Cato's Grammar Grumble

[Florestan]

What I imagine with this sentence is a long street, and somewhere in the middle it becomes wider and tree-lined. The whole street, in this case, is not a boulevard. Maybe other parts are industrial, or inaccessible to pedestrians.

"In the middle" here just means not at the beginning and not at the end.

Well, you are wrong. What the author has in mind is a long urban boulevard with a pedestrian central section which runs from the beginning to the end. It eventually gives its name, which is worldwide famous: Rambla de Catalunya. Go figure, @Rafael!

[JBS]

In Greek this section is called a νησίδα (nidída - "islet"). If there's more than one (e.g. a two-direction highway with two side streets would have 3 νησίδες), they're called the central, right and left "islets" respectively.

In the US they are called median or isle; the latter term mostly refers to those that are wide enough to hold benches, statues, and large trees, the latter to those that are wide enough to stand in while waiting for the cars to stop whizzing by but not much wider than that.

[ritter]

Well, you are wrong. What the author has in mind is a long urban boulevard with a pedestrian central section which runs from the beginning to the end. It eventually gives its name, which is worldwide famous: Rambla de Catalunya. Go figure, @Rafael!

I actually had the Rambla de Cataluña in mind when I read your first post, Andrei. 

[Cato]

Currently reading this:

I came across this sentence:

Granados hears the chirping of birds in the trees along the boulevard that runs down in the middle of the street.

Question: what runs down in the middle of the street? The chirping, or the boulevard? Either way, it makes no sense at all. 

It is a clumsy sentence.  However, "that" ( I would prefer "which") is supposed to refer to "boulevard."

But yes, a boulevard already is a street: the writer mistakes "boulevard" for the "island" or the "median strip" found on some boulevards.  (I would prefer "island" !)

But just avoid all those prepositions and the relative pronoun.

I would write it this way:

"Granados hears birds chirping from the boulevard's trees." 

If it is for some reason absolutely necessary to explain where the trees are specifically, then one could write:

"...from the line of trees on the boulevard's island."

[Florestan]

I actually had the Rambla de Cataluña in mind when I read your first post, Andrei. 

I walked on it many moons ago. The last way in the world I'd describe it (or any boulevard anywhere, for that matter) is "a boulevard running down in the middle of a street". I might be conditioned by Romanian but for me a boulevard is a wide and long street, so how could it run down in the middle of a, well, street? That would be not Rambla but Avinguda Möbius.

[ritter]

I walked on it many moons ago. The last way in the world I'd describe it (or any boulevard anywhere, for that matter) is "a boulevard running down in the middle of a street". I might be conditioned by Romanian but for me a boulevard is a wide and long street, so how could it run down in the middle of a, well, street? That would be not Rambla but Avinguda Möbius.

As I said before, in Spanish (in Spain) the "bulevar" is not also the wide street, but also the isle in the middle with trees, benches, etc. So, you could have the absurd construction "I was sitting on a bench in the bulevar of the bulevar". A sentence worthy of that great stylist John F. Milton (of The Fallen Nightingale fame).

[Florestan]

As I said before, in Spanish (in Spain) the "bulevar" is not also the wide street, but also the isle in the middle with trees, benches, etc. So, you could have the absurd construction "I was sitting on a bench in the bulevar of the bulevar". A sentence worthy of that great stylist John F. Milton (of The Fallen Nightingale fame).

Well, he gets even worse as the action progress. He makes one of his characters recite the following verses of Coleridge

Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.

and upon Granados' asking her "From the Ancient Mariner?" she replies "Yes."

And how about this: on page 25 Milton writes "[Cafe] Els Quatre Gats occupies the first floor of a building[..]" and on page 61 "Els Quatre Gats is on the building's ground floor."

[Karl Henning]

I actually had the Rambla de Cataluña in mind when I read your first post, Andrei. 

Curiously, so did I.

[JBS]

Well, he gets even worse as the action progress. He makes one of his characters recite the following verses of Coleridge

Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.

and upon Granados' asking her "From the Ancient Mariner?" she replies "Yes."

And how about this: on page 25 Milton writes "[Cafe] Els Quatre Gats occupies the first floor of a building[..]" and on page 61 "Els Quatre Gats is on the building's ground floor."

1)Some authors might use a misattribution to demonstrate a character's level of non-knowledge.

2)In American usage, ground floor and first floor are synonymous. I know in European  usage they aren't. And I can't remember if the UK follows Europe or America in this matter.

[Cato]

I have been meaning to mention this grumble: last week, you might have read, an unexploded World-War-II era bomb went off near a Japanese airport.  Dropped by the U.S. during the war, it apparently failed to detonate.

