Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Cato]

Anyway, them strikes me as wrong.

You are right, and your correction is accurate!

Found in an article on the French government's response to Islamic terrorists: not a mistake, but a sentence showing the importance of prepositions:

This fierce protection of public life from religion—which includes a law banning the hijab, the Islamic head scarf for women—is foreign to most Americans who view the state as promoting freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

(My emphasis)

See:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/kenneth-r-weinstein-a-french-lesson-for-american-liberals-1424821664

[Sean]

Hi Florestan, thanks, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Found today here on GMG:

I know a few French phrases and them a few English.

I think it should read either...

In a way you're right, my sentence has a fault. But actually it doesn't have one because you're missing an important feature of English- the guiding criterion is not principles of construction, but instead only what is judged to be best in terms of articulate expression. It's a pragmatic language.

And thence formations give way to idioms.

Both your suggested alternatives are in fact then more long-winded and clumsy than my idiom, and thus I'm correct.

A related example might be I'll try and get it done, instead of I'll try to get it done. The former is idiomatic and hence with meaning to justify it.

[Ken B]

Found today here on GMG:

I know a few French phrases and them a few English.

I think it should read either

I know a few French phrases and they a few English ones.

or

I know a few French phrases and they a little English.

Anyway, them strikes me as wrong.

Simply explained. Sean is part Chinese.

[Florestan]

Simply explained. Sean is part Chinese.

[North Star]

Hi Florestan, thanks, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

In a way you're right, my sentence has a fault. But actually it doesn't have one because you're missing an important feature of English- the guiding criterion is not principles of construction, but instead only what is judged to be best in terms of articulate expression. It's a pragmatic language.

And thence formations give way to idioms.

Both your suggested alternatives are in fact then more long-winded and clumsy than my idiom, and thus I'm correct.

A related example might be I'll try and get it done, instead of I'll try to get it done. The former is idiomatic and hence with meaning to justify it.

Them must indeed be wrong in seeing a fault in your sentence, free of clumsiness.

[Sean]

Indeed.

[Cato]

And thence formations give way to idioms.

Or to incomprehensibility, depending on the mistake.

Both your suggested alternatives are in fact then more long-winded and clumsy than my idiom, and thus I'm correct.

?  How on earth is changing "them" to "they" and adding one word or two "long-winded and clumsy"!!!???!!!   You could drop the "and" in Florestan's example, and his version flows nicely and without the clumsy jarring of an object as subject.

A related example might be I'll try and get it done, instead of I'll try to get it done. The former is idiomatic and hence with meaning to justify it.

I would not view the former as an "idiom" at all: "I'll" is simply understood before "get it done."  Comprehensibility is not impeded.  "Them know" is not an idiom: it is a mistake for "they know."

[Ken B]

Or to incomprehensibility, depending on the mistake.


?  How on earth is changing "them" to "they" and adding one word or two "long-winded and clumsy"!!!???!!!   You could drop the "and" in Florestan's example, and his version flows nicely and without the clumsy jarring of an object as subject.

I would not view the former as an "idiom" at all: "I'll" is simply understood before "get it done."  Comprehensibility is not impeded.  "Them know" is not an idiom: it is a mistake for "they know."

You need to try for understand Cato.

Puncuation!

[Sean]

No.

I know a few French phrases and they a few English is more clumsy than I know a few French phrases and them a few English.

[Christo]

No, it isn't. 

[Cato]

No, it isn't. 

Amen!  0:)

"Them (know) a few English (ones)" is as wrong as "Them see they dog."

[North Star]

Some enallages is just wrong.

[Cato]

Some enallages is just wrong.

Throwing more French at us, eh?     

[North Star]

Throwing more French at us, eh?     

It gets less and less baffling that some of Sean's students should make the odd grammatical error - or even a normal one - and insist that they didn't make one. Chances are, they didn't.

[Sean]

I'm right on this, guys.

Sometimes you have to bend the overall principle for greater clarity and immediacy; sometimes the structures available in the rules of English in fact are not good enough, as Florestan's necessarily clumsy attempts at correction show.

Structures are subject to a higher principle of judgement of coherency.

[Sean]

As if I haven't got better things to do this afternoon... one for North-

[Cato]

I'm right on this, guys.

No, you are wrong.

Sometimes you have to bend the overall principle for greater clarity and immediacy; sometimes the structures available in the rules of English in fact are not good enough, as Florestan's necessarily clumsy attempts at correction show.

Structures are subject to a higher principle of judgement of coherency.

Again, how is changing the incorrect "them" to "they" somehow clumsy?

How exactly is "them know" a product of a higher principle of coherence?  That would mean that "they know" is wrong, and that objects are subjects! 

[Sean]

Cato

Again, how is changing the incorrect "them" to "they" somehow clumsy?

You're making the mistake of getting too far from idiomatic English- following rules in the present case causes you to cogitate over what the heck the sentence means. They in fact means them in the wider sense I was trying to communicate, but the language in terms of its rules here isn't sophisticated enough to cope with this. Seeing the sentence in the original context might also have helped.

I'm not in the least a relativist with this stuff and am quite clear that any dialect is not necessarily as good as Standard English, but English is practical in its nature, not officious and peremptory.

Indeed this is a key feature of English culture and why the dastardly Brits tended to win so many battles and spread their influence- they just deal with things empirically and as they stand, and overarching theories come later.

[Ken B]

No.

I know a few French phrases and they a few English is more clumsy than I know a few French phrases and them a few English.

You mean more clumsiest.

[Ken B]

Structures are subject to a higher principle of judgement of coherency.

Am I the only one who finds
1. coherency is clumsier than coherence
2. the whole dame thing is clumsy

Let's try that again. "English sometime bends the rules about pronouns for simplicity, comfort, or clarity." (I infer that is Sean's argument. I'm a good guesser.) Indeed. But in this case there is no gain only loss. It's especially egregious to teach Sean's way to a foreigner, because it will only confuse him. It is easy to see that the verb "know" has been elided in the correct formulation, and so it is easy for a learner to tease out the meaning, and see the logic. Not so in Sean's mistaken phrasing.