Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Cato]

I don't think I have ever seen "the people is" written or spoken by someone who has a function education beyond third grade.  You see phrases like "meeting people is easy" but the verb is conjugated to match "meeting."  (Meeting salesmen is easy.)

Written?  I also have never seen it written.  Man-on-the-street interviews might elicit such things ("He was drivin' all over the place.  People's just crazy these days!"), but...

Tangentially the above reminds me of the ancient gag line from a comic named Lew Lehr, which is heard in Warner Bros. cartoons: "Monkeys is the cwaziest people!"   

Now that I think of it, I've only seen it in translations of Scripture, which is trying to express a theological concept of unity: "the people is one", I've also seen it used in political rhetoric for the same reason.

Populus in Latin is a collective singular, but should not be translated as a plural.  Ancient Greek has several possibilities, two are collective singulars, one is plural.  And, Hebrew also, I believe, has several possibilities.

"The people are one" sounds much better to my ear.

[Parsifal]

"The people are one" sounds much better to my ear.

Genesis, 11:6, King James translation

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one

But they said a lot of things in 1611 that they don't say anymore.  If someone asked you "what street is this?" and you replied "The name of it is called 'Main Street'" you'd get some funny looks.

[Karl Henning]

Genesis, 11:6, King James translation

But they said a lot of things in 1611 that they don't say anymore.

Aye, I wouldn't consider that binding  0:)

[Cato]

Aye, I wouldn't consider that binding  0:)

Aye aye!  0:)

And yet, a quick visit to Shakespeare's Coriolanus shows only plural verbs with "the people."

[Parsifal]

Tynedale bible:

And the LORde sayd: See the people is one and haue one tonge amonge them all.

circa 1530

Of course, William Tyndale was burned at the stake for his efforts so perhaps his grammar is suspect.

[Cato]

And the Lorde sayd: See the people is one and haue one tonge amonge them all.

Tynedale bible:

circa 1530

Of course, William Tyndale was burned at the stake for his efforts so perhaps his grammar is suspect.

In the same sentence, he treats "people" as singular and plural.  Perhaps the singular is emphatic for the "oneness" idea.

Perhaps such inconsistency is what riled his assassins!   

[Parsifal]

In the same sentence, he treats "people" as singular and plural.  Perhaps the singular is emphatic for the "oneness" idea.

Perhaps such inconsistency is what riled his assassins!   

Fascinating, never noticed that.  But going back to King James:

And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language

Same anomalous verb conjugations. 

As a teacher, Cato, you know there is no better evidence of cheating as when two students sitting next to each other have identical errors!  Poor Tydesdale, they offed him, then stole his work!

On another note, how can we claim that students are not as good as in the old days.  In the old days there were grammar errors in the bible!

[kishnevi]

Populus in Latin is a collective singular, but should not be translated as a plural.  Ancient Greek has several possibilities, two are collective singulars, one is plural.  And, Hebrew also, I believe, has several possibilities.

The usual Hebrew word for "people" is singular and can be made a plural following the normal rules, in which case it should be translated "peoples".

The actual Hebrew text of Genesis 11:6 uses the singular form.

V'omar     And said
Ad-nai      The L-rd
hain         Behold
am           people
echod      one
v'sapha   and language
achat       one
v'culam     for them all


And the L-rd said, Behold, one people and one language for them all.

Note that the 'inconsistency' is found in the original Hebrew.

Am is a masculine, sapha a feminine noun, so the form of the word meaning one differs to reflect that.  It's also normal Hebrew usage for the noun to precede the adjective. 
For instance, this phrase is found in the first verse of Chapter 11 :u'dvarim echadim,  meaning (in modern English) and united purpose.  Dvarim has several meanings*--here the translation is "purpose"--and is a masculine noun with the suffix appropriate to plural forms of masculine nouns (-im).  (The corresponding feminine suffix is -ot.)  The adjective which is attached to it is therefore given in masculine plural form as well: echad-im, or, in other words, the word for one given a plural form.

*the two chief meanings are "things" and "words"; and from its appearance in Deuteronomy 1:1, it has become the usual Hebrew name for the fifth book of the Torah.  The singular form is d'var.

[Cato]

Many thanks, Jeffrey!

What is your view of Thou shalt not kill being a mistranslation of the original Hebrew?

[kishnevi]

Many thanks, Jeffrey!

What is your view of Thou shalt not kill being a mistranslation of the original Hebrew?