Last week, however, something caused it to explode (vibrations from airplanes?).


So, after reporting this, and apparently not understanding what she had just read, our local T.V. news lady commented to her partner:


"I thought they had ways to undetonate those things."        

Her partner either did not catch the mistake or ignored it.

"Defuse," of course, is the word which she was needing at that moment.   

[JBS]

I have been meaning to mention this grumble: last week, you might have read, an unexploded World-War-II era bomb went off near a Japanese airport.  Dropped by the U.S. during the war, it apparently failed to detonate.

Last week, however, something caused it to explode (vibrations from airplanes?).


So, after reporting this, and apparently not understanding what she had just read, our local T.V. news lady commented to her partner:


"I thought they had ways to undetonate those things."        

Her partner either did not catch the mistake or ignored it.

"Defuse," of course, is the word which she was needing at that moment.   

Undetonate sounds to me more like undoing the damage and putting everything back to its  pristine pre-explosion state.

Perhaps there's such an incident in the Lives of the Saints?

[DavidW]

"I thought they had ways to undetonate those things."       

That is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics!!

[Cato]

That is a violation of the second law of thermodynamics!!

Entropy is indeed involved!   

Simply the sound of "undetonate" smacks of inconcinnity and should have therefore alerted the reporter that something was wrong somewhere!   

[Florestan]

1)Some authors might use a misattribution to demonstrate a character's level of non-knowledge.

I know that alright. It's not the case here, though, the character is a very cultured one.

No, the non-knowledge (or maybe slip of mind, in which case the non-knowledge is the editor's) is Milton's own, because farther on he writes (in full auctorial voice) "Jules Offenbach's opera, La Perichole". Nonsense. Everybody knows that Offenbach's name was Jean and La Perichole is an oratorio. 

2)In American usage, ground floor and first floor are synonymous. I know in European  usage they aren't. And I can't remember if the UK follows Europe or America in this matter.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-floor

Looks like the UK do make the European distinction as well.

Indeed, in European usage ground floor is ground floor and first floor is, well, first floor. Granados would have said planta baja and primera planta. I say parter and primul etaj.

[Florestan]

From the same book:

Another guest arrives: Fritz Kreisler, the Viennese who dazzled the Warsaw (sic!) Conservatoire when he won first prize and graduated at age twelve

How and why Paris was transmuted into Warsaw, only John F. Milton and his editor know.

[Kalevala]

I know that alright. It's not the case here, though, the character is a very cultured one.

No, the non-knowledge (or maybe slip of mind, in which case the non-knowledge is the editor's) is Milton's own, because farther on he writes (in full auctorial voice) "Jules Offenbach's opera, La Perichole". Nonsense. Everybody knows that Offenbach's name was Jean and La Perichole is an oratorio. 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/first-floor

Looks like the UK do make the European distinction as well.

Indeed, in European usage ground floor is ground floor and first floor is, well, first floor. Granados would have said planta baja and primera planta. I say parter and primul etaj.

Is ground floor the same as a basement (if one has one)?

K

[Cato]

From the same book:

Another guest arrives: Fritz Kreisler, the Viennese who dazzled the Warsaw (sic!) Conservatoire when he won first prize and graduated at age twelve

How and why Paris was transmuted into Warsaw, only John F. Milton and his editor know.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz was lionized as a great book and movie: as I was reading through the book, I was appalled at the number of stupid, sloppy errors, one of the worst being a scene with an American Army Air Force bomber flying around Eastern Poland during World War II!!!

How many people at the publisher's offices read through the book?  SOOO many errors, easily corrected, if you know anything even basic about World War II and the concentration camps in Poland!

One can only conclude that the publishers are as sloppy and uneducated as the author!

And I cannot find an agent to look at one page of my books!

[Florestan]

Is ground floor the same as a basement (if one has one)?

K

No. The ground floor is above the basement (which is underground) and the first floor is above the ground floor.

In Romanian, from top down:

Primul etaj > parter > subsol

[Cato]

Is ground floor the same as a basement (if one has one)?

K

No, not that I have ever seen in America. 

e.g. Elevators will have either Floor 1 or Ground Floor, and if there is a Basement, you will see either Basement or Lower Level on the sign with the buttons.

[Florestan]

No, not that I have ever seen in America. 

e.g. Elevators will have either Floor 1 or Ground Floor, and if there is a Basement, you will see either Basement or Lower Level on the sign with the buttons.

Romanian elevators use numbers:

- 1 basement
0 ground floor
1 first floor
2 second floor
3, 4 etc