The Library

[Steph]

The Library Our library cafe is open 24/7, the welcome mat is always out. Do come in from daily chores and spend some time with us. We look forward to hearing from you, about you and the books you are enjoying (or not). Let the book talk begin here!

*Suggestion Box for Future Discussions
*SeniorLearn's Archives 
 

I had read about Winchester House stories, but have never seen the house. Sounds like fun though.

[pedln]

My son called me the other night while he was in San Jose on business, so I told him what I had learned here about Winchester House.  He had heard of it, but hasn't seen it yet.

An interesting display of Book Pictures --

Art from Books

Steph, I've been reading about the Disney sinkhole.  Do you live in Clermont?

[Frybabe]

My latest encounter with the misuse of pronouns, from our local newspaper, PennLive.

 

She claims officers met she and her son at the door

[Steph]

Clermont is a long long town.. The actual town is where I live, but they extended the postal zone to the four corners area, where the sink hole is. It is really on the Disney road where four counties come together.. All time share and motels, no actual homeowners or very few.

[marjifay]

Quote:  She claims officers met she and her son at the door

Irritating, isn't it, Frybabe? 

Do you pencil in corrections to errors (such as the above) in library books?  I'm afraid I do.
Waste of time, I know.

Marj

[ginny]

I like the use of "myself" , myself. 

Myself and the wife went to the store.

For him and I.

[maryz]

Aarrrggghhh!!  Fingernails down the blackboard.

[CallieOK]

More and more, I hear  "I and Susie...." 

So far, I have managed to keep from making a snarky comment when I see someone write "loose" for  "lose"!!!!    "I want to loose x pounds."  "How can I loose my car keys so often?".   

    

[Tomereader1]

And Callie, "my Snarky" is always nipping at my heels when I see your example (lose/loose) and also "there", "their", "woman" (singular) "women" (plural), and I don't think these folks
actually know the difference.  I've seen some real doozies (sad to say even in SrLearn posts)
though not usually, if ever, in The Library.  I get really Snarky when I'm watching a newscast on TV, and a reporter or anchor uses wrong grammar.  My husband could tell you how many times I shout "dim bulb don't you know better".  I think I have grown to expect more of certain people, though with today's lax public school systems, I don't know why. 
I won't climb up further on my soap box now (lol).

[CallieOK]

A friend said his daughter told her children they were allowed "one snark a day" while on a family trip.  If I were that limited, I'd use up my weekly allotment in a hurry!

I'll admit to occasionally using an ungrammatical colloquialism when I'm writing or speaking but I try to use quotation marks or change my tone of voice - hoping to indicate that I really do know better.

[maryz]

Our eldest got herself and her son-in-law and me a t-shirt that reads "I'm silently correcting your grammar".  I haven't had the nerve to wear it anywhere except around family - where someone is always yelling "Grammar cop, Grammar cop" and making a citizen's arrest.   

[MaryPage]

I have given up all hope.  You see, these days even the president of these United States uses the adverb "hopefully" in the wrong way.
It started back in the nineteen seventies, and I used to get so very upset.  I mean, really hyper and all bent out of shape.
Now I just let it roll over me.  I am the defeated warrior, for sure.
And "hopefully" is used approximately 200 million times per day in a way that would give the user an F in grammar back in the day.
The thing we really need to take into account is that languages change constantly.  They evolve.  Just take a look at something written in Old English!

[Steph]

I agree Mary Page.. As the older generations, we had a good deal of grammar in school, but now it is rare in most schools. Our language is changing, perhaps not for us, but for the next generations down.

[FlaJean]

Hopefully, interestingly,frankly, clearly, luckily,unfortunately are a few of the adverbs that are members of a class of adverbs known as disjuncts.  It is considered standard usage to use them when commenting directly to a reader or hearer.  Interestingly, it has been standard usage since the 1960s.  

[marjifay]

Something that bothers me is the use of woman as an adjective, as "woman author" instead of "female" author.  I don't think a male author is referred to as a "man" author.
But the use of woman as an adjective seems now to have become standard usage.

Marj

[marjifay]

MaryPage, what is it you see wrong with the use of "hopefully."  Is it just that it is used too much?

One word which I get tired of seeing so much and never used to notice, is the word "iconic." 

Marj

[BarbStAubrey]

Shoot now y'all have me afraid to post...

[MaryPage]

No, Marjifay, it is just that it is used incorrectly.

People, including our president, are constantly saying something like:  "Hopefully, we will get it done."

He should say:  "We hope to get it done."

You see, the word hopefully is an adverb.  It is supposed to describe HOW you will do a thing.  As in you will do it with hope, or in a hopeful way.  It does not mean you hope to get it done.

Oh, I am not very good at this.  Did not train to be a teacher.

https://www.amherst.edu/academiclife/support/writingcenter/advice/writingbetter/ch2/misuse/misused-words

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/starting-sentence-hopefully?page=all

[MaryPage]

"Hopefully

describes how something is done or how the subject feels: "Hopefully I shall turn in this paper" does not mean "I hope I get it in," but "I shall turn in this paper in a hopeful manner." "

[mabel1015j]

Good job, MaryPage. You could be a teacher!

[Octavia]

I'm finding the part of a word to be emphasised has changed somewhere along the line.
'contribute' used to be 'conTRIBute', now its 'CONtribute', and 'controversy' was 'conTROVersy' now it's 'CONtroversy'. I feel like Captain Cook's 'slow' clock'.
'Kendall dawdled in the tombstoned past, with a sentimental prejudice to going fast'
I want things to slow down and stay the same too.
Love this in Penelope Lively's latest book , How It All Began(love the book too)
'There is a void somewhere in your head into which tip the most familiar names; President Obama went into it yesterday, for all of five minutes, along with her over the road at home who has just sent a get-well card from Sue, but what on earth is her other name ?'
I sometimes feel like shouting after a departing visitor 'Come back, I remember it now!'

[marjifay]

Mary Page, I think you are right to give up hope of changing dangling adverbs like hopefully, happily, truthfully, etc.  Their usage this way seems to have become rather standard.  Probably because it just takes to long to say "in a hopeful manner or way" so it's shortened to hopefully.  Can't say this bothers me.

Marj

[ginny]

Just to add more interest to the controversy  it appears  FlaJean and her "disjuncts" have a point, too.  I had never heard of a disjunct!

Here's Websters on it:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hopefully

Usage Discussion of HOPEFULLY

In the 1960s the second sense of hopefully, which dates to the early 18th century and had been in fairly widespread use since at least the 1930s, underwent a surge in popularity. A surge of criticism followed in reaction, but the criticism took no account of the grammar of adverbs. Hopefully in its second sense is a member of a class of adverbs known as disjuncts. Disjuncts serve as a means by which the author or speaker can comment directly to the reader or hearer usually on the content of the sentence to which they are attached. Many other adverbs (as interestingly, frankly, clearly, luckily, unfortunately) are similarly used; most are so ordinary as to excite no comment or interest whatsoever. The second sense of hopefully is entirely standard.


Examples of HOPEFULLY

    They gazed up at us hopefully.
    Hopefully, things will get better soon.

First Known Use of HOPEFULLY
1593

I'm gong to find my old Grammar text and see how this use is diagrammed. (Remember diagramming?) It's the only text I have seen in English Grammar which mentioned the Adverbial Objective and shows how to diagram it.

Meanwhile, Barbara, say on. To paraphrase Tennyson, we are who we are! Let me go find that one. 

[ginny]

I was reading Tennyson the other day because they quoted him in SkyFall. Why IS it we don't read poetry any more? Or do we? I hadn't seen this in years: (it's the conclusion of Tennyson's Ulysses).

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
 Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. -

Isn't that beautiful? You could discuss it for days,  really. Or I could.

(Is "really" a disjunct? It seems "really" has taken on a new life recently, with young people, who use it as "really? REALLY?" Meaning I can't believe you did/ said, whatever that.

[Steph]

I simply dont care much when I write in here. I think of it as conversation and would not begin to feel bad or wrong about grammar..If I write publicly,, different story. But I think of all of you are close friends, who understand if I get tangled in my syntax.

[MaryPage]

Oh Steph, I could not agree with you more!
And Octavia, I am right in there with you.  Every day I am either thinking to myself in my head or talking to someone, and the word or the name at the tip of my tongue, one that mind you I am totally familiar with and have used again and again, simply disappears from my grey matter.  Wiped out!  Gone!  And I feel so stupid.  Useless.  Depressed!
Oh well.  One must accept this along with stiff achy joints and acid reflux.
Ginny, I love poetry above all things.  And I write reams and reams of it.  Literally.
Thank you, Jean.  You must be constructed of 100% kindness.

[pedln]

Well, this group here is nothing if not "au courant," especially when it comes to the meaning and use of certain words.

Now, I probably can't find it again, but in the news, someplace today, it was said that English majors all over the world are a bit upset at the Oxford English Dictionary because it is going to change its definition of literarlly.

Just how, I can't say, because my head is alreay spinning.  I'll leave that up to the word mavens.

[MaryPage]

Years ago, when reading a book about exactly what we have been talking about, I discovered that the word "doubt" had once meant "believe" and had been turned around completely, apparently through the use of it in joking slang.
I think it was that one thing, more than any other in that book, that woke me to the realities of changing language.
We may feel nostalgic for the speech patterns we literally (!) learned to speak in, but we have to let go of any frustration because it won't change a thing!
And our grandchildren (oh horrors!) will one day be yearning for the English of today.  No doubt our great great grandchildren will be speaking some form of Enganish or Spenglish.

[Steph]

Yes, I remember how much our daily life has changed , just since my sons were in school.. So I can imagine at the rate of change, that our great grandchildren will live in a life that we cannot begin to imagine.

[maryz]

Did I say before  that we're currently watching a Great Courses series on History of the English Language.  It is fascinating.  He talks a lot about how words morph - with spelling, pronunciation, AND meaning.   And we're just up to Chaucerian English.

[Frybabe]

MaryPage, another word that completely flipped, if not in technical meaning, in usage is egregious. In classical Latin, it meant outstanding, extraordinary, distinguished and the like, and is used in a good sense of the word. Today, it has flipped to mean outstandingly, conspicuously bad.

MaryZ, I recently discovered that my library has some of the Great Courses available. I haven't checked to see which ones yet.

[maryz]

Frybabe, we own a number of them (always bought on sale) - they are quite good.  I hope you can find some in your library that you like.  Originally, they were all on audiotape, but now are all on DVD - and starting to do some streaming.

[Frybabe]

Mary, it turns out the library system has a lot. I put a bunch on my wish list. Many of them are CD sound recordings only. I checked the Great Courses website and notices at least one that you can get digitally.

[JeanneP]

English as we knew it both in UK and US will have to change.  Most of the population in years to come will be bilingual. They will be from parents coming in from Mexico, Asia. and other places. Gone will be the way of teaching so called English.  Fact our schools here in Illinois are no longer teaching it the way they did or spending the hours.  Spelling will really change because people learning this new English will not be worried about the right spelling. Spelling also will not be taught.

It will be spelled like the sound of the word.

[BarbStAubrey]

seems to me the English language has been contently changing - reading something 100 years ago is often more formal than our day to day conversation today and 200 years ago the language can be a challenge however 300 years ago it is an effort to understand - someplace there was a huge change that is noted today as Old English - and so we change as we progress...

[Steph]

They are teaching spelling in my grandsons school in Florida. No diagramming though, He thought the idea of diagramming a sentence was weird. I would hate to read books though if spelling is going to be abolished.

[Frybabe]

Not teaching spelling? I don't think that is a good thing. I wonder how all this will change international communications. English is officially the language used by airline pilots, among others, so that everyone understands each other. If US children grow up not speaking clearly or spelling accurately, what does that do to international communications, not to mention just talking to your neighbor? Perhaps, written communications will end up as standardized texting abbreviations across the world. Another question - how will computerized translation programs be able to translate anything typed if it isn't spelled correctly?

[BarbStAubrey]

haha maybe we will end up like German - high German and low German - instead of race or religious differences we will end up with speech differences that determine your class. We are almost there now...

[Frybabe]

I've just started another freebie scifi ebook. ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!  Within the first several pages, I have already run across two poorly chosen words.

Can you have a tessellated bundle of cables (braided)? I supposed it is possible, but it is not a word I would have chosen. Tessallation has to do with tiling patterns that don't overlap or gap. A honeycomb is a type of tessallation. It is used to describe mathematical or decorative patterns. I am willing to give the author a break on that one, although I think it is an unusual use of the word.

BUT, I draw the line at this: "They dressed him tersely in gray,..."  Terse is an adj having to do with the use of words. It has no other context. One can tersely speak to someone. One cannot be tersely dressed. For all that, I still get the idea that they quickly dressed the patient with an economy of motion.

I wonder what other verbal surprises the author has in store.

[PatH]

Maybe they only spoke in short sentences while dressing him.