"Do not murder" would be reflect the meaning of the Hebrew more closely;  after all, the Torah recognizes the right of self defense and imposes death sentences for various crimes and sins.   Modern Hebrew, at least, uses another word for the more general "kill", and uses the word involved here to mean "murder".

And this is before one wanders off into the byways of Rabbinic tradition,  which find in this commandment a condemnation of insulting, slandering and gossiping about other people, on the premise that those acts are the equivalent of murder, because they result in the "spilling" of blood (the victim's face turns red from shame, anger and embarrassment).

"Do not steal" is another trap for the unwary:  the Rabbis viewed it as a ban on kidnapping and enslaving others (ie,stealing a person),  because normal theft of property is forbidden elsewhere in the Torah, and is not a capital offense, unlike the other sins listed in this part of the Decalogue (which implies that the "theft" forbidden here is also a capital offense).

[North Star]

Stephen Fry Takes A Firm Stance On Grammar. He Doesn't Go The Way You'd Think.
"It's only ugly because it's new and you don't like it. Ugly in the way Picasso, Stravinsky and Eliot were once thought ugly and before them Monet, Mahler and Baudelaire."

(title from: http://www.upworthy.com/stephen-fry-takes-a-firm-stance-on-grammar-he-doesnt-go-the-way-youd-think-2)
http://www.youtube.com/v/J7E-aoXLZGY

[Karl Henning]

Interesting; that's one tack, of course 

I still spell it doughnut, though I don't think donut is "ugly"  0:)

[Cato]

Interesting; that's one tack, of course 

I still spell it doughnut, though I don't think donut is "ugly"  0:)

True: and it saves space on signs!     e.g. on the sign for the "Drive-Thru" lane!

At times Stephen Fry comes close to sounding like John Cleese!   0:)

Creativity demands that language be stretched, so that it can grow.

It is all a matter of how it is stretched!   0:)

[Karl Henning]

I suspect Stephen Fry may agree that Kwik-Mart is both ugly and unnecessary 

[kishnevi]

I suspect Stephen Fry may agree that Kwik-Mart is both ugly and unnecessary 

I say it's appropriate even if ugly
It's the speedy version of Quick Market, getting the point across even in its name.
Of course, having never stepped into a Kwik-Mart, I have no idea if it lives up to what its name promises.

[Karl Henning]

Zowie, was July practically a grumble-free zone?

[kishnevi]

Zowie, was July practically a grumble-free zone?

One could grumble about instrusive or inappropriate adverbs.  But since one is among friends, one doesn't.

[Karl Henning]

"got another thing coming" VS. "got another think coming" . . . is it utterly nerdy of me to care?

[Cato]

"got another thing coming" VS. "got another think coming" . . . is it utterly nerdy of me to care?

[/i]

No!  Guardians of the Language are perhaps at times nervy, but never nerdy!   0:)

Zowie, was July practically a grumble-free zone?

Actually no.  A few things I found were already topics in recent months, so I did not bother.  Other things have remained in my head and needed only the time for me to grumble about them.

Since I have most appropriately just returned from purchasing a throne for "the smallest room in my house," as Max Reger once wrote, I now have a few minutes to present some gremlins.

A few weeks ago I twice came across an odd use of semi-colons in a political text in the local newspaper.  Possibly nobody noticed the curiosity.  The exact sentence I no longer recall, but here is something similar:


"And so the bill is dead in the House; which could pose a problem for the Senate."   

There was a similar sentence later on.  I am not a great fan of semi-colons, and use them mainly (and rarely) as devices for tempo, i.e. whenever I want a pause longer than a comma.  Here, however, I suspect the author thought a semi-colon would allow the "which" to refer to the entire clause as an antecedent, rather than "House."

What say ye?

Overheard while in line at a gas station near I-75, aka God's Concrete Umbilical Cord for Bumpkins of All Kinds:

(Talking on a cell phone): "Yeah, ah hadda woulda callja y'all, but ah warnt gittin' no sigganal."



(Deep breaths!) Translation for the non-Americans here: "Yeah, I would have called you, but I wasn't getting a signal."

Two of my former students are now professors in Linguistics, and probably would have loved (or "hadda woulda")  to follow this character around with a microphone for a few months to see if such warped things were actual patterns or occasional lapses.

In the South (e.g. Georgia) one can hear among less educated people constructions called "double modals" i.e. "might should" or "might could."

Transposing the "would" and the double use of "you" (i.e. the "-ja" and then the "y'all") were new to me!

[Karl Henning]

One does need grumbling time, truly.