Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Sergeant Rock]

Has anyone ever seen or heard "kennel" being used as a synonym for "cage" ?

Check out Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dog+kennel

Sarge

[Cato]

Check out Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=dog+kennel

Sarge

Interesting: I wonder if "cage" has become too primitive for our dog-obsessed populace, and so the Yuppies cannot bear the thought of putting their pooches in a "cage"!     

[Ken B]

Interesting: I wonder if "cage" has become too primitive for our dog-obsessed populace, and so the Yuppies cannot bear the thought of putting their pooches in a "cage"!     

The daughter in law bought a dog ( ) We have both a "crate" and a "pen". I searched Amazon for "blender" but found none big enough.

[Cato]

The daughter in law bought a dog ( ) We have both a "crate" and a "pen". I searched Amazon for "blender" but found none big enough.

Don't get me started!  My son and daughter-in-law have 3 (THREE!!!) big, dumb, shedding, slobbering dogs, and have spent way too much money on cages, crates, pens, and "doggie day-care," i.e. a kennel! 

[Karl Henning]

The daughter in law bought a dog ( ) We have both a "crate" and a "pen". I searched Amazon for "blender" but found none big enough.

Try key word pooch processor

[zamyrabyrd]

The car radio often has "Country Music" from a local radio station: two songs played (too often) offer "singers"  who somehow manage to twist three or four sounds out of one vowel!

One example:   a woman "singer"  (I do not know her name or the name of the song)  somehow pronounces "closet" as "clu-au-zet" (with an up-and-down wiggle on the "au") and then makes it "ram" (rhyme) with "lost it"  (lu-au-stit).  A second troubadour is able to spit out the word "ice" so that it is a homonym with the three-letter word for the donkey-like animal which carried Jesus into Jerusalem!    Another is able to make "dance" come out as "da-yunz" (the "a" as in "as") and make it rhyme with "fra-yunz" (i.e. "friends").

I am writing without source material, only from memory right now, so there may be some errors. When I was more into phonetics I read some articles about language shifts once they crossed the pond from East to West. Some of the results in English were dipthongization (in your example, more like tripthong or even more) and palatization. (Maybe there are some linguists here who actually know the subject better than I do.)

Lengthening vowels has a built in tendency for their integrity to be altered but it is not impossible to resist that trend with some prodding by a voice teacher, in my case, who patiently corrected me everytime I slid from an eh to ayyy.

[Karl Henning]

Lengthening vowels has a built in tendency for their integrity to be altered but it is not impossible to resist that trend with some prodding by a voice teacher, in my case, who patiently corrected me everytime I slid from an eh to ayyy.

Pretty regularly, it is necessary to remind my choir to sing Al-leh-luia, rather than Al-lay-luia . . . .

[zamyrabyrd]

Pretty regularly, it is necessary to remind my choir to sing Al-leh-luia, rather than Al-lay-luia . . . .

Honestly, I didn't hear myself until my Russian teacher mimicked what I was doing.
It could have been Manuel Garcia, the famous 19th century mentor, who suggested reproduction as an excellent way to point out errors.
Now we have recording, of course, something I usually shrinked from.

[Karl Henning]

Honestly, I didn't hear myself until my Russian teacher mimicked what I was doing.
It could have been Manuel Garcia, the famous 19th century mentor, who suggested reproduction as an excellent way to point out errors.
Now we have recording, of course, something I usually shrinked from.

Over time, they are apt to forget;  but then when they correct the vowel, they hear, themselves, how much better the tuning is.

But, yes . . . I periodically need to remind them 

[zamyrabyrd]

Over time, they are apt to forget;  but then when they correct the vowel, they hear, themselves, how much better the tuning is. But, yes . . . I periodically need to remind them 

It's REALLY important in choirs that EVERYONE is singing the SAME vowel quality.
This makes for a really clean sound.
Not all conductors are aware of it, because their ears may not be attuned to this aspect.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Cats > dogs. When will humans ever learn?

[Karl Henning]

Geo. Will ought to know better!

Merriam-Webster.com : "to attack or defeat (a nominee or candidate for public office) unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification." For further illustration of the verb, stay tuned to what is sure to greet whomever is nominated to replace Kennedy.

Ought to be whoever is nominated, of course—subject of the clause, it is the clause which is the object of the verb greet, not the pronoun.

[Ken B]

Geo. Will ought to know better!

Merriam-Webster.com : "to attack or defeat (a nominee or candidate for public office) unfairly through an organized campaign of harsh public criticism or vilification." For further illustration of the verb, stay tuned to what is sure to greet whomever is nominated to replace Kennedy.

Ought to be whoever is nominated, of course—subject of the clause, it is the clause which is the object of the verb greet, not the pronoun.

Yup. Famous example:  "Let him who is without sin sit next to someone else"

[Cato]

From the Wall Street Journal...(Shame, shame!)...

"In this edition: A "prime place" to look for life on Mars, how Steve Jobs saw the future and high-tech help for eating disorders and insomnia."

Except...Steve Jobs is never mentioned in the article!  There is nothing about how Steve Jobs saw "high-tech help for eating disorders and insomnia."   

One could quibble about the "A" after the colon.      But...baby steps!   0:)

So let's fix things!

In this edition: A "prime place" to look for life on Mars, how Steve Jobs saw the future, and high-tech help for eating disorders and insomnia.

The "ironic" (?) quotation marks around "prime place" I did not understand as ironic: the article informs us that an area with underground water is the prime place to search for Martian life.  Why it was so important to make that phrase a "quotation" was unclear.  Perhaps an attempt at a pun, e.g. "priming the pump" to look for life (?).   

[Mahlerian]

Apparently some are up in arms about some of the wording found in a new health and wellness textbook.  The whole article is about how people lack reading comprehension, but this passage in particular stood out to me.

Another much-criticized passage says that "when obsessed with weight, many if not most women and some men have become habitual dieters." Some have read it to mean that most women are habitual dieters.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/02/face-criticism-hes-holocaust-victim-blamer-co-author-wellness-textbook-says-he-meant

[Ken B]

Apparently some are up in arms about some of the wording found in a new health and wellness textbook.  The whole article is about how people lack reading comprehension, but this passage in particular stood out to me.



https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/08/02/face-criticism-hes-holocaust-victim-blamer-co-author-wellness-textbook-says-he-meant

When unable to breathe most people suffocate.

[Karl Henning]

Great little typo, in a legitimate professional e-mail message:  IMPORTANT INFORMTATION

[ritter]

Great little typo, in a legitimate professional e-mail message:  IMPORTANT INFORMTATION

...and I suppose they can't blame that one on autocorrect. 

[Karl Henning]

In fact, one would think that is the sort of obvious "fat finger" mistake that autocorrect ought to help us with . . . .

[ritter]

In fact, one would think that is the sort of obvious "fat finger" mistake that autocorrect ought to help us with . . . .

The problem is that, in my experience, on some devices/programs autocorrect can be double-edged sword: if you somehow "insist" on a mistake once for whatever reason (poor eyesight?  ), it'll automatically add the mistaken word in its memory, and suggest it to you even when you've written the correct one...