek it out.  If it's appropriate, I'll use it.  I could be wrong, but I think the president has used it.  But, so I don't -- I was surprised to see that story, as well, because I know of no directive prohibiting the use of that term.   

                Q     What's your preferred nomenclature?   

                MR. MORRELL:  I don't really have one.  I mean, I don't think a whole lot about it.  I think that we are involved in global operations to protect the homeland and the American people.  And a large part of that is going after terrorists, seeking them out, wherever they are, wherever they're plotting, wherever they are training to launch attacks against us.   

                So -- 

                Q     (Off mike) -- GWOT, global war on terror, lumps together an entire -- you know, the entire Muslim faith and an entire region.   

                Do you see that as a concern?   

                MR. MORRELL:  Well, I don't think there's anything in that term that identifies any particular faith or ethnicity.  I mean, there are terrorists of all faiths, of all colors, of all races and ethnicities. And so perhaps a better -- another way to refer to it would be, you know, a campaign against extremists who wish to do us harm.   

                I mean, there's a variety of ways to describe this.  But I don't -- the point is, there has been no mandate from anybody as to how we should talk about this.   

                Q     How do you feel about overseas contingency -- 

                MR. MORRELL:  I think that is -- that is -- the new way of referring to war spending is that overseas contingency -- it's still new to me, so let me get it right -- overseas contingency operations budget.   

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=4385

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Florestan

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 13, 2009, 02:22:42 PM
Moreover, the war on terror is a conflict with only certain terror groups, last I checked we never engaged the Tamil Tigers or the Basque Separatists

Because they never targeted US or US interests.
Every kind of music is good, except the boring kind. — Rossini

Cato

I have noticed throughout recent years a small, but growing, group of people talking through their noses and squeezing certain words with ugly pronunciations.  A local radio advertisement has a voice using such "diction" to push a restaurant.

Examples:

"Food" ends up sounding more like "fewd" i.e. like "feud" but without the "Y" sound.  "You" sounds more like "Yew".

"New" and many other words are pronounced with the nose basically closed.

I thought Ohio was immune from these mispronunciations, whose main practitioner, as far as I knew, was my stuffy, arrogant, evil sister-in-law in California, although a few denizens of PBS use it as well!  :o    But we have been invaded apparently!

Has anyone else noticed such strange variations?
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Cato

Quote from: Cato on April 22, 2009, 06:25:45 PM
I have noticed throughout recent years a small, but growing, group of people talking through their noses and squeezing certain words with ugly pronunciations.  A local radio advertisement has a voice using such "diction" to push a restaurant.

Examples:

"Food" ends up sounding more like "fewd" i.e. like "feud" but without the "Y" sound.  "You" sounds more like "Yew".

"New" and many other words are pronounced with the nose basically closed.

I thought Ohio was immune from these mispronunciations, whose main practitioner, as far as I knew, was my stuffy, arrogant, evil sister-in-law in California, although a few denizens of PBS use it as well!  :o    But we have been invaded apparently!

Has anyone else noticed such strange variations?

Other annoying pronunciations: "IN-surance"  "FY-nance"  rather than in-SUR-ance and fi-NANCE with a short "i": these were always heard as Southern hillbillyisms here in Ohio, but now you can hear them on national television.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Novi

Quote from: Cato on April 22, 2009, 06:25:45 PM
I have noticed throughout recent years a small, but growing, group of people talking through their noses and squeezing certain words with ugly pronunciations.  A local radio advertisement has a voice using such "diction" to push a restaurant.

Examples:

"Food" ends up sounding more like "fewd" i.e. like "feud" but without the "Y" sound.  "You" sounds more like "Yew".

"New" and many other words are pronounced with the nose basically closed.

I thought Ohio was immune from these mispronunciations, whose main practitioner, as far as I knew, was my stuffy, arrogant, evil sister-in-law in California, although a few denizens of PBS use it as well!  :o    But we have been invaded apparently!

Has anyone else noticed such strange variations?

That also sounds like a nasty Australian accent :P.
Durch alle Töne tönet
Im bunten Erdentraum
Ein leiser Ton gezogen
Für den der heimlich lauschet.

Cato

Quote from: Novi on April 23, 2009, 03:56:52 AM
That also sounds like a nasty Australian accent :P.

Possibly the tragic result of watching a Crocodile Dundee movie marathon!   :o
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Cato

See anything wrong with the title?   $:)

"Alot" is  NOT a word, but a headline circulating through Internet news and newspapers has this monstrosity, which I have been decapitating for decades in my classes.

But it seems to grow back in multiple units every time I chop it off!   :o

Add this to other slurry demons   >:D   like "gotta," "gonna," "lotta,"  and "dunno"  (No, that has nothing to with Rilke's Elegies).

Although The Dunno Elegies could be a satirical epitaph for our post-literate era!   0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 11:51:50 AM
"Alot" is  NOT a word, but a headline circulating through Internet news and newspapers has this monstrosity

Nooooo!!!!!

karlhenning

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 03:47:16 AM
Other annoying pronunciations: "IN-surance"  "FY-nance"  rather than in-SUR-ance and fi-NANCE with a short "i": these were always heard as Southern hillbillyisms here in Ohio, but now you can hear them on national television.

I sometimes wonder if Britons grate their teeth when they hear us Americans say inventory . . . .

Cato

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on April 23, 2009, 11:57:51 AM
I sometimes wonder if Britons grate their teeth when they hear us Americans say inventory . . . .

Hugh Laurie of House fame says getting our accent right is a torture for him.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

bwv 1080

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 03:47:16 AM
Other annoying pronunciations: "IN-surance"  "FY-nance"  rather than in-SUR-ance and fi-NANCE with a short "i": these were always heard as Southern hillbillyisms here in Ohio, but now you can hear them on national television.

In proper (southern) english the accent is always on the first syllable

karlhenning

Quote from: Cato on April 23, 2009, 12:03:48 PM
Hugh Laurie of House fame says getting our accent right is a torture for him.

In Dead Again, Branagh sweated getting "southern California" right, and purists may quibble, but the result doesn't get in my ears' way.

For Derek Jacobi's character, though, they had to resort to the "he went to school in England as a boy" gambit  0:) $:)

karlhenning

Quote from: bwv 1080 on April 23, 2009, 12:15:01 PM
In proper (southern) english the accent is always on the first syllable

It's the Finnic heritage, I see